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Show News Review of Current Events the World Over Al Smith "Willing to Accept Presidential Nomination Again Developments in Shanghai War Disarmament Disarm-ament Plans Submitted to Conference. By EDWARD W. PICKARD SHOULD the Democratic party, as represented by the national- convention con-vention In Chicago, so desire, Alfred E. Smith is willing to be again Its can- didate for the Presidency. Presi-dency. That was the statement put out by the former governor of New York, and for a few days its rever- berations drowned out the roar of Japan's Ja-pan's guns at Shanghai. Shang-hai. In this country. Declaring that he owed it to his friends to make clear his po- sition, Mr. Smith's Al Smith sr.ltPment continued: "If the Democratic national convention conven-tion after careful consideration should decide that it wants me to lead. I will make the fight; hut I will not make a preconvention campaign to secure the support of delegates. "By action of the Democratic national na-tional convention of 1928 I am the leader of my party in the nation. With a full sense of the responsibility responsibil-ity thereby imposed I shall not in advance ad-vance of the convention either support sup-port or oppose the candidacy of any aspirant for the nomination." To the reporters the ex-governor said : "I don't know how I can stop anybody who wants to do anything for me. No, I won't stop them. That would be biting off more than I could chew." Political wiseacres immediately assume as-sume that Mr. Smith's statement meant he had joined the "stop Roosevelt" Roose-velt" movement ; that the New York delegation would be split up; that the nomination of the present governor of the Empire state would be difficult to bring about, if not impossible, and that there would be a deadlock in the convention comparable to that in the ' Democratic national gathering in New York city nearly eight years ago. Supporters Sup-porters of Mr. Roosevelt refused to be discouraged and began to redouble their efforts. Republican leaders expressed ex-pressed their quiet delight in the situation, situ-ation, believing it enhanced the chances of success for their party in November. Then came a new development that left the prophets all up in the air. Mr. Smith made an unannounced friendly call on Governor Roosevelt in Albany the first in a long time and after he left the governor emerged all smiles, declining to say anything about the conversation that had been held. The guessers then guessed that Mr. Smith had agreed to throw his support to Mr. Roosevelt at the earliest earli-est opportunity and had been promised prom-ised therefor a position in the cabinet if the governor becomes President. O EINFORCED by the arrival of a large contingent of army troops, the Japanese kept up their attack on Chapei, native quarter of Shanghai, and the W o o s n n e forts and village. But the Chinese defending defend-ing forces also were strengthened and their resistance was surprising sur-prising to neutral observers. ob-servers. They refused to be driven . from Chapei, though it was a region of battered ruins; and the garrison gar-rison of the Woosung ft f4 4xj forts held out under Admiral an almost continuous Nomura rain of shells that smashed against their mud walls and blew up their ammunition stores. The apparent object of the Japanese was to silence the forts and land troops there for an advance on Shanghai from the north. But for the time this was prevented by Chinese artillery and machine gun nests and barbed wire entanglements. Vice Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, the new commandant of the Japanese naval forces In the Shanghai area, arrived ar-rived at the scene of conflict and talked diplomatically of his Intention to "prevent further trouble and settle the matters as quickly as possible in co-operation with the representatives of other countries." Another Japanese admiral, Shimada, explained that the failure of the Japanese Jap-anese forces to occupy Chapei and Woosung was due to a desire to keep the Japanese casualties down to a minimum. Shells from the Chapei battle area frequently fell in the international settlement, set-tlement, and protests of the powers were unavailing, as usual. The American Amer-ican Thirty-first regiment went on duty patroling a part of Shanghai. EVENTS in Japan showed there was not complete unanimity concerning concern-ing the government's policy. Twenty-five Twenty-five students at the Imperial university univer-sity in Tokyo were arrested for participating par-ticipating In a demonstration In which handbills were distributed urging the people to "stop this imperialistic war !" The demonstration was believed be-lieved to be the first protest against the military operations in China since the Manchurian campaign began. Junnosuke Inouye, financier, lib eral statesman and leader of the Minseito (opposition) party's campaign cam-paign for the general election, February Feb-ruary 20, was assassinated by a youth indirectly connected with the reactionary reaction-ary "patriotic" elements responsible for most of the recent political murders. mur-ders. TTARIOUS schemes for the restora- tion of peaceful conditions in Shanghai were put forward during the week and either discarded or taken un- illltMfl der consideration. Dr. W. W. Yen again appealed ap-pealed to the council of the League of Nations Na-tions to check Japan and received a scolding scold-ing from the President Presi-dent of the council, Joseph Paul-Boncour, because he had not strictly observed the rules laid down for complainants. Said Joseph Paul- tlle Frenchman: "I Boncour would like to remind the delegate from China that the statement he has made does not replace the full statement of his case with all the relevant facts and paper which are required under article XV of the covenant, the article arti-cle under which he himself appealed to the council." Yen submitted quietly to the rebuke, but Doctor Liu, Chinese minister to Berlin, jumped up angrily. "You other oth-er powers are siding with Japan," he cried, "because you are afraid of being kicked out yourself. You want your share of the trade. If you don't be careful, you'll be kicked out, all of you, into the sea." GETTING down to business, the disarmament conference in Geneva Ge-neva heard set forth the views of all the great powers. Andre Tardien on behalf of France pro posed that the League of Nations be provided with an armed force to enforce peace on the world, and emphasized em-phasized the French refusal to disarm without security assurances. as-surances. For Great Britain Sir John Simon Si-mon offered a disarmament disarm-ament plan including p 1 abolition of subma- ... -, Hugh Gibson nnes and gas and chemical warfare, and he criticized the French proposals. The United States came next, and Ambassador Gibson made a fine speech, submitting a program summarized thus by the State department : The American government advocates advo-cates consideration of the draft convention con-vention as containing the outlines for a convenient basis for discussion, while expressing its entire willingness to give full consideration to any supplementary sup-plementary proposals calculated to invoke in-voke the end we all seek. We suggest the possibility of prolonging pro-longing the existing naval agreements concluded at Washington and London, and we advocate completing the latter as soon as possible by the adherence of France and Italy. We advocate proportional reduction from the figures laid down in the Washington and London agrements on naval tonnage as soon as all parties to the Washington agreement have entered en-tered this framework. We advocate, as we long have done, the total abolition of submarines. We will join in formulating the most effective measures to protect civilian population against aerial bombing. We advocate the total abolition of lethal gases and bacteriological warfare. war-fare. We advocate, as I have already stated, the computation of the number of armed forces on the basis of the effectives necessary for the maintenance main-tenance of internal order plus some suitable contingent for defense. The former are obviously impossible of reduction ; the latter is a question of relativity. We agree In advocating special restrictions re-strictions for tanks and heavy mobile guns; in other words, for those arms of a peculiarly offensive character. We are prepared to consider a limitation lim-itation of expenditure on material as a complementary method to direct limitation, feeling that it may prove useful to prevent a qualitative race, if and when quantitative limitation has been effected. Chancellor Bruening for Germany made a demand for "equality" in fighting fight-ing forces. Dino Grandi told of all the war tools that Italy was prepared to scrap, and was loudly applauded. And Ambassador Matsudaira assured the conference than Japan Is as eager as ever in the cause of disarmament. EDGAR WALLACE, British author of some 300 novels and plays, most of them mystery thrillers, died In Hollywood, Calif., of pneumonia after two weeks' illness. Mr. Wallace was perhaps the most prolific writer of the time and nearly all his books and plays were successes. A NOTHEIt unit In the admlnistra-tlon's admlnistra-tlon's economic program was brought forward when, at the Instance of President Hoover, a bill was introduced intro-duced In both senate and house to revise re-vise the fundamental portions of the federal reserve act with a view to increasing in-creasing the amount of money in circulation, cir-culation, thereby stimulating credit, forcing down the value of the dollar and sending up commodity prices. Leaders of both parties had given the measure their approval and it was introduced in-troduced by Senator Glass and Representative Repre-sentative Steagall, both Democrats. The bill, it was explained, may be expected to accomplish the following results : It makes a $2,500,000,000 increase in currency theoretically possible; it may release close to a billion dollars of the federal reserve system's "free gold" for use as the basis of new credit; it will make eligible for rediscount billions of dollars in paper not eligible under present regulations. PIUS XL who had just celebrated the tenth anniversary of his elevation ele-vation to the papal throne, received on Thursday his first visit from Premier Pre-mier Mussolini. The day was chosen because it was the third anniversary of the signing of the Lateran treaty and concordat, and nominally the Duce called to thank the pope for the award of knighthood of the Golden Spur which made Mussolini a defender defend-er of the Catholic faith. The interview inter-view between these two strong men, who really admire each other, took j place In the pope's private library and was behind closed doors. But the premier, in full uniform, was received at the Vatican with all the pomp usually usu-ally accorded to visiting royalty. Accompanied Ac-companied by his chief ministers, he was greeted by the governor of Vatican Vati-can City and the councillor general after passing through the streets of the papal city which were cleared of all but the Swiss guards. ,,p ROGRESSIVES". in the senate 1 tried to prevent the confirmation confirma-tion of Ira M. Ornburn, Democrat, of Connecticut, as a member of the tariff commission. Norris led the attack and after a sharp Interchange between him and Moses the senate went into executive session to discuss charges against Ornburn's fitness. The progressives pro-gressives then were routed, the ap-' pointment being confirmed by a vote of 70 to 9. President Hoover sent to the senate sen-ate his appointment of Joseph C. Grew to be ambassador to Japan- It is expected Mr. Grew will go to Tokyo in a few weeks, for Ambassador Ambassa-dor Forbes has desired to retire for several months. REPRESENTATIVE CRISP of Georgia, acting chairman of the house ways and means committee, says revised estimates by the Treasury Treas-ury department show the new tax bill now under consideration must raise a total of $1,241,000,000 in additional revenue if the budget is to be balanced bal-anced by the end of the fiscal year 1033. As a result the committee .expects to find it necessary to broaden the tax base to a far greater degree than had heretofore been contemplated. The Imposition of a general sales tax of some sort Is considered well within with-in the realm of possibilities. PRESIDENT HOOVER'S campaign to put an end to the hoarding of money in the United States as an effective ef-fective means for the restoration of confidence and pros- penty is now uuuw way with Col. Frank Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News, as its director. Groundwork Ground-work for the movement move-ment was laid at a conference of GO civic leaders. They pledged the support of 20,000,-000 20,000,-000 members of organizations or-ganizations they rep- Is, - f . f kit fc ' resented. , c , .... . Col. Frank Citizens willing to Knox put "slacker dollars" to work are urged by the treasury and Reconstruction Finance corporation corpora-tion officials to invest in life insurance insur-ance and trust funds. Federal reserve and high administration officials also have suggested the transfer of hoarded hoard-ed money to postal savings accounts and government bonds. These types of investment a-e considered con-sidered safe and certain. No money has been lost in postal savings or government gov-ernment bonds, and insurance, according ac-cording to one treasury official, "offers a safe investment over a long period with attractive returns." In 1930 S107,94S.27S,000 was Invested Invest-ed in the United States in insurance. None of this money, according to a careful check, has been lost. ONE of the country's most sensational sensa-tional murder cases came to a close when a jury In Phoenix, Ariz., brought In a verdict of guilty against Mrs. Winnie Ruth Judd, accused of killing, dismembering and shipping in trunks her friends, Mrs. Le Hoi and Miss Hedvig Samuelson. The jury fixed the woman's punishment at death. Mrs. Judd's only defense was a plea of insanity, and this the Jurors disregarded. disre-garded. UPRISINGS along the Indian frontier and in Kashmir have become be-come so threatening that, as a friendly gesture toward Great Britain, orders have been Issued for the mobilization of the Turkish army. Also, the army of Persia was mobilized, the Persian minister at Kabul explaining that a tribal combination against England was Imminent and that Afghanistan might be jockeyed into it. (. 1932. Western Newspaper L'nlon.) |