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Show BEAVER PRESS RENEW FIGHT AGAINST DROUGHT 1 V National Topics Interpreted by William Bruckart National Pree Washington, D, Bullilintr The steel industry Washington. cf the United States has cast for itself a role in the Labor and forthcoming cam it Politics paign-whet- her intended to do so or not. The same is true of John L. Lewis and his segment of organized labor and it is pretty generally suspected that Mr. Lewis intended to get labor questions well It is all mixed up in politics. more important because of President Roosevelt's attack on "economic royalists" in his Philadel- phia acceptance speech. Whatever rights the steel industry has or whatever rights Mr. Lewis and his followers have, the fact remains that they are all knee deep in politics and there is every reason to believe that each side will sufler in public esteem as a result. It means simply this: each side is mixing up problems that are basically economic in character vith sordid, even unclean, political motives. This outburst is prompted by two things: the gigantic steel industry has taken the position that it will defend itself against encroachment of professional labor leaders like Mr. Lewis and President William Green of the American Federation of Labor and their satellites "from any source." The steel industry thereby has thrown down the challenge and now that such a die is cast, the steel industry will be compelled to do a number of indefensible things if it adheres to its program. The same condition is to be observed in the organized labor situation. Whether Mr. Lewis is willing to admit it or not, his declaration that he will foster, even enforce, his scheme for organizing the steel workers is likely to lead to acts by his followers and overzealous and foolish acts all too frequently lead to bloodshed. over-zealo- For a number of years, steel companies have refused steadfastly to recognize Backs ion labor as resented by the professional leaders in the American Federation of Labor. They have attempted to defeat the inroads of that organization by forming what is known as company unions, groups of employees on the pay roll of each corporation. They have accorded to these groups the right of collective bargaining and have insisted that they would deal only with the representatives of the company umona for the reason that they believe they then are dealing with the employees concerned with question., of pay and working conditions in that particular plant. If the national unions were recognized, officials of a given company always have had to negotiate with the expert union ne- fcuumuis wiiu are puia Dy me national organization. The results have not always been happy. This combination of circumstances, together with a disposition on the part of the steel companies. I am afraid, to be rather selfish in their attitude toward labor has developed a continuing controversy that has raged over the last score of years. It happened that the rather insolent announcement of the steel companies, their challenge, came almost simultaneously with the delivery of President Roosevelt's speech accepting the Democratic nomination for re election. It was in this speech, it will be remembered, where Mr. Roosevelt denounced "economic royalists." in which he resorted to expressions bound to create class hatred and in which he used language that is certainly going to help discredit which are large corporations enough to attract national attention. Of course, I know that Mr. Roosevelt did not have the steel industry particularly in mind in his assault on massed capital but the effect is the same as though he had been shooting directly nt the steel industry because of the coincidence mentioned above. The tragedy of the thing is that the professional labor leaders are going to use the steel industry's challenge politically; they are certain to attempt tr gain government interference in their quarrel with the steel industry and, like all such conflicts, fairness on the part of either side to the controversy is likely to disappear because of the political mixture. un-Ste- rep-Unio- From all of the inside discussions that I have heard, it appears that the issue between The Real the steel industry and Its workers Issue is no longer simply whether the steel industry shall be unionized. It is a question of how it shall be unionized. In addition to this, Mr. Lewis has been chiseling a way for several years In promoting his labor union idea of organizing all workers in one unit instead of the craft union Idea that is basic in the American Federation of Labor. That is to say, Mr. Lewis proposes to have a steel union or a shipbuilding union or a textile union instead of organizing the workers in accordance with the particular Jobs they do, whether THIsy Government Seeks Methods of Alleviating Drought Ravages in Future Years Through Water Conservation. lu mm rai "is: Manv Srprise C. they be engineers, painters, carpenters, moulders or any one of the various other crafts. Since the steel industry has its company unions, there is a conviction in many quarters that Mr. Lewis might well pause to consider whether this is the time to carry forward his program of bringing steel workers under national labor union control. There are those who believe that the company unions eventually will become units in the larger labor structure of the country and, if that be true, it is made to appear that Mr. Lewis has hurt labor's cause. On the other hand, the steel industry already is under attack by the government. Mr. Roosevelt suddenly "cracked down" on some of the major companies recently, charging them witn collusion in He bids on government work. came out with this charge at a time which undoubtedly will stiffen the backbone of the union agitatorsand it is npt unlikely tha- by the same token he has stiffened the resistance which the steel companies will use. Yet, it does seem that the steel companies made a fatal . mistake in the pronouncement they have issued. There are too many people who will be inclined to believe that the steel companies have taken advantage of an apparent assurance of collapse of federal supervision. There are few who believe that the federal compulsory collective bargaining statute will last very long but the fact that this statute is due for the discard, it seems to me, hardly warrants the action which the steel companies have taken. They are no more warranted in that than union tabor is warranted in taking advantage of the political situation to feather their own ne;;t. A real dar ger, in addition to this, is that Communist agitators are going to use this situation as one vehicle for spreading their propaganda of dissatisfaction and discontent and Mr. Roosevelt's attack on massed capital unfortunately lends itself to the nefarious schemes of the Reds. - It long has been said that the method of administering laws frequently has creat-Ta- x Law ed more dissatis-Irritatio- n faction among the citizens tlun the requirements of laws themselves. Tax laws of whatever kind lurnish a splendid example. It has always been true since we have had in- tax laws that taxpayers have complained more about bu- reaucratic regulation, indecision, lack of uniformity in administra- tion and. generally speaking, slow processes of settlement than about the amount they were required to pay. The same is true about our customs laws despite the fact that they alfect fewer persons directly. The other day, the Treasury issued a notice to customs inspectors that was "effective immediately." It was a change in policy respect ing the quantity of goods an individual may tring in from foreign without the payment of the n.;iuiiia i.i a. Sirire 1798 or thereabouts, there has been a law which peimitted a returning American to bring in commodities of whatever kind he desired, except narcotics, up to $100 in value but that law permitted the Treasury to make exceptions. The Treasury notice the other day was an announcement of an exception to .this $100 exemption. It said that no inbound traveler could carry more than one wine gallon .if liquor without the payment of the customs tax thereon. A practice had sprung up since the import duty on liquors has been n ade su high of returning tourists bringing in almost the full cxemp- um in liquor alone. Probably the pnctice was getting very bad and no one questions the judgment of the Treasury in detei.ninmg policy. But it is the method employed in making this change that has aroused criticism. In ordering the new regulation "effective immediately," the Treasury forced upon hundreds o trav elers the necessity for paying duty on their personal stocks of liquor what amounts to a sun 'is. or- der. They had left foreign shores under one regulation and arrive un- der another. I have no doubt at nil that the Treasury's reason for changing the rule while the game was being played will result in a considerable amount of revenue for the government. But there are many who believe, as I do. that the department in all fairness should have issued its regulation to became effective at some fixed date in the fu ture in order that citizens who must vwuipiF mini ii wouki hp rtronifnH by proper notification oV what the, were exnectnd t h ,u. ties for failure to obey The incident to which 1 have referred is an outstanding example of inconsideration and such things always cause citizens to have a hurt feeling, a feeling that the changeu the rules without consulting those who must obey the rules. - , i By WILLIAM C. UTLEY fields blazing sun beats relentlessly on the parched WHILE aNorthwest the with anew man and South, grapples efdestructive its minimize to effort in an monster, Drought, one No fects, and to devise ways of mitigating; future ravages. can predict a drought and no one can prevent one, but much can be done to lessen their effects. The drought period through which the country has been passing since 1930 has caused the use of adoption of methods which will enable us to make better the available water in even the driest years. To meet the immediate emergency government agencies have devised a program which consists of supplying 55,000 WPA jobs in the Dust Bowl and 20,000 in the South; of making Resettlement administration loans to at least 50,000 persons, and of purchasing a million head of cattle with a dollar fund in the hands of the Department of Agriculture. In the whole country 336 counties had been listed up to July 15 where the crops are considered a total loss, and where efforts will be devoted to saving livestock and alleviating human distress. The Department of Agriculture is buying up some of the stock and the railroads are offering reduced freight rates to ship the animals to fresh pasture, to be returned later when conditions have improved. Is Desolate Picture. The drought area presents a sad picture today. The major portion of the spring wheat area has been burned to a crisp. Dakota and Montana farms present an aspect three-fol- d n Once culed largely by the Soil Conservation service of the Department of Agriculture. Grass is planted to prevent erosion and to encourage) the proper type of furrowing. 2. Shelter Belt Development. The Forestry service is in charge of this. It is designed to be 100 miles wide and 1,000 miles long. Half-mil- e tracts, each a few feet thick, have already been planted along the front. More than two million dollars for a project estimated to millions have been cost seventy-fivspent, and congress has refused to make further funds available. 3. Reclamation. Irrigation and dam projects are being carried on by the Department of the Interior in the western states. Under the Taylor act to preserve grass the department is also improving range operations. 4. Resettlement. The Resettlement administration is buying up 1,282,522 acres, returning them to e a comfortable farm home now surrounded by a expanse of shifting sand and dust. Sahara-lik- e cf desolation that veteran farmers pasture and resettling families at e an average cost of $4,500 each. say is without precedent. This dition even pxtends intn MinnMn,a Drought Swings East. Fields that were ereen with prain In contrasting the 1936 drought and where lush pastures grew a year ago, appear todav as only with that of 1934, one of the cona blackened exnanse. The ranee spicuous differences is that the dry countrv is hnrneH sn Hrv ihatitn. center has swung further east and southeast, while the extreme Southnot support either sheen or rattl west, hard hit two years ago, is in Millions of grasshoppers are ev erywhere. Even the small spots relatively good condition. This that have escaped the ravages of spring, as the drought area began the drought have been desolated by to take form, it stretched in a this plague. When they complete broad band from a little west of their work in one field they fly to the center of Montana to Kentucky, another. It is not uncommon, ac Tennessee and South Carolina. As cording tn trnvplnrc tt can cr,wa the season advanced the arid belt spread northward and northeastautomobile stopped so that the tcred bodies of thousands of these ward, even reaching into the states. Heavy rains durpests may be scraped from the raing the first part of July brought diator and windshield. Hundreds of farmers whose lives some relief to Tennessee, Kentucky have been spent on these farms are end some parts of Virginia, altoday loading their few possessions though not enough to permanently in autos, trucks and wagons and relieve the situation. By the beginning of July two starting out for some other section of the country, where they will at- great islands of extreme drought tempt to start life over again. To- had developed. One lay like a day, their work of years is com- great blot through the middle pletely gone and they have become South from the Mississippi to and discouraged with the struggle to beyond the Appalachians, while the obtain a living for their families in other crossing the Canadian boundthe stricken urea. ary, ranged from Minnesota to western Montana and south through Offer Local Relief. Wyoming and Nebraska. In these To help these unfortunate folk, areas crops this year are less than the Resettlement administration 35 per cent of normal. Between r has declared a moratori these two sections crops ranged urn on rural rehabilitation loans on from 35 to 65 per cent of normal. between 25,000 and 30.000 farms Just how this crop damage will in the drought-strickecounties compare with 1934 cannot fully be throughout the nation. At the same determined as followbut the yet. time the Works Progress adminising table shows that in at least tration has started a program to eleven of the affected states the provide jobs, digging wells, builddrought is more severe: ing farm to market roads, and terracing land. About $18,000,000 will of Normal K1( "full be available for crop loans and Stat., ?:!. North )iikotn 32 ieea, ana the RA will spend 51,700, '"Hi I'akuta 000 monthly on $20 doles to suffer-i- n Montn na i nnri.la ing farmers. """ MlBHOiirl .... ,wfj)4H 4 A.t. It is estimated that between 3 ninnnpnq ,,,,,, : ' 000.000 and 5.000.000 farm dwellers Kentucky rnncnM .i have been seriously affected by the Ohio .... 44 17 . 4 : drought. A total of 204.000 families Indiana Unfits .. 43 49 has been listed as dependent on re- These figures by themselves iiei. cup losses are estimated as however, give only a partial picl as $300,000,000. high In the opinion of many, including ture of conditions. Much depends President Roosevelt, unless some- upon when the rain falls and how thing is done to check the drop In much of it Is retained in the ground the water table, the now fertile pods, ponds and other reservoirs! regions of Nebraska, Iowa and Kan Evaporation Heavy. sas will be drawn into the great Agricultural experts point out Dust Bowl. The conseoupnro nf that . during a few weeks of the lmas,ned- - 0ur early growing season, nbT natl0nal economy would be vegetation may thrive on the accumulation of displaced. soil water which extends to about Long Ranpe Program. the depth of the Experts say that this can be but after this growing plant roots period from seven to stopped by a program inches of favorably distribof permanent works. In accordance eight uted precipitation is the minimum with their findings the government requirement for the production of has announced a permanent average yields ur.less temperatures program divided under the are abnormal. heads: following The latter play 8n , 1. Soil Conservation. This iu exe- part, tor the higher the temper con-com- ture and the hotter the winds, the greater will be evaporation. The excessive high temperatures and hot winds of this summer have added immeasurably to the seriousness of the situation. For example a small pond may lose more water through evaporation than livestock actually drink. If it dries up and the farmer is forced to water his stock out of wells he reduces the ground-wate- r supply, the level sinks, and presently the water situation becomes acute. Multiply this by hundreds of thousands of such instances and it is easy to understand the stories of want and suffering that have come out of the West during the summer. The solution of this problem in the future is simple, according to Water is a government experts. natural resource, they contend, replaceable but not inexhaustible. The only way to be sure of having it in dry times is to save it in wet times. Upon this is based the government's four-folpermanent program. The first move is to slow down and lessen the loss of snow-watand either by methods of cultivation which retain the water in the ground, or by impounding water in dams. The latter may range from huge engineering enterprises like Norris or Boulder dam to the simple dam which may be constructed by a farmer. Whether the object is to prevent floods, reduce erosion, or prepare water drouth, against ground storage methods are the same. Trees are planted on the steeper and less fertile slopes, medium slopes are covered with cover crops such as alfalfa or with sod, and land with marked slopes is plowed at right angles to the slopes, sometimes with strips of sod at intervals between the furrows. Wnrl1 is ! I -- S long-rang- SYN peart r. Arthur UrLI,...." h til IL anytning you from editorials choose t, written J yeiiax rrencn families were buried after the 1 to fierv.evpH rwj they can graft Karl Man J in on Jacques BonhouJ r rencn peasant, and French Utopia, with a fel cent ana a pair of high U d rain-wate- gue? They do not know l, homme, who bought his lcvuiuuon ai Dargain ptj. fc- innatea assignats, and keep it, nor do they know fe sized French bourgeois, more of one four-ce- ft some of our governing think of a billion The hood in America, by the ri not understand the inside y of the U. S. A. citizen, ri bungalow, automobile, rai. washing machine and fumy "nearly paid for." Send HIM, instead of i his last installment, the slid "No more private propertj see what he says and doet n Methods Prove Effective There is little question but that these methods are effective, and that if they were sufficiently widespread they would tend to equalize the flow of streams, would feed ponds and springs further into the summer, and would maintain the level of water in wells. These practices have been demonstrated by the Soil Conservation service; in the work of the CCC; in the conservation operations of TVA; and by other federal and state agencies. When water does not have time to run off it saturates the ground, which becomes a monster reservoir. If plants have their roots well down by the time the drouth begins they are better prepared to withstand a long siege of dry weather. To with this program of ground water conservation is the plan for storage of water behind immense dams. The great dams now completed or in construction on the Tennessee, in the upper Missouri system, on the Columbia and on the Colorado will furnish a larger flow of water during dry seasons. Boulder dam can hold two I tent d he . Tied s You take your choice d of Paris daily newspapers; Ssl kind, that say anything m money; the tame kind, tfe nothing and make monej, fc little of it; the raumrriW that still take "Madame Li quise" seriously, and think; selves back in the days i Madame De Defland and Lor. ingbroke. You have, also, newspapen all the Lilliput countries ffid English, Italian, German-J- E news is in them, only yon know how to extract it The; queer little newspapers, and i be provincialism, make to of it 'bm In London, for instance. Rothermere's newspaper tea that Mr. Eden, British loreif retary, has gone to "a tination" in the country Hot: o! i "i 'j am! If w fridi -- I w in febl fbrr fiti secre! In week's rest. English statesmen always r "a secret destination," tons unknown to Mr. James Farley. relaxes at the ringside, or dent Roosevelt, who rests K on a battleship, with fifty Rf ers on another ship, nearby. You wonder that a man asp as Eden should need a rest stone, at nearly twice bis age. atfc" talking in the Commons the morning but Gladstone; few, Tim Healys also. Rothermere's writer th nla is all tired out after his G" sneech. telling iust why Ei lifted the Italian sanctions. Kr; he who made a speech reef-just as earnest and much W tellinc whv those sanctions NF.VKR h lifted. That was tr-a biff somnrsault. The English s how to do that, and you a to laugh posed i i I Si i I t 'j I ff A typical field with crop less than one-yea- r. m - d M Poti., "fir bat-shor- n for Mr EdenV hat-hig- ver,rs- - normal flow of the Colorado river as a margin of safety for the ""y.ueu lands downstream By holding back the water of the ' " 'riDutary of the Tennessee, the Norris dam reduced the fiood crest of the main river at Chattanooga by three feet last March. When the river shrank to low levels under en.edly t ' blast of the drought in Sates were opened, and June, the engineers ' nl lhey had enough n!,viRab,e Pthi in the' Tennessee even an through extreme period. Just what part drought each svstem "ZT "J1 is a of point controversy number ot pK- nn,rd th;,t more si, pIaced on dams to control the water confcrence STe-work is to be shim; on in September, immedi" u Hit io owmr the World Powc conference. Respite tremendous crop loSses among engineers. A T IS " til e anti-droug- brought. . w 'Mil Nw,,,fr Eden told Baldwin inr ' ' a nH Ra salrl 1H what the ' w in Said, W off to u means, my boy, hurry cret destination," and Eden ried. In America, the business would say, "Doctor, there few things, that I must "'j first," meaning, perhaps, W, come tax. He would hang J on, and finally go to a really destination, in the graveyard. Driving through it,.. ...i Normandy. d,in land, & 'DU' interest American armers,t,r are cially any whose lands ouv aiier compaiun.v On lands of cultivation. . . ...i . .. hal V or iiw the world, pari year hundred grown for three louay yieius ocun. ' than ever. ' In Rome, as in other plaJ me eann s suriaee, uu- Irian U" n; unnn nnnthnr lC j one and the other appears. a"a , famines sions, plagues, ..A Ihpffl grinding ice have wipt-Those that read this we descendants 01 m-the inhabitants of we . . . .... r - worn1 vjf. vuiage. Ana sun t , looking down at the ewj-tythat may climb up an us in old age. .... t King Kenttirri WNU SSotvh. Byti'lK-- " |