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Show Washington, D. C. FARM BTOElIl I CB.ET was not as harmonious ; as toe i preSSin fZDZ Wite House Wve been hearing how business will prosper and the nghts o labor will be protected. ONeal said "You've had plenty to say about this in your speeches, but yotfve been silent on the farm ques-uon ques-uon as related to national defense Maybe that's because I have no complaint against the farmers, said Roosevelt, in effect. Well we have a complaint against you," shot back O'Neal with no trace of joculanty. AU this bickering and indecision m congress con-gress about farm legislation to be submitted at this session is due chiefly to the administration s failure fail-ure to agree on steps that should be O'Neal had no real success in urging on the President the Farm Bureau's plan for government loans up to 85 per cent of parity on basic crops to keep production up to demand. de-mand. (Parity loans now range from' 52 to 75 per cent.) Acreage control benefits, plus the loan guarantee, guar-antee, he contended, would enable farmers to get full parity, while "dumping" on government warehouses ware-houses of cotton and wheat surpluses sur-pluses could be stopped by the imposition im-position of penalties for overproduction. overproduc-tion. This plan was a compromise, O'Neal told Roosevelt, between the present loan program and the processing proc-essing (sales) tax proposal of the Republican-backed income certificate certifi-cate plan. Roosevelt agreed that farm prices would have to be jacked up and production pro-duction restricted, but demurred at appropriating more funds for parity loans. He argued that the vast defense expenditures would boost crop prices automatically. But this line of reasoning did not persuade per-suade O'Neal. "Mr. President," he said with a grin, "I'm telling you now that we're going to demand full parity from this congress. Our convention in Baltimore approved the plan I have outlined to you and we won't rest until we get it" U. S. FAE BEHIND EUROPE IN PLANES' PROTECTIVE ARMOR One hushed-up sore spot in the dragging plane program is in armor protection a field that, like so many other aviation developments, originated origi-nated in the United States but was left to others to exploit. . Armor-plate protection for fighting planes first saw the light of day in the Nicaraguan campaign against the rebel General Sandino during the Coolidge administration. To protect pro-tect themselves against snipers lurking lurk-ing In the jungle, marine corps pilots pi-lots equipped the undersides of their ships with makeshift armor guards. Although crude, this protection saved more than one pilot's life. But beyond this start, the army and navy did almost nothing. And it remained re-mained for the alert Nazis to develop devel-op the idea, just as they did the Stuka dive bombers which originated originat-ed with the U. S. navy. As a result Nazi planes are among the best protected pro-tected in the world. Simultaneously, the Nazis began increasing the caliber of their airplane air-plane guns in order to offset enemy armor plating. Belatedly England turned to armor protection and heavier guns, but we did nothing regarding armor and very little regarding re-garding guns until recently. As a result, the United States Is now up against a double bottleneck. One is limited technical experience on how to armor planes without diminishing speed and maneuverability. maneuvera-bility. Two is lack of plant facilities to produce a light-weight, bullet-resistant bullet-resistant armor. BRONZE KINGFISH Huey Long has returned to the halls of congress. A seven-foot bronze statue of the late "Kingfish" has been placed in Statuary hall of the Capitol between two other noted figures, William Jen-nings Jen-nings Bryan and the elder Sen Robert Rob-ert M. LaFollette. Long's statue is covered with an American flag and will be formally unveiled at a cere mony sometime this month The work of Charles Keck, Brook-lyn Brook-lyn sculptor, the statue took several years to complete and cost $l5,00o! MERRY-GO-ROUND Capt. George Maines, one of the founders of the American Ugior, has submitted to government oK-cials oK-cials a plan for the formation of a iun.ornationaldefenseo - of a f, m' n more se-ching critic of the New Deal than Geng Johnson, but this Is nnt Eh the blustery onVt C T8 from heading a columnists' comt" ST WanUle Par S-X: |