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Show ly related to it, the sudden public interest im the whole question of government spending, budget balancing, and the dire prospect of inflation eventually unless the budget is balanced. There is nothing new about the danger of an unbalanced budget. | The only thing new is that the public is for some reason suddenly seeming to take a real interest. C.1.0. leadership doesn’t want third term for President Roosevelt . . . There seems litile likelihood of congress voting new taxes before election... The army and navy really get a bad break as far as appropriations are concerned... Both branches may have to curtail. spending. and re-election. not changed their enthusiastic about a eco- nomic views. Nor, for that matter, that Mr. Roosevelt has changed. What it really means is that there has been a parting of the ways, and that the C.1I.0O leaders now believe that both the C. I. O: and the country would be better off John L. Lewis with somebody else in the White House. All sorts of things may happen between now and July. Some issue may arise of such supreme importance to C. I. O. that its leaders will again be for Roosevelt—always assuming he runs. It may be remembered that in 1934 Lewis and his coal-miner lieutenants were bitterly against the New Deal on waterpower developments. New Deal’s. Debt to Lewis Rather Handsomely Paid Obviously, every time a new hydroelectric development occurs there is less work for coal miners from then on, regardless of whether the hydroelectric development is sound or not, as the main element of expense in a water-power development is the first cost. Once that investment has been made, the project continues. There would be no economy in stopping its operation. The only thing to do is to kiss the money wasted good-by and salvage the rest by selling the current it can produce. Notwithstanding this blow to his original labor group, the coal miners, this particular union was assessed in 1936 to help re-elect Roosevelt. It would seem to most Washington observers that the debt thereby incurred by the New Deal to Lewis has been rather handsomely paid. Most people have believed that for some time the special committee hearings are piling up more evidence of it. It might is expect? New Deal did not? be asked: What did LewWhat on earth could the have given him that it So far as the writer can dinedvec: this has nothing to do with the present attitude of the C. I. O. leadership. There may be something, of course, but whatever it is has not been disclosed, assuming there really is an answer. On the other hand, the conversation of C. I. O. leaders among themselves and with their close friends, provides a theory which one can either accept at its face value, or regard as camouflage covering some affront which has not been disclosed. Not Likely to Pass Any Tax Bill Before Election That. additional: tax bill, which President Roosevelt wants in order _ to make the budget picturea little less gloomy, will in all probability run into kind words but little action. Most of the Republicans, though clamoring for a balancing of the budget, prefer to take the line that economies, rather than should be the program. new Home State Dems. By ROBERT taxes, Loyal administration members of the house and senate are giving it lip service, but they do. not want to vote for the new taxes. The old conservative line of Democratic senators and representatives are committed to a curtailment of spending. Any new tax seems to them to be opening the door wider to the spendthrifts. Altogether it works out that there is very little disposition in congress to pass any tax bill before election. There is the usual disinclination to saddle a new tax on the voters just before they®go to the polls, but there are two cther complications. One is that debt limit, and, close- S. ALLEN (Co-author, with Drew Pearson, of “The Washington (Released Merry-Go-Round.”) by Western Newspaper Union.) is came to know intimately asa cub Washington reporter 15 years ago, and I saw him last the day before his fatal acci- legal limit, act of which congress it will take to change, He was the first leader I But the important thing that condent. I think I am the last newsgressmen individually are noting is man he talked to. that the limit will not be exceeded It was: late in the afternoon. I before election. In fact it will not ‘knew that the President’s message be exceeded, in all probability—ason the Finnish loan was due the suming there are no extraordinary next day, and I dropped into Borah’s appropriations meanwhile—before office to get his views. Wrapped in well after January, 1941. an army blanket, he was lying on So that technically, congress a couch, reading an article on trade would not have to increase the debt treaties. He motioned me to a chair, limit, even if it did not vote new which I pulled up near him, On the taxes and if it did not cut below the marble mantle directly over him totals of the Roosevelt budget, until was a striking new photograph of | next session. It could postpone the evil day! And congress loves nothing better than to put off until to- morrow be ills which borne do not have to today. So the chances seem to favor postponement of new taxes. Army and Navy Get Bad Break on Appropriations The army and navy have had a really bad break so far as appropriations are concerned. Here the government was all set to be very liberal, to increase personnel, buy more guns, build more ships, and provide airplanes in profusion, when this budget-balancing argument became hot. To make it worse, right on the eve of an election, we have President Roosevelt advocating additional taxes and blaming them on national defense. It’s the worst bit of luck the oldest admirals and generals can remember. Normally they have to go through all sorts of gyrations to get congress sufficiently interested in their problems to give them effectual aid. Sometimes they have to work up a war scare. This year no such gyrations were necessary. The war scare was there. The country had a better lesson in the danger of being weak —what with Poland, and the constant fears of Belgium and Holland that they would be trampled—than the most imaginative admiral or general could picture. Not only that, but they had heads of their departments, in Charles Edison ofthenavy and both Harry H. Woodring and Louis A. Johnson, inthe war department, who werebigarmy andnavy men. And to make the picture perfect, they had a President who was Charles Edison very navalminded, and was friendly to the army. But their very friends undid them! First some of their friends, last September, began talking war. With a view largely to strengthening the army and navy, and particularly the air arm, they told all and sundry that the U. S. would be dragged into the European war within maybe six months. That started a war scare throughout the country. It built up sentiment behind the isolationist bloc in congress, and required a long extra session of congress to force the repeal of the arms embargo through the senate. Would Be Temptation to Use Strength on Rest of World himself which Duty ing prepared might make this country so strong that nobody would want to attack us, at the same time it would be-a constant temptation to use that strength to enforce our ideas on the rest of the world. True, the isolationists have been proved wrong in their contention he liked Came very much. First. Borah looked well, but frail, and recalling that during the Christmas holiday he had told me he was thinking of taking Mrs. Borah south, I said, ‘‘What about your trip?’’ “I guess that’s off, replied. ‘‘Mrs. Borah I don’t, and I can’t.”’ Robert,’’ he won’t stay if “Why not? Things aren’t so active now. A few weeks of warm weath- er and sunshine would do you a lot of good.’’ “Yes, but I can’t leave. Those trade treaties are up and I’ve got to be on hand to keep an eye on developments. It’s a close fight and we can’t take any chances. I would like a little rest, but I feel it’s my duty to stay on the job and oppose this act.’’ “What about the Finnish loan?’ I asked. “That’s a very distressing dilemma for me, Robert,’’ he said. ‘My heart goes out to those gallant people, but at the same time I have grave misgivings about lending money to anyone in Europe. Once we let down the bars we can’t foresee what it may lead to. We must keep out of that mess regardless of our personal sympathies.’’ Dilemma of 1936. I remember another time when he was in a dilemma. It was in 1936. That spring, at the age of 71 and for the first time in his long career, he decided to make a serious try for the presidency. ‘There was considerable popular response, but the machine politicians were against him. He went to the Cleveland tion empty-handed—and The night Herbert conven- he knew Hoover it. made |1Mannerisms EW YORK.—AlI Smith jingles coins in his left pocket and the duke of Windsor straightens his necktie. Franklin D. Roosevelt jerks his head sideways. Call them habits, mannerisms or just plain nervousness, but they’re among the distinguishing features you’ve noticed when famous men make speeches or appear before the newsreel camera. Most of us, great or little, are thumb twiddlers, button twisters, arm swingers or fist clenchers in our forgetful moments. Is the Point.’ A widely known Boston professor used to enter his classroom holding a short, well-sharpened pencil which he twirled as he talked. ‘‘Now this,’’ he would say at in- tervals, ‘‘is the point.”’ Each time he would jab the pencil at the class, until his amused students finally made up sweepstakes on how many times he’d do it each hour. The late William Jennings Bryan combined his mannerism with prac- plies to the allies would lead us into the war. But the whole proceeding had impressed part of the country with the danger of bigger armaments, and this naturally led to the conclusion: ‘“‘Why spend the money on them?’”’ Then the President put on the finishing touch to the wave of enthusiasm, which was genuinely rising for better preparedness last autumn, by coupling up his request for new ticality. with the statement that big- ger defense spending required them. ' “Why not postpone both?” demanded the isolationists, as with one voice. The net result is unpredictable at the moment. Probably the army and navy will get a little more than they had last year, but decidedly they are not going to get what they thought in September they would ge: from this session of congress. (Bell Syndicate—-WNU his speech—which would stampede countered Borah he secretly hoped the delegates—I leaving his hotel. It was past midnight, hot and sticky. ‘Come along, Robert, and walk with me,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s cooler out here.’’ So we walked about the deserted streets anl he talked about Hoover, the convention, and Alf Landon, pearances bring an Before his he would old-fashioned platform have ap- someone dishpan with a piece of ice to the rostrum. As his fiery speech-making warmed him, Bryan would run the palm of his hand over the ice, then over his forehead. To break this routine he would occasionally step to the front of the platform, weaving back and forth while the audience gasped for fear he would topple into the front row. A Monocle Swinger. Bertha Wells of Boston, who’ was formerly in Chautauqua work with Bryan, recalls the platform gestures of many other speakers. Dudley Crafts Watson, director of music at the Chicago art museum, went through a repeated routine of taking off his monacle, swinging it around in his hand and replacing it to the eye. } tinue pouring in to prove how wrong was the patent director who resigned 100 years ago because there wasn’t anything left to invent. If nothing else, it proves there’s no slump in enterprise these days. The past year, for example, brought forth this collection: At the University of California botanists discovered in the juice of milkweed an active substance that can tenderize meat. A Philadelphian solved the problem of that first cigarette in the package with a strip of transparent film that tears off the seal, destroys: the revenue stamps, opens the flaps and pulls out two cigarettes. No Double Exposures. An amateur photography fan perfected a device making it impossible for the camera enthusiast to Doubted Landon’s Ability. He Didn’t, Either! Borah’s premonition was right. Three months later I spent a day with him in Boise as he campaigned for his sixth senatorial term. We had a long talk that night in his room before he retired. I remarked that I hadn’t heard him say a word during the day about Landon. ‘‘And I don’t intend to say anything about him,’’ Borah replied quietly. ‘I am not for him.’’ “Are you for Roosevelt?’’ ‘‘Well, Robert,’’ he said, ‘‘I’ve got a lot of Democratic friends -in Idaho and I think they know where I stand.’’ And then with a gentle smile he added, ‘‘That’s a pretty good news story, isn’t it?’’ It certainly was. It was the big scoop of the campaign. the for on,’’ Miss Wells me she remembers. ‘‘All through her lecture she stood twisting it in her hands. When she returned it, the handkerchief looked like a cruller.’’ ZIPPER HOT DOG — This wienie has a perforated casing which operates on the zipper principle. take a second picture without winding the film—thus preventing a double exposure. Peter J. Gaylor of Elizabeth, N. J., developed a synthetic rubber invaluable for elastic threads in clothing because it does not deteriorate rapidly. Many inventions, here and abroad, have made it easier and cheaper to wage war. Germany, for example, is treating mineral, vegetable and animal oils with an electrical discharge process that increases their viscosity. American chemists have discovered a less expensive— but just as deadly—way to make more poison gas. Another Invention Needed. Some inventions are designed soothe ruffled nerves. to There’s a new spring cap for tooth paste tubes, but nothing to make father squeeze it out from the bottom instead of the top. A drip-catching device has been invented for umbrellas, and somebody perfected a helical coil of wire which, as part of a cigarette the rug. There are two important developments in photography. One camera can expose standard film at a speed of 2,500 frames per second, enabling you to study the wing structure of houseflies or the action of a golf stick against a ball. On the more massive side, Prof. E. Newton Harvey. of Princeton university has a ing the thumb.-and forefinger of one hand between the thumb and forefinger of the other, moving them gently while speaking. Henry Ward Beecher would emphasize the climax of his speech by rising to his toes and throwing his arms. over his head, virtually. pulling the audience up with him. Psychologists who have watched such carryings-on from the spectator’s seat don’t believe it’s necessarily a matter of nervousness. Sometimes the speakers are merely throwing off excess energy. Or, as one psychologist suggested, it may not be so much the energy or the audience as what the speaker had for dinner. If the Lights Go Out, Look for a Muskrat! REMOTE CONTROL SMOKING—It keeps smoke out of your eyes, but you'll break your arm lighting a cigarette! camera which snaps pictures two miles under the ocean. This gadget is a steel ball which resists terrific water pressure. X-Rays ‘Blown Up.’ Closely akin is the giant new X-ray projector which enlarges a standard chest plate up to the size of a regulation motion picture screen, thus allowing several hundred people to consult over the medical problem at hand. There’s a new type hypodermic needle in which the medicine is ejected by a charge of compressed air, but it probably hurts just as much those first few moments. Two important automobile patents have been granted, the first to Henry Ford for an easily removable liner for motor car cylinders. It er, contrasted with the powerful presses employed heretofore. Another patent covers an anti-skid device for autos running on icy pavement. A sharp-edged wheel is pressed against the ground by a strong spring fixed downward from the under side of the running board. had Praise of Chief been players, this ee pies in Chicago, along about 1906. I was a new and bewildered reporter from the sticks, tossed into the maelstrom of a federal court railroad case because there was nobody else to send except the office boy. It was as intelligible as a squirrel cage. The defending attorney loosed a gas attack of statistics and my pencil dropped from my limp fingers. The judge, a little, brown wheatstraw of a man with a chrysanthemum thatch, got me in the sharp focus of his bright agate eye. I hadn’t been wrecking any trains or rebbing banks, but I began to fear the worst. I wondered whether my elaborate ignorance of what was happening could possibly be construed as a federal offense. the blow fell. The judge This case is confusing. I thought I might help you in getting it straight. It’s like this . . .’? In a few concise sentences he brought the courtroom hub-bub into something understandable. I managed to write.a story about it without breaking my arm and got my first pat en the back from a city editor who was no spendthrift with such gestures. The voltairean little Judge Landis was like that, and any newspaper man who ever knew him will insist that his $65,000-a-year honorarium as baseball commissioner isn’t half enough. He was a corporation lawyer before he began calling strikes on big business, and was appointed to the federal bench by Theodore Roosevelt at the peak of T. R.’s trust-busting rampage. In his duai capacity he has punished two of the major institutions of America, the Standard Oil company and Babe Ruth, the former with a $29,000,000 fine. He was a newsboy in Logansport, Ind.; a semi-pro baseball player; a stenographer and court clerk at 18, and soon thereafter a law school graduate and practicing lawyer. His appointment as national commis- | sioner of baseball “Black Sox’? grew HE easy-going free-for-all of American journalism, in which status modern dining room. . If your chairs do not have the supports shown at the sides of the seat they will be even easier to slip-cover. This cover is of medium blue cotton rep with darker blue for the bias binding and the cotton fringe around the bottom. Large button moulds are covered with the slip cover material for the button-up-the-back opening. Hf you are not expert at making bound buttonholes, snaps may be used under the buttons. The narrow ties sewn to the corners of the inside of the seat cover hold it neatly in place. Mrs. Spears’ Sewing NOTE: Book No. 3 contains six other interesting ways to use slip covers, with step-by-step directions. There are 32 pages of fascinating ideas. braided rugs;\ Spool _ shelves; crazypatch quilts; many em-— broidery designs: with numerous stitches illustrated. Ask for Book 3 and enclose 10 cents coin te cover cost. Address: Mrs. Spears, ee 10, Bedford Hills, New ork Mystic Had Come Short On That Routing Service The man stretched sat with his hand as the out- fortune-teller read his palm. ‘See that line?’’ asked the mystic, pointing to the fellow’s palm. “That means that you are going to take ¢ trip in the very near future. To Chicago, perhaps.” When he left the fortune-teller the fellow hurried to the railway station. “A ticket to Chicago,” he di rected. ‘Right, sir,” replied the clerk. “Single or return?”’ The fellow stuck out his palm. ‘Tt don’t know,’’ he said. ‘“Take a look!”’ out of the public officials sometimes owe their high is an up-to-date frock to make them perfectly at home in that scandal in 1919. een ee -to an understanding of newspaper men and how to get on with U.S. Has Edge On Europe in Press Relations ae try an advantage over Europe in wartime press relations. In the World war and now in the present war Europe has demonstrated the ing with the press. can be taken out with a screw-driv- the hood—and ball reminded in co-operat- While England and France have, traditionally, a free press, the human contacts between the correspondents and high officialdom are still lacking, and both countries are snarled in censorship troubles. ADRIAN, MICH.—Twice the head- caught a muskrat which gnawing the wires. Got gent of its bureaucrats lights of John Bates’ car went out and twice he went to a garage to have defective wiring replaced. The third time he suspected that some strange agency was at work so he placed a trap under Newshound Landis Aid and limitations of even the most intelli- Wito his the his Waldo Emerson had a habit of plac- Service.) Then he said: “I hadn’t seen you at the press table before. speak without thrusting his left thumb into the corner of his trou- Such mannerisms are not exclusively a modern device. Many years ago the highly intellectual Ralph F. PARTON Features—WNU gavelled down the spouting lawyer and said the court would take a brief recess. Then he beckoned me into his chambers. He asked me to sit down. Sen. James Reed of Missouri used to have a habit of chewing tobacco in the courtroom, while Sen. David I. Walsh of Massachusetts can never sers’ pocket. Ex-Gov. John G. nant of New Hampshire used hang his arms straight down sides and walk sideways across stage like a small boy reciting *‘piece.”’ Emerson Had It Too! By RUTH WYETH SPEARS ANY dining room may be made fresh and smart with built-in cupboards, a little paint and in expensive curtains. But what may be done to bring a set of outmoded chairs up-to-date? The one sketched at the upper right is typical of many that are substantial and sturdy though scarred by long use. All that they need EW YORK.—tThe recent emancipation proclamation of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, freeing an oppressed minority of major and minor league holder, keeps ashes from falling on Man— “One woman speaker asked a handkerchief just before went By LEMUEL (Consolidated Then “They'll nominate Landon tomorrow,” he said. ‘‘The stage is all set. Hoover tried to run away with the convention tonight, but they don’t want any of him. It will be Landon and Knox, you mark my word.”’ ‘‘And then’ what are you going to do, Senator?”’ “T don’t know. T’ll wait and see what Landon says. But what I’m wondering is what can he say. He knows nothing about national or foreign affairs. I am told he is a nice gentleman, but the country needs more than that in the White House in these times. I don’t want to prejudge Landon. I shall hear him out, but I have a strong hunch I will not support him.’’ Mark that to permit shipments of war sup- taxes HE WATCHED LANDON— Senator Borah waited for Alf Landon’s campaign before “prejudging” him, but he later confided: “I am not for him.” They All ‘Perform’ Off Guard ‘This By that time the isolationists had sold a considerable fraction of the country on the notion that while be- (;adgeteers ASHINGTON. — Seven hundred human _ problems, most of them inconsequential, are solved every week at the United States patent office. Inventions ranging from thumbless boxing gloves to fluorescent theater aisles con- Here’s New Dignity For Old Chair Set WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK Kept Busy by So $45,000,000,000. If the new Roosevelt taxes are approved and yield the expected $460,000,000, and if congress does not exceed the Roosevelt budget figures, the limit will be exceeded. an third term for Mr. Roosevelt. It may not play the active part in politics it attempted in 1936 (though of course it will most certainly be interested in individual congressional fights) but its present attitude is that it want the Democrats to nominate someone Cs than the incumbent. This does not mean that John L. Lewis and his lieutenants have Landon; ASHINGTON.—The Senate just doesn’t seem the same without Senator Borah. The of Favor Patent Office He Played Ball With Might Scrape Through Fiscal Year Without Topping Limit Franklin D. Roosevelt. Especially in view of the vigorous support, and half-million odd dollar contribution of the Roosevelt campaign fund, provided by the C. I. O. in 1936. Well, it isn’t true. The leadership of the C. I. O. is distinctly Didn’t The only thing new about the debt limit is that now it is a vitally timely subject. During the fiscal year which congress is now appropriating for, which is called the fiscal year of 1941 and actually begins on July 1, 1940, that limit presumably will be exceeded. WASHINGTON.—Anyone reading the newspaper accounts of the testimony before the special house committee investigating the National Labor Relations board would assume. that the C. I. O. would be in the van of the parade clamoring for the renomination, lat Writer to See Borah — Recalls How Idaho’s ‘Lion’ Kept Mum in °36 Campaign At the start of the war, liberal opinion noted with satisfaction that France and England had appointed, respectively, to their ministries of information, a distinguished literary man and playwright, and a leading scholar. It seemed to be an exemplification of their war aims. But, like the brass hats of the past, they didn’t seem to understand newspapers or newspaper men. The scholarly Lord MacMillan of England has faded into the background, and his press censor, Vice Admiral C. V. Usborne, is replaced by the clubby and gregarious Sir Walter T. Monckton. In France, Jean Giradoux, the playwright, is still minister of information, but his office inspires bitter stories in the American press about fantastic re‘strictions. The censorship tangl¢ is an issue of daily mounting importance in France. Newspaper men liked M. Gira. doux tremendously when he was spokesman for the French ministry of foreign affairs a few years ago. He was perhaps, in Goethe’s phrase, “all too human’’ for* any careful grooving of public opinion—his own is ironic and whimsical—and hasbeen surrounded with a bulwark of bureaucracy against which newspaper men are thrown for a loss. He is a charming, monocled gentleman of 53, who was severely gassed in the World war and so speaks in a husky voice. He did a short turn at Harvard before the World war. Has acold madeithurt even to talk? Throat rough and scratchy? Get a box of Luden’s. 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