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Show SEEN and HEARD, around t fie NATIONAL CAPITALiU I By Carter Field I FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT JKV Js Washington. Elaborate maneuvering maneu-vering is going on to put Elliot Roosevelt, son of the President, in the house of representatives from the twelfth Texas district, now represented rep-resented by Fritz Garland Lanham. Under the Texas law, a special election to fill a vacancy is more or less a free-for-all. There is no primary, there is no runoff. Everybody Every-body who wants to enters, and the high man takes the prize. Once In, the incumbent has a big advantage at the next regular primary, and of course a Democrat has no trouble trou-ble in the election if he weathers the primary. Lanham has been in the house since Woodrow Wilson's last congress con-gress and has been elected at regular regu-lar elections beginning with 1920, which makes him rather a veteran. He has developed quite a streak of insurgency, being out of sympathy with a good many New Deal measures. meas-ures. In short, ho is more of a Garner man than a Roosevelt man. Nobody is claiming the honor of having first thought of the plan to put young Roosevelt In his place, but it has been taken up with some enthusiasm by the Texas delegation, dele-gation, and has not exactly been frowned on by the White House. Texans on the inside of the maneuver maneu-ver want Lanham "promoted." They say he has had a splendid record, but has become slightly fed up with service in the house. Just a few days ago the Texas delegation voted to endorse Lanham for president of the University of Texas, which post is vacant because of the death of the former president. presi-dent. That would be much simpler than the original idea, which was to have the administration give Lanham a more Important job. Among the jobs considered for him are that of assistant secretary of state, made vacant by the promoUon of Sumner Sum-ner Welles to under-secretary of state, and a post with the Communications Communi-cations commission. Some Embarrassment But there is a slight embarrassment embarrass-ment on the part of the White be abroad and seized during a war, being used for war purposes. Dirigibles in War Doctor Eckener made two most effective answers, so far as logic is concerned, according to army and navy officers who have been studying study-ing the situation since. One was that the dirigible would not be an effective weapon In war today. He said they would be easy victims of airplanes and antiaircraft artillery. In fact, this stage had really been reached, he said, before the close of the World war. But and this was much more convincing if nations did want to use dirigibles in war, they would not be deterred by the lack of helium. he-lium. They would use hydrogen despite de-spite the greater danger. Doctor Eckencr's remarks along this line have been closely studied by our army and navy aviation experts. Their thought is that the nation which would decide to use a dirigible in war would probably prefer pre-fer to use hydrogen. The advantage advan-tage would be that the lifting power of hydrogen is greater than that of helium. Therefore the same gas bag could carry a heavier load of bombs, more defensive guns, etc. A dirigible supported by hydrogen could rise more quickly in an emergency, emer-gency, thus escaping antiaircraft guns. New Dealers Worry Two of the groups of the "submerged "sub-merged third" of our population which are giving the New Dealers the most gray hairs are the small farmers, particularly the mountaineers, mountain-eers, and the folks who work in very small stores and factories, and hence do not come under the wage and hour legislation now pending. The mountaineers are particularly particular-ly troublesome. In the first place they do not seem to appreciate what Is done for them. They want, apparently, ap-parently, to retain their "rugged individualism." in-dividualism." None of the resettlement reset-tlement projects which were the apple ap-ple of Rexford G. Tugwell's eye, and which so intrigued Mrs. Roosevelt, Roose-velt, have been notably successful. Quite the contrary. Yet they are being hit and will House to make an appointment so obviously to clear the way to putting put-ting the President's son in the house. Kicking a man upstairs to get rid of his vote is something else again. It is one of the most often used political devices. Sometimes it does not work, as when President Coolidge "promoted" Senator William Wil-liam S. Kenyon to be a judge at a time when Kenyon as a progressive senator was a thorn in the administration's adminis-tration's side. But Kenyon was shortly thereafter at the next regular regu-lar election replaced by Smith Wildman Brookhart, which was more or less like jumping out of the frying pan Into the fire. So the White House would be very pleased at having the way cleared for Elliott by some other method than by giving Lanham a political "promotion." Especially as there is always more or less feeling that this would not be good for party discipline handing plums to insurgents. insur-gents. If the scheme works out Elliott should land the job handily, Texans say. They predict that a large number num-ber of candidates would enter the "free-for-all" with the result that the opposition would be divided, and enough people would vote for the magic name of Roosevelt to pull Elliott through. Elliott has been living liv-ing in Fort Worth for several years, and is reported to be popular. Seek U. S. Help The German drive to have the United States join in development of dirigible transatlantic travels continues, but it seems unlikely to be authorized this year. Dr. Hugo Eckener, most successful navigator of dirigibles so far, is most persuasive. persua-sive. He has met most of the arguments ar-guments against the idea. But two of the arguments he has met most effectively promise to stay the hand of congress for this session. One of the objections, of course, is the shock still remaining- from the Hindenburg tragedy. Every one, including our naval experts, agrees that this would not have been a disaster dis-aster at all had the big bag been filled with helium instead of explosive explo-sive hydrogen. But the fact remains that so many people throughout the country were and still are shocked at the Hindenburg disaster, and still remember that this ended the last delusion about lighter than air transport the delusion that the Germans at least had solved the problem that there is no popular demand for action. So when a senator or representative representa-tive opposes doing anything about it, or, as is more usual, when he simply makes no move to cause action, there is no unfavorable reaction against him among his voters he must face when he comes up for re-election. The other argument is wrapped up in the neutrality propaganda. When Doctor Eckener was before the congressional con-gressional committees he was grilled closely about the danger of helium, sold to Germany by the United States or possibly in United States dirigibles while they might be hit by most of the New Deal legislation legis-lation harder than most folks. While they do not buy much, naturally payroll social security taxes, and state sales taxes necessitated by the social burdens the states have assumed, as-sumed, boost the cost of everything they buy. Thus not only is their buying power reduced but theit lot made Just that much harder. A group of congressmen and their wives who just returned from a trip to the Smoky Mountain national park, on the border of North Carolina Caro-lina and Tennessee, brought back a vivid impression of how the social welfare legislation, both state and national, is hitting this particular segment of the submerged third. "We didn't go off the beaten track," said the wife of one. "We I weren't looking for anything but scenery. But we were shocked at the living conditions of the mountain moun-tain folk living right along the main highway. Women were working in the fields, just as animal-like as in the most backward sections of Europe. Eu-rope. We didn't see any hitched to plows, as in the recent disgraceful case which figured in the newspapers, newspa-pers, but we could imagine they often were. Pitiful Conditions "It was pitiful the Scrubby, rocky land they were tilling, the squalid, dirty cabins they called homes, and the cruel grinding daylight day-light to darkness labor they were putting in so futilely. "Yet we knew by our own purchases pur-chases that when those folks went down to the store to buy something they not only paid a higher price because of payroll taxes to give somebody else old age and unemployment unem-ployment insurance, but they were, in North Carolina, paying a three per cent sales tax. When we got up into West Virginia, we found, incidentally, that there were no exemptions, ex-emptions, as in many states, from this sales tax, which here was two per cent. "My state of Illinois has a three per cent sales tax, but when a poor man buys a sandwich and a cup of coffee anything not more than 15 cents, that purchase is exempt. But In West Virginia the sales tax on a ten cent purchase is ten per cent, not two per cent, because they do not have tokens to split pennies." The difficulty the New Deal anticipates an-ticipates with small, local groups of employees is a matter of constitutional con-stitutional law. Some believe that is why President Roosevelt is so determined about his Supreme court enlargement bill despite the recent liberality of the present court. He wants, they say, to be able to reach the little store or plant which employs em-ploys three to fifteen men or women. Political danger in such a move would be very real, but it is these employees who work longer hours, and for less pay, on the average, than the workers who by union activities ac-tivities better their conditions, and who will be affected by the wages and hours bill when that measure has become law. BeU Syndicate. WNU Service |