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Show SEEN and HEARDv around the NATIONAL CAPimfeA By Carter Field 'MfYJ FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT jUA MT Washington. Tightening of one of the very few New Deal laws aimed at federal regulation of wages and hours and incidentally of child la-bor also the Walsh-Heale- y bill which is not under constitutional at-tack in the courts, is planned by the administration. The plan is to reduce the present exemption under the law from $10,-00- 0 to at most $2,500 and possibly only $2,000. It is also planned to add some other restrictions aimed at preventing the evasion of the purpose of the law through present loopholes. The law as it stands provides that no concern can be awarded a gov-ernment contract which does not comply with certain restrictions as to hours, wages and conditions of labor. Broadly, these restrictions ar very similar to the provisions of the old NRA codes. But the law applies only to contracts amounting to $10,000 or more. Lots of bidders have been getting around it by the simple expedient of making bids for only a part of any proposed order the part never exceeding $10,000. Government pur-chasing agencies have eagerly aided in the process of getting around this law. They were not particu-larly enthusiastic about the law any-how. As a matter of fact, most gov-ernment purchasing agents are far from liberal; they are just as hard-boile- d as any corporation purchas-ing agent A good deal of the publicity about bi corporations refusing to bid, in-cidentally, has been incorrect, ac-cording to officials of the procure-ment division at the Treasury de-partment For instance, all the talk about the navy not being able to get any bids on copper. also, as particularly in the South, where the politicians made much of the fact that this was the first time the folks in that region bad gotten anything from the North since the Civil war. So, despite Secretary Henry A. Wallace's statement a few days ago that he was temporarily abandon-ing his production control policy, and his statement over the radio that it would be "wise for us to pro-duce as abundantly as we can this year," there is a drive forming for a new AAA. Nor is there much en-thusiasm among the farmers, if one can judge by letters pouring In on members of the house and senate, for the ever normal granary plan so dear to the hearts of President Roosevelt and Secretory Wallace. Normal Granary Idea Many of the letter-writer- s doubt that enough wheat or corn or what-not will be bought in by the gov-ernment for this reserve stock to hold prices at what seems to the farmers to be a fair leveL Some are even franker. They Insist that when a crop is short and would nor-mally produce high prices, the farmers ought to get the benefit of that situation. How else, they de-mand, can they ever have what is really a "good year." The bald truth is that they want the government to protect them against the low prices inevitable with overproduction, but they do not want the government to protect the consumers against the years of underproduction. Which is human enough, and no one can blame them for trying to have such a plan worked out But it is not the President's idea, and it is not Mr. Wallace's. The ever normal granary idea fits in perfectly with many of Mr. Roosevelt's other economic the-ories. He would like to straighten out the curves in manufacturing and trade of all sorts. He would like to have all years fair years, with none "good" in the sense of bonan-za, and none "bad." His tax the-ories are a part of this theory. Compulsory Arbitration Congress is not expected to pass any drastic legislation with respect to the automobile strike. Most of its members would not vote, for ex-ample, to legalize a n strike, and a huge majority could be rolled up against compulsory arbitration. There is much to be said in favor of compulsory arbitration, theoreti- - No Bid-- on Copper It is perfectly true that the big copper companies did not bid, Treasury officials admit But it is also true the) would not have bid even had there been no Walsh-Heale- y law. There are two answers. One is that most copper has been sold for years through agents. This eliminated the necessity of the big copper companies maintaining sales organizations of greater size than they wished. The other reason is that most dealers in copper have been convinced for some time that the rise in price of copper still far below its 1929 level of 18 cents-h-ad just started. Thus they were afraid to commit themselves to con-tracts which would bind them to liver copper at a price specified now over a pen:uuJ vi uuic iuj tuuic. iu-- ture. The war scare demand in Europe alone was enough to account tor this, in the opinion of Treasury officials. The new twist in the law would hii a great many little fellows-ch- aps who have been buying in quantities from the big producers and then retailing their purchases to the government in less than $10,-00- 0 quantities. They have been skimming a nice little profit out of the unwillingness of the big com-panies to subject themselves to the Walsh-Heale- y bill The profit has been much greater in some instances than the esti-mated additional cost to the manu-facturers using this intermediary method of selling their goods to the government. The reason for this is that the manufacturers in many in-stances are not convinced that all the troubles wrapped up in the Walsh-Heale- y law would be confined to the additional cost In some in-stances no additional cost at all, the manufacturers concerned assert would be involved. But bidding under the terms of the law would subject them, they fear, to all sorts of government checks some of them started by disgruntled employees, some by discharged employees, but all in all cany, xracucany n nnas lew friends. In theory it is in the in-terest of the public in the interest of all the people as against the very small minority comprised by the two sides in most strikes. Assum-ing that a body of judicial charac-ter with intelligence, fairness and with no leaning either to the side' of labor or capital could be found, it would seem an ideal solution. But try to find some labor leader who is advocating it! If there is one thing that the Committee for Industrial Organization and the American Federation of LaDor agree about, it is that they do not want compulsory arbitration. There may be exceptions, which seem to prove that this is not so, but they only seem to do so they are not actually exceptions at all. The classic instance, of course, was the Adamson act of 1916. This was the eight-hou- r law, affecting the four railroad brotherhoods. This was a decision Imposed by congress, on the surface, but actu-ally it was nothing of the sort It was the demands of the brother-- hoods incorporated in a law, which was passed by congress, signed by the President and approved in a five to four decision by the Su-preme court amounting to a big bundle of trou-ble. So they cheerfully allowec" mid-dlemen to skim a little profit rather than run the risk. Farmers Scream What with the flood this year, and the drouth last year, not to mention piling up of surpluses in Europe against the danger of war, it has been more than two years since there was any real need for some artificial method of curtailing crops in order to keep prices up. But to hear the farmers scream to the old AAA offices now the soil ero-sion offices one would think that Old Debbil Overproduction was right around the corner. In the nature of things, the farmer looks ahead. He does not trust the new soil protecting scheme. Hints that it is really intended to be a crop curtailing plan hints such as the ruling classifying corn as a soil depleting crop do not satisfy him. He wants something more definite. He got to understand AAA pretty well before its demise at the hands oi the Supreme court and he liked it. It was the 'first time in his recol-lection or in all the folk-lor- e he had learned at his mother's knee that 'he farmer hud ever got something Tor nothing--th- e first time ho had ?ver done anything except come out it the little end of the horn in his .cn ling with the city folks. There were some sectional twists a us liiuui umciais uieory is mat it is all right to have the govern-ment intervene on labor's side, that it is even all right to have the gov-ernment force the employers In any given controversy to arbitrate but it is distinctly not all right to have any government agency determine what the conditions of settlement are to be. That would impinge too much on the value of the functions of the labor leaders themselves. It might even lead to government su-pervision of the amount of union dues exacted, or government regu-lation as to how those dues could be spentl Not that anyone at the moment expects any such a move by the government, but the gentlemen at the head of the various labor organ-izations have never been accused of being stupid about the possibili-ties of any given line of govern-mental action, once started. They are rather keenlj alert to anything which might later on prove an em-barrassing precedent. Much discussion right now is go-h.- g on under cover about the pos-sibilities of the n strike. If put to a vote in congress tomorrow, no such legalization would probably bt voted. Senators and representa-tives are just a little shocked at what some regard as a flagrant vio-lation of property rights. But the whole thing has not been thought through, even by the labor leaders. BeU Syndicate. WNU Service. News Review of Current Events the World Over General Motors Strike Ended, Both Sides Yielding Opposition to President's Supreme Court Plan Increases Great Plains Drouth Program. By EDWARD W. PICKARD Q Wtftera Newspaper Union. BOTH tides making concessions, General Motors strike came to an end in what Governor Murphy of Michigan called "an enduring peace, operations of the great corpo-ration had been par-alyzed for 43 days, and the losses to it in business and to workers in wages have been immense. Partly through the skillful efforts "of James F. Dewey, veteran federal la-bor conciliator, John SOLUTION of the farm problem, by agricultural lead-ers who have been in conference with Secretary Wallace, is based on Mr. Wallace's ever-norm- granary plan. It would operate on these four stages: 1. Soil conservation payments would be continued until production balances demand. 2. When a surplus In any com-modity is grown, the government would offer farmers loans at mar-ket prices for storage of the com-modity in bins. 3. If the surplus continued, soil benefit payments for removal of acreage from cultivation would be Increased. 4. Should surpluses Increase to 10 or 15 per cent above demand the government would impose taxes on excess production to force acreage reduction. Officials said no definite plan of taxation has been worked out r ESCRIBING it as a flood con-- U trol measure, Senators Albion W. Berkley of Kentucky and R. J. Bulkley of Ohio Introduced a bill in the senate designed to create seven federal "authorities" with powers similar to those of the Tennessee Valley authority. Together with the TVA, these would cover the entire United States. The measure is in accordance with the President's sug-gestions for regional authorities to flood control, power, rec-lamation and rehabilitation work. As for the current flood, the people in the stricken regions were turning to the task of rehabilitation. Self supporting residents of Cairo who had been evacuated were permitted to return to the city, and martial law was lifted from the southern counties of Ohio and Indiana. The levees along the lower Mississippi were standing up well under the strain. Contributions to the American Red Cross flood relief fund were nearly up to $20,000,000, twice the sum originally asked. rOMESTIC manufacturers per--U sistently refuse to offer bids on the steel that the navy needs for its warship building program. Pres-ident Roosevelt wants to know why this is, and so far he has found out that the Walsh-Heal- y govern-ment contract law is to blame. That act requires that all manufacturers filling government orders in excess of $10,000 shall comply with mini-mum wage and maximum hour standards. Since the act became effective last year, the navy has advertised for bids on 23,000,000 pounds of steel but has been able to place orders for only 7,000,000 pounds. Views on President's Plan to Enlarge Supreme Court Senator Byrnes I'm for it Senator Nye I think the Pres-ident has hit upon a most ingen-ious method of speeding up the work of our tribunals. Senator Vandenberg I am op-posed to tampering with the Su-preme court . Senator McAdoo The Presi-dent's message receives my un-reserved commendation. Senator Capper I am certain-ly opposed to increasing the num-ber of Supreme court Judges for the purpose of allowing the ex-ecutive during any one adminis-tration to control the decisions of the Supreme court Senator Hale Should his rec-ommendations be followed, I can see no hope of an Independent Supreme court Senator Gerry I'm definitely opposed to the President's pro-posal in regard to the Supreme court Senator Thomas I think it is a timely and happy solution of a perplexing problem. Representative Snell This is pretty near the beginning of the end of everything. Representative Fish The mes-sage is political hypocrisy. Speaker Bankhead The plan for adding additional judges Is a sound policy. Senator King I am unalterab-ly opposed to it John L. Lewis u Lewis, head of the C. I. O., and other union leaders, and the officials of General Motors were persuaded to modify the defi-ant stands they had maintained through eight days of negotiations In Detroit and the governor was enabled to announce the settlement Under the terms of the agree-ment: 1 The corporation recognized the union as the collective bargaining agency for those employees belong-ing to the union. 2 The corporation and the union agreed to commence collective bargaining negotiations on Febru-ary 18. 3 The union agreed to end the strike and evacuate all plants occu-pied bv strikers. 4 The corporation promised to resume operations in all strike-bound or idle plants "as rapidly as possible." 6 All employees are to return to work without discrimination against Strikers. 6 The union agreed that pending negotiations there will be no other strikes or interference with produc-tion. 7 During existence of the collec-tive bargaining agreement contem-plated, all opportunities to negotiate shall be exhausted before any other strike or production interference is attempted by the union. ft After evacuation of plants the corporation agreed to dismiss the injunction proceedings started by the corporation against the union or any members In Flint Mich. Secretary of Labor Perkins, whose own efforts to end the strike were futile, was highly gratified by the settlement She gave out a statement nraisina the leaders on whole matter, said Mr. Roose-velt dovetails into the proposed six year public works program. . The great plains committee sug-gested for the federal governments 1. A ten year program of addi-tional investigations and surveys. 2. Continued acquisition of land In range areas with rehabilitation as the objective. 3. Measures to Increase size of farms too small for efficient opera-tion. 4. Development of water re-sources. 5. Resettlement within and with-out the region. Spokesmen for the Navy depart-ment indicated no further bids would be asked until the Industry has recorded its position or unless the Labor department moves to re-lax the labor standard provisions 6. Compensation to local of the law. govern-ments where federal land acquisi-tion results in shrinkage of the local tax basis. 7. Control and eradication of in-sect pests. 8. Exploration of possibilities for developing other resources, such as vast lignite deposits to provide al-ternative occupation for some of the people in the area. Similar action was suggested for states with the addition of sugges-tions for legislation to permit forma-tion of county soil conservation dis-tricts, encouragement of grazing associations, revision of the taxing system to take account of land income and assistance to farmers in meeting water problems. For local the com-mittee suggested crop rotation, cre-ation of feed and seed seserves agafnst dry years, conservation of moisture, supplemental Irrigation, fuller utiliation of springs and wells, planting of trees and shrubs as windbreaks and flexible cropping plans to permit adaptation of each season's crop to the amount of mois-ture in the land. BARCELONA, capita! of the state of Cata-lonia, was bombarded by a Fascist warship, and the Catalan council of both sides for their give and take spirit and complimenting Governor Murphy on his success. Probably considerable credit should be given President Roosevelt who kept con-stantly in close touch with the situa-tion and talked with the conferees by telephone from the White House. p RESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S pro-- posals for legislation that would permit him to pack the Supreme court have met with such wide-spread and determined opposition, even from many members of his own party, that it was suggested to him that he accept certain modifica-tions. These include appointment of Supreme court justices only when those over seventy-fiv- e do not re-tire, and limitation of the number a President could thus appoint dur-ing his term to two. His plan as subnMtted to congress would enable him to name six new members of the court if the present six justices who are over seventy do not re-tire voluntarily. Mr. Roosevelt announced to the correspondents that be was quite aware of the controversy he was confronting but would not back flown on his demand for the legis-lation as outlined in his message. It is probable that the President 'T,HE house passed and sent to the senate a resolution extend-ing for three years the President's power to negotiate trade treaties with foreign nations irrespective of congressional approval. Some Dem-ocrats voted against the measure and were applauded by the little body of Republicans. The revolters were led by W. P. Connery of Mas-sachusetts, who hails from a textile city, and J. Mark Wilcox of Florida, whose district is noted for its vege-tables. Both said their opposition was based on complaints from their constituents. OUT of San Francisco bay divers dragging the bodies of victims of the latest aviation dis-aster. A transport plane of the United Airlines crashed into the wa-ter when only a short distance from the air field, and all its occupants, eight passengers, two pilots and a stewardess, perished. A German military plane fell In a busy street In Berlin and five per-sons were killed. The bureau of air commerce in Washington recommended 11 new safety measures to be taken by air lines in an effort to prevent future air crashes. The recommendations were based on findings ma rip hv " f " 4 tHifc. ;. t x f null Gen. Franco state Immediately decreed a new mo-bilization to meet the threat of an in-surgent attack. It also ordered the strengthening of for-tifications and set up a superior de-fense council. Following the cap-ture of the impor-tant Mediterranean coast city of Malaga can gei nis measure tnrough the house without great trouble, but a hot fight against it is certain in the senate. So far the Republicans in congress haven't had much to say on the matter, for the Democratic opponents of the scheme are voci-ferous enough to suit the G. O. P. It is said there is a good chance that the senate judiciary committee, headed by Ashurst of Arizona, will report unfavorably on the measure in eo far as the proposal for in-creasing the membership of the Su-preme court is concerned. The other parts of the President's plan, de-signed to expedite the work of fed-eral courts, do not meet with much epposition. Probably the scheme will be sep-arated into several bills; and indeed that already has been started, for Representative Summers of Texas, chairman of the house judiciary committee, introduced a bill provid-ing for voluntary retirement for Su-preme court justices with full pay at the age of seventy. This was passed quickly by a vote of 315 to 75. CONCLUSIONS of the great plains drouth committee were laid be-fore congress by President Roose-velt, the report being accompanied by a special message in which the l President urged the development of a "new economy" in the vast area-i between the Alleghenies and the Rockies io save the region from the effects of future drouths. The the recent conference on air safety which was attended by pilots, air line representatives, and members of the bureau. SEEMINGLY confident that his is now safely estab-lished. President Lazaro Cardenas of Mexico issued a decree grant-ing amnesty to all political offend-ers, under arrest for or accused of rebellion, sedition or other subver-sive activities. Under special pow-ers given him by congress be quashed 3,841 court proceedings against more than 10,000 persons accused of antigovemment plots or acts. Former President Calles, who was exiled nearly a year ago, said in San Diego, Calif., that he did not consider himself included in the am-nesty. ELIHU ROOT, one of America's eminent lawyers and statesmen, died in New York at the age of ninety-two- . Intensively ac-tive all his life, he did not cease his activities until he was attacked by pneumonia two weeks before his death. By Intellectual brilliancy Mr. Root became admittedly the leader of the American bar. and he was actively interested in many societies devot-ed to U e arts and sciences, peace and education. During a half cen-tury of public service he held many high offices. by General Franco's Fascist troops, a general clean up of loyalists there was started. Gen. Gonzalo Quiepo de Llano, rebel commander in seuthern Spain, announced over the radio that more than ISO leaders and military officers of the government had been arrested and executed after trial. He said an attack would soon be made on Valencia, the loy-alist temporary capital on the east coast France was vexed by the reported assistance given the Fascists by Italians in the taking of Malaga, and renewed her threats to inter-vene in behalf of the government unless Italy and Germany ceased their active support of Franco. The long drawn out siege ot Ma-drid continued, but there wjs one important development when the in- - surgents, attacking with Infantry and tanks from the -- outh. threatened to cut the highway to Valencia, the capital's only line of communication. "Quotations" In the final analysis, no nation it better than the Individuals who com-pote llr-Cord- ell UulL Every nation buildt too many war-ships and too few friendship, Airs. Carrim Chapman CatU Aviation hat brought revolution-ary change to a world lr4f stag-geri-from chan get. Charlet A. Lindbergh. A great point in acting U the "listen." It's more important somo-tim- e to know how to listen than how to apeak. 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