OCR Text |
Show Washington Merry-Go -Round Tork' Cutting Will Keep Con-press Con-press in Session Past June . . . F. D. R. Sounding Sentiment On Cordell Hull. By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT ALLEN WASHINGTON. Those optimistic statements about a short session of congress are a lot of wishful thinking. think-ing. The boys will still be on hand when June 1 rolls around. One reason is that there is no need for them to hurry to get through. The presidential convention won't take place this year until late July and early August. The other reason is that the shadow of the momentous fall campaign will dominate everything every-thing said and done on Capitol Hill and the session is a cinch to be one of the most acrimonious and politics-ridden in years. There will be fierce fighting over the Wagner labor and wage-hour acts, over Secretary Wallace's demand de-mand for some form of processing tax to finance the $300,000,000 farm parity payments, over Cordell Hull's reciprocal trade treaties and above all over the slashed budget. It's on this last Issue that you will see party lines crumble and the boys, despite all their brave economy econo-my talk and other lofty sentiments, rally together to save their pork. For there's political murder in that thar budget. The boys don't know it yet but Roosevelt has ripped $45,000,000 out of the flood control appropriation, whittling it down from $115,000,000 to ?70,000,000. The cries of anguish that will go up when this is discovert discov-ert T'ill rend the heavens from New England to California and from Michigan to Texas. At least two- thirds of the members of both chambers cham-bers have local stakes in this appropriation, ap-propriation, to say nothing of hundreds hun-dreds of contractors and thousands of workers, and with an election in the offing you can bet your boots the boys are going to leave no stone unturned to get their pork. The flood control item is just one of a number that got the axe. The highway appropriation, another prime local pork favorite, was riddled. rid-dled. When Roosevelt merely recommended rec-ommended that last year, congress nearly had a fit. The boys will jump out of their skins when they see what he actually did to the appropriation appropri-ation this time. No Third Term? For the first time in two years word has gone out very quietly 1 from the White House that the President Pres-ident has a man definitely def-initely in mind as his possible successor. succes-sor. That man is Cordell Cor-dell Hull. This does not mean that the President Pres-ident is committing himself. However, Cordell Hull is is definitely the very first time he has even mentioned the name of a specific candidate. What the President is doing Is throwing out Hull's name to various close advisers and noting their reaction. re-action. The tack which the President Is taking is that Hull is the only man who could get the support of both the liberal Democrats and the conservatives, con-servatives, such as Senators Glass, Byrd, and George. Also significant is the fact that the Inner Circle, while not yet counting Roosevelt out for third term, are by no means so sure of it as they once were. Now they are convinced that Roosevelt really does not want to be a candidate. e e Insurance Bombshell. Insurance company officials who have been raging over insurance disclosures by the anti-monopoly committee don t know the half of it The worst is yet to come. The committee will make a voluminous volu-minous report on the finances and investments of 26 of the largest insurance in-surance companies and it's going to be a bombshell. One of the sensations will be the revelation that last year a certain nationally known company, with many millions of dollars on deposit in a certain bank, drew not one cent of interest on this money. The report re-port will show, as a possible explanation expla-nation for this amazing situation. that high officials of the company also are directors of the bank. Even when published only a limited lim-ited number of copies will be available, avail-able, because the report is so voluminous vo-luminous that it cost $10q a copy to print it in the government printing office. e e Capital Chaff. Assistant Secretary of State A. A. Berle's wife, Beatrice Bend Bishop Berle, is a physician . . . The President Pres-ident is about to have his portrait painted by Cuban Artist Esteban Valderrama ... A peace society has distributed 30,000 copies of the David Lawrence editorial, "Peace Now," which proposes a 10-point program for settlement of the war. One move in the minds of the Jack Garnerites is that in the last showdown show-down he might withdraw to let Sam Ra;burn step into the picture. |