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Show WALL STREET VIEWS' By James McMuCw, financial Obwwr ; . 1 NEW TORK The temperary ' nations! economic committee will launch publie hearings in Its Investigation In-vestigation of the investment banking business en May 16. Its agents have been busy for weeks combing the records of Investment hottsee and corporation that have done publie financing In the last few yeara, and a number of financial finan-cial and Industrial leaders have been told they will be called as witnesses. The evident purpose of the hearings hear-ings is to demonstrate that Morgan, Mor-gan, Stanley A Co, Investment banking offshoot of J. P. Morgan A- Co, enjoys something of a "monopoly" in the field of corporate corpo-rate financing. The committee'e investigators contend that this firm Is associated with the underwriting under-writing of about SO per cent of corporate security issues sold to the public usually as head of the underwriting syndicate end the committee cravee to know hew come. It looks as if Morgan interests in-terests again are destined to be the target of a Washington headline head-line fiesta. New York Insiders concede that Morgan, Stanley get the cream of the underwriting business, but Insist In-sist there Is nothing sinister or "monopolistic" about it They argue ar-gue that this firm gives its clients better service than any other investment in-vestment house. They do not believe be-lieve that its alleged monopoly " 'CeB tW whfWH t9 b9 titrtflWlTrtftl' the interests either of the public or of issuing corporations and privately pri-vately predict that this particular bombshell will turn out to be a dud. . ' An experienced and responsible American observer who has visited visit-ed Prague and surrounding territory terri-tory since the German occupation reports to New York friends that the nasi conquerors are governing their new Czech subjects with surprising wisdom and restraint He found no signs of wholesale oppression of the Csech population. popula-tion. On the contrary, he was amazed at the freedom with which Czech citizens expressed themselvesoften them-selvesoften unfavorably about their new masters, apparently without fear of punishment The nazi secret service is on the Job end has made come arrests, but In general la showing unexpected tolerance. No effort Is being made to "Germanize" "Ger-manize" the Czechs. They not only are not forced to serve in the German army they are not allowed to. Nazi anti-Jewish decrees de-crees are in effect in the Czechoslovak Czecho-slovak region, but otherwise there haa bee a minimum of Interference Interfer-ence with local customs and institutions. in-stitutions. The Czechs are permitted per-mitted a high degree of self-rule in their own af fairs 47,000 former privates and noncoms of the Czech army have been organized as a special police force for Bohemia and Moravia and function virtually vir-tually aa an Independent body. ' Tear correspondent wee shows a snap published in Berlin after the occupation. The former Caecho-Slovak territory (except Carpetho-Ruthenia, which was seised by Hungary) la included la s heavy line encircling the boundaries bound-aries of the "greater reieh," but Bohemia. Moravia and Slovakia are depicted la different colors than the rest of Germany. Indicating Indicat-ing that they are officially considered con-sidered autonomous states withia the empire. The contrast between this treatment treat-ment and the rigorous nest rule of Austria Is marked Insiders comment that Hitler and company -havs evidently learned a lesson from Austria. That territory lent wholly "pacified" even yet and is causing Berlin plenty of headaches. head-aches. The iron-heel -formula didn't work well there, so Germany's Ger-many's rulers are trying other tactics In their moot recent acqul- ' aitions. From the Republican angle, one of the most encouraging features of the recent Chicago mayoralty ' election was the fact that such an excellent showing was achieved with a relatively small financial outlay. The OOP only spent about 880.000 chicken feed for a major political contest Exact figures of Democratic expenditures are not available, but it is known that .iheywere many times larger some estimates from responsible sources run as high as a million dollars. It was as Important to the new dealers nationally aa to the Chicago Democratic organization organi-zation to try to reelect Mayor Kelly by a crushing majority. That makes their failure to do ao all the more significant Chicago Republican leaders weren't kidding themselves about winning the contest They booed to roll up a respectable minority vote in order to bold their organisation organi-sation together for 1M0. Consequently Conse-quently they didn't run themselves ragged to put Green over. Under the circumstances, the slashing of Kelly's margin to less than 300,000 votes was a complete though very pleasant surprise. Several leading American and British bankers have gone to Berlin Ber-lin to conclude a new agreement with the Reichsbank for more, rapid repayment of German commercial com-mercial obligations frozen by the 'standstill" agreement The actual negotiations have been successfully concluded, and all that remains is to ratify the new arrangement. Walther Funk, who succeeded Hjalmar Schacht as head of the Reichsbank, is planning a big celebration. He will give a banquet for the visiting visit-ing bankers and use the occasion to cite this agreement as proof that Germany is not as financially and economically hard-pressed aa the world believes. . ' Copyright McClure Syndicate |