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Show Merry-Co-Round By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT 8. ALLEN WASHINGTON Those who have talked with Adolf Hitler recently report that there are just two things which send him into paroxysms of rage. ,. One is any suggestion that the German people peo-ple are not behind him. Even the merest thought that he does not have the 100 per cent support of all Germans causes him almost to go berserk. Second is the fact that the United States congress con-gress passed the recent air armament bill with only 13 votes dissenting. This he considers a direct di-rect Insult if not an attack, on nazi Germany. It ia obvious that Hitler followed the reports of the air program debate in congress very closely, and one very confidential report received re-ceived in high places states that at first he was both pleased and deceived by the speeches of Senators Reynolds. Clark and Nye. Thinking that they represented American opinion, Hitler was confident that air armament would be defeated. de-feated. Band of Garner It was the secret ax of Vice President Jack Garner that scuttled the Barkley amendment to the $398,000,000 air corps expansion bill. Sponsored by Senator Barkley at the behest of A F L and CIO unions, the provision would have barred contracts to firms not abiding by the Wagner act. The house turned down the amendment but the senate approved it by a decisive vote. In the conference between the two chambers cham-bers the house committee refused to give ground, insisting tfiat the amendment be stricken strick-en out The senate conferees offered several modifications, but the house group refused to yield, and the fight was deadlocked for a week. At the president's weekly conference with congressional leaders last Monday. Garner suddenly sud-denly injected himself info the fray by urging Roosevelt to throw his weight against the amendment Roosevelt refused, saying he taw no reason why an exception should be made for manufacturers producing war materials for the government I Garner stormily insisted that more was involved. in-volved. He contended that the real issue was labor's effort to force acceptance of the Wagner law which Garner considers a great outrage. Garner got nowhere at the White House, but back in his office on Capitol Hill it was different When the conferees reassembled. Senator Logan of Kentucky, who had previously previous-ly backed the amendment, suddenly switched. Senator Austin of Vermont followed suit "If Senator Logan is going to recede," he explained, "then there is no use of my continuing contin-uing to hold out The fight is over and we might as well dispose of the matter." Swallowing Rumania . You can chalk it up as absolutely axiomatic that Rumania will be the next country to be dismembered. Its fste is going to be exactly the same as Czecho-Slovakia 's. There are two reasons for this, on being that Rumania also is made up of several minority mi-nority populations. Transylvania in northern Rumania contains about 700.000 Hungarians, and Hungary is itching for a chance to get them back. Southwestern Rumania, along the Black sea, also contains a large chunk of Bulgarians, and Bulgaria is waiting hopefully tor her opportunity. op-portunity. Chief reason for Rumania's dismemberment however, is that it is to Adolf Hitler's best interests. in-terests. He can better swallow and masticate Rumania, with its wheat and oil wealth, if it is cut up into small pieces. Tax Haymaker There was a hidden haymaker In that blast the president uncorked at his press conference regarding business tax revision. He talked not only for the benefit of the boys on Capitol Hill, but also for certain administration brasshats who were all set for drastic tax revision. Here is the inside story: Following Harry Hopkins' "appeasement' speech, certain business interests and their allies al-lies in congress, who last session axed the capital cap-ital gains and undivided profit taxes, decided that the time was ripe to wipe out the remaining remain-ing remnants of these taxes. Made-to-order boosters in this strategy were Secretary Mor genthau and Undersecretary John Hanes. The two new dealers are sincere in their desire de-sire to revise taxes to aid business. Consciously they were not parties to the other scheme. But their interest was used by the plotter to push their own plans. As a result Morgenthau declared de-clared his readiness to assist in removing deterrent de-terrent taxes. Roosevelt Return But at this point Roosevelt returned from his war dominoes in the Caribbean and threw a monkey wrench into the works He summoned Morgenthau, Hanes and the leaden on the Hill and laid down these dicta: 1. Any revision of taxes must produce the same amount of revenue produced by the present pres-ent laws. In other words, tax-cutting was out X. He would not stand for any revision plan that would add to the tax load of small business busi-ness men. This meant finis tor the scheme to scuttle the undivided profits and capital gains taxes, since the only way the same income could be produced ia by boosting -the flat corporation cor-poration tax meaning a greater . burden on small firms. There is still a chance of some business tax reshuffling. Despite his forceful talk, it was -significant that the president did not slam the door on tax revision. Behind-the-scenes problem Is to work out a revision plan that will not reduce income and at th same time not Increase the taxes of small business) men. If that can be done, there will be a major tax measure this session. Copyright 1939, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc. |
