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Show News Review of Current Events the World Over Disastrous Flood Moves Down the Mississippi Mass Evacuation Prepared Secretary Perkins Moves to Compel General Motors Strike Parley. By EDWARD W. PICKARD Western Newspaper Union. GRADUALLY the terrible flood in the Ohio valley subsided, but the yellow torrents were pouring pour-ing down the lower Mississippi and i the nation was mobilized mo-bilized to save the people there. By direction di-rection of the President Pres-ident and Gen. Mal-in Mal-in Craig, chief of staff, the army made all preparations prepara-tions for the evacuation evacu-ation of all inhabitants inhabi-tants along the river riv-er between Cairo, """"III., and New ur- Ueneral leans detajs Malm Craig f)r mags movfi. ment were worked out to the last point by commanding officers in the region and thousands of motor trucks and railroad flat cars were collected. Headquarters for the evacuation were set up at Jackson, Miss. Lieut. Col. Eugene Reybold, district dis-trict engineer at Memphis, ordered the prompt delivery of 5,000,000 burlap bur-lap sacks for the erection of sandbag sand-bag bulwarks, 15 cars of lumber, 210 outboard motorboats, 300 small boats, 300 life jackets, and 1,500 lanterns. The secretary of war authorized the use of not only regular army troops but also members of the Civilian Conservation corps, the National Guard, and the Red Cross. General Craig said that if the billion bil-lion dollar levee system, erected after the great 1927 flood, failed to hold, about the same area affected then would be inundated. Many thousands of people already had been removed from homes along the Mississippi, but cities like Memphis and Vicksburg, being on high ground, were believed to be safe. At New Orleans river experts refused re-fused to admit danger of a super-fiood super-fiood along the lower reaches of the river. But Secretary of War Wood-ring Wood-ring in Washington had reports from engineers which said the levee system on the lower Mississippi Missis-sippi probably would not be able to withstand the present flood when it reaches its crest. At this writing the effects of the flood may be ' thus summarized: Homeless, nearly a million. Dead, probably more than 500, including 200 in Louisville. Damage, conservatively conserv-atively estimated at more than $400,-000,000. $400,-000,000. Congress hurried through a deficiency defi-ciency appropriation of $790,000,-000 $790,000,-000 which the President promised would be made available for flood relief; and the American Red Cross, working at high speed, w;is raising a fund of $10,000,000 to which the people of the entire country contributed con-tributed liberally. Supplies of food, drinking water, clothing and medicines medi-cines were poured into the stricken areas. Cincinnati, Louisville, Portsmouth, Ports-mouth, Frankfort and Evansville were the worst sufferers; but every city, town and village along the Ohio and its tributaries shared in the disaster. Fires broke out in the Mill Creek district of Cincinnati and destroyed property valued at $1,500,-000 $1,500,-000 before the flames could be controlled. con-trolled. Throughout the entire re gion transportation was crippled, pure water and fuel supplies were shut off or greatly reduced, and outbreaks of typhoid and pneumonia were threatened. In Louisville the light and power plant was forced to shut down. In Frankfort, Ky., the state reformatory re-formatory was flooded and the prisoners pris-oners were removed to other (juarterr with the aid of troops. The convicts took advantage of the emergency to start a riot and about a dozen were killed. All of southern Indiana was placed under martial law by Governor Townsend. FORTY THOUSAND employees of General Motors returned to part time work in reopened plants in Michigan and Indiana, and were unmolested un-molested by the strikers. But the deadlock was not broken, and the sit-down sit-down strikers continued con-tinued to occupy the plants they had "kidnaped." President Presi-dent Alfred P. Sloan Jr., of General Motors Mo-tors had refused the invitation of Secretary Secre-tary of Labor Per- jtoljT ill kins to meet John L. a. P. Sloan Lewis, chief of the striking unions, while the strikers were still in forcible possession of plant3, and President Roosevelt ominously termed this refusal "a very unfortunate decision on his part," intimating, also, that there was a prospect of labor legislation unfavorable to the corporation and to employers generally. Sloan persisting in his attitude, Secretary Perkins started a move lor legislation that would compel him to meet Lewis. In identical letters to Speaker Bankhead and Senator Joe Robinson, majority leader of the senate, she asked the prompt passage of a bill empowering empower-ing her department to subpoena persons per-sons and papers in connection with investigations of strikes. To the press Miss Perkins said that once she had this power she would summon sum-mon Sloan to a meeting with Lewis in Washington; but she was not sure she could compel him to negotiate nego-tiate a strike settlement. Sloan had posted in all General Motors plants a denial that the corporation cor-poration was responsible for the breakdown of negotiations and was "shirking our mcral responsibilities." responsibil-ities." He reiterated his refusal to treat with the union so long as the sit-down strikers held the plants, and continued with a promise to employees: "We shall demand that your rights and our rights be protected" against "a small minority who have seized certain plants and are holding hold-ing them as ransom to enforce their demands. "I say to you once more, have no fear. Do not be misled. General Motors will never let you down. You will not have to pay tribute for the privilege of working in a General Motors plant." Sloan contends that more than 100,000 G. M. employees have expressed ex-pressed a desire to return to work. Lewis scoffs at this claim but will not countenance the holding of an election to determine whether his unions command the majority necessary nec-essary to constitute them the sole collective bargaining agency. The federal labor relations board could order such an election but it has not intervened, and probably will not. Governor Murphy of Michigan had not modified his refusal to permit per-mit the National Guardsmen stationed sta-tioned in Flint to be utilized in carrying out a judicial order that the plants be vacated by the sit-down sit-down strikers. THE six-week strike of 7,100 employees em-ployees of the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass company ended with approval ap-proval by the union committee and company officials of a wage agreement agree-ment giving z flat eight-cent-an-hour increase in all piauis of the company. com-pany. A one-year contract was signei. The agreement provides for appointment ap-pointment of a committee of five to investigate wage rates of the Pittsburgh Pitts-burgh Plate Glass company with a view to establishing uniformity of rates throughout the flat glass industry. in-dustry. MAYBE it was just a promotion stunt for the book, but Senator Joseph F. Guffey of Pennsylvania, Democrat, introduced in the senate a resolution calling It V 1 for an investigation of the truth or falsity falsi-ty of scurrilous charges made against the Supreme Court in "Nine Old Men," a volume authored au-thored by two conductors con-ductors of a Washington Wash-ington gossip column. col-umn. In offering the Sen. Gufley made a buter attack on the Supreme Court, saying: "The President of the United States, with his characteristic frankness frank-ness and courage, has opened for debate the most troublesome problem prob-lem which we must solve if we are to continue a democracy. "That problem is whether the Supreme court will permit congress, the legislative branch of our government, gov-ernment, which was equally trusted with the Supreme court by the framers of the Constitution, to perform per-form its duties in making democracy democra-cy workable and effective." The senate heard Guffey's speech in silence and referred his resolution resolu-tion to the judiciary committee. ARTIFICIAL scarcity of farm products is abandoned as a policy pol-icy for the time being by Secretary of Agriculture Wallace. He said in Washington that the two drouth years of 1934 and 1936 have brought more thought on farm production by consumers and farmers than ever before. While a year or two. of normal nor-mal weather would tumble wheat prices, if full acreage is planted, the time has come for a lifting of the restrictions, he said. "In the year immediately ahead, I feel that farmers should think primarily of their duty to consumers." consum-ers." Wallace said. "I think that in the coming year it is wise for us to produce as much as we can. We should, of course, divert a certain amount of corn and cotton acreage to soil conserving crops, because that will make for greater long time productivity of our farm land. "But for the most part, let's fill up the storage bins this year. It is good policy to vary the plans for storage of crops in the soil according accord-ing to the state of supplies in the granary above the ground." r BTAINING of a sweeping fed- 1 ' eral injunction against the Tennessee Valley authority by nineteen nine-teen utility companies has put an end to efforts to form a public-private public-private power transmission pool. President Roosevelt declared in a letter written to federal power experts ex-perts and private company officials that the utility action in securing the injunction, "precludes a joint transmission facility arrangement, and makes it advisable to discontinue" discontin-ue" any conferences planned to gain that end. The injunction which drew Mr. Roosevelt's fire halted the TVA from new construction or from soliciting so-liciting additional customers for its power. KARL RADEK, noted soviet Russian Rus-sian journalist, and 16 other men more or less prominent in the affairs of Russia, went to trial as V v., x 4 conspirators against the Stalin regime and the soviet state, and all freely confessed con-fessed their guilt. They readily told the details of the amazing plot and asserted as-serted that the exiled ex-iled Leon Trotzky was its chief mover. Radek described the Karl Kadek the plotters hoped to overthrow Stalin and bring back a modified capitalism to Russia. It involved in-volved the wrecking of the nation's railway system and the bringing about of war on Russia by Japan and Germany. Japan was to be given the maritime provinces in Asia and Germany was to be permitted per-mitted to grab the Ukraine. But Radek added that the conspirators hoped the war would result in a new revolution in Russia and that thereafter those territories could be regained. "I am guilty of all the charges," said the once powerful editor. Gregori Sokolnikoff, former soviet ambassador to England, declared he knew as early as 1932 of a plot to assassinate Stalin, and admitted he was guilty of plotting to betray the Soviet union to Germany and Japan. Vladimir Romm, former Washington correspondent of Iz-vestia Iz-vestia of Moscow, though not yet on trial, was put on the stand and testified that he knew of the anti-Stalinist anti-Stalinist plot, that he carried letters from Radek to the exiled Leon Trotzky and that he agreed to become be-come Trotzky's undercover informant. in-formant. Scores of persons implicated by the confessions of the defendants have been arrested. Among them is M. A. G. Beloborodoff, the veteran Bolshevist who ordered the execution execu-tion of Czar Nicholas and his family. fam-ily. The prosecutor asked death for all the defendants. Leon Trotzky, from his haven in Mexico City, sent out a specific denial de-nial of the charges that he was head of the conspiracy. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT sent to the senate the name of James A. Farley as postmaster general for another term, and the senate promptly confirmed the nomination. It is believed Mr. Farley will not long remain a member of the cabinet, for he wants to return to private work. He told reporters report-ers in New York that he was looking for more than a job as a salesman. "Tf T Rhmild return Li A to private life," the J" A- Farley postmaster general said, "I would like an opportunity to build up an equity in a business, so I would have something more than just a salary for security for my family. "I have had several offers already, al-ready, but they haven't been just what I would want." TF REICHSFUEHRER HITLER A will co-operate with other nations in the interest of peace, France will help Germany to overcome her present pres-ent economic difficulties. Such was the offer made by Premier Blum in an address at Lyons. Blum, however, how-ever, warned the Nazis that France cannot and will not co-operate with Germany economically or politically "whili the possibility continues to exist that this help may be some day turned against the country which gave it." He expressed opposition to Hitler's policy of making bilateral pacts, and added: "I believe I am practicing practic-ing realism when I declare we do not wish to separate French security from European peace." German officials were pleased by Blum's speech and said his good inientions could not be doubted. HAMBURG, Germany, for centuries cen-turies a "free city," has lost its freedom. Reichsfuehrer Hitler and his cabinet have decreed that it shall be known henceforth a s Hansa City Hamburg and placed under control of Col. Gen. Hermann Wilhelm Goering in his capacity aa commissar for the new four year plan for self - sufficiency, together Willi Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the Nazi party; Wilhelm Frick. minister of interior, and Count Lud-wig Lud-wig Schwerin von Krosigk, minister of finance. The cabinet also took away ths freedom of Luebeck and incorporated incorporat-ed the city with Prussia, and the same fate was decreed for Eutin, Cuxhaven and Birkenfeld. Wilhelms-haven Wilhelms-haven is absorbed by Oldenburg province. |
