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Show THE SMITH FIELD SENTINEL. SMITH FIELD, UTAH I ! j Washington. President Roosevelt stated to the newspaper correspond- ents in his press Wants Crop conference the Back er day that crop control must be brought back. He said it with some emphasis. Within a few days before that, he had given his approval to a bill placing a minimum on wages and a maximum on hours in which labor could work in industries whose productions enter into interstate commerce. The President was not specific as to details of the legislation in either case but it is important to note that be has reaffirmed his position on these two principles for it is to be remembered that both the NRA and the AAA were thrown out by the Supreme court a long time ago, and the President seeks now to restore them in another form. This circumstance would seem to confirm assertions .that have been made in various quarters lately that .the President wants to maintain a "planned economy for this country. It would seem that he is determined to go ahead along those lines and that his program for reorganizing the Supreme court was a part and parcel of the scheme. In other words, the President's new 'declaration about crop control and wages and hours and his support of the Wagner housing bill represent a return to the original theories which he held for remaking" our nation. After discussing these circumstances pro and con with proponents as well as opponents in the congress, the conclusion is inescapable that Mr. Roosevelt and his advisers are headed into new ground. They desire evidently to make the federal government the most important factor in our national life and to set aside little by little the functions of state and local governments by their course of action. Undoubtedly there is strong argument for the policies they have adopted; certainly, there are many functions which the national government can perform more effectively and more efficiently than they can be performed by state governments, and equally, it is true that some phases of our national life should not be subjected to the influence of state lines. On the other hand, there surely is valid reason why Washington bureaucrats should not be allowed to interfere in the daily practices and convictions of individuals. The reason I believe all of this is so important now is that always .there has been a tendency of federal functions to expand. To say this in another way: Federal officials from the lowest to the highest seem to be equipped with a particular faculty for delegating to themselves additional authority as soon as they are accorded power. What the country should fear then, it seems to me, is the steady encroachment upon the rights of states 'and thereafter the rights of individuals. Perhaps I should have reversed the order and should have said, first, encroachment upon the .rights of individuals and, second, thereafter encroachment upon the rights of states. Now, there are those persons in considerable number who believe sincerely that the federal government is the agency through which all public functions should operate. I cannot agree. Rather, long experience in Washington convinces me that the old, old argument for state rights so long one of the tenets of the Democratic party has too much merit to be overthrown without consideration for the effects of the new theories. It may be that .human nature has changed enough to accept new theories and live .happily thereunder but I am quite convinced that human nature does not change so fast. ol i To get down to cases in application of the principles discussed ... above, let us con- Vr ages and aider the wages Horn BUI and hours bill. That measure shows how this encroachment takes place and gives a rather clear picture of the expansive nature of federal policies. The wages and hours bill first cre. ates a labor standards board. It is circumscribed by certain limitations which say that it cannot fix wages above forty cents per hour nor can It reduce the number of working hours per week below forty. Fur-the- r, a great number of lines of work are exempted from jurisdiction of the board work of a season- al character, farm labor, labor in certain specified industries which obviously cannot be subject to regulation without destruction of the business itself. Besides these restrictions, there is an implied warning in the bill against sudden or abrupt changes in business practices that would dislocate industrial operation or curtail employment. ' These delimitations would seem to leave the board without a great deal of authority. Such, however, is not the case. Among those industries remaining under Jurisdiction of the board, there is yet as much power as obtained under NRA and its Xeus ftevieir of Current Events Cutting Madrid from Sea BLACK NAMED FOR COURT pressing their campaign to cut Madrid off from Valencia and the sea. Latest advances of and mechanized troops, folattacks, lowing up brought the insurgents near to the capture of Salvacanete, which is only 30 miles from Cuenca. Cuenca is the provincial capital, and from it emanate most of the roads upon which the loyalist government is depending to keep open the traffic between the two cities. Reports revealed that the rebels were also opening a new drive on Santander, last government stronghold on the northern coast, and had already made important advances. The drive followed an attack made upon them by Asturian miners fighting under the loyalist colors. The miners acted quickly in a surprise move, advancing far enough to throw hand grenades into the insurgent trenches. Then the rebels opened up with machine gun fire and half the attacking band was killed. Francos officers claimed. That all might not be going as well as General Francq insisted was indicated when he was forced into the paradoxical act of shelling one of his own cities, Segovia. This was done, it was reported, to quell a rebellion among the insurgent forces. It was also said that the insurrection had been spreading among several provinces. Meanwhile, other nations were on the point of being involved again. There was a riot among rebel troops at Toledo, and Italian soldiers were alleged to have aided in quelling the uprising. Four merchant ships one British, one Italian, one French and one Greek were attacked in the Mediterranean by three "mystery" planes. Great Britain blamed the rebels and demanded an answer to its protest Italy blamed the red loyalists. The loyalists blamed the rebels, the rebels blamed the loyalists, there were lots of talk and back talk, and nobody got anywhere. C LOWLY but determinedly Gen. Francisco Francos rebels are Choice Surprise to Senate . . . Chinese Central Army Clashes with Japanese . . Legislation in Tangled Mess codes which were so hidebound and so inelastic that thousands of firms were in open rebellion against the restrictions unless they were able to pass on the higher costs resulting from these restrictions, to the public. That is, unless they could make the consumer pay the added cost, they faced eventual bankruptcy. I do not say that the labor standards board as now conceived will go as far as the NRA codes but experience with the present national la- bor relations board indicates that the public should expect the maximum exercise of power instead of any middle of the road policies. The labor relations board has become a festering acre on private initiative. Business interest ..everywhere, while being pounded on the back by the administration to employ more workers, are kept in a constant state of confusion by the bias of the board. This is the board which was designed by Senator Wagner, of New York, to maintain peace between labor and employers. If the labor standards board can use discretionary powers accorded it and can proceed in correcting abuses of labor as rapidly as is "economically feasible," it may be able to develop better conditions in industry. But such language as the words "economically feasible" are subject to all kinds of interpretation and if the membership of the labor standards board happens to include some radical labor leader, most anything will be economically feasible. It is from such quirks of law that bureaucrats expand their powers. Japanese Soldiers Bring Their Own Beer to Peiping. IV. J&ichuuL S SUMMARIZES THE WORLD'S WEEK Wulcia Miwipaptr Union. Nominee Draws Rebuke X7TTH hisVmstomary exercise of the dramatic, President Roosevelt nominated Senator Hugo L. Black (Dem., Ala.) to fill the vacancy on the Supreme court bench caused by the retirement of Justice Willis Senator Black had not even been mentioned for Van-Devant- er. consideration previously, and the apwas a pointment complete surprise to his colleagues. J has Senator Black a yearsfit when a senator is appointed to high office, for his nomination to be in open executive session. But when Senator Ashurst (Dem., Ariz.) proposed this in Senator B 1 a c ks nomination, objections came forth immediately from Senator Burke (Dem., Neb.) and Senator Johnson (Rep., Calif.). They asked that the nomination be referred to the senate judiciary committee for careful consideration." This was viewed in the light of a distinct rebuke for the nominee. Senator Black has been a militant leader in the fight for the President's wages and hours legislation. As a justice he would have the opportunity to pass upon measures regulating public utility holding companies, authorizing loans and grants for publicly-owne- d power plants,, and fixing prices in the industry. He was, as the chairman of the Black committee to investigate lobbying, the center of a storm of public opinion during the early months of 1936. Black practiced law in Birmingham after being graduated from the University of Alabama in 1906. At he is one of the younger members of the senate. But there is yet another phase of this policy that demands ation. While the Another United States is one unit under the Photo federal government, it is made up of a number of sectional units and each sectional unit comprises a number of states and even each state in some cases embraces subdivisions where practices in business and living traditions are as different as day and night. A regulation as to the fairness of hours or wages in New England may be, and probably would be, wholly inapplicable in Alabama or Georgia. A regulation that would operate satisfactorily in Pennsylvania may be, and probably would be, completely sour in the Pacific coast states. Yet this board cannot administer its regulations on a piece-mebasis; they must apply to the whole country and it is only fair to assume from the existing facts that whereas rulings may be advantageous to some sections of labor, they might completely destroy other sections of labor. The same results can be expected from the effects of these rut ings on the employers, except that where the effect is adverse on employers businesses can be driveh into bankruptcy and the jobs they provided disappear. I think there can be no denying that no law will be successful unless it has the the active support, of a very large majority of the people. If proof be needed, it is only necessary to recall how the prohibition laws were not enforced in those areas where public sympathy with them was lacking. It does not require very much time to determine whether a law is popular. During the life of the NRA, those who opposed such impossible regulations as General Hugh Johnson dictated were branded by President Roosevelt at first as "chisel-erIt was a biting criticism. Yet, within a few months there were more chiselers than there were those who believed that the law could possibly be made to work. I am very much afraid that there will be more chiselers under the wages and hours law than there are those who believe in its efficacy. 20 com-sider- - ed federal al soft-co- fifty-on- al e, Shells Pepper with- - 1 out benefit of official declaration, the army of the Chinese central government clashed with the Japanese invaders for the first time. The Eighty-nint- h division, from the provinces of Suiyuan and Shansi began the attack at the Nankow pastf of the Great Wall, 30 miles northwest of Peiping, the Japanese said. Through this pass the Japanese have been able to move reinforcements from Manchukuo, its protectorate, and the Chinese wanted to gain control of it. They wiped out a whole battalion of Japanese soldiers in the opening battle. The Japanese opened up immediately afterward with heavy artillery lire which the Chinese failed to return. Indeed the latter were silently retreating into positions they thought more secure. As shells fell in the city of Nankow, fires were seen to arise from heavily populatThe initial operations of the board ed areas. The Chinese, however, and the law probably will not create were said to be well equipped with mortars with which to de. .w great deal of trench aotn bidet dissension. But fend the pass once they considered ' Will Back there will be dis their position satisfactory. Japanese warned that all of their gruntled groups of workers and there will be dissatis- forces in North China, some 40,000 fied employers who will seek ex- fighting men, would be loosed upon emption or changes or special con- the Chinsee if they made any atsideration by regulation. In some tempt to return to the old capital in cases, obviously, the board will is- Peiping, now held by the invaders. sue new rules. As likely as not those new rules will upset some oth- South Demands Crop Loans er group or region or section and Q0NGRESS regarded adjourn- will demand consideration. they as possibly farther off Just here, it might be recalled thanment ever as the r bill got how under the AAA crop control all tangled up with surplus agriculcotton and com were tural control law, wheat, and cotton loans in originally considered but tobacco what looked like a hopeless mesa. had to have protection and rice With the Department of Agriculand potatoes and peanuts, and every ture estimating a 15.500.000-bal- e cotother farm product had its chamton about 3.000,000 bales more pions battling for consideration be- thancrop, can be consumed. Southern fore the Supreme court held that and senators were representatives the law with its processing taxes was an invalid delegation of power demanding surplus crop loans. The by congress. Therefore, while I may Commodityto Credit corporation has make such loans. be seeing things" concerning authority In a press conference. President the labor standards board and the Roosevelt indicated that he had no new proposal for crop control, the intention of permitting a cotrecords surely support my state- ton loan until congress passed the ment that anytime the federal government starts a new policy it be- agricultural control program and granary bill which Secgins at the same time to enable exof Agriculture Wallace says pansion of federal power far beyond retary is necessary before the new session the original concept of a program. in January. Trouble is the house C Ncwwapw Vatoa. s. i i wage-hou- evcr-norm- wtr al the Presidents wages and hours bill, as dictated by William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, unless southern farmers get their cotton loans. Furthermore, the Southerners under the capital dome are now asking for loans as high as 15 cents a pound, and in some cases even 18 cents. The South is not any too well in accord with maximum hours and minimum wages anyway. The result of the whole affair is a complete stalemate. Somebody will have to give in; somebody prob- Peiping Gets "Protection11 ably will, and there will be A LTHOUGH Nanking is pre- hoss - trading" on a paring to wage a destructive wholesale scale. For congress wants do not be afraid. war, to adjourn before the snow flies. The Japanese army will protect Southerners in the senate were you. also worried when Senator Robert Leaflets contain F. Wagner of New York succeeded ing these words flutin winning recognition to debate an tered from the skies bill, the type of which to come to rest in the South has been successful in the hands of resiblocking since the Civil war. Some dents of the ancient were of the opinion that the bill, alChinese ready passed by the house, might Peiping. As the airbe defeated by filibuster (Senator planes which spread Bilbo of Mississippi threatened to the news hummed filibuster until Christmas) but more a brigade overhead, believed that the Southern members . Japanese would consent to its passage to put Emperor m-8oldlrs n, Kang Teh President Roosevelt on the spot." mand of Maj. Gen. They explained that if he did not Torashimo Kawabe marched sign it he would lose the negro vote through the city, taking possession so essential to the third term that of it in the name of Tokyo. is being whispered about, and that What would be the result of the if he did sign it the Democratic new Japanese domination apparentSouth would drop him like a hot ly begun by Maj. Gen. Kawabe was potato. a matter for speculation. Chinese residents, long since convinced that the inevitable would happen, took Senate O.K.'s Court Reform calmly enough. Some of them A LL that was left of the admin-- it istration's sweeping court re- voiced their belief that the former form proposals passed the senate in boy emperor of China, Tsuan Tung since 1934 Emperor an hour without a record vote. This (Henry was the procedural reform bill for Kang Teh of Manchukuo, would rethe lower federal courts. It was in turn to his throne in Peiping. He then rule over North China as the nature of a substitute for the would as Manchukuo, as a puppet for Sumners bill in the house of repre- well whom Japan would pull the strings. sentatives, and went back to the house for what was expected to be New York's Share Cut a peaceable conference. CENATOR ROBERT F. WAG- The bill, as summarized by Sen. NERS (Dem., N. Y.) $728,000,-00- 0 Warren R. Austin (Rep., Vt.), who wrote most of it, included: housing bill was passed by the Provision making it the duty of senate, 64 to 16, but the senator the District court, in any constitu- scarcely recognized it when his feltional suit between private citizens, lows were done with it Senator Wagner and other adminto notify the Department of Justice that upon a showing by the attorney istration leaders struggled franticalgeneral that the United States had ly to defeat an amendment by Hara probable interest the government ry F. Byrd (Dem., Va.) limiting the would be made a party to the suit. cost of housing projects to $1,000 a Permission for thd senior circuit room or $4,000 a family unit. Result the struggle: The upper house, judge to reassign district judges of within that circuit for the purpose which originally passed the amendof clearing congested dockets. (If ment 40 to 39, defeated a motion to necessary, a judge may be trans- reconsider by 44 to 39. The bill originally called for exferred from one circuit to another.) Permission for direct appeal to penditures up to$l,500 a room or the Supreme court, if notice $7,000 a family unit Opponents is given, from any decision of a conceded that the Byrd amendment District court against the constitu- would prohibit the building of the type of houses Senator Wagner bad tionality of an act. Requirement that all suits for in- in mind in New York City. junction against the operation of federal statutes to be heard by a Purge Toll to Date: 320 e court, including at least C EVENT Russians in East one circuit court of appeals judge. Siberia were lined up and shot by the government, bringing the total number of eastern executions Shanghai Smells Smoke A JAPANESE officer and a sca-- in Russias purge of Trotskyists! man tried to enter the Shang- to 320. The 72, described as hai airport, now under Chinese miliw?re charged with along the Siberian railtary control, in a high speed auto- operating mobile. Chinese guards, after try- road for the Japanese secret serving to halt them, shot and killed ice. It was alleged the accused had them. The Japanese claimed the road on which the men were travel- wrecked a train, killing 14 persons ing was part of the international set- and injuring 40. Arrests of officials in charge of tlement, and threatened the severest reprisals unless the Chinese various branches of the Soviet economy who had failed to make their made satisfactory explanation. The incident bid fair to touch off production quotas continued. a terrible conflict on the scene of the war of 1933. When Japanese Memorial for Will Rogers warships threatened the Shanghai 'THE memory of Will wharves, Chinese national troops beAmerica s lately belovedRogers, gan pouring into the city from evphilosopher, will be enery direction. Simultaneously came shrined in fitting manner near his reports that two boatloads of Nip- Clarcmore, Okla., home after the ponese soldiers were headed to aug- President signs a bill which has now ment the garrison in Shanghai, and been passed by both houses of that the sudden ingress of Chinese It $500,000 for troops had virtually blocked off the a memorialappropriates to Will; the state of entire city, isolating thousands of also will be required to h foreigners from the outside world. $500,000. . much-desire- d ed anti-lynchi- capital, Pu-Yi- ), Great Wall A LTHOUGH war was utill committee doesnt know how to write such a bill and make it stick, in view of the Supreme court's decision on the AAA. Now the Southern bloc has made it clear that it will not push through well-mobiliz- 30-da- y three-judg- Y-T- rl rightist-terr- orists, gum-chewi- con-gres- Ok-laho- fur-ms- s. wni 5 about: Advertisings Value. ERNAUS, CALIF., V train a charmi, Q-- . v woman said: the adverttoements want to buy anythin VtoTi you think Im crazy? I told her she was the smarts young woman I knew, if , er asked to describe the race in any bygone period since printers ink came into common use, Id turn to the advertising in the pa' pers and periodicals of that particular age. For then Id know what people wore and what they ate and what their sports were and follies and their tastes and their habits: know what they did when they were healthy and what they took when they were sick and of what they died and how they were buried and! where they expected to go after they! left here-- in short, I'd get a ture of humanity as it was and pky not as some prejudiced historian, wriU ing then or later, would have me believe it conceivably might have been. Id rather be able to decipher the want ad on the back side of a Chaldean brick than the king's edict on the front that is, if I craved to get an authentic glimpse at ancient Chaldea. their Running a Hotel. I A VE just been a guest at one of the best small-tow-n hotels in Amer-ic- a. I should know about good hotels because, in bygone days, 1 stopped at all the bad ones. The worst was one back East-b- uilt over a jungle of side tracks. I wrote a piece about that hotel. It had hot and cold running cockroaches on every floor and e service; the room towels only needed buttons on them to be peekaboo waists, but the roller towel in the public washroom had, through the years, so solidified that if the house burned down it surely would have been left standing. The cook labored under the delusion that a fly was something to cook with. Everybody whod ever registered there recognized the establishment. So the citizens raised funds and tore down their old hotel, thereby making homeless wanderers of half a million resident bedbugs; and they put up a fine new hotel which paid a profit, whereas the old one had been losing money ever since the fall of Richmond. A good hotel is the best advertisement any town can have, but a bad one is just the same as an extra pesthouse where the patients have to pay. ht switch-engin- Poor Los Knowledge. COMETIMES I wonder whether we, the perfected flower of civilization and if you dont believe we are, just ask us can really be as smart as we let on. Lately, out on the high seas, I met an educated Hopi, who said to me: White people get wrong and stay wrong when right before their eyes is proof to show how wrong they are. For instance, take your delusion that there are only four direction points an error which youve persisted in ever since you invented the compass, a thing our people never needed. Every Indian knows better than that. Well then," I said, "how many are there, since you know so much? Seven," he said, seven in aH." Name em, I demanded. With pleasure, he said. Hera they are: north, east, south, west, up, down and here. Of course, theres a catch in It somewhere, but, to date, I haven t figured it out. T J The Russian Puzzle. NDER the present beneficent regime, no prominent figuremi-in Russias government, whether litary or civil, is pestered by the cankering fear which besets an official in some less favored land, namely, that hell wear out in harness and wither in obscurity. or ComAll General missar Whatyoumaycallovitch has tojdo is let suspicion get about that hes not in entire accord with administration policies and promptly he commits suicide by request; or is invited out to be shot at sunrise. To be sure, the notion isn't new. The late Emperor Nero had numerous including family spare relatives, that he felt he could the-..!. and he just up and spared A1 Capon And, in our own time, built quite an organization for takas ing care of such associates'Twas seemed lacking in the faith. a great boon to the floral design business, too, while it lasted. But in Russia where they really new r do things tliere no ever worry about old age. Ire" Stalins boys will attend to all necessary details, except the one, foror merly so popular in Chicago, sending flowers to the funeral. IRVIN S. COBB. well-wisher- s, job-holde- WNU Service. ! |