OCR Text |
Show News Review of Current Events the World Over Secretary Mills Offers Treasury's Tax Bill Congress Slashes More Supply Measures Developments in the Presidential Campaign. By EDWARD W. PICKARD SECRETARY OGDEN L. MILLS and his associates in the Treasury department de-partment have laid before the senate finance committee their revised pro- Ogden L. Mills gram for raising $1,-033,000.000 $1,-033,000.000 for the purpose of balancing the national budget. The bill they offer rejects re-jects those features of the measure passed by the house which makes extreme raises in normal income tax rates, surtax rates corporation income taxes and estate taxes, restoring these taxes to the level of the rates as they were in 1924. Mr. Mills proposed a compromise on taxing stock sales. The house bill provides a tax of one-fourth of 1 per cent, but not less than four cents a share. The secretary would make it a straight four cents a share tax. Most of the excise taxes in the house bill he rejects, but proposes a tux of three-fourths of one cent a gallon on domestic gasoline, which is not taxed in the house bill. Mr. Mills' program does not differ much from the last recommendations he submitted to the house ways and means committee. It is now too late, he says, to apply income taxes retroactively retro-actively to 1031 incomes, but the loss occasioned thereby will be offset by "tightening of the law through administrative admin-istrative changes." The secretary now believes that it vill be possible to reduce government expenditures $200,000,000 instead of $120,000,000. Articles not taxed in the house bill on which Mr. Mills would impose taxes are tobacco, checks and drafts, and domestic gasoline. ONE more attempt to get Thomas J. Mooney out of the California penitentiary has failed. Following the counsel of his legal advisers, Governor Gover-nor Kolph denied a pardon to the man who is serving a life term for participation in the 191G Preparedness day bombing in San Francisco which resulted in ten deaths. WHAT Representative La Guardia of New York called "an epidemic epidem-ic of economy" continued its course In congress, to the disgust of some individual in-dividual members and of certain government gov-ernment officials. Drastic reductions in budget estimates were made and further slashes were in prospect. The house created precedent by accepting without conference the entire 10 per cent made by the senate in the appropriation appro-priation bill for the Interior department depart-ment and as the budget bureau already al-ready had made heavy reductions from the department requests and the house had previously knocked off some millions, Secretary Wilbur spoke of "the odds and ends that are left." He called the $4,000,000 reduction in funds for the Boulder canyon dam "hocus-pocus," "hocus-pocus," and then took the diminished bill to President Hoover for a conference. confer-ence. . The senate instructed its appropria tions committee to reduce the treasury-post office supply bill by 10 per cent, and also approved a reduction of $1,000,000 in the prohibition enforcement en-forcement fund, the only important Item which the house left at the budget bud-get estimate. Next came the slashing of the navy appropriation bill by the house. The appropriation measure for congress con-gress Itself was put aside for one week or more to give the special economy committee time to perfect an amendment carrying the entire retrenchment re-trenchment program of pay reductions and abolition and consolklaton of federal fed-eral activities. The decision of the economy committee to put all the projected pro-jected savings Into one bill to be a rider to the legislative supply measure, as President Hoover wished, was reached over the protest of Chairman HcDufiie of Alabama. McDuflie said his proposal to cut federal wages 11 per cent after examptlng the Brst $1,-000, $1,-000, would go Into the bill, and that advocates of the noover five-day work week and furlough without pay plan would have to offer It as a substitute. Mr. Hoover thinks his plan would save between 225,000,000 and $250,000,000 a year. WHEN the Republican national convention meets in Chicago it will have for its temporary chairman and keynoter Senator L. J. Dickinson of Iowa, whom the arrangements ar-rangements commit- tee selected for the ; post with the approv al of President IIoo f ver. "HeH-n a i s I n r ' Dick," as he is known In his home state, has been one of the ' strongest defenders oi ' the Hoover adminls tration and can be counted on to set forth vigorously the Issues on which the Sen. Dickinson j Republican party will base its appeal for the favor of the electorate. He was in the lover .--so fur six terms, a prominent member of the farm bloc; then was elected to the senate to succeed Dan Steck, Democrat. Other appointments made for the convention were: Sergeant-at-arms, Everett Sanders of Indiana, former secertary tr President Calvin Cool-idge; Cool-idge; secretary, Lafayette B. Gleason of New York; parliamentarian, James Francis Burke of Pennsylvania; assistant, as-sistant, Lehr Fess, Ohio, son of Senator Sen-ator Fess; chief doorkeeper; Col. Glenn Ilaynes of Iowa ; assistant, J. N. Johnston, Kansas. pUAXKLLN ROOSEVELT Is deter-" deter-" mined not to have a quarrel with Al .Smith if lie can help it, and in his campaign for delegates the New York governor is becoming most conciliatory and cautious. Up in St. Paul, Minn., he replied in a way to Smith's attack in which ih;u leader of Democracy more than intimated that llooseveit was a demagogue trying to set class against class. This franklin disclaimed, dis-claimed, declaring pleasantly that ne favored a national policy that "seeks to help all simultaneously" an aim with which no one could quarrel but a pronouncement that is scarcely reason rea-son for Smith to abandon his announced intention to take off his coat and fight to the bitter end the nomination of the governor. On the whole, the present pres-ent situation is such that Democratic leaders fear a repetition of the convention con-vention deadlock of 1924 and impairment impair-ment of the party's chances for success at the polls In November. WARNING that wet planks in both party platforms this year would cause the prohibitionists to get together togeth-er and elect a dry President was issued is-sued from the woman's national committee com-mittee for law enforcement. Mrs. Leigh Colvin of New York made the statement before the women's wom-en's convention, at the same time claiming definitely that President Hoover Hoo-ver is a supporter of prohibition. She predicted his defeat, however, if the party adopts a wet plank. Senate committees considered various va-rious proposals relating to prohibition and heard the views of many persons. Matthew Woll of the American Federation Feder-ation of Labor warned the lawmakers of a potential revolution by labor unless un-less the beer industry is revived. Bishop Cannon appeared before the judiciary subcommittee to advocate making the man who buys liquor as guilty as one the whe who sells it. The manufacturers' committee, by a vote of 4 to 7, turned down the Bingham Bing-ham beer bill for 4 per cent beer. Senator Tydings introduced in the senate his emergency construction act as an amendment to the pending tax bill. It provides for the creation of a $1,500,000,000 bond issue to be amortized at the rate of ,10 per cent each year, and to be sold as a "popular "popu-lar loan" to be repaid entirely by a tax levied on 2.75 per cent beer taxes at the rate of 24 cents per gallon. SECRETARY OF STATE STIMSON is now at Geneva and apparently already Is up to the neck in matters relating to disarmament, reparations, security and the oriental ori-ental situation. He is quarted in a One villa and is doing a lot of entertaining, but also he is attending to business. As one real achievement, the disarmament dis-armament conference approved the principle princi-ple of reduction of armaments "to the lowest point consistent consist-ent with national safety safe-ty and the enforce- Sec'y Stimson ment by common action of international interna-tional obligations." Approval of the principle was opposed op-posed only by Maxim Litvinov, head of the Russian delegation, who said the action was not related to any effort ef-fort to secure genuine disarmament. Following up the American and Italian proposals, Sir John Simon, British foreign minister, proposed a resolution indorsing the principle of 'qualitative" disarmament that is, the prohibition of certain classes and types of weapons. This was supported sup-ported by Germany and Italy but opposed op-posed by France. THE Interstate commerce commission, commis-sion, in a report that marked the culmination of a nation-wide survey of the highway-rail transportation situation, sit-uation, recommended legislation regulating regu-lating interstate bus and truck carriers. car-riers. "Unrestrained competition Is an Impossible Im-possible solution of the present transportation trans-portation problem and is incompatible with the aim of co-ordination under regulation." declared the commission. Railroads, whether steam or electric, elec-tric, and water carriers, the commission commis-sion asserted, should be specifically authorized to engage In the transportation trans-portation of both persons and property proper-ty by motor vehicles in Interstate commerce over the public highways. A much milder form of regulation for the Interstate truck carriers, common com-mon or contract, was recommended. pHAIRMAN NORBECTv of the sen-1 sen-1 ate committee investigating short selling of stocks and President Whitney Whit-ney of the New York Stock exchange did not get along well together last week. Mr. Whitney gave a list of 24,000 shorts as of April 8, and the names, made public after a few days, were found to include several prominent promi-nent Americans and some foreigners. Among the former was Arthur Cut-ten. Cut-ten. Norbeck said the inquiry would be greatly extended. SENATOR WILLIAM J. HARRIS, senior senator from Georgia and ranking Democratic member of the appropriations ap-propriations committee, died In Washington Wash-ington following several weeks of illness ill-ness during which he had two major operations and one blood transfusion. He was sixty-four years old and had been in the senate since March, 1919. He was re-elected in 1925, and again in 1931. THE senate adopted and sent to the house a resolution calling upon the secretary of agriculture to Investigate Investi-gate the cost of maintaining the sys- i - I Sen. Capper tem of futures trading in agricultural products prod-ucts and to ascertain what classes of citizens citi-zens bear the cost. Wheat and cotton futures fu-tures both are covered cov-ered in the terms of the resolution, which was formed by the agriculture committee oy combining measures meas-ures sponsored by Senators Capper, Republican, Re-publican, Kansas, and Sheppard, Democrat, Texas. Profits and losses by various classes of traders in wheat and cotton futures fu-tures since July, 1929, together with short sales volume and commission paid by traders, would be gone Into. MRS. LOWELL F. HOBART, retiring re-tiring president general of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Revolu-tion, addressing the continental congress con-gress of the organization in Washington, Washing-ton, asserted that alien internationalists, international-ists, pacifists and criminals are undermining un-dermining the security of American Institutions. Backing up her plea for a united front against these influences, influ-ences, Mrs. Hobart sketched a sordid picture of conditions which she said existed In this depression period. The congress was peaceful this year, the only ticket in the field being headed by Mrs. Kussell William Magna Mag-na of Holyoke, Mass. GREAT BRITAIN'S budget, almost al-most balanced, was introduced to the house of commons by Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamber lain, and the British Brit-ish found there would be no relief for the income in-come tax payers or the beer drinkers for another year. A deficit of about $7,000,000. Mr. Chamberlain estimated, esti-mated, would be eas ily made up by a new customs tax to be an nounced and a tax of eight cents on foreign tea with a preference of four cents on empire em-pire grown tea. The ' Neville Chamberlain income tax remains at about 2o per cent. Of especial interest to America was the fact that the budget makes no provision for $171,500,000 which will be due the United States in the next twelve months on the war debt account. ac-count. Neither does it list in the items of expected revenue the equivalent amount which will be due Britain from German reparations and from the European Eu-ropean allies on their war debts to Britain. Chamberlain said he felt It would be wiser to leave all these war debt and reparations accounts out of consideration con-sideration until after the Lausanne reparations conference. After a decision de-cision is reached at Lausanne and after It is known whether the Hoover moratorium will be extended, there will be a supplementary British budget to meet the conditions then existing, he said. News of this course by the British government started a discussion In congress of the possibility of repudiation repudia-tion by Europe of the war debts owed the United States. Senator Reed of Pennsylvania said he was confident England would pay us when the time comes, and others deprecated the Idea of cancellation. Senator Borah took the opportunity to reply to Al Smith' recent suggestion that the war debts be forgotten for 25 years and then curtailed to the extent of 25 per cent of the value of American goods purchased pur-chased by the debtors in that time. Mr. Borah said this would be In effect comploie cancellation and was a scheme for the benefit of private creditors cred-itors of Europe at the expense of American tax payers. Senator Lewis of Illinois also attacked the Smith Idea, and both he and Borah tied the question up with the disarmament problem. A JAPANESE foreign office spokesman spokes-man has warned Russia of the danger of war if there is any recurrence recur-rence of alleged Soviet-inspired outrages out-rages against Japan in Manchuria. He referred specifically to the wrecking of a troop train near narbin recently, in which 14 Japanese soldiers were killed, responsibility for which Japan flatly charged to Russia. The spokesman pointed out that it must be remembered that while Japan is not sending new troops to the Si berian border, the Russians are con tinuin? to concentrate their forces. (. 1932, Western Newspaper Union. |