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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBINE Charge Pittman Embargo Bill Constitutes Admission by U. S. Of Japan's Belligerent Rights (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper Union 1 CONGRESS: Neutrality First guesses after the senate foreign for-eign relations committee tabled the Bloom-Hull measure held that neutrality neu-trality was a dead issue this session. Not counted upon were Sen. Key Pittman's enthusiasm and the White House's insistence. Because President Presi-dent Roosevelt evidently feared a European war after the harvest season, sea-son, he demanded that neutrality legislation be passed this session. Nor would congressional objection avail much; filibusters are a handy weapon for stalemating legislation, but the President's special session threat made it seem more desirable to act now than be called back from vacation. The President's program: (1) retention re-tention of the munitions board; (2) barring of American ships from combat zones; (3) restriction of American travel in such zones; (4) transfer of title of goods sold to bel- KEY PITTMAN Japan would suffer, also gain. ligerents before shipment; (5) continued con-tinued restrictions on loans and credits to warring nations; (6) regulation regu-lation of fund collections in the U. S. for belligerents. Though all inclusive and appar- ently carrying more tenacles with which American isolationists fear the U. S. might become involved abroad, the President's program carries far less potential dynamite than Senator Pittman's measure. Under this bill, the President would be forced to declare a munitions embargo against any nation violating violat-ing the 1922 nine-power Chinese non-aggression non-aggression treaty. The obvious target: tar-get: Japan. But what Mr. Pittman apparently forgot is that such declaration would constitute American admission that a state of war exists in China a fact Japan has never admitted. Japan Ja-pan would thus gain belligerent rights in China and U. S. interests would have to flee the war zone. Thus America's entire Oriental position po-sition would be toppled, and the embargo em-bargo would have little effect unless un-less Great Britain follows the unlikely un-likely course of adopting similar tactics. Most vital from a White House viewpoint is immediate repeal of the existing arms embargo, which the President ar.d Secretary of State Cordell Hull believe gives encouragement encour-agement to Dictators Hitler and Mussolini, who know that in event of war with Britain and France the ban on U. S. arms shipments must be invoked against all belligerents. Isolationists, admitting this, think it would be a good idea. AGRICULTURE: More Trouble On July 1 the U. S. looked forward for-ward to a wheat crop of 716,655,000 bushels, comparatively small beside last year's 930,801,000 bushels and the 10-year (1928-37) average of 752,-962,000 752,-962,000 bushels. Obviously, wheat is not a source of worry for Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace this year. But a job with more than its just quota of worries has produced three others to take the place of wheat: Tobacco. Last year growers voted to remove strict marketing control provisions of the farm law, resulting result-ing in a big expansion of acreage this year. As of July 1 the tobacco forecast for this year was 1,654,622,-000 1,654,622,-000 pounds, compared with an average av-erage crop of 1,360,400,000 pounds. If estimates materialize, some experts ex-perts believe prices will be depressed de-pressed 25 per cent below last year; also that under law another referendum ref-erendum must be held on tobacco quotas. If approved the quotas would not become operative until the 1940 crop started to market. Corn. Forecast now is a crop of ttround 2,570.795,000 bushels, compared com-pared with the 10-year average of 2.300,674,000 bushels. Reasons: (1) unusually favorable weather in June; (2) a sharp increase in plantings plant-ings of hit;h-yielding hybrid corn. With a surplus of about 450,000.000 bushels from previous seasons already al-ready on hand, experts predict some governmental action will be necessary neces-sary to forestall undue price depression. de-pression. If marketing quotas result, re-sult, approved by two-thirds of corn-belt corn-belt farmers, growers would be required re-quired to store their share of the excess supply or pay a penalty tax of 10 cents a bushel. Cotton. With 14,350,000 bales of cotton hanging over his head, Secretary Sec-retary Wallace persuaded congress to give him $928,000,000 for curing the surplus problem. Of this, a large part will go to cotton, distributing it among U. S. relief families and offsetting losses in selling cotton to foreign buyers at cut-rate prices, i.e., government subsidy. But in New York the Cotton Exchange service serv-ice moaned a few days ago that cotton exports this season may be the smallest in more than 50 years, not in spite of, but because of government gov-ernment aid. The factors: "First American cotton has been priced roughly at one cent a pound above competitive relationships with foreign growths that can be readily substituted for American cotton. This, in turn, being due to the fact that American cotton prices have been largely pegged by government loans. "Second For several months foreign for-eign users of American cotton have not dared to make normal forward purchases of the American staple because they have not known to what extent the price of American cotton abroad will be lowered by the prospective subsidy payments on exports by the U. S." POLITICS: Yes or No? One good way of ruining an opponent op-ponent is to give him so much rope he hangs himself. When Indiana's one-time Gov. Paul V. McNutt returned re-turned from his $18,000-a-year post as governor general of the Philippine Philip-pine islands, he became the nation's No. 1 outspoken seeker after 1940' s Democratic nomination. What amazed onlookers was that he boldly walked into the lion's mouth, conferring con-ferring with President Roosevelt and his traditional enemy, Postmaster General James A. Farley. What amazed them still more was Paul McNutt's appointment a few days later as $12,000-a-year head of the newly created U. S. security agency. agen-cy. What did it mean? Was Paul McNutt the President's choice for 1940? Or was Mr. Roosevelt craftily plotting the political suicide of this ambitious Hoosier, thus insuring his own renomination for a third term? The pro and con: Buildup? "Liberalism" is a much worn-out word denoting the New Deal's objectives. The last few months it has been succeeded by "humanitarianism" as the keynote for 1940. Not to be forgotten is the "humanitarian" scope of Paul McNutt's Mc-Nutt's new job, where he has charge of social security, the office of education, edu-cation, National Youth administration administra-tion and Civilian Conservation corps, ' 1x '""" ? j 1311 v :'--W4m i i MANAGER McH.VLE Coming along fine. all strong talking points a smart politician can use to further his own cause. Neither should Paul McNutt's travel opportunities be forgotten; as head of the security agency his chances for speeches and political contacts are practically unlimited and he is expected to make the most of them. Breakdown? The security post is not all roses. Keen observers know Paul McNutt is in the limelight where both Democrats and Republicans Repub-licans can take pot-shots at him between now and nomination day. They also know that his new job may be a good place to build a man up personally, yet "humanitarianism" "humanitarian-ism" should have nothing to do with politics; therefore Mr. McNutt must be discreet. Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, McNutt Mc-Nutt Manager Frank McHale could figure his campaign to date had been a success. His candidate, like young Lochinvar, had come out of the west after 2Vz years in Manila, where he could make no embarrassing entangling entan-gling alliances. More important, he had returned to get what Frank McHale Mc-Hale termed the President's endorsement en-dorsement as a candidate for 1940. HOUSING: Political Vogue? Periodically there arises a David who slays the wicked giant Goliath. Usually it sets a fashion until corruptness cor-ruptness again catches hold. Last year New York's racket-busting States Attorney Thomas E. Dewey , became a David, captured public : fancy, inspired radio programs and placed wicked politicians on the defensive. de-fensive. The public obviously wanted want-ed reform and no more rackets. When Tom Dewey began looming as a 1940 G. O. P. presidential possibility, pos-sibility, reformation sounded like good strategy for any aspiring politician poli-tician or party. By early July, Attorney At-torney General Frank Murphy had behind him an excellent record of smashing corrupt political machines (like Kansas City's Tom Pender-gast) Pender-gast) and tracking down income tax 1 RACKET BUSTER DEWEI Everybody's doing it. evaders. This was the signal for Scnpps-Howard Columnist Raymond Clapper to charge that Frank Murphy Mur-phy was trying too hard to win the vice presidential nomination. Meanwhile there was arising another an-other administration racket-busting program under guidance of the justice jus-tice department's Thurman W. Arnold. Ar-nold. Its aim: To drive trust practices, prac-tices, price-fixing and collusion out of the U. S. building industry. The day Mr. Arnold told, his plans to the temporary national economic committee, Chicago Daily News' William H. Fort wrote from Washington Wash-ington that this was "obviously the New Deal's most ambitious trust-busting trust-busting venture in its attempt to push young Tom Dewey's New York activities into the shade." Designing or not, Thurman Arnold's Ar-nold's drive bids fair to accomplish something. With 140 lawyers and an enlarged appropriation, the justice jus-tice department expects to uncover plenty of reasons why a metropolitan metropoli-tan dweller runs into trouble when he wants to build a house. Alleged monopolistic devices: (1) fixing of prices by producers of building materials ma-terials and trade associations; (2) use of joint selling agencies; (3) control of sales and limiting of quantities. TRADE: Penalties It is no coincidence that the world's topmost aggressive powers, Italy, Germany and Japan, must force exports to maintain a balance of trade. One primary reason is that peace-loving nations would sooner trade elsewhere; another, goods for which foreign markets are available must be kept at home to guarantee self-sufficiency in case of war and to build military machines. Therefore no deliberate anti-Nazi gesture was involved last spring when the U. S. began levying countervailing coun-tervailing duties on goods imported for Germany. Though this move coincided with the Reich's absorption absorp-tion of Czecho-Slovakia, treasury and state departments pointed out that Germany customarily forces exports through subsidy, thereby giving its manufacturers an unfair advantage. Similar reasoning was behind the countervailing duties recently imposed im-posed on Italian silk exports to the U. S., which treasury officials discovered dis-covered were being subsidized. Skipping next to aggressive Japan, Ja-pan, the U. S. is investigating complaints com-plaints from domestic textile manufacturers man-ufacturers that Nipponese cotton goods makers are being given government gov-ernment subsidy, boosting still further fur-ther the natural world trade advantage advan-tage they gain by low operating costs. Result: Observers predict countervailing duties will soon be imposed on cotton imports from Japan. |
