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Show Xcirs Review of Current Events CHINA'S HORROR GROWS Thousands Die in Unofficial War . . . Senate Confirms Black Appointment . . . House Debates Deficiency Bill SUMMARIZES THE WORLD'S WEEK j Western Newspaper Union, Declared or Not, Its War SHANGHAI'S "war" of 1932 was a second-rate movie sham battle compared with what's going on over there now. The city of 3,500,000 in-j in-j habitants and its environs are a 1 scene of destruction, terror, flames and death on a mass scale the horror hor-ror of which is unthinkable. Thousands upon thousands of civilians ci-vilians lie dead, dying and wounded, and the toll increases day after day. No estimate has even been attempted attempt-ed to determine the amount of casualties cas-ualties among the Chinese and Japanese Jap-anese fighting forces. Indeed such an estimate today might be woefully inadequate tomorrow, for reports tell of whole brigades being shot or blown to bits in a single encounter. encoun-ter. Square mile after square mile, especially in the native Chapei district, dis-trict, has been gutted by fires that rise in the wake of bombs and artillery artil-lery shells. Millions of men, women wom-en and children face slower, even more terrible death by hunger, for who is to bring supplies from the outlying farm fields while the whole area is under terrific fire? Even in the International Settlement Settle-ment life is fleeting, insecure, for bombs and shells drop there, too. ! And with 1.000,000 refugees inside to j be fed, shops are rapidly locking ' their doors to protect their wares j from rioters. As this is written, the Chinese j land forces, outnumbering the Japanese Jap-anese four to one, are forcing the ' invaders slowly back to the Whang-! Whang-! poo in fierce ground fighting. Whether Wheth-er expected Japanese reinforce-i reinforce-i ments will be able to tum the tide of i battle is problematical. At the same ! time Japanese warships half the i entire Japanese fleet must be in the Whangpoo are showering exploding explod-ing shells upon huge concentrations : of Chinese soldiers. : Eye-witnesses reported that the Japanese had concentrated some 40 destroyers, six cruisers, four dread-' dread-' naughts, an airplane carrier and i many gunboats in the rivers near Shanghai. Only through a clever maneuver did the Chinese prevent them from regaining the upper reaches of the Whangpoo and shelling shell-ing Shanghai from the rear. The Chinese, in a surprise attack, captured cap-tured six Japanese merchant ships, sailed them into the heart of the . channel and scuttled them, prevent-i prevent-i ing passage. j American authorities in Shanghai ! decided upon immediate evacuation j by the 3,800 Yanks living there. The I danger which confronted them was j emphasized when stray Japanese bombs blasted the American Eap-i Eap-i tist mission, leaving the fate of 20 I persons inside in grave doubt. ! United States marines were on hand, of course, to ofTer what pro-j pro-j tection they could to American na-; na-; tionals. and reinforcements were ; quick in leaving San Dicgn. Calif., to join them. The U. S. S. Augusta, . flagship of Uncle Sam's China i squadron, lay in the Whangpoo alongside the Japanese ships. With . shrapnel flying about their ears, i Americans were getting out of China on every available ship. ! It was not considered likely that j President Roosevelt would invoke I the neutrality act so long as no i "official" state of war between ; Japan and China existed. This I would involve the declaration of cm-j cm-j bargoes on arms and on the extension exten-sion of credits to both nations, a ' situation which would be of definite I aid to the aggressor, Japan, since China is in far greater need of war , materials. i Japan continued to "defend" it-j it-j self, officially, from the wicked - Chinese, whom its foreign office characterized as "prejudiced." However the "defense" was being 1 carried on in the other fellow's back ' yard. Japanese authorities con-j con-j tinued to insist that they meant no harm to the Chinese people, and that their aim was still for the co-j co-j operation of China, Manchukuo - and Japan. They also revealed that I voluntary contributions to the na-J na-J lion's war chest, coming from all over Japan, had passed the S2.Ti0,-I S2.Ti0,-I 000 mark. ; Question Black's Eligibility ' ""pHK senate confirmed Ihc I'rosl-' I'rosl-' -1 dent's nomination of Sen. Hugo j L. niack of Alabama to the Supreme j court, 01 to 11. but only after a ! bitt'T fight, following which the mi-' mi-' norily protested that the cmiliniia- lion had been railroaded through. Six Democrat" and ten Itcpnbll. cans voted against P.la'k. The H'un- - o'T at ip insui gent s, led by Isdward It. ti-nke Ob.) a ml llov.il S. Cope-Is, Cope-Is, )d CJ. Y.) based their objections objec-tions principally upon eliarges that h'- was a-soeuiVd with the Ku I", lux j lilan. and therefor.- unh'b-l to sit I villi II:" high tribunal for reasons ! of racial and r'-llgioos prejudice. The h'-puUirans, notably William I-;. It. a ,,h ( Idaho), argil, d that he could not legally h'-eoiiie ;i member of the court. To at hit eligibility might he I. -led h' fore th" court Itself was a possj. bihly when Attorney Albert Levitt, r ; ' t I .. f? V :S : v : Appointee in judicial mien. former special assistant to Attorney General Homer S. Cummings, filed a plea for leave to pray an order for Black to show affirmatively why he should be permitted to serve as an associate justice. He raised the same legal questions as the Republican Repub-lican minority had: 1. That Black could not become a justice because during his term as a senator the Sumners retirement act was passed, permitting justices to retire at full pay. The Constitution Constitu-tion provides that no member of congress shall be appointed to an office which was created or the emolument of which was increased during his membership in congress. 2. That no vacancy existed on the Supreme court anyway, since Justice Jus-tice Willis Van Devanter had only retired, not resigned, and may still be called for judicial service by the chief justice. It was expected that the Black appointment would become political politi-cal fodder in the next election campaigns. cam-paigns. Grist from the Mill A FTER months of wrangling over the Supreme court measure, the wages and hours bill, the ever-normal-granary bill and oilier administration ad-ministration "musts" the house of representatives began to act upon some other legislation in haste, with a view to adjournment some day. some time. The house appropriations committee commit-tee reported out the year's last "deficiency" "de-ficiency" measure to supply funds for government operations overlooked over-looked in the regular budget. It called for $73,500,000; two previous deficiency measures, totaling nearly a billion, had been passed. The committee turned down requests from the executive department for S-43.000.000 in additional appropriations. appropria-tions. Some of the appropriations recommended were $23.0")0.000 for new buildings. S3. 000. 000 for federal participation in the New York world's fair and Sl.a00.000 for participation par-ticipation in the San Francisco world's fair. Funds for the opera-tion opera-tion of the Joncs-Carkhcad farm tenancy act and for naval building were denied altogether: apprnr nations na-tions for payments to federal land banks and the Federal Farm Mortgage Mort-gage corporation, and the national labor relations board were sliced severely. se-verely. The house passed the low-cost housing bill, but with so many alterations al-terations that it had to go to a joint committee for the differences to be straightened out before it could be sent to the White House. The sen-ate sen-ate had approved a bond issue of $700,000,000; the house shaved it to SaOO.000. The house also raised ttie percentage of funds which local communities must contribute to projects; increased the limitation of cost of a single dwelling to Sa.ODO or SI. 000 a room; and cut the limit of any one state's share in the funds from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. The house also passed a bill designed de-signed to plug the tax loopholes by which, it was alleged, the wealthy have been, legally or illegally, avoiding the payment of iurome taxes which they have a moral if not a legal right to pay. The ex-tremely ex-tremely complicated bill carried unanimously after only two hours' consideration. Strange Doings at Sea L"OUK insurgent airplanes dropped 21 bombs upon the Danish vessel ves-sel Edith and sank It In the M.vli-tcranncan, M.vli-tcranncan, came the report from Larcelonn. The crew of 20 and a French observer for the non-intervention control were rescued by two fishing boats. The owners of the vessel. In Copenhagen, said It was their twentieth ship to bo captured or bombed by the rebels. The captain of the French freighter freight-er I'came reported In authorities that a torpedo had been fired upon his ship by an tin ident i lieij submarine subma-rine winch Moated In- i.le Ins ship f,,r several minutes oir the Tunisian coast. Whi n the S i,i n i: h tanker Campea-dor Campea-dor wai sunk In the Medileri .mean, .me-an, the rebel command issued n commuiii'pie taking the full blame. Itut the captain of the tanker Insisted In-sisted an llalian destroyer sank iL Campaign Aftermath 'TpURNED down by the house rules committee when he demanded a special investigation, Rep. Bertrand H. Snell of New York, Republican floor leader, has carried direct to Attorney At-torney General Homer S. Cummings his charges of violation of the federal fed-eral corrupt practices act by the Democratic national committee. The charges arise from National Chairman Chair-man James A. Farley's ingenious method of selling Democratic convention con-vention books, autographed by President Pres-ident Roosevelt, for $250 each. In a letter to Cummings, Snell charged: 1. That sales of the book, autographed auto-graphed by the President, in 1936, ! at $250 each constitute an illegal j collection of campaign funds and a direct violation of section 313 of the corrupt practices act, 2. That a Colorado man was the ; "victim of eleven specific acts of I reprisals" by the resettlement ad- j ministration and threats to "put him out of business" since his refusal j last October to subscribe- $500 to the book sales campaign. 3. That a New Yorker was ap- proached by a Democratic campaign 1 committee agent with promise of White House intervention in return j for a $25,000 subscription or retainer, j Snell attached affidavits and a synopsis of the evidence he had fur- ; nished the house rules committee. ! Rebels Press Santander i t EPORTS from the insurgent j command said that 35 villages j and 1.000 prisoners had been cap- j tured by the rebels in their drive on ! Santander and the tiny remaining slice of the northern Spanish coast held by the government The gov- ; ernment admitted that some ad- vances had been made, but refused I to concede that General Franco's forces were threatening the main j defenses of the Santander area. j Franco, in his new drive, was using us-ing the same tactics which eventu- ally brought about the downfall of ' Bilbac after a siege of many i months. Bombing planes and artil- i lery were pounding the fortifications while other airplanes poured machine ma-chine gun fire upon trenches and ! dugouts. Insurgents planned the Santander advance to require as little manpower man-power as possible, so as to leave enough men at the Madrid front to start a separate offensive there if necessary. They admitted the loyalists loy-alists had caught them napping with an offensive west of Madrid in July, causing them to abandon the Santander San-tander drive temporarily, but declared de-clared that "That will not happen this time." Rumor Has Farley Quitting IS "Genial Jim" Farley going to resign as postmaster general to become the executive head of an automobile firm? That's what his friends in Washing- ,L , .',-! ton say, and J'.m . j has not denied the if rumor, as he has ' promptly dented s. S similar rumors In Ti -v.' 1 the past. Farley, it 1 is said, seeks to re- . " i habilitate his per- 1 " , j sonal fortunes. As V s postmaster general - he has lost $10,000 a ' , ' ' j year over his salary " of S15.000 and is. ac- Jim 'ieY cording to his friends, today in debt. The story went that he would become be-come an executive cf the Pierce-Arrow Pierce-Arrow Motor corporation, that 5.0o0 new shares of stock would be deliv-! deliv-! ercd to him, and that he would also be allowed to share in the $100. 000 stock purchase warrants. Wonder if the I'irrcc-Arrow sales force is watching the charts for Maine and Vermont? - French Lifeline Periled? "IM1E Pans press disclosed that France considers herself in dan-ger dan-ger of losing her possessions in the Near East and of having her nir route connections with the Far East severed because of revolts in Syria. Censorship of the news out of Syria is strict, but some reports have leaked through which indicate the revolt recently quelled was a serious one. According to one (Its-patch (Its-patch the population is extremely dissatisfied with the terms of the Franco-Syrian treaty signed last September 10. As soon as the proper prop-er machinery can be set up. the treaty provides, a unified Syrian state will be formed from four of the five mandate areas, which the French hold in the Levant. Large sections of the population dilTer in religion from the Syrians in Damascus. They are willing to be governed by a foreign nation like France, as they have been for centuries, cen-turies, but they do not want to be subjected to the will of the Damascus Damas-cus politicians. - - Protests Lease of Ships T A NATION, inlluential newspaper I vof llucnos Aires. Argentina, caused some stir by vigorously protesting pro-testing the proposed leasing of obsolete ob-solete United States warships to lliail, declaring that such an act would upset the balance of naval power in South America. Secretary of Slate Hull had written writ-ten a letter to the senate naval com-mitlee com-mitlee ir king congressional authority authori-ty for the leasing of over age war vessels to South American ropub lies. When the Argentinian objections objec-tions wore noted. President Koo-.e-vell pointed out that the vessels in question weip obadete, inn wei e only to be used for li. lining. |
