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Show SEEN and HEARD around the s NATIONAL CAPITAL JU-i By Carter Field 'Or- FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT Jj) Washington. When a few young Japanese army officers assassinate a few cabinet members and force a change In the government, even if they do kill the wrong man for the premier, Washington diplomats and officials comment very cynically. They say without hesitation that the young officers are taking the blame because It would never do to have the real brains behind the movement exposed. It's a sort of survival, they point out, of the "king can do no wrong" theory. Which means that when the king really does something wrong, some one else takes the blame. "Why, that's what ministers are for," said one old diplomat. P.ut when the same type of thing not killing people but taking the blame for what somebody else did happens In America every one is very serious. It is solemnly debated debat-ed in the house and senate Just as though the "rap takers" were the really guilty parties. Two recent episodes must have amused the diplomatic group here no end. One was the General Ha-good Ha-good case, which is still spouting fireworks, and the other was the definitely closed Marine baud episode. epi-sode. Every one on the Inside in the Navy department knows perfectly well that the then assistant secretary secre-tary of the navy, the late Henry L. Roosevelt, had no more important function in the Marine band episode than an errand boy. It is well known that he had his orders direct di-rect from the White House. It is even known who signed the order, for it was in writing. But there is no use dragging that in, for nobody thinks the secretary who signed the order originated it either. But Henry Roosevelt was roundly denounced for having withdrawn the band from a patriotic women's society convention because Bain-bridge Bain-bridge Colby had made a speech the night before criticizing President Roosevelt. Craig Takes Rap In the General Hagood case, which has distinctly become a "hot potato," If not a boomerang, the gentleman to take the rap is Gen. Malin Craig. It was just terrible, to hear Representative Rep-resentative Thomas L. Blanton of Texas tell it, that a tough, hard-boiled hard-boiled horsewhipper of petty thieves in the army should have been permitted per-mitted to deprive an honest soldier like General Hagood of his command. com-mand. Blanton felt sure President Roosevelt would not stand for any such nonsense, but would force Craig to reinstate the innocent Hagood. Now no one is going to claim that Craig's heart beats warmly at the mere mention of Hagood's name. But neither is anyone who looks at the record going to figure that Craig suddenly became his old horsewhipping horse-whipping self if you believe Blanton Blan-ton just because General Hagood talked boondoggling and stage money, and demanded that the army should have better quarters for its men instead of squandering money on useless projects. It's much harder than trying to believe that the young Japanese officers of-ficers acted on their own initiative. For every army officer who has discussed dis-cussed the situation in private thinks that Hagood is perfectly right, though, some, of course, say he was Indiscreet, to talk about "stage money." But they do agree emphatically that it would be better bet-ter to spend some of this money on the army. So that it would appear a reasonable reason-able deduction that however Craig may have disliked Hagood, he didn't originate the idea of punishing punish-ing him for that. Yet as a result the friends of Roosevelt, trying to protect the President from such an unspeakable unspeak-able martinet's maneuverings, have actually been muckraking Craig's past history, digging out this horsewhipping horse-whipping episode, on which be was exonerated by a senatorial committee commit-tee years ago. Annoys New Dealers Father Coughlin has yielded to I William J. Cameron in being the most annoying speaker from the j New Deal standpoint on the radio I each Sabbath evening from Detroit. In his talk just preceding President Roosevelt's tax message, Cameron devoted all his time to explaining, in simple language, just what the value to the nation in general and the working man in particular was of a big corporation surplus. He pointed out, for instance, that In the years since this depression began industry has spent $27,000,-000,000 $27,000,-000,000 out of surplus in carrying on. employing labor and buying materials ma-terials keeping the wheels turning. He made It perfectly clear that the corporations had spent $27,000,000,-000 $27,000,000,-000 more than they took In during this period, in addition, of course, to every dollar that they did take in. In the same period, Cameron point ed out, the government spenilini; for relief of the employed, for providing Jobs for them, and everything thai pus with it, was only S"i,5ihi,iiini. .000 lust about one-firth. Wilt, I he tremendous difference that this spending by the government means taxes, which hamper business and reduce buying power. No one can estimate the number of persons who listen to Cameron. The radio companies have never perfected any device which would show how many radio sets are tuned in on a given program. And as Cameron happens to make no appeal for funds, nor any request for comment, much .less any suggestion sug-gestion that by sending In some carton covers you may win a prize, there is no means of arriving at even an approximate figure. But Cameron does happen to work for Henry Ford. He talks on the Ford hour, which is mostly devoted to music, which would normally be classed as very high grade, in fact, mostly classical. And radio people say this would limit the number of listeners even if Ford dealers should do a little plugging, as they have been known to do for other things in which Ford was interested. inter-ested. Talks for Ford The chief interest In the Cameron talks to most politically minded folks in Washington is that he Is saying what Henry Ford wants said. Much of it is in an Indirect way of flattering Henry Ford and the kind of business Ford runs. But Ford from time to time has been very keenly Interested in politics, pol-itics, and the Cameron talk about, the use of which the corporations of the country put their surpluses may be accepted as Ford's refiec-tion refiec-tion on the Ideas underlying the Roosevelt tax proposal. Which is the more interesting, because it projects Itself into the Presidential campaign. Because at the moment there seems little real doubt that the Roosevelt idea of forcing bigger distribution of corporation cor-poration earnings is going to become be-come law. As experts here analyze the situation, sit-uation, the new tax policy would mean bigger dividends, bigger spending for replacements, more advertising aimed at the future as well as the present, and more wages. So far all to the good. But they also figure that it points inevitably to bigger and worse depressions de-pressions punctuating the spells of greater prosperity. This on the theory that when depression conies there will not be the cushion to break the fall. Hence it will be more precipitate. There would not be this $27,000,-000,000 $27,000,-000,000 for the corporations to spend, for instance. The New Deal answer is that if the surpluses are spent as they are earned, there won't be any depressions. Cut Down on Relief Assuming that congress does vote a tax bill calculated to bring in $7SG,000,000 additional, the budget will be precisely balanced except for whatever may be appropriated later for relief, and plus, of course, anything else congress may appropriate appro-priate which is not now on the program. pro-gram. Which means that the federal government will go into debt during dur-ing the year beginning July 1 precisely pre-cisely the amount of the relief appropriations. ap-propriations. In his budget message mes-sage President Roosevelt pointed out that if relief appropriations are less than two billion dollars, the budget picture will be just that much better than it was for the present year. There is no doubt whatever that the relief appropriation will be less than two billion dollars. It will not be anything like that much. But it will have to be a good rounri sum. Some of the experts are talking talk-ing about one billion dollars, but nobody knows, not even the men who will decide what congress is to be asked to appropriate Presi dent Roosevelt himself and Administrator Admin-istrator Harry L. Hopkins. Not only that, but they will not know what it is really going to be when they ask for it, nor after congress has given it to them. They may spend less than is appropriated, appropri-ated, or the precise amount, or more. This last possibility is not as silly as it sounds. Government agencies that have the backing of the President have never worried too much about what has been appropriated. ap-propriated. That is what we have deficiency bills for to take care of just such "emergencies." And there are generally about two of those omnibus measures a year. Taking tile good round figure of one billion for relief, however, for no other reason than it is the best obtainable at the present moment, this would mean that the govern-ment govern-ment will go one billion dollars fur ther into debt during the year beginning be-ginning July 1. This is the really important situation situ-ation that underlies all the froth of present tax consideration by the house and senate. It explains why members of the house todav are in ahlerl tear that when their tax bill gets over to the senate the notion of Senators I. a I'ulletie. Vandei-oerg Vandei-oerg and I'oitens ui:iy prevail. f,;, r. '.( w r vu. |
