Show news review of current events the world over credit expansion reopening of banks and rehabilitation of railways planned ocean mail and ship deals under investigation by EDWARD W PICKARD PRESIDENT RESIDENT ROOSEVELT like nil all pother 1 other persons knows that the recovery program has been slumping clumping slum ping somewhat of late because the rising prices of commodities have not been met by increased purchasing power and by reeni re eni cm still averse to currency inflation 7 and devaluation of tho the dollar the chief executive called calle d into conference several high officials of his administration to plan for further expansion secretary of credit and to g woodin wo dl reopening of closed banks thereby freeing several billions of dollars represented by the frozen assets of those institutions secretary of the Tren treasury sury woodin not yet recovered wholly from ills late illness was one of the conferees the others were secretary of agriculture wallace attorney general cummon gov eugene black of the federal reserve board lewis IV douglas director of tile the budget jesse 11 jones chairman of the reconstruction finance corporation walter J cummings conservator of closed banks and J F T oconnor controller of the currency following the conference the president took train for ills his alyde park fark home and on the train he had bad a long talk with prof james 11 rogers yale tale economist rogers then returned to washington and discussed financial matters with douglas and others this led to the report that some som change involving the purchasing power of the dollar was imminent but dispatches from nyde hyde park said no announcement no on monetary policy was forthcoming yet senator thomas of oklahoma announced that several groups working with him for inflation had decided t to suspend their campaign for the moment to permit trial of the credit ev et program proposed by president roosevelt it was stated with authority that the president hopes to get a large proportion of the closed banks reopened before january 1 when the deposit insurance system goes into effect in order to qualify for deposit insurance banks must be liquid thousands of the closed banks the president Is advised are solvent but not sufficiently liquid to meet the requirements for reopening to make them liquid additional capital must be provided to the extent such additional capital Is not furnished by the communities muni ties in which the banks are situated it will be supplied by the R F C through purchase of preferred stock in the institutions according to the plan approved at the white house conference TEEL manufacturers under the S STEEL urging of president roosevelt and joseph B eastman coordinator co of transportation have agreed to competitive bidding for the sale of rails to the rall railways ways and sir mr eastman announced that tons of rails will be bought as soon JIS as financial arrangements can be made if the bids of the steel companies show that reductions in the price have been made the money will be loaned to the railroads direct from public works funds competitive bl bidding diling and bottom price it was hoped by mr roosevelt and mr eastman also would result in the purchase by the railroads of quantities of rolling stock and equipment which deals too would be financed by the government loans for buying rails mils it was said may run to some equipment loans may surpass that amount reports of railroad business are encouraging cou raging the first 57 railroads reporting august business had a total net operating income of approximately double that of the preceding august A year ago the figure for tile the same number of carriers was IT the increase amounting to per cent the net operating income of these carriers in july totaled 50 an increase of per caz cent over july 1032 gross ree revenues of the 57 carriers in august amounted to compared with 2 in july and in august last year M MANY ANT of our large cities are in desperate financial straits and have been looking to the public works administration for salvation there has been much criticism of the slowness with which the of federal money allocated tor for municipal and state projects Is being handed out by secretary of the interior ickes the administrator hut but mr air ickes met the mayors of 55 cities at the chicago worlds fair and let them know plainly that the cities themselves were at fault it Is now largely in tile the hands bands of the mayors of our cities to determine whether the public works program will fully serve its purpose in aiding in the economic recovery of the country said secretary ickes in ills his address our national treasury Is walten waiting to be drawn upon for hundreds of millions of dollars for useful public works the administration in washington can approve your projects and advance funds necessary to complete them we have moved and are movie ing expeditiously if circumspectly but there Is a point beyond which we cannot go wo we can give you money we ca can n help you to decide what project to undertake we can aid you in supervising your work but we cannot decide for you whether you want public works we cannot force you to move any anster faster than you are willing trilling to move 0 OCEAN CEAN mail and ship construction contracts let during the hoover administration are under investigation ly by a senate committee headed bended by senator seni I 1 lingo black ot of i alabama and interesting deals are being revealed on the first day black charged that herberman 7 of new york president of the export steamship corporation po ration had directed one of his employees to pay a tailor bill ot of T V oconnor senator senat black then chairman of ill the e united states shipping board this berberman ner Iler berman flatly denied but he and other witnesses were not able to easily dispose of testimony concerning alleged favors to various former officials it was disclosed that ocean mall mail subsidies paid to the export steamship corporation annually amounted to more than the organization paid the shipping board for eighteen vessels A formal statement that C bascom slemp of virginia who once was secretary to president coolidge had helped help ed to engineer the ship purchasing deal at a price lower than originally asked by the shipping board was placed before the committee by iier herberman herber ber roan in a letter to senator black chairman of the committee Iler berman wrote that slemp had billed him for tor for legal fees in connection with the sale of the ships at a ton ion instead ot of as asked by admiral palmer of the shipping board the sale price IIer Iler berman wrote was a compromise and the question involved was the per ton to be paid for shipping board vessels adding that sir mr slemp acted in connection with this matter and felt that his bis services were worth as I 1 recall I 1 actually paid him on july 1 1925 and on july 19 I 1 1925 clemp slemp resigned as secretary to mr coolidge in january of 1023 1025 sirs mrs mina 0 irvine who was secretary to oconnor for many years at the shipping board testified she negotiated several florida deals for ner her berman she said that after a justice department agent had sought to inspect files at her shipping board office with regard to the transactions she had destroyed the records miss clara mcquown of washington told of her work as a lecturer employed at a month by the american steamship owners association to put merchants marine propaganda before clubs P PRESIDENT RESIDENT ROOSEVELT always a friend of tile the bavy haa turned down a british suggestion that the american naval construction program be cut down the state department issued this statement in reply to suggestions from the british BrItIs li government that the laying down ot of any six inch gun cruisers larger than those now in existence might be deferred during the life of the disarmament conference or at least pending further discussion of the qualitative limitations or of future sh ships the american government has replied that it lid did not see its way clear to alter its dela belated ed naval construction program or to suspend the laying down of any projected ships the ships in question are four 10 ton six luch inch gun cruisers th the e savannah the nashville the brooklyn and the philadelphia EN convicts made a sensational TEN escape from the indiana penitentiary at michigan city stole automobiles a sheriff and scattered followed a great man hunt by hundreds of police of 0 indiana and illinois which was still going on at this writing the entire population of pennsyl eastern penitentiary at philadelphia delp hla comprising 1492 long term felons staged a wild revolt because they had lost their special privileges for a previous riot they near beat the warden arden w severely and set fire cre to their mattresses but finally were subdued george kolly kelly a notorious desperado known as Macht machine ne gun wanted tor for participation in the of 0 C F urschel of oklahoma city cily was captured in memphis tenn after a long hunt blunt its ills wire wife also was arrested and both were taken back to oklahoma tor for trial kolly Is also charged with having baving a part in killings and robberies in kansas city and chicago pley GENERAL jim farley practical and hard headed la in going after some hundreds hundred of fourth class postmasters who haya have been racketeering at the 7 expense ot of the government A ern ment nis ills inspectors already have conducted an investigation of the facts and 14 it Is likely many of the sinners will lose 0 their positions a and n d some of them may go to prison fourth class postmasters ma most of whom are in small postmaster Pot marter i villages receive ago gen farley fa per cent on the first 75 of postage they cancel 63 per cent on the next nest and 75 per cent on all in excess of to this compensation are added the rental of post office boxes and an all allowance of 15 13 per cent for rent light fuel and equipment they also receive a commission of 3 cents each on all the money orders this method of compensating these thes a rural postmasters it appears prompts some of them to use various devices to increase cancellations the more stamps they cancel the more they make the inspectors have reported many schemes adopted by postmasters to swell the cancellation tees fees some of them have mailed bricks gravel and other bulky and worthless articles others who conduct stores sell groceries to their relatives and friends la in other localities and by affixing sufficient postage on the bags and boxes insured their delivery by the rural carrier in the neighborhood they not only received profit on the sales but also received from the government the amount of stamps placed on the packages plus the usual per cent representative J J cochran instigated the investigation and it Is expected that in the next nest session of congress lie he will lead a movement to have the present system of compensation of fourth class postmasters radically changed and thousands of the offices abolished thor TROUBLES ROUBLES between organized labor and employers predicted somo some time ago are coming fast coal miners of western pennsylvania to the number dumber of nearly a hundred thousand were on strike calling it a holiday in west virginia also there was labor discord at weirton employees were forced into idleness in a dispute between company union and an independent union the second attempt in two days to picket the clairton works of the carnegie steel company was frustrated and deputy sheriffs hurried to the plant on a tip that another invasion was planned employees of the ford plant at chester pa ila struck and the ford company promptly closed down the plant for an indefinite period A federal mediator was sent there but was told there was nothing to mediate the chester workers planned to go to edgewater N J and ask the ford employees there to join in the demand for more pay it was expected that general johnson recovery administrator would soon announce carefully drafted plans tor for a general reorganization of the tha INRA from an emergency temporary setup into a cohesive body ready to function through the two year life of the recovery act drawn by thomas S hammond ammond II of chicago with the aid of the policy board the plan calls for greater accent upon self regul regulation litton by industries operating under codes with the government to step in only when necessary A AN N outstanding figure among the statesmen gathered at geneva for the coming disarmament conference Is dr paul joseph goebbels propaganda minister MEW of the bitler government of germany lie ile may not be so important as foreign minister von neurath but tor for the present lie he Is more voluble and it Is he who is 13 putting forth G e r banys demands for arms equality a and n 1 I who Is ostensibly do paul joseph joselit ing ng the Il horse lorse trad goebbels ing for his country in the discussions that center about the french proposal for strict supervision of arms during a four yea year r test period the german delegates it was said in geneva had been given full ful I 1 power by hitler to conclude a disarmament accord and an indication that some soine agreement might be reached was seen in tile the fact that the french and german statesmen were brought together at a carefully arranged private dinner attended also by sir john simon binion of england and some italians italy has been favorable to Cerman germanas germanys Germ anys ys demands to a certain extent and has put forward a plan alloN allowing Izig partial re armament of the retch the germans were willing to accept the supervision plan but only it if tile the commission were authorized to supervise not armaments but merely effectives another in other words it would see that germany carried out its obligations to transform the welchs wehr luto into a 2 short term militia and disband semi military organizations ING LARDNER one of americas RING best known humorists died at his homo home in fit east Ilam liton long island after a loo long illness at tho the age of 0 forty eight in england sirs mrs A 11 II williamson Wllliam son an american uha aho wrote many popular novels to in collaboration bilth her english husband 0 N wll wil alamson ll amson passed away at biath 0 1933 western Newa newspaper paper union |