Show national topics interpreted by william bruckart 27 washington henry heary A wallace sec of agriculture Is girding his armor to fight off a wallace drive to revise the will fight agricultural adjustment act mr wallace sees many sinister moves now being befog made in that direction and he Is preparing to meet his adversaries in the congressional battle that now appears certain to come the secretary freely admits now that there may be some changes necessary in the adjustment act but his position will be boldly against too much whittling when agricultural legislation Is before congress in january the con diction Is held by him that the agricultural situation has been improved by the new deal program pre gram and he Is avowedly favorable to its retention in a general way although in a recent speech mr wallace told the national grange that probably it would be necessary to reexamine examine re the basis of the program that has bag been operating now more than a year exactly what form the drives on the adjustment net act and administration nay may take this coming winter said mr wallace in an interview the other day no one of us can say but from present indications I 1 would anticipate the most potent drive to be directed at restrictions on agricultural production so I 1 envision a conflict a choice between two paths one leading to unrestricted agricultural production at the earliest possible moment the other leaden lending to continuance and perfection of the pres preg ent control methods either path may very well require certain changes in the agricultural adjustment act before I 1 discuss unrestricted production in detail I 1 would like to say parenthetically that I 1 am for it provided there Is a sufficient excess of imports over exports to service the debts owed us by foreign nations and in addition to pay a fair price for our exportable surplus and provided furthermore that shipment of these excess products abroad does not impoverish our soll soil beyond repair while mr wallace is saying that the drive Is on the adjustment act observers are finding considerable objection among farmers to control from washington I 1 think it Is an undoubted fact that the american farmers are rock ribbed individualists and that beang bein true they naturally resent having bureaucrats sitting in ID washington offices tell them what to do and how hov to do it because the farm industry was so flat on its back when the adjustment act was passed the bulk of the farmers were willing to accept anything that promised a measure of relief according to the considered judgment of students who have watched the whole picture they have found now however that unhappy consequences have resulted and I 1 am told by many members of congress that they are uncertain whether there Is a majority of farmers in this country now favorable to the new deal farm program it seems reasonably certain therefore that the discussion of farm legislation in the new consumer congress will devel to be heard OP that which has not been developed before namely the voice of the con sumer there Is also likely to be violent expressions from the corn and hog producers because of the processing taxes on hogs bogs A goodly number of farm leaders believe after surveys among actual farmers that the processing taxes on hogs have been taken out of the farmers hide bide and not the hog I 1 told you yon some weeks ago that there was every prospect of a proposal to repeal the bankhead cotton law that movement has gained in momentum be yond belief the department of agri culture under mr wallaces direction Is taking a census a vote on the question whether this law should be continued the result Is that congress will find that question on its doorstep door step also and dont forget that opponents of the bankhead Cank head law are real fighters those who claim to have suffered damages under it believe that one dose Is enough and it if they do not gain their point one way they will accomplish their desires in another much to the chagrin of senator bankhead of alabama bama who made so many long speeches in its behalf mr wallace stated that he expects the main drive against present agricultural laws to be to in favor of removal of all restrictions on production tie he thinks that Is a ridiculous course to follow lie he proposes to give present schemes of control time for trial in order to perfect them in this lie he has the wholehearted whole hearted support of the new deal professors who clutter up department of agriculture offices in numbers lumbers greater than in any other government department the professors have their con contacts tats at the capitol and they use them thus observers here feel that opponents of the present adjustment act may not win unless the ob sections claimed to exist among the farmers themselves are made vocal if that occurs it Is declared by au authorities thorl we inny inay see president roosevelt Roose eit taking a hand because of the politics involved if the president throws lit his weight in favor of revision there Is little doubt but that changes will come if lie indicates that he Is satisfied with the present setup set up the strength of the th e prof professors essora will be so multiplied that lefeat lecent of their program will be n ext i im notwithstanding president roose speech at the annual convention of the american hankers bankers bankers association distri distrustful 3 efful here a speech that was believed at the time to have salved calved the bankers feelings considerable distrust of administration policies has begun to accumulate among the banking fraternity it was noticed before the appointment of 0 al S eccles as governor of the federal reserve board but it has become much more evident and more vocal since the reason Is that mr eccles Is considerably more of 0 a liberal than most bankers and business men frankly some borne of the important bankers of the country tear fear that mr eccles will go far to the radical side in directing affairs of the greatest banking system in the world while roost most financial authorities are ara not now alarmed over the prospect of any inflation by means of reckless running of printing presses they do fear that the banks of the country will be forced into the position of buying government bonds whether they desire to do so or not I 1 was told by one banker a man who has served in official capacity in washington and therefore knows this held field as well as banking that be would not be surprised if banks were assigned certain blocks of bonds which they must purchase in the course of financing by the treasury in the next two years all of the conservative thought in the country looks upon this of course as next to printing press money in its inflationary tendencies 4 0 As the laws now stand it apparently would be difficult for the treasury trea sory act ing through the fed glass eral reserve board would fight to tell any particular bank how many government bonds it must absorb cut but it would not be difficult to change the law so that any bank could be al allocated I 1 0 c abed a stated amount of bonds and be given the privilege of turning over those securities curi ties to the federal reserve bank for currency obviously such financial students as the veteran senator carter glass class virginia democrat would tight fight to the death against what he believes to be misuse of the federal reserve system and the count rys banking structure there are several other democrats both in the house and senate who would follow the virginia senators lead the belief however Is that there are not enough to defeat such a proposal were it sent to congress with the administrations blessing there Is banking legislation scheduled for this coming session its scope has not yet been determined but it will be more tar far reaching than the previous legislation and in all probability there will be some brand new pet schemes put forward by professional advisers who have been called into conference by secretary and his aides then there are the findings of the senate committee on bank and currency to be considered that committee as will be remembered held lengthy hearings and exposed much corruption in certain types of banks whether the members of that committee and the administration will attempt to bind the whole banking structure hand and foot because of the rotten spots found in several apples in the barrel it Is too early to forecast yet it Is to be remembered that there were ultra radical investigators included in the staff of men who operated under ferdinand pecora the committees counsel mr pecora Ie cora of course Is now dow a member of the securities commission and therefore not in direct touch with his big former employer but there are those here who say his bis influence is just as great it if that be true the senate committee can be expected to go off at a tangent in drafting legislation to hamstring not only the bad banks but the good ones because weather affects our dally daily lives as nothing else it proves an ever fascinating subject it Is always interesting te as well really a fascinating occupation to look ahead while we cannot definitely foretell the weather this winter the american nature association and the united states weather bureau have compiled some records about other winters that are most interesting take for example the countrywide country wide blizzard of the boys and girls of those duys days those who now say do you remember way back when insist that that was a winter which really was winter the later generations point to the war winter of 1917 1017 18 a period of excessive cold and aad of great snow throughout the united states east of the rocky cocky mountains the far west was much warmer two outstanding winters were 1912 severe cold weather during the first three months of the year when unprecedented tee ice formed on all northern lakes and rivers it was during this cold spell that lake superior was wu frozen from shore to shore and moose crossed on the ice lake michigan 0 and luke lake erie were completely span spanned ned eulth ice in some places 1809 A record cold wave from february 11 to february 13 with tem pera peri tures extending from the gulf coast northward bl mobile otille ala recorded 1 below zero vicksburg miss mim zero washington D 0 15 degrees below st louis 19 below chicago 21 below and nd ottawa can 24 below ca C Now never union |