Show weekly news analysis election Cleanup Tle anup 7 suggestions leave vote fr ote buying looch loopholes 01 es by joseph W la bine EDITORS NOTE OT when opinions olibo op iBo are pressed in these ti columns boum they art those t ar the ti news analyst ny s and vat necessarily sl of till the newspaper politics since the dim day when americas first pork barrel was burst open politicians have legally or illegally used federal funds to further their personal ends pork was simple and usually honest when it involved no more than a U S sponsored post office highway or bridge but since 1933 the old fashioned pork barrel has been supplanted by relief projects building up huge payrolls among unemployed people who will cast their votes not necessarily for the right man but for the man who will protect their jobs three square meals a day have a far greater vote getting appeal than any miscellaneous favor a congressman could pull from the pork barrel in an election year political abuse of relief funds becomes a paramount danger therefore congress received no jolt when texas sen it SENATOR SHEPPARD recommendations were easier morris sheppard offered his committees mit tees report on campaign expenditures di tures skipping lightly over the routine fact that some campaigns cost nothing while another that of chios robert P taft cost I 1 the committee outlined r results e of relief politics inquiries in 16 18 states sample allegations kentucky gov albert B happy chandler collected about from state employees whose salaries came partly or wholly from federal funds his successful opponent sen alben W barkley received from federal employees but his campaign manager denied au all but 2000 pennsylvania state highway work cards were issued to high school children who returned to their classes without doing any work tennessee federal employees were solicited for contributions labor was used to repair private roads illinois in cook county men were added to state highway crews 70 of whom did no work other than canvass their respective precincts no criticism was directed at former administrator harry hopkins nor was action taken against any candidate the pathetic truth is that no individual office seeker could be singled out without ripping open an unwholesome futile investigation instead the committee contented itself with 16 suggestions for cleaning up elections most of which would provide loopholes few of which could be enforced without interfering with private r rights ight S sample suggestions 1 prohibition pro hibi tion against political contributions by relief recipients and legislation forbidding relief officials to influence votes 2 legislation limiting individual contributions to candidates preventing corporation donations a and nd requiring complete reports of campaign costs 3 consideration on of legislation to make all political contributions by federal workers illegal the most applauded recommendation called for curtailment of the congressional franking free mailing privilege this recalled the annual report of postmaster general james J farley made a few days earlier which pointed out that ab abuse use of the franking privilege was in a large part responsible for the post office departments deficit international january 1 found the U S and great britain invoking their new low tariff trade pact designed primarily to stimulate business but also to furnish a strong white mans front against dictator states A few days later britain made a strong show of enthusiasm over president Roosevel ts anti dictator speech see WHITE HOUSE but it if these two signs indicate a policy of parallel action between washington and london several other gestures by britain hardly fit into the picture smart I 1 parallel action would call for british br ibish adoption of the U S policy of refusing to consort economically no with germany italy or japan but when gover governor nor montagu norman of the bank of england went to berlin and when prime minister neville chamberlain visited t italy each carried plans for stimulating british trade with the two dictator states meanwhile britain has extended china credits of only compared with U S credits of though britain may some day be forced into a life and death battle with both germany and italy she is willing to overlook this possibility for the sake of her foreign trade the theory that every effort must st be made to keep the hard pressed german and italian buyers solvent otherwise british export to these nations will decline and debts owed british commercial interests will not be paid white house before congress opened president Roosevel ts critics believed his rising enthusiasm for rearmament was merely a cloak to focus public attention away from last novembers election defeat by shouting for larger army navy appropriations by keeping silent as a sphinx on every other subject the president was expected to build for himself a storm shelter until the torrent of congressional criticism had passed but rearmament turned out to be a recognized national problem and mr roosevelt turned out to be a smarter psychologist than his critics acs ics expected it remained for foi his speech on the state of the U union nion to sound the keynote its essence the U S is beset by threats from dictator nations therefore we must rearm and take sanctions against aggressors gres sors but rearmament is also an internal proposition therefore we must set our house in order and defend ourselves with social and economic reforms some reforms already made social security farm legislation labor act need machining down others governmental reorganization transportation are still to be made on spending it does not seem logical to me at the moment we seek to increase production and consumption for the federal government to consider a drastic curtailment congress did not need long to figure out that if military rearmament would cost real money internal rearmament would be even more expensive when the budget message was delivered their figures were verified the presidents budget requests the expected income the net deficit for the fiscal year by june 30 1940 when the year ends in a burst of political campaigning the administration will therefore have a public debt of to explain As congress dove headlong into its six seven or eight month task president roosevelt may have been surprised to learn his initiating utterances te rances won more public acclaim in france and great britain than at home dafin definitely bitely on the defensive for the first time since 1933 he faced i HAMILTON FISH JR lie ile offered a comment an independent congress and a very wary public which hoped he appreciated cia ted the magnitude of his actions and while london and paris applauded the strongest official U S statement yet m made ade against dictators berlin and rome sang the next stanza in the international hymn of hate which has now reached an alarming intensity at home little comment was forthcoming A sample from new yorks york s rep hamilton fish jr true to his devotion to internationalism and the league of nations mr roosevelt urges collective security and military alliances of democracies I 1 do not believe that congress will scrap our traditional foreign policy of pea peace e f for or one in in which we would quarantine quarantine blood and ba police and the money world with american p people eo ale fifteen year old gloria vander gentta Sen bill tTa who has in the bank spent last fr year a an accounting ac countin 9 in N ew yorks ws surrogates court reve als D phillip F lafollette La defeated yass governor of biscon wiscon aisis in has left on a look see t to england france A italy germany and sweden war torn cainas chinas biggest boast Is national her constantly grower g that unity a product of necessity has made generalissimo ss chiang kai shek the strongest chinese ruler in kash modern history but despite this china has not well publicized p e unity been able to make much csc of a show her japanese in ing against indeed foreign observers find 1 paper thin hm front lines so vulnerable that they say american british or french troops could put the enemy to rout but in jap occupied territory are yS civilians and Oed armed z M L generalissimo CHIANG time to stop bluffing guerrillas whose spirit of national unity is still not strong enough to inspire a sudden inevitably successful attack better than the national nation al unity argument is the theory that smart general chiang has been staging a fake show of chinese nationalism offering a good front at the expense of his wavering government though headquarters are overrun with nepotism corruption and inefficiency many abuses have been tolerated to make the outside world think china is strong in the end general chiang wangled handsome loans and credit arrangements from both the U S and britain proving the stunt was working at least temporarily not anticipated however was the walkout of onetime one time premier wang ching we wei who celebrated new years by reaching peace terms with japanese premier Fumi Furni naro konoye long a silent bulwark of chinas cainas nationalist party mr wang reportedly met at hongtong Hong kong with japanese agents and reached terms which would id make him chinas cainas head man leaving general chiang out in the cold terms 1 china should open dip relations with japanese puppet state Manchu kuo 2 china should agree to economic cooperation with japan 3 china should adhere to the jap italo ger man anticommunist anti communist agreement 4 china should accept japanese garrisons while the communist anticommunist anti pact was in force interpretations of the wang demarche have come thick and fast in tokyo happy japanese thought it meant a breakdown of the and the spotlight of publicity on chinas cainas internal troubles with chiang weakened japanese puppet states would no longer seem pointless in shanghai still chinese despite its japanese ownership observers 0 b thought the wang declaration was a well tim timed ed jap move to counteract U S and british credits to general chiang with the die cast general chiang no longer saw need for hiding his tou troubles bles from came word of a wholesale purge from the of some peace partisans expelled was deserter wang charged with having attempted to gain support from military leaders in Sze chuan and cunnan provinces miscellany for the first time in it its s history new yorks sing sing prison has executions every week during january total for the month already scheduled 10 0 U S correspondents returning from eighth pan american conference at lima peru 1 have reported censorship intimidation t ion and spying unlike that ever before seen at a pan american assembly 0 army participation in the U S navys three month atlantic fleet maneuvers has been cancelled because ot of friction army officials claiming the exercise goffern 11 little atle value for its officers and men mea aviation in 1937 as head of bf the U S maritime 1 commission joseph P kennedy urged construction of smaller ocean vess vessels Is a as protection against the day when seaplanes sea planes would speed mail and passengers from europe to america test flights had ai a ready been underway a year an anc the kennedy prediction has no now been ee sustained by announcement that imperial airways of london will start weekly transatlantic c ice before next june Fo 21 hour forerunning rerunning inra passenger e service between southampton and montreal teal t eal four tw two 0 nn alt flights pound flying boats win will make abc each on way every week first flights the boats will 0 carry pounds of mail S and 18 pa asseri gets g ers though i ported jort only mail win will be trans ans until uehl the schedule j is s thor tested still to be ann are plais for ss n ext sum anners trans atlanta antl 11 a vel by U S pan air airways air trans arans at franc e antique will start in 1940 1940 |