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Show News Review of Current Events the World Over Ccnrral Butler's Fantastic Story of Fascist Plot to Seize the Government Strike in the Great Steel Industry Becomes Imminent. By EDWARD W. PICKARD & by WeHtftro NtsWiaper Union. SOBKIt nilndffl American citizens find It dlllieult to take seriously serious-ly the fanlastlc story tli.it MaJ. Gen. Kniedloy I). Butler told to the con- n resident r.oovr.vr.i.T is r;vt-:it: in b.nhs a.'i'l r' at Warm S ; ri r : Ga., I":t he is not neglecting tin; naMon's !m.-: ni'ss, keeping in cio-e t 1 1 1 -ti with Washington Wash-ington a:id receiving many oilicial visitors. At hi- first press ci inference infer-ence there he announced with glad smiles that he would au'ain "lend his birthday," January 3D, to the national, committee that arranges birthday balls all over the country for the benefit of Infantile paralysis sufferers. COMPTROLLER GENERAL J. R. McCARL lias thrown a monkeywreneh into part of the machinery ma-chinery of Relief Administrator Harry L. Hopkins. Turning down a check from Hopkins to the officials of tlie District of Columbia which was to have started work on a housing hous-ing development, Mr. McCarl held that the federal emergency relief act. providing for the granting of funds for various relief purposes, could not apply to the acquisition of real estate and the construction of homes. This type of activity, he said, would be of a permanent and not an emergency nature, and the act was adopted to meet emergencies. emergen-cies. The FEUA already has under way a program of "rehabilitating" S0.000 farm families in homes and on land to be sold to them by the government. govern-ment. MORE and more it becomes evident evi-dent that President Roosevelt Roose-velt intends to pursue a middle of the road policy in his efforts for na- Cen. Smedley D. Butler , gresilonal commlt-.! commlt-.! tee Investigating un- American activities. Tills retired ollicer f of marines charges that there Is a plot, j engineered by Wall .Street men, to seize the government of the United States and net up a Fascist Fasc-ist dictatorship, and the chairman of the committee, Representative Rep-resentative John W. news that a threatened strike of elevator operators had been averted and an agreement, drafted by Mayor I. a (Junrdiu's board of arbitration, had been signed by representatives of the real estate interests and the union. The union withdrew Its demand de-mand for a closed shop; and standards stand-ards of wages and hours in various vari-ous types of buildings will be worked out by a committee of three arbiters, with the union recognized as the bargaining agent for the employees. em-ployees. OY 01! DIOR of the national labor L' relations board there will be held soon a great workers' election which will determine whether organized or-ganized labor shall dominate the country's rubber Industry. The board decreed that the Firestone Fire-stone Tire and Rubber company and the B. F. Goodrich company of Akron, Ohio, must allow their employees em-ployees to ballot on the question of whether they want a company union or an American Federation of Labor union to represent them in collective bargaining under the NRA. Twenty-one thousand workers, the largest number ever polled by the labor board on an NRA question, will participate in the election. In addition another l.'i.OOO workers of the Goodyear Rubber company may ballot on the same question. The Goodyear angle of the case has not yet been passed upon by the board. r.nt the Firestone and Goodrich companies have opposed the elections elec-tions now ordered, maintaining that conditions in their plants are satisfactory, sat-isfactory, and that electioneering in rival unions would only disturb the peace among the workers. PHILADELPHIA lawyers are tra- ditionally supposed to be able to unravel the worst of tangles, so President Roosevelt has picked one ,(). .' Silas Strawn tional recovery, and that In the overwhelmingly over-whelmingly Demo-;ratic Demo-;ratic next congress there will be no one faction strong enough to dictate to him. The Chief Executive and the business leaders of the country are gradually co m 1 n g together, and if and when they reach JtcCormaek of New York, considered the tale of enough portent to warrant war-rant the calling of witnesses to prove or disprove It. General Butler But-ler made his story public through the columns of the New York Eve-ring Eve-ring Post, as the proceedings of the committee are conducted in private. pri-vate. If Butler Is to be believed, he was approached by Gerald P. Mac-Guire, Mac-Guire, bond salesman In the stock exchange firm of Grayson M. P. JIurphy and company, and urged to accept the leadership of a soldier sol-dier organization of half a million men "which would assemble prob-ubly prob-ubly a year from now in Washington, Washing-ton, and that within a few days it could take over the functions of the government." MacGuire. accord-lug accord-lug to the general, thought the overturn of the government might be accomplished peacefully and sug-pesled sug-pesled that "we might even go along with Roosevelt and do with him what Mussolini did with the king of Italy." Butler's story continued: "He told me he believed that at least half of the American Legion li ml Vetorms of Foreign Wars would follow me. "MacGuire explained to me that they had two other candidates for the position of 'Man on the White Horse.' He said that if I did not accept an offer would be made to Gen. Douglas MacArtlun-, chief of stair of the United States army, and that the third choice would be Hanford MacNider, former commander com-mander of the American Legion. "So far as I know, neither Gen-oral Gen-oral MacArthur nor MacNider has heen approached. Their names were merely mentioned as 'alternates.' 'alter-nates.' " The general said he was offered considerable sums "for expenses" which he did not accept. He said MacGuire intimated that among the backers of the plan was Mr. Murphy and Col. Robert R. Clark, a wealthy New Yorker with offices in the Stock Exchang builrling; and he added that later Colonel Clart offered him money to go to the American Legion in Chicago last year and make a speech for retention re-tention of the gold standard, which speech MacGuire had previously given Butler. Clark, at present in France, admitted ad-mitted he had asked Butler "to use Ids Influence in favor of sound money and against Inflation," but strongly denied that he had sponsored spon-sored a Fascist movement. He declared de-clared he would take action for libel li-bel against any person accusing him In such a connection. Murphy and other Wall Street men said the story was absolutely false and unutterably ridiculous, and MacGuire, after being heard by the McCormack committee, said : "It's n Joke a publicity stunt. I know nothing about It. The matter mat-ter is made out of whole cloth. I deny the story completely." P MmmM f s ' ' Francis Biddle to be chairman of the national labor relations board. He is Francis Biddle. of the famous family of that name, and he succeeds Lloyd K. Garrison, who retired from ths chairmanship to resume re-sume his duties as dean of the law school of the University Uni-versity of Wiscon- sin, from which he was called. Francis Biddle has been engaged in law practice as a member of the Philadelphia firm of Barnes, Biddle, and Meyers. Re served from 1922 to 1926 as assistant district attorney attor-ney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. Penn-sylvania. In his new post his task will be the settlement of labor disputes dis-putes arising out of the recovery act, especially those involving collective col-lective bargaining. tjRANCE Is worried by the admlt- ted fact that Germany has developed de-veloped a military air fleet of considerable con-siderable size, composed of modern pursuit and bombing planes, and Gen. Victor Denain, French minister minis-ter of air, estimates that by January Jan-uary the reich will have from 1,000 to 1,100 of these machines, swifter and better than those possessed by France. Consequently he has asked the chamber of deputies for ahout $2.10,000,000 to finance a program for recovering the ground lost by French aviation. The task is already tinder way, $.12,.i00,000 having been spent out of an appropriation for modernization. an accord on methods it will be found that a good many of the more radical ideas of the brain trusters will have been discarded. The best minds in industry and finance are no longer standing back and merely criticizing. They are taking an active part in planning for the future welfare of the nation. na-tion. Herewith are summarized some of the important new developments devel-opments In this direction. President Henry. I. Harriman of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Com-merce, in pursuance of a resolution adopted by the board of directors, has appointed a committee of six men, headed hy Silas Strawn of Chicago, to co-operate with other business and agricultural associations associa-tions in drafting plans for the recovery re-covery of business. The board of the chamber endorsed the continuation continu-ation of relief and housing, but signified sig-nified that business Is still opposed to the unbalanced budget, further reduction of working hours as -embodied in the movement for a 30-hour 30-hour week, new and unprecedented outlays for public works continuance continu-ance of the NRA, the doctrine of majority rule in collective bargaining, bargain-ing, and unemployment insurance. Through the National Association of Manufacturers, invitations were sent to every manufacturer in the United States to attend a national industrial conference in New York on December 5 to draft "constructive "construc-tive recommendations" for presentation pre-sentation to President Boosevelt. Among those signing the call for this meeting was John 3. Raskob, former chairman of the Democratic party. Included in the questions the industrialists will try to answer an-swer are : What in the future should be the relation of government to business? How is the gigantic problem to be met to relieve distress and at the same time not plunge the nation Into bankruptcy or threaten its credit? How is the new flow of private capital into legitimate investment to be stimulated? What new moves to curtail unemployment un-employment are practical and feasible? feas-ible? In a petition addressed to the President and cougress the National Na-tional Economy league has presented present-ed a definite program for balancing the federal budget in the coming fiscal year, holding that only by balancing bal-ancing the budget can sustained national na-tional recovery be accomplished. The petition proposes heavy reductions reduc-tions in government expenditures and additional taxes totaling $935,-000,000. $935,-000,000. DONALD R. RICHBERG, executive execu-tive director - of the national emergency council and now perhaps the President's chief adviser, addressing ad-dressing the Associated Grocers of America, at their convention In New York, proposed the creation of n new federal body combining functions func-tions of the NRA and the federal trade commission, to define and regulate reg-ulate concerted trade action in the "twilight zone" under the antitrust anti-trust laws. Discussing tiie program for permanent per-manent NRA legislation, be reiterated reit-erated his opposition to control of prices and production. He said the fixing of minimum wages and minimum mini-mum hours had demonstrated its soundness for eliminating the worst forms of unfair competition in treatment of employees, and that admittedly dishonest business practices prac-tices should be proscribed. HUGH R. WILSON. American ambassador to Switzerland, laid before the disarmament conference confer-ence in Geneva a proposal hy the United States for international control con-trol of arms trafiic and full publicity pub-licity to prevent secret arming of nations. The- proposal was well received re-ceived by most of the delegates, and It will be studied by committees in January. By the American plan each government gov-ernment would license its manufacturers manufac-turers of munitions for five year periods. No reserve stocks would be allowed and manufacturers would be required to present bona fide orders before receiving a license. li-cense. Details of war vessels built for other nations would have to be reported. Reports of licenses and orders would be turned over to a central committee at Geneva and made a matter of public record. A permanent commission, including a "member from each signatory nation, na-tion, would be empowered to investigate inves-tigate transactions. VJOTABI.ES of the Catholic church gathered in Chicago from all parts of the world to take part in the silver jubilee of Cardinal Card-inal Miinileloin. who was consecrated consecrat-ed a bishop 2.1 years ago. The pope sent his personal greetings and his blessing. SO FAR as the great steel Industry Indus-try is concerned, It appears that the industrial truce asked by President Pres-ident Roosevelt cannot be arranged, and the prospect of a strike of the fteel workers is growing. In behalf of the United States Steel corporation, a proposal was made to the American Federation of I-tibor that recognition of that organization would be granted but that no contract would be made. This proposal, it was said, would be agreed to by So per cent of the steel industry. The labor spokesmen, led by William Wil-liam Green, president of the A. F. of L., rejected the tender on the ground that it was hedged about in eucb a way to permit collective bargaining bar-gaining with minority groups or company unions, and that the employers em-ployers were still unwilling to nc- cept the principle of majority rule as set forth in the national labor relations board's decision in the Iloude case. j If a rupture comes the Federation of Labor may find the federal government gov-ernment rather unsympathetic. Mr. Green's Influence in the White House has been waning noticeably and he has had no personal contacts wllh the President for some time. New Yorkers with offices In skyscrapers sky-scrapers were gladdened by the |