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Show YMkIv ws Analysis Election 'Cleanup' Suggestions Leave Vote-Buying Loopholes I lly Joseph YV. La Uinc Asia j War-torn China's biggest boast is her constantly growing national ; unity, a product of necessity that ; has made Generalissimo Chiang : Kai-shek the strongest Chinese ruler in modern history. But despite this well-publicized unitv, China has not been able to make much of a showing show-ing against her Japanese invaders. Indeed, foreign military observers find Tokyo's paper-thin front lines so vulnerable that they say 30,000 American, British or French troops could put the enemy to rout But in Jap-occupied territory are 270,000,- j 000 civilians and 1,250,000 armed j EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst, and not necessarily of the newspaper. Politics Since the dim day when America's Ameri-ca's first pork barrel was burst open, politicians have legally or illegally il-legally used federal funds to further their personal ends. Pork-barreling 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 old-fashioned pork barrel has been supplanted sup-planted 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 fa-vor a congressman could pull from the pork barrel. In an election year, political abuse of relief funds becomes a paramount par-amount danger. Therefore congress received no jolt when Texas' Sen. policy of refusing to consort economically eco-nomically with Germany, Italy or Japan. But when Governor Montagu Mon-tagu Norman of the Bank of England Eng-land went to Berlin, and when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain visited visit-ed Italy, each carried plans for stimulating stim-ulating British trade with the two dictator states. Meanwhile, Britain has extended China credits of only $2,500,000, compared withU. S. credits cred-its of $25,000,000. 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 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 Roosevelt's critics believed his rising ris-ing enthusiasm for rearmament was merely a cloak to focus public attention at-tention away from last November's election defeat. By shouting for larger army-navy appropriations, by keeping silent as a sphynx 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 crit-ics expected. It remained for his speech on the state of the Union to sound the keynote. Its essence: The U. S. is beset by threats from dictator dic-tator nations, therefore we must rearm re-arm and take sanctions against aggressors. ag-gressors. But rearmament is also an internal proposition, therefore we must set our house in order and defend de-fend ourselves with social and economic eco-nomic reforms. Some reforms already al-ready made (social security, farm legislation, labor act) need "machining "ma-chining down." Others (governmental (governmen-tal 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 fig-ure out that if military rearmament would cost real money, internal rearmament re-armament would be even more expensive. ex-pensive. When the budget message was delivered their figures were verified. The President's budget requests: re-quests: $8,995,000,000. The expected income: $5,669,000,000. The net deficit def-icit for the fiscal year: $3,326,000,-000. $3,326,000,-000. By June 30, 1940, when the year ends in a burst of political campaigning, the administration will therefore have a public debt of $44,458,000,000 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 ut-terances won more public acclaim in France and Great Britain than at home. Definitely on the defensive for the first time since 1933, he faced , i C ' ' - - n' , -' r' GENERALISSIMO CHIANG Time to slop bluffing. guerrillas whose spirit of national unity is still not strong enough to inspire a sudden, inevitably successful success-ful attack. Better than the national 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 Chungking headquarters are overrun over-run 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 one-time Premier Wang Ching-wei, who celebrated New Year's by reaching peace terms with Japanese Premier Fuminaro Konoye. Long a silent bulwark of China's Kuomintang (Nationalist) party, Mr. Wang reportedly met at Hongkong with Japanese agents and reached terms which would make him China's head man, leaving leav-ing General Chiang out in the cold. Terms: (1) China should open diplomatic dip-lomatic relations with Japanese puppet pup-pet state, Manchukuo; (2) China should agree to economic "cooperation" "co-operation" with Japan; (3) China should adhere to the Jap-Italo-Ger-man anti-Communist agreement; (4) China should accept Japanese garrisons while the anti-Communist pact was in force. Interpretations of the Wang demarche de-marche have come thick and fast. In Tokyo, happy Japanese thought it meant a breakdown of the Kuomintang Kuomin-tang and the spotlight of publicity on China's internal troubles. With Chiang Chi-ang weakened, Japanese puppet states would no longer seem pointless. point-less. In Shanghai, still Chinese despite de-spite its Japanese ownership, observers ob-servers thought the Wang declara- SENATOR SHEPPARD Recommendations were easier. Morris Sheppard offered his committee's com-mittee's report on campaign expenditures. expen-ditures. Skipping lightly over the routine fact that some campaigns cost nothing while another (that of Ohio's- Robert P. Taft) cost $159,-451.37, $159,-451.37, the committee outlined results re-sults of relief-politics inquiries in 18 states. Sample allegations: Kentucky. Gov. Albert B. ("Happy") ("Hap-py") Chandler collected about $70,-000 $70,-000 from state employees whose salaries sal-aries came partly or wholly from federal funds. His successful opponent, oppo-nent, Sen. Alben W. Barkley, received re-ceived $24,000 from federal employees, employ-ees, but his campaign manager denied de-nied all but $2,000. Pennsylvania. WPA state highway high-way work cards were issued to high school children, who returned to their classes without doing any work. Tennessee. Federal employees were solicited for contributions; WPA labor was used to repair pri- f ! -" J tion was a well-timed 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 troubles. From Chungking came word of a wholesale purge from the Kuomintang of some 200 peace partisans. par-tisans. Expelled was Deserter Wang, charged with having attempted attempt-ed to gain support from military leaders in Szechuan and Yunnan provinces. Miscellany For the first time in its history, New York's Sing Sing prison has executions every week during January. Jan-uary. Total for the month already scheduled: 10. U. S. correspondents returning from eighth Pan-American confer- vate roads. Illinois. In Cook county, 450 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 for-mer WPA Administrator Harry Hopkins, nor was action taken against any candidate. The pathetic truth is that no individual office-seeker office-seeker could be singled out without ripping open an unwholesome, futile investigation. Instead the committee commit-tee contented itself with 16 suggestions sugges-tions for cleaning up elections, most of which would provide loopholes, few of which could be enforced without with-out interfering with private rights. Sample suggestions: (1) Prohibition against political contributions by relief recipients and legislation forbidding relief officials to influence votes. (2) Legislation limiting individual contributions to candidates, preventing pre-venting corporation donations and requiring complete reports of campaign cam-paign costs. (3) Consideration of legislation to make all political contributions by federal workers illegal. The most applauded recommendation recommen-dation called for curtailment of the congressional franking (free mailing) mail-ing) privilege. This recalled the annual report of Postmaster General Gen-eral James J. Farley, made a few days earlier, which pointed out that abuse of the franking privilege was in a large part responsible for the post office department's deficit. International January 1 found the U. S. and Great Britain invoking their new low-tariff trade pact, designed primarily pri-marily to stimulate business, but also to furnish a strong "white man's front" against dictator states. A few days later Britain made a strong show of enthusiasm over President Roosevelt's anti-dictator speech (See WHITE HOUSE). But if these two signs indicate a policy of "parallel action" between Washington Wash-ington and London, several other gestures by Britain hardly fit into the picture. Smart "parallel action" would call for British adoption of the U. S. HAMILTON FISH JR. He offered a comment. an independent congress and a very wary public which hoped he appreciated appre-ciated the magnitude of his actions. And while London and Paris applauded ap-plauded the strongest official U. S. statement yet made against dictators, dicta-tors, Berlin and Rome sang the next stanza in the international hymn of hato which has now reached an alarming intensity. At home, little comment was forthcoming. A sample, from New York's Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr.: "True to his devotion to internationalism interna-tionalism and the League of Nations, Na-tions, (Mr. Roosevelt) urges collective collec-tive security and military alliances of democracies. J do not believe that congress will scrap our traditional tradi-tional foreign policy of peace for one in which we would quarantine and police the world with American blood and money." People Fifteen-year-old Gloria Vander-bilt, Vander-bilt, who has $1,000,000 in the bank, spent $52.99 last year, an accounting in New York's surrogate's court reveals. Phillip F. LaFollette, defeated governor of Wisconsin, has left on a "look-see" visit to England, France, Italy, Germany and Sweden. ence at Lima, Peru, have reported censorship, intimidation and spying unlike that ever before seen at a Pan-American assembly. Army participation in the U. S. navy's three-month Atlantic fleet maneuvers has been cancelled because be-cause of friction, army officials claiming the exercise offers little value for its officers and men. Aviation In 1937, as head of the U. S. maritime mari-time commission, Joseph P. Kennedy Ken-nedy urged construction of smaller ocean vessels as protection against the day when seaplanes would speed mail and passengers from Europe to America. Test flights had already al-ready been underway a year, and the Kennedy prediction has now been sustained by announcement that Imperial Airways of London will start weekly transatlantic service serv-ice before next June. Forerunning 21-hour passenger service between Southampton and Montreal, four 40,200-pound flying boats will make two flights each way every week On first flights the boats will carr 6,000 pounds of mail and 18 passen gers, though only mail will be trans ported until the schedule is thor oughly tested. Still to be announcer, are plans for next summer's trans atlantic travel by U. S. -operated Pan-American Airways. Air France Trans-Atlantique will start in 1940. |
