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Show Economic Highlights Happenings That Affect the Dinner P; lis, Dividend Checks and Tax Bills of Every Individual. ..National ..Nation-al and Intcrnati nal Problems Inseparable In-separable from Local Welfare. As the regular session of Congress Con-gress gets underway, the most sig-nifiant sig-nifiant political occurrence is the growing cleavage in the majority party. No President enjoyed a longer cr more complete honeymoon honey-moon with Congress than did Mr. Roosevelt throughout his entire first term he faced almost no opposition, op-position, and for the first year of his second term the opposition was scattered and ineffectual. His leaders in Hcuse and Senate ex-pe.ienced ex-pe.ienced little trouble in rounding round-ing up next-to-unanlm:us support ior White House measures, and ciefleting Ccngressmen were swift-ly swift-ly and delinitely punished. Today a different situation obtains, with a substantial part of the Demo-icratic Demo-icratic majority in open revolt lar.ainst Ad.T.inist.ation objectives, (and with a -larger part in quiet, ;trxit revolt. During the latter part cf the regular session and the en-f en-f tire special session, the majority leaders wo ked untiringly to heal I wruncis and bring the dissenters J tack in'o the New Deal fold and ! :hcy failed almost completely. This 1 v.-.s especially noticeable in the j Senate, where Mr. Barkley, successor succes-sor to Mr. Robinson, met practic-t practic-t ally as Tvh opposition among the I .r embers of his own party as among j the Republicans. T -e cpen cleavage began with ! tl-.c Supreme Cou t bill. But trouble had teen brewing before, ana the i irtrcdution cf this measure gave Ccr.sressmen who had been growing grow-ing restive and doubtful of Admin-i;st:atic3 Admin-i;st:atic3 p:!ictes the oppor. unity I hey had lcokcd for to split with ! the White House. The Black ap-' ap-' iimmeni marked another major j olu lo ihe President's power and itevstlae. By October, as Mark j oujiivan pointed cut recently, "'it j as lair to estimate that the JJem-,aa JJem-,aa s in Congress opposed to much ot Mr. Roosevelt's program, were i at least equal in number to those uiio suppjiltd his program." To-j To-j diy the latter group is probably i actually in the majority. The last jiu.por.ant White Hcuse "must I a.-asurt' the wage and hou.s bill typifies the trend. It is no secret that every possible tactic was used in an attempt to get this bill t.'.rcugh. In July, before the business busi-ness lecession, it passed the Senate Sen-ate by a majority of exactly two ti one. In December, a similar bill, changed somewhat in wording bu almost identical in purpose, was beaten by the House, 216 to 198. And it was the Democrats, net the weak Republican ranks, which beat it. Some recent events have made the split all the more dramatically clear. It is a reasonable assumption assump-tion that the majority of the Democrats Dem-ocrats in Congress want to help and cooperate with business. There is a very strong bloc which wishes to put tax revision and friendly Industrial In-dustrial legislation first on the calendar. While the President is not actively opposed to this, his attitude is one of coolness, and he apparently believes that such legislation legis-lation is of minor importance, and should be deferred. The anti-monopoly campaign, under Robert Jackson, inaugurates a new drive against big business. Secretary Ickes has made a speech which amounted to a sweeping attack on big business, and no one believes a cabinet member would make so vital an address without the permission per-mission of his Chief. In other words, the Administration seems to be bent on going ahead with its program, whose cardinal point is the radical revision of American industry, and an increasing measure meas-ure cf government control over business. Many leading Democrats a;e largely opposed to this, and ieel that it would very possibly force us into another long depression, depres-sion, greater centralizatm of government gov-ernment with undermining of democratic dem-ocratic institutions. It is over this point that the struggle for control of the Democratic party, between New Dealers on the one hand and the conservative wing on the other, oth-er, is now taking place. The elections late this year will determine the outcome in the primaries pri-maries in many places, New Dea Democrats- will be opposed to anti-New anti-New Deal Democrats, in a frank fight for power. In the meantime, Congress will continue to be torn by the opposed schools of thought which means that . f-he-C,5rDe i-greaejanj--talkt 'thall. "ana that major legislation is likely .0 become stalemated. In the business field, there are some signs of betterment. Demand for durable goods has tended to increase. Christmas trade this year was in excess of $5,000,000,000, marking a slight advance for the country as a whole over 1937. Extremely interesting is tne report re-port of the National Unemployment Census, made to the President on January 1. While the method of making this census is certainly open to criticism, it does constitute the first survey of the jobless with any pretense to accuracy. According Accord-ing to it, the unemployed total ranges between a minimium of q,-822,000 q,-822,000 and a maximum of 10,870,-000. 10,870,-000. About two million of these aro women. Since that census was taken mid November unemployment has increased. in-creased. Worst recent event in this field was the shutting down of a number of automobile plants. |