Evening Star Newspaper, April 12, 1931, Page 29

SMITH CAN SWAY VOTE ON PARTY’S Powerful Personal NOMINATION Following Is Held Loyal and Decisive Factor in ’32 for or Against Roosevelt. BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE most important person in the Democratic presidential situa- ton is Smith. Not necessarily Smith as a candidate, but Smith as a man. (Parenthitically, it's #_considerable distinction that any one pon say “Smith” without mention of first name or title, and have all the rld understand who is meant.) €mith's place in the Democratic pic- fure is expressed as compactly as any e can put it by Frank Kent in the moctatic Baltimore Sun. Compress- g the situation into four brief sen- ténces, he says: “First, that Roosevelt is well out in front as the leading Democratic as- pirant; second, that Smith will have mote influence in the convention than #ny other man. The deduction from €nese is that, barring Smith opposition, Roosevelt will be nominated. 1f Smith is openly or covertly against him, he is retty certain not to be. That is the gic of it. Naturally, it leaves the Bmith attitude as the vital question.” Strongest in Party. power can be expressed in Smith has the largest—by far the largest—personal following in the | Democratic party. He is the only Democrat that has a personal following large enough to count seriously in na- tional politics. Only two men in the Republican party have that kind of fol- Iwwing, President Hoover and ex-Presi- @ent Coolidge. Those three, Messrs. Hoover, Coolidge | #na Smith, are the only political lead- | era in America who can command as | m¥ny as a million votes (for them- | Melves as distinct from the parties they represent) A few other men—Sen: #or Borah, Senator Norris, perhaps New- 4n D. Baker and a few others—might command, as personal followings, a few tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of votes. But there is no one else in the class of Messrs. Hoover, Coolidge | and Smith. | 3n the Democratic party there is no | enie in the class of Smith. Not even Gov. Franklin Roosevelt is in Smith's class, though Roosevelt, at this writing, is well on the way to the presidential momination. What following Roosevelt has is overlapped by Smith’s following, | is largely a part of Smith's. And as| between the two men, the first loyalty of most of Roosevelt's following is to | Smith. If you wish to weigh that state- ment, imagine Smith disapproving Roosevelt, imagine Smith saying that Roosevelt is not satisfactory to him— and then try to imagine whether Roose- velt could get the presidential nomina- tion with what following he would have left after Smith took his away. Has Personal Following. Smith. in short, has personal follow- | ing in the sense that Woodrow Wilson | had, or Theodore Roosevelt, or William | Jennings Bryan. Smith's personal following may fairly be estimated at 5,000,000 votes—5,000. 000 out of a total Democratic vote (in 1928) of 15,016,443, and out of a ..l national vote, Republican and Demo- | cratic (in 1928) of 36,408,633. Smith's| following, as expressed in the vote for | him for President in 1928, is really phe- | nomenal. Smith as the Democratic candidate in 1928 got not far from twice as many votes as any other Democratic | candidate had ever received. The fig- ures are: | Democratic Candidate. Smith Davis Cox Vote. .15,016,443 . 8,386,503 . 9,147,353 Smith's Percentage Higher. Not only did Smith in 1928 bring out more votes for the Democrats than any previous candidate, but Smith got a | larger percentage of the total vote than | either of his two predecessors. The figures are: Democratic Candidate. Year. | 1928 1924 1920 | Per cent. Year. ...42 1928 .29 1924 .35 1920 | It seems fair to say that Smith was | able to bring to the polls for the Demo- | cratic ticket at least 5,000,000 voters, who, if any one other than Smith had | been the candidate, would have voted the Republican ticket or stayed at) home. It will be objected, at this point, | that some of Smith's vote in the 1928 | election came to him as a result of his | religion. But if s0 that must have been | balanced by the vote that went away ! from him on account of his religion. Smith's following of 5,000,000 is not— ex-religion, as they say on the Stock Exchange. Voters Still Loyal. ‘These 5,000,000 voters were and are personal to Smith. They were his in 1928 and they are his today. None of Smith’s following has fallen away from him. More likely it has increased. Such a following as Smith has is not merely a political asset; it is also a re- sponsibility. It is not a set of pawns that the owner can use as he wishes | (although much political thinking—and figuring-—assumes it is like that). A | man does not, as a rule, get such a| following as Smith's without deserving | it. And to keep such a following he | must go on deserving it. A man's fol- lowing comes to look upon him as a | symbol, as meaning certain standards | and points of view, as personifying cer- | tain policies. And the man who be- | comes a symbol must do what the sym- | bol stands for in the minds of his followers; he must do what his fol- lowers expect of him—or lose the fol- lowing. The query is, what will Smith do with | his following in the coming contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, in the convention where the nomin tion is made—and after the nomination | is made—in the election? May Run Second Time. ‘The common notion is that a man in Smith's position uses it to try to | get his party's nomination for the | |to be | thusiasti | Smith in" nomination. that he would improve his record he might readily end by concluding that he could not only better his record, but actually win the prize, the presidential office. It may be that such things are in Smith's mind, or may come to it. It would be utterly easy for him, either now or later, to so use the following he has, and his personality and his po- litical resourcefulness, as to put himself in the front of the field of Democratic possibilities. How About Roosevelt? All that could be, and in the future may be. As it seems to ‘the writer of this article, after some knowledge of what is going on, there is no present evidence that Smith is after the nomi- nation. As of today, it seems that if the nomination should come to Smith, it would be as a result of a stampede in the convention, arising out of events occurring after the convention is in | session. ‘The more pertinent query, the one closer to reality, as the situation lies today is, what will Smith do with re- spect to Gov. Roosevelt? ~ Smith will make some use of his fol- lowing and his power—he must use it or lose it. Smith is going to be no mere onlooker in the pre-convention campaign, and no mere solitary dele- gate, one of 1,100 in the convention. ‘Would Need Smith's Aid. To Gov. Roosevelt, Smith is ab- solutely indispensable. Smith is indis- pensable to Roosevelt for the nomina- tion, and even more indispensable for the election. Mere refraining by Smith from opposition to Roosevelt would not be enough. Mere tacit approval of Roosevelt would not be enough. If it | should be suspected by Smith's follow- ing that their leader was lukew: about Roosevelt, in that event Roose- velt wouldn't have a Chinaman's chance. Many of Smith's followers are going a little sullen about Roosevelt at best. They are going to think that Smith himself should have the nomi- nation, perhaps that he is being un- fairly deprived of it. They are going to reason that every argument for nominating Roosevelt is an equally good argument for nominating Smith. If Roosevelt is being nominated because he is a great vote-getter in New York State, why so is Smith. If Roosevelt is a wet, why Smith is wetter. If Roose- velt is an anti-power fighter, why Smith ’:.u one before Roosevelt took up that ue. The net of which is that Smith's following, if it is to support Roose- velt, must be perfectly satisfied in its collective mind that Smith really wants Roouvz]b—fenuinely, sincerely and en- cally wants him. And it seems clear that Roosevelt must give Smith no reason for not wanting him. Must Be Convincing. Smith's identification with Roosevelt, his satisfaction with Roosevelt's posi- tion on the issues must be so conspic- uous as to be convincing. There is one way to make it convincing. Three times in Democratic conventions, Roosevelt as a delegate made the speech putting In the coming convention the picture that would be convincing to Smith's followers would be Smith making the speech putting Roosevelt in nomination. If Smith is not chosen by Roosevelt for that func- tion, the lack be a political event of major proportions. If there is any concession that Smith may consider himself entitled to for his support to Roosevelt, it is easy to infer what it is. If there is any issue as to which Roosevelt’s position must be fully satisfactory to Smith, that issue is prohibtion. Smith wants the Demo- cratic convention to adopt a wet plank. To the furtherance of that wish, Roosevelt, it would seem, must commit | himself. Some of the dry Democratic leaders are comporting themselves with the thought that they can have Roosevelt as the candidate, but keep the platform dry or silent. To the dry Democrats, in their present state of mind, that compromise would be not only satis- factory, but exceptionally agreeable. It would not be satisfactory to Smith or to Smith's friends or to Smith’ following. Roosevelt, taking the nomi- nation on a dry platform or a silent one, would run counter to Smith's strongest present political conviction. It would seem as if Roosevelt, to com- mand Smith's whole-hearted support, must be willing to help the fight for a wet platform. Schaffhausen Falls Doomed by Industry GENEVA.—Europe’s biggest waterfall is in danger of disappearing, thus de- priving Switzerland of a tourist asset ‘which has brought untold gold and thou- sands of visitors annually to the famous Falls of Schaffhausen, on the Rhine, where that noble river marks the bound- ary between Germany's Black Forest and Switzerland. / Industry has claimed the flow of Rhine water as its own with the pro- posed development of new hydroelec- tric enterprises and metallurgical plants, which will so reduce the flow that the Swiss Society for the Protection of Beauty Spots has petitioned the gov- ernment to do something about it, and quickly stop the desecration before what was originally Europe's biggest waterfall in volume becomes a mere trickle. The Rhine falls in three jumps over rocky shallows and drops some 60 feet, with a width of about 400 feet. The cataract and the rapids lower down register together a drop of nearly 100 feet. 1t is proposed to speed up the flow by canalization, with the possibility that in no very distant future there will not be enough of the fall left to pay for Presidency—as Bryan did again and yet again, and to a less degree as Presi- | dent Roosevelt did in 1912. For this assumption about what Smith is likely to do the basis is, 50 to speak, the | average expectation of human nature. | The assumption is that the human na- | ture of political leaders conforms to the | familiar law, and that, therefore, Smith | will do what Bryan and Roosevelt and | others have done. There are straight- | thinking persons who firmly believe this; it would be quite easy to get bets | from financially solvent persons that Smith will go after the presidential nomination—and get it | It may be s0. It may be that either | Smith's conscicus purpose, or a sub- | conscious impulse more compeliing than overt purpose, will lead Smith to try to grasp the presidential nomination a second time. If it is so, one can comprehend and sympathize. There are reasons and motives to urge him on. Might Poll More in '32. | Among other reasons there is strong justification for Smith believing that as a candidate in 1932 he would get more vyotes and carry more States than he did in 1928. He would get more because in 1932 he would have the ad- ittedly great advantage accruing to the Democratic candidate in 1932 as a Wesult of the business depression. ‘The wish to better a record, when | the obvious opportunity to better it is | in sight, is one of the most powerful motives ‘that ever moves any of us, especially when, as in Smith's case, the first record was not very thrilling. The cally sure chance of bettering his t record would be sufficient motive to lead most men to try the second time. And if Smith should start to lighting it up with colored lights at night for the delectation of ""‘"fi,',‘ a5 has been done since the days when the “innocents abroad” first passed' this way. As for the rainbows of early morning, which is the chief ballyhoo of the Rhine-side hotels, the same will be true. Revenues which new industrial enter- prises will bring in their wake are a vanced as the reason for spoliatio the claim is made that Switzerland’s tourist and hotel industry itself takes almost a pre-eminent rank. At any rate, this industry has mar- shaled its forces in a campaign against what opponents eall & war of economic necessity. The Schaffhausers themselves have not yet taken sides, being harassed by the respective advantages of the two issues. Turkis.l; Family Name To Be Last of Father VIENNA.—Henceforth every Turk is to have a family name. At present ‘Turkish children are not named by patronymics, as are ours; instead they take the father’s first name, with a sufix added. Thus it is impossible to check up & pérson’s ancestry. Now Mustapha Kemal Pasha, adding a new item to the imposing list of “Westernization” he has given Turkey, has issued a decree abolishing the oid | system and replacing it with our West- | ern method. A great deal of prelimi- | nary confusion is expected. Thousands |'of Turks will have to change their | names. But the eventual gains to be | derived from the reform are expected to ice. brood upon the very great likelihood |outweigh the initial Inconvenience. - ~h THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 12, 1931-PART TWO. Trade Pact Stirs Eur}ope Austro-German Arrangement Regarded One of Most Important Political Acts Since World War. BY CONSTANTINE BROWN. EPRESENTATIVES of the Aus- trian and the German govern- ments will meet on the 3d of June in London to discuss with Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Henderson the issues arising from the tariff union between Germany and Austria. The French and the Italian govern- ments have not been invited to sen representatives to participate in the London conversations because the in- tention of the British premier is to dis- cuss the matter purely from an eco- nomic aspect. The presence of a French or Italian representative would imme- diately give a political character to this meeting. Whether political questions, such as treaty revisions, will be dis- cussed is difficult to say: it is highly improbable that either the German or the British would care to tackle such a matter at the time when Europe is seething with unrest. ‘The Austro-German tariff union is an accomplished fact. The Germans are willing to submit the matter to the League of Nations or to any other in- ternational tribunal, because they know perfectly well that it is within their rights to come to an economic under- standing with any nation they choose regardless of the peace treaties which they ed after the World War. Deprived of all its trappings, the new | German-Austrian tariff union is un-| doubtedly the most important political act which has been accomplished in | Europe since the war. The Austro- German zollverein does not only mea: that some 6,000,000 people living in Austria open their frontiers to Germa manufactured products and receive them in their country duty free, and that the Germans do the same thing | to the Austrian products, but it opens an entirely new field to the regrouping | of powers in Europe. ‘The organization of Europe since the end of the war was d exclusively upon political considerations. The feated nations were left severely alone while the victorious nations banded to- gether to support each other politically, regardless of the fact that their eco- nomic interests were sometimes con- flicting. Nations like Austria and Bul- garia were in a desperate plight and were saved from starvation and civil war by small loans given them under the auspices of the League of Nations The Germans had to pay tremendous indemnity and were told to work out | their own salvation. When the install- ments to the allies were due, and the German treasury did not have sufficient funds to pay them, a timely loan from the United States saved Germany from defaulting. But loans to pay the war indemnities were only an added burden to the German taxpayer. ‘The Bruening cabinet realized that in order to be able to pay their tremendous BY HENRY W. BUNN. HE following "is a brief summary | of the most important news of | the world fcr the seven days ended April 11: | BRITISH EMPIRE.—Strange coun- try England, despite so monstrous an | accumulation of economjc woes, the Easter season, we are told, was the most cheerful one of many years. It seems | that heart of grace was taken by rea- | son that for two successive weeks there had been some decrease of unemploy- | ment (altogether, about 50,000) d that the end of the late fiscal year | (March 31) showed s smaller budget | deficit than had been apprehended, so | that, presumably, the tax increases of the ccming budget will be less dreadful than was expected. It is said that all records are being distanced in the num- ber of automobile licenses being issued | and that, whatever may be said of | steel, iron, coal, shipping, etc., the au- | tomctive industry is in the full tide | of prosperity: the highways are so| crowded that a snail's pace is racing speed. And the end of all this one l.!‘ an optimist or a pessimist, and that's | the humor of it. On Maundy Thursday, in the close of St. Paul's the royal almcner dis- pensed “Maundy pennies” and clothing to 66 poor men and women, the num- ber corresponding to the King's years. On April 15 Neville Chamberlain is to be succeeded as chairman of the Conservative party organization by Lord | Stonehaven, recently Governor General | of Australia. Lord Stonehaven was created a peer in 1925, prior to which, | as Sir John Baird, he had a parliamen- tary career of 15 years, including pcsi- tions in sundry governments. Chancellor Bruening and Foreign Minister Curtius of Germany are to be the guests of Prime Minister Mac- Donald at Chequers from June 5 to June 9. They wili have an audience | with the King. | ‘The proceedings at the recent All- India Moslem Congress in Delhi were not exactly favorable to the prospects of Indian federation. Resolutions were passed denouncing the Hindus as re- | sponsible for the recent race riots in Cawnpore and elsewhere, in which several hundred persons were killed. | Speakers declared ‘that the Nationalists had “belied their creed of non-resist- | ance,” expressed utter lack of confi- | dence in the Nationalist congress, ridi- | culed Gandbi’s “Bill of Rights,” etc. % N R SPAIN.—On April 2, by ancient cus- tom, King Alfonso of Spain, on his knees, washed the feet of 12 poor men, | while Queen Victoria, magnificently at- tired and adorned with jewels, did the | same office for 12 poor women, the| two then serving food with their own hands to the destitute group. Nobles. | church magnates, including the papal nuncio, and high-ranking officers of | the services looked on. Throughout the | realm no abatement was observable as | to the ancient dismally picturesque ob- | servances of Holy week, political and | social differences being postponed to penetential gloom. o The first municipal elections of eight years are being hel d‘in ‘Splln today. | o JAPAN.—The Japanese Diet recently ended a session generally agreed to| have been futile. In the last days of the session a bill, proposing grant of the suffrage to wom- | en in respect of municipal elections, after passing the House of Deput! was defeated in the House of Pes through the argument of a noble lord | to the effect that, though Japanese women are superior to the men, but that superiority can be preserved by restrict- ing them to the home sphere. He added the horrid observation that “the vote has only been a white elephant to the women of America. That Japan shares in the planetary slump sufficiently appears from the fol- lowing statistics: Japanese exports of the last quarter of 1930 totaled 203,- 000,000 yen in value, as against 400,- 000,000 yen for the corresponding pe- riod of 1920. Japanese imports of the 1 juarter of 1930 totaled 330,000,000 in value, as against 525,000,000 for the corresponding period of 1929. (The par value of the yen is 49.8 cents.) * x % UNITED STATES.—Nicholas Long- worth of Cincinnati, for six years Speaker of the Hot of Representa- | tives and for 32 vear§ a participant in public life, is dead of lobar pneumonia at the age of 61 On_April 1 National Air Transport and Boeing Air Transport instituted for "f'mma tdlme Atlmflc-l’lglflc “lll-llrl night-and-day passenger and malil serv- ‘The scheduled westward time, New York to S8an Frapcisco (2,770 miles), is | RAMSAY MACDONALD (LEFT) AND DR. HEINRICH BRUENING. obligations the Germans must find new flelds to plack their manufactured prod- ucts in such conditions as to be able to compete successfully with the other industrial countries. "All countries in | Europe, however, have today high tariff | walls. Even in those countries where industry is in its infancy tariff barriers are placed against manufactures nd agricultural products for fiscal S. ‘This being the situation, the an government decided to endeavor to find new markets. The depression in South America, the unrest in India and in China, the unsettled conditions in the Middle and the Near East, the uncer- tainty of the situation in Soviet Russia make it impossible for the best sales- men in the world to increase or even to maintain trade in those territories. Thus the German government was forced to devise some scheme whereby they could sell the industrial over- production to nations which would be willing to accept them duty fres. On account of the existing political treaties and of the competition of other industrial countries the Germans de- cided to take the first step by arrang- ing a trade union with Austria—a small | German-speaking country with no as- sets, with a small industry of her own, but 'still capable of absorbing a certain | amount of the German overproduction. | It is believed that the G:rmans banked |large territorial compensations, which |Political situation in Czechoslovakia is economically, would see in this tariff union the advantages they themselves might obtain out of a tariff union and, forgetting their political alliances, they ‘would join the Austro-German bloc. ‘The German reasoning was apparent- ly not at fault. Although the Austro- German tafff union is not yet legally an accomplished fact, the moral effect in Central and Southeastern Europe has been greater than the Germans themselves expected it to be. Hungary, an industrial state, has be- gun unofficial conversations with the Germans and the Austrians with the view of joining the bloc and thus re- establishing & new Germanic bloc of power in Central Europe, while the Rumanians, who have been on the verge of bankruptcy since the end of the war, are beginning seriously to think about the advantages of joining | that new group of powers. While the Hungarians are thinking of joining the Austro-Germans mainly | for " political reasons, the situation is | entirely different with Rumania. | That country belongs to the little | entente group sponsored by the French. | Before 1916 Rumania was an ally of |the contral powers. The Rumanian | government decided to break that alli- | ance and join the Franco-British group |in 1916 because they hoped to gain off after the war than when they were a smaller country. Their efforts to in- dustrialize the country have proved a failure; they have a large supply of raw material, especlally foodstuffs and oll. These raw materials, however, seem at the present time of little value to them, because, on account of the slump in the price of basic commodities and of high tariff barriers imposed upon them by all their neighbors, they are not in & position to sell all they pro~ duce. France has been lending them some money; but the Rumanians are finding, like the rest of the borrowing countries, that it is & poor policy to borrow all the time when you can't sell your products at a sufficiently fair price to pay off what you have bor- rowed. Ever since King Carol has returned to the throne he is said to have been worrying about how to get out of this impasse. The German minister at Bucharest and the Rumanian finance minister have been discussing the possi- bility of reducing the tariffs between the two countries since last Summer, but they are up against the agricultural interests of Germany and the industrial interests of Rumania. The German landowners opposed a reduction of the tariffs in favor of the Rumanian agri- cultural products, while the owners of the new born industry in Rumania ob- jected to a reduction of the Rumanian tariffs in favor of the German indus- trial products. The conversations were broken off with the understanding that only something “brutal” would bring these factions to reason. The “brutal” thing happened; and in spite of the opposition of the French, the Austro- German zollverein has come into ex- istence. The Rumanians, forgetting their long feud with the Hungarians and their sentimental association with the Prench, are reported to be willing to join the Austrians, the Germans and even the Hungarians should they decide to_join the Austro-German bloc. It is significant that, although the Rumanian-Hungarian relations have been strained since the end of the war, Prince Nicholas of Rumania visited Budapest last week and was received with great honors by the Hungarian re- gent, Admiral Horty, slthough the brother of King Carol stated that his visit to the Hungarian capital was stristly private. Thus former enemies are now being drawn together by the severe economic crisis. ‘This being the case, it seems to ob- servers who have recently returned from Central Europe that even Czechoslo- vakia, France's best friend in Central Europe, might sooner or later join the | German group. For the time being. the mainly on the psychological effect of | they did.' But in spite of more than |Such that an immediate reunion with the tariff union. that other countries, They were convinced hard pinched 31 hours; the eastward time 28 hours. Tri-motored planes are used with two pilots. There are 13 st in 9 States. Westward the flying is by daylight to Iowa City; thence to Salt Lake City beacons mark the route; thence on by sunlight. tween Salt Lake City and Omaha. Of course, there is adequate radio telephone equipment. There are no berths, but ngers can sleep in adjustable chairs, and pillows and blankets are suj individual reading lamp. Meals are served at ground stations and in flight. ‘There are sundry connections with sub- sidiary lines. There are those who predict a Fed- eral deficit on the operation of the current fiscal year of about $800,000,- 000. The gold holdings of our Federal Re- serve system in mid-March totaled about $3,116,000,000, very near the top figure for such holdings, in July, 1923. ‘We must not fail to include in our record any really notable exploit. I therefore take belated notice of the Tecent achievement of Gar Wood, at Miami Beach, Fla., in establishing with his speed boat, Miss America IX, & new record for the statute mile; namely 102.256 miles per hour. This superseded the record of 98.76, estab- lished last year on Lake Windermere, England, by Sir Henry Seagrave. But records fall like ninepins these days. Mr. Wood's pre-eminence was short-lived. At Buenos Aires, on April 2, in connection with the British em- pire trade exhibition, Kaye Don, the | Englishman, with his Miss England II | established & new speed-boat record of 103.4 miles per hour; this on the River Parana, near its confluence with the plate. Eastward night flying is be- | lied. Moreover, each chair has an | doubling their territory and ‘;opuhuon | the Rumanians found themselves worse | It is evident that.the international tennis matches of the near future are | going to be very interesting, as fore- shadowed by the contests a few weeks ago in the 7th Regiment Armory, New York. On Marzh 21 Jean Borotra, the pic- | turesque and popular. French player, won the American national indoor tennis singles championship, beating Berkeley Bell of Texas in the final in five sets, Bell having previously beaten the formidable young Shields. This is the fourth time Borotra has won the title. Pared with Christian Boussus, title. A few days later, in a special indoor series, Borotra was beaten rather easily by Shields, and Boussus, handily dis- posed of in the international cham- pionship competition, beat Bell, the runner-up in that competition. The next day, in doubles, Borotra-Boussus beat Shields-Bell, Borotra beat Bell in singles once more, it was a “near thing,” as the shade | of Wellington would say. Being aboard the U. S. 8. Arizona, President Hoover issued e formal statement to the newspapermen ac- companying him, from which I quote the following interest-passages: “The people of Porto Rico have made & magnificent progress in self-govern- ment and the establishment of Demo- ably conducted by Porto Rican born citizens, and there are today only three or four important officials upon the island who were not born there. “I am advised from every quarter in the island that there would not be a | popular vote of 5 per cent in favor of independence. AreAll th_ei Chances “Gone? BY BRUCE BARTON, OU run across all sorts of surpises in the ecourse of a week. For in- stance, the vice presi- dent of a big chain store or- ganization was telling me a business story. And what do you suppose he based it on? The Bible. He has charge of the com- pany's persohnel. It is a job to sort over a hundred young fellows in order to find the one who will start at small wages, work long hours and fight his way up to the top. The &flzes are big, but the battle hard, and only the toughest survive. ‘The part of the Bible to which the vice president re- ferred was the Feeding cf the Five Thousand. Five thou- sand tired and hungry l?eo- ple. The Lord said, “Feed them.” His disciples, who were prac- tical men, were aghast. “We can’t do it,” they protested. “It would take too much money.” Others urged: “Send them away.” Finally a boy was discovered in the crowd with five small loaves and two fishes. Said my friend: “All they had to %mc’lk with was what that boy ad. “S8o with our company,” he continued. “It's one of the leaders, yet there isn't a really brilliant man in it. We've all come up from the ranks. “We can get money to do anything that we need; but money alone won't do it. s “We can get materials and equipment. “But all we really have to work with is what our four thousand boys have. They are going to decide what this busi- ness will be in the years to come.” When we had this conver- sation business was booming and all big industries were employing more people. Since then we have had a heart- breaking period of unemploy- ment. But, good times or bad times, the search for ability goes on. At the bottom of the depres- sion the president of one great industry asked me if I knew where he could find a twenty- five-thousand-dollar man. The president of another said: “We have installed a system of compulsory pensions.. We must make sure that this busi- ness will continue in the fu- ture to be run by young men.” The size and the set-up of businesses change, but their | message to youth is just the sam e “Come on with your five loaves and two fishes. All we glve to go on is what you boys ave.” (Copyright, 1991, he also walked away with the doubles | and the next day | | and s Prance triumphed again. But | cratic instifutions. The government is | any is out of the question. This | (Continued on Fourth P “The Virgin Islands may have some | military value some time. Opinion | upon this question is much divided. In | any event, when we paid $25,000,000 for them we acquited an effective poor- | house, comprising 90 per cent of the population. | “The people cannot be self-support- ing either in living or government with- out the discovery of new methods and resources. “The purpose of the transfer of the administration from the naval to a civil department is to see if we can develop some form of industry or agriculture which will relieve us of the present costs and liabilitles in support of the population or the local government from the Federal Treasury or from pri- vate charity. “Viewed from every point except re- mote naval contingencies, it was unfor- tunate that we ever acquired these is- lands. Nevertheless, having assumed the responsibility, we must do our best | to assist the inhabitants.” I note a statement that Porto Rico is costing our Federal Government $7,000,000 annually, which does not seem an_exorbitant amount. Vitamins, etc.: The fifteenth annual “clinical session” of the American Col- lege of Physicians, recently held at Johns Hopkins University, was a very interesting affair; in particular, the dis- course on vitamins. Dr. McCollum of Johns Hopkins indi- cated a ground of hope for a boon to mankind of the very first order. “The same discharges that occur during the break-ups of colds and in sinus trouble seem to occur also when there is a de- ficiency in vitamin A.” A experiment definitely establish the suj gested relationship, we might find our- selves well on the way toward effective dealing with that most intractable and least understood of ailments, the com- mon cold. Vitamin A, Dr. McCollum pointed out, is found in butter, whole milk, yolk of eggs, spinach, watercress, lettuce, celery leaves, turnip tops, beet tops and radish tops. It is also found in comparative abundance in certain yellow-pigmented roots, as carrots and sweet potatoes, as against smaller amounts in white or red tubers or roots, as Irish potatoes, white turnips, parsnips, red beets and radishes. It seems that yellow corn contains vita- min A, whereas white corn does not; it is abundant in liver, kidney and sweet- breads, while the proportion is meager in “lean meats” and body fats. Above all do children need vitamin A. -If they lack a sufficiency, they are Dr. McCollum also discoursed enter- tainingly of the five other vitamins. He pointed out that the vitamin B of liver may be ble for 1ts sovereign vir- tue in treatment of pernicious anaemia. A deficlency of vitamin B in rice, the staple food of the Orient, is responsible for the prevalence of beri-beri there. Vitamin C is a protective lfilfln scurvy. It is found in greatest abund- ance in eitrus fruits. Canned and dried foods are deficient therein, We don't know much about vitamin C. It may have some bearing on re- productive problems. Dr. Snell of the Mayo clinic pointed out something which should cocker up the wets, namely, that the common be- lief that use of alcohol is responsible for cirrhosis or hardening of the liver has been exploded. TFe stated that vigorous efforts are being made to de- vise a technique of discovery of this terrible disease in its early stages, and to find & remedy. ‘The pledge taken on receipt of a fel- lowship in the American Coflege of Phy- professional aid to the poor and needy (presumably without compensation in extreme cases), to eschew commercial- ism, to adapt his fees justly to the financial status of his patients, etc. * ok % ok NOTES.—Serious dissensions are de- wloaln‘ among the German Fascists (National Are the 4 the cabinet, and rul::eun e o ation was ‘cegbed- Nicolas Titulescu, Minister to Great Britain, has been invited to form a new government. Some say it will be a coalition government, others a “govern- ment of nalities.” The Mironesou anagua over on April 3 by Ernest J. Swift, on his arrival by alrplane from Miami. g SUPREME COURT RULING ON 75 APPEALS AWAITED Tax, Indian, Press and Racial Prejudice Cases Ready for Decision Upon Reconvening. BY GREGORY HANKIN, P the 75 cases now ready for decision by the U. 8. Supreme Court when it reconvenes to- morrow, 19 relate to questions of internal revenue and 18 to problems concerning Indians. The lat- ter number, however, is misleading, be. cause 15 of those cases are being con- sidered as one case. Next in the order of the number of cases are problems of taxation, of which there are now five pending; four cases | relate to railroad problems, three to questions of infringement of copyrights, | either by radio or orchestral per formances; two involve problems con- cerning restraint of trade, and one case relates to the disposition of property | of former enemy aliens. That one case, | however, is also listed M the court as | eight individual cases, but have been | treated and will most probably be dis- posed of as one case. Among the cases pending for decision are also the “gag law” of Minnesota, concerning freedom of the press: the validity of the alien land law of Wash. ington as applied to a Canadian cor- poration, one question relating to the procedure to be followed in the courts in the application of the Federal em- ployers’ liability act. an interesting question of marine insurance and a number of bankruptey cases. Boulder Dam Suit Pends. The most important case pending for decision, however, is the controversy between the State of Arizona on the one hand_and the States of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado | and Wyoming and the Secretary of the Interior on the other hand. This was. a sult brought to enjoin the Secretary of the Interior and the defendant States from enforeing or carrying out | any of the provisions of the Colorado | River compact and the der Canyon project on the ground that these are unconstitutional, as depriving the State | of Arizona of her sovereign and pro- prietary rights. The ' Colorado River compact drafted by reg.r:;unutlvu of Arizona | and six defendant States for the pur- | pose of making an equitable distribu- | tion of the waters of the Colorado | River, for the storage of water and the | production of hydro-electric power, but mainly to control the floods of that| river. This compact was to become | binding when approved by Congress and | the seven signatory States. The com- | pact was never rafified by Arizona, be- cause she claimed its terms were in- equitable, unjust and unfair to her and | deprived her, among other things, of | the use of 3,000,000 acre-feet of water from the river, all of which was subject to appropriation by her. On December 31, 1928, Congress | passed the Boulder Canyon profect act | providing for the distribution of waters | of the Colorado River, subject to the | was | el the district court, or atleast will modify the decree 8o as to make the contracts voldable rather than void. The problems of state taxation n clude a number of ves operating two to five h additional store above one; those operating between six in cess of five; those operating between 11 and 20 stores pay a fee of $20 for each store in excess of 10, while those opera. ting in excess of 25 stores pay $25 for each additional store. The appellant, Lafayette Jackson; op- erates 225 grocery stores in the city of Indianapolis. He claims that the tax is contrary to the equal protection clause of the Constitution, because he is compelled to pay about 1,800 times as much as one would have had he done the same amount of ina single store. ‘There are now 21 states which have imposed graduated taxes on chain stores. As a method of curbing chain store competition, such laws might be hleld ;xx!n‘c:;:;muuaml, under the deci- sion ett Company vs. , which involved thcuPenmy flvmlflw imposing limitations on chain drug stores. But in this case we have s tax, and the test for whether a tax is contrary to the equal protection clause is whether the classi- fication adopted by the state is so arbi- trary and unreasonable as to have no relation to the object of taxation. State Stresses Difference. ‘The object here is to tax the privilege of conducting a mercantile business, and the state of Indl;n:d mmunuhnd that privilege exerci operating one store is different from that of a chain of stores, and 3 that the difference varies in intensity, depending upon the number of -stores operated. The State argued that chain stores njoy tremendous advantages over in- dividual stores in buying , in the use of a large amount of , in extensive advertising in the use of common warehouses, etc. The State also stressed the fact that there is an important difference between the chain store and the individually-owned store in their relations to the commu- nity; that while the latter has his cap- ital invested in the community and therefore takes a greater interest in it, the former is a mere s in the Pirpose of deriving profts. > o 0 purpose of de: ts. It is interesting of the Colorado River compact. | of The act provided, however, that the | compact shall become binding if six | signatory States, including California, | shall sign it. Arizona then brought this | Persu: suit to enjoin the Secretary of the Interior from entering into the territory | CO of Arizona and proceeding with the Boulder Canyon project, claiming that the act was unconstitutional because it attempts to force an agreement upon | Arizona, and permits the secretary to| invade her territory and deprive her of | : her sovereign rights. May Ask Injunction. The caze was argued on the motion :: lhen::femnflmfl to dismiss. A few vs 8 e argument took place the Secretary of the Interior entered into a contract with Six Companies, Inc., for the construdtion of Boulder Dam at | a cost of almost $50,000,000. Appar- ently the Secretary figured that if the motion to dismiss was overruled and the case proceeded to trial it would take some two years before the taking of the testimony was completed, and by that time sufficient work could be done on the project so that the court could not order its discontinuance without a drastic order, and furthermore, that it could not order the Unif States to remove the constructions, because that is not within the power of the court. It is expected, therefore, that the State of Arizona will file & supplemental bill in the Supreme Court for temporary injunction to restrain the Secretary of the Interlor from proceeding with the operations. Another case involving a controversy between sovereign powers is United States vs. Utah, which is a suit to quiet title to the beds of the Green, Colorado and San Juan rivers at certain places in the State of Utah. The real reason for the controversy is that oil has been found in those portions of the beds, and a controversy has arisen between the lessees of the United States Government and the lessees of the State of Utah. The outcome of the controversy depends on whether the rivers at those place: were or were not navigable in 1904, when Utah was admitted into the Union. Oil Cracking Cases. | ‘The most important case from the | standpoint of national economics is the | sult brought by the United States against the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Texas Company, the Gasoline Products Com- pany and other individuals and cor- porations to enjoin restraint of trade in a’;::’y susceptible to sertaln infectivs ;fiur under their patients, are admit- ases. siclans engages the recipient to extend | by form | such restrictions the sale and distribution of gasoline | produced by the “cracking” process. The agreements between these compa- nies, whereby they cross-licensed each ly agreements in restraint of trade, contrary to the Sherman Anti-Trust law, if taken apart from the fact that the use of the patents was made a con- sideration for the agreements, and also, apart from the fact that the oil com- panies claim the agreements were enter- ed into to avoid many suits for infring- ments of those patients. ‘Thus, again the question is presented to the Supreme Court whether agree- ments, which ordinarily could be in re- straint of trade, may be entered into for furtherance of a monopoly granted by the United States under its patent laws. That very question was recently decided by the Supreme Court in an opinion by Justice Brandeis. In that case, suit was brought by the American Patents De- velopment Corporation and the Dry Ive Corporation against the Carbice Cor- poration for selling solid carbon dioxide 1o a user of a patent for refrigeration by means of golid carbon dioxide. This patent was sold by the American Patent Developments Corporation on the con- | dition that the purchaser if it shall use only the carbon dioxide manufactured the Dry Ice Corporation. The Supreme Court held that the monopoly granted under the patent did not include the use of any specific car- bon dioxide, and that therefore a suit for infringement could not be maintain- ed. It was not necessary for the court to rule directly that this condition im- posed by the owners of the patent on its use was contrary to the anti-trust law, but the court stropgly intimated that analogous to those prohibited by the anti-trust laws. In the “cracking” cases, the district court, where suit was brought, consid- ered the extent and validity of the pat- ents, in order to determine whether the restrictions im the were within the patent monopolies. It found that these were improvement pat- ents and not basic patents, and hence ‘were not entitled to monopolies of broad scope. That court, therefore, held that the contracts were void as being in re- smmtmot trade, and enjoined the o‘g companies t@m further engaging such restraints. lew of the decision ren by the St e Court in the Carblce case, it is e: that the Sy- preme Court will decree of LAY | | amination of the obligations of this commisison, asive and it is very the decision of the urt in Indiana will be reversed. valid as one imposed for of using the State highways. line also maintained that discriminatory, because busses operat between tances greater 10 miles, and fore was aimed primarily at intersta busses. But the State court held tha such distinction was not discriminatory. Burden on U. S., Is Ples. What are Federal instrumentalities which may not be taxed by the States has become a difficult question of late: o o Oélgcom Court a few years ago, held that Mississippi could not impose its gasoline tax on one selling or t‘:‘g nmm TS. pose taxes on & corporaf a licensee of the Federal Power mission is also befors the Court. ‘This point was Al Susquehanna Power Co., which the Conowingo Dam, when the of Maryland imposed & tax on merged lands owned by the ‘The State of Maryland a tax on the stock of the here it was maintained capital stock was not sul because the company is s licemsee the Federal Power Commission. Supreme Court of lllr!hnda' , came to the con, clusion that it was not such an - mentality of the Federal t as would absolve it from taxation:by | the State. Estate Tax Wrangle. The most important Siate tak and Toore smocifcally: o e esf and more 3 8 rovision in the act relating to trans- ers made in contemplation of death: ‘This provision has had a long and diffi- cuuu at.mw?m on account otnth." in%x;— pretations imposed upon courts. Under the act, transfers made within two years of death are presumed death, yet the question constently as to the meaning of “in contemplat of death.” A man dies at the age of within two years before his transfers some $783,000 worth H i ; 5 é -3 i eé.;:saisfiéif: ; (Continued on