Evening Star Newspaper, July 30, 1933, Page 21

] Part 2—8 Pages TEN U. S. AGENCIES CREATED TO CARRY OUT NEW DEAL” Reeovery Administration Presents Most Conspicuous Example of Experi- mental Natur By COLEMAN B. JONES. HE word “experiment,” a favorite of President Roosevelt’s in dis- cussing his recovery efforts, is given a tangibility and sub- stance it seldom acquires by a survey of the network of organizations he has set up to put into effect the vast powers ccnferred upon him by Congress. ‘These powers extend to an unmeas- ured degree over industry, agriculture, transportation, finance and the gov- ernment itself. About the only major grant of power among the many he holds which the President has not be- gun to exercise—unless abandonment of the gold standard is put into this category—is that for inflation of the currency. He will need no special agency to wield that power if he de- cides to use it. The Treasury, the banking systems, the mint and the printing presses are already at his dis- posal if he wishes to employ them for that purpose. To strive for the objectives he seeks through exercise of the other powers he possesses—the restoration of em- ployment, the lifting of mass purchas- ing power, the raising of price levels 1o retieve the debt burden and the more evep distribution of the proceeds of industry—he has created 10 agencies, and a super-agency to co-ordinate their activities and minimize their conflicts. List of Agencies. ‘These agencies are: ‘The National Industrial Recovery Administration. The Agricultural Ad- ministration. The Emergency Public Works Ad- ministration. The office of Federal Co-ordinator of Transportation. The Federal Farm Credit Admin- istration. The Home Owners' Loan Corpora- tion, under the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. The Federal Emergency Relief Ad- ministration. ‘The Civilian Conservation Corps. ‘The Tennessee Valley Authority. The reorganized Reconstruction Fi- hance Corporation. Over all of these he has set up the National Industrial Recovery Execu- tive Council, comprising the 10 mem- bers of his cabinet, the director of the budget and the heads of each of the recovery agencies, with Frank C. Walker, treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, added as execu- tive secretary, and by reason of that position chief co-ordinator under the President: For the next five weeks at least, be- cause of the campaign launched last week to induce every employer in the country to sign the “President’s re- employment agreement” to raise wages and spread employment by reducing hours of work the Industrial Recovery Administration will be the most con- spicuous and powerful of all of the re- covery agencies, even in the less industrialized, more sparsely populated States. It presents, upon close exami-, mation of its structure, the most con- spicuous example of the experimental nature of the administration’s whole program. Still in Formative Stage. Extremely active since the first day it became a legal actuality in carry- ing out its mission to increase employ- ment and mass purchasing power through codes of fair competition for each industry, and already embarked on its most revolutionary effort to bring all employers under a temporary arrangement for establishing minimum wages and maximum hours of work, it is still in process of being organized. The main outlines of the organiza- tion of this tremendously powerful agency have, of course, become fairly well defined, although they were not very clear until some time after it had gone vigorously into action. As they stand today, these outlines, subject as always in the emergency recovery ad- ministration to unheralded revision, are focused in a Special Industrial Re- covery Board and Gen. Hugh S. John- son (retired), wartime draft organizer, as_administrator. The board is headed by Daniel C. Roper, Secretary of Commerce, and includes the heads of the Departments of Justice, Agriculture and Labor with the assistant secretaries of those de- partments, Lewis W. Douglas, director of the budget, who virtually has cabinet rank in this administration; the head of the Federal Trade Commission, with powers greatly enhanced by the last session of Congress; Gen. Johnson and his personal assistant, Robert K. Straus. Board's Status in Doubt. Doubt persists as to whether the board is over Gen. Johnson or merely advisory to him. The administrator derives his power direct from the President. So do the cabinet members of the board. One day the indications point cne way: the next day they point the other. With standards of value based on long standing rules of prece- dence governing its traditional attitude —despite the fact that traditional at- titudes have been shuffled out of the deck in the “new deal"—Washington is inclined, but none too confidently, to put the board, with its cabinet lead- ership, on top. i Eel%w zhaéyg\ebulous area at the top, however, the lines of organization in the Industrial Recovery Administration are somewhat more clearly drawn. Gen, Johnson is flanked by two per- sonal assistants and three advisory boards representing the viewpoints of labor, industry and the consumer. Di- Adjustment e of Program. theory that, although an industrial Na- tion, the farm votes are so much more valuable than city votes to a majority of members of Congress that they found R 7xpedxem. to center this power where s. The effect of that action has been, from an organization standpoint, to clarify the lines at the top of this ad- ministration. Secretary Wallace is di- rectly its head, though responsible as & cabinet member to the President. Un- der him are George N. Peek, admin- istrator, and Charles J. Brand, coad- ministrator of the agicultural adjust- ment act. ‘Through them the power flows cut to a group of divisions, headed by di- rectors of production, processing and marketing, finance, trade agreements, economics and statistics, information and publicity, and including also a legal division and a controller's office. { The duties of the directors are dis- tributed through chiefs of sections set up, thus far, to deal with dairy, wheat, cotten, hogs and corn, special crops and tobacco problems in the different cate- gories. These sections are still in | process of expansion. The Emergency Public Works Ad- ministration, charged with the distri- | bution of $3,300,000,000 of Federal funds to create jobs as a means of re- | lieving unemployment and lifting pur- | chasing power through the financing of Federal, State, county, municipal and semi-public self-liquidating proj- ects, is less clearly outlined in the lower branches of its organization than either of the other two major recovery agencies. At the top, however, the | problem has been simplified by mak- ing Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, not only chairman of the | Emergency Public Works Board, simi- lar in organization to the Special In- dustrial Recovery Board, but also emergency public works administrator. Waite Has Important Post. Lieut. Col. Henry M. Waite, retired, as deputy administrator, is in command directly under Secretary-Administrator Ickes. A legal division, engineering division. housing division and a long- range planning board have been estab- | lished and a finance division is contem- plated. Under the divisions, according to plans still in the formative stage, will be a group of regional administrators, and under them a system of State ad- ministrations. The organization through which | Joseph B. Eastman, Federal co-ordina- [ tor of transportation, will undertake his huge task of trying to simplify, re- adjust and reduce the costs of the Na- tion’s transportation systems, and par- | ticularly to rehabilitate the railroads | and cut their expenses without arbi- | trarily reducing the number or earnings | of their employes, has begun to take | clear-cut form only within the last three weeks. The railroad activities | have been charted. They will center in three regional co- ordinating committees, composed of executives of the carriers in the East, West and South, flanking the co-ordi- nator. Urder him will be sections on freight service, passenger service, pur- chases and car pooling, although the freight and passenger service - bilities may be combined. They will operate through Eastern, Western and Southern regional directors, each with a traffic assistant. take form. Agricultural Credit Agencies. The Agricultural Credit Administra- tion, under which all that remain of the farm credit agencies have been grouped together with responsibility for the $2,000,000 farm mortgage refinancing program and the $200,000,000 emer- gency farm mortgage relief plan, is also in an early formative stage of organiza. tion. Under Henry Morgenthau, jr., governor, are three deputy governors, a general counsel, administrative and pub- licity officers. Under this tier of au- thority, the power is spread out among a co-operative loan commissioner, a land bank commissioner, with an agent as assistant in charge of the emergency mortgage relief activities; an interme- diate credit commissioner, a production credit commissioner and an emergency credit commissioner. A regional set-up along the lines of the land bank dis. tricts is planned. ‘The chief function of the emergency recovery program lodged in the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which also has jurisdiction over the 12 district home loan banks created during the Hoover administration, lies in the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which is to | administer the $2,000,000,000 fund au- | thorized by Congress for the refinancing of distressed mortgages on non-farm residences valued at $20,000 or less. Former Representative William F. Ste- venson of South Carolina, as chairman of the board, is the head of this cor- poration, which is just beginning to take form. Under him are a general manager, treasurer and two assistant general managers. It is planned to spread the responsibilities out among district man- agers flanked with advisory boards, thence through State managers witn advisory boards, and on to county agents, each to be aided by an appraiser and an attorney. The organization is expected eventually to employ :ht:)o "'la 10,000 persons, not counting visory groups. » The Federal Emergency Relief Ad- ministration, with $500,000,000 at its disposal, half for grants and half for loans to States for unemployment re- lief, s a relatively simple unit in Headed by Harry rectly under him to distribute his load | agen are a publicity division, its importance greatly increased by its paramount re- sponsibility for the campaign to bring all employers under the terms of the “President’s Re-employment Agree- ment” until they come under codes of fair competition; a legal division, an administrative division, a research divi- sion and a still mdeflnlk:e num! of deputy administrators chosen use ofy:pzchl tions to act for the administrator in dealing with certain industries or groups of industries. Each of the deputies, in turn, is flanked by three -dv{‘utr; represen:irng labor, in- dusf an e consumer. o‘;;mntlon of the Agricultural Ad- ustment Administration, which, has £ in existence longer, naturally has jbewme more definitely advanced than that of the Industrial Recovery - istration. The latter takes precedence in importance and the scope of its power over the ways of life of every man, woman and child only because the United States has become a predom- inantly industrial instead of an agri- 4 cultural Nation. In this administration much of the wer is lodged directly by law in Emv A. Wallace as Secretary of - culture. The fact that the flow of power was o directed, instead of being routed through the office of President, is variously explained, one line cf gossip presenting the opinion that it was be- cause Mr. Wallace insisted that it be g the creation of official relief administra- tions in each State, which will be ministration. Now that the 300,000 direct bene- ficiaries of the Civilian Conservation Corps among the unemployed have been placed in forest camps, that organiza- tion likewise has been considerably simplified. Robert Fechner, the di- rector, has an executive and an ad- ministrative assistant. Since the opera- tion of the agency’s plan to unemployed youth in forest conserva- tion work is carried out through agencies of the War, Labor, ‘Agricul- tural and Interior Departments, Mr. Fechner is assisted by an advisory coun- cil made up of a representative of the Army General Staff and the heads of the United States Employment Service, :he!bmtservleemdflul’lrksefl ice. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which will be responsible for the vast Muscle Shoals-Tennessee Valley development experiment, is remotely ccnnected with the phases of the tions emergency Roorve}t program, its func- chiefly of a long-term char- acter. It is, therefore, proceeding more slowly and cautiously any of the other agencies lating its organization. Dr. Arthur E. Morgan heads the organization as chair- man of the board and also as gencral ;: “ before wru manager. So far, the only dmflm.l cre- Executive, legal and | research divisions also have begun to | T WASHINGTON, D. C, ‘Who Profits By Inflation? Seaks the Poor and Not the Rich, Says Noted Economist—Its Chief Victims Are Outlined. BY NEIL CAROTHERS, Professor of Econmics, Lehigh University. N THE strange language of Broad- way, 50,000,000 Frenchmen can’t be wrong. This is not so. The whole French nation can be wrong, and has been. A hundred million Amer- icans can be wrong. On a dozen issues of the past the majority of Americans have been mistaken, the public lands policy furnishing one example among many. A large majority of Americans believe that labor-saving machinery causes unemployment, whereas in sober fact every such improvement increases employment and raises wages. Lead- ers of State and industry and educa- tion are sometimes hopelessly wrong. Consider, for example, the lately pre- sented comic opera, technocracy, with its nt_absurdities, sponsored by academic authority and “highbrow publications. Today we have a grievous error gov- erning the policy of our ‘Government and permeating the thought of the people. _ This is the erroneous notion that inflation is a remedy for depres- sion. The economists have been subjected to much criticism in these troubled times. Admittedly there have been some differences of opinion among them. Here and there some individual among the many hundreds has pro- some fantastic futility, such as Parter “exchanges or “stamped scrip dollars. But to compare the steady common sense of the economists with the blundering ineptitude of the lead- ers of Government and finance who passed the Smoot-Hawley bill and financed Kreuger and enacted the Fed- eral Farm Board bill and sold Peruvian bonds and voted for the 30-hour week would be gratitous cruelty. Almost the entire economics profes- sion will subscribe to these fundamental ths: 1. The depression is coming %o an end, without inflation. 2. There is ample currency and credit, now available without inflation, to bring prices to a ‘“prosperity” level. 3. No depression in history has been | ended by inflation. 4. There are no grounds for believ- | ing that inflation can end a depres- sion. 5. Extensive inflation, in every coun- S In- , has brought national misery. It is time for plain speaking. flation is not a desperate remedy for a desperate situation: On ‘the con- trary, it is an arbitrary and unneces. sary interference with a recovery EDITORIAL SECTION TI'LL ready well begun. Its purpose is not to end depression, but to relieve certain groups of people of their obligations and to permit the Government to spend money recklessly, without balancing its | budget. Peace-time inflation in all his- tory is the device of a Government unwilling to pay its debts, but quite willing to dishonor its promises. in or- | der to give subsidies to clamoring ele- |ments in the population. When a Latin-American dictator seizes the reins of government he disavows the policies of his predecessor and pours out a | flood of inflated currency to reward his supporters and appease his enemies. ‘There is nothing new in the reckless | measures of the last three months. | They are new only in the sense thal | this'is the first time that this country has seen fit to repudiate its sworn ob- ligations, On April 24, Senator Thomas of Ok- ROOSEVELT TO THE RESCUE. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT (TO MASTER DOLLAR): “ALL RIGHT, SO TAKE YOU ACROSS.” —From Punch, or the London Charivari. i lahoma, sponsor of the inflation bill, | explained the purpose of the measure. |He said that it would transfer *$200,- | 000,000,000 in the hands of persons who now have it, who did not earn it, who |do not deserve it, who must not retain | it, back to the other side, the debtor | | class of the Republic.” In other words, | the intent was to confiscate the property of the wealthy and give it to the poor. | ‘The purpose was to “soak the rich.” A week before this pronouncement | | the head of one of the richest banking | houses in the world praised the Gov- | |ermmment’s policy of inflation, and after | | the inflation measure was passed an- | other spokesman for this house ex- | pressed his warm approval. On every | hand the average citizen is warned that inflation is an intricate phenomenon, |too technical for his analysis. But i i requires no expert knowledge of finance ¢ Sundy Shae SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 30, 1933. to appreciate the fronic humor of this approval by a Wall Street house of an Oklahoma Senator’s plan for the complete expropriation of the rich. ‘There's a reason for this coincidence of approval that the aver- age man will readily see. The reason is that one of these two parties under- stands inflation. No reader needs more than one guess as to which one knows what inflation will really do. Inflation doesn’t soak the rich. It soaks the poor. is their poverty, as has been said long before. But another misfortune is that they are inarticulate. They have no voice, no leaders with access to the governmental ear. They are forgotten men, in legislation if not in discussion. Inflation hurts all who can not escape its fell influence, and it is not the poor who can. Depression Price Swing. It is the nature of depression to carry prices to a point as far below a whole- some level as the preceding boom car- ried them above that level. This is [not only the price we pay for the boom conditions but also the means of re- covery. The bloated prices of 1929 caused the collapse. The morbidly low prices of 1933 are the painful but neces- sary condition of restoration. They drain the water from such enterprises as Insull's. They deflate the swollen and unearned profits of industry and finance. They reduce the salaries and wages of certain parasitic groups. They wipe out the waste and the incompe- |tence in business. Until this purging | process is completed there can be no re- | covery. Four years of the Hoover ad- ministration proved the futility of at- tempts to stop the process. ‘When low prices have prepared the way recovery is inevitable. Even a mis- | guided government cannot stop it. It | comes steadily, with rising prices, re- employment and returning profits. In- | flation distorts and disturbs this or- derly process of recovery. | natural course raw materials and hu- man services and business activities increase in value side by side. Under the stimulus of inflation certain proper- ties and certain persons gain at the expense of others. In final analysis, inflation robs large elements in the population and unjustly enriches others. Pick up any text in economics and yturn to inflation. In the fashion of such book# it will give you & generalization: “Inflation helps (Continued on Fourth Page.) the This Man Gen. Johnson Forceful and Likable Figure Is Handling Industrial Recovery Program With Clear Vision Ahead BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE sessions in which Gen. Hugh Johnsgn, administrator of in- dustrig] recovery, meets news- paper men for half an hour Tues- days and Fridays have come to be second in importance and attendance only to President Roosevelt’s own press conferences. Gen. Johnson, gations of business men and labor, makes decidedly the impression of force, candor, poise, high intelligence, alto- gether the qualities of personality that common speech calls a “big man.” If there must be a czar of American in- dustry, Gen. Johnson is all right. But we must not use the word “czar.” The administration—the whole of the Roosevelt administration, espe- cially the “brain trust’—are skillful about words, know the ‘psychology of them. They intimate to us that we should use the terminology they give us, that we must not use such words as “czar.” And we mua‘tmuu the term ‘Industrial Recovery 3 trol of Industry Act” although the latter was the name under which the bill began. ‘“Control” and “plum!n(_ are the very essence of the brain trust’s formally responsible to the Federal ad- i mobilize | 1 y of government, but they philosoph: “control” as a newspaper other cial institutions and railroads. Its au- thority for making loans for such self- liquidating projects as bridges, k developments and slum clearance m has _been ‘housing transferred to the Emergency Public Works Administration and considerably in these sessions and in his hearings of dele- GEN. HUGH itimate formula practiced by in conferences with news- “I do not answer thetical questions” or “Ill cross that bridge when I come to it.” Sometimes questions &ufi to Gen. Johnson, in con- the many of men, S. JOHNSON. laugh that greets his epigram, but he doesn't “play for” it. He is utterly without showmanship, but he gives al- most as entertaining a conference as President Roosevelt, who understands showmanship well. A man in politics needs showmanship—poor Mr. Hoover did not have it. Gen. Johnson, as an Army man, has never learned it. It is his intelligence and force of per- sonality that make him a good show. Responsible for Fairness. Some one demanded that all Gen. Johnson’s corps of assistants shall be divided with exact equality between men from the field of labor and men from the field of management—judicial fairness to be attained through mathe- matical balance. Johnson points his finger: “I am responsible for fairness. It i5 unfair or anyway wrong, bility. I don’t put it on anybody else. There hasn't been any unfairness yet. If there is, or you think there is, you come to me. I'm responsible for fair- ness and for everything else.” His acceptance of responsibility is complete, as complete as that of a general in war. No “passing the buck” in anything Gen. Johnson has to do with. He has assistants and ldvu:;‘r‘yl Johnson'’s shoulders. The law puts it that way 1 It is one of the ablest min ington, and the ability includes capacity to balance one set of conditions against F 5 TH it : i A ; i H E& i BE B i & i ;a 2 - 2k { 5 & £ g | 24 ‘The curse of the poor | In the | ber I am responsible. I take the responsi- | & RENEWED EFFORT FOR CUT IN ARMS IS HELD USELESS Evidence Points to Continued Deadlock Despite U. S. Hopes for Results at Geneva in October. BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. HE announcement contained in a recent radio address of Col. Howe, secretary to the President, that when the Arms Conference reconvenes at Geneva in Oc- tober, the American representatives will press the proposals made by Mr. Roose- velt in the Spring, clearly commits the administration and the country to one more effort to promote European dis- armament by American effort. Along with Col. Howe's statement went pro- spectus of Emrrees slready made at Ge- neva which would, T venture to guess, surprise Mr. Hendersan, president of the conference, now enyaged in a rather mournful journey frén capital to capi- tal seeking to enlist aid to revive a moribund assembly. But what is most interesting in the announcement is the indication that Washington still hopes for results from the Roosevelt prescription. That pre- scription, it will be recalled, envisaged the scrapping of weapons, described by the President as heavy tanks, etc. These wea] viously be employed to attack and would be effective for use against the vast system of frontier fortifications France has constructed from the Rhine to Lux- emburg. The theory underlying tH8 President’s proposal is that nations ltke France, manifestly disturbed over the aggressive political purposes of their neighbors, could be persuaded to abahdon their own offensive weapons if similar re- nunciation were obtained from their neighbors. In fact, they would theo- retically increase their own security thereby. And along with this elimina- tion of “offensive” weapons goes the proposal for a strict international su- p“:rvlslan of the armaments of all coun- es, League of Nations. American public. But to the European its very simplicity is misleading. For, in the first place, neither the Prepara- tory Commission, during its five years itself, which has sat intermittently for nearly a year and a half has ever been able to establish an acceptable defini- tion of an “offensive” weapon. Broad Basis for Disagreement. But there is a much broader basis for disagreement. It is described at Geneva as the “potentialities of war"— a term which has little or no Amer- ican vogue. Thus the French and their allies, who today possess a certain num- of expensive and large weapons, guns and tanks, for example, start with the obvious assumption that while it may be possible to obtain an agreement on the part of all nations to abandon these weaj and supervision may in- sure full ent of the pledge, with the outbreak of war, all prohibitions auto- matically lapse. But in such circumstances Germany, which is industrialized to an extent far greater than Prance or any of her al- lies, could in a short time arm herself with such weapons to an extent which would be beyond the power of France. Thus not immediately, but eventually, she would enjoy mechanical superior- ity. And, already possessing a much greater population, and therefore the potentialities of large man power, Ger- many would be certain to triumph. On the other hand, Germany today neither has the heavy weapons nor do her treaty obligations or her financial difficulties permit her in any immediate future to arrive at parity with France and her allies in this d on. And, for a certain time, superior financial resources will enable France to retain her t advantage. She has, then, for the time being. security of a sort. And she will not part with it, except in return for material guarantees of equal value. That is why Henderson was told in Paris recently that the most France would now consider doi was to join g e su] of ents every- where. Then, if after four or five years this system justified itself and— by implication, rather than direct state- ment, second proviso was broached —the German state of mind changed, something might be done. But when Henderson got to Berlin he was met by the ly uncompro- mising statement that the Germans saw in this French n the sign of a resolution to ave granting Ger- many her flercely-sought equality at once and in fact fol her off for four more years. And the Hitler dic- torshij ‘not having any” Henderson’s experience in Paris and Berlin, therefore, constituted a clear warning that once the Arms Conference should reassemble it would again be deadlocked as it was before by the clash between German demand for equality without condition and the Prench in- med La’ecumylhoéxyldheclwly ore & , recognized in principle, should ae‘;me physically And such a deadlock would dangerous repercussions in a Europe in its present circumstances. g g ol it i artillery. so far as it is mobile, large | could ob- | Wi presumably condicted by t.hei This program commends itself nt! once to no inconsiderable part of the of existence, nor the Arms Conterence, | In the United States, however, there is a widespread belief that the adoption of the Stimson doctrine by a Demo- cratic administration has made a real contribution to the security of nations which—like France—are armed but are also fearful. We have, in effect, to waive our neutral rights, 2* we de- cide a nation has been gmuny of ag- gression. But such agreenent is limited necessarily to the aciion of the present iChief Executive, who can neither bind Congress nor his successors. In point of fact, the French were never much interested in the Stimson doctrine except in so far as it might prove a platform for Britain to ac- cept wider responsibilities in the main- tenance of European peace. At the London Naval Conference, three years ago, there was a moment when Mac- Donald, to save a five-power agree- ment, seemed willing to consent to a Mediterranean Locarno, provided the United States would promise to come to conference in time of crisis and to waive her neutral rights in case a fact of aggression was established at such a conference. But Mr. Hoover from ‘ashington vetoed any such American commitment. When Norman H. Davis, in Mr. Roosevelt’s name, proffered at Geneva last Spring the pledge which Stimson had not been able to give at London, its value to the French resided precisely in its effect upon the British. When they were told flatly and unequivoe cally that notwithstanding the inter- esting modification in American policy. Britain was resolved to take no fresh European responsibilities, the Roose- velt proposal lost all its political value. The French press and public were disappointed alike in the restricted na- ture of the Roosevelt pledge and the ab- sence of any British response to that pledge and the result was soon dis- closed in the persistence of the deadlock at Geneva and the subsequent adjourn- ment of a conference which was mani- festly unable to function. And nothing has chaged in this basic situation since the adjournment. No Means of Coercion. The fundamental fallacy of a Dis- jarmament Conference now is identical | with that which underlay the London Economic Conference. The political, like the economic, policies of nations are today irreconcilable. France is no |more willing to abandon her security policy than Mr. Roosevelt was ready at London to abandon his monetary policy. | And there is, of course, no possible | means of coercing the French as there wal.: no means of coercing Mr. Roose- veit. If, however, the Conference is re- |sumed and the United States attempts to impose the President’s program of | abolishing “offensive” weapons, then we shall see exactly what would have hap- |pened at London, if the gold bloc had |attempted to bring pressure upon the American administration to modify ils anti-stabilization thesis. We shall, in turn, endeavor to exert the same sort of pressure upon France and her allies in the matter of military establishments that these nations might have atempted to exert upon the Roosevelt adminis- tration. But the French are no more likely to yield than was Mr. Roosevelt recently. And, obviously bad feelings in both coun- tries, aroused by the London events and by the debt issue as well, will further em- bitter the debate. It is true Franco- Italian relations have improved and some naval agreement is not impossible, but no international conference is needed to produce that, since arrange- ments for it were made at the London Naval Conference three years ago. The objection to a new American ad- venture in Europe does not, of course, rest upon any hostility to the cause of disarmament. On the contrary, it is because the resentments and disputes of such a conference may easily post- Pone, not push, reduction in armaments, that there is in Europe a great and general reluctance to see Geneva recon- vene. And, quite obviously, we shall come in for new denunciation and re- proach if, as a result of an American impulse, another international meet- ing assembles only to bog down in dead- lock immediately. There could be only one excuse for reconvening the Arms Conference for serious work and that would be sup- plied by clear evidence of a change in the basic policies of the nations now in deadlock. But while Mr. Davis as- serts and Col. Howe echoes his asser- tions that there has been such & dramatic and far-reaching transforma- tion, there is nothing in the European press or public statements of political leaders to suggest it. On the contrary, the German and French press is filled with clear evidence that the deadlock holds. And the British and Italian newspapers are at least skeptical, if not doAllwnflginhll.l peul‘ x;;i.suc. what seems impen is Just one more international = realized. inevitably have disagreeable and even | gfy, telligent Chinese who have their country’s interest at heart pose m“tgnewm:;a follows: China must accept Japanese experts in this nation or else those from