Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1934, Page 43

CONTINUED DEPRESSION HELD G. O. P. HOPE IN ’36 Roosevelt Is Conceded Victory if Re- covery Becomes Apparent Within Next 18 BY MARK SULLIVAN. RUPTIONS of asperity between groups of Republican leaders E about what to do with the party are merely bubbles break- ing on the surface of politics. The tides beneath are something else again—something not fully under- stood, neither by the rival Republican leaders nor by any one else. If any one is rash enough to think he knows what is going on in the deeps of those influences and forces which express themselves in political parties and | political movements, let the rash one set himself a simple test. Let him look forward and try to set down on paper what he thinks the political line-up in 1936 will be. I doubt if any person can forecast 1936 successfully—not even Franklin D. Roosevelt, who will have | much power to make 1936 what he wishes it to be. True, the time ahead is not long, | less than 23 months until the Presi- dential election of November, 1936, and only about 18 months until the time when the political parties nominate their presidential candidates. One can safely, I think, be daring enough to go that far, and say there will be a presidential election in 1936 as usual. Even the most cautious and the most puzzled can safely go that far. But not much farther. We may have, by 1936, surprising developments in the way of new parties and otherwise, Roosevelt Main Personality. In determining what the political line-up of 1936 will be, the most po- tent personality is Mr. Roosevelt. Apart from personalities the most po- | tent influence is the state of the | times—“the times” in the sense of whether recovery has come. If by 1936 recovery is here, especially if it has come without any material de- parture from traditional American | principles—in that event the renomi- nation of Mr. Roosevelt by the Demo- crats and his re-election by the coun- try will be so convincingly probable that other parties and factors will not matter much. Gratitude for recovery would be so dominating an influence on the public emotion that Mr. Roosevelt would be retained in the ! White House more surely than for ex- | ample, Calvin Coolidge was in 1924, or | ‘William McKinley in 1900. The grati- i tude for recovery would be so strong | that it would not take much account | of just how the recovery came nbout.! The restoration might be wholly or | mainly the fruit of natural forces— | recovery whenever it comes is likely to | be that. But the man in the White | House and the party in power would | be given the credit for “good times,” | as has often happened before. If, however, recovery has not come | by 1936, or if it has not come in thor- ‘ oughly convincing form—in that | event Mr. Roosevelt would probably | have rough sailing, and there would | be other developments. If 1936 should duplicate the industrial conditions of | 1934, Mr. Roosevelt and the Demo- | crats would not come through as hap- pily as they just have. The months of the 1934 campaign, recently closed, | were, as respects recovery, unhappy. | Not only had substantial recovery | failed to arrive—actually, those were months of slump, of recession from a tentative recovery of some months be- fore which, about last June and July, slowed down—but the country was still under the terror of the memory of the drastic depression a few years before. They still thought of Presi- dent Roosevelt as the symbol of hope and most of the country was willing and happy to vote to keep him at the helm. Radical Movement Seen. But that would not be duplicated in 1936. If in that year recovery has not | arrived, the country will be likely to conclude that Mr. Roosevelt and the Democrats do not know how to bring | it. From that condition, if it should | exist, some other consequences would arise. The Republicans and the con- servatives would take heart. That would be one result. But there would be others, some of them disturbing. Radical movements would prosper. If 1936 should be a year of con- tinued deep depression, Mr. Roosevelt | and the Democrats can hardly hope to stay in power. The conservatives will be against him as a matter of course; and the conservatives are close to half the entire electorate—the Republican vote last month was about 45 per cent of the whole. And, again assuming that | 1936 should be a year of continued | deep depression, Mr. Roosevelt and | the Democrats cannot hope to win‘ by any degree of concession to the | extreme left. However far Mr. Roose- velt might be willing to go in radi- calism, others would go farther. To “out-radical” Mr. Roosevelt is already the purpose and plan of the leaders of radical” thought. In short, if recovery is not here by | 1936, if we are still about where we now are, in that event what is now the Democratic party would be dimin- ished by formidable subtractions made up of extreme radicals. Radical Parties Formidable. The radical parties and movements in the United States, existing or lat- ent, ‘are more formidable than is commonly realized. In California last month a Socialist, Mr. Upton Sinclair, got roughly 850,000 votes. True, Mr. Sinclair was running on the Demo- cratic ticket and no doubt was the beneficiary of many votes that he would not have gotten had he been running avowedly as a Socialist. Ad- mitting that qualification, neverthe- less 850,000 votes is about 2!z per cent of the total—and Mr. Sinclair's 850,000 were all cast in one State. Does any one doubt that if 1936 should be as unhappy a year as re- spects revival of industry as 193¢ was —does any one doubt that Mr. Sin- clair and his E. P. I. C. would spread from California and get an immense vote on a country-wide basis. In Minnesota last month a radical party. the Farmer-Labor, got about two-thirds of a million votes. Here again a radical party running in only one State got about 2 per cent of the total vote of the whole country. The Farmer-Labor party platform was about as radical as possible; it called directly for the abolition of capital- ism and was, in effect, largely a com- munist platform—though I am told the candidates were rather milder than their platform. In Wisconsin Senator La Follette, running as the candidate of a new | party, polled about a third of a mil- lon votes. That the La Follette party 1s going to expand is about the surest thing in present-day politics. It will expand somewhat even if recovery does not come. Mr. La Follette's Progressive party will grow greatly. Already the leaders, propagandists and zealots of the Progressive party are busy in other Midwestern States close by Wisconsin. They aim to have their new party take the place in large parts of the West that it already has schieved in the State of its birth. One tentative project under consideration is & union of the Progressive wad the Farmer-Labor one. It is qvhnn they can find work. Months. doubtful, however, if this can take place, for Mr. La Follette’s Progres- sive party rejects Communist prin- ciples which are included as part of the Farmer-Labor program. Long's Project Cited. Aside from radical parties already existing, Senator Huey Long of Loulsi- ana has a project for out-radicalling all the others. It would be sheer blindness not to take account of the remarkable grip Mr. Long has been able to take and hold on his State. Persons familiar with the Middle South say there is little reason to doubt that Senator Long might be able to do as well in other States as he has in Louisiana. Senator Long is a ruthless, reckless, forceful person, capable of being a radical of the French Revolution type. His am- bition, or his reckless daring, is with- | out limit. While much of his power rests on his personality, it is the sort of personality that can only prosper politically in troubled times. In such times it might spread pro- digiously. If 1936 should be, indus- trially, as unhappy a time as 1934, Mr. Long, from the springboard he has already acquired, might be able to get a formidable following for his project of putting himself in the White House. In Detroit Father Coughlin aims to build an organization of 5,000,000 people for certain economic objectives. Since economics and politics are for the time largely one, Father Cough- lin's objectives are necessarily politi- cal. Some of these objectives are ones which Mr. Roosevelt and the Demo- cratic party do not indorse. Whether Father Coughlin and his 5,000,000 should express themselves either as a political party with some candidates of its own, or as adherents to some existing radical party, they would, in any event, be likely to be substractions from the Democratic party. Democrats Face Loss. If conditions in 1936 are as troubled as they now are all these new parties and all these radical movements ex- isting or latent would be subtractions from the Democratic party. By hardly any possibility can Mr. Roosevelt go far enough to the left to satisfy the followers of Father Coughlin, Mr. Sin- clair, the Farmer-Labor party, Sena- tor Long and the others. If Mr. Roosevelt should try to placate all these he would then be faced by a wholesale defection of conservative Democrats, especially in the East and South. The defection, if it should come, might readily express itself formally as a conservative Democratic party with its own candidate for the presidency. ‘The sum of all is that on the prem- ise that conditions in 1936 should continue to be as they now are, Mr. Roosevelt and the Democrats would suffer large defections to radical par- ies. From this it follows, incidentally, that President Roosevelt must have a compelling reason for hoping that the times get better, and for promoting recovery. ‘What of the Republicans in 19362 If recovery has come and come con- vincingly, and especially if the re- covery has come in orthodox ways, without material departure from American traditions and without ma- terial inflation—in that case the Re- publicans can have little chance in 1936, and must postpone their hopes until later. No G. 0. P. Defections Seen. But what if 1936 is as unhappy & year as 19342 1In that case the Re- publicans and conservatives should be formidable. They would face a Dem- ocratic party diminished by radical defections. The Republicans, on the other hand, should suffer no defec- tions. The 13,000,000 votes cast by the Republicans last month was a re- markable demonstration of the size and compactness of the conservative forces in America. It was some 45 per cent of the total vote. It was an irreducible minimum. Every voter who had any disposition to be against the Republican party had abundant opportunity for registering his defec- tion in 1934. His range of choice ran from voting the Democratic ticket through the gamut expressed by Mr. Sinclair and by the Farrger-Labor and La Follette progressive parties. The 13,000,000 votes cast by Re- publicans last month must have been rock-bottom. It included com- paratively little of what the late Col. Henry Watterson used to call the “fungus vote.” The compact masses of city voters, in such cities as Phila- Jelphia and Pittsburgh, were this year largely Democratic. Those 13,000,000 | votes came together against handicaps that can hardly ever be worse. The Democrats had all the advantages; they had prestige, they had organiza- tion, they had funds—not only funds in the ordinary sense, but also the immense relief funds distributed by the administration, which Mr. Frank Kent of “the Baltimore Sun” de- scribed as the “largest campaign fund in history.” A conservative Repub- lican party that was able in 1934 to cast 13,000,000 votes against some 17,000,000 for the Democrats, should in 1936 certainly cast no less and might readily cast very many more. (Copyright. 1034.) Hardest-Hit Town In England Adopted LONDON.—Surrey, relatively pros- perous county across the Thames from London, is preparing to adopt Eng- land’s most depression-stricken town. Jarrow-on-Tyne, near Newcastle, which has 30,000 inhabitants, is the object of Surrey’s phlhntlh;‘opy. u:::r‘lh 65 per cent of its population - ployed, Jarrow is considered the country’s hardest-hit town. Sur'r};y‘s plan of adoption has been worked out by its high sheriff, Sir John Jarvis, who started his stlhel“l‘\): lling by posting an appeal ;:nds to more than 50,000 households, 500 churches and civic organizations in his county. Co-operation of other prosperous counties also is being sought to guar- antee success for the Jarrow experi- ment as well as to extend it to other British “black spots,” as the distressed areas are called. Under the scheme Surrey’s financial aid is to be given in a variety of ways. Jarrow men will be expected, through materials provided out of the Surrey fund, to decorate the homes which have been neglected during the un- employment period. Other funds are to pay Jarrow work- ers for building a town swimming pool, a new park, the equipping of children’s pllyground.:, and the laying out of a sports ground. Migration also would be fostered to reltve Jarrow of the population it cannot support by training young men and women and helping them to moye 4 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 16, 1934—PART TWO. Wiping Out Britain’s Slums After Years of Blunder Nation Goes to Heart of Problem—Experience Lesson for. America. BY C. PATRICK THOMPSON. UICKENING under the impe- tus of cheap money and | stable political conditions, the wheels of the building and contracting industry in Britain are now turning to give an annual output of $1,500,000,000, which | makes the industry Britain’s biggest, | giving jobs to 3,000,000 and notching up the supply of new homes from | the 1919-32 average of 145,000 a year to 350,000 for 1934. Britain interprets this as a boom, and a boom it is. On its back Britain is riding out of the depression, the spiral of industrial activity it sets up compensating substantially for the lag in export trade. How long activity on this scale will last is anybody’s guess. | Economists are divided on whether it | will reach a peak in 1935 or continue undiminished for another four or five years or an entire decade. But if the national forces combine to realize the Prince of Wales’ ideal, which gave the newspapers their headlines and front-page stories on November 23, this boom will gradually merge into the biggest construction movement of all time. ‘The prince advanced his plan—not tentatively, but as a definite, con- | structive call—at the centenary din- ner of the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. He proposed a wipe-out of the slums, a bigger out- look on town and city planning, an advance in design and equipment of homes to meet all that science has now placed at man’s disposal. He asked the 2,000 architects assembled to carry over to architecture and the building trades the principle of mass production which has already brought | 50 many of the other amenities of life within reach of the masses of the people, “whereas formerly they were only for the well-to-do.” Folk “Housing Conscious.” England’s heir talked at a psycho- logically propitious moment. The island folk, now acutely “housing con- scious,” are getting educated in this construction business. They are aware of a good many things which formerly were hidden. Probably the chief dis- covery they have made is that neither government nor architecture alone can solve the housing problem and rehouse the people in a better way at a lower cost. The whole complex of a nation’s active forces is involved in these things—politics, ~finance, labor have to be fitted into the play along with the scientists, engineers and ar- chitects. Two years ago the cast for this national play could not have been assembled, owing to government overspending and the lack of confi- dence that engendered. But now everything has changed. The story of the change, which is also the story of British housing, has its phases of drama, comedy, tragedy and general excitement. Its begin- nings are almost lost in the mists of the past. The good builders of Scot- land, for instance, thought they were doing the sound thing when they con- structed stone dwellings for the poorer people to last 1,000 years. Many of these places are one and two cen- turies old now and good for another 400 or 500 years, and, besides being absolutely obsolete in every respect, are the chief reason why the housing situation is even worse north of the border than south. One in four per- sons still lives two to a room in Scot- land, against a rate of one and a half to a room in England and Wales. Again, if one begins to probe the origin of those narrow, twisting streets which the prince cursed as destructive of civic pride, one finds one's self back in Tudor times, and if one wants to investigate from the outset the housing of the industrial population one must make a start any time in the long reign of Queen Victoria. But for practical purposes the story in a nutshell starts in 1914. Building stopped during the four war years. Worker-class houses decayed. They lapsed into new slums or joined up with old slums. When the war ended there was a shortage of at least & million houses. Rents soared. The government had to step in and make it illegal for owners of worker-class dwellings to charge more than the 1914 rent. In the colrts the magistrates for years gave priority to housing dis- putes. The politicians looked for the easy way out and found it in a general housing subsidy. Builders and munici- palities got a government grant for every house they built. Housing pro- grams became one of the political games of the day. They varied with the political complexion of tke gov- ernment, but all accepted as a basis 'the rents, even as cut by the subsidy, OUT OF THE SLUMS FOR A BREATH OF AIR. Drawn for The Sunday Star Joseph Eimont. | was still acute and the slum and over- the principle of “filtering up”"—the idea | beyond the means of the people the | crowding problem was worse than it that the slum dwellers would gradually | new houses were intended for. A third | had been at the start. Indeed, instead move out of their little hells into the | was the factor of traveling expense | of “filtering up,” the movement was new suburban houses built with the | from the city outskirts to the place | exactly the reverse; the low-wage | | aid of the subsidly. But the slum dwellers obstinately refused to “filter up.” There were three main reasons. One was an in- sufficiency of suitable new houses. A second was too costly building, putting | of work. Thus, although in 14 years 2,000,000 new houses were built (an annual | average of only 145,000) at a huge cost to the tax and rent payers, at the end of it all the housing shortage MEXICO’S SIX-YEAR PLAN ATTEMPTS COMPROMISE Experiment Seeks to Reconcile Social- ism With Gradual Collectivism of Nation’s Resources. BY GASTON NERVAL. HEN Russia®launched her \; v eyes of the world were turned toward the land of the Soviets. Mexico's six- next New Year day, may not have the gigantic scope of Platileika, but it is an experiment of great impor- cial and economic which Mexico is undergoing. Foreign observers, who have been formed by the Mexican revolution, should not underestimate the signifi- cance of the six-year plan. It not of the people inhabiting Mexico, but may also influence the political ideol- ogy of other nations of similar char- To many the Mexican experiment should be even more interesting than the Russian, because it attempts to state socialism and planned economy with a gradual collectivization of the nation’s resources, without sacrificing for which so much human blood has been shed. And to those who hold that such a compromise is not possi- fiction in a world of economic slavery, that freedom exists only in economic security, the Mexican attempt also ing to their beliefs, it should ulti- mately prove the futility of compro- mises on the threshold of a new era. Whether they are finally proven wrong or right in their political phi- losophy of government, the present of their six-year plan as that of achieving “the economic prosperity of Mexico under the aegis of social jus- sizing the revolutionary nature of the Mexican reforms, no matter how slow the pace may be at the moment. name of the group which has produced all the recent governments of Mexico, with an overwhelming support of the tionary party—testifies to the fact that the main endeavor of the present leaders of Mexico must be the fulfill- nated the revolution. ‘The National Revolutionary party, which is responsible for the six-year claimed that its first mission, that of bringing together the theretofore dis- persed groups of the revolution, having “when it should seek to reach a higher stage in which its political action and its economic and social activities may for the Mexican commonwealth.” Concrete Policies Framed. This higher stage called for the in programs conscientiously studied and drafted with a dispassionate knowledge of the realities facing the possibilities and circumstances of the moment may allow and the concrete aims and means of the party may re- the reforms lately undertaken in Mex- ico, it was Gen. Plutarco Ellas Calles, the former President and *“ first five-year plan the year plan, to be officially inaugurated tance to the final success of the so- carefully watching the changes, per- merely will affect the economic status acteristics and similar problems. compromise the modern trends of that concept of individual freedom ble, that personal freedom is only a should be of interest because, accord- Reforms Are Emphasized. leaders of Mexico, in defining the aim tice,” are acknowledging and empha- It could not be otherwise. The very Mexican people—the National Revolu- ment of the ideals which in 1910 origi- plan, recognized that duty when it pro- been completed, the time had come be productive of more fruitful results framing of its policies systematically, nation; programs carried as far as the quire. As has been the case with most of ‘strong man” of the regime, who \pn the transformation | signal for action in this connection | when he declared, long before the presidential election of last July, that it was imperative to draft “a detailed | plan of activities to cover the six years of the coming presidential term; a plan that should be based on esti- mates, on statistics, and on the les- sons of experience,” always keeping in mind the possibilities of the exist- ing budget and the physical resources at hand. ‘The National Revolutionary party set out at once to draft such & plan in order that it might become both the electoral platform of the organ- ization in the presidential election and, after the practically assured victory at the polls, the program of action of the new administration for the follow- ing six years. The plan, officially adopted at the party's convention a year ago, proposes to carry forward the distribution of lands, to establish a minimum wage, to raise the stand- ard of living, to encourage a con- trolled system of industrialization, to speed up the modern educational methods and to improve relations with foreign governments. These aims are embodied in a comprehensive and detailed scheme divided into 272 num- bered paragraphs. Seeks Planned Economy. ‘The main thesis of the six-year plan now intrusted to the Cardenas admin- istration, which was inaugurated in office a few weeks ago, is that the Mexican state shall assume and main- tain a policy regulative of the economic activities of the nation. In the words of the party's spokesmen, the state should be “an active agent moving and controlling the vital processes of the country,” not alone a custodian of the national integrity and of public peace and order. This thesis is, obviously, in accord with the tenets of the Mexican revolu- tion and with the present political law of the couptry, because the consti- tution of 17 took away from the state the nature of a purely political institution and directed it toward activities regulatory of the more vital factors in the life of the nation. The 1917 constitution, however, maintained a respect for individual rights and private initiative, so as not to estab- lish a regime of complete absorbtion and nullification of the individual by the state, and the six-year plan carefully avoids any transgression upon these rights. If, nevertheless, in the interpreta- tion and application of the plan, any conflict with private interests arises, it will probably be confronted with the criterion expressed by the National Revolutionary party when submitting the six-year plan: “The system of property should be conditioned, mak- ing it available to the greatest num- ber, controlling its acquisition and holding in order to suppress the ex- isting cornerings and avoid them in the future, and preventing private property of the means of production from becoming a definite instrument for the exploitation of the many by the few; inasmuch as this transitory but inevitable stage in the develop- ment of social reforms is bearable for mankind only in so far as it makes for collective prosperity.” It is in this sense, in the extent to which this first Mexican attempt at a results of the six-year plan eventually will be measured. (Copyright, 1034.*t ad | workers, as the depression deepened | and unemployment increased, filter- ing down into the cheaper and smaller | units of occupation until the slums were choked with human beings who had no means of escape because there was nowhere else to go. In these 14 years, out of a total of 300,000 slum-category houses, only 20,000 were replaced. Many people, interests, practices, principles and doctrines have been blamed for this failure, but the dis- passionate prober of the riddle finds himself entangled in the economic roots of social democracy and the capitalist civilization itself. We find that in the end it was liquidation of post-war follles and {llusions every- where which cleared the path to the present larger effort and achievement. It was the great slump which demol- ished barriers by forcing through re- forms and compelling a facing of inescapable economic facts. Overnight there was a great polit- ical and financial housecleaning in Britain. Money, labor and materials had all been too high. Now those triple costs came down with a run. Government extravagance stopped and the confidence of the investor re- turned. The new national govern- ment stopped the general building subsidy (except in Scotland) and handed back the new building side of the general problem to private enter- | prise, and private enterprise respond- ed by building nearly 270,000 new, un- subsidized houses in the first year of the new order of things. In 1932 building plans to the value of $185,- 000.000 were approved. The figure for 1933 was $60,000,000 more. But for the first seven months alone of 1934 the value of plans approved approxi- mated $300,000.000, and for the whole year will probably exceed $500,000,000. Five Years to Operate. Freed thus to concentrate on the ob- stinate slum problem, the govern- ment after these 14 years of blunder- ing and the wastage of a huge treas- ure, decided to take the surgeon’s knife to the cancer of big-city slums, where- in dwell, amid foul conditions which disintegrate and rot human life, 1,250,000 men, women and children of the poorest classes. The operation will take five years, according to present plans, and cost around $500,- 000,000. The idea now is to buy up and clear the slums and rebuild on the same sites. Each locality attends to its own financing, but gets a grant from the state treasury and an additional subsidy from the local rate payers to help out, so that the new small houses and tenement block five- 2"low s $1.90. and seidom Tigher .50 and seldom higher than $2.50 a week. 9 Here it may be noted that the last word has not by any means been said on either the slum and rehousing or the general building problems; they are as controversial as any economic or monetary question. A considerable controversy has long centered around the question of national versus local action. You don't have to delve very far into that before you find yourself involved in the fundamental argu- ments which justify capitalism on the one hand and socialism on the other, and social democracy at one extreme and the collective state (Fascist or Communist) at the other. ‘Touching on another angle we find the national organization school ar- guing that if the thing were done on & national scale, with a central au- thority buying materials, g¢he best technical brains brought in at the center and big instead of small con- tracts offered, costs would be brought down. The anti-nationalists retort that bulk buying does not necessarily mean lower prices. It can mean higher prices than prevail when com- petition to supply the demand runs free, as at present. In the govern- ment circle opposition to the national idea is perhaps not entirely disasso- ciated from the apprehension that a national organization of building la- bor would shoujder in, which might be a help, but which might, again, try to exert political pressure or hold up the program by threatening a na- tional building strike, or oppose new methods which menaced the economic interests of certain of the labor cate- gories. All this may sound as if Britain’s housing problem is well on the way to being solved. But Pl.ll is only the |ICARPENTER DESCRIBES CLEVELAND INAUGURAL One Hundred Thousand Visitors At- tended Gala Ceremonies in Wash- ington Half Century Ago. This is the thirty-third of a series of weekly articles on inter- esting persons and events in the National Capital during the '80s by Frank G. Carpenter, world- famous author and traveler. The next chapter in the series will be published next Sundayin The Star, CHAPTER XXXIIL BY FRANK G. CARPENTER. 4th of March is over and Grover Cleveland has been in- augurated as President of the United States. A hundred thousand strangers have been in Washington to witness the ceremonies, and at least a million dollars have been left in the Capital by them. The day broke clear and sunny, with the thermometer high enough to abolish overcoats and cloaks, and tonight the moon has contended with the fireworks | in a grand illuminary display. ! No President has ever had a finer day for his coming in than Cleveland. | no President has ever had so many | people andsso cold a reception. | The majority of such days in the | past have been cold or rainy. It| snowed when Monroe was sworn in; | it rained at the second inauguration of Grant, and at the swearing in of Polk; Lincoln also had rain and wind. Hayes came in on a raw, cloudy day, and on the morning of the inaugura- tion of Garfield there was slush under foot, though the skies cleared by noon, and the day afterward became pleas- | ant. When Harrison was made Presi- dent & cold Washington blizzard blew across the east portico of the Capitol, and the President, without an over- coat, there caught the cold which, it is believed, hastened his death. Jack- | son, Buchanan and Cleveland, have had fine weather, and Cleveland bet- ter than any. They have all had stormy administrations, however, and Cleveland’s will probably be the stormiest of them all. The crowd began to gather shortly | before daybreak, and as not over two | thousand could be accommodated in | the galleries of the Senate, there were | about one hundred thousand who were | not favored with tickets who stood | and gazed at the blank walls of the Capitol in a stupid way, trying to| imagine what was going on within. The Senate met at 11 o'clock, with | a beautifully dressed crowd of ladies | and gentiemen filling the four gal- leries, surrounding the great pit 15 feet deep, in which the Vice Presi- | outline story, and what has been done | and planned so far represents only relief given to explosive pressures. Housing authorities abound. They | range from plumbers and politicians to bankers and bricklayers. But from | two sound quarters we may select sta- | tistics and estimates which illuminate the present situation. Crowded Conditions. A recent Architects Journal sur- vey shows that one in twenty persons in Britain still live more than three to a room, and although authorities differ on just what constitutes a “slum dwelling,” most agree that the 300,000 figure of the national five-year plan is a minimum one, and that the number of dwellings needed to re- place those actually worn out and un- fit for human habitation approxi- mate 1,000,000. Then The Economist's statisti- cians, using & mathematic currycomb, conclude that merely to remove the evils of overcrowding and lack of sanitation, provide decent housing on a minimum standard and just keep pace with decay processes Britain needs to provide between 4,000,000 and 7,000,000 new houses during the next two decades. This means 20 years of building at rather more than the existing “boom™ rate. Up to a year ago the average Britisher would have regarded the idea of construc- tion on this level as moonshine. Now ne is changing his ideas. So are the financial and technical men under the impact of new conceptions, new meth- ods and a weight of money coming into the field. ‘The younger men of vision and en- terprise—men like Arundell and Felix Goldsmith, who are apply- ing the architectural ideas of tomor- Tow in the Mayfair zone of the capi- tal—are adapting the ideas of Cor- busier to modern big city conditions. They believe the facilities, conven- fences and services now characteristic of luxury blocks can be brought on a mass basis within the reach of the poorest wage-earning classes. They have blueprints for a sort of radio city of the worker class, a vast self-con- tained block with its own shops, play- grounds, services, creche and the rest, and five-room apartments. But be- fore these conceptions can be realized costs will need to come down still further. These lower costs will doubtless be achieved, and the number of home cwners enormously increased thereby. Building societies, now -lending more than $500,000,000 a year to citizens for home buying. have brought the new low-cost houses within the means of the moderate wage and salary earning classes. An extension of this general movement through the appli- cation of mass production principles to housing would have the most im- portant repercussion throughout the national economy. It would do more than anything else to cure social un- rest and insure a new and prolonged era of prosperity. In all, it looks as if the British imagination, which has been not much more than dormant in the housing realm for generations, is beginning to grasp the possibilities and the real size of the housing problem, and the potentialities in the economic as well as the social sense of these compact little shelters, warmed and lighted, which men build on the earth’s sur- face to contain their private lives and call “home.” Clarke | dent was sworn in. At the right sat the Senate, at the left the House of Representatives, the diplomatic corps, and the Supreme Court, and down in the front were places for the Presi- dent and Vice President. The next great scene was on the acre of platform which lies before the Capitol. This platform was joined to the Capitol steps and rising about 10 feet from the ground, its walls com- pletely hidden by the drapings of many American flags. On this the President was sworn in and here he stood while he delivered his inaugural address. Before it and on all sides for many hundreds of feet, there were acres of people who had stood here for hour and many who had come thousands of miles to see. They had filled the Senate porticos, they looked down from the roof of the Capitol and some now climbed up into the lap of the massive, naked statue of Wash- ington, which, with its finger pointed toward the skies, seems to look over all as though denouncing the coui- try which thus exposes his naked breast to the cold blasts of Winter. A dozen men and boys were hanging to that statue and three boys had seated themselves on his lap and rested their bare heads against his | cold bosom. Next to ®these were several pyra- mids with cameras on their tops for photographing the inauguration, and farther back of these, looking down upon the three avenues which face from the east into the Capitol plateau, were the great rivers of soldiers, formed and ready to enter the in- augural procession as soon as Cleve- land should have made his speech. Their bayonets shimmered in the sunlight, while the hues of their uni- forms filled the eye with three long | streams of glare and color. There were many ladies among the audience and I noticed that some had babies in their arms which they held up to see the President while he was speak- ing. Many of the ladies wore blue veils which stood out as bright bits of color amid that sea of black-and- white hats. The President came to the front of the platform with President Arthur beside him and a rather weak cheer went up from a comparatively few throats. The people in the space about 20 feet square in front of him tock off their hats while he spoke, their heads shining out like a bald-headed oasis in the desert of black-hatted men sur- | rounding them. The crowd which was in the Senate chamber were with Cleveland on the platform, and the majority stood on their seats while he delivered his address. He had com- mitted it to memory and spoke in & strong. ringing, articulate voice. As the President began the crowd commenced to move, and, short as the speech was, half of them had de- parted before he had finished. Some parts of his inaugural address—the platitudes — were applauded, and a | half-dozen men cheered as he made his civil service reform utterances. The Democrats did not seem particularly happy, and their every a“tion today has shown that they know they have | a white elephant on their hands, and are uncertain whether they can rule | him or not. Grover Cleveland stood | very straight as he spoke. gesturing with his right hand, and holding the left behind his back. He shakes his head to emphasize his points, and his favorite gesture seemed to me that of throwing forward his hand with the index finger pointed at the audience. To the White House. Grover Cleveland rode to the White House in President Arthur's carriage drawn by four bay horses. Washing- ton had six white horses attached to his carriage at his second inaugura- tion and Jackson had a carriage made of the old ship Constitution. Jeffer- son rode to the Capitol on his favorite charger Wildair, and Gen. Harrison had a milk-white horse on which he | rode out and back, refusing the cai- riage prepared for him. The most surprising thing about this inauguration is the scanty applause which attends Cleveland's presence and actions. There is an immense crowd here from all parts of the coun- try, and the Democrats in the city are numbered by many scores of thou- sands. When Cleveland spoke today hardly a corporal's guard joined in the applause, and the cold way in which his words fell upon the audi- | ence was remarked by every one. The | Democrats have come here to see what kind of a man thy have got as their President rather than to honor him. They are not yet proud of him and they fear him. They don't know what to think, and the charges that they have elected a Republican is current among their leaders. When the oath was taken today the applause was nothing to that at the Chicago Con- | vention when Cleveland was nomi- nated, and the crowd showed, by | many thousands, more scowling faces than bright ones. |Dual Trade Problem Is Worrying Germany BERLIN () .—With its right hand the German government is striving to build up its foreign trade and with its left to develop home industries so raw materials from abroad will not be needed. Self-sufficiency long has been a German ideal; now, however, Nazi | leaders are trying to decide whether it's best to lean more heavily on trade agreements or on plans to produce needed products like oil and cloth at home, expensive though it may be. Government = economists consider the problem includes the necessity for conserving devisen, cutting imports to the export level, paying debts and keeping currency at a fixed level. At Last! The REAL Story of !hg HOO VER A Administration HOOVER President. Off the Record | By Theodore Joslin Former Secretory to President Hoover Startling revelations by the man who was closer to the firing line than anyone except the $3.00 BRENTANO'S 1 1322 F St NA. 0860 |