Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1935, Page 32

THE EVENING STAR With Sunday Morning Edition. WASHINGTON, D. C. SUNDAY ............September 8, 1935 THEODORE W. NOYES...........Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company. 1 3 Ave. New York Office: 110 East 42nd 8t Chicago Office: Lake Michigan ilding. Buronean Ofce: 14 Regent St.. London. Engiand. Rate by Carrier Within the City. Regular Edition. The Evening Star__. The Evening and Sun (when' 4 Sundays)____ Tie Evening and Sunday Star (when 5 Sunda¥s The Sunday Star- Night Final Edition. Nieht Final and Sunday Star Night Finai Star___ _____ 55¢ per month Collection made at the end of each month. Orders_may be sent by mail or telephone Na- tional 5000. 45¢c per month 60c per month 65¢ per month -5¢ per copy 70c per month Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. aily d yr. $10.00; Dajly arg Sunday yr. $10.00: Daily only - $6.008 Sunday only $4.00; Al Other States and Canada. Dally and Sunday. Daily only__ Sunday only_. Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of ail news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and also the local news published her Il rights of pubiication of special dispatches erein are also reserved. Greek Tragedy. On the hurricane-swept Florida keys has been enacted the final episode of the tragedy of The Bonus Marchers. The men died as they had lived, help- less orphans of the storms. ning-lit madness of war tore them loose from the relative simplicity and security of the slow-moving age into which they had been born. When the cannon ball storm had passed over the desolated fields of the earth they were blown into a fast, strange post-war world by the inflating breezes of hero worship. These subsided and they found the calm uncomfortable. After a brief lull they were torn loose from whatever security they had been able to find by the blasts blown hither and yon—great numbers of them into the miasmic tin-can city of the Anacostia flats, which Wash- ington remembers so well. And now the hurricane, blowing them to death and the peace of the great darkness. It was the last act for them of the drama which opened with the bugle blasts of 1917. The immediate responsibility for the shambles probably will be fixed by the investigations already ordered. But one cannot escape the thought that the real cause lies beyond the reach of any investigator. They were the victims of a hurricane sweeping the earth. whose path no meteorologist can forecast nor understand. It was the tragedy of these men—and perhaps the tragedy of all of us—to be born into an age of hurricanelike tran- sition such as history has not known. Life demanded of them a rapid series of readjustments which they were not equipped by nature to make. Conse- quently they made them clumsily and with infinite pain. They were bona fide veterans of the Great War. It was prob- ably responsible, in large part, for their inadequacy. They deserved well of their country. Some of them were the victims of material wounds, for which they were given a small measure of compensation. But these men and many others were the victims of spiritual wounds and dis- abilities for which the Veterans' Admin- istration mails no checks, but which may well have been more serious, so far as adjustment was concerned, than any physical injuries they could have suffered. Some men came out of the war with wrecked bodies—limping, staggering and coughing their way into the security of peace. Some men came out, on. the other hand, in far better physical shape than before. [Even so, some men stripped off their olive drab and donned the store-clothes uniforms of civilian life more self-reliant and capable of ady justment than on the day they first subscribed to the articles of war, and | some came back far less adequate than before for any self-directed coping with the multiplying complexities of living. Among the latter were many of these poor victims of the hurricane. Storm-tossed they lived. Storm-tossed they died, leaving an economically and spiritually storm-tossed world behind them. - Motor manufacturers announce more eand cheaper factory product, without the logical accompaniment of more and cheaper life insurance. ———— Campaigning? On the eve of a national campaign, the President and his administration speak and act in a manner calculated to allay opposition to Mr. Roosevelt and his New Deal. The President declares for a “preathing spell” for business and for economy in governmental expenditure. He signs the bill passed by Congress giving back to Spanish-American War veterans the pensions denied them under his original and now forgotten “economy act.” His leaders in Congress promise action on a soldiers’ bonus measure at the next session. His Department of Agriculture promises the farmers more acreage to grow wheat, and the con- sumers are given the impression that possibly the restrictions—on hogs and corn—may be lifted and the skyward prices for pork may come down. But after the re-election of President Roosevelt—if it happens—what may the ceuntry expect? The President, in his declaration that business is to have a breathing spell, says that his legislative program—the New Deal program—was virtually completed when Congress folded up its tents, went its weary way from ‘Washington. Yet, on the very night of the adjournment of that session, let- ters from the President to Senator Pat Harrison, chairman of the Finance Committee, and Representative Dough- ton, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, were made public requesting these gentlemen to give careful study to the problem of new and substitute N. R. A. legislation during the Summer months so that it might be presented to Congress for action when it meets f The light- | | the THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGT next Winter. Does this indicate any- thing more than a breathing spell for business while Congress is enjoying its own respite? Hardly. The “breathing spell” pledge of .the President is likely to find itself cata- logued in political history as another campaign promise. A comparison of the President’s 1932 campaign pledges with his record as Chief Executive—par- ticularly as those pledges related to gov- ernmental economy and” to the gold standard—is enlightening, if disheart- ening. The tenor of the Roosevelt pronounce- ments of the last few weeks shows the administration and the President on the defensive. Concessions are made. Busi- ness has clamored for two years for some reassuring word from the White House. It has waited until now. And only when Mr. Roy Howard calls to the | attention of the Chief Executive the fact that some business men are honest and that some of the honest business men are displeased with, and even fear- ful of, the Roosevelt administration and program does a measure of reassurance come. The storm, says the President, is over. But for how long? When the Supreme Court of the United States, in unanimous decision, held the N. R. A. unconstitutional, and, in effect, threatened other New Deal | legislation, the country took heart. That decision marked a turning point. It gave the people assurance that the day of dictatorship. personal or legislative, had been postponed. e President Roosevelt is confident that he can put over a fine program of relax- ation of business restraint if Congress does not come along and insist on trying to veto it. e — Delegates who do not like the per- formance at Geneva at least restrain any impulse to throw tomatoes. oo | More Necessary Than Ever. of the great depression. Again they were | o In his address to the Yellowstone Park Convention of the Federation of Fed- eral Employes Hariy B. Mitchell, presi- dent of the Civil Service Commission, accompanied his forecast of a continued expansion in Federal employment with the statement that “there is greater need for efficiency in the rank and file of American public service than ever before. No matter how unselfish or how able the men who are steering these new ventures may be, there must be the greatest possible efficiency throughout i the best results are to be obtained. * * * In the selection of these (public em- ploves) the methods that apply to pri- vate business, the methods that have been found most successful in govern- ment, the methods that other nations have found the best, the methods that all authorties tell us are best, should surely be used.” Those methods are outlined in the civil service regulations, and in the effi- cient, non-partisan application of those regulations to the Federal service. Experience in Congress “during the late session” in applying such methods to selection of employes for new agencies, Mr. Mitchell reports, is “not encourag- ing.” As a matter of blunt fact, that experience was not only “not encour- aging,” but disgraceful. In creating new agencies—there have been about fifty— Corigress has frankly regarded public service as partisan spoils. Mr. Mitchell suggests that more pressure is applied | to Congress by job-seekers than by those interested in maintaining effi- ciency in Government. For efficiency in Government is regarded by the average citizen as an abstract matter that does not concern him personally—until he begins to pay for inefficiency. And this payment has been deferred. Those who praise the high motives of security, for instance—will realize at same time the accompanying and inevitable expansion of bureau- cracy, with all its traditional and attendant evils. The only effective safeguard is the strict application of the principles of the merit system. An in- tricate, self-feeding bureaucracy is dan- gerous enough. Such dangers are in- creased manifold when Government service is regarded as the spoils of politics and influence is put above efficiency. The Federation of Federal Employes in deciding to raise $100,000 as a war chest in campaigning for the merit sys- tem is taking a step in the protection not only of classified civil service em- ployes, but of taxpayers who support the cost of Government. One objection to war profits is that they put so much money in the hands of people who do not seem to know what to do with it. - A sign of better times is the fact that business, when notified that it may take care of itself, gives prompt assurance of confidence in its ability to do so. Tabhitoe. Tahitoe is dead. He passed to his reward at Papeete, aged eighty-seven, and with his demise a dynasty that ruled Eastern Polynesia for approxi- mate thirteen hundred years came to an end. A son of the King of Raiatea, he personified a race as well as a royal family and was described as “almost the last individual with the pure blood of Opoa,” the sovereign clan of the most aristocratic of all the Oceanic peoples. His home was a sacred island, the traditional seat of government and religious center of the Pacific Archipelago, and he was born an heir to an insular realm of vast dimensions, great natural wealth and numerous population. Within the span of his lifetime, however, the French absorbed his inheritance, and poverty and disease reduced his country and its inhabitants to degradation. In the end he was nothing but a sorrowful human relic of a civilization which, as Rudyard Kipling might say, “is one with Nineveh and Tyre.” No one can be sure about the origin of the Polynesian branch of the human species. 1.1:1 were migrants, not native to their historic home, and archeologists, tracing their course from West to East through their architecture, have sup- posed that they came from India long before the development of the Buddhist and Hindu religions—their deities were primitive gods of an age extremely re- mote from Gotama, perhaps even earlier than the period of the Rig Veda. When white adventurers, like Capt. James Cook, first saw them they had a carved wood and stone culture, were talented navigators and skilled swimmers, and possessed remarkable physical beauty and strength. But they did not have either the capacity to make successful resistance to the invaders or the talent to achieve pragmatic adjustment to the new order instituted by their conquerors. The chronicle is unhappy reading. A modern writer has summarized the tragedy in the phrase, “White shadows fell across the South Seas.” But Tahitoe also was of Aryan extrac- tion. Science has demonstrated that much at least; the Polynesians were dark, but not negroid. Hence, indeed, arises the mystery of their bitter ex- perience with Europeans. Elementally, they should have been competent to survive. The fault, it appears, was a cultural one. Isolated as they were for so many centuries, they had too rigid a psychology. The African chattel transported over the Atlantic to slavery in America was far better equipped to preserve himself. The gift of humor, possibly, protected him. In the case of his contemporary on the opposite side of the world a tendency toward melan- choly was a characteristic failing. ——————— Ella Wheeler Wilcox was a good poet with a prophetic sense. She did not know that she was announcing a political policy when she wrote “Laugh and the World Laughs With You.” e So many socialistic suggestions are found in current policies that Norman Thomas may be suspected of having adopted the obscure but lucrative pro- fession of “ghost writer.” e rate Report does not hesitate to intimate that Lenin, physically or politically, is not what he used to be. v Stock market recoveries convey hope- ful assurance that a dollar is worth fighting for even when subdivided. ———t— - ‘The peace output of Geneva has not given it commercial rating as a factory town of idealisms. ——e———————— Big figures now under discussion make some of the alleged lobbyists look like advocates of thrift and small savings. —_— e Labor Day did not bring precisely the spirit of unanimous rejoicing expected when it was first calendared. —— e The theory is supported by Mr. Guffey that a little N. R. A. now and then is relished by the best of men. ——————— Locating the blame for what is past is mainly important as a means of safe- guarding the future. ——————r——————— Fame is sweet, but it is possible that Selassie regrets the day when he “made | the first page.” e Shooting Stars. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Rythm for It's Own Sake. Now hefe is a verse that is safe for the mind, Significance surely is small; In fact, on analysis close you will find It really means nothing at all. ! It’s perfectly innocent, word after word, some of the New Deal ventures—in social | And even its letters are pure, If you like it with any old gossip you've heard It’s innocence cannot endure. A vacuum Nature must ever disdain, But believe, if you seek to recall Ideas to put in this simple refrain, It is meant to mean nothing at all. Office Hours of Ease. “Have you been on a vacation?” “Yes,” said Senator Sorghum. “Fishing?” “No. I posted a ‘no admittance’ sign, put my feet on my desk and went sound to sleep.” Jud Tunkins says too many taxes might put a government in the position of trying to run a big business with nothing much but a credit department. Army Mule. The hoss 'n buggy days I fear, And bombing planes on high— ‘The Army mule is acting queer, Just as in days gone by. ‘Where gassy engines can not run, With mechanism proud, ‘The Army mule can pull a gun And subjugate a crowd. Whatever gadgets we invent To ruin or to rule, He seems a basic element Of war, that Army mule. Words and Meanings. “Do you always say exactly what you mean?” “No,” answered Mr. Dustin Stax. “I frequently use the word dollar without accurate information as to what it rep- resents in actual value.” Pull. Mechanics declare as they ride through the air That gravity’s law is inert. Or at least when collisions are managed with care Nobody will know when he's hurt. A more powerful force is disclosed in the course ©Of thought, of which science is full. Gravitation eternal, whatever its source, Is less than political pull. “Some arguments,” said Uncle Eben, “sounds like dey was meant to show which side has de strongest voices or de L e A | i 3 | voted in 1936. The Next Budget By Owen L. Scott. . Next year’s Federal budget already has the heavy official thinkers in Washing- ton scratching their heads. From the White House down through the ranks they sense a sharp shift in the public attitude toward Federal spending. Budget-balancing murmurs—the first from a cabinet member—are being emit- ted by Henry Morgenthau, jr., Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Morgenthau mas the job of finding the billions of dollars for his fellow officials to spend, so that his yearnings for a better balance be- tween income and outgo are under- standable. He has several new billions to locate in the months just ahead. The reason is that heavy spending under the new work-relief plan is supposed to start next month. This fact confronts the Treasury Secretary just at the moment when signs accumulate that funds may not always be so readily obtainable as they have been in the past. * K K ¥ ‘What surprises New Dealers is that these same yearnings for a better bal- ance in the Federal budget, so strong in Mr. Morgenthau, seem to be rising in the breasts of farmers and workers and of a rapidly widening group of voters. The President finds that the magic has gone from spending as a means of priming business pumps. Gradually the story is getting across that a day of reckoning approaches when the mass of the people will have to pay up through heavy taxes or accept repudiation of debts now being contracted. The result is that Mr. Roosevelt defi- nitely would like to present the country with a more conservative budget next January. What age the chances? QGood, on paper, and before Congress starts to function again. Not so good when the actual spending prospect of the next year is considered. * xB ¥ The President, for two years, has been careful to draw as dark a budget picture as possible. Back of this method lay a strategy designed to discourage the even more ambitious spenders, such as bonus advocates, 10-billion-dollar public works advocates and advocates of printing press farm mortgage relief. In January, 1934, Mr. Roosevelt esti- mated that the Federal debt July 1, 1935, would amount to $32,000,000,000, Actually it amounted to fewer than $29,000,000,000. Then, in January of this year, the President told the country that by July, 1936, the Federal Government would owe $34,000,000,000. The present prospect is that® the debt actually will not be above $33,000,000,000 next July, unless there is to be an unprecedented burst of spending. Experience shows that Mr. Roosevelt has over-estimated his spending capac- ity by about $2,000.000,000 a year. A twist of the financial wrist could change that. If he feels it wise, President Roosevelt in January could offer what he would consider a penny-pinching budget, em- phasizing the intention of the Federal Government gradually to work out of the deficit hole. He readily could offer the country a budget outlining expenditures at least a billion dollars below the present 1936 budget. He might even cut it two bil- lions on paper and stay within past spending experience. * ok ok % But can a plan of that kind be made to hold up? Hardly, judged by the demands that | already are shaping up. For one thing, work relief, just get- ting under way, will be costly. All of the allotted $4.000.000.000 may not be spent before next July 1, but those in the best position to know say that at least three additional billions are to be required to carry the plan beyond next July 1. For angther thing, the soldiers’ bonus, held back by the President during the last session, is next to certain to be That will mean another $2,000,000,000. For a third factor, the Frazier-Lemke plan to refinance farm mortgages with $3,000,000,000 of printing press money, which was kept from a vote in Con- gress by main force last session, will be harder to hold down in the next. means some kind of compromise involv- ing use of the Federal credit. Add together bonus payments and relief needs and the result is a pros- pective $5,000,000,000 in appropriations | over and above the regular expenses of the Government. These regular ex- penses amount to $4,000,000,000. The result is $9,000,060,000 in. prospective appropriations even before Congress se- riously gets to thinking about spending money. The session just ended was a ten-bil- lion-dollar affair. The next session readily could surpass it in meeting de- mands of special groups within the coun= try’s population. That explains Mr. Morgenthau's pres- ent worries. Also it explains why Mr. Roosevelt’s next budget may not tell the whole story. The Secretary of the Treas- ury is aware that some day there may be a limit to the number of billions of dol- lars that he can borrow. * Xk X X But what of the recent actual spend- ing record of the New Deal? That record since July 1, when the present fiscal year started, shows that Uncie Sam is engaged in some fancy bookkeeping. The first thing that strikes the eye is the apparent sharp decline in the amount of money being paid out for relief and for public works. Relief out- lays are down about $70,000,000 for two months compared with a year ago. Public works cost about $130,000,000 less in those two months. A But a little inquiry reveals that, on orders from above, as much money as possible was paid out during June in order to start the new year in better shape. : Even with these decreased outlays for relief and public works, the Federal deficit for those first two months amounted to about $600,000,000 instead of the approximate $450,000,000 for the same period last year. . What accounted for the increase? Chiefly, the figures show, some ex- tensive banking operations by the Fed- eral Government. _ Thus the Commodity Credit Corp., which loans money to farmers on corn and cotton, paid out about $135,000,000 on these loans during the first two months of this year where they were collecting $50,000,000 for Uncle Sam a year ago. And the R. F. C, which a year ago took in $129,000,000 more than it paid out, this year paid out about $36,000,000 more than it took in. Lending activity is more brisk. Unlike most other outlays, the dollars that are disbursed by the R. F. C. and the Commodity Credit Corp. stand a good chance of coming back to the Gov- ernment. They do not represent ordi- nary spending. * % ¥ ¥ Then interesting things are beginning to happen in the budget of regular Gove ernment ts. | rant of success and achievement. | responsible This | D. C, SEPTEMBER 8, 1935—PART TW HOPE BY THE RIGHT REV. JAMES E. FREEMAN, D. BISHOP OF WASHINGTO! In a notable letter addressed to an ancient people the writer, speaking out of an experience that had been stern and exacting, afirmed: “We are saved by hepe.” It is an arresting statement and calls for reflecticn. On first con- sideration it seems an exaggeration. That life is sustained and saved by hope does not seem probable. There are cer- tainly other and more conspicuous val- ues that contribute to its development and satisfaction. A deeper and more serious consideration of his statement compels us to recognize its significance and importance in the scheme of life. The hope element is a vital factor in all efficient and satisfying living. Every life that comes into the world is born | | with great expectations. From infancy and childhood on to old age and the latest day the stimulant to action is founded in hope. We are always living in expectation of better things. If to- day closes in deepening shadows and darkness, there is a new morning ahead that will afford us another opportunity to redeem what we have lost. If today is marked with failure, its lessons un- learned, we shall have another chance tomorrow, when we shall prove our fit- ness and win our reward. To the youth life is always to have its larger fulfill- ment, its higher attainment in the days that lie ahead. Expectation is the foun- dation of all his dreams, the sure war- It is only his elders that seek to disillusion him with their lack of encouragement, their unpromising forecasts. The greatest incentive to achievement is hope. It is the inspiration of the student, the scientist, the artist, the man dealing with the hard, stern problems of life. Edison working in his labora- | tory, on into the latest years of his life, was always hoping, expecting that new discoveries and greater ones awaited his persistent toil and experiment. He would never acknowledge defeat though results were long in coming. Every man who has blazed new trails, who has en= riched and benefited his fellows through his labors and research, has felt the urge to prosecute his work, even after repeated failures, because within him- self there was that which told him he must ultimately succeed. The world's pathfinders, its greatest benefactors, have without exception been men of this sort. Where would medicine and surgery be were it not for the unfailing patience and hopefulness of. those courageous workers in the laboratory who persisted and carried on when every day added to their trials and mul- tiplied their difficulties? They refused D,LL.D,D.C. L, to admit defeat, failure quickened their determination to succeed. They were “saved by hope.” In every sphere of life this is true. Triumphant Lving is ever hopeful living. A large and contributing cause to these late years of shadow and arrested de- velopment is the hopelessness of men and women. We had become so accus- tomed to uninterrupted success, our lives were so full of satisfaction and achieve- ment, that once the advance was checked we lost hope, our problems mul- tiplied and our courage failed us. There can be no recovery, no renewed as- surance until once again a more hopeful attitude lays hold of us and we deter- | mine to attack our problems in the spirit that marked our course in other and sterner days. When we admit de- feat hope abandons us and there is no light on the pathway that lies ahead. Of all the serene and hopeful leaders the world has known, Jesus of Nazareth is supreme. No one appraised life more highly, no one has ever been so ex- pectant concerning it as was He. His own life, one of severe trails and seem- ing defeats, His own efforts blocked at every twn of the way, His teachings misunderstood and His lofty purposes thwarted, He pressed on, even though a cross stood at the end of the way. He dealt with every type of human failure, He saw more deeply than another the causes that produced the ills and abuses that defeated men and drove them to despair, but in no instance did He acknowledge a hopeless case. He de- clared that utter and complete foss there | could not be. Even death itself had no terrors for Him. His was a new inter- pretation of the meaning of life. He saw in it latent possibilities, and He thrilled it with new hopes. His whole message to men might very properly be called “great expectations.” He took the rudest, sometimes the most abused lives and revealed to them virtues and qualities of which they had never dreamed. He gave them a new vision of what they might be, and compelled them to achieve it. Of all the world’s teachers He is the greatest, because He is the most hopeful. It is His spirit, His estimate of life, this old world needs today. We have lin- | gered too long in the shadows; we have admitted too readily our defeat; we have appraised too highly things ma- terial; we have lost for the while the real meaning and purpose of life. We can and we must survive every misfor- tune and we will do it in the spirit of one who, facing death was able to say: “We are saved by hope.” Fifty Years Ago In The Star Half a century ago the people of the eastern section of the United States were aroused by a The Massacre series of atrocities in : some of the Western in Wyoming. States growing out of the importation of cheap foreign labor. Acts of reprisal against the users of cheap labor were numerous, but not until a wholesale slaughter of Chinese | miners in Wyoming was committed was ! | the Nation aroused to the seriousness | of the situation and prompt action on the part of the State and territorial governments demanded. In its issue of September 5, 1885, concerning the ‘Wyoming massacre, The Star says: “The wholesale murder of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory calls for the most vigorous action of the local government. The central authority has also a pressing duty in this case, as from an international standpoint it alone is for the maintenance of order in our domain. The massacre must necessarily be made the subject of diplomatic action. No nation can | afford to have its subjects slaughtered in’ this ruthless fashion. Nor can any nation afford to ignore such crimes in | its borders, even if they are passed by without a protest from the injured gov- ernment. We owe it to ourselves as well as to our neighbors that such an outrage be sternly dealt with. | “The incident will revive the old-time | excitement over the question of Chinese labor. It is pretty evident that the Western people are determined to shut | out Mongolian competition, by law if possible and by violence if necessary. And it is a case where it is extremely difficult to cope with the troubles by law. It has passed into a proverb that we cannot indict a whole people. Where public sentiment is practically unani- mous on a matter held to be of vital consequence to the commumity the ma- chinery of the law and even of military force breaks down. History is full of examples to show how futile are courts and troops alike to force communities to comply in good faith with obnoxious | regulations. “It now becomes important to ascer- tain what truth there is in the claim that the Chinese are evading the immi- | gration laws. It has been said that coolies have been smuggled across the border and been admitted into the ports on false certificates. If these charges are well founded they have a moral bearing in the case though not affecting its legal aspects. If it be true that the | Chinese are still brought into the coun- try by surreptitious and illegal means to compete with native labor, it will give the miners some hold on public sym- pathy. “The Chinese Minister to this country was not in Washington at the time and it could not be learned from the lega- tion here what the course of action on the part of China would be. It was the general opinion in diplomatic circles, however, that the incident would be allowed to pass for the time being and be reserved for after use in the settle- ment of other matters between the two governments.” —_— 000 in two months a year ago, used up $45,000,000 this year. and the Navy boosted its expenditures from $52,000,000 to $59,000,000. All regular Government expenses, out- side of the New Deal expenses, jumped from $425,000,000 a year ago to $602,000,~ 000 this year. When the regular Government ex= penditures and the New Deal expendi- tures were added together the two- month total was about $1,233,000,000. If that pace were kept up through the year, expenditures would pass the $7,000,- 000,000 mark. Actually, the intention is to speed up spending, with $8,000,000,000 the goal. The whole Federal financial operation is so big as to stagger the imagination. Yet with pay roll taxes to be added after January 1, 1937, to support the country's new social insurance system the Treasury problem promises to be- come bigger and even more complicated. Pay roll taxes; levied upon employes and employers, are expected to amount to $1,000,000,000 annually by 1938 and to $3,000,000,000 by 1949. As the budget continues unbalanced, New Dealers are eyeing the proceeds [ City.” Capital Sidelights By Will P. Kennedy. One of the happiest men in the House at ‘he close of the session was Repre- sentative Abe Murdock of Utah, who came to Congress with the largest majority ever given a candidate in his Sthte. But what made him happy wasn't so much the testimonial votes of his con- stituents as that he is now the owner of a pair of beautifully beaded moccasins worn by the great Indian chieftain— Sitting Bull. He was just as thrilled as any boy would be, and made his colleagues handle this trophy with reverence, Representative Usher L. Burdick of North Dakota, an Indian from the “Sitting Bull” country, served on the subcommittee of which Murdock was chairman, entertaining complaints on the part of Indians regarding the ad- ministration of the Wheeler-Howard act and the administration of the Indian Bureau by Commissioner John Collier. There developed a very sincere and in- timate friendship between Murdock and Burdick. In token of this the latter, on the closing day, presented Murdock with Sitting Bull's moccasins, each bead fastened by sinews. The accompanying card bears testimony: “Genuine sinew- sewed moccasins, made by Kunkpapa, Sioux, Little Eagle, S. Dak. Made by the mother of One Bull, a Custer battle Indian. about 75 years old.” Representative Burdick’s name in the Sioux Indian tribe is Mato Sapa. Rep- resentative Roy E. Ayres of Montana, also a member of the Indian Affairs Committee, has been adopted by five Indian tribes. * ok ok ok One of the most modest of the new members ot the House is Representative Edward J. Hart.. While most members of Congress have rather extensive auto- biographies printed in the Congressional | Directory, Hart has the simplest state- ment: “Lawyer, Democrat, of Jersey He is an illustration of the oppor- tunities for advancement that youth finds in the Government service and by taking an interest in public affairs. Hart came to Washington some years ago as clerk to the old Excise Board, during the Wilson administration, through the good offices of the late Representative Kinkaid—one of the “characters” in the House in those days. While performing his work with the Excise Board he at- tended Georgetown Law School, was later made assistant corporation coun- sel in Jersey City, and then the big political “boss” of that district—Mayor Hague—picked him up and had him sent | to Congress, where he is making good. * ok ok x ‘There are men of extraordinary abil- ity in Congress who have made a record of work well done when called upon to perform important special duties, about whom the public knows little because they do not get into the newspaper head- lines through debate on the floor. They just keep “plugging” along and doing well the work assigned them. Such a one is Representative “Dick” Wiggles- worth, Republican, of Massachusetts. He was a noted athlete at Harvard and maintains all the best Harvard tradi- tibns. After graduating from Harvard he was assistant secretary to W. Cameron Forbes, Governor General of the Philip- pine Islands. Then he served in France during the World War as captain of Battery E and commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 303d Field Artillery, 76th Division. He was called to the office of the Secretary of the Treasury as legal adviser to the Assistant Secre- tary, in charge of foreign loans and rail- way payments, and became secretary of the World War Foreign Debt Com- mission. He was next assistant to the agent general for reparation payments, in Berlin. Then Paris representative and general counsel for organizations cre- ated under the Dawes plan. He is a member of the American Bar and Mas- sachusetts Bar Associations, the Amer- ican Legion, “40 and 8,” Veterans of For- ‘eign Wars, Military Order of the World War, Military Order of Foreign Wars, and is rated by those who know him best as “a fellow you can always depend upon.” He is often intrusted with im- portant special duties by Representative John Taber of New York, who is his Re- publican chief on the Appropriations Committee, and by Minority Leader Snell. . Forts Around Washington rederic J, Has On the heights back of Arlington the old home of Robert E. Lee, the grounds of which now have become the Arlington National Cemetery, is located Fort Myer. Its guns command the whole spread of | the National Capital across the Potomac River below, but the guns are antiquated These moccasins are probnbly‘ and never again will be used. In fact, Fort | Myer is a Cavalry post. but still is desig- nated a fort. The remains of Fort | Stevens, where Abraham Lincoln was | under fire during the attack on Wash- ington, are still to be seen. | The fort of greatest interest is now designated Fort Humphreys. It was established in 1797, in an order signed by President Washington, and, accord- ing to William J. O'Brien of the Army | War College, may be regarded as the oldest Army post to have been used without interruption as a part of the military establishment. The fort was first established by the placing of a single gun. It was em- placed on a strip of land known as Turkey Buzzard, extending southward as a peninsula between the Washing- ton Channel of the Potomac and the | Anacostia River. The land was a part of the wide domains of Thomas Notley, !who was Governor of Maryland under the lords of Baltimore. Today this peninsula constitutes what many regard as the most beautiful park at the Na- tional Capital, for it looks more like a park than a fortress. The first commantier appears to have been Capt. Villard, a Frenchman, who had come over here with Lafayette to take part in the War for Independence, and who, like many other French offi- cers, remained. In 1803 Congress appropriated $700 for the erection of buildings. A powder magazine, and later an arsenal, were built, and portions of these structures still are there. | Performance in War of 1812, | The British fieet came up tie Potomac but did not advance farther no:th t Alexandria. Kno e of tie app: of the fleet caused the manned, with action expect British saw fit, instead of arding the Capi- . to send a land force to tne r City of Bladenshurg. The route he Americans by Gen. Ross is a part of history, and the heads of thé Ross family to this day bear the title of Ross of Bladensburg in recognition of the vie The Capitol and the White | House were burned and a detachment of troops sent to take the fort. Here follows a strange story, the exact truth concerning ch ne ascer- tained. Certain it that the British met a di e at the fort. One version of the story is that the { American garrison abandoned the fol but not until after they had taken tt store of gunpowder and pla-ed it in a dry well, where it was felt it would be hidden safe from the raiders. A British soldier dropped a portfire. or possibi: a lantern, into the well. not wing of |the presence of the powder. A terrifi | explosion resulted. All the British offi- cers and 30 men were biown to bits Another version says the Americans after placing the powder in the well, laic a train of powder across the ground to the waterside. They then embarkec escaping to Giesboro Point. across the river. One man, when' the British had | approached. touched off the powder train and then got away in his boat There seems no doubt that the British were blown up. | In 1826 there was constructed on the peninsula a structure designed by th eminent architect, Bulifinch. to be use |as a penitentiary. It was so used fo many years, and might be regarded & | a sort of Bastille, as few save importan prisoners were incarcerated there. Dur ing the Civil War period the United States, it must be remembered, had a good many political prisoners. But in 1862 the place had become too important as an arsenal and the penitentiary was |abandoned, the prisoners being spirited ‘to Albany, N. Y. A military hospital {then was established at the fort and | became a receiving station for Civil War wounded. During the war various munitions were manufactured at the Washington Arsenal, attached to the fort. June 17, 1864, there occurred an explosion which cost the lives of 21 girls who were at work at the plant. Some saved their ‘ll\'es by jumping from windows, but at the cost of broken limbs. The hoop- | skirts worn by the girl munition work- ers impeded them in their efforts. A public funeral was held, and President Lincoln himself headed a solemn pro- | cession to Congressional Cemetery. Becomes Fort Humphreys. The close of the Civil War saw an- | other interesting chapter added to the |annals of the fort. In it were confined | Mrs. Surratt and the other conspirators |in the assassination of President Lin- coln. The old penitentiary building had been used as an ammunition storehouse. | but cells were cleared for the incarcera- | tion of the conspirators. It will be re- | called that the trial of the assassins was |taken over by the military tribunal Judge Wylie, father-in-law of Elinor Wylie, the poetess, being unable to re- tain jurisdiction in his civil court. Feel- ing ran high, and Judge Wylie said that it was only because the United States Army was stronger than the court'’s posse that he permitted the change of juris- diction. The conspirators then became military prisoners. so to the fort they went, It was to the fort also that the body iof John Wilkes Booth, the actual as- | sassin, was taken after the inquest had | been held aboard a gunboat in the river. | The ammunition was removed from one | of the old cells, a flagstone of the floor taken up. a grave hollowed and the body lowered into it. It remained there until 11869, when it was disinterred and taken | to Green Mount Cemetery, in Baltimore. | "A curious expression of war feeling was manifested at the old fort during |the World War. The German people had presented the Government of the United States with a handsome statue | of Frederick the Great. It had stood for |some years on a pedestal before the |Army War College at the fort. When the United States declared war against Germany, in 1917, the War Department swung Frederick off his pedestal. The statue was not destroyed—merely taken to storage. After the war it was re- stored. The Army War College, now the most important structure on the peninsula, is regarded as one of the greatest military schools in the world. It is not like West Point and the Naval Academy. No cadets attend. The students are officers of rank and their study is tactics and all the higher forms of military science. Major generals go to school there. It was not until February, 1935, that the designation Fort Humphreys was given the old fort, but that designation ihas been officially attached by Army |Orders. In all probability the old fort | never will be abandoned by the War De- | partment. So few visitors to Washing- | ton know of its existence that there are not the usual flocks of sightseers. The old fort is a quiet place and one of unusual beauty. Its wide lawns are uui as an officers’ golf course. i