WHO’S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
, By LEMUEL F. PARTON
NEW YORK.—Of wide public in
terest is the pressing problem of
. who's going to an
Louia to join or restrain
Fight 2-Ton Joe Louis. It has
Calento? fueemed that a11
they could do
would be to match him against a
threesome — possibly Farr, Pastor
and Baer. But now there is actually
serious consideration of launching
him against the huge, bulbous two
ton Tony Galento, the Orange, N. J.,
pub keeper who trains on beer and
hot dogs. Tony has never been
knocked down, but neither has a
hippopotamus or a steam shovel.
Built like a couple of hogsheads,
he is a morass in which assailants
get swamped, like Japan in China.
He fights with his mouth open, as
if he were catching flies, which is
disconcerting to his opponent, as is
. his flailing, free-styie, generally
scrambled attack. His defense con
sists mainly in his absorbent quali
ties. They cut him to ribbons, but
never cut him down.
He has had about 70 fights.
Dumping Nathan Mann marked his
. heaviest scoring in
Tratns on the ring. He has
Applejack flattened A1 Et
And Beer tore> Leroy
And tseer KayneSt Charley
Massey and quite a few not alto
gether negligible fighters, but, as
yet, no mauiers of championship
specifications. For some of his fights
he trained on applejack, but now
says he has found beer is best.
In the little family gin mill and
spaghetti palace, down by the rail
road tracks, he shadow boxes for
the customers and yells for a match
with Louis. He says he would like
to have it barehanded in the cellar,
with $10,000 on the doorstep for the
man who comes out. They have a
two months’ old baby, who, says
his father, never will be a fighter or
a barkeeper.
• ■Me—’’ says Tony—"they had to
burn down the school to get me out
of the fourth grade. I didn’t know
my strength ard one of my spitballs
knocked a teacher unconscious. I’ll
make this new guy behave and he’ll
grow up to be a professor or doctor.”
• • •
Sir Patrick Hastings, counsel for
Countess Barbara Hutton Haugwitz
, . Reventlow in her
Lawyer for elaborate and
,Bab»> Wine complicated dis
Big Case, agreement with
her husband, is
one of the most if-.teresting front
page lawyers of London, usually a
contender in any exciting interna
tional wrangle in which London’s
West End or New York's Park Ave
nue might be interested. He repre
sented Mrs. Joan Sutherland in the
slander suit which grew out of gos
sip about the Wallis Warfield Simp
son divorce suit. It was he who
got thumping big damages for
Princess YoussoupofT, in the suit
over the Metro-Goldwyn Rasputin
picture. He won the fight for the
Warner Brothers to keep Bette
Davis from appearing without their
consent.
In court, he has alluded to an epi
sode when, hungry and footsore, he
was turning his back on London, but
was somehow flagged back again by
an indulgent fate. He was trained
as a mining engineer, fought in the
Boer war and returned to London
to precarious years in which he
sparred for an opening. He was a
journalist, a "leg man" around the
grubbiest of the police courts. In
his attic lodgings, he studied law
and was admitted to ihe bar—with
nice going thereafter. He now has
one of the largest professional in
comes in England. He was knight
ed in 1923 and was attorney general
in 1924.
He is widely and intimately known
in social and literary circles, but
draws no class lines in his profes
sional work. One of his most spec
tacular cases was his defense of
the Welsh miners in 1925. He moves
into his middle sixties with no let
down in mind or person.
• • •
Sir Robert M. Hodgson is a
shadowy but noteworthy Hgure in Eu
rope’s diplomatic
Cagey Job underground,
Handed about whom a
Sir Robert book may some
day be written. He
is Britain’s go-between in delicate
negotiations with Generalissimo
Franco of Spain about the bombing
of British ships. When he is on a
government mission, it is an indica
tion that some subtle business is on.
He had retired in 1936, but Ne
ville Chamberlain called him back
as a diplomatic pinch-hitter in this
ship-bombing embarrassment. He is
the son of an arch-deacon, of some
what clerical mien, and was in the
consular and diplomatic service for
many years. From 1924 to 1927, he
was British charge d'aifairs at
Moscow. He is usually working qui
etly off-stage, never in the spotlight
€ Coneolld.i'.gd^NawiTesturt*.
World Events Through the Camera’s Lens
1—Japanese soldiers pole their boats over the flooded waters of the Yellow river after Chinese troopi
made breaks in the dykes to delay the Nipponese advance. 2—King George and Queen Elisabeth of Eng
land, whose recent visit to France strengthened the military alliance between the two nations for defense.
3_..gjg jim” Farley shown addressing the meeting of the national gathering of the Young Democrats of
America at Seattle, Wash.
RED MENACE
I
Wally Berger, who came to the
Cincinnati Reds from the New York
Giants a while ago, has regained
the batting form that made him a
terror for National league pitchers
a year or two ago. His excellent
work has contributed to keeping the
Reds up among the pennant con
tenders.
King of the Pie-Eaters.
With his hands tied behind him, LeRoy Cobb, age thirteen, of Gaines
ville, Ga., won with a crust to spare In a pie-eating contest that at
tracted lads from all over the countryside. LeRoy ate hia lunch at the
usual hour, but that didn’t handicap him at all when It came to eating
a meringue-covered chocolate pie in record time.
. Daddy Has Gone A-Fishing
The wife was away visiting. So faced with the problem of what to
do with the baby, this fisherman rigged up a seat and sunshade for her
while he calmly fishes from the pier at Miami, Fla.
EMPLOYMENT GAINS
John D. Biggers, of Toledo, Ohio,
who directed President Roosevelt’s
unemployment census last January,
believes better times are ahead for
industry and employment. He cited
the case of the Libbey-Owens-Ford
Glass company, of which he is pres
ident, which has rehlred 1,300 work
ers in the last three months. Big
gers predicted a fall upturn.
New Rapid-Firing Rifles for U. S. Army
. . .......rn^r'^fririTr^'H'^Trir
Army privates at Fort Hamilton, N. Y„ test the new Garand model, M-caliber semi-antomaUe rifles which
will replace the Springfield rifles they are now using. The new rifles ait capable of firing W rounds per min*
ute. TPf Springflelds are capable of firing a maximum of 15 rounds per minute.
National Topici 'Interpi—
by William Bruckart
National Proa* Bulldln* Waablngton, P. C, _
- _ ——————— 1WU^
WASHINOTON.-A national debt
of 941,500,000,0001 What does it
mean?
National I was staggered,
Dobt •• probably you
were, the other
day when the morning newspapers
blazoned forth in black headlines—
they should have been printed in
red ink—that by next June 30 the
American government will owe a
total of 941,500,000,000. I knew from
all of the spending that is going on
these days that the national debt
was going higher in the fiscal year
that started with the opening of
July; the debt had to increase be
cause of the lavish use of money
voted by congress under the lash of
President Roosevelt. But when I
saw the "revised estimates” official
ly issued by the bureau of the budg
et, somehow I was startled, amazed.
The implications are so many that
the magnitude of this debt simply
has overwhelmed me.
But there it is. Forty billions and
a half which Uncle Sam will owe
when the spenders get through wast
ing, chiseling, finding spots where
federal loans or new projects or just
plain pork barrel distribution of
money drain dollars from the fed
eral treasury.
After the first impact of this news
wore off, I began to look around
to see what it means. What does
it mean to me, I wondered. And
to you? The first thought that I had
naturally was: how is this money
going to be paid back to those from
whom it was borrowed by Uncle
Sam? Everyone knows, of course,
that the federal government has
only two ways to get funds—by taxa
tion or by borrowing. The fact that
borrowed money must be repaid
means, of course, that there is only
one way by which we can expect
the government to obtain funds.
There must be taxes — oodles of
taxes. Or, the government must do
that which every person abhors, re
fuse to pay its debts. That is re
pudiation, default, becoming a dead
beat.
neretoiore, mis ming caueu me
national debt has been more or less
something ’way off in the distance
from me. I could not be too much
concerned, personally, how much
the federal government owed, ex
cept that I realized some portion of
it was going to come out of my own
aarnings while I am trying to pay
for education of my two boys, keep
my household running and buy those
things which my wife enjoys. I fig
ured, of course, that I would be
working a part of each year to pay
back the money that is being bor
rowed now. But someway I did not
get excited about the whole thing
until this latest set of government
statistics was released by Acting
Director Daniel Bell, of the budget
bureau.
I learned from the treasury that
right now the per capita national
debt amounts to $285.70. That is to
say, without any more borrowing or
spending, epch man, woman and
child in the United States, whether
he knows it or not, has been obli
gated by his national government to
that extent. Well, President Roose
velt says there will be an increase
of $3,485,000,000 in the national debt
between now and next June 30. That
means an increase in the per capita
debt, obviously. So when you do a
little figuring you will find that by
next June 30, the federal govern
ment will owe almost $320 for each
of us who claims the United States
as our country.
• • •
Having calculated what each per
son has been obligated by his gov
ernment to pay, I
Each State's pursued the flgur
Share ing further to dis
cover what each
state’s share of this huge national
debt is. The tabulation that appears
herewith is the result. It gives the
name of each state and that state’s
proportionate share of the $41,500,
000,000. Your state records do not
show the amounts as a direct debt;
your state legislature did not vote
the bonds which were sold in creat
ing the debt, but the fact remains
that if it became necessary for each
person to pay his share, your state
would pay the amount here set
down.
Alabama .$ 905,396,320
Arizona . 128,348,780
Arkansas . 639,530,990
California . 1,915,431,670
Colorado . 336,994,580
Connecticut . 548,169,420
Delaware . 81,877,670
Dist. of Columbia . 195,684,470
Florida . 519,085,460
Georgia . 967,357,800
Idaho . 153,323,050
Illinois . 2,480,039,850
Indiana . 1,093,493,670
Iowa . 803,918,590
Kansas . 596,221,180
Kentucky . 911,402,790
Louisiana . 870,827,760
Maine . 269,858,890
Maryland ....... 529,201,e20
Massachusetts ... 1,398,875,250
Michigan . 1,512,049,790
Minnesota . 833,002,550
Mississippi . 634,789,040
Missouri . 1,251,558,670
Montana . 167,865,030
Nebraska . 431,201,330
Nevada . 31,613,000
New Hampshire .. 160,994,040
New Jersey. 1,368,210,640
New Mexico . 133,406,860
New York . 4,089,141,550
North Carolina ... 1,092,651,410
North Dakota. 222,239,390
Ohio . 2,122,180,690
Oklahoma . 799,176,640
Oregon . 321,504,210
Pennsylvania .... 3,204,293,680
Rhode Island . 215,284,530
South Carolina .... 588,001,800
South Dakota. 218,761,960
Tennessee . 905,398,320
Texas . 1,933,767,210
Utah . 163,123,080 t
Vermont . 120,129,400 J
Virginia . 844,383,230 w
Washington . 519,401,590
West Virginia. 578,517,900
Wisconsin . 919,306,040
Wyoming . 73,658,290
If one desires to be technical and
wishes to include in the national
debt all of the obligations which the
federal treasury may have to pay,
the figures I have given will mount
very much higher. There are nu
merous agencies of the government
that are empowered to borrow mon
ey on their own bonds—institutions
like the Reconstruction Finance cor
poration and the Home Owners Loan
corporation and the Commodity
Credit corporation. It seems to me
that when those agencies borrow
money, the federal government be
comes liable in event the federal
agency is not able to pay, and the
total of those loans appears to be in
the neighborhood of $6,000,000,000.
Since most people regard the fed
eral government as having a con
tingent liability, there is some
ground for including that total which
would make the grand total of the
national debt in excess of $47,000*,
000,000, and each state’s share wouMk
be correspondingly higher. T
• • *
What is the reason for this gigan
tic debt? Well, anyone ought to know
that when an in
Why Thie dividual spends
Huge Debt? more than his in
come, he goes into
debt. That is what this nation has
been doing. I do not know how
much longer it can continue to
spend, to waste money in pump
priming. It seems to me that the
end wiU have to come very soon, or
people will refuse to buy bonds is
sued by the treasury. The banks
are loaded up with them now; load
ed so much that Sen. Carter Glass,
the veteran Virginia member of the
senate, several times has said he
feared what might happen if bond
prices declined.
Fundamentally, there can be no
doubt of the need to spend money
to feed the destitute. On the other
hand, can there be any justification
at all for spending billion after bil
lion in building post offices, national
guard armories, etc., when there is
none but borrowed money with
which to do it? Every time an addi
tional dollar is spent unnecessarily,»
the future taxes on you and me, W'
our children and our children's chil- *
dren are pledged to the payment
of the debt. !
Pause to consider what it means.
If we calculated the average inter
est on the debt at 3 per cent (which
I believe to be fair), we find that if
the nation pays off the current debt
in 100 years, the taxes will have to
be increased 33 ,per cent over 1938
in order to do it. If, as further ex
ample, the debt is to be paid off in
80 years, the current tax rates will
have to be increased by 38 per cent
over that entire period. Those state
ments assume that we will not in
crease the general cost of govern
ment over what it is now and that
tax receipts will be as high or higher.
It is apparent that spending must
stop, or our nation is going to be
as much of a bum, even in our esti
mation, as the most lowly hobo who
eats from a tin can and steals a
ride on the rods of a freight car.
0 Wtitern Ncwapapcr Union. t
Find Many Farmer* Earn
Income by Outiide Labor
WASHINGTON.—About a third of
the farmers of the United States
have outside industrial and business
income, it is indicated in a survey
Just released by the census bureau.
As a result of a study of 3,000
farms in selected counties in 40
states, according to William L. Aus- J
tin, director of the census, many ^
“new and surprising facts” along
this line have been discovered.
"Among those which have hitherto
not been called to the attention of
the public,” he said, “are the high
proportion of farmers who have out
side income, the relatively high av
erage return for such farm oper
ators—equal to about three-fourths
of the average income from the
farms themselves, and the difference
between the incomes of those mak
ing farming their principle occupa
tion and those whose principal occu-. f
pation is banking, keeping store, pro- It
fessional service and the like.” f
For the 975 farmers out of the
3,000 in the sample survey who re
ported non-farm income, Mr. Aus
tin continued, a total of such in
come of $458,522 was reported, or
an average of $573 per farm. About
one-fourth of such farmers were
found to receive less than $100 a
year of sucn non-farm income.