Newspapers / Roanoke News (Weldon, N.C.) / Dec. 3, 1936, edition 1 / Page 1
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_ • !■ f 1 The Roanoke News Magazine Section SEVENTIETH YEAR WELDON, NORTH CAROLINA THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1936 PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY National Topics Interpreted i by William Bruckart National Pr»«» Jlulldlns Waahinrton, D. C. Washington. — Many observers • round Washington lately have no ticed something of Change in a change in Presi Roowevelt dent Roosevelt's attitude since the election which so overwhelmingly returned him to office. From most any standpoint you assume, you will note, I believe, a more critical atti tude on the part of the President concerning the schemes advanced by his advisers. He is apparently examining the suggestions, the pro posals and programs laid before him much more cautiously and care fully than was his record during the past three years. It is yet too early to catalog this attitude as a change on Mr. Roose velt's part but surely it is notice able. If he continues it, it is all to the good for the country. If he continues it, it cannot fail to mean better administration, better legis lation, sounder national policies. It necessarily must mean as well, that there will be fewer of the half baked ideas, plans which the Presi dent had not considered fully, pro grams he had not thought through. One of the important indicators of this changed attitude on the part of Mr. Roosevelt comes in the form of an announcement in which Mr. Roosevelt named a committee of outstanding agricultural authorities and citizens whose job is to pre pare a long-term program for al leviation of the farm tenant prob lem, if not its complete eradica tion. Secretary Wallace will head this committee which is to report early in February and the appoint ment of Mr. Wallace to this job in cidentally seems to assure his re headof the Department of AgriculunS^anu thYFe ffddtfreen some question whether he w'ould re Of course, the farm tenant prob lem long has been a cancerous growth on American agriculture. It has been spreading. Previously, I have reported in these columns how official figures disclosed an increas ing number of farms operated by tenants and owned by absentee landlords. It has been a problem for some years and seems to be growing more acute. Hence, the President’s move would seem to mean that the federal government is going to put its hand to the oar and try, at least, to do some thing about it. ^ Now, it may moan that the fed eral government will create another billion dollar gov What It ernment - owned May Mean corporation or it may mean subsi dies or any one of a number of other federal aids. 1 do not want to prejudge it, however, because certainly the President is to be com mended in approaching the problem in a sensible way, namely, the cre ation of a committee to “give the question a thoroughgoing analysis before legislation to alleviate the condition is proposed. • That is what makes it so signifi cant. A year or two or three ago, some braintruster sitting in a cob webby office would have suddenly had a thought about the '‘renters’' and other types of farm tenants; he would have felt very sorry for them and would have determined in his own mind that they must be made the beneficiaries of "the more abundant life” right quickly. He would have sought and obtained an appointment with the President; •would have related the beautiful pic ture he had conceived in his own limited mentality and, in all prob ability, Mr. Roosevelt would have shouted, "fine, fine.” The next thing that would have happened would have been the drafting of a piece of legislation for submission to congress. It would hav.- gone to Capitol Hill with the stamp of administration approval and all of the automatons of the house and senate who owed their positions to Roosevelt blessings, would have voted for it. It would have become law without serious debate and, as in most cases, with out most of the representatives and senators having understood what it was all about. The results of such legislation are beginning to show andi it is going to be necessary to remake a great deal of it. The trouble was that these theorists and impractical men never were able to see fnore than one narrow phase of tin4 problem with which they were t Icaisng and Mr. Roosevelt did not .ton* the time to find out for him ^Si II what all of the factors were, it is quite evident, therefore, that ne thing the New Deal sadly needs 1 is more co-ordination among its own people. I referred above to the necessity for co - ordination among gov ernmental depart Changes ments as to poli Needed cies and that leads into the long-time need for actual reorganization of the physical structure known as the federal government. There are cer tain signs emerging from the seeth ing now occurring, as is usual, in advance of a congressional session that indicate President Roosevelt may be making a definite move to wards this much needed reorganiza tion. It is highly important that it be done. I think everyone agrees with that statement. Mr. Roosevelt is in a position to do it. He is one of the few Presidents of recent years who has been in a position to do it. He is in that position because of the tremendous majority his party possesses in house and senate and I think it can be said unequivocably, if Mr. Roosevelt cannot do it or does not do it, it never will be done. It goes without saying that there are scores of unnecessary agencies now in existence, most of them the children of the New Deal. There is overlapping; there is conflict of jurisdiction and there is a super abundance of ideas from every source that affect or influence op erations of other agencies. It is a tangled skein and the untangling is going to be a difficult job. The whole setup is shot through with politics and politicians and to decapitate po litical patronage is a man-sized job. The job now may be made even worse in this regard by the fact that never in history have there been so many shades of opinion in congress. The natural result of this sort of thing is that the various groups of blocs insist on carrying out particular pet schemes and those pet schemes nearly always mean a new governmental bureau, commission or what have you. As far as present conditions have developed, none can foretell exactly what Mr. Roosevelt has in mind concerning the new government structure. It goes without saying, of course, that the major depart ments, each headed by a cabinet officer, wrill constitute the basic framework of whatever co-ordina tion or consolidation Mr. Roosevelt eventually proposes. But it is out side of this framework where the real co-ordination is needed. It is among the countless alphabetical soup agencies that the pruning knife and the axe must be wielded with utter abandon. A lot of needless and, in many cases, irresponsible government policies are worked out here. Such co-ordination and consolida tion as the President attempts, therefore, can ac Relief for complish a very TaxpayerM great deal in the way of budgetary reforms and relief for the taxpayers if the job is undertaken seriously. Indeed, as the situation now shapes up, elimination of about 50 per cent of these so-called emergency agen cies and complete eradication of their parasitic policies constitute an important approach to a balancing of the Treasury budget. Since this is a fact, it must be recognized that the proposed con solidation movement has obstacles outside of political patronage. Pol iticians enjoy spending money and when they see various of their pet bureaus or commissions going the way of all flesh, they naturally will be frightened and it will take all of the strength Mr. Roosevelt pos sesses to keep them in line when they realize that money is being tak en out from under their very noses. Nevertheless, Mr. Roosevelt can reorganize the government. He has 329 Democratic representatives in the house and 75 Democratic sena tors. Against this legislative strength of the party in power are 89 Re publican representatives and 17 Re publican senators, minus three or four senators who wear the Repub lican label but who are New Dealers at heart. If Mr. Roosevelt is serious about this government reorganization and if he wants to force it through, I have no doubt at all that he can gain public support for his program. I have no doubt at all that if he were to go on the radio and deliver an address about the plan, there would be such a deluge of mail to representatives and senators from their constituents that they would not dare oppose the scheme. © Western Newspaper Union. Fifth “Philadelphia” Is Launched for U. S. Navy tmwxsm The Philadelphia navy yard, appropriately, was the scene of the recent launching of the light cruiser “Phil adelphia"; fifth naval vessel to fly the U. S. flag under that name. Mrs. George H. Earle, III, wife of the governor of Pennsylvania, sponsored the new craft, that is seen here sliding into the water for the first time. Bathing Suits of Tarpon Scales New Florida Fad Coincident with the opening of the winter fishing season in Florida, pretty Miss Shirley Stynchcomb, of Asheville. N.C., appeared on Tahiti beach at Miami in her new beach suit made of real silver tarpon scales. Florida winter resorts antic ipate one of the largest influxes of visitors this year of any period i in the past decade. Memorial to Heroes of San Jacinto Is Rising in Texas The San Jacinto Battlefield Me morial building under construction with the aid of Public Works ad ministration funds in Houston, Tex as. Texas is building the memorial to commemorate the victory which gave Texas its independence. Sheer Folly Dumb—Look; the sheep have all had a haircut. Even that old ram. Smart—Yep, shear and shear alike. NX Honor Memory of Schumann-Heink Famous Diva Was Idol of Public Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink, whose recent death at the age of seventy-five brought sorrow to mil lions of Americans. The famous star of the opera, concert stage, radio and screen had endeared her self to the American people as have few public personages. The first appeared before an audience in this country in 1898 in Chicago, where she portrayed the role of “Ortrud” in Wagner’s Lohengrin. Her success was immediate and there followed t many years of stardom in Wagner- | ian roles with the Metropolitan Opera company. During the World war, Schumann-Heink experienced ; the sorrow of having sons fight against each other in the German and American armies, respectively. She sang for the doughboys on the Western Front and made notable 1 contribtions to the American case. I American Workers Stage “Stay-In” Strike in Plant Emulating the example of industrial strikers in France a few months ago, approximately 1,000 workers .n an automobile parts plant in South Bend, Ind., held the fort during a recent strike. While the operations }f the plant were halted, wives, sweethearts and friends passed food into the workers. Scenes and Persons in the Current News 1—Mounted troops of General Franco’s rebel army crossing a bridge on the march on Madrid, mier Nahas Pasha of Egypt at celebration in honor of the recent Anglo-Egyptian treaty giving further inde pendence to Egypt. 3—General Chiang Kai-Shek, commander in chief of China’s land forces as he apprarwd at National Chinese Boy Scout jamboree. Eugene O’Neill Wins Nobel Prize Is Awarded Honor for Distinguished Work in Literature Eugene O'Neill, playwright, who has been awarded the 1936 Nobel prize in literature. O’Neill’s most famous plays are: “The Emperor Jones,’* “Anna Christie,” and “Strange Interlude.” Mr. O’Neill is a native New Yorker and noted for blunt realism with which he por trays the lives of his characters. The award, made by the Swedish academy in Stockholm carries a cash prize of approximately $40,000, with diplomas and medals. The prize for literature is one of five awarded each year for outstanding contributions to learning and to peace. The fund from which the prizes are given was established by the will of Alfred Bernard Nobel, Swedish philanthropist. New Meter Devised to Search Out Ills of the Body Dr. Harold S. Burr of Yale uni versity, shown with the vacuum tube microvoltmeter which he and Dr. Cecil T. Lane and Dr. Leslie F. Nims of Yale perfected. The in strument measures bodily electrical charges as small as five-millionths of a volt. It may prove to be the forerunner of a victorious assault in the war against cancer ""he meter indicates the bodily a they can be detec' methods. Miss Mary C. Duffy, of Newark, N. J., supreme regent of the Catho lic Daughters of America, the larg est Catholic women’s organization in the world. It has 200,000 mem bers in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Porto Kico and Canal Zone, with 35,000 juniors. Catholic girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen, affiliated in junklr circles with the parent organization. Skiers Race Down Mountain in Snowdust Cloudr A striking and beautiful photograph, made in the Bernese Oberlatic. near Adelbo party of ski experts raced the setting sun down the mountainside. Tite finely-pow' by their runners hangs in the still air like fine smoke or steam. „ ) *fr~ 1
Roanoke News (Weldon, N.C.)
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Dec. 3, 1936, edition 1
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