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The Alamance Gleaner Vol. LXVI GRAHAM, N. C., THUSRDAY, MARCH 21, 1940 ? No. 7 WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBINE Balkans Draw Russ Attention Following Conquest in Finland; Allies Retreat From Near East (EDITOR'S NOTE?When opinion* are expressed la these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) ???Released by Western Newspaper Union ??I ' Congress: What Both Houses Are Doing In house and senate, U. S. legislators busied themselves during mid-March with the following subjects: POLITICS. Debate and a threat ened filibuster delayed a senate vote on amendments to the Hatch "clean politics" act. Aim: To prohibit state employees, who are paid in whole or in part with U. S. funds, from engaging in political activity. No. 1 opponent was Sen. Sherman Minton (D., Ind.) Passed was one amendment limiting political con tributions to $fi,000. CENSUS. Okayed 9 to 7 by the senate commerce committee was a resolution to strike personal income questions from the 1940 census. Secre tary of Commerce Harry Hopkins ruled that income ques tions may be an swered in sealed, un signed letters. CIVIL LIBERTIES. J. Edgar Hoover's fl man mora ononcoH in the senate com- GEO MORRIS merce committee of"...di,graceful using wire-tapping and iloice recorders to snoop into peoples affairs. Meanwhile Sen. George Norris (Ind., Neb.) com plained about FBI's "disgraceful and indefensible third term degree methods" in arresting Detroiters charged with recruiting soldiers for the Spanish loyalist army. DEFENSE. Passed by the house was a measure authorizing $654, 000,000 in the next two years for 21 warships, 22 auxiliary vessels and 1,011 fighting planes. Meanwhile, the senate weighed a resolution to probe U. S. plane sales abroad. AGRICULTURE. Certain to pass the senate and very likely to pass the house were boosts which brought the farm appropriation to more than one billion dollars. Ma jor boosts: $212,000,000 for parity payments. But there were growing fears that next year's congress will be left to worry about where the money is coming from. Meanwhile, its economy program shattered, congress heard Franklin Roosevelt suggest once more that new taxes may be needed. LABOR. Of 17 amendments to the Wagner act suggested by a special house committee, at least one seemed destined to pass: Enlarge ment of the labor board from three to five members. EUROPE: Peace in the North "Finland stood alone against a huge opponent, if e could not win the war alone. The inevitable end would have been the destruction of our country." Thus spoke Foreign Minister Vaino Tanner as a peace delegation winged its way homeward from Moscow. The war was over and Finland would "soon regain her vitality." Field Marshal Baron Karl Gustav Mannerheim figured Finland had lost 15,000 men to Rus sia's 200,000, which was proof enough that the vanquished army was far superior, man for man. But the war had left Finland a shambles, its best men dead, some of its best land lost to the invader (see map.) Ahead lay a tough job, but the kind to which generations of Finns have become inured. Gradually the true story leaked out. First peace overtures had come from Finland two weeks ear lier, via Sweden. Major factor had been a Scand in a vian defen sive alliance which Fin land agreed to sign with VAINO TANNER Sweden ana To**.head. once the war was over. And as the Finns busied themselves moving refugees from ceded areas, their foreign ministry made haste to weld that alliance. "Peace . . . will not again be broken," promised Vaino Tan-' ner. (From Paris, Chicago Daily Nates Edgar Ansel Uowrer reported ha kssetc why Finland never appealed directly for allied aid. Reason: THe German minister at Helsinki informed Finland that issuance of such an appeal would bring German troops to assist the Russians.) Reaction in the West That Russia's victory in Finland was a defeat for France and Brit ain, no observer could deny. In NAMES I in the news . . . GOV. LEON C. PHILLIPS of Ok lahoma called national guardsmen to block completion of the $20,000, 000 Grand River PWA dam. Reason: He claimed the U. S. owed Okla homa $890,000 for land, roads and bridges to be inundated by the res ervoir. Result: He got a temporary injunction. JtJAN TBIPPE, president of Pan American airways, told a Chicago audience that PAA plans daily "lo cal" flights from San Francisco to Hawaii, cruising 2,400 miles in nine hours. SEN. GERALD P. NYE <R? N. D.), was divorced by his wife at Fargo, N. D. Grounds: Cruelty, a ? IVI1A1 BU?1A VIti 13 "Finland ttood alone . . Scandinavia, where Russo-German pressure had helped bring peace, the allies had lost considerable prestige. In the Balkans and Near East, where combined Russo-German pressure has been kept to a mini mum because of the Finnish war, there sprang up overnight signs that the dictator nations had reached a working agreement. Italy, long fearful of Russian aggression in the Balkans, was reported negotiating a trade pact with Moscow under Nazi auspices. Meanwhile, Ger many also worked on a Soviet Rumanian non-aggression pact. These things left Turkey out on a limb; soon she will be forced to sur render her friendship with the al lies and play ball with the Moscow Rome-Berlin triangle. For Germany, the biggest imme diate gain was a chance to beat the British blockade. With Russia at peace, the Nazis could now expect oil, munitions and foodstuffs from Joe Stalin. Reaction in the East No sooner had Russia ended one war than she started another one. At least advices reaching Shanghai reported a resumption of hostilities on the Outer Mongolian frontier, where a truce ended the fighting last September. Since then border demarcation conversations have bogged down. Though Tokyo an grily denied new fighting, she also lodged a strong protest with Mos cow against Russian airplane flights over Jap territory in the southern half of Sakhalin island. MISCELLANY: Niblets in the News CAt Washington, the National Broadcasting company applied for permits to build television transmit ting stations at Chicago, Philadel phia and Washington. C At Hollywood, Walt Disney Pro ductions, progenitor of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, became a big business enterprise by filing in tention to raise $4,000,000 new capi tal. PAN AMERICA: Blues Song Ever since Europe went to war last autumn, U. S. business men have hoped to capture the profitable South American trade which here tofore belonged mostly to Germany and Britain. Loans and credits were arranged, American solidarity was preached and good neighborli ness became the order of the day. More realistic, the U. S. department of commerce sent its experts to dig out the facts. Six months later the experts reached a conclusion: "Until . . . definite action is taken on the de faulted obligations of South Ameri can countries, until . . . the U. S. investing public will have confidence in South American political condi tions . . . and until . . . the fear of expropriation and nationalistic legislation is overcome, a large in crease in our exports to and im ports from South America cannot be expected ..." Major difficulty was that South American imports from the U. S. far outweigh U. S. imports from the south, a situation which is rob bing the little countries of their gold and silver. AGRICULTURE: Weather and Crops In Texas, farmers were planting cotton. Up in the Dakotas they were limbering up for spring seed ing. At Washington, the U. S. weather bureau decided the time was ripe for a report and forecast. Points: CL Because soil moisture stands at low ebb, spring wheat producing states will yield under-normal sup plies this year unless heavy rains or snows fall within the next few weeks. C Drouth also plagues the winter wheat ybelt from Nebraska south into Texas and from Colorado east into the Ohio valley. Although some sections had heavy midwinter pre cipitation, poor moisture conditions during the autumn germination months will cut even deeper into already small plantings. C Below-normal precipitation was also recorded along the Atlantic sea board, but it was too early to base crop forecasts on it. C Out west, where northern Califor nia was just draining oil flood wa ters, the bureau reported unusually heavy precipitation during the winter. CHINA: Thin Ice Primary topic of Far Eastern in terest right now is the Russo Finnish peace (Sat EUROPE), which may turn the Soviet be hemoth's attention eastward once more. None could tell whether the Reds would reopen their dormant war against Japan in Outer Mon golia, meanwhile aiding Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, or whether they would work alone. Either development seemed pos sible, an uncertainty which made inconsequential the manifesto is sued at Shanghai by Japanese Pup pet Wang Ching-wei. Said he: A new pro-Japanese government will be established in China almost im mediately. Although he regretted that "now is not the time" to reveal his plans for readjusted Sino-Jap relations, Puppet Wang appealed for a renunciation of General Chiang. At Tokyo, Premier Mitsumasa Yonai issued an abstract and high sounding statement promising Jap anese support of the Wang govern ment. But abstractions from Tokyo and Shanghai only emphasized Japan's helplessness. Since Premier Yonai was vague, and since Puppet Wang could tell China nothing about his new government's plans, it was a safe guess that the entire peace structure was skating on thin ice. POLITICS: Third Term in England Most Britishers are keenly inter ested in a third term for Franklin Roosevelt, for they feel his foreign policy works in their favor. In mid March readers of the London Daily Mail smacked their lips over a story by the well-informed diplomatic correspondent, Wilson BroadbenL Said he: "It is now established beyond any doubt that the report of (Undersec retary of State Sumner Welles) on his tour of European capitals will directly affect Mr. Roosevelt's deci sion regarding a third term . . . Should no peace loophole be re vealed . . . and the war develops into a fierce European struggle, then President Roosevelt certainly will run for a third term." Where Mr. Broadbent got his "be yond doubt" information, Ameri cans in London could not discover. What mystified them still more but suddenly seemed more logical was the very antithesis of this conclu sion, namely, that President Roose velt would be a cinch for re-election if he succeeded in bringing peace to Europe. I Bruckart'i Washington Digest Report on Labor Relations Act Is of Vital National Importance Special Congressional Committee Recommends Reorgan ization of Board and Amendment Of 'Wagner Law.' By WILLIAM BRUCKART WNU Service, National Press Bldg., Washington, O. C. WASHINGTON. - The house of representatives has in its collective hands one of the most far-reaching and vital documents that has been presented to it in many years. I re fer to the partial report of the in vestigation into the National Labor Relations acf and its creature, the National Labor Relations board. The report is vital because it exposes some of the most damning evidence that has come to light since the famed senate investigation into the oil scandals and proposes means for correcting the conditions which the committee of inquiry found to be wrong. The special committee, headed by Rep. Howard Smith, Virginia Demo crat, has spent months delving into the labor board record, analyzing cases, obtaining the "other side" of board rulings, reports of coercion, in timidation, labor union racketeering and such. It has done so with the minimum flare for sensational news publicity, and it recognizes, more over, that it has just scratched the surface. The inquiry will continue, and there is very little doubt but that the New Deal attempt to put labor in a strait jacket under dom ination of the C. I. O. is at long last going to be fully of record for the voters. The committee majority vigorous ly assailed the labor board and the law under which the board acts for setting up an agency that serves as judge, prosecution and jury. Sepa ration of these functions was recom mended and amendments to the law I were offered for the consideration of congress. Gooernment H outecleaning Should Be Undertaken That course is fine. But it affects only the National Labor Relations board. True, the committee has no jurisdiction over any other questions than those connected with the act and the board. But the point that I seek to make is that the govern ment woods are full of such setups as the National Labor Relations board, and they are dangerous to the future of America. I hope that the congress will see fit to do some thing about the odd mixture of jus tice and personal government that is represented by the National La SENATOR WAGNER bor Relations act (which is some times called the Wagner act, after its father, Senator Wagner of New York) and the National Labor Re lations board, but I hope the at tempted cure will not stop there. There can, and ought to, be a thor ough job of housecleaning, because no government is going to remain really the servant of the people where such agencies operate with the law in ita own hands. There are few political appointees within the realm of my knowledge who could be so completely unbiased as tb administer their jobs without fa voritism. The National Labor Relations board, as at present constituted, was recommended for a good firing, in the committee's report. It did this on the basis of facts that showed a strange cocktail of judicial action, conferences with board attorneys who handle prosecutions, biased statements and actions and peculiar conditions at investigation by board agents. It arrived at the only con clusion possible, namely, that the present structure for dealing with labor disputes must be likened to stomach ulcers. They continually eat away at the lining of the stom ach. The board's policies strike me as likely to eat away the digestive system of American libertv if ccs r gress does not prescribe some medi cine to cure the illness. The minority of the committee, two New Dealers?Representatives Murdock of Utah and Healey of Massachusetts?were highly angered by the majority recommendations made by Chairman Smith and Rep resentatives Halleck of Indiana and Routzahn of Ohio. The three-man majority was accused of seeking to "emasculate" the law and destroy the board. With respect to the pres ent board, I gather that the charge against the board is true, for there -are thousands of people would be happier if Chairman J. Warren Mad den and Edwin S. Smith were out of those jobs. Complaints seldom have come concerning Dr. William M. Lei serson, but the others have been targets. So, perhaps, the minority charge is correct in that one in stance. Committee Recommended Abolition of Present Board The committee majority recom mended abolition of the present board and the establishment of a structure which would make certain that violators of the law would be prosecuted without direction from the body that was to sit as judge. It did not place any inhibitions against reappointment of the present membership to the new judicial posts. I suspect the committee thought such measures were not necessary. There are many, who doubt that either Mr. Madden or Mr. Smith could be confirmed by the senate again since the house committee disclosures of some of their unusual activities. One of the other outstanding rec ommendations by the committee concerned freedom of speech. As the law now stands, it is nothing short of an abridgment of that free dom of speech of which our na tion always has been so proud. The law prohibits an employer from talking or giving advice in any way to any of his employees wherever the questiop of union organization is concerned. And there, in my opinion, you have censorship, a cen sorship just as flagrant, just as far reaching and just as complete as is exercised by the bloody-handed Sta lin over the press of so-called free Russia) It is one of the steps that leads to other and more dangerous acts by government ? that leads eventually to the point where citi zens are just numbers of men and women who make good peons or equally good cannon fodder if needed. The committee voted for elimina tion of the board's division of re search. Here is another cancerous ?ore. No one knows why the division is in existence, unless it be for pur poses of subversive activity. The chief of the division is one David Saposs. The Saposs books and other writ ings have been quite vigorously crit icized at various times. His favorite subjects are labor and political movements, and he always treats them from the extreme left-wing radical view. Mr. Saposs contends that his writings are "objective." But apparently the committee saw no need for the division of research in such an agency. It's a Little Embarrassing For Congressional Members And so a congress, especially a house of representatives, has some thing in the nature of an unwanted baby in its lap. You see, there are 439 members of the house of repre sentatives who soon are to confront their constituencies, again. Just a plain old-fashioned campaign. And among these are many who are really suffering. They do not know whether the factional split between the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Or ganizations has left sufficient strength on either side of the divid ing line to permit a bold position. I believe the chances are that con gress will take no action on the re port at this session. .There are two reasons for this conclusion. First, the committee is continuing its in vestigation and, second, there are a great many members who want to use the Roosevelt administration's labor policies as campaign issues. If the weaknesses are corrected be fore the dog days begin on the hustings, that issue is gone. But strangely, the 100-per-cent New Dealers are struggling to keep any thing from happening to the Nation al Labor Relations act This looks to be stupid politics. P HICAGO.?The circle narrows *-J about Joe Louis and the con; tenders come into clearer view. Young fighters Who wouldn't have L?.n AUAn rntvintolv L/CC11 t * tU * considered as op ponents for him are ranging themselves against him. John ny Paycheck al ready has been matched with him. Lee Savold is being readied for a shot at him. Only a week or so" ago Louis faltered Grantland through 15 rounds Rice with the rough and clownish Arturo Godoy, the South American threat. This doesn't mean that Louis is ready to be taken and that the time is at hand for some strong young fellow to rush in, belt him out from under his crown and rush off to gather in a million dollars or so. He still can hold these young fel lows off?he should be able to, since he still is a young fellow himself. But it means that he has entered on a new phase of his career. He Is just the heavyweight cham pion now?and not a bogey man. the lightning still crackles in his tsts and he still ranks as im at the greatest lighters the ring ever has known. Bat he no longer fright ens his opponents oat of their wits. There are no more Paulinos dying in the training camp or Levinskys dying In the dressing roam. 4 Terrifying Appearance Once nobody?save Max Schmel ing?thought of getting Louis oil JOE LOUIS that tingle track on which he trav ela to feartomely. That waa in the time when to be matched with him meant certain deatruction. Men took matches with him (or the money alone and then almost Immediately began to regret their greed. There was something mys teriona and lnaeratable and terrible about hia very appearance. He waa. It teemed, greater than any of the lighters who had gone before him. He waa invincible and the et ter lack of emotion that be abowed made him terrifying. Moot of hia fights were won before he laid a glove on hia opponent. The psycho logical advantage waa t re mend ens. Schmeling, in their first tight, demonstrated that Louie had no de tense against a cunningly launched right hand and knocked him out. Louis came back from that knock out a better tighter because it tired hkn with a new determination and taught him a valuable leaaon. He was a magnificent fighter the night he knocked out Jim Braddock to win the title and again the night he took hia revenge on Schmeling. The Some Changes has'loan changed. "Slle'lt'Sm pressing closer a boot him now is capable of beating him?but they hnow that he eaa be haatn. They knew that in his last two fights he was hit often enough to have been has eked out bet actually didn't eeme even eleee to a knockout be cause neither Bob Pastor nor Godoy eaa punch. Natural^, this is stimulating to the young heavyweights around the country. Two years or so ago there was no real inducement to any young heavyweight, beginning to throw hia punches in some remote comer, to hit the trail for a title match because" there Was a bogey man at the end of the trail. Now every young heavypeight 4s rushing to Join the circle that "has been formed about the champion. sj/eakinn of Sports Same Old Plot, But Seabiscuit f Modernizes It By ROBERT McSHANE (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) D EADERS of pulp magazine So ^ tion will recognize the plot It's a story of a racehorse and a jockey. Both of them were said to be through, all washed up. They had been at the top of the heap but , time had taken its toll and both were spoken of in the past tense. Then came the last desperate ef fort. The big race. The eae the horse had lost by a nose the taw previous years. This time fortune smiled and the' valiant pair was vic torious. The here# sad Jeehey asw again topnotebera in the straggle far turfdom's gold and glory. You've doubtlessly recognised the main characters by now. They're Seabiscuit and his jockey, Johnny Pollard. The latest chapter in their combined careers was written at California's Santa Anita racetrack recently when the Biscuit wen the $100,060 handicap and established himself as the world's all-time lead ing money winner. It wasn't so very leag agp that At end ot the glory read seemed Jast ahead for both the Biscuit and John ny Pollard. Their rsesshsrhs are closely related. Two years ago Pet lard was rated one ?f the top riders to many of his early triumphs. Doable Trouble Then things started to go wrong. Pollard suffered a broken leg" in New England. He spent several months in a hospital and then went 1 to the California ranch of Ssabsa cult's owner, C. S. Howard. He waa joined there by his old pal, Seabis cuit. who had broken down in a cheap race testing himself tor the 1939 Santa Anita handicap. From then on the horse waa Pot lard's special charge. As hocae and jockey recuperated. Pollard helped Trainer Tom Smith bring the Bin-' GREATEST MONET WINNER Sutiif 'l irith Mar C. S. HamW cuit back into shape. He exercised the horse and saw to it that he had the best of care. Then, last fan. PeOard was ready to ye back to the ractoc wars aad Sesbiseuit was taken to Tamferaa to resent e training. They washed hard, bet their Srst twe races at Santa Anita were iliuppalaftog. Sa era ? arrested that the harse be ra taraed to the pastare aad that Pel lard ferret abeat rtdtor The recent San Antonio handicap chanted the complexion of thing* In this "test race" for the Santa Anita handicap Pollard made a per fectly judged ride on the Biscuit, and the seven-year-old horse gal loped to victory in recced time. Kayak Finishes Strong The rest is history. Ifs doubtfel if the turf will ever produce s race that can match, for sheer drama, the one in which old Seabiscuit went thundering under the wire at Santa Anita. A crowd of 79,000 fans cheered their overwhelming favor ite as he led his stable-mate. Kayak II, across the finish Una. The claim has beea made repeat edly by these whs saw the race that it was "rigged" far Seahisealt?Mat ?award's ether entry, Kayak n, ha hada't beea held back. It is true, at course, that toe How ard stable had publicly "declared to win" with Seabiscuit if the hick of the race gave him a chance. By "declaring to win" with any specific horse in its entry, a stable records its intentions of using the other horse, or horses, ss a sort of police man, to be there to rescue the vic tory in case something happens to toe chosen one.
The Alamance Gleaner (Graham, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 21, 1940, edition 1
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