Italy Today
by
WM. PHILIP SIMMS
(Heytrnod Broun Is on Vacation.)
March 31.—Benito Mussolini is
seeking a solution to all his troubles—
with Britain, with Geneva, with France an3
with sanctions—on the battlefields of Ethi
opia. And Britain, France and Geneva are
lettinj? him do it.
Europe's fear of another world conflict is partly
based on the imbroglio in Africa, with its far more
serious accompaniments—in the Mediterranean,
Central Europe and the Far East. But statesmen
are finding it exceedingly hard to chart a course.
Blunders of the first magnitude have been com
mitted at Geneva and other capitals, the biggest
and mast perilous being the mobilization of the Brit
ish fleet against Italy. The second was Genevas
half-measure sanctions which
went far enough to constitute a
constant irritant and threaten to
upset all Europe, yet not far
enough to be effective.
As matters n' w stand, there
fore, nobody <an back down.
Britain is committed. France is
committed. ItfJy is committed.
Ethiopia is committed. And the
League of Nations is committed.
Something has got to happen to
break the deadlock and that
must be one of two things: Dras
tic action to crush Italy, or a
policy of standing back and wait
ing for a decisive blow in Ethio
pia . As military sanctions or other
Simms
telling blows against this country would almast cer
tainly set Europe on fire, the powers-that-be appar
ently have derided to mark time.
When the hour strikes, I understand, Geneva
has a plan. But until 11 Duce either scores a decisive
victory against Ethiopia's Lion of Judah, or meets
with equally decisive reverses, it will be held in
abeyance. .
in diplomatic circles here, British Foreign M*'t
ister Anthony Eden is believed to have given a clew
to the broad principles of this plan when he referred
to the League propasal of last September.
n n n
League Plan Recalled
"T HOPE that proposal will neither be forgotten nor
x laid aside," he said. He thutf clearly indicated
that when the time comes for anew effort at peace,
he regards the plan as a perfectly valid starting
point. And Capt. Eden is now Adam in the Garden
of the League.
The league proposal was contained in a report
of the Committee of Five appointed to draft an ac
ceptable peace plan. It was based on Ethiopia's ex
pressed willingness to accept League assistance in
the reconstruction of the dark empire.
Turned down by II Duce last fall, the plan, as it
stands, is even less acceptable today. Italian armies
have made advances since September. More decisive
Activities are expected. If and when they come, the
above plan then would need but little change to make
ft fit the League formula.
n n n
When Right Is H rang
CANDOR compels the admission that neither of
the two leading League powers went to Geneva
with exactly clean hands. Britain and France struck
a bargain with Italy in 1915 which neither of them
has yet wholly made good. They are therefore la
boring under normal difficulties. They are between
the devil of having to do something for a former ally
whom they double-crossed, and the deep sea of their
obligations to the League and to their own na
tional interests.
Italy can not forget that, in 1915 she was prom
ised that "in the event of France and Great Britain
Increasing their colonial territories in Africa at the
expense, of Germany.” Italy might claim some
equitable compensation" in the dark continent.
Tomorrow —"Whither Mussolini?”
There's a Chuckle
in Sloan's Report
BY RAYMOND CLAPPER
WASHINGTON, March 31.—Usually you can find
a chuckle that wasn't meant to be there, in
the report of any big business executive to his stock
holders. These reports follow a fixed formula. First,
they solemnly denounce the New Deal. Then they
brag about how much money they are making.
Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president of General Motors,
says sadly in his annual report that the New Deal
is postponing recovery. Then come the figures,
dancing merrily. Net sales last year gained 34 per
rent over 1934. Net profits were
$3.69 a share comparer! with $1.99
a share in the preceding year.
Rales, earnings and pay rolls were
the highest since 1929. What
does Mr, Sloan mean, postponed
recovery?
a a a
ALTHOUGH he is committed
to support President Roose
velt for re-election. John L. Lewis,
head of the United Mine Work
ers. is flirting, so his intimates
say with the dream of building
a Farmer-Labor Party after 1936
is out of the way.
This has been a dream for years among reform
ers who have felt that both old parties were bottle
fed by the same nurse. The only trouble about or
ganizing a Farmer-Labor Party is that. President
Roosevelt already has beaten them to it. He has
built a coalition of farmers and labor which is the
real basis of his strength. This isn’t generally real
ized because Mr. Roosevelt didn't bother to put a
new label on what he was doing. The Democvatic
Party is the Farmer-Labor Party now.
a a a
STANDING out above numerous technicalities in
the Sugar Institute decision, you will find in the
opinion of Chief Justice Hughes a friendly gesture
toward the suggestion in President Roosevelt's re
cent relief message that, there is nothing in the anti
trust laws to prevent business from working in
concert to stimulate trade. Chief Justice Hughes
says in his opinion that business, by voluntary co
operation. might accomplish more beneficial results
than could be obtained by legal compulsion.
a a a
SOMETHING else is happening which should give
private business pause. An article in the April
Scribner's. “The Masses Go Into Big Business.” tells
of the rise of co-operative selling in this country.
Some 2,000.000 members of 6500 consumer co-opera
tives did a business of more than $1,000,000 a day
last year. There are 2000 co-operative gas and oil
filling stations in the country.
Arthur Bertram B. Fowler says this is a revolt
against profit taking. Co-operatives sell at the
*rket but the profits, instead of going to absentee
are returned to consumers in ratio to
purchases. The idea long ago became entrenched in
Europe. Sweden’s success with it is attracting wide
attention here through the study of Marquis W.
Childs’ “Sweden: The Middle Way.”
The co-operative movement discards political
action as a method of dealing with economic ills
•nd goes into business for itself. Unlike Socialism.
it is a device for bringing down prices without
abolishing the profit motive. It merely shifts the
seat of the profit motive from the seller to the
purchaser. Co-operatives hold second place in
Minnesota as state-wide distributors of gas and oil.
In North Dakota, where they are organized in 88
town*, they lead all private companies in gasoline
sales.
Thia Is a kind of undeclared revolution. Instead
of attacking the existing private distribution system,
the consumers just quietly muscle in on the game
themselves*
>|J? . r' "• if .
| '•
~ . -
■ I I * —■■''ll • I HIIMIIWIIA
AVfASHINGTON, March 31.
’ * Friends who talked with
Herbert Hoover during his recent
New York visit are saying he is
extremely hot under the collar at
Gov. Alf Landon.
Trouble seems to be Landon's
deal with Gov. Merriam of Cali
fornia for control of the state’s
delegation.
Hoover wants an uninstructed
delegation, but one that will take
orders from him. He view's the
Landon-Merriam trade as a per
sonal affront. And when he read
about it in the papers, he called
up Landon by long-distance tele
phone and protested.
According to the account Hoo
ver gave his friends, this is w'hat
Landon replied:
“Well, Mr. Hearst wanted me to
enter the California field, and in a.
choice between you and Mr. Hearst
1 think it best to follow Mr.
Hearst’s washes.”
n a a
THE decision of a New’ York
Federal court declaring un
constitutional the embargo on
arms sales to Bolivia and Para
guay, is going to put Chief Jus
tice Hughes in an exceedingly
tough spot.
For Mr. Hughes, while Secretary
of State, was the author and chief
aovocate of an act of Congress
almost identical to the one , is col
league on the New York Federal
bench now has declared unconsti
tutional.
What Judge Mortimer Byers in
New York objected to was the
fact that Congress delegated the
power to embargo arms sales “if
the President finds" this is pro
longing the war. The delegation
of this power. Judge Byers held,
was unconstitutional.
The law which Chief Justice
Hughes wrote while Secretary of
State in 1922 specifies that "when
the President finds" revolution ex
ists in any Pan-American country
he may embargo arms shipments
to the revolutionaries.
This is a greater delegation of
power, since it gives the President,
the power of defining what is and
what is not a revolution—some
I; , s
Clapper
THE TROOPS MOVE UP AGAIN
France Answers Hitlers Occupation of the Rhineland
Washington Merry-Go-Round
BY DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN
BENNY
I >—■ || 1'( sr
( THAT FISH 15 TCoA X.
4 I SHALL. BEfifiY* Voo)
I should have. FISH
market |
II Fill
The Indianapolis Times
times an extremely difficult prob
lem.
Legalists of the State and Jus
tice Departments are determined
to throw this test case up to Chief
Justice Hughes and see what he
thinks of it.
n n n
F FRANK WICKHEM. 34-year
old Sioux Falls (S. D.) attor
ney, probably owes his election as
president of the Young Democrats
to a group of bearded, barefoot
men in homespun clothes. One day
last August they trailed into the
gay dining room of a leading Mil
waukee hotel. They sat down and
ordered dinner.
When soup was brought, they
frowned, ordered a big punch
bowl, poured their individual por
tions into the common bowl, and
all proceeded to eat from that.
When c inner was over, they
walked ou.. picked up band in
struments they had left in the
'I Confess'
B.y Science Service
WASHINGTON, March 31
With the death of Bruno Rich
ard Hauptmann imminent, psy
chiatrists anticipate a wave of
‘‘confessions" to the Lindbergh
crime.
Usually in the past, each
major crime case which has ex
cited wide interest has been fol
lowed by such "confessions." Not
all of them are just attempts to
gain publicity.
Outstanding crimes in the
past have often been “con
fessed" by persons obviously
suffering from mental disease.
A sick mind may make the in
dividual certain that he is
guilty of the worst crime in the
world, and if he hears of such
a crime having just been com
mitted he is sure he did it and
confesses to it.
Not infrequently a convict
who is dying from some incur
able disease will confess to a
crime he has not committed in
the hope of getting someone
else freed.
TUESDAY, MARCH 31,1936
. 19V
1 Hitler reviews bis troops
9 H Mi '■ ' French ->ippiv train ippvcs up,
iil 3, Ration time for poilus.
~ . A France’s defense at Strasbourg.
■ | 5. The generals inspect their troops.
lobby, and began to play riotous
tunes, while followers shouted,
"We want Wickhem!” Wickhem
for President!”
It was Wickhem’s "Mennonite
Band” and it helped materially in
putting across his election as head
of the Young Dems in the face of
Jimmy Roosevelt’s opposition.
Today Wickhem has started a
campaign, under Jim Farley’s di
rection, to line up the youth of
the country for Roosevelt.
ana
THE most vigorous undercover
warring against the Presi
dent's tax program so far has
come from foreign sources.
Foreign corporations .with
branches in the United States are
raising a terrific din over the
plan to tax undivided profits. For
two reasons, they claim it will
bear down doubly hard on them:
1. Because the rates on foreign
firms will be higher than on do
mestic companies.
2. Because it will be necessary
to tax them directly, since the
government can not collect
(through income taxes) from their
stockholders who live abroad,
t Asa result of these foreign
protests, the House Ways and
Means Committee, which drafted
the tax bill, spent two full days
of its executive sessions examin
ing the problem and the claims
of the foreign companies.
This is the second time the
Roosevelt Administration hr
tangled with foreign ' coupon
clippers.
In 1933 it cracked down on
them by putting into effect a
provision of the 1928 Revenue
Law. requiring slock brokers to
report the profits of their custom
ers. The result was the disclo
sure that thousands of foreign
investors had made lush profits
on the Stock Exchange, but paid
no taxes on them.
The Hoover Administration had
never invoked this section of the
statute. Asa result of enforc
ing it during the last three years,
approximately $75,000,000 in taxes
has been collected from foreign
stock market operators.
(Copyright. 1936. by United Feature
Syndicate. Inc.i
' ' - iAt
UNUSUAL SQUEEZE WINS
Today’s Contract Problem
Even though South has bid
hearts, he gets a heart open
ing on a contract of six no
trump. East plays the ten.
What card should South play?
With the spade suit not break
ing, what play must declarer
make to give his opponents
a chance to make a mistake?
A Q 10 S 4
♦7 4 2
♦ kqj
*QJ7
(Blind) W E (Blind)
S
Dealer
A AK7
¥KQJi
♦ A J 10
A AKS
N. & S. Till. Opener—V 5
Solution in next issue. 24
Solution to Previous Contract
Problem
BY W. E. M’KENNEY
Secretary American Bridge League
IN the previous article, I pre
sented a very’ interesting type
of squeeze play. While on the sub
ject'of squeezes, I should like to
show you another unusual form
of this play.
Today's hand was played by
Harry Raffels and Melville Alex
ander, both of New York City, in
the ecent eastern bridge cham
pion ,hip tournament. Raffels held
the North hand.
East's opener of the eight of
clubs was w’on in dummy with the
ace. Raffels realized that he had
only 12 tricks in his hand, and his
only chance to make the contract
depended upon execution of a
squeeze. The opening lead seemed
to indicate that the high clubs
were held by West. Now, if West
also had the king of hearts, there
might be a chance to work a
squeeze with the heart and club
suits.
Declarer played four rounds of
1. Hitler reviews his troops.
2. A French supply train moves np.
3. Ration time for poilus.
4. France’s defense at Strasbourg.
5. The generals inspect their troops.
AAKQJ 5 3
V Q 9
♦A 8 4
A 7 4
Aio . I Z lAB 7 2
VKJ 7 6 w n c VlO 8 2
4 w r , t AJIO 73
♦6 5 2 S A8 6 i
AQJ 10 9 Dewier
A9 6 4
VA 5 3
♦ KQ 9
AAK 5 3
Duplicate none vut.
South AVwd North Hast
1 A Pass 1 A Pass
2N. T. Pass 4 ts. T. Pass
SN. T. Pass 7 A Pass
Pass .Pass
Opening lead—A 8 2-*
trump and carefully observed that
West’s first discard was the seven
of hearts, followed by two small
hearts. Dummy discarded a small
heart on the fourth trump lead.
North played another trump
and discarded the five of hearts
from dummy, West the deuce of
diamonds. Three rounds of dia
monds were taken, with the lead
ending in dummy’s hand. West
discarded the ten of clubs on the
last diamond.
Only four cards were left in
each hand, and now declarer was
certain that West was holding the
guarded king of hearts and two
clubs. He, therefore, played the
king and a small club, trumping
in his own hand, thus establishing
his fourth club.
A small heart was played to
dummy’s ace and the three of
clubs won the thirteenth trick,
giving declarer his grand slam
contract.
At the ninth trick, if West had
played the jack of hearts instead
of the ten of clubs, declarer would
have cashed his ace of hearts, the
king of clubs, and then trumped
a club, and the queen of hearts
would have won the thirteenth
trick.
(Copyright. 1936. by NBA Service. Inc.)
By J. Carver Pusey
Second Section
Entered as Second-Class Matter
at Postoffice. Indtanapoli*. Ind.
Fair Enough
VESItWEGIDt
T ONDON, March 31.—The Irish Hos
pitals Sweepstakes has been silenced
in the English press, but there is no sup
pressing the fact that the lottery was run
again in connection with the Grand Na
tional, the great four-mile suicide race at
Aintree, near Liverpool, Friday afternoon. This
naturally leads one of Irish ancestry to wonder
how' his kinfolk on the old sod are coming along in
their convalescence.
Surely they must almost be
able to recognize friends or even
sit up and snap viciously at a
slab of steak after all these years,
considering tnat they ,are sup
posed to have had the benefit of
more than $40,000,000 worth of
medical attention since the lot
tery began as a more or less pri
vate enterprise in 1930. There are
not quite three million souls in the
Irish Free State and unless the
majority of the population has
been enjoying very poor health
the dividends from the great in
ternational gamble should have
been sufficient to relieve the sick
of every ill money can cure.
er, n^L ast reports the hospitals still had about $25.-
000.000 coming as their share of the revenue and the
good doctors were setting up a shrill clamor on be
ll 1 ? 1 of their patients for a glimpse of this monev.
ine hospitality of management to the journalists
who have gone to Dublin to cover the draw has de
feated its own purposes in many cases.
n n n
Tottering On to the Races
ATEMBERS of the craft who have endured the
tortures of sweepstakes hangovers report that,
the saddle bunions and foot bunions, the thirst and
fatigue which plagued the war correspondents in
Ethiopia and laid them low' must have been mild
distempers compared to the anguish of any man
who regained consciousness in the foggy dawn of a
Dublin day and yelled feebly for the coroner to come
and take a look at the body.
This year the English brothers of Fleet-st have
been spared the ordeal, for their papers are for
bidden by English law to permit themselves even
the remotest reference to the sweepstakes. The jour
nalists of other nations, however, have had to carry
on as usual, and some of the boys tottered out of
Dublin this week with feeble steps and glazed vision
in an advanced state of that ghostly ailment known
as the shrieking meemies.
It is still legal to send news of the Irish lottery to
most, nations, but the copy must be filed by some
route which avoids England because the English
refuse to handle it even in transit to foreign lands.
Many British public hospitals are supported by
voluntary gifts and they were placed at a great ap
parent disadvantage when the British public spent
millions of pounds of spare money on Irish lottery
tickets. The Irish hospitals, about 50 in number,
were in poverty, too, and probably their distress
w'as worse than that of the British because the
Irish civil war drove out of Ireland a great number
of wealthy aristocrats who took the remnants of
their fortunes with them
nan
Another Noble Experiment
CO the lottery in the first place ras, as Mr. Hoover
w'ould put it, noble in purpose. But it is im
possible to spend millions of dollars on medical re
search and individual treatment in a hurry, and
the Irish government pointed out in answer to an
urgent request for $1,000,000 for scientific inquiry
that such an appropriation all in one lump would
be more likely to retard than promote progress. But
the reasons for withholding $25,000,000 from hospitals
which are in serious want have not been explained
officially.
A small proportion of the fund has been made
available and your correspondent would have the
figure if he w'ere able to dig it out of the great
and confusing mass of statistics in which he has
been delving. Anyway the plight of the ailing
kinfolk of all those Americans of Irish ancestry
who bought lottery tickets from motives tinged
with philanthropy is apparently the last considera
tion of the management. Prior considerations are
the Free State treasury, which now exacts a tax on
the hospitals’ share of the money before placing
the remainder in cold storage, and fabulous cash
royalties to the four individuals who started the
lottery and ties up a fund of $125,000 as a guaranty
for the prize winners in 1930. The trouble is that
the sweep succeeded too well.
It is now likely to die in its own success. The
hospitals’ share is too big to be spent usefully in
a short time and the British boycott was imposed
only because the lottery outgrew its philanthropic
character and became a serious parasitic growth on
the body of England.
Gen. Johnson Says—
WASHINGTON, March 31.—Ogden Mills is out
for Gov. Landon. All that remains to com
plete the political portrait of this candidate is for
Herbert Hoover, Ed Hutton and Liberty League to
come through.
There is no tangible “money trust.” At the
corner of Broad and Wall-sts there is no such
sulphurous den of devils, horned and personal,
as my Midwestern mother, and a good many mil
lion others, confidently believe. But we do have
a group of gentlemen who think what their fathers
thought—and for no other reason. They sincerely
believe that government should do nothing about
business or agriculture because, in the days of our
grandfathers, it wasn't necessary.
Between them and the dangerous dizziness that
is now going round and round, there is a middje
course toward which the great bulk of Americans
yearn “as the heart panteth.” But who panteth to
return to Hooverian reaction? A small group.
a a a
IT is hard to define, but anybody who has bepn
about a bit could identify any one of them in
the dark. They are careful men. When they
indorse a candidate they know what they are do
ing. Their indorsement tags him as well as them
selves.
They are entitled to their opinion, but why
can't they wake up? Mr. Hoover and Mr. Mills
are symbols of them and of disaster. Both ought to
retire into silence. The Liberty League potlatch was
so devoid of hope for what most people want that
it turned the ebbing tide of New’ Deal popularity.
• Copyright, 1936, by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)
Times Books
ABOUT a year ago. a young America* named
Vic Hurley wrote a refreshing and interesting
book called “goutheast of Zamboahga,” in which
he told what nenpened to him when he tried to
start a one-man coconut plantation in the Phil
ippine jungle.
Now Mr. Hurley is out with anew book about
life in those far-off islands. This one is called
“Men in Sun Helmets,” (Dutton; s2>, and the vein
Mr. Hurley worked so successfully in the first book
seems to be running a bit* thin.
Not that “Men in Sun Helmets” is dull; it is
simply rather light. The first book recorded a dra
matic and exciting adventure; this one throws to
gether a series of incidents and ancedotes. and the
effort to-make them seem exotic and adventurous
seems forced, (By Bruce Cattonj
I
Westbrook Pegler