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About Gold Hill news. (Gold Hill, Jackson County, Or.) 1897-19?? | View Entire Issue (July 13, 1939)
Thursday, July 13, 1939 The Gold Hill News. Gold Hill. Oregon a W E E K LY NEWS AN ALYSIS B Y JOSEPH W . LaBINE New Government Lending Plan Will hit Trouble, Say Experts; Strikes Spending Key for 1940 (E D IT O R ’S N O T E — When opinions a re expressed la these columns, they a re those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) _____________ _ _ _ _ _ _ R elejs ed by W estern N ew sp aper U nion. ________________________ POLITICS: Looking to 1940 “.4 veor a«» wAen (Ae /'resident tent his hMiW.OOO.AW /endspend atessafS »0 congress, I said it was /»it» putting a <Ain plaster on a cancer. This plan now is just anotAer lAin p latte r." What looks like a shin plaster to North Carolina’s Sen. Josiah W. Bai ley looks to dubious V. S. business men as a timely reiteration of the politico-economic philosophy Presi dent Roosevelt expounded before congress last January 4, namely, that “government investment” in U. S. financial stability should not merely be an emergency stop gap, but a long-range standard policy. The new plan: Government agencies would issue extra-budgetary federal-guaranteed securities for financing self-liquidat ing projects. Special U. S. authori- SENATOR BAILEY Shin p la ster for a cancer. ties would loan a total of $3,860,000,- 000 within periods ranging from two to seven years, the total program to be divided as follows: Non-federal public work» like bridge». hospitals and waterworks .................1350.000,000 Toll roads, express highways, city by passes. etc.............................. 750.000.000 Railroad equipment to be leased to c a rr ie r s ............... 500.000.000 Rural electrification expansion .............................. *60.000.000 Farm tenancy p ro g ra m ........ 500.000,000 Increase in U. S. Housing Authority's borrowing power .................................. 800.000.000 Loans to foreign nations to purchase U. S. surpluses ............................ 500.000,000 crats point out that the new lending plan provides $870,000,000 to be spent next year; with FHA’s new lending power ($800,000,000), with the emergency relief appropriation ($1,735,000,000) and record agricul tural subsidies ($1,000,000,000) the coming fiscal year will bring ex penditures of $4,405,000,000 as a pre lude to the campaign and election. However sincere the President’s in tentions for recovery, the political connection is inescapable and leads many observers to believe Mr. Roosevelt will positively seek a third term. Finance. Fears of orthodox U. S. financiers went unnoticed in the del uge of political comment. Among the fears: <L It was recalled that even Brain- truster Adolf Berle Jr., assistant secretary of state, recently said such lending methods must eventu ally lead to government absorption of the country’s most productive plants. C. Mr. Roosevelt's insistence that the so-called “self liquidating” bonds be taxable brought investigation which revealed many projects are self- sustaining by so close a margin that to tax the bonds would make them a losing investment. <L Loans to municipalities will be blocked in many cases by local laws and state regulations covering mu nicipal indebtedness. Most large cit ies, moreover, have already reached their debt limit. C Since the Johnson act forbids new loans to nations already indebted to the U. S., only South America and Scandinavian countries could use the $500,000,000 trade - boosting loan. Financiers fear a loss here, since there is no method to force collec tion short of war. <L Leasing of equipment to rail roads would, it is alleged, be an un satisfactory substitute for the reme dial legislation necessary to place U. S. carriers back on their feet. Restoration of rail prosperity is r» garded as far preferable. FRANCE: Lesson When French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet signed a mutual as sistance pact with Turkish Ambas sador Suad Davaz, Italo-German ag gression into the eastern Mediter ranean seemed effectively stymied. Moreover, for Signor Benito Musso lini it was an object lesson in gen tlemanly behavior. Results: (1) Tur key is wooed away from the Rome- While Senate Majority Leader Al- Berlin axis; (2) Anglo-French war ben Barkley assured reporters the time control of the strategic Darda measure would pass immediately, nelles makes German invasion of political wiseacres took great pains to make an undiluted election issue of it. Almost universally overlooked was the White House's violent re treat from the costly, ineffectual pump-priming methods it has tried before, which consisted not of loans but straight spending. Also over looked was the small size of a seven- year $3,860,000,000 program com pared with $20,678,000,000 the New Deal spent on recovery and relief from 1933 to 1938. Nevertheless TURKEY’S GAIN ft pays to b e a gentlem an. many a vital hole and many a politi cal portent could be read from the the Balkans less likely; (3) pro-Nazi measure : is isolated; (4) Turkey’s Politics. With 10,000,000 still un Bulgaria neighbor, Russia, should now be employed and national income about big to enter a military $12,000,000,000 under the "ideal” of more willing with Britain. $80,000,000,000 a year, the adminis agreement Mussolini’s object lesson was that tration will obviously seek to per Turkey won the strategic Republic petuate itself in 1940 by stimulating of Hatay (Syrian Alexandretta) in a temporary recovery as in 1938. Re publicans and conservative Demo- return. Though the transfer was probably illegal in League of Na tions’ eyes, under whose mandate France ruled it, Turkey neverthe less gained by negotiation what Italy has been unable to gain by threat. REAR ADM. HARRY YARNELL Stubborn Frenchmen still refuse to A pop-eyed Japanese consul in Shanghai received an unex bow before Mussolini's demands for pectedly brusque message recent Suez canal rights, the Addis Ababa- Djibouti railroad and Italian minor* ly for transmittal ity rights in Tunisia. said that the American navy NAVY: will go “wherev er necessary” to Speed-Up protect American Fiscal year’s start July 1 means citizens and that new funds for new work in most it expects no in U. S. government departments. Big terference from gest appropriations for the 1939-40 Japan, who has fiscal year cover rearmament, and been trying to before July has passed into history shove Occidentals the navy will be well under way out of the Orient. with three new jobs: The message Bases. Costing $65,000,000 are 12 came from Rear Admiral Harry plane and submarine bases for E. Yarnell, spare native of Inde pendence, Iowa, director of which congress has appropriated America’s Asiatic fleet and un $31,621,000 to handle the first year’s work. Outlying bases will be at San official Far Eastern diplomatic Juan, Puerto Rico; Kaneohe and representative since October, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Sitka and 1936. It was almost the parting shot of a man who has won virtu Kodiak, Alaska; Midway island; ally all disputes with Japan grow Johnston island and Palmyra island in the western Pacific. Continental ing out of the Chinese war. For bases will be at Pensacola and Jack Mr. Yarnell, who meantime has sonville, Fla., and Tongue Point, won the admiration and even the respect of Japan, will reach stat Ore. Ships. Early June found 75 war utory retirement age in July. Veteran of the Spanish-Ameri ships under construction, the pro gram running ahead of last year. can war, Philippine insurrection, Boxer campaign, Vera Cruz occu Meanwhile 24 new ships are being rushed, including two 45,000-ton “su pation and World war (where he commanded the U. S. S. Nash per” battleships. All will be laid in 1940 and will cost about ville), his most difficult assign down $350,000,000. ment is the present one. He will Planes. Effective immediately the be succeeded by Rear Admiral Thomas C. Hart, possibly return "speed-up” policy will be applied to 500 new airships, whose completion ing to his prairie home after a during the 1939-40 fiscal year wiU job well done. bring the navy’s total to 2,132. HEADLINERS Shall We Send Our Youth to War ? By H E R B E R T H O O V E R that wur. We had been directly attacked But, more important, I believed we could bring the endless slaughter to an end. I believed that with our singleness of pur;M>se we could impose an enlightened pence; that we could make it a war to end war. I be lieved we could make the world sufe for the spread of human liberty. If experience has nny value to nations, there nre in the wrecking of these hopes a thou sand reasons why we should never attempt It oguin. The Former President of United States Answers a Question That Is on Everybody’s Lips. <C«a4*n*»4 Fram •( th* A m e r ic a » M a g a a la e By S p e c ia l A r r a n g e - m e n l) HE American people are today tense with anxiety lest they be led into another great war. And some of our people seem to be accepting glib talk of war as if it were something more good than evil. Truly many years have already gone by since we ceased to feed boys to the cannon. It seems difficult to believe that only about one- third of the living American people are qjd enough to re member the World war well. We have urgent need today to recall the realities of mod ern war. And we have des perate need to take into our national thinking the gigan tic yet invisible forces behind war which are again moving in Europe. I am perhaps one of the few living Americans who had full opportunity to see in timately the moving tragedy of the World war from its beginnings down through the long years which have not yet ended. I saw it not only in its visible ghastliness, but I lived with the invisible forces which moved in its causes and its consequences. I am perhaps justified in re calling that experience. T Before the war 1 knew Europe —Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and England—fairly inti mately, not as a tourist but as a part of their workaday life. I was drafted in 1914 to pre serve the lives of ten millions of people in Belgium and northern France who had been overrun by the German armies. Here was a service that by common consent was a sort of semiofficial state. It covered not alone food, but the economic life of these people. It operated within the lines of a hostile army and moved through the blockade of a hostile navy. In that service I moved constantly in and out be hind the trenches on both sides of tfie conflict. I witnessed the misery and backwash from war in their most hideous forms. My duties required that I meet con stantly with high military and civil officials in England, Ger many, France, and the neutral countries in contact with the in visible forces behind the war. When America joined in the war I was asked by President Wilson to return to America to become a member of our Amer ican war council and to adminis ter the food supplies of our coun try and for our Allies. At the Armistice I was drafted back to Europe to direct activi ties of the Allied and associated governments to defeat unparal leled famine and pestilence, to restore economic life among both the victors and the vanquished. In this service I spread an or ganization of thousands of Amer ican men and women over 23 na tions—many of them boiling with revolution. Our job was not alone the extension of a hand of kindness. Its purpose was to se cure order out of which peace could be made. Constant dealing with those many peoples and their officials brought a flood of knowledge of the political, economic, and so cial currents which sprang from the war. I did not participate in making the peace. I was daily called up on for advice and information. And I observed its disastrous course. Subsequently, during a period of eight years in cabinet position I dealt with the troubled seas of unceasing political and economic storms the world over. As President I dealt unceasing ly to bring about reduction of arms, economic readjustment, and peace. A year ago I spent some months in Europe with unique opportunity to discuss its prob lems with leaders in 14 nations. That is 20 years of opportunity to observe European peoples and their leaders, with all the forces of good and evil in which they live, and to relate them to our American scene. The search light of this experience can well be turned upon some phases of the present scene. What War Really Is. First, let me say something from this experience of what war really is. Those who lived in it, 4 Prayer for Real Peace. H ERBERT HOOVER (From the drawing by Clarence Mattel.) and our American boys who fought in it, dislike to recall its terribleness. We dwell today upon its glories—the courage, the heroism, the greatness of spirit in men. I myself, should like to forget all else. But today, with the world driving recklessly into it again, there is much we must not forget. Amid the afterglow of glory and legend we forget the filth, the stench, the death, of the trenches. We forget the dumb grief of mothers, wives and children. We forget the unend ing blight cast upon the world by the sacrifice of the flower of every race. I was one of but few civilians who saw something of the Battle of the Somme. In the distant view were the unending trenches filled with a million and a half men. Here and there, like ants, they advanced under the thunder and belching volcanoes from 10,- 000 guns. Their lives were thrown away until half a million had died. Passing close by were unending lines of men plodding along the right side of the road to the front, not with drums and bands, but with saddened resig nation. Down the left side came the unending lines of wounded men, staggering among unending Stretchers and ambulances. Do you think one can forget that? And it was but one battle of a hundred. Ten million men died or were maimed for life in that war. There were millions who died unknown and unmarked. Yet there are miles of unending crosses in a thousand cemeteries. The great monument to the dead at Ypres carries the names of 150,000 Englishmen who died on but a small segment of the front. Theirs was an inspiring heroism for all time. But how much greater a world it would be to day if that heroism and that character could have lived. Humanity Suffers. And there was another side no less dreadful. I hesitate to re call even to my own mind the nightmares of roads filled for long miles with old men, young women, and little children drop ping of fatigue and hunger as they fled in terror from burning villages and oncoming armies. And over Europe these were not just a few thousands, but over the long years that scene was enacted in millions. And there was the ruthless kill ing of civilians, executed by fil ing squads who justified their acts, not by processes of justice, but on mere suspicion of trans gression of the laws of war. Still worse was the killing of men, women, and even children to project terror and cringing sub mission. To the winds went every sense of justice. To the winds went every sense of de cency. To the winds went every sense of tolerance. To the winds went every sense of mercy. The purpose of every army is to win. They are r»at put together for afternoon teas. They are not made up to bring good cheer or . justice or tolerance. They are made up of men sent out to kill or be killed. Whatever the the ory, the act that wins is justi fied in war. And there were the terrors of the air. In a score of air raids I saw the terror of women and children flocking to the cellars, frantically, to escape from an unseen enemy. Starving Women and Children. In another even more dreadful sense I saw inhuman policies of war. That was the determina tion on both sides to bring sub jection by starvation. The food blockade by the Allied govern ments on the one side, and the ruthless submarine warfare by the Central powers on the other, had this as its major purpose. Both sides professed that it was not their purpose to starve wom en and children. But it is an idiot who thinks soldiers ever starve. It was women and children who died of starvation. It was they who died of the disease which came from short food supplies, not in hundreds of thousands, but in millions. And after the Armistice came famine and pestilence, in which millions perished and other mil lions grew up stunted in mind and body. That is war. Let us not forget. We were actually at the front in this war for only a few months, but it cost us the lives of 130,000 men. It has placed 470,000 per sons on the national pension list already. It has cost us 40 bil lions of dollars. And that rep resents more than just dollars. Today we have a quarter to a third of the American people be low a decent standard of living. If that 40 billions of wealth had remained in America, these peo ple would not be in this plight. A large segment of our people have already been impoverished for a quarter of a century. And the end is not yet. We may need to go to war again. But that war should be on this hemisphere alone and in the defense of our firesides or our honor. For that alone should we pay the price. The endless books tell us how the Great War originated. They do not agree. But some salient facts do stand out that are per tinent today. It began by a quar rel between three dictators—the czar of Russia and the emperors of Germany and Austria. They were competing for “power." France, a democracy, was dragged in because, out of fear of the dictators of Germany and Austria, ahe, a democracy, had made a military alliance with the czar. The British democracy was drawn in partly out of ideal ism to defend liberty, but also partly to save its trade and its possessions from too great a concentration of "power" on the continent. We finally Joined in the war wholly out of idealism. I dodge no responsibility. I reluctantly joined in the almost unanimous view of our country men that America must go into When President Wilson arrived in Paris, the common people uf the world were praying for a real peace. There were good men there, und there were high aspir ations. But there were ulso con centrated there the invisible forces of nge-old hute und greed. Mr. Wilson met n determination to crush the enemy in a Curthug- inian peace. He met the sinister demands for power. He met a greed for possession of world re sources. Above all, he met with the pressures of populations und the unsolvable problems of Eu ropean boundaries und economic life. He worked valiantly to com- but the evil forces. He spread Ameri an idealism ut the peace table. He argued und cried out for reason and Justice—not be cause he felt that mankind must turn its face to the future and its back on the past. When Ger mans blame him, little do they know what Germany would huve looked like had it not been for Woodrow Wilson. To Mr. Wilson I criticized bit terly the provisions of the peace treuties before they were signed. I felt that instead of healing the wounds of the world they would spread disaster over a genera tion. I have before me a memo randum that I gave to Mr. Wilson two i.u ,,,tii., b c li'ic the treaties were signed, urging their lack of vision and the dungers to Amer ica. He won some victories for sanity. He helped some nations to freedom. He hoped that, with time for hate and avarice to cool, the League of Nations could re construct the failures of the treaty. Americans will yet be proud of that American who fought a fight for righteousness although tie par tially lost. But he provec that American idealism and American ignorance of the invisible forces in Europe can only confuse the grim necessities of European peace. What is happening today? Eu rope is suffering repeated earth quake shocks from the fault of the Treaty of Versailles. But, beyond all this which ia obvious, something else is mov ing. Europe is again engaged in a hideous conflict for power. Stripped to its bones, today the quarrel is much the same. Dic tators in Germany and Italy rise to power on opposition to Com munism, launched into their peo ples by the dictator of Russia. Again the dictators nre in con flict for power. Again France, a democracy, tics herself to the dic tatorship in Russia. England be comes endangered should the dic tators of Germany and Italy over whelm France. And thus again begins this dreadful treadmill. What is proposed? That we join to stop inevitable movements and readjustments of peoples; that we engage in ideological wars. Who will pay for it in blood and treas ure? Our children. The time may come when we could arbitrate the quarrels which arise in that game at some point before shooting begins. But if we sit in the game we shall never be arbitrator and we may be drawn into the shooting. My sympathies are with the democracies. But the- democra cies of Western Europe have the resources to defend themselves. They comprise great empires of hundreds of millions of people with all the resources needed to secure their defense. Whether they preserve their democracies is a question of their own will. •< x X America’s Service. America can be of service to the world. We can hold up the standards of decency in the world. We should hold that the basis of international relations should not be force, but should be law and free agreement. The greatest immediate service that we can render is to join in economic co-operation with other nations to relieve the economic pressures which are driving the world constantly to instability. A great part of these pressures for war are economic. The greatest healing force that could come to the world is prosperity. There is a vast field for American action which is free from political en tanglements. We should resume the conferences which were start ed under such good auspices by our country in 1932. But, far beyond that, we can hold the light of liberty alight on this continent. That is the great est service we can give to civ ilization. (B «U a «a 4 t»y W estern N ew sp aper U n io n .I X
