The Meridian Tribune (Meridian, Tex.), Vol. 43, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, January 22, 1937 Page: 3 of 8
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SECTION TWO
1
TERDIAN 1
Devoted to the Upbuilding of Meridian and Bosque County
RIBUNE
i SA • JU
43RD YEAR, NO. 35
MERIDIAN, TEXAS, JANUARY 22,1937
PRICE $1.50 A YEAR
News Review of Current
Events the World Over
Those little pests are in the Air again
******************
• ★
■ STAR :
Truce Is Called in the General Motors Strike—Presi’
dent’s Reorganization Program Criticized—Kid-
naped Tacoma Boy Is Found Murdered.
By EDWARD W. PICKARD
© Western Newspaper Union.
THROUGH the efforts of Gover-
J nor Murphy of Michigan a truce
in the General M 'tors strike was
arranged, and the prospects for
peaceful settlement
of the trouble were
bright. The gover-
nor persuaded Ex-
ecutive Vice Presi-
dent William S.
William S.
Knudsen
Knudsen of the cor-
poration and Presi-
dent Homer Martin
of the United Auto-
mobile Workers un-
ion to meet in his
office in - Lansing.
The conference last-
ed more than 15
hours and at its conclusion the truce
was announced.
The essence of the agreement was
that the union would at once with-
draw the sit-down strikers from the
General Motors plants in Flint, De-
troit and Anderson, Ind., and that
the corporation would not remove
from the plant any machinery or
dies and would not attempt to re-
sume production in those plants
for at least 15 days from the date
of commencement of negotiations.
The joint conferences for a final
settlement of the points at issue
were to begin in Detroit January 18.
Mr. Knudsen said “Negotiations
will be conducted frankly and every
■effort will be made to bring about a
speedy settlement.”
Mr. Martin asserted “The union
will in' good faith endeavor to ar-
rive at a speedy settlement.”
Governor Murphy announced that
National Guardsmen now in Flint,
following an outbreak of rioting at
a General Motors plant there, would
remain temporarily “but I Con’t
consider this necessary.”
The agreement on the armistice
came as good news to thousands of
idle automotive workers, and other
thousands threatened with tem-
porary loss of jobs.
ful expenditures by the executive
branch.
Extension of the merit system to
“cover practically all non-policy de-
termining posts,” replacement of
the civil service commission by a
civil service administrator with a
“citizen board to serve as the watch
dog of the merit system,” and in-
crease of salaries to key positions
to attract superior ability to a ca-
reer service.
Development of the “managerial
agencies of the government,” par-
ticularly the budget bureau and
agencies engaged in efficiency re-
search, personnel questions, and
long range planning of the use of
land, water, and other natural re-
sources.
Opposition to the first, third and
fourth of these sections was pro-
nounced and it seems certain that
introduction of the bill will start a
long and stubborn fight in congress.
T-EN-year-old Charles Mattson,
I kidnaped from his home in Ta-
coma, Wash., Dec. 27 and held for
ransom, was found beaten to death
in snow covered woods near Ev-
erett. The body was nude and cru-
elly battered. State and city police
and department of justice agents,
who had been held back to give the
lad’s father a chance to pay the
ransom and save his son, immedi-
ately began an intensive manhunt.
One suspect was arrested in San
Francisco and others were being
traced. A car in which it was be-
lieved the lad’s body was carried
was found.
President Roosevelt expressed
the horror of the nation over
this brutal crime and authorized a
reward of $10,000 for the capture
of the kidnaper and murderer. Ber-
nar McFadden added $1,000 to this
amount.
COME 400 representatives of the
D five railroad brotherhoods gath-
ered in Chicago to discuss plans for
obtaining increases of wages. A
committee recommended that form-
al demands for higher pay be made,
but said it had not yet decided on
the procedure or the amount of in-
crease to be asked.
J. A. Phillips, president of the
Order of Railway Conductors, said
that while the committee had
agreed that a wage increase should
be sought, there had been no con-
sideration of hours of work, pen-
sions or any other matter.
D LANS for reorganizing the ad-.
I ministrative branch of the gov-
ernment were laid before congress
by President Roosevelt, and many
Democrats as well
as the few Republi-
can members were
quick to express
their disapproval of ,
parts of the scheme. :
It would greatly en- |
hance the power of |
the executive, would 1
abolish no federal 1
agencies and would 1
not result in any 1
considerable econo- 1
my of expenditures.
Special committees
Louis
Brownlow
"T HE latest general European
1 war scare has subsided. It was
caused by France’s announced de-
termination to stop, by force if
necessary, the al-
leged infiltration of
German troops into
Spanish Morocco,
and Great Britain
was ready to sup-
port the French
with its fleet. But
Hitler and his am-
bassador to France
were able to con-
vince the nations
that the stories
were false and that Gen. Goering
Germany has no in-
tention of trying to grab any Span-
ish territory. Paris cooled down
at once, and to add to the, peace
atmosphere, negotiations were
started for a trade treaty between
France and Germany.
Then, too, Col. Gen. Hermann
Wilhelm Goering, resplendent first
minister of the German reich, went
on an official visit to Rome and
was informed by Mussolini that
the recently signed Italo-British
Mediterranean agreement does not
change Italy’s friendship for Ger-
many or its collaboration with the
reich on the major problems of
Europe. Goering and Mussolini
were supposed to get together on
the future course of their govern-
ments concerning the Spanish
civil war.
Cobb
Jhika about
International Fourflushing.
CANTA MONICA, CALIF.
D —When the German
troops marched into the
Rhineland, France was going
to fight about it, but didn’t.
When the Italians moved against
Ethiopia, Britain was going to in-
voke force, but
didn’t.
When Russia
poked her snoot in-
to the Spanish
mess, there was go-
ing to be armed ac-
tion by other pow-
ers. but wasn’t.
When Japan be-
gan to nibble again
at China, there was
going to be inter-
vention, but all
that happened was
that the League of
Irvin S. Cobb
Nations chirped despairingly and
then put its head back under its
wing.
Somehow, I’m thinking of the two
fellows who started fighting and,
when bystanders rushed in to sep-
arate them, the one who was get-
ting the worst of it yelled:
“Five or six of you- hang on to
that big brute. Anybody can hold
me!” '
A
Curing Temperament.
JUDGE back east rules that
this so-called artistic temper-
ament is not sufficient excuse for
a so-called genius to beat up his
bride.
I tried the stuff once—just once—
but the presiding judge in my case
was a lady. For years I’d been
trudging as steadily as a milkman’s
horse, whereas being a practioner
of a creative profession, I said to
myself I really ought to stage some
temperament just to make the fam-
ily appreciate me. So I rehearsed
my act and went downstairs one
morning and put it on. So my wife
looked at me across the breakfast
table, and said: “I know what the
trouble with you is. You’re bilious.
You’ll take' some calomel.”
Well, what are you going to do
when a beautifully staged emotion-
al outburst is diagnosed, not as the
promptings of a tortured soul, but
as liver complaint?
You guessed it. I took the calo-
mel, and, I pledge you my word,
haven’t had an attack since.
The Law’s Delays.
O) NCE a Massachusetts Supreme
U court reversed a felony convic-
tion because the prosecution, in fil-
ing the record; stated that the crime
was committed “on the fifteenth day
of June, 1855" but failed to state
whether the year was 1855 A. D.
or 1855 B. C.
And ever since then on quibbles
almost equally foolish—such as a
misplaced comma or an upside
down period—other high courts
have been defeating the ends of
justice and setting at naught the de-
cisions of honest juries.
Science has gone ahead, medicine
has taken enormous steps forward,
but law still rides in a stage coach
and hunts with a flintlock musket.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that
one reason for the law’s delays is
a lack of the thing called commor
sense?
(Copyright, W. N. U.)
1 HEY SPIKE HERE’S A
CUSTOME 2- LET’S LE
4 IIM HAVE IT
OKIE- DORE -
LET’S Go!
DUST
* Movie • Radio *
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*★★ By VIRGINIA VALE***
SEEN and HEARD®
around the e
NATIONAL CAPITALS:
By Carter Field
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT g
of both houses were to begin draft-
ing a bill to carry out the Presi-
dent’s desires, but it was freely pre-
dicted that not all of them would
get through.
Louis Brownlow, Prof. Luther
Gulick and Prof. Charles Merriam
constituted the committee that
evolved the reorganization plan for
the President. The major changes
they recommended are:
Creation of two new departments
headed by cabinet members—a de-
partment of social welfare and a de-
partment of public works—and dele-
gation to the President of author-
ity to “overhaul the 100 independent
agencies, administrations, authori-
ties, boards, and commissions and
place them by executive order” in
the ten existing and two proposed
additional departments.
Expansion of the White House
staff, chiefly by the creation of six
“assistants to the President,” who
would relieve him of much of the
routine executive work.
Abolition of the office of controller
general with his power to disallow
administrative expenditures in ad-
vance as violative of law, and crea-
tion instead of an auditor general
with power limited to reporting an-
nually to congress illegal and waste-
T OSING the radio beam in foggy
L/ weather. Pilot W. W. Lewis pan-
caked his Western Air Express
plane with a crash on a hill near
Burbank, Calif., and two of his
passengers were killed. Everyone
else on the plane, eleven in num-
ber, was injured. The dead are
Martin Johnson, famous explorer;
and James A. Braden of Cleveland.
Mrs. Osa Johnson, who accompan-
ied her husband on his adventurous
expeditions in Africa and Borneo,
was among those most seriously
hurt.
There will be searching inquiries
into this and other recent air dis-
asters." Senator Copeland of New
York blames the Department, of
Commerce. Airline operators have
long complained that certain radio
beam stations in the Far West
are inadequate. Officials of the
bureau of air navigation deny this,-
asserting: “Radio beams some-
times play queer pranks in cer-
tain areas and in certain moun-
tainous territories. Every pilot
knows these peculiarities.”
Down in Mexico there were three
airplane crashes within a week,
and it was believed eleven persons
had lost their lives.
Dinosaur Footprints.
DACK in 1858, a college professor
D discovered on a sandstone ledge
in Massachusetts a whole batch of
imbedded tracks of the dinosaur—
familiarly known to geologists as
dinah, just as among its scientific
friends the great winged lizard is
frequently referred to as big liz.
At the time, the discovery created
no excitement—merely a slight
shock of surprise to the old families
upon learning there was something
historic in Massachusetts antedat-
ing the Mayflower. For the natur-
alists figured those tracks had been
left more than 150,000,000 years ago.
And they were suffered to remain
nearly eighty years more.
But here recently it develops that
parties unknown have been chisel-
ing Dinah’s footprints out and toting
them off. This would seem to in-
dicate either that America is get-
ting dinosaur-conscious or that dino-
saurleggers are operating, or both.
So if a slinky gentleman should
come to the side door, offering a
prime specimen for the parlor
whatnot, don’t trade with him, read-
er-call the police. Next time he
may come back with a dornick off
of Plymouth Rock or the corner-
stone of Harvard college, or the
name plate from Cotton Mather’s
coffin.
IRVIN S. COBB
E—WNU Service.
Washington.—President Roosevelt
is going to have plenty of trouble
restraining the pork and patronage-
hungry senators and representa-
tives when they study the figures
that will be available in his budget
message, especially as many of
them were thoroughly convinced
last year, and year before last, by
the New Deal tax enthusiasts of
the Frankfurter school, that taxes
on corporations ought to be a great
deal higher than they are now.
Outside and unofficial estimates
indicate that the rise in revenue an-
ticipated by the Treasury over last
year’s estimates will exceed a bil-
lion and a half dollars—may eas-
ily reach two billions!
This is due in part to increased
taxes, in part to the policy of forc-
ing out dividends by the undistribut-
ed earnings tax, and even more
than either of these to > improved
business in 1936, bearing in mind
that while the government figures
on a fiscal year from July 1 to
June 30, the individual and corpora-
tion taxes are figured on the cal-
endar year.
Estimates in President Roose-
velt’s budget message in January,
1936, showed an increase in cor-
poration income taxes of $211,600,-
000, of which $42,000,000 was due
to increased rates, and the remain-
der to increased corporation in-
come. Conservative actuaries out-
side the Treasury department figure
the increase on top of this to be
shown in the President’s budget
message will not be less than $350,-
000,000.
Last January’s budget message
estimated individual income taxes
would be $936,000,000, an increase
over the preceding year’s estimate
of $207,000,000. Of this $62,000,000
was due to increased rates. But
this year, outsiders figure, the in-
crease over last year’s estimates
will not be less than $500,000,000.
Out of Proportion
This seems out of all proportion
to the increase in corporation taxes,
but there are two important rea-
sons. In the first place, the im-
provement in corporate earnings
for 1936 over 1935 is much better
than the increase 1935 showed over
1934. But dividends increased out
of all proportion to earnings, due
to the unprecedented-in American
tax history—undistributed earnings
tax.
As a result, the boost in individual
incomes from dividends was much
greater than the boost in corpora-
tion incomes. And as a tremendous
percentage of dividend paying
stocks are owned by people already
paying income taxes, the result will
be to force many of them into
higher tax brackets than they
have ever figured in before. As
the more income, the higher the
rates of tax, the swelling in fed-
eral revenue here is greater in
proportion than the rise in income.
Incidentally there has been much
talk about bonuses and salary and
wage boosts also, but this is trifling
so far as federal income tax figures
are concerned, compared to the
flood of dividends. . Lots of the wage
increases went to people who will
not pay income taxes at all.
Estate and gift taxes, however,
do figure importantly. Even the
January, 1936, estimates, showed a
boost over the previous budget es-
timates of $42,000,000, though the
total of $293,000,000 would have
shrunk had it not been for a boost
in the rates and a tightening of
loopholes. But estates liquidated in
1936 benefited fromamuch higher se-
curity and real estate prices than
those liquidated at any time since
the stock market crash.
Altogether, it looks like good hunt-
ing for the pork hunters.
Work for Congress
Despite many learned surveys,
there is no agenda for the session
of congress, recently opened. It
will develop as it goes along, guided
somewhat in its building by changes
due to expediency by the gentleman
in the driver’s seat, and molded
importantly by. forthcoming Su-
preme court decisions.
Those who look for an index in
the three formal utterances by
President Roosevelt in January--his
For these reasons it is tremen-
dously difficult at the moment to
make any very accurate forecast
on some of the important questions.
Some of the most vital depend on
the Supreme court. Some will be
determined, after much backing
and filling, by the President, after
listening to a host of disagreeing
advisers. The President is in the
happy position of not having to make
up his mind about anything at any
given moment—at least not for
some time to come.
There are a few exceptions to
this, of course. Some things are
now clear. For instance, it may be
stated with the utmost positiveness
that there will be no substantial
modification of either the tax or
social security legislation. But there
will be minor amendments to both
acts.
Some underbrush can be cleared
away as to these. For instance it
is probable that there will be an
amendment enacted to the tax law
which will help corporations deeply
in debt.
Answer Is Simple
The answer to this is very simple.
The underlying principle here is
part of the warp and woof of the
Roosevelt economic doctrine. It is
not a new doctrine so far as he is
concerned. It is not something to
which he has been converted, and
from which, therefore, he might be
expected to be swayed. A careful
reading of his acceptance speech
before the Chicago convention in
July, 1932, will reveal that he had
the same logic then which drove
him to last year’s tax bill.
In that speech accepting the nom-
ination, he demanded to know what
had become of the “piled up sur-
pluses” of the corporations from the
ONE of the trade maga-
U zines of the motion pic-
ture industry startled the
workers in the business re- ■
cently by publishing a report
on the popularity ‘of the
screen stars. For months and
months, people had been told
that Robert Taylor had
climbed to the very top: that
he got more fan mail than
Clark Gable did, that his
name above a theater was
magic, because it drew so
many paying customers
that, in short, Mr. Taylor was—
tops.
But — according to this report,
Clark Gable is the screen’s most
popular actor!
. Last year Shirley Temple held
that position. This year she is sec-
ond. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rog-
ers as a team come third, Robert
Taylor fourth, and William Powell
fifth.’
In case you’re interested, the oth-
er leading stars are listed in this
order; Myrna Loy, Claudette Col-
bert, Norma Shearer, Gary Cooper,
Frederic March, Jeanette MacDon-
ald and Nelson Eddy as a team,
Lionel Barrymore.
It is nice to report that James
Cagney’s new picture, “Great Guy,”
is one of his best.
It had to be. He
made it for Grand
National you know,
a new organization,
and if it hadn’t
turned out well we
might have had no
more Cagney on the
screen for a while,
at least. After all
his troubles with
studios it is pleasant
to know that he is Tama
once more on the Cagney
big time and that
his comeback is really a triumph.
—*—
Have you listened to that new
radio program, “Do You Want to
Be an Actor?” If you haven’t, do!
It’s very entertaining. People who
are in the audience are given roles
in scenes that are done before the
microphone, and after each per-
formance the best woman perform-
er and the best man are given
movie tests by Warner Brothers.
It’s quite possible that some of our
future stars will be developed in
this way.
prosperous days.
Some of it, he
said, had been put in
additional
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
first message, his budget message
and his inaugural address—are
doomed to disappointment. There
will be lots of messages as things
develop. There will be telephone
messages and privately spoken
words to the leaders, some of which
will be repudiated later. There oc-
casionally will be indications that
the President is letting congress
solve its own problems, but do not
be unduly deceived by these. Con-
gress will not be.
plants, which “now stand stark and
idle.”
So it is far from being just a
bright idea about taxing the rich by
forcing out dividends which would
put them in higher income tax
brackets. And it goes way beyond
even the idea of protecting the mi-
nority stockholders from the ambi-
tions of their company managers,
though both are felt very strongly
by the President and most of the
men on whose economic judgment
he relies.
Planes for Spain
There was not the slightest fear,
either at the State department or
the White House, that the renovated
airplanes for Spain about which so
much excitement was raised by the
administration would ever take part
in hostilities across the water. That
was not the purpose of the hubbub.
The whole purpose of the news
splash was to affect the gentlemen
on Capitol Hill—to convince them
that no law they might possibly
draft could reach every situation
that might arise to embarrass this
government—that discretion must
be vested in the President to handle
any peculiar situation which might
arise.
So far the resulting propaganda
has been most satisfactory — from
the standpoint of the White House
and the State department. Even
Senator William E. Borah, chair-
man of the foreign relations com-
mittee, has weakened considerably
in his firm attitude against granting
the President discretion.
© Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
If the radio programs given by
"Myrt and Marge”- for so long
were among your favorites, you’ll
be glad to know that a new series
done by that popular couple has
started. It’s a family affair,* for
“Myrt’s” son is now on the pro-
gram, and “Marge” is her daugh-
ter. The son, George. Damerel, used
to go to the University of Southern
California, but he left college to
tour with his mother and sister
when they went on the stage. Looks
as if “Myrt” had built up a pretty
good business for the family by
writing those sketches, doesn’t it?
Grace Moore has had to abandon
her career on the concert stage
and on the air, temporarily, in
order to take a much needed rest.
She has been working hard in pic-
tures— in fact, she has turned into
a real trouper, and the tempera-
ment that used to cause so much
trouble is well under control.
—*—
In “Stowaway” you’ll see Shirley
Temple doing imitations of Eddie
Cantor and Al Jolson and doing
them well. The funny thing about
it is that the child star never has
seen either of them; ., just worked
the imitations up from what she
was told about the two gentlemen's
work.
—*—
Hollywood is still shocked over
the suicide of Ross Alexander, al-
though his friends
knew that he had
never ceased to
grieve over the
death by suicide of
his first wife, Aleta
Freile, a little more
than a year before.
It was said that she
killed herself be-
cause, coming to
Ross
Alexander
Hollywood from the
New York stage, she
could not seem to
get ahead in pic-
tures. Young Alex-
ander was doing very well with his
career, and his second wife, Anne
Nagel, is one of the screen’s pret*
tiest young actresses.
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The Meridian Tribune (Meridian, Tex.), Vol. 43, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, January 22, 1937, newspaper, January 22, 1937; Meridian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1631630/m1/3/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Meridian Public Library.