AMERICAN OFFICIALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 9

AMERICAN OFFICIALS.

Unusually Strong Language by Senator Long. GENERAL JOHNSON ATTACKED. (Received 9.30 a.m.) WASHINGTON, March 8, In answer to charges against him made recently by General Hugh Johnson, the former N.R.A. chief, Senator H. P. Long (Democrat, Louisiana), delivered a 45 minutes' radio address over the nation-wide network last evening, viciously attacking General Johnson, the Roosevelt Administration and his critics generally. In recent months Mr. Long's multifarious political activities have brought him into much prominence as a potential Presidential candidate in 1930 on an ultra-Radical platform. General Johnson had charged Mr. Long and Father Charles Coughlin, of Detroit, the "radio priest," with being dangerous demagogues who, he said, were trying to stir the "lunatic fringe" into revolution. Last evening Mr. Long nnswered in kind. He called General Johnson an "erstwhile prince of a deranged alphabet." He grouped General Johnson

with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. J. x\. Farley, Postmaster-General, and "all their spoilers and spellbinders" as influenced by Wall Street and operating against the interests of the poor.

In unusually strong language Mr. Long criticised the Roosevelt Administration, saying: "The trouble in that their schemes and 'isms' failed. Under the 'new deal' the rich have become richer and the poor poorer."

Mr. Long estimated that 4 per cent of the people owned 85 to !)0 per cent of the wealth of the country and about 75 per cent did not own anything. The middle class had been all but liquidated.

The speaker's solution was a share wealth plan, whereby all citizens would be guaranteed a decent existence through the progressive taxation of large fortunes.

AN OPEN MIND.

American Attitude to Plan to

Aid China

BRITISH ADVANCES

(Received 10.30 a.m.)

WASHINGTON, March 8.

The State Department announced officially that to-day it was maintaining an "open minded" attitude toward the British overtures to participate in joint financial action to assist China.

The British Ambassador has been informed that the American Government welcomed the initiative of the British Government and shared the view that consideration might well be given to the possibility that if China needs and desires financial assistance from abroad the Powers interested should canvass sympathetically the possibility of rendering such assistance and rendering it by co-operative action.