NOTES ON AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 25

NOTES ON AMERICA

HOOTER ON NEW DEAL

LOST TIMBER EXPORTS

A RAILWAYS AUCTION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, October 9.

As President Roosevelt turns into the last year of his term, he is greeted by his predecessor, Mr. Hoover, with a barrage of biting criticism, directed mainly at the gigantic spending programme of the New Deal. "The Budget must be balanced," says Mr. J Hoover. "The folly and waste must end." Mr. Hoover concludes from his survey of the past three years that employment has increased by 700,000 and that the deficit is £700,000,000 a year, with an expenditure of £1,600,000,000 a year. Condemning the issue of. Government Bonds to pay deficits, Mr. Hoover adds, "No doubt, these unpaid bills can be cancelled by repudiation. The New Deal form of repudiation is devaluation. Rome relied upon this method during its decline." HOW TRADE IS LOST. A potent illustration of how American trade with the British Empire was affected by the Ottawa Conference Agreements is shown in statistics for the movement of lumber in the intervening years. The total export from the American lumber States in 1929 was: Washington, 1,066,000.000 feet; Oregon, 547,000,000 feet. This compares with 400,000,000 feet from British Columbia. The corresponding figures for last year were: Washington, 511,000,000; Oregon, 213,000,000; British Columbia, 831,000,000. Shipments from the Pacific Coast States, combined, to Great Britain were, last year, only 12 per cent, of the volume in 1929, while, in the same period, the export from British Columbia increased sevenfold. RAILROAD EMPIRE SAVED. The largest auction sale in the history of Wall Street was completed when Oris Van Schweringen laid a cheque for three million dollars on the office table of Mr. J. P. Morgan, and was given in return continuance of control of 28,000 miles of railway, several lines of barges, sixteen warehouses, and real estate, the aggregation valued, in the years of prosperity, at £600,000,000. Mr. Morgan threatened to foreclose on a loan of £9,000,000, and, when no sign of payment was made, he advertised the collateral security for auction. In one of Mr. Morgan's offices in Wall Street, known as "the graveyard of dead securities," the auction realised 3,000,000 dollars. Mr. Morgan accepted a loss of over 40,000,000 dollars, and control of the railways reverted to Mr. Van.

Schweringen and his brother, who started life selling newspapers on the streets of Cleveland. LATE MR. DE WOLF HOPPER. Mr. de Wolf Hopper, foremost American comedian, who died suddenly at the age of 77 years, attracted widespread attention by his marital experiences. He married six times, and figured in five divorces. His sixth wife, a Californian singer, survived him. In his declining years, Mr. Hopper confined himself mainly to radio broadcasts. Trained for the law, and . articled to Mr. Joseph H. Choate, Mr. Hopper broke away from his parents' choice after one appearance in amateur theatricals. He was i a great success in London in "El Cap]-' tan," and was associated for some years | with Weber and Fields. He starred in Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, and from 1921 to 1925 headed a company which revived them. Mr. Hopper's most unique role was reciting th<=> pathetic stanzas of "Casey at the Bat." This epic of baseball pride and fall became a part of his repertory in 1888. and was an immediate success. Over 13,000 times thereafter he repeated the mock tragic account of the sorrow in Mudville when the mighty Casey was out.