DALE C/.IiNi^Glh - KJLNNhTH POLLINGS bUMOGO. Thursday. January A. 19AO. Hello, Everybody: When Lowell Thomas left for his vacation trip to the north he asked me to take over for him on Thursday. Well, this is Thursday, but itfs also the day when President koosevelt sent to Congress the national budget for the coming fiscal year. So that ma^es today a day of figures, a maze of arithmetic, soaring away up in the billions. Today President Roosevelt presented to Congress a budget calling for the expenditure of eight arid one half billion dollars during the next fiscal year. By the way, do you have any idea how much eignt and one-half billion dollars are? Well, there have been just a little more than a billion minutes passed since the birth of Christ. So that means the Government is spending during the next fiscal year about eight dollars for every minute that has passed day and night since Christ was born. But huge as thfet sum is, it is less than tne figure for the present fiscal year. The LEAD - 4 four hundred and sixty million dollars by special national defense taxation as the President has recommended. Yes, these financial matters do become complicated. The deficit named in today’s budget must be added, of course, to the national debt of the United States. It brings thenational debt up to forty-four billion and nine hundred million dollars, and that is mighty near the ceiling. The ceiling is the debt limit of forty-five billion dollars provided by congressional law. Today’s budget Just gets in under the wire. So Congress won’t be asked to raise the national debt limit- unless. There are plenty of ifs and buts. The President in his budget message states that he may already have cut down the releif costs too much. They may have to be raised. In the past several years, relief estimates have been raised, with Congress asked to make special appropriations. LEAD - 2 President has cut relief costs. For example, he cut Four Hundred Million from the 7.’.?.A. alone. There’s one item of expense that has not decreased at ail - in fact it has been increased. That item is National defense. The President calls-for tvvo billion and three hundred million dollars to be spent for the armament of the nation. That’s tne largest peace-time appropriation for the Army and Navy in the history of the United States. One interesting item in the defense expenditures concerns the F.B.I., the G-men. The budget program recommends that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, get an emergency fund of tv.o and a quarter million dollars - to combat spies and sabotage. Now let’s see how much money Uncle Sam expects to take in during the next fiscal year. The gross figure is over six billion dollars. Here, however, we come upon a complication connected with Social Security - money paid in the Unemployment Insurance and Old-Age Pension program. It’s all very complicated, but the *ay it's figured out, it gives the United states a deficit ■LL/iX - 3 0* a 11 jver two billion. However, today’s deficit figure depends on whether or not Congress raises four hundred and sixty miiix°n dollars by special national defense taxation - as the President has recommended, fes, these financial matters do become complicated. The deficit named in today’s budget must be &adeci, or course, to the national debt of the United States, it brings the national debt up to forty-four billion ana nine hundred million dollars, and that is mighty near the ceiling. The ceilii is the debt limit of forty-five billion dollars provided by congressional law. Today’s budgetjust gets in under the wire, j So Congress wo^t be asked to raise the national debt limit - unless. There are plenty of "ifs” and ’’buts”. The President in his budget message states that he may already have cut down the relief costs too much. They may have to be raised. In the past several years, relief estimates have been raised, with Congress asked to make special appropriations. The budget met with the usual mixed reception in Conbress - Democrats saying one thing. Republicans another. L l AD - But the general tone v.as in agreement on the idea of economy. Democratic Hepreaentative Dempsey of New Vlexico said:- T,I am very happy about the reduced deficit.^ Democratic Senator Burns of South Carolina gave his okay in these words:- "The President’s recommendations constitute a long step towards a balanced budget." Republican Senator Taft of Ohio, a strenuous economy advocate, spoke these words:- "The President has made a gingerly approach in the right direction." Other Republicans referred to the likelihood that relief expenditures would be increased by special appropriations to be asked for later. Representative John Taber of New York expressed that idea this way:- "It was an A-budget, with a B-budget to come along later. The B—budget will have the real sting in it." So much for the budget, which dominated American news today. "OLLT* BUDCLT When Lowell Thomas asked me to substitute for him tonight, he said: "If you want something first-hand about war affairs in Europe, ask Ken Collings." And he explained that Kenneth brown Coinings, newspaperman and magazine writer, had just returned from Europe, wnere ne had not only been covering the war in Germany, but had managed to accomplish the impossible by getting a first-hand look at the Russian army on active duty. Well, I thought, thatfs convenient. Why not have Kenneth Collings take over the European items this evening, and give us the benefit of his recent experience? What about the news from Europe,Kenneth? KENNETH COLLINGS:- Vrell, I have some dispatches here which, in the light of what I saw in Europe, frankly confuse me a bit. However, I believe I can throw some additional light on them — and will try to do so.. Buf 'irst we will take them as they come over the wire. Here is one from Berlin: ER.IANY In Ge-r .i&ny^ the economic dictatorship was made still r\SJ2AA* tighter today -- strengthened with new and more autocratic powers* economic life under the Nazi regime has been s^tringently controlled ^ '&’LV J 2 ^ u £/L> — all along, and Uarc geogicd litttTr* enough liberty ±ef^. Now - A /0 still more control over industry and production. - c - fr> nopf; tnc-^yltioh biooiiade- ^ITTt vnar+o N-rn r^r-n^ny t^ ri^-^t^j-nrrrh- ■of supolieg that the Bi'itish a-^-cutllng'off-r> One interesting angle is ti&t new war economy powers are conferred on Goering. course, that Nazi Number Two man has been economic dictator all along. But recently there were rumors that he was out of favor with Hitler. Stop ice from the Allied countries indicated e was in virtual retirement on his s, pushed aside, angry, at odds with the 'ifjXxer -war policy. Now, however, we have official word from Berlin that Goering takes more complete control than ever in his dictatorship over German industry. This news is accompanied by a declaration of new financial burdens put on the German people^ higher taxes, more money exacted. The report sounos li^e a case of drastic confiscation* »eople are required to save their money.^ThatTs the expression used - t rsave?V t irn it over to trie gorerrmmit. iverycody iirre tr^.n T out rmncred jiar^i a iiontn, jjij st save eTerytmn^ ac^ve tnat suji . Four huncred jlar 4.5 a-aounts to a hundred and sixty tLoli.ars — an in cone oT ao out Torty dollars a veea. all earnings above that anount are to be deposited in savings accounts^ and tne none 7 in tnese savings accounts is to be invested in Saii government war securities. The Nazis are tar.infc tiat vav to raise money so that they won't i^ve to issue a war^tine ton: issue — governnent bends offered for public s^le. ignt of ny observations, is ^ -- ^ Only this:- it might give the impression that Germany is cracking; whereas, across the water, several competent American economic experts of long German experience voiced the opinion that German economy can withstand at least two years of war — and any football coach will tell you that tne most fatal error in the world is to underestimate your 0 pponent. ilMAW I’m particularly interested in the news from Finland 14 ^ because of the chance I had to see the Red Army at close range. Dispatches from Helsinki today continue to tell of the victories. the Finns have been winning. The latest accounts describe what bbwt are mostly follow-up operations, chasing defeated Red Army units in the Arctic North. , Reports from Finland^^^fubilant^ continue to get accounts of how the Finns have penetrated Russian territory -- those ski patrols no doubt. Here is d)r one dispatch that!s worth noting;- TiM^^nade headlines, telling one Finnish force had r&xt penetrated ten miles in Russian territory, driving across the border. Later came the explanation*, that this story was probably based on misinterpretation of a name!' The Finnish Army dispatch declared that its forces had reached Lake Kokko. Some correspondents too*: that to mean the Russian Lake Kok.o, some ten miles beyond the border of Finland. However, there is another Lake Kokio^and it is in Finland. That's the lake which the Finnish attachments reached in their drive against the Red invaders. FINLAND comment is simply this: wishful thinking can accomplish almost any tiling. The gallant Finns are the underdog in this scrap and everyone hopes so fervently that they will win that they allow their imaginations to run riot. The outstanding example which has come to my attention is the reports to the effect that the invading Russians lacked shoes and food, and were clad in flimsy cotton garments. Now I spent three days with Russian troops on active duty — tax incidentally, I am telling the complete story in a series of forthcoming articles in Liberty magazine — and everything I saw was to the contrary. Little as we may like to believe it, the Russians - at least those I saw -had warm overcoats and hoods, good solid boots, good equipment, ample to eat — and even plenty of cigarettes. rest of our news everyone except the Irish IRELAND The neits of trouble in Ireland tells of many arrests, tne deValera government rounding up members of the outlawed ini i i ^ rw?- ~ -mp-i Irish ReP^ti^ican Army./ ijtadjgcxiiixXBiiy Today in Cork, there were a series of police raids and twenty-four I.h.A. men were seized. This follows an outbreak of street fighting, in which a detective was killed last night. The deValera government is moving to take into custody all members of the I.R.A., and keep them interned. COLLINJS: The Chinese have already lost a million soldiers but from a strictly military point of view that is not very serious as long as China lias a population of four hundred anf fifty mill ion people left to draw on. If China only iiad plenty of guns and anuiunition and airplanes, she could go on losing a million solderi for the next fifty years. CQLLiiilS: By the ^ay. Dale, you said youTre just back from China and Japan. P^jJb Crt-RN-iDIh: Yes, thatTs right. COLLINGS: Well, tell me who is going to win the war in the Orient? DALE C a KNEGIE: I frequently asked that same question myself in the Orient last summer. For example, I had dinner one night with a group of the prominent American business and diplomatic representatives in Shanghai. One man said that Japan was already defeated. He declared last August that Japan would be skiing for peace within three months; and another man who is in the diplomatic service argued that nJapan had already won the war." b.'n*-* Chiang Kai-shek prophesizes that China will have to fight from three to five years longer before she wins the war. And the Japanese war office declares that they may have to take fifty or a hundred years to do the job. ADD CHINA Yes, a recent news dispatch from Shanghai estimated that twenty-five million people would face famine and disease in China this year because of floods and drought. There are probably three hundred million people in China whose one thought every day is how can they get enough to eat and how can they keep warm? You can hire a Cninese coolie to work a whole day for seven cents in American ioney. I wish I could have taken to China with me last summer, alj. the complaining, dissatisfied, grumbling men and women in America. If they could only see the terrible poverty that exist in China, they would come back here ashamed of the fact that they ever «grgywT complained about anything. They would come back here thanking God that they were born in America At Eo:ton an aged woman lies ill. She is eighty-one and v/ithout money, yet she is the composer of one of the most iamous bits of music on this earth, one of the most popular songs that poured from a mother^ lips. When her distressing plight became known, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers came to her rescue with money to provide her with a private hospital room and a private nurse. They did this in acknowledgement of her contribution to American music. She is Mrs. Effie Canning Carlton. Do you recognise the name? What song did she write? Can you guess? Well, many a long year ago, Mrs. Effie Canning Carlton composed — "Rock-a-bye Baby.n nRock-a-bye Baby, in the treetop. When the Wind blows the cradle will rock, fb When the bow the cradle v/ill fall. V Down will come A •e and all. On a guess Ifd say that that song has been sung in this land more often than any other — innumerable mothers endlessly crooning SONG - 2 "Roct-a-Bye-Baby, in the Tree Top .*1 For that most popular of songs, Mrs. Effie Canning Carlton never received enen one penny of rayalties APPOINT Xi.NTS here * s soae nev*s from Washington that hardly seems like nev.s* Several times during the past few weeks, Lowell Thomas tal/ced about the report that Attorney General Frank Murphy would be appointed to the Supreme Court. It happened today, when President Koosevelt sent the name of the Attorney General to Congress. The word from Washipgton is that Co*igress is certain to confirm the nomination, so I suppose we can begin to tal^e about - Mr. Justice Murphy. This is the fifth nomination to the highest tribunal, that President Koosevelt has made. He has had more appointments than any other President since William Howard Taft, who also appointed five. The Supreme Court will now nave a majority of Justices appointed by President Koosevelt - five out of nine. The post of Attorney General goes to Robert H. Jackson as predicted. He has been Solicitor-General, always in high favor with the White House. His rise has been rapid, and now he gets a post in the Cabinet. Here1s an item about a newspaper reporter hot on a story. The story was hot -- a fire. At Danbury,Connecticut, the fire alarm sounded with a loud uproar, and a minute later polic3 headquarters got an urgent telephone call. It was from a local newspaper, a reporter was on the wirej and he said: "This is the New Times," "Where1s the fire?" To which the sarreant at the desk replied:nThe Fire is in the New Times officel"