L. T. SUNOCO OIL BROADCAST - 7/10/33 uood Evening, Everybody: Todayfs news from Washington indicates that^President Roosevelt s administration finds itself in a peculiar sort of jam* And this situation arises because the President1s program has already become to a certain degree successful. Commodity prices have gone up and you might think everybody would be tickled to death over that. But with the rise of commodity prices there has come also an increaseg in -qf the household tarn*gad budget and while onepart of the population is cheering^ the other part is yawping terrifically. ) -i Vi ashing ton^on the The loudest yawps subject of bread which went up one cent a pound. You may recall that this was foreshadowed last week In a news item from Chicago. Complaints were made to Washington and the Secretary of Agriculture made representations to the Department of Justice, and today Attorney B LE&D - 2 General Cummings announced that he will conduct a vigorous invesligation into this concerned action to raise prices*"l£»^find A out whether there has been any violation of the anti-trust laws. A dispatch from Washington quotes Mr. Cummings to the effect that he has a corps of agents of the Department of Justice investigating these increases in North Dakota and other states throughout the West and Middlewest. However, it was said in Washington official circles that these investigations are not expected to result in any s particularly vehement prosecution. At the same time it is expected to discourage further advances in the price of necessities. ^igh officials of the administration tell me that the the position of^Secretary of Agriculture in this situation is politically speaking, exceedingly delicate. On the one hand i^r* Wallace with his campaign to control the amount of acreage has contributed to the rise in the price of wheat. 4 Then too, the AaminixtxatlE- ! ' I Administrator of the National Recovery Act has urged all employers felWn^hrtitni 4 ~ ^ ' *IWIIIU in r., LEAD - S to increase wages and shorten hours. Naturally such steps f’i bring about an advance in the price of things we eat and drink. Those things are all epitomized in bread. You might say it is a case of "pull devil, pull baker." If wheat goes up, it is inevitable that bread should cost more. Sfe One trend of the public mind seems to want the price of wheat to go up v/ithout IF bringing bread along with it. ^Secretary Wallace, they say, would like to convince the public that food is costing more not because of the administration's program to raise prices, but because the bakers are pyramiding taxes and doing a bit of profiteering. RECOVERY Well, another telephone coramunicationfrom Washington V*v( ^ brings^the information that the ^resident's Industrial Recovery program becai.ie a real thing today, general Johnson, Administrator of the NIRA, as the Recovery Act is called, has the President's Okay on the code formulated by the Textile Industry. And with this in his possession he announced that codes of other industries will be ready for government trt'nr A- within the next few days ■ In the argument over wages in the Cotton Industry the labor spokesmen gained a point. The code establishes a minimum wage of twelve dollars for the South and thirteen dollars in the North. With this goes a maximum week of forty hours. The Chairman of the United States Steel Corporation held a conference with the President today after which he announced j that the steel code will soon be ready to be submitted to the government.) At the same time General Johnson disclosed the fact that the steel industry has already submitted three codes each of which he has turned down because not one of them complied with the RECOVERY - 2 requirements of the NIRA. [/^J , ^La 'Washington they are calling the National Industrial Recovery Act NIRA, just as In England they call the defense of the Realm Act DORA.) Then again operators of bituminous coal mines and leaders of the Union from fourteen states, were conferring in Washington today. They tell us that they will have their code ready in a day or so. * * * ^ „ T have information too from Mr. lekes, the Secretary A of the Interior. This concerns the enforcement of the Public Works program. Mr. Tckes sajfi that although there have been what he calls most gratifying gains in industry and employment, the Administration^ program must not .be slowed up in the slightest degree until those gains* are made sure,and consolidated. The 'ongress authorized the government to spend three billion three thi?rexpe^\VureS wU 1 ^e*^nded aV soon as general conditions justify it. PU^sun ^"tp ^ IN m D m A railroads Wow for an equally important part of the President*s program, X mean the railroad situation. An announcement was made today by Joseph Eastman, former member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and now Federal Coordinator of Transportation. Coordinator Eastman reported that organization of the New Deal for A railroads has been completed. He will hold a meeting Friday with the three committees appointed to coordinate the three bij regional groups of railway lines, ilr. Eastman will then explain to them the purpose of the Emergency Railroad bill and the way it is expected to be operated. ROOSEVELT We also have ■ hit' uf news^rom the V/hite House. President Roosevelt has added two more college professors to his so-called Brain Trust. The two latest additions to this galaxy of cerebral ±i tissue will help study the governments fiscal problems* In other words, money* The White House gave out the information that these two new experts Professor James H. Rogers of Yale^ nrihrrrr^ and Professor George Warren of Cornell*^ Their primary functions will be to study the government problems for the conver4ftidg\ of treasury bonds. fA^HH-pet^ga-rirng^-that-TBay sound lllce inW-r.hg-isti«n1 but to other bonds;)" Professors Rogers and Warren were recommended to the White House by Secretary of Commerce Roper and Secretary of Agriculture Wallace. TtS© Secretaries Roper and Warren tell us that these professors will concentrate on efforts to balance the Federal Budget. 1 Q » / » nn^-t looks as though we ^M±±a. see a complete fac^ty lonS- ^ ^ A CONFERENCE An unexpected bit of news comes from the World Economic Conference at London* Everything went smoothly today. which seems to have been a regular love feast. It was a conclave between the steering committee and the monetary committee. The monetary committee, you will remember, is the one where all the Is chairman of i ttee, issued a statement saying? "Today was marked by better feeling on all sides." Mr* Cox appointed a sub-comfrlttee to select topics that the monetary committee can discuss without getting into another jam. Concerning the continuation of the conference, we have ting reports* On the one hand, Raymong Gram Swing cables the New fork Evening Post that a plan has been proposed to continue the conference for another two weeks, and then take a two months A wireless report informs me that a meeting was held trouble over currency stabilization currency stabilization place. A *hen this meeting was over, James M, Cox, of Ohio, who recess. It is said that this idea has the approval of Prime Minister CONFERENCE - g Mi Ramsay MacDonald, President of the Conference. On the other hand, a wireless report just received informs rae that the .secretariat to the League of Nations which has charge of the procedure of the conference, has decided that it should continue at least three weeks longer. And Secretary Hull, head of Uncle San^s delegation, said he was confident that if the conference continued on the job tiui.U results would be obtained. N.B.C, Raymong Gram Swing - N.Y. Evening Post DOLLAR Another thing that happened in London was a further slide of Uncle Sam,s dollar. J*t reached a new low level on the foreign exchange market in London. At one time today it fell so low that it reached almost the old parity of years ago when both John Bull and Uncle Sam were on the gold standard — in other words, the dollar was at th point where it took four dollars and eighty-four cents to make one pound sterling. Later, however, our dollar went up again to four dollars and eighty cents. The capers of the American oliar became the subject of debate in the House of Commons today. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the House that the depreciation of the dollar was a most disturbing factor. Britain* s Chancellor of the Exchequer said further that this fall was unnatural and artificial and had been brought about by speculation. J^r. Chamberlain made this statement in the course of a speech opening Sraat a debate on the subject of the Economic Conference. He told the XhB House of Commons that the •--------- DOLLAR - 2 government hoped the conference would find some means of smoothing out the difficulties that it had encountered. He that there was reason to believe the various nations would come to an agreement eventually. He also indicated that John Bull would follow tte lead of ^resident Roosevelt in the matter of raising commodity prices, H.B.C. ■ hmmui M kfeLLORCA There was considerable excitement in Washington over five Americans who have been in a Spanish prison ever since the 11th of June. One of them wi*# a woman. The place where they imprisoned is the beautiful island of Mallorca in the Xslara Balearic IsTruifi# off the Spanish coast. One member of this party of Americans is accused of having assaulted a Spanish civil guard and for that the entire party has been languishing in the coop these four weeks. A dispatch to the States* Department at Washington reports that on June 17th our Ambassador In Spain, Claude Bowers, applied for the release of these prisoners. But because the assault is said tofii committed on a guard, the offense is one ^ A that may have to be tried before a court martial. Consequently the negotiations have to be transacted through the Spanish war department Meanwhile the folks are still in the calaboose. NBC AIRWAYS By the way, here*s a business item that interesting. American Airways announces that they carried more than fourteen thousand passengers in the month of June. The Company's report points out that this is sixty-five per cent more than the passengers carried by all the airlines of the United States in the entire year of 1927. In other words, the June traffic broke all records for that company REPEAL A curious situation developed in Springfield, Illinois, today. This is the day for the State Convention on Prohibition Repeal. Now it so happens that there was a fire in the State House at Springfield yesterday which did considerable damage to one wing of the building including the where the House of Representatives meet1. This made it necessary to shift the con to the Senate Chamber. But the Wet Leaders were afraid that the Dry forces might conjure up legal technicalities on this i account. So Governor Horner of Illinois called the meeting to A. order in the ruins of the fire-damaged fcuiiMl hall and then todk it over to the Senate Chamber for the real business of the day Incidentally,\lllinois is the tenth state to hold its repeal convention ■) NBC. EARTH OJAKBS Old Mother Earth seems to have been shaking herself considerably over the week-end. The seismograph at Fordham University yesterday recorded an unusual number of earthquakes. The first occurred at 9:40 Saturday nighty and apparently out at sea some 5,800 miles away from New York. At twenty minutues to two Sunday morning the seismograph got on the job again. Indicating that there was a quake somewhere in Central America about £500 miles from New York. There was another one about quarter to nine Sunday morning apparently in the same location as the first - way out at sea. And about half past eleven Sunday morning, there was still a LINDBERGH Colonel and ^rs. Lindbergh are prominent in the news once more. As you will recall, they are making a flight to survey the i li northern route to Europe for Pan-American Airways. They left -New ¥ork yesterday afternoon, and expected to make their first stop at Halifax, Nova Scotia, but a heavy fog on the Visain'* &>ast obliged t them to make a forced landing at South Warren, Maine, last night. ■5 Today they stopped at North Haven, an island off the Maine ; i^is be of by his two grandmothers at the summer home of Mrs. Dwight Morrow. coast where their eleven months old little Son is being taken care An , Colonel Lindbergh*s mother is spending the summer with ^rs. Morrow. i ^ 1 Officials of Pan American Airways tell me that the Lindberghs who are traveling in xm a pontoon airplane by the way, will probably not take off for4abrador> their next stop, before 1 tomorrow. RESCUE A picturesque tale of x rescued seamen comes Toy way of Brownsville, Texas, A pilot of one of the giant passenger planes of Pan American Airways, flying between Tampico and Brownsville, saw three men apparently stranded on a beach about eight miles south of Brownsville, The pilot of the passenger plane immediately radioed the airport at Brownsville and the authoritif^at the airport sent a second plane to look for the men. The men were soon found and said they*d been in the water for eighteen hours and had been stranded on the beach for two days. In three days they had nothing either to eat or drink. It turned out that they were the only survivors from a schooner which sank in the Gulf of Mexico during that tropical hurricane swept over those waters last Thursday, N.3.C. The good fish stories this year seem to be coming from San Francisco. Another one leapt across the continent over the wires today. I The story begins last year. The hero and heroine are ftxxx *r. and -^rs. Martin Yates of San Francisco. Last summer they went fishing on the Rogue River where it is their custom to go every year. Well, last year they had an accident. Their boat tipped over and kerplunk, to the bottom of the river went several hundred dollars worth of fishing tackle. Now here's the sequel. Mi Yateo cast her line into the water yesterday and at the very first cast she zkxbu I seemed to have a strike. She reeled in and had a tough time doing it and expected a whale of a haul. When it came to the surface it wasn’t exactly a whale, but it was even more of a surprise. There jet on the end of Mrs. Yates’s line was the rod and reel she lost the year before, what next Let me know whether you believe that one and we'll se$. those anglers at the Golden Gate will have to tellyuz-^A^