L.T. - ^ir-oeo - MOTTDAY, FhhmL-Y 13^7 FLOOD Itfs good to be able to say that there are no harrowing tales from AmericaTs inland sea today. As a matter of fact, from one source we learn that the worst is over. That source is the Presidentfs Flood Relief Commission which is touring the district of devastation. People in cities, along the Ohio are coming up for air, taking a breathing spell and get­ ting ready for the big job of repairing the damage. Even stricken Louisville is coming to life. Th shops in the main part of the district are open and you can buy al­ most anything except liquor. Until today, the only things sold were food, medicine and other absolute necessities. Today even luxuries are available. But it’s far from being a place of joy and cheer, Louis­ ville has had time to count her dead. Two hundred and eleven I In the west end of the city, four hundred squares are still under water. Halls, churches and other places of refuge are crowded with a thousand homeless souls. Louisville’s Health Director says the reports of epidemics have been FLOOD - 2 exaggerated. However, an area twelve miles square, the entire west end of Louisville, is quarantined. Anybody who leaves his house may not return until the quarantine is over. mopping up, clearing away the debris left by the coffee colored flood. The authorities were figuring today that it will cost one hundred million dollars to repair the damage, rebuild the homes, reinstate electric light, power, water and so forth. ***. to reeedejbut business still at a standstill.Before anything can be accomplished, tons upon tons of mud and rubbish will have to be removed^from factories, engine rooms and boiler rooms. The greatest scene of desolation today was at Paducah. Last week it had a flourishing population of thirty-four thousand. Today Paducah is completely abandoned. In one spot the flood made business hum. That was the New York Mercantile Exchange. A new buyer has appeared P.egiments of W.P.A. workers and others urtz. upon the scene, your Uncle Sam,who is in the market in a big way FLOOD - S for food to be sent to flood sufferers. And he!s not buying seconds or cold storage products, either. Only the finest butter and eggs, the best grade of eggs, are going south to feed the flood refugees. Actually, these are the biggest days in the history of the Exchange, with the government buying three million eggs a day. / 1 Otow the flood tension has shifted to the Mississippi Valley. Anxiety at Cairo* where the uhio rushes to join the giant of rivers. J The muddy current was rising there at the rate of more thar an inch an hour. Early this morning it had reached the top of the permanent concrete levee and only the temporary bulwark, timber reenforced with dirt-filled bags, was holding the waters back. Ac­ tually, the top of the flood was nine feet over the heads of people in some of the adjacent streets, ^ut a peculiar condition came to help Cairo. Frost, or rather a good stiff freeze transformed that wooden bulkhead into a mass of solid ice. So long as the tempera­ ture keeps down, that bulwark today is as good as though it were built of steel. , Andfthe experts say that south of Cairo, the Mississippi levees will opinion of a man who ought FLOOD - 4 to know, Major General Markham, Number One man of Uncle SamTs Army Engineers. There1s just one danger, he says — a wind storm. "A strong wind might whip up waves which would sweep away the bulwarks, particularly sand bags. As for the weather generally, it's again cutting up funny pranks all over the U.S.A. Once more the Pacific Coast getting lots of snow and frost. Spokane, Washington under a mantle tw?o feet thick,with the thermometer foiirteen below. Grass Valley and Nevade City, California, are isolated by a blizzard. In San Francisco all the northbound airplanes were grounded. But reports dome from Lake Placid, New York, and Pecketts in New Hampshire that snow at last arrived in the east. About time, I say. STORMS For those who go down to the sea in ships, this has been a weekend of trial and tribulation. From no fewer than five vessels on the high seas, has come that ominous radio call for help. Four of them were being tossed helplessly in the gales raging over the North Sea. A Russian freighter and a British trawler were reported adrift off the ironbound Scottish coast near Aberdeen. Further to the north and out of Control wer,e a Canadian steamer and a Swedish vessel. But the worst plight of all was that of the American freighter MEANTXCUT, in mid-Atlantic. She was on her way from New Orleans to Liverpool with a cargo of cotton and lumber. At midnight last night came a frantic message from the MEANTICUT, that her number-one-hold was full of water, the number two hold filling, and the bulkheads straining to the utmost. A Dutch steamer came to the rescue and cautiously worked her way alongside the rolling MEANTICUT. But ttu gale-whipped— waves were so tremendous, thatthe Dutch captain was unable to take off any of the MEANTICUT1S crew of thirty-four. Lafcer on#. STORMS. - 8 the American vessel WAUKEGAN appeared on the scene. But it was still impossible to attempt any life-saving. At last reports the WAUKEGAN was still standing by the MEANTICUT* waiting for the "to 4-. huge waves to subside LEAD Economists estimate that so far not merely the automotive business, but industry throughout the country at large, has already lost half a billion dollars through the strike, the struggle continues, the loss will run to billions, and hence the prosperity of everybody will be impaired. ^ Late this afternoon the Circuit wourt at l' lint Michigan, was still considering the appeal of General Motors for an in­ junction, an order to the sit down strikers to clear out of Fisher Body Plants Number One and Number Two in Flint.^ Counsel for the Union lost the first skirmish. The ^abor leaders asked for a postponement. Judge Gadola denied it and ordered them to go ahead with their pleading and show cause why those sit down strikers should not be evicted. There is one report that if the Court rules against the sit-downers in the Fisher plants, the united Automobile Workers Union will start a new sit down strike in the Chevrolet plant which reopened only the other day. And that report turned out to be more than half true. The Union men didn't wait for the Court's decision. They LEAr - 2 started their sit down strike this afternoon. Thereupon the violence that everybody has feared for weeks, showed its ugly head again. The manager of the plant called for help and a pitched battle ensued between guards and the sitters down. Gas bombs reported used. Nine persons injured. The strikers were armed with clubs, blackjacks, bolts, pieces of metal and milk bottles. The guards were equipped with guns, clubs and gas bombs. The fray ended with the Chevrolet company claiming a victory, the strikers thrown out, and non-union workers hold­ ing the plant. Governor ^rphy of Michigan continued his aealous efforts to settle the quarrel by mediation. He had been at it day and night without avail. Secretary of habor Perkins is send­ ing a conciliator of her Department to Michigan — James Dewey, with orders to do some watchful waiting. Edward McGrady, the Number One mediator of the Department is being held in reserve and won’t go to Michigan for another twenty-four hours. So said Madam Perkins. WEST COAST STRIKE There's one good piece of strike news in the air today. ""fc© " ■« one big h e ad a c h that . over. Tti&G** tl:he billion dollar headache of the seamen^ walkout on the Pacific coast, Theyfve had ninety-four days of it. And a round billipn is the estimated loss to date. 9eo«*—Bxrt th» ( €j&y triking members of the Union are voting todjay* voting whether A they will come to terms with the ship owners or not. It’ll take some time and the terms probably won’t be in until Wednesday. But the feeling in San Francisco and Seattle seems to be that wr\JL$ the men are tiredotrvote to go back to work, and that the great shipping industry of the west coast will be weighing anchors once more. Like the dispute in the autoaeMi#’ world^. the effect of the maritime strike has snread far and wide*b^oi^--rfthe,“Shifppirng» •iia<Um’fcT7*» A hundred thousand dollars a day has been lost in tha wages of people who had nothing to do with ships but who were thrown out of work by that walkout. Farmers have suffered, cotton growers, wine growers, poultry raisers, dairymen.Urhen again, some shippers made desperate efforts to hold their foreign WEST COAST STRIKE - 2 markets- So they routed their stuff overland to the east coast and then sent it half way round the world by water, Just so as to keep their contracts. All this has been done at a ruinous cost, thi aro»md—1 f tbfr* of vatgg~13ir“W<wliMiied*y allow ttint wen f\vo gaiiag-ba^h, JOBS Here’s something we can all be glad about right at the beginning of the week. J'he people v/ithout jobs are decreasing at the rate of fifteen thousand a day. At any rate, that was the figure for December, says the Labor Dept. Meaning that payrolls throughout the United States were fattened to the ex­ tent of fourteen million dollars a week during that month. And aside from the auto strike, there’s no reason to believe that the pace wfasn’t kept up throughout January. There’s a rather paradoxical note ir this re-employment business. In Nineteen Thirty-Six, one million three hundred and forty thousand jobless got jobs. But the relief rolls were cut to the extent of only half a million. That was due to two things. First, the drought. That added a tremendous number of farmers to the relief lists. Also, a good many of those who got jobs had not been getting relief SUPREME COURT Mr* Justice Harlan F, Stone was sitting at his customary place on the bench of the United States Supreme Court 7P* at noon today, the first time since October. #And. the occasion was marked by another slight victory for the Hew Deal, A firm in Boston had brought suit to have both the Massachusetts Unemployment Insurance Law and certain provisions of the federal law declared uncdhstitutional. *the Supreme Court did not it consider the case, declined to.ooH'oldop -Hu Consequently, the decision cf the Massachussetts court stands. l?he-4?&w—kanaefc. ltutional“«n«t .Un ua#wa»%i%wfe4©nal-^!m4^Unemployment insurance is legal in the Bay state. But in a case affecting only the State of Washington, the New Deal may be said to have lost out in the highest court. It concerned a law passed by the Washington Legislature, levying a tax on railroads and other public utilities, the money to be used to defray the expenses of the Public Works Department which regulates public utilities in that State. A vote of five- to-four knocked that law out.J“xaaBX But- thopq go Bi-'tatPnan LEMXN V,efve had many weird stories from Russia lately. They were too hard to believe at the time, but events made them true. TodayT s is the strangest of all, Mac. a- Lenin arrested i The widow of the founder of the Revolution, the patron saint and martyr of Bolshevism. Millions of Russians every year go on a pilgrimage to that glass enclosed, casket in the Kremlin where the embalmed body of Lenin lies on view for the faithful . And no?; his successors have arrested his widow, — the widow who shared his exile and his privations, who helped in his Red revolutionary work! So says the report. It's certainly beyond the bounds of all probability. Of course we should know by now that nothing that is incredible is impossible in the land of the Bolsheviks! One canTt help wondering what the pilgrims to the tcrib of Lenin would say if they heard what had been done to the widow and companion of their idol. The story is not official. Neither was it sent by any correspondent in Moscow, It comes to us by way of Warsaw and London. It will not be surprising if an official denial is forthcoming from the Kremlin tomorrow. LEIiH. - 2 One gloomy piece of news from Russia is undoubtedly true, it comes from Moscow, througb the Tasr-. Agency, the official news service of the Soviets. ^Those thirteen Trot­ sky ite conspirators condemned to death were executed this morning. The slaughter, as usual, was private ^ The official report gives no details. A Warsaw rumor says they were mown down by machine gun fire - probably as usual by Ogpu police­ men in the basement of Ogpu headquarters in Moscow. Thus ends another sanguinary chapter in the history of Red Russia. Thirteen men, including former high government officials, cut down by the revolution they help so much to create. CONGRESS The Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives went on a spending binge' this afternoon. Theyfve approved a nice little bill handing out over a billion dollars at one clip*—0ne billion, forty-six million, seven hundred and fifty-seven thousand, one hundred and forty- three dollars, to be exact. the Independent Offices Appropriation»gfH«—%ee little sumj ietHt it* But ■ it1 mftheftrenr eyas pnp nnfr atiAl muje geaombcr tfamt^nly a few days ago the House passed the Relief Deficiency Bill, appropriating a little matter of K eight hundred and ninety-nine million dollars. So, though Congress is barely a month old, bang goes practically -I two billion^hollers more there»11 be before this session is over i,ir.} ; e : Gi! Reporters v.ere v.ondering todaj; MV/hat * s Lindbergh up to?” Even in England, it's impossible for him to start anywhere without arousing questions and speculation. The Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh took off this morning from a private field near the home they occupy in England. It was a new plane the Colonel was piloting. He designed it himself and he calls it the ’’Miles Hawk.” Of course the mystery and the rumors became all the when more aggravated because they asked the Colonel, "Where are you going?” he refused to say. However, the staff of the private flyinf field from which he took off said the renowned couple were on their way to Egypt for a vacation. But they didn’t say what route they v/ere going to take or in what part of Egypt they expected to land. Just going pla cesl So am II And----- SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW.