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Liberia, having already been reduced to helplessness through the financial dictatorship of the Firestone rubber interests, is now, with the aid of the League of Nations and consent of the American State Department, about to be placed in complete servitude. The Liberian government lost its financial autonomy through the 1926 loan agreement, which the State Department compelled it to accept against its will. Within another month it is to be stripped of its administrative independence and cultural autonomy as well. And this is all to be done ostensibly in the name of charity, but really to give the Firestone interests and the National City Bank absolute control of the country so that they may the better "protect" the 1926 loan and the extensive Firestone rubber concession.

Hardly more than fifty of the veterans started for the White House, but the moment their approach was reported President Herbert Hoover issued orders to the police to close the gates of the grounds and to clear Pennsylvania Avenue and adjacent streets of all pedestrian and vehicular traffic. These veterans appear to sense the inadequacy of their demands both actually and in principle. Moreover, the veterans seem to know by instinct rather than by any process of ratiocination, that there is no promise of future economic security in the bonus.

The article discusses about the financial conditions of workers employed in steel companies. Case of Arturo Avanti, a steel worker is considered. He has worked for the Carnegie Steel Company, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, since 1919. Throughout 1931, however, he had only one to four days' work every month. The condition of his home and his children testified most convincingly to the inadequacy of this wage. But the company has been helping. Since Christmas it has provided the Avanti family with exactly $7 worth of groceries, and nothing else.

Highlights the key issues to be discussed at the Sixth International Conference of American states in Havana. United States President Calvin Coolidge's selection of the delegates to the Havana conference; Debate over intervention; Proposals from Haiti, whose territory has been occupied by American marines; Controversy concerning the U.S. government's intervention in Nicaragua; Issues relating to arbitration, or the settlement of international disputes by pacific means; Proposed procedure for mediation, conciliation and arbitration; Dispute between the U.S. and Mexico over the interpretation of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917; Foreign relations between the U.S. and the Latin American countries.

Industrial self-discipline, with all its usual monopolistic trappings, has been chosen as the method by which the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Administration hopes to tame the petroleum industry. It was at first thought that this objective might be achieved by means of an elaborate price fixing scheme to be administered by a public agency. Bad as this plan was, it at least had the merit of being subject to a mild but definite measure of social control. For various reasons, however, the proposal was abandoned without the public hearings that had been promised by the Petroleum Administrator and for it were substituted two voluntary agreements, in accordance with which the industry or so it is contended, will discipline itself.

The American people are drifting into militarism, which means, to put it bluntly, that America is drifting toward war. Militarism is defined as "a system emphasizing the military spirit and the need of constant preparation for war." Government officials of whatever party have always been staunch advocates of preparedness. Every President in recent years has by word or deed thrown his support to what is euphemistically called "adequate national defense," although upon occasion he may have given lip-service to the cause of disarmament and peace. The cynical attitude expressed by former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge in his Memorial Day speech at Gettysburg in 1928 is discussed.

The article focuses on unemployment issues in the U.S. It is a little more than five months since the Democratic Party came into power. At that time the stage was set for a spoils carnival of unprecedented proportions. The Democrats had been out of office since 1921. They saw before them an opportunity to take care of those who had faithfully supported them through the twelve lean years, and they looked upon the vast federal patronage as material with which to create a national machine that would go a long way toward keeping them in office. Under the authority of a resolution sponsored by Senator Kenneth D. McKellar of Tennessee, the Civil Service Commission undertook a "federal patronage census." It found that no fewer than 81,000 jobs were at the disposal of the President.

The article presents information on tax policy of the U.S. government in relation to farmers. On July 9 the government began collecting a processing tax of 30 cents on every bushel of wheat used in the manufacture of food products for domestic consumption. The tax is to be levied whether the wheat is grown in this country or shipped in from abroad. In the latter connection it serves automatically to increase the present 42-cent tariff on wheat to 72 cents. The tax will not be applied against wheat destined for export or for the farmer's own use. The proceeds of the levy are to be distributed as a form of government bounty or subsidy to farmers who agree to reduce their wheat acreage in 1934 and 1935.

It has now been almost a fortnight since the National Recovery Administration formally opened for business. This newest branch of the government, with General Hugh S. Johnson at its head, is to exercise in the name of the President the vast power over industry and labor conferred upon him in the National Industrial Recovery Act. The recovery administration has taken over a section of the mammoth U.S. Department of Commerce building. General Johnson and his corps of personal assistants are at work. Experts of all sorts, college professors, business executives, labor economists, union officials, and others have been brought together to help in the task.

The peace societies have been trying against extraordinary odds to uncover a few facts about the activities of the munitions ring. A few months ago some of this information was published by the Union of Democratic Control in London under the title, "The Secret International." But the peace societies find themselves blocked at almost every turn. Even the League of Nations has had little or no success in getting a true picture of the operations of the munitions industry. Four years ago the League Assembly set up a commission to draft a convention providing for international supervision of the traffic in arms. As a preliminary step the commission debated the question of whether it should ask the member governments to publish periodical reports concerning armament manufacturing in their countries.

Not long before the fall of Mukden, on September 18, 1931, there were definite indications that the long-anticipated crisis in Japan's agricultural economy was at hand. The crops that season had been the poorest in five years; farm prices were falling at an alarming rate; the already burdensome debts of the farmers were mounting so fast that not only agriculture but the banks as well were shaking under the strain; the latent unrest among the peasants pointed the way to violent outbreaks, possibly to a social explosion.

Detroit's bankers and business men are more than thankful that Mayor Murphy's police still have the whiphand in this city. Genuine rebellion is smoldering here. It is constantly manifesting itself in numerous ways. Wherever one goes through the working-class districts one hears positive, angry expressions of dissent, unafraid expressions of sympathy for the radicals. It is not that the Communist movement is spreading, for there is no sure evidence that it is, but the sympathies of the workers and the lower middle class, which a year ago were all for law and order, have now swung around to the unemployed and their leaders.

The article presents the views on the U.S. Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. According to U.S. journalist, Walter Lippmann, Roosevelt is amiable man with many philanthropic impulses and there is no leadership in the man. Only once has Roosevelt shown any capacity for leadership. But even then he was not the crusader but rather the determined apologist, and ultimately he had to-haul down his colors and submit rather shamefacedly to Tammany dictation. This was in 1911 when he first entered the State Senate. He is a true militarist.

The article focuses on the American trade relations with Russia and explores the future possibilities. The Soviet Union has shown by now that it can and will thrive whatever the American attitude may be. Prior to the World War I, the U.S. commercial relations with the Russian Empire were friendly. By emphasizing in its non-recognition policy what it terms the Soviet Union's disregard of "the sanctity of international obligations," the American Government succeeds only in strengthening the belief that Russia cannot be trusted. Activities of individual government officials have the same effect. Immigration authorities have cast suspicion.

Chicago, Illinois must be helped, and that soon. This young, boisterous, and somewhat violent city has about reached the end of its road. True, that road is lined with unpleasant and costly memories, with records of both political and private thievery beyond compare. From the police strike, the gas steal, and the Yerkes franchise case of the last century, through the Haymarket riot, the Pullman strike, the race riots, the labor racketeering, the gangsterism and Thompsonism, the million-dollar cinder paths, and the organized tax-dodging of the present decade, Chicago's story has been one of violence and of utter disregard for the legal and human rights of the private citizen and the small taxpayer.

In the hog belt, an industrial and trading center almost entirely dependent upon agricultural prosperity, there has been the same necessity for community charity and food doles as in the steel and automobile towns and the coal country. Few of the farmers in the Tri-City area are suffering actual destitution. But the workers in the plow factories, tractor plants, and retail stores of Davenport, Rock Island, Moline, and other cities in this, vicinity have to partake of the bread of charity because of the slump in grain and hog prices and the break in the market for farm lands. Records of the Illinois Department of Labor show factory employment in Rock Island to have dropped 43.6 per cent in 1931 as compared with 1930:, Pay rolls fell even further.

By bloody Williamson, the author mean not only Williamson County to the south, but also Franklin County, of which Benton is the seat. In these two counties lies the richest coal field in the United States. Bloody Williamson is hungry, and this condition does not affect the coal miners alone, but extends to every class in this potentially wealthy region. More than half the miners in the area were out of work. On April 1, began the shutdown of all the pits in southern Illinois. Whatever the opinion of Governor Louis L. Emmerson may be, the author found that, even with some of the mines working, there has been starvation, unemployment and without organized relief

Toledo, Ohio, has in proportion to its population one of the longest bread lines in the country. Relief is distributed by the municipality on a bread-line rather than a grocery-order basis, that is to say, the families of the jobless cannot go to grocery stores and other places to select their own food, as is done in almost all other cities, but must go to the city relief stations and take the packages of food already prepared for them there. Nevertheless, it must be said that the city is doing the job well, even efficiently, so mechanically indeed that there is little of the milk of human kindness or human feeling to be found in the process.

The article discusses about the living conditions of people in South Philadelphia. Mayor J. Hampston Moore said there is no starvation in Philadelphia. When the author arrived in Philadelphia, a Negro youth of patently deficient mental powers confessed that he had assaulted and murdered a white girl of seven on a North American street. This narrow and shabby thoroughfare lies near the heart of Philadelphia's "Bandbox District." Here extreme poverty has existed since long before the bull-market crash in 1929. There is a distinct connection between the Bandbox District and unemployment in Philadelphia, for under the pressure of unemployment whole sections of the city are sinking into conditions not unlike those obtaining in the slums.

The article discusses about the availability of food for people who are living in the U.S. Several questions arouse regarding the money needed to improve living standard of people, to provide medical attention to physically disabled. A subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Manufactures has been seeking the answers to these pressing questions. It has listened to public officials and trade-union leaders, industrialists and journalists qualified to interpret public opinion, and it even went to the unprecedented length of hearing a representative of the unemployed, though this man came uninvited and was shown scant courtesy when he demanded to be heard.

It is perhaps but fair to mention that political expediency was largely responsible for the Farm Board's adoption at the very beginning of its operations of a policy and an attitude that are now undermining the cooperative-marketing movement. The 1929 law was adopted under pressure of a specific campaign pledge. The farmers were clamoring for relief. Hence the Farm Board felt, and in a certain sense justifiably so, that it must act without delay. In its first annual report it said that it had "chosen to act in emergencies at the risk of making mistakes rather than to make no attempt at assistance until it could be sure of the wisest course of action at every point."

Japan cannot understand the widespread outcry from the Western world against its present occupation of Manchuria. Is it not entirely ethical and logical (the Japanese must be thinking) to defend one's interests in foreign lands? The Tokio government has stated frankly and with at least an outward show of sincerity, that in occupying Manchuria it intends to give to its interests and to the lives and property of its nationals only that definite measure of military protection and other first-rate Power would provide under similar circumstances. It has added with equal clarity that it has no territorial or political designs upon Manchuria.

Neither public pledges by responsible statesmen nor the power of international agreements seem strong enough to stem the imperialistic tendencies of ambitious nations. These tendencies are always carefully disguised, and can always be plausibly explained. In the case of Manchuria, for example, it was told that "Japan has no imperialistic designs. Her interest is solely economic." In former years the thing was done by means of secret treaties and secret protocols looking toward the exploitation and possible partition of the Three Eastern Provinces (Manchuria). While this system was in vogue three wars were fought directly or indirectly over Manchuria, while blood in more than sufficient quantities was spilled on other and less formal occasions.

This article focuses on the aftermath of the coal strike in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Today the coal strike in Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio has an outward appearance of peace and quiet. killing of a miner by a deputy sheriff at Wildwood a few weeks ago, has been sporadic in nature. It has mostly resulted from the taut nerves and growing uneasiness of the strikers. Everywhere one goes through the bituminous fields one finds evidence of this nervousness.

A Pennsylvania legislative committee which in response to a resolution of the State legislature has for the past several months has been conducting a most thorough investigation of the Public Service Commission and the utilities situation in that state. The committee has reported that by its negligence and its indifference to its stewardship the regulatory commission has been consistently playing into the hands of the power trust. All the facts uncovered by the federal body had for years been in the possession of the Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania. It could at any time have moved to investigate Scranton Electric's immense profits, yet it refused to act until virtually compelled to do so as a result of the federal investigation.

This article focuses on Frank Murphy, the liberal Mayor of Detroit, Michigan. Despite the opposition of the industrialists, the press and the politicians, the Mayor has preserved for the oppressed classes their right to use the City Hall steps as a forum from which to criticize or denounce capitalism and the government. The Mayor has made it a fixed rule to receive anyone and everyone who wishes to see him. The most serious opposition to the Mayor comes from the financiers and industrialists and from the local press. These people consider his election and administration a huge and costly mistake. These people try to convince the voters that Murphy is bringing socialism to Detroit.

South Bend, Indiana, is not the real Middletown, but it is located in the same State, has most of Middletown's social and economic characteristics, has a very similar population, and has all of Middletown's problems. Three or four industries dominate the city; its church leaders are heard and respected; the American Legion has a strong voice in its civic affairs, as have also the various luncheon clubs, women's clubs, and literary societies; radicalism of whatever color or stripe is and long has been discouraged; the conservative elements are definitely in control. South Bend, moreover, has become famous for its Notre Dame football team, for being the home of Rome C. Stephenson, president of the American Bankers' Association, and for many of its products, including the Studebaker automobile, the Oliver plow, the South Bend watch, and the Singer sewing machine.

The article presents information on governor Philip F. La Follette. Three months ago Philip F. La Follette, second son of "Fighting Bob," was inaugurated governor of Wisconsin. During those three months he has accomplished little that can be measured concretely, but he has gone far toward winning the confidence of the voters of the State. This sentiment is to be found almost everywhere among the people, and it even creeps into the editorials of the opposition newspapers. A generation ago the appearance in the opposition press of an editorial article applauding anything done by governor Robert La Follette would have been a startling novelty.

The article reports that Thompsonism has been swept out of power in Chicago. The Clown Mayor will no longer amuse the patient residents of Chicago and will no longer annoy bankers, big business men and newspaper publishers of the city. One of the foremost labor radicals of the U.S. William D. Haywood also known as "Big Bill" was overwhelmingly defeated for reelection after an election campaign unparalleled in the city's history. Never before had Chicago seen a campaign attended by such religious and moral fervor as that which characterized the drive to unseat Chicago mayor William Hale Thompson.

Some months ago the American medical profession was aroused by the announcement that a cancer cure, or at least an improved method of cancer treatment, had been discovered by two San Francisco surgeons, Walter B. Coffey, chief surgeon for the Southern Pacific Railway and John D. Humber. The genuineness of the discovery was indicated by the grant to Coffey and Humber of a patent, Number 1,771,976, covering the invention of a "therapeutic substance and method of preparing the same." Inventors established a clinic in California. Several hundred-cancer sufferers, more than could be handled, applied for treatment.

When the U.S. political leader Robert Marion La Follette died a few years ago, reactionaries everywhere offered up a sincere though perhaps prayer of thanksgiving to their special bourbon heaven. At last they were delivered from this nonconformist who had such queer ideas about the functions and responsibilities of government. Senator La Follette's philosophy and ideas were basically sound, and because he was a master of parliamentary strategy. Yet though they swallowed a large part of his program, they never overcame their fear of the man.

This article focuses on the military-fascist aggressiveness from Poland. Some weeks ago the Warsaw correspondent of the journal "New Leader" of London wrote that a new bomb is being placed under the powder magazines of Europe-a bomb, which threaten to blow up the whole edifice of post-war equilibrium and this time the threat is from Poland. He could foresee nothing but disaster; perhaps a revolution, perhaps another war, arising from the unrestricted dictatorship, tile smothering of political freedom, the engineered elections, of last November, the tragic pacification of the Ukraine, and the suppression by terrorism of national minorities elsewhere in Poland.

Benito Mussolini, the dictator and fascist of Italy, has endeavored in various ways to stem the multiplying difficulties. He has reduced state salaries, including those of army officers, and he has compelled private industries similarly to reduce their pay rolls. He has authorized the adoption of a new commercial code providing extreme penalties for business men, bankers, and others who conduct their affairs or publish statements or statistics concerning their businesses in any way that Mussolini may deem detrimental to the larger economic interests of Italy. He has, finally, combed the money markets of the world for financial help to bolster up the now sagging system, but the international bankers have turned the other way when Mussolini's agents have come begging.

This article focuses on various patent and broadcasting related disputes in the U.S. radio industry and its consequences. Early in 1927 several patent suits, initiated by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), were pending in the courts. Later, after RCA had won a preliminary skirmish, the majority of these suits were settled out of court, by which arrangement a number of independent manufacturers were brought into the trust's patent pool. The settlement called for the payment of back royalties at the rate of 7.5 per cent on the sale price of all radio devices sold, a sum considerably more than $1,000,000 and the payment in the future of royalties at the same rate.

The article focuses on the control over radio broadcasting. The Radio Trust climbed to its glory in a simple manner. It rounded up and pooled all but an insignificant handful of the 800 American wireless patents, including fifteen or sixteen basic patents upon which are founded all sending and receiving devices now manufactured. These patents were made available to the members of the trust under what has become known as the cross-licensing system. Further maneuvers gave the trust a virtual monopoly on the radio-engineering talent of the U.S. so that today the individual members operate mammoth research laboratories.

This article focuses on the book "The Chinese Soviets," by Victor A. Yakhontoff. Mr. Yakhontoff is himself not a Bolshevik, nor does he appear to be especially prejudiced in favor of the Comintern. In fact, he was a member of the ancient regime of Russia before the October revolution. Nevertheless, after studying all of the available documents and literature on the subject and after discussing it with partisans on both sides, he comes to the conclusion that Moscow is more nearly right than the foreign correspondents and business men of the Chinese treaty ports. He quickly and successfully disposes of the fanciful notion that Chiang Kai-shek could exterminate the Red armies if he did not wish to let them live.

Nearly a million American workers have gone out on strike since the New Deal began. Probably as many as 100,000 men are out and the total rising or falling as old disputes are adjusted and new strikes begin. The number of disputes brought to the attention of the Bureau of Labor Statistics has increased fourfold in the last six months and more than 500 per cent as compared with the average for 1932. While not all these controversies result in strikes or lockouts, a large majority of them do. Even those that are settled peaceably reflect the unrest which is spreading among American workers.

Bold as the power trust has always been, it would be difficult to find anywhere in its record an example of audacity and complete disregard for legal ethics to compare with that which has just been turned up in Miami, Florida. In this case it has picked its own judge to hear the facts in a suit brought by a subsidiary of the Electric Bond and Share Co. against the municipal government of Miami, Florida. This controversy is the heart and the substance of the power company's suit. It is not a question of law, but can only be settled by determining the facts.

The article discusses if the U.S. Department of Justice has any intention of digging into the various financial and similar scandals which are simply clamoring for investigation and prosecution. Perhaps a guilty conscience is preventing it from taking appropriate action. Perhaps the knowledge that the department itself had a hand in one of these scandals is now proving embarrassing. The author has reference to the foreign steamship case. In this case the Treasury was cheated out of more than $100,000,000. The scheme was so raw that even Harry M. Daugherty could not stomach it.

This article focuses on the notorious Ohio Gang. The curious belief that it took to cover with the exposure of Warren G. Harding's administration scandals several years ago is decidedly erroneous. For the policies and activities of the Department of Justice are still largely influenced, if not wholly dominated, by men who originally belonged to the Daugherty ring or were subsequently trained in that school. Most of the gang stayed on through the previous administrations, though Harry M. Daugherty himself was compelled to retire in confusion and disgrace. Many are to be found even today in key positions in the department.

This article focuses on the book "Toward the Seizure of Power," by V.I. Lenin. The papers here collected were written by Lenin in the twelve weeks that passed between the rise of Kerensky in July 1917, and the Bolshevik revolution in November. Not all of Lenin's papers covering that period are here, for many political letters and newspaper notes are still to be discovered. "Toward the Seizure of Power," though it was not intended as such, is actually a revolutionist's handbook.

The article discusses about the book "Hitler," by Emil Lengyel and "The Cauldron Boils," by Emil Lengyel. Hitlerisrn and the Polish minorities are only two of Europe's problems. Yet no other two hold greater peril for European security and peace. Adolf Hitler is no less menacing today than he was in September, 1930. Every contribution to the further understanding of the forces that produced Hitlerism must be welcomed. Mr. Lengyel, alas, has added little to this understanding. In quite another category is Mr. Lengyel's more recent work, "The Cauldron Boils." Here the author rises far above the usual level of political journalism. He combines expert reporting with scholarly detachment, a deep knowledge of political problems with a sympathetic understanding of human needs.

This article presents information on the issue of unemployment in the U.S. Many of the jobless, when first thrown out of work and for some time afterward, had homes to mortgage or sell, insurance to borrow against, or furniture to dispose of in return for food; today few have anything left to fall back upon. In a majority of the industrial communities the need will be more than doubled. Social workers were virtually unanimous in declaring that the relief extended in a majority of cases was merely sufficient to prevent actual hunger, and even then numerous cases of death from starvation or kindred causes found their way into the public records. Financial assistance came primarily from private sources and local governments.

Under normal circumstances it is extremely important that the receivers of a corporation and their attorneys be interested parties. The Supreme Court of the United States has emphasized that "the receiver is an officer of the court and should be as free from 'friendliness' to party as the court itself." Receivers must make the necessary adjustments between the various groups of security holders and unless they are entirely disinterested there seems always the temptation to favor one class of securities against another.

The article focuses on the book "Lassalle," by Arno Schirokauer. This is the story of the man who is generally considered the founder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. It is the story of a fop, a Narcissus, who in the end destroyed himself, though in his self-adoration he allowed another man to pull the trigger. But the man in love with himself also possessed remarkable intellectual power: In brief, Lassalle was the first social fascist. With him the producers were not to rule the state; the state was to rule the producers, but its rule was to be good and of benefit to all the people--the slogan of all fascists. Lassalle's colossal conceit carried him through to the end, to his own tragic end.

Presents several letters to the editor about various developments around the world. Comments on readers of Manila; Views on strike of mine workers in West Virginia.