Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-07-08
SEEN and HEARI
around tie
NATIONAL CAPITAL
By Carter Field !

be abroad and seized during war,
being used for war purposes.
Dirigibles in War
Doctor Eckener made two most
effective answers, so far as logic
is concerned, according to army and
navy officers who have been study
ing the situation since. One was
that the dirigible would not be an
effective weapon in war today. He
said they would be easy victims OF
airplanes and antiaircraft artillery.
In fact, this stage had really been
reached, he said, before the close OF
the World war.
But-and this was much more
convincing-if nations did want to
use dirigibles in war, they would
not be deferred by the lack of he
lium. They would use hydrogen de-
spite the greater danger.
Doctor Eckener's remarks along
this line have been closely studied
by our army and navy aviation
experts. Their thought is that the
nation which would decide to use a
dirigible in war would probably pre-
fer to use hydrogen. The advan-
tage would be that the lifting power
of hydrogen is greater than that of
helium. Therefore the same gas
bag could carry a heavier load of
bombs, more defensive guns, etc.
A dirigible supported by hydrogen
could rise more quickly in an emer-
gency, thus escaping antiaircraft
guns.
New Dealers Worry
Two of the groups of the "sub-
merged third of our population
which are giving the New Dealers
the most gray hairs are the small
farmers, particularly the mountain
GERS, and the folks who work in
very small stores and factories, and
hence do not come under the wage
and hour legislation now pending.
The mountaineers are particular
ly troublesome. In the first place
they do not seem to appreciate what
is done for them. They want, APP
parently, to retain their rugged in
dividualism. None of the reset
Element projects which were the ap-
pie of Rexford G. Tugwells eye,
and which so intrigued Mrs. Roose-
welt, have been notably successful.
Quite the contrary.
Yet they are being hit and will
be hit by most of the New Deal legis--
lation harder than most folks. While
they do not buy much, naturally
payroll social security taxes, and
state sales taxes necess;sated by the
social burdens the states have as
sumed, boost the cost of everything
they buy. Thus not only is their
buying power reduced but their lot
made just that much harder.
A group of congressman and their
wives who just returned from a trip
to the Smoky Mountain national
park, on the border of North Caro-
lima and Tennessee, brought back
a vivid impression of how the social
welfare legislation, both state and
national, is hitting this particular
segment of the submerged third.
eve didn't go off the beaten
track" said the wife of one. eve
weren't looking for anything but
scenery. But we were shocked at
the living conditions of the noun
tain folk living right along the main
highway. Women were working in
the fields, just as animal-like as in
the most backward sections of Eu-
rope. We didn't see any hitched to
plows, as in the recent disgraceful
case which figured in the newspa-
pers, but we could imagine they
often were.
Pitiful Conditions
''It was pitiful - the scrubby,
rocky land they were tilling, the
squalid, dirty cabins they called
homes, and the cruel grinding day.
light to darkness labor they were
putting in so futilely.
"Yet we knew by our own pur-
chases that when those folks went
down to the store to buy something
they not only paid higher price
because of payroll taxes to give
somebody else old age and unem-
ployment insurance, but they were,
in North Carolina, paying a three
per cent sales tax. When we got
up into West Virginia, we found,
incidentally, that there were no ex-
emptions, as in many states, from
this sales tax, which here was two
per cent.
"My state of Illinois has three
per cent sales tax, but when a poor
man buys sandwich and cup of
coffee-anything not more than Is
cents-that purchase is exempt. But
in West Virginia the sales tax on a
ten cent purchase is ten per cent,
not two per cent, because they do
not have tokens to split pennies.
The difficulty the New Deal an
ticipates with small, local groups
of employees is a matter of con-
stitutional law. Some believe that
is why President Roosevelt is so
determined about his Supreme court
enlargement bill despite the recent
iberality of the present court. He
wants, they say, to be able to reach
the little store or plant which en-