More Abundant Grumbling

One morning last week Herbert Hoover, returning to California after a tour of the East, arrived in Chicago. Knowing the best place to find him, newshawks marched into the office of Capitalist Arch Wilkinson Shaw, great & good Hoover friend. No trace of Mr. Hoover was to be seen but much in evidence was Mr. Hoover's traveling companion, Ben S. Allen, onetime Associated Pressman and Wartime assistant to Hoover in Belgium. Ben Allen, whose most notable job was press-agenting the Hoover Food Administration, passed out a typewritten Hoover statement:

"The Canadian treaty [TIME, Nov. 25] is just another instance of hasty economic planning without full consideration of consequences. . . . It means still larger imports of foreign food. It thus means further decreases in the home market of American agriculture. It brings hardship to hundreds of thousands of dairy and other farmers. I presume it is more of the abundant life--for Canadians."

No one who knew Mr. Hoover doubted that he had written the statement and taken great pleasure in doing so. But few who were familiar with Mr. Hoover's style in public statements doubted that Mr. Allen, recently reported to have resumed his post as Hoover literary mentor, had been responsible for the insertion of the last sarcastic sentence. Never before had Herbert Hoover fathered the best wisecrack of the week on any topic of public interest. Last week's achievement sent him on to his Palo Alto home grinning from ear to ear.

Other Republicans who hoped to make 1936 capital out of the Canadian trade treaty also grinned but not quite so widely as they had hoped, because the treaty had stepped on fewer U. S. toes than they expected. Lumbermen, with one of the best organized lobbies, did some of the most effective grumbling: ''Glittering phrases about stimulating 'sound and healthy trade' do not conceal the fact that in the treaty the forest products industries and their employes have been sacrificed for promised benefits to other industries." (Makers of shingles, however, were keeping silent because red cedar shingle imports were limited to 25% of U. S. consumption compared to imports now running around 50%.)

Like lumbermen, cattlemen and dairymen joined in the grumble and the National Grange in session at Sacramento voted a unanimous protest regardless of the fact that the reduced duty will apply only to relatively small quotas of cattle and cream imports. In Denver, Fernand E. Mollin, secretary of the American Livestock Association, declared that it did not matter how limited the tariff reduction was. Groaned he: "The damage is done! The precedent is established!" Senator McNary of Oregon Announced that he was leaving for Washington to lodge a protest with the President.

Canadians on their part also did a little fancy groaning. Merchants were huffy because their fellow citizens could visit the U. S., bring home $100 worth of purchases duty free. Farmers groused because U. S. fruits and vegetables had been given reduced duties. In Ontario, the region most affected, it was believed several Liberal members of Parliament would desert the Mackenzie King government when the trade treaty comes up for ratification in the Dominion Parliament. Said the Winnipeg Free Press:

"The effectiveness of the trade agreement can be judged by the vigor of the yells of disapproval by which it has been greeted."

In Washington the defenders of the treaty were not content with this consolation. Secretary of Agriculture Wallace felt obliged to soothe his particular constituency thus: "The new trade agreement with Canada is beneficial to all the people of the U. S. and especially to farmers. . . . On the basis of available data with reference to wages and income in American manufacturing industries, it is safe to assume that at least half of the anticipated increase in value of our shipments of non-farm products to Canada will be paid out in wages to American workers. . . . This . . . will inevitably be reflected in a better market within our boundaries for many farm products . . . dairy products, meats, fresh fruits and vegetables. . . . Dairymen will do well to compare their incomes from 1924 to 1929, when cream imports from Canada were more than twice 1,500,000 gallons, with their incomes between 1930 and 1934, when cream imports from Canada were almost non-existent."

Secretary of State Hull, usually the mildest spoken member of the Cabinet, suddenly began to use short and ugly words in defense of his beloved treaty: "I have seen the Capitol overrun with highly paid lobbyists . . . in virtually every corridor, passageway and dark corner from the House to the Senate.

"Through log-rolling and similar insidious methods they harassed Congress and succeeded in securing the notoriously unsound Hawley-Smoot Act of 1930, which, more than any other factor, was responsible for our loss of exports to Canada aggregating $600,000,000. The reeking national scandal thus attending the passage of this act is well remembered. . . .

"The many millions of wage-earners thrown out of employment from 1929 to 1933 and of farmers thrown into conditions of bankruptcy during the same period, who know their present improved and steadily improving condition, will, I imagine, think twice before giving heed to the small but powerful Hawley-Smoot wrecking crew. . . ."

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