Stock Market Sales Near Panic Level As Wall Street Fears Reich Victory
ALTMAN, IRVING B.
Financial Merry-Go-Round Stock Market Sales Near Panic Level As Wall Street Fears Reich Victory By IRVING B. ALTMAN i Editor of Dynamic America *1"HE stock markets have gone tobogganing * thi»_...
...VVER a million acres on the Kenai Plateau are suitable for livestock raising and agriculture...
...In a conflict between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, the Negro people will go to wir against Russia...
...It is still necessary to answer these questions, because in the public mind there remain vestiges of the attitude prevailing in - Seward's day, when Alaska was first acquired...
...Finally, the wealth of Alaska has been siphoned from that land to this country...
...The wage-hour board now plans to grant such an exemption for each product canned...
...The bill of indictment drawn up by the government charges Hopson resorted to fraudulent methods to become the leader of a utility network in which more than 300,000 investors he'd at one time $1,300,000,000 of securities issued by the Associated Gas and Electric System, controlling properties extending from Canada to Florida and as far west as Missouri, as well as holdings in the Philippines...
...At present, however, it supports one person per ten square miles, while Sweden, Norway and Finland respectively support 39.6, 22.5, and 27.3 persons per square mile...
...Temperatures range from a winter mean of 25 degrees to 70 in the summer...
...In addition, the Associated Gas and Electric Co., the top holding company, so'd over nine hundred million dollars worth of securities to the public from 1926 to 1931...
...Employers expect liberal concessions to be ¦lade to them by the board, now under the direction of Col...
...It is now .the most populous and accessible part of the territory, with 19.304 inhabitants in 1930, and nine cities all serviced...
...Commercial farming is precluded in this area by the rough topography and thin soil, although truck and garden farming to furnish the individual's table are possible...
...This may surprise Americans, especially those of the generation brought up on Jack London's fiction and Hollywood versions of the night life infesting saloon-laden shack towns...
...The Alaskan mainland is about fifty-four miles from Siberia, with the U. S. Little Diomede Island just eight miles from the Russian owned Big Diomede Island, and the westernmost end of the Aleutian Islands "bridge" only 660 miles from Japan's port and naval base, Horomushiro...
...The character of the populace is another barrier...
...There are only 2,425 inhabitants and two cities...
...Immigration from abroad, upon which Alaska has always depended for a major part of her population, has been prevented since 1924 by our immigration laws, the disastrous effect of which upon the population of Alaska was apparently never considered when they were enacted...
...In time we might lift the restrictions on lending and this would serve to increase England's jand France's buying power here...
...Trump Card...
...Hopson took practically the same position as Whitney, the former President of the New York Stock Exchange, now serving a term in Sing Sing for stealing his clients' funds: business can regulate itself...
...Md^nnpredictable as the line of Tie Communist Party is not Primarily or fundamentally condoned about the Negro or labor • America, but -Tvith the confutation of the foreign position § the Soviet Union in world poitnes...
...The government claims that he and a number of business associates used the mails to defraud—of more than twenty million dollars —investors...
...In' view of the indictment against Hopson and his associates, we now can understand why he was unwilling to have the government look .into the affairs of his companies...
...At one time the system had outstanding , $1,357,950,000 in securities...
...The story of mirage financing began in 1922 when, with John L. Mange, Hopson obtained control of the Associated Gas and Electric Co...
...The potential market in Alaska is larger . than our present export field in South America...
...Frank R. Havenner of California in the House of Representatives and Senator William H. King, of Utah in the Senate...
...It is possible here only to summarize the points there made...
...TjK/ITH the Associated Farmers' campaign fl against the Wages and Hours Act having been beaten in Congress, the nation's agricultural employers this week seemed ready to play their ace in the hole: manipulation of the Wages and Hours administration itself...
...They have helped Ito make America what it is, havfe felled the trees, cleared the forests, built the railroads and cifies, tilled the land, contributed to literature, labor, religion, ?art, and philosophy, and defended jthe flag...
...Only yesterday horror came again through the skies from the direction in which numbed refugees from eight democratic nations' have looked these bomb-torn years...
...f Th| German goal is a base of operation for short-range air and submarine attack on the industrial and communications' heart of the British: Empire...
...And in a war between the United States and Nazi Germany, Negroes will take up arms against Germany...
...Because the Negro people are of the blood of America, and because ihe future...
...Of course, if there should be xevenses soon for the Germans the same speculators will flock right back into Wall Street :and jda frantic buying...
...People think of the peninsula as a land' of snow and .ice, fit only for Eskimos...
...Those in the United States who could afford to start life anew in Alaska do not have the urge to migrate...
...Unbalanced employment in the mining and fishing industries, largely seasonal and supplied by imported labor, also served to carry away labor's earnings...
...SHSouthern wing upholds the tnjrism of the Ku Klux Klan, raiage, an outrageous shareaijSystem, and a wilful group i'ii...
...Peninsula, about the size of New Hampshire, which projects from the south central mainland into the Gulf of Alaska...
...And finally, misellaneous mineral areas, especially tin and bituminous and lignite coal beds, are considered...
...Can large numbers of them support themselves in other than primitive fashion...
...Is civilization closed to them as Senator Reynolds, Father Coughlin, and the German Bunds of the earth would shut it...
...So reasons Hitler, find he may be right...
...The climate is somewhat colder in winter and warmer in summer ] than above mentioned regions...
...Defense, Kept From Refugees by Desolation Myth By EMILY N. BROWN New Leader Washington Research Reporter HPHE MOST constructive contribution yet made by American thought to the refugee problem is that embodied in the Alaska Development Corporation Bill, sponsored by the Department of the Interior of the United States...
...In 1938 Alaskans bought 42 million dollars worth of American products...
...Why, then, has the land not developed in the past...
...fight Back...
...Winter temperatures on the southern seaboard are higher than those prevailing in Boston, New York, Chicago, St Louis...
...Today, the Republican Party si»nas for child labor...
...World War would be ,a long drawn out affair, possibly lasting three or more years...
...Wall Street has carried on its speculation in stocks on the theory that the second...
...Alfred H...
...The net result is that it has been impossible to accumulate surpluses in Alaska for further reinvestment...
...This section has warm winters, cool summers, and heavy precipitation...
...Hence, the rapid shift a Hi line on trade union methods, peace and war, the doctrine •f »«iMetermination of smaller ithoaalities, Fascism, Nazism, °fty of the American labor •"•went, the Negro liberation •rconent, the New Deal, the %ilar Front, the League of Sifions, democracy, collective scanty and a third term...
...There is, first, southeastern Alaska, an area about the size of New England minus Maine...
...pe rcent is over thirty-five years old, as against 46.6 per cent in the United States...
...First, gold diverted men's minds from the more permanent wealth possibilities of the country...
...The other day, Howard C. Hopson, who ran a few thousand dollars cash into control of the billion-dollar utilities' empire of the Associated Gas and Electric System, was indicated by a federal grand jury on charges of mail fraud and conspiracy...
...Where shall these refugees go...
...Some of the richest mineral deposits in Alaska are here...
...In a world of carnage the United States is the only large, free nation capable of offering a -welcome hand to those whose homes no longer exist Before Congress next week will be discussed a bill to open Alaska to refugees...
...In the past there has been too much thinking, when settlement is contemplated, in terms of agricultural infiltration, which would break down in Alaska...
...Then there are military considerations which make 'Alaska's development imperative...
...TTHE Associated Gas and Electric System was * one of the large utility holding companies which refused to comply with the regulations ¦of the Securities and Exchange Commission...
...assumption were to prove correct, Allied spending- in this country could amount to more than ten billion dollars...
...When Hopson came into control of the Associated System, it had less than seven million dollars of utility properties...
...There are some 60,000 inhabitants, nearly half of whom are white, and of this white population, 57.6...
...The scanty population of 60,000 makes Alaska difficult to defend...
...In fact, Alaska's climate is pleasant, the desolation is mostly myth, and vast fertile territories await settlers...
...The report next considers very carefully the areas most suitable to colonization...
...since we Negro people have helped build America, it is our job to help make it live up to the ideals' and principles of democracy.' In doing this job of winning Negro rights in America and making it a land of peace and plenty, freedom, justice and social security, the Negro people must and will reject aid from Nazis or Communists, Germany or Russia, or any other foreign government...
...Snee the Communist Party of Aneriea stems from Communist htna, its policies are as fitful...
...It first concludes that planless individual migration, upon which Alaska has relied in the past, cannot meet the problem or can it break the vicious cycle of lack of local markets, high costs and inadequate population...
...To protect his position he influenced, by propaganda methods, holders of voting-stock to exchange their shares for the non-voting ¦ variety...
...Within two years, Hopson wrrote up the assets and caused dividends to be declared which more than repaid the amount he had used originally to buy control...
...The fact that Negro people will never ?etray or desert the U. S. does ni>t mean that they do not recognize the grave shortcomings of this nation in the conception and application of genuine democracy...
...Indeed, another Wall Street god has fallen...
...In the light of these facts, Dr...
...After the boom days, when the country was on the verge of industrial development, came the World War, which drained off Alaska's most valuable resource: men...
...Mink farming for pelts or breeders is ideally suited to this area, with semi-finishing possible...
...There are 120 days of intensive growing season...
...This would be enongh virtually to repeal half the law so far as the canners are concerned...
...The more jittery element in Wall Street Jsn't ftaking chances...
...V*^Negroes do not reject the j7*j**aist Party because it is ***Sonary or radical, or bey*"°f its alleged extremism...
...THERE are dense forests in southeastern Alaska with timberlands capable of producing annually on a sustainedb yield basis one million newsprint tons, or one-fourth of the total consumption of the U. S. There is excellent waterpower for the manufacture of pulp and paper, and governmental control of all the forests makes possible a long term supply of lumber...
...I I • * * * ^EGEOES, above all, must and * I will always remain loyal to the United States...
...The forests abound in spruce and birch for the manufacturing of toys, furniture and flooring...
...ButJ the present victories of the German ajrmies in the Netherlands and Belgium have tjirowji a scare into the investing public...
...Qespitethe long record of Retsbbcan control of the Federal government, nothing has ever teen done about-the disgrace of lynching of jim-crowism within the government itself...
...The measure seeks to accomplish three interrelated purposes: (1) to enlist private capital in the development of Alaskan resources...
...It is saddled by the 8tid~ South, which boldly boasts sfltfc disfranchisement of and ¦position to the Negro people...
...Kodiak Valley and Tanana Valley are other areas considered by the report as suitable for agricultural purposes...
...of the Negro people 39: tied up with the^ future of .this...
...They also sell water, telephone service, electric railroad service, motor transportation, ice and steam...
...The government contends that Harris, Forbes and Co., later taken over by the Chase National Bank crowd, sold more than four hundred million dollars' worth of securities for the Associated System...
...He added utilities to his vast corporation by purchase and issued stock to cover the purchases...
...2) to encourage the settlement in Alaska of men and women who want to make it their home and who are prepared to conquer the problems of an undeveloped country...
...Bat the Democratic Party is a.lbetter...
...The report goes on to an analysis of how the rich potentialities which are known to exist can best be realized...
...White males over fifteen who are married comprise 35.4 per cent, as compared with 60.2 per cent in the United States...
...Thus, there obtains a far from healthy situation for a young country in need of expansion...
...S»:Communist Party, while stager in numbers, is unsound od disastrous in tactic, strategy, od allegiance to the Soviet lawn...
...Title to 73 per cent of the area is held by the United States...
...The packers and canners who were the heaviest contributors to the aati-Wage-Hour law fight may yet win their, battle, for the board now plans to .expand exemptions from . cannery overtime pay standards in such a way as to abolish them completely...
...Spanish flu further decimated the population...
...Brooks, first Director of the Alaska Section of the Geological Survey, has stated: "We may confidently expect that the time will come when Alaska will support a population of 10,000,000 people...
...HrHE HIGH COST of living, resulting from the lack of home * production and the supplying of the market from distant points, discourages successful farming because of the heavy initial capitalization required...
...Under the present interpretation of the law, packers and canners are given a 14-months exemption from' the overtime provision...
...Hopson had been a bureau chief in the State Public Service Commission and he knew stock promotion...
...London, of course, knew nothing of Alaska because he was there only one winter, and was ill most of the time...
...Finally, there are recreational attractions here which have been scarcely tapped...
...this...
...The next area considered is the Kenai...
...A LASKA would serve as the source of raw materials, including certain ones indispensable to the United States, such as tin, antimony, tungsten, chromite, manganese and nickel, which would take time to develop...
...PIRST, ALASKA has the prerequisites necessary to development, *^ according to the report...
...There must be a planned migration based, moreover, upon a combination of industrial and agricultural development...
...different reasons...
...This area would be peculiarly well suited for the supplying of ' an Asiatic market for wood pulp...
...the bill, S. 3677, will soon be heard by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs...
...With a population running into millions, and the develop-, ment of lines of communication and transportation that such an increased population would warrant, the problem of Alaskan defense would be much simplified...
...3) to provide an adequate mechanism of federal control over such development and settlement, so as to guard against the dangers of unrestricted exploitation of natural and human resources...
...HIE are urged to stand by the Republican Party...
...Introduced by Rep...
...There are real transportation problems to be solved here, with high tides on the western side and shallow waters on the eastern shore presenting difficulties in establishing suitable docking facilities...
...Therefore, for anyone to take ** position that the Negroes ¦•tfO/place their fortunes in the WTOnianist Party is strange...
...Wall Street realizes that Europe's war now will be won or lost on the line fixed by Hitler through invasion of the low-land countries...
...The salmon industry is already developed to the peak of wise conservation policy...
...However, the processing of herring and shellfish offers opportunities in the fish industry, since the demand for crab* «¦- 1 shrimps is now largely met ij the Japanese product...
...Hitler means to win this war by October of this year, and if he succeeds the anticipated boom will die: aborning...
...Once England is brought to jier (knees, France will throw up the sponge and the war will be over...
...Both the War and Navy Depart-' ments are willing to aid in the economic development of the territory, the key to which is its settlement...
...eject the party because it 2 *"™»Hed by a foreign state, °f which may or may Sv*J...
...With Holland and Belgium also in the war an additional 'two billions are made available to the Allies^ All this buying is' expected to give a considerable fillip to American recovery...
...There are already marketing and processing facilities established at Matanuska available for newcomers...
...Potato crops and truck farming for the local market are possible...
...He offered the holders' higher returns to give up their voice in the management of the properties...
...This has been true of both the earnings of the individual settler who made his strike and then returned to the United States, and of the profits of corporate enterprises in mines and fisheries...
...in the interest of the jv"*fe?f»tes or the Negro peor^Moreover, Negroes cannot P^jl to add to the handicap of being black the handicap of being Red...
...CerJJ**' <*n the Soviet Union, !rB*BdB of miles removed from . ^ftnestic problems of Negroes ? &., have the knowledge p jgdy the leadership in the r**glBJst Party to formulate rJJpBBt tile execution of a proF*jjgifer the solution of the ' **problems...
...The movies, of course...
...Philip Fleming...
...To be continued) •The Last Outpost TT might be Spain, if it were 1938, or Austria or Czechia or Poland, bat that was last year...
...Militant Negro Unity Points Way to End of Lynch Rule By A. PHILIP RANDOLPH President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping-Car Porters | Part II...
...i ¦LIE was evidently inspired by the success of * * that other utility buccaneer, Samuel Insull, who through holding company financing had built up a vast utilities empire supported by paper stock adding up to about three billion .dollars...
...One New York City property is the Staten Island Edison and the system also controls the Staten Island Coach firm, the Richmond Street Railways, and various other traction and bus enterprises...
...i Pi)ty the poor investors...
...Hopson, in his expansion drive, used his employees—every lineman and every meter reader—as salesmen...
...A great expansion of trade would result to the benefit of the United States...
...There is room for a large expansion in the tourist business...
...demagogues filibusters to «h- every anti-lynching bill 4ta presented to the Senate...
...Its domijjnt spokesmen are opposed to bona fide collective bargaining of the workers...
...CHILE the parties of the right "ire inadequate, the parties of fh) left are ineffective or unite . Socialist Party, because d its lack of numbers, is unable a nuke a bid "for power...
...But, it is charged, a million consumers of electricity and gas were overcharged in high rates to raise the millions used to defend Hopson every time he was sued by stockholders to recover unlawful profits...
...Then there is the: Matanuska Vailey, covering ah area two hundred miles square, wherein lies the greatest future for agriculture today...
...it's so hard to make up one's mind whether to sell or buy...
...He provided plenty of stock for them to sell...
...Claims of allegiance of the Negro upon the wound that the Republican Party freed the Negro slaves are hollow and untenable, jhe emancipation of the slave -was...
...There, finally, were more than 200 subsidiary companies...
...The report points to several factors that have stood in the way of Alaska's progress...
...The report goes on to demonstrate that from Alaska's development there would accrue benefits to the inhabitants of both Alaska and the United States...
...Andi...
...Properly planned industrial development would bring economic benefits to Alaskans by creating industries affording year-round employment and thus encouraging auxiliary work and creating a staying buying power, permitting surpluses to accumulate for fruitful reinvestment A larger local market would be established and the cost of living lowered...
...Tais does not imply that NeP** ¦ should refuse to support yoaats and programs merely **tte Communists may espouse "Q*'Should anyone contend that . P'M should not oppose AmerttteRtering the war only betw*^5o»nmunists take that line, SB WWgh the Communists may...
...IN addition to supporting men * who are sound on democracy, social justice, labor and race, Negroes should join hands in helping to build a national farmerlabor party, which is truly American and dedicated to the aboliown hope and future...
...J^aim such a possibility is Jj^*j?rse, we would fight for Of the-Negro to join any ^^54"organization he chooses...
...Since the products of Alaska are not for the most part those which we now import from Europe and Asia, they would not compete with our own...
...The others helped Hopson prepare the "setup" for a gigantic mail fraud...
...An intelligent concern for our own welfare would seem to dictate the present as not too early for a beginning to be made...
...It is a center for big game hunting and is a potentially rich -tourist area...
...7: Before considering how the bill proposes to accomplish these purposes and how it will operate, it is well to come to grips with the leading question that presents itself immediately when the problem of Alaska arises...
...What's ;all this talk about unearned increment ? } i * * * j ANOTHER god of Wall Street has fallen...
...There are excellent possibilities for herring, fishing, and mink farming here...
...Hopson firms supply electric light, power and gas to more than one million consumers...
...With respect to climatic conditions, agricultural lands, mineral- resources and water power, Alaska compares favorably with Sweden, Norway and Finland...
...This is the first of two articles by Emily Brown, head of The New Leader's Washington Research Bureau...
...a by-product of the Civil War and not its mam elective...
...The law firm of Travis, Brownback and Paxson of New York, attorney for Hopson, received between five and six million dollars, it is alleged, in the past dozen years for legal services...
...It is closer to Europe and Asia than to the United States...
...An exhaustive analysis of Alaska's potentialities was made in a report issued by Under Secretary Harry Slattery, under the imprimatur of the Department of the Interior last summer...
...of New York through purchase of a majority of the common stock for a few hundred thousand dollars, mostly borrowed...
...Alaska, Vital to U.S...
...This is particularly true of newsprint, herring, canned crab meat, and various types of fur, leather, paper and wood products...
...While the Republicans got the kyal vote of the Negro people, the:Negro people got nothing in ittarn except empty campaign promises and meaningless sops...
...snow and ice fields cover only three per cent of the entire territory...
...It deserted and betrayed the Negro at the end of Civil War when the Union lad been saved, and left him to the mercies of his former masters...
...The anticipated exemptions' are aimed at clerical employees who, if the board's plan is not defeated, will be denied overtime pay...
...The Civil War was • primarily designed to save the Union for the economic advan•ige of the Vising bourgeoise of the North...
...It is, therefore, a logical place to begin...
...But that is the party of big business "and the Negro people are a race jof workers...
...Grains, potatoes, hay, root vegetables, berries, dairy and livestock produce can be successfully raised for the local market...
...The result is a wave of selling^ of almost panic proportions, to get out tfromj under...
...country, they must and will remain ever devoted to it...
...That is, is Alaska a place where white men can live...
...The peninsula is strategically situated on a line, with the currents of world' • trade "north to the Orient...
...This is the first time that a group of lawyers and bankers has been indicted along with the principal...
...The accumulation of titles and claims of absentee owners, often difficult to locate, have put lands out of production in strategic areas...
...Financial Merry-Go-Round Stock Market Sales Near Panic Level As Wall Street Fears Reich Victory By IRVING B. ALTMAN i Editor of Dynamic America *1"HE stock markets have gone tobogganing * thi»_ week under the influence of adverse war news...
Vol. 23 • May 1940 • No. 20
