Subsidy Suspended

Long promised by Democrats is a "new deal'' in airmail subsidies, a breaking of the system fostered by Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown. Last week the Senate acted to make the 1933-34 airmail appropriations part of the new deal, struck $19,000,000 from the Post Office Appropriation Bill, left it for the next Congress to insert, if it chooses, in a deficiency bill.

Vexed by the Senate's action, airmail contractors were not shocked. Aware that airmail is a potent means of Administration publicity and patronage, they chose to regard the Senate's action as 1) a slap at Postmaster General Brown and 2) a determination to let the incoming Administration get full credit for whatever is done about airmail in the next four years, extensions or economies.

While the Senate was arguing, Postmaster General Brown drew the wrath of the House Post Office Committee and some operators by juggling airmail routes in precisely the manner which the law provides but which his critics call ''arbitrary." He gave Transcontinental & Western Air a mail route from Los Angeles to San Francisco as an "extension" of its New York-Los Angeles run. The extension parallels United Air Lines. Also to T. & W. A. he gave a route from Columbus to Chicago; to American Airways an extension from Buffalo to Detroit (joining its Detroit-Chicago). Both the latter extensions compete with United's service from New York to Chicago. American Airways lost its Kansas City-Omaha route to United; lost also its Phoenix-San Diego.

Most curious was the extension of American Airways from Muskegon across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. American Airways does not fly that route. Kohler Aviation Corp. (not a mail carrier) does. Reputedly, American Airways was given the extension on condition that it sublet the contract to Kohler.

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