Chiang, Kung & Chang

To squelch pesky Communists (see col. 3), Chinese Dictator Chiang Kai-shek authorized last week a special subsidy of 600,000 Shanghai dollars ($200,000) per month to Chinese generals supplying troops to fight the Reds.

Next the lean, high-strung Generalissimo conferred with his moon-faced low-strung brother-in-law by marriage, Dr. H. H. Kung, easy-going Finance Minister. Shanghai buzzed with rumors that President Roosevelt's upping of the price of silver was about to force Chiang and Kung to take China's standard dollar off its white metal base.

"Such an act would not benefit either the Government or the people," abruptly announced Chiang. "The Government will not devalue or adopt a paper standard for the currency."

"It should be understood," echoed Kung piously, "that whatever measures the Government undertakes will be determined by a consideration for the welfare of the state and the people."

Two days later the Government proudly opened the first railway ever to pierce remote Shensi Province and connect with the 20th Century world legendary Sian, capital of China during the Ts'in, Han and T'ang dynasties (246 B.C.--907 A.D.). As opened last week the railway is the newest link in a line that strikes 650 miles into Central China, connects Sian with Shanghai, Nanking and Peiping. Later it will stab on 400 miles further to Lanchow, remote outpost just south of the Great Wall. All last week excited passengers, most of whom had galloped in on horseback to see a train for the first time in their lives, rode the new railway on "shuttle excursions" up & clown the line.

Meanwhile 3,000 sweating coolies were finishing up the Dictator's new war base air field at Haichow, 250 miles from Shanghai. To Generalissimo Chiang's somewhat decadent henchman-in-arms "Young Marshal" Chang Huseh-liang, Boeing Airplane Co. delivered last week a superspeed, de luxe transport plane, luxuriously upholstered and bristling with chromium gadgets.

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