Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 203, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 January 1935 — Page 12

PAGE 12

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f/fen lA'fht nn<i tht I'rnpl* Will ft n't Th'ir Otrn Way

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THURSDAY. JANUARY 3 THEY LEAD CONGRESS r T"'HE Democratic party leaders in Congress, "*■ upon whom President Roosevelt depends to hold the lines, are not the real leaders of the legislative wing of the New Deal. Yet theirs is the difficult mechanical Job of directing Administration measures down a clear right of way. Their strength, skill and capacity for leadership are important. Joe JByms of Tennessee is the new House Speaker. Precedent and convenient control over Congressional campaign funds in the last election helped to promote him from majority leadership to the post which is second in importance only to the presidency. As party leader under the late Speaker Rainey, Mr. Byrns did not display great talents. An affable * compromiser, who finds it hard to say "no” to friendly colleagues, he is fortunate in being teamed this session with a man of sterner stuff. William B. Bankhead of Alabama was chosen majority leader because of his ability as a parliamentarian and a legislator. The respect which his colleagues feel for him overcame their prejudice against giving both the speakership and the leadership to southern men. Neither Byrns nor Bankhead is progressive, But as good party men they go along with the President. The real legislative battles for important New Deal reforms, in this session as in the last, probably will be led in the House by such men as David J. Lewis of Maryland and Sam Ra\burn of Texas. The situation is similar in the Senate. Leader Joe Robinson of Arkansas and Finance Chairman Pat Harvison of Mississippi are the party wheel horses. They demonstrated in the last two sessions their ability to do the me- ”• chanical job on a basis of party regularity. They are men of a conservative mold. Senators of the type of Wagner of New York and Costigan of Colorado are the real New Deal leaders on the Democratic side, as on the other side of the aisle are such progressive non-Democrats as La Follette of Wisconsin and NoiTis of Nebraska. Regular party leaders of the two houses ha\e the power to punish and to reward, and therefore to discipline. But the real leadership in this session, as in past sessions, will come from men who have the power to plan for a better day and the power to influence others to follow.

ICKES’ SPIES IF the President does not clean out the spy system and hidden rule in the Interior Department. Congress is expected to take a hand. That should not be necessary, for two reasons. One is that Congress has other things to do. The second reason is that certain Republicans would try to give the investigation a partisan turn. It is difficult to accept the official denials of White House apprehension over this situation. The White House should be as well informed as unofficial Washington. The latter has long grown accustomed to reports from reputable sources of wire-tapping, mail-tam-pering. and other forms of espionage afflicting the Interior Department. No one questions the motives of Secretary Ickes. To him the Nation is indebted for public service of a very high order. Nor for that matter are the motives of Louis R. Glavis, director of investigation of the department, questioned; his honorable record years ago in the Ballinger expose is remembered. Ebert K. Burlew, chief administrative assistant and holdover from the old department. was accused by the late Senator Walsh of trying to embarrass him in the conduct of the Sinclair investigation. Burlew is now a dictator second only to Ickes—and at times, apparently, second to none. The origin of the spy system, which has grown into alleged domination and worse, appears to have been the laudable one of preventing graft in huge Government expenditures. But. as spy systems have a way of doing, it seems to have become a Frankenstein. If one-tenth of the reports are true, it is now out of control. This is dangerous business. It can not be disposed of by easy official denials. Failure of the Administration to act will be an added invitation to unscrupulous opponents to smear the New Deal.

AUTO DEARTHS THE figures on automobile accidents for 1934. just released, make horrifying reading. To learn that our automobiles killed nearly as many Americans as German guns killed during the World War is to realize that our motor traffic situation has become one of our most pressing major problems. And yet. terrible as the figures are. we don't really get horrified by them; we don't really realize that the problem is great. The situation doesn't come home to us, somehow; it is someone else who gets killed, someone else who gets injured, someone else who passes through a needless tragedy. We ourselves —well, we re the lucky ones. It won t happen to us. So we accept these traffic figures with the most amazing complacence—and calmly go along rolling up a death and injury list which future generations will probably find the hardest single feature of our civilization to understand. Suppose we start adding up the figures, to see what result we get. Slightly more than a million people were killed or injured in auto accident* in 1934. There are approximately 25.000,000 auto 6 in use in the United States. Figure it out for yourself. The chances are about one in 25 that you will be killed or injured in an auto accident this year. If some epidemic were sweeping the country

The Constitution: Growth BY TALCOTT POWELL ■

This is the fourth of % series on the Constitution. • • • THE Constitution was not a particularly lusty infant at birth. It needed careful nursing. As the majority began to realize that it had been written and adopted by a selfinterested minority the "New Plan” of government was subjected to all sorts of attacks from State Legislatures and municipalities. Localism refused to relinquish sovereignty without a fight. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, became the champion of nationalism. The Constitution itself laid down a few broad principles. It was Chief Justice Marshall who interpreted these, made them work. The Supreme Court today confronting as important a set of prohlems as it has ever faced in its history will rely nearly as much upon Marshalls interpretation of the Constitution as they will upon the actual wording of the great document itself. Marshall came of pioneering stock. He had gone through the awful winter at Valley Forge. He had been one of the doughtiest fighters for the Constitution at the Virginia ratification convention. He was careless about his personal appearance but his mind operated with the unerring precision of a slide rule. John Marshall’s two great contributions to the growth of the Constitution were the establishment of the right of Federal courts to pass upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress, State Legislatures and municipalities and the firm cementing into our basic law the principles of the sanctity of contracts. He believed that the end justified the means. Little niceties of professional ethics did not greatly trouble him. In the celebrated cases of. Marbury vs. Madison and Cohens vs. Virginia, there is reason for suspecting that he fomented the litigation—"ambulance chasing” on a refined scale. On another ocasion he w'as believed to have written his decision before hearing the arguments of counsel. tt tt tt A MODERN judge would have hesitated to sit in the Marbury case under the same circumstances that Marshall heard it. It w-as the Chief Justice's ow-n negligence in failing to deliver a wan ant of office to Marbury that was the indirect cause of law suit. Marshall was thus an interested party and his ethics are still open to question. Jefferson snarled that Marshall’s opinion in this case represented "the despotism of an oligarchy,” but the judgment has stood to this day. It must be remembered that the Chief Justice was again and again confronted w-ith rebellion against the Constitution. He had a nice sense of publicity and fought I the battle w-ith well timed decisions—certainly far better than bullets. During the years between the adoption of the Constitution and the close of the Civil War there was a steady drive by conservatives to favor corporate enterprise. This reached a climax in 1868 with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which amounted to revolution in our legal structure. Immediately after Appomattox there had to be anew definition of ihe rights of Negroes. A joint Congressional Committee met for *the purpose of drafting a constitutional amendment. which would forever rivet into our underlying law- the principle of freedom for the emancipated blacks. That was the sole purpose of the committee's deliberations. Two members of the committee had quite a different purpose, however, though they dared not unmask it nor did they ever admit it until years later. John A. Bingham was Ohio's outstanding railroad attorney. Roscoe Conkling was New York's most distinguished corporation lawyer. It was these two skillful gentleman w-ho wrote into the amendment the famous phrase “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

at that rate, causing a million cases of illness and 36,000 deaths in 12 months, and you knew that you had one chance in 25 of catching it, wouldn’t you demand that your health department take the most drastic kind of measures to get it under control? Why, then, be so complacent about auto accidents? Luckily, the traffic problem isn't altogether insoluble. Although the death list for the country as a whole increased by 16 per cent last year, there were a few states which actually reduced their fatality lists. It is worth noticing that most of these states have strict financial responsibility laws —such laws as forbid persons who have been involved in serious accidents to drive until they pay any judgments against them and prove their ability to compensate for any future damages they may cause. They are also, in the main, states which have adequate highway patrol forces and strict drivers’ license laws. By attacking vigorously along such lines, we may hope to reduce our traffic death list. There can be no excuse for failure to take such action. The present situation is absolutely intolerable. A drastic and far-reaching program of preventive action is long overdue.

HOLDING THE MAIL BAG OENATOR VANDENBERGS proposal to establish a career service in the Postoffice Department deserves more consideration than it is likely to receive in Congress. A law making it possible for the pavementpounding postal grays to climb from the ranks to high position in the department should measurably increase the efficiency and morale of the postal service. It would provide an incentive for the legion of letter carriers and stamp clerks to do better work. Who. then, will be so short-sighted as to say ••no" to the Vandenberg proposal? Will the opponents include: James A. Farley, who mingles the jobs of Postmaster General, Democratic National Chairman and New York State Democratic Chairman, and seems hardly conscious that he is serving more than one master; Members of Congress—Democrats, because theirs is now* the power to reward faithful constituents with home-town postmasterships, and Republicans, because they hope the power will again be theirs some day; Political ward heelers, who think their prowess in rounding up votes entitles them to liens on the taxpayers’ dollars? IT IS ALIVE A COMMITTEE of five members of the American Bar Assn, declares the Child Labor Amendment outlawed because 10 years have elapsed since it was submitted by Congress to the states. Proponents of this humane measure need not be unduly alarmed. The argument is a familiar one. It is nothing but an opinion, and counsel quite as eminent as those of the committee and more numerous say there is nothing m it. The United States Constitution itself sets no time limit for the ratification of its amendments. No limit is set in the Child Labor Amendment. , A similar question arose in 1921 in a profk-

Other committee members, their minds on the freed slaves, failed entirely to catch hidden significance of the use of the word “person.” They forgot that under English common law and under Marshall’s Dartmouth College decision a corporation had been adjudged a "person” in the eyes cf the law with the same rights as a flesh and blood human being. a UNTIL the Fourteenth Amendment w-as adopted the states had sole rights in the regulation of utilities, it was not, as Charles Beard, the historian, says, supposed that statutes regulating the use, or even the price of the use, of private property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due process of law. This amendment put the states’ powers to regulate corporate enterprise in a straitjacket. The fact was that after the Civil War the conservatives wished to restrict the interference by State Legislatures in the right of business to conduct its affairs in its own way. They succeeded, but it was a long fight. The amendment was adopted in 1868. Eight years later the power of local authorities to regulate railway rates came before the Supreme Court in the Granger cases. The court was not yet ready to read into the amendment the meaning which Bingham and Conkling had intended. "For protection against abuses by legislatures, the people must resort to the polls, not the courts,” said the high tribunal in finding agamst the utilities. But the corporations kept up the battle. Almost every year they raised some new issue concerning the rights of cities and states to supervise their services and rates. Victory came to them in 1889 when a railroad asked the Supreme Court to annul an act of the Minnesota legislature giving a state commission power to fix both freight and passenger rates. The court decided that the question of rates is a judical one and that its determination is dependent upon the “due process” clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus the philosophy of such men as Bingham and Conkling w-as triumphant and the states were largely shorn of their regulatory powers over utilities. tt tt tt SINCE then a great mass of decisions have accumulated around this amendment. It was decided that even though a railroad was built under charter and the pow-er of eminent domain of a state it w-as not bound to operate at a loss Franchises were found to fall within the meaning of “property.” “Property” came to be defined not only as the thing owned but as “the right to acquire, use and dispose of” the thing. States w-ere not permitted to make law-s which would prevent a corporation from getting “a reasonable return.” As utilities became interestate in scope they had the states at their mercy. They maintained enormously expensive legal staffs skilled in applying the principles of the Fourteenth Amendment as it had been construed by the courts. It became a tremendous expense on the taxpayers to fight them in Federal court. The average state's attorney general, a political office holder, was next to helpless when he pitted his abilities against the modern corporation law-yer. The whole thing is a curious and contradictory spectacle. Under the law a corporation is “an artificial being” created by charter from a state. It is the child of the state. Despite this the child is no longer subject to the discipline of its parent. Strangely little appears in the vast record of the Fourteenth Amendment about the Negro for w-hom the legislation was really w-ritten. It is a w-ell-known fact that in many sections of the country ne is not even yet enjoying the rights guaranteed him under its terms. Next—Constitution and the New Deal.

bition case (Dillon vs. Gloss). Mr. Justice Van Devanter, speaking for a unanimous Supreme Court, ruled that ratification must take place “within some reasonable time after the proposal.” He said, however, that the seven years set by the act came within the term reasonable. A “reasouaDle time,” therefore, would be longer than seven years. Why would 10 years be unreasonable? Os course unratified amendments can die. But no amendment appears to have maintained so much vitality over a decade as this one aimed at child labor. Hardly a year has passed without some action having been taken on it in one or both houses of some state legislature. Os the 20 states which have ratified, Arkansas acted in 1924, Arizona, California and Wisconsin in 1925, Montana in 1927, Colorado in 1931, the others in 1933. That popular interest is astir is shown by the recent action of the American Farm Bureau Federation in reversing its previous stand and urging ratification, by reaffirmation of American Legion support, by new crusades launched by the American Federation of Labor, women’s clubs and a score of national organizations. Recently President Roosevelt asked the states to ratify. Os the 44 legislatures meeting in the new year, 24 have not ratified, and only 16 of these are needed. Doubtless these states will pay more attention to the President and the people than to a group of opposition lawyers. THE ALIMONY RACKET A CHICAGO judge has handed down a sapient ruling that a woman who earns more money than her husband earns is not entitled to alimony when she divorces him; and the common sense bf such a ruling is so obvious that the case would never have been mentioned in the newspapers at all if it were not for the fact that alimony decisions are so often distinguished by a complete absence of common sense. A man who marries undertakes certain definite responsibilities regarding the woman of his choice. If they have children, he certainly can not escape the responsibility of providing for them. But where there are no children; where the woman has no dependents and is quite capable of supporting herself, given an ordinary break in the luck, just as she did before she was married—where, in the name of sanity, is the sense in giving her a perpetual claim on her ex-husband’s earnings? It isn’t often that the claim for alimony is quite as unjustified as it was in this Chicago case. It is refreshing to see that at least one judge is ready to keep the alimony racket within some sort of reasonable bounds. Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling again lists Mrs. Roosevelt among 1300 “Reds ” and the country still doesn’t know who Mrs. Dilling is. To prove he believes in states’ rights, Harry Hopkins has dropped nearly 4,000,000 from federal relief rolls. A New York doctor has invented an instrument that detects the sound of people’s nerves. That wouldn’t be needed in the case of many people whose nerve we know.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

* Vi •• i. <•>• t -? v--r*

The Message

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less.) tt u o LINDBERGH’S BIRTHDAY MAY BE HOLIDAY, HE HOPES By Another Times Reader. To Times Reader of Dec. 27: Was there any one who asked you to read “The Murder of Baby Lindbergh”? If not, why did you read it if that was the way you felt about it? There would not have been so much publicity about the kidnaping of Baby Lindbergh, if Lindbergh himself had not done such a daring thing alone that no other man had done. Therefore, it was his fame and not his wealth that caused the great publicity, because Lindbeigh at one time was not wealthy. His mother taught school for a living. It it hadn’t been for his wealth, he probably would not have had to go through the terrible ordeal of pain and suffering to have his baby boy kidnaped and murdered. If the true criminal is found, I hope he goes to the gallows. Is all of this publicity helping the dead Lindbergh baby or his parents? If the public weren’t interested, why were so many extra copies of' newspapers sold at the time of kidnaping? You must be jealous of the publicity and , Lindbergh’s wealth. . I think that some day Lindbergh birthday will be known as a national holiday. I hope it is.

OLD DOCTRINES MUST BE THROWN IN DISCARD By L. A. Jackson. The Star of Dec. 25 quoted from a commencement address delivered at Manchester College in 1925 by Thomas R. Marshall. The quotation contains the following: "Now that I am out. of politics I am old enough to tell the truth. I believe in science, but I have no patience with those fellows who go up and down telling you all about things of which they know nothing. I do not care if what I believe is so or not. I believe in Santa Claus and I don’t thank anybody to take him away from me." Any one who reads between the lines can see, I think, that the speaker said the things which he thought the majority of his audience would like to hear, that science had really taken "Santa Claus from him, so far as an intellectual belief was concerned, and that he preferred to follow his feelings rather than his intellect. There are many people who "have no patience with those fellows who go up and down telling you all about things of which they know nothing." But who are those fellows? The ones who do most of this are those who continue to tell people it is their duty to believe all those theological doctrines which had their origin in the Dark Ages. Scientists do not take the position that it is your duty to believe any of their findings. They give you the evidence, knowing that if it is sufficient to convince you, you will believe it, whether you want to or not. Scientists and others who know anything about psychology, know that all real belief is based on evidence only. There are those who say that our colleges are making infidels of our young people. If an infidel is one who is honest enough to admit that he can not believe some of the old theological doctrines, then it is true that the colleges are making infidels and will continue to do so. The avoid this "would

SPLENDID ISOLATION?

Center

Prohibition Will Return

By H. S. Bonsib. Since there will be a battle of oratory and wise and otherwise things said by Congress and the Legislature on the liquor question, this thing should be coming to a climax. Says Carter Glass, “It is just as important for Congress to prevent evil legislation as 1 to enact good legislation.” But what the taxpayers wish to know is what will be done with that millstone on the neck of Uncle Sam, money worse than wasted, namely on the booze nuisance which does not fit in with the preamble of our Constitution. How will you harmonize “domestic tranquillity, to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, to provide for our common defense, to secure and insure to ourselves and the future generations the blessings of liberty?” The Prohibition party will consummate this question and prohibition is not a failure. It was merely a dry law in wet hands. Kansas, which has had prohibition for more than 60 years has voted in the last campaign to keep prohibition by a 75,000 majority. Many good reasons can be given why so: Fifty-four counties without any insane, 54 counties without any feeble-minded, 53 counties without anybody in jail, 56

be to destroy our libraries, our printing presses, and abolish all schools. Even then it would require several generations to bring about a condition similar to that existing when those doctrines were brought forth. If people could still believe those doctrines, or if there were any evidence that those who claim to believe them live any better lives than those who do not, there would be some excuse for continuing to teach them. # a u WRITER ANSWERS CRITIC ON “INQUISITION’’ FACTS By L. E. Blackelor. From Mr. Kennedy’s reply to my article touching on the Inquisition, the casual reader might easily gain the impression that I misrepresented facts. And so, not with any intention of prolonging the discussion, but with a desire only to clear myself of any such possible charge, I make this rejoinder. In reference to the Inquisition in Spain, Mr. Kennedy states that ‘‘lt was instigated and put into force by individuals against the doctrine and official orders of the Catholic Church.” And further, that "The Pope not only denounced the act, but also excommunicated ail involved." Well, let’s see about that. The Encyclopedia Americana, at the beginning of several columns bearing on the matter, reads as follows: "Inquisition. A tribunal or system of tribunals instigated by the Roman Catholic Church, for the discovery, examination and conviction of heretics and their punishment by the secular arm." The New International Encyclopedia says: "Inquisition. A tribunal in the Roman Catholic Church for the discovery, repression, and punishment of heresy, unbelief, and other offenses against the church. ’ The entire enlightened world knows that the Catholic Church was the power behind the Inquisition not only in Spain but throughout the whole vast domain of the Holy Roman Empire; and for one to attempt a plausible confutation of the documented facts of regprded his-

[1 wholly disapprove of what you say and will 1 defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire. J

counties without anybody in the penitentiary, 38 counties without any poor houses, 76 counties without any inebriates. Can any wet state match this? Prohibition is coming back and coming back to stay, but it will not come back in a non-partisan way nor in a compromising way, not in a party which is made up of wets and drys, but through a party which is 100 per cent prohibition and has no wets in it. What we need today on the liquor question is an Administration which will “Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm, dare to make it known.” I feel sure God will soon raise up a Lincoln who will soon deliver us from a rum rebellion and so we say with Abraham Lincoln when he said in his great Cooper Institution speech in New York City on Feb. 2‘, 1860: “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusation against us nor be frightened from it by a menace of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might and in the faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.” Prohibition is coming back and coming back to stay. The wets have no remedy.

tory is but to set great store in the credulity of those who read. The Inquisition is now “ancient history,” and all broad-minded Protestants have come to have a real respect for the spiritual influence of the present Catholic Church. So long as the church—any church—gives to the race that hope, that faith, that spiritual encouragement inherent in the teachings of the “Man of Sorrows,” it lifts man up; but when, instead of letting the power of religion itself draw man into the fold, the church, through a con;uming bigotry, attempts to impose its tyrannical will upon him, it ceases then to act for his good. u u a TOWNSEND PENSION PLAN SEEN AS BOON By Mrs. C. J- Klaiber. The Townsend old-age pension plan calls for the distribution of S2OO a month to every citizen who is 60 years of age or older, provided he or she spends it within the confines of the United States of America for goods or services within 30 days from the time it is received. This would force between $1,500,000,000 and $2,000,000,000 into the trade channels every month. The time limit causes a rapidity to that circulation. We all know that this volume of money would be very beneficial to every business. We knew that it is not so much the amount in circulation, but the velocity of that circulation which insures prosperity. Then, too, this would be uniform spending—not seasonal —and, therefore, it would maintain a constant turnover. It also would he beneficial in every portion of the

Daily Thought

He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: ant: the counsel of the forward is carried headlong.—Job 5:13. EVERY man, however wise, needs the advice of some sagacious friend in the affairs of life.—Plautus. r

JAN. 3, 1933

country because we find people that age in every community. Let us consider this plan as a “relief for unemployment.” When we require all who partake of this annuity $ to refrain from all remunerative >or productive occupation, we are providing positions for younger persons in all places that are given up/ Those who definitely understand the Townsend plan believe it will restore prosperity to every part of the country immediately it is put into operation through forced circulation of money. The need of a reliable agency which may at all times be depended upon to circulate money has been recognized for years. It was this need that prompted Dr. F. E. Townsend of Long Beach, Cal., to suggest the combination of two familiar governmental activities, namely, the transaction sales tax and the pension system. The transaction sales tax, which will not exceed 2 per cent, will be collected with your purchase price and paid by you without your realizing that you are paying a tax. Those over 60 can hire help to do that which they themselves can not or do not wish to do. Crime is now costing us $8,000,000,000 a year. No habitual criminal will be entitled to the Townsend pension, thus inducing the younger generation to live a clean life.

So They Say

The problem confronting the schools and the public generally in the improvement of motion pictures is the problem of improving the tastes and standards of the public.— Dr. John S. Roberts, New York's associate superintendent of schools. I predict that the banks of the country will adopt installment lending as one of their regular functions in the future. —James A. Moffett, Federal Housing Administrator. I may go back to Arizona and starve.—Lewis Douglas, former director of the Federal budget. I for one, have no political aspirations.—Gen. Hugh s. Johnson. I believe that if a man in public office permits himself to be partisan to any one group he loses his usefulness as a public servant. —Donald R. Richberg, chairman, National Emergency Council. Damn those Oxford professors! I'll send some of our swine to burn dotvn their Oxford!—Dr. Ernst (Putzy) Hanfstaengl of Germany.

RENEWAL

BY HARRIETT SCOTT OLINICK Her life has been a crimson flower Unfurling petals, hour by hour. When first she loved she was a bud, Tight-curled against the mad, sweet flood. Beneath her lover's hand she learned The joy of ecstasy, and turned Rich petals to the morning sun. They faded slowly, one by one. New petals she brought forth for him, Os understanding, joy undimmed. Her life has been a crimson flower, Unfurling petals, hour by hour. Still petals fade and fall apart. Still he has never reached the heart.