Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 257, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 January 1936 — Page 9

It Seems to Me HEVWD BROUN NEW ORLEANS, La., Jan. 4.—After listening to a great many speeches by professors and deans at the Law School convention which was held here I gather that there are two schools of thought. If I understand Dean Ezra Pound of Harvard he seems to believe that law embraces within itself a kind of philosophy and that the jurists of the world are the men who preserve culture and blaze new trails in the march of civilization. This could be true, perhaps, but it is not the way to bet. I think the Supreme Court of the United

States has been a check rather than otherwise in the development of American civilization and culture. Indeed some of the warmest supporters of the high court are frank to say that its most useful function is to act as a brake against impulses for betterment which are too rash and sudden. Throughout the years its slogan seems to be ‘Sharp curve ahead. Slow down." This may be a veryproper caution for motorists but I am distressed to find that even the snails take it to heart. Federal child labor legislation.

“ ~ 1

Hey wood Broun

for Instance, would hardly be a reckless step in an age of unemployment and yet the court still stands in the way with the result that nothing very effective ran be done until the backward states catch up with those which are more progressive. tt tt tt A'o Leg for Argument EVEN if no amendment is ever passed the cautious nine will shift their position in time when the pressure of public opinion becomes sufficient. So it has been in the past and so it will be in the future. But that leaves no leg for the argument that the jurists are the men with banners. In the long run law is not made by lawyers or by judges but by the vital necessities of the masses. And the courts of the land are out of touch and contact with these needs. Within the next year the Supreme Court will pass upon someone of the many cases arising out of the conflict in interests arising under the Wagner Labor bill. Nine men in Washington will say whether the Federal government has the power to make an attempt to protect the right of workers to organize. Yet how can Butler or Sutherland, to take a couple of names at random, decide intelligently about that unless they have at least some experience with what happens when the right is abridged? tt a a A Little Field Work THE lawyers gathered in New Orleans might very well have adjourned one of their sessions to go in a body to the docks along the Mississippi and they might well have wired the Supreme Court judges to go with them. There they might see something of the longshoremen's strike which has endured for months. And more than 30 men have been killed in the long struggle for union recognition. The strikers have set up little shacks of tin as j sentry boxes along the waterfront and night and ! day in freezes and in rain they keep their post. I I talked to five stevedores in a shack and every ! one of them knew certain practical things about j collective bargaining which are nofureamt of in the philosophy of Mr. Justice Mcßeynclds. I am for law and not for violence but I am for l that law which stems not out of abstractions but i out of today’s hunger and this night's need for ! shelter. Clapper Sketches Historic Scene BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, Jan. 4.—lt is a big night in ; Washington. Lines of taxicabs are crawling 1 up Capitol Hill. The President is about to address \ a night session of Congress. That has happened | only once before when Woodrow Wilson asked for war. You wedge into the back row of the House gallery. Senators are filing in two by two. Applause breaks out as Senator Borah, hair trimmed and brushed.

his face emphasized by a doublebreasted blue business suit, enters arm in arm with Senator J. Hamilton Lewis, resplendent in cutaway and ascot cravat. Crowding in behind Senators and Representatvies, who fill every seat are members’ wives, children, sweethearts no doubt, secretaries, and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts. A battery of kleig lights throws a dead-pan glare on the faces of Congress. Someone points down and says, “The Great American Desert.’’ But

this is Congress. Some nitwits, some smart men who know how to fool the voters almost all all of the time, some who are sincerely interested in their country. But good and bad, strong and weak, warts and all, it is Congress, elected by the American people to make its laws. B B B THE whack of a gavel cracks out sharply above i the dull hum of conversation. “The President of the United States.” Long applause. Congress, theoretically, is about to hear the annual message on the state of the union. But the microphones remind it that the address it is about to hear is to be pitched actually for other ears—for the largest audience probably that any one man ever addressed. Shortwave is to carry the famous Roosevelt radio voice all over the world. In America millions of voters are listening—taxi drivers around the lunch counters, dinner parties settling down with brandy and coffee, perhaps some directors of the American Liberty League who are unable to restrain their curiosity, the lonely farmer out on the plains, the workman in his bungalow, easing his tired legs, and who knows, perhaps some who are still looking for jobs. That is the real audience which President Roosevelt sees as he speaks. Next day Congress will again be a co-ordinated branch of the government. This night its members arß willing stooges. Election is coming and they step aside while the campaign keynote is sounded from their rostrum. What did he say? European autoocrats are i marching toward war. An autocratic minority : abroad is engaged in a mad. scramble. We must keep out . . Similar autocrats in America are at war with the popular will. The battle which continued under Jefferson, Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson (Cleveland omitted) must go on This minority is small but powerful. tt B U AFTER 34 months of the New Deal, we have a fairly rounded whole. Control of the Federal government has been returned to Washington. We stand on this. We have invited battle, earned the hatred of entrenched greed. Unscrupulous economic autocrats abdicated in 1933 but now, out of danger : they withdraw their abdication. They want to lead ! us back around the same old corner into the same old dreary street. They would "gang up” against I the people's liberties. Let them try to repeal the New Deal laws Thc~ is the challenge. Fight it out. We will not retreat. : Repeatedly President Roosevelt quotes from his inaugural address, as if seeking, through those magical words which captured the n.tion on the bleak March day in 1933. to recreate the public enthusiasm ; which that utterance aroused. Now he paces his words in slow measure, to Jet them sink in. Now he whips them out with body lashes. He is sharp, mellow with sympathy, ironical and sometimes mock*ing. Webster had his sonorous day, Roosevelt tunes to the more sensitive microphones. Now he is almost through. “1 ran r.ot better end this message on the state i of the Union—.” Resentful laugnter crackles from (he Republican ‘ Bide. Y’ou can hear the worm turning.

A ho*t nf major problem*- confront* Congress at its present sestion. To make rlear what these problems are. to explain their background*, and to tell what Congress plan* to do for their solution, Eodney Dutcher has written a series of articles, this being the last. BL RODNEY DITCHER (Copyright, 19:56, NEA Service, Inc.) WASHINGTON, Jan. 4.—There will be much to keep the eyes of farmers, industry and labor on Capitol Ilill during the present session of Congress, and because this is a “politicar session, with election coming on, much of the feud between “Big Business” and the New Deal will be fought out on floors of House and Senate. Further proposals for regulation N os industry will come from individual members and from labor organizations. There will be no attempt to revive NRA, except perhaps through some milk-and-water provision for voluntary codes.

The White House is officially supporting the Walsh bill requiring firms obtaining government contracts or loans to observe certain wage, hour, and child labor standards, but it isn't certain that sufficient “heat” will be applied to put the measure through the House, where it now rests. In general, however, it is worth remembering that attacks of industrialists on the New Deal have led to a closer affinity between the Administration and organized labor, on whose election support Roosevelt counts heavily. Hence few expect the Administration to be found conspicuously opposing measures for which labor has drummed up congressional support. Nature of farm legislation which might follow an adverse Supreme Court decision on the AAA would depend on whether the court invalidated both processing and benefit payments. If Congress had merely to find anew way to get revenue to meet the taxes, it probably would incline toward higher income and inheritance taxes, although so great is the aversion to new taxes in a campaign year that some effort would be made this year to get the money from relief funds already appropriated. tt tt tt BEFORE there would be any new AAA tax, the Administration would explore the possibilities of an excise tax on processors and manufacturers of farm products. Other farm legislation is likely of passage, such as the Bankhead bill for relief of tenant farmers. Substitute legislation for the present unpopular potato control bill seems certain. There is some doubt whether enough signatures can be obtained on a petition for the FrazierLemke farm mortgage refinancing bill to force this one to a vote. It is a $3,000,000,000 inflationary measure designed to refinance $9,000,000,000 in farm mortgages at low interest rates through issuance of new currency. If passed

UK : :

Lindberghs Driven Into Exile by Bruno's 'Lobby' BY FORREST DAVIS Scripps-Howard Staff Writer NEW YORK, Jan. 4 One night in that black March, 1932, when each moment brought a promise the hour's end disappointed, a telephone caller at the Charles A. Lindbergh mansion on Sourland Mountain demanded to speak with the colonel. The caller professed to have information about the whereabouts of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. Lindbergh hopefully lifted the receiver. "Do you want to know where your baby is?” the voice asked. “Yes, of course,” replied the father. “The kidnapers have got him—ha, ha. ha!” came the exultantly idiotic answer. i

Clapper

The call promptly was traced and the caller committed for observation. A barrage of evil lunacy, typified by the ghoulish telephone call, intermittently followed the Lindberghs from the time of the kidnaping until they dramatically departed for a Christmas at sea and a home abroad. Lunacy and worse—genuine threats of violence. B B B TJ ECENTLY, the barrage has been intensified. Letters and telegrams flooded the Lindberghs after Bruno Richard Hauptmann lost his appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Many letters menacingly demanded that Lindbergh save the life of the man convicted of murdering his child, accompanied by threats of punishment if the demand went unheeded. The newest, perhaps the most harrowing barrage of all, this pne seemed to have been organized. Following the methods of mass lobbyists, an agency seemed to have been at work soliciting Hauptmann sympathizers to address the Lindberghs in the same general terms. Col. Lindbergh, objective, wholly lacking in personal vindictiveness toward a man he thoroughly believes to be guilty, resented the .mass pressure.

'* 0 v. u *. a . ' • v.* • O v* O * *> _ O . ~ - o C#v. o A a ’ * * * „ o *0 O' o . o • ’ • * „ ' m * * Ft?- *o - . u - - Wf, o*c <- * " / I ' - D* Mb . • or—A* rtfMi ft _______ .

mi T 1 • 1 • m* The Indianapolis Times

Full Leased Wire Service of the United I’ress Association

PROBLEMS OF THE NEW CONGRESS B tt a 808 BUB a B B BBS Big Business Fend Due for Airing; Farm Bills Wait on Court

BENNY

by both houses, it is expected to be vetoed. Democratic leaders are quietly laying plans to balk completion of the petition, using ‘‘pressure’’ on members. * The Bankhead cotton control bill probably will be killed by the Supreme Court, but thus far nothing has been proposed to replace it except the AAA voluntary cotton adjustment program. B B B THE A. F. of L.’s 30-hour week bill is* not likely to pass and it's impossible to predict that any major piece of labor legislation will go through. The most far-reaching industrial bill which will receive serious consideration —although extremely unlikely to pass—is that of Senator O’Mahoney of Wyoming for a Federal incorporation iaw licensing and regulating corporations engaged in business “among the states.” Drafted with aid of A. F. of L. lawyers, this measure would enlarge the Federal Trade Commission, with employers, employes and the public represented, to administer the act and issue licenses. The government would lay down licensing terms and as the bill stands those terms would include collective bargaining, no child labor, equal pay for women and men, wage regulations and honest trade practices. The idea of the bill is to "spread purchasing power’’ and meet the problem of technological unemployment. A ship subsidy bill and commodity exchanges regulations are fairly sure to be passed. The revised food and drugs bill has a good chance. There will be a demand, at least, for a big Federal housing program. B B B OCEAN mail contracts terminate in March. Ship operators have received $171,000,000 in subsidies in the last seven or eight years and their eagerness for more comes up against widespread belief that there has been much abuse. Roosevelt advocates an “adequate merchant marine,” abolition of disguised subsidies, and outright grants based on difference between American and for-

AS the date for Hauptmann's electrocution drew nearer, Col. Lindbergh suspected that the useless demands for his interference would increase in forcefulness. In this suspicion, I am informed, may be found one of the most potent reasons for his flight abroad. All conspicuous persons are the targets for scurrilous mail. Psychiatrists attribute it to a compensatory desire on the part of defectives to associate themselves with and impress their personalities upon the successful. But postoffice records show that the Lindbergh crank mail has stood incomparably first in odious volume. A glimpse at the Lindbergh mail during one of the crises of their career since Charles Jr., was lifted from his crib would be proof that bedlam had been equipped with pencil stubs, soiled papier and a will to hurt two remote and blameless persons. The Lindberghs could be shielded from such telephone annoyances as they were forced to endure during the hunt for the kidnaped child, but the mail continued. The consciousness that they still were subject to the concentrated malevolence of misshapen individuals all over the country remained. It helped to thwart Anne Morrow Lindbergh's desire for a serene and happy life in her own country.

INDIANAPOLIS, SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1936

“ rxmlOS' Werie 1 ' } _ VT 1 BACK ACAINI, j J RARIrsF TO GO? LOT / \ OF e>tGT SPEECHES TO / f DELIVER-RE-ELECTiOtf I campaign coming op I f— new laws to pass \ \ \ SOMETHING DOING L J-ZHL l J

iegn costs of construction and operation. The Bland-Copeland bill proved so unpopular last year that Senator Copeland withdrew it after it barely passed the House. It would create a Maritime Authority with power to subsidize high, wide, and handsome. Roosevelt never indorsed it. Secretary Ropier did, however. Oppposed to that is the bill of Rep. Moran of Maine, creating a United States Merchant Marine Corp. with $500,000,000 to buy and operate ships and charter ships to private companies under strict supervision and accounting. tt B B HOUSING subsidies, stressing the providing of housing and its social values rather than unemployment relief, will become an increasingly live issue. Senator Wagner will propose on $800,000,000 revolving fund, the merging of 37 or more Federal agencies as they relate to housing, low interest rates, razing and replacement of slums and an effort

Washington Merry-Go-Round BY DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4. Bonus leaders have vetoed a secret compromise proposal to exclude from the bonus bill the provision canceling interest charges on loans. This would put the interest charge on each veteran borrowing on his certificate. Veterans’ leaders informed congressional spokesmen that they are standing pat on the demand for payment of the full face value of the certificates. . . . Government Printing Office employes have free movies once a week during lunch hour, with dance music or a band concert one other day each week. . . . Contrary to general belief, the Jackson Day celebration staged each year on Jan. 8 by the Democratic Party is not in memory of the fiery warriorPresident’s birth. It is in honor of his victory over the British at New Orleans. Jackson incidentally was born after the death of his father. Another President with a similar singularity was Rutherford B. Hayes. . . . Texas’s bull-voiced Rep. Tom Blanton, who prides himself on being the “watchdog of the Treasury,” is not the first to claim such honor. Old congressional records disclose that as far back as 1850 a Rep. George Houston of Alabama made political capital by loudly professing similar claims. . . . While a President can not be arrested while in office, both Presidents Pierce and Grant were momentarily placed under arrest while White House incumbents; the former when he accidentally ran down a woman while riding horseback and the latter for racing his driving horses. . . . The daily stream of publicity handouts issued by the American Liberty League is almost as voluminous as that of the government departments it criticises. B B tt Home Loan Extension A BILL is being drafted secretly on Capitol Hill to give a six months’ period of grace to home

to build apartments which would cost $4 a room a month. Big business and the New Dealers will also be intensely interested in various investigations. The Senate Munitions Committee is about to quiz J. P. Morgan and other financiers as to their wartime activities and will be digging into munitions interests later. Senator Black’s Lobby Committee will go after the “power trust” companies again and may have the American Liberty League and other anti-New Deal groups on the stand. The Senate Interstate Commerce Committee’s inquiry into railroad financing is expected to provide sensations and the Federal Trade Commission probably will report on its investigation of the food industries. tt tt tt FIGHTS over civil liberties issues are certain as to the Kramer sedition and TydingsMcCormack military disaffection bills, which liberals insist violate

owners who are delinquent in their payments on government loans. The Home Owners Loan Corp. recently reported that approximately 20 per cent of the total payments due it are 90 or more days overdue. . . . Republican strategy in attacking the President’s reciprocal trade agreement with Canada will take the form of a move to require Senate ratification of such transactions. . . . Among the Democratic congressmen there is considerable private grousing over the assessment of SSO for a ticket to next week’s Jackson Day dinner. The boys are complaining that they can’t afford the price. Also that if word gets back to their constituents that they attended a SSO-a-plate dinner it will do their re-election chances no good. . . . A hot confirmation fight is in prospect against the recent appointment by the President of Lamar Hardy as United States Attorney for the Southern New York District. Hardy, a henchman of Edward J. Flynn, Bronx political boss, is being opposed by the Manhattan Tammany leaders, who view his elevation to the powerful position as a direct slap at them. a tt a Senator Gore 'T'HF. news of Senator Schail’s injury almost caused an injury to the Senate’s other blind member, Gore of Oklahoma. When the radio announcement reached Gore’s ears, he was lying on his back in a barber chair, under the knife. He started to jump up, but was restrained. . . . Friends of Senator Nye are telling him thar, although his neutrality efforts are making him a national figure, he will have to swing ’round to farm problems to win votes from North Dakota farmers. The Supreme Court's deputy marshal. Thomas Waggaman, says, “I’ve been crying for 21

principles of free speech and free press. The Costigan-Wagner antilynching bill, which Southern Senators filibustered back onto the shelf last session, will be up again. Eut this year its supporters will adopt the old technique of seeking an investigation. They propose hearings on lynchings of the last few months. Other possibilities in this Congress include a demand by Democrats fur a strong corrupt practices zet—in anticipation of heavy Republican campaign expenditures; a Senate demand for power / Bf ratification over the State Department’s reciprocal trade agreements in which lobbyists for special interests will heartily join, because the present system has proved relatively lobby-proof —and a fight over the Panama treaty, on the claim that it does not leave this country :n a position adequately to defend the canal. THE END

years.” As court crier, he is the man who calls out, “Oyez, Oyez,” etc., when the justices are about to sit. Despite the 21 years, he keeps before his eyes a copy of his salutation, lest he forget his piece. He says, “Friends tell me I’ll go haywire one of these days.” it tt a Consumers T ACKING the authority to compel bakers to submit their production costs, the AAA Consumers Counsel has sent questionnaires to bread makers in 22 cities, asking them to give such information voluntarily. So far only a few replies have been received. .. . More than a half million workers have been taught to read and write by CWA and PWA adult classes ... In order to prevent Asiatic insects from being brought into the United States by the trans-Pacific mail planes, the ships and their cargo—when they arrive on the West Coast—are subject to a microscopic inspection by Department of Agriculture inspectors. tt tt a Crowded Out THE Bituminous Coal Commission may be the first of the New Deal agencies to establish main headquarters outside the Capital. Four months of fruitless search to find adequate office space in Washington has about decided the commission to look elsewhere. In the event the commission does move, the choice lies between three cities: Pittsburgh, Charleston, W. Va„ and Cincinnati. . . . Washington’s large squirrel pmulation is feeding on raw peant s this winter. Reason is that .he National Capital Parks Service found that if the nuts were roasted the squirrels had to compete with humans for their meals. (Copyright. 1936. bv United Featur# Syndicate. Inc.i.

By J. Carver Pusey

Second Section

Fair Enough nitooMLi TJARIS. Jan. 4. —Our American Royalists who love the dear old Mother Country and always spcalc of roast beef as a joint are going to find some difficulty explaining the conduct of the exemplary British press in the Lindbergh matter. English papers hopped to the Lindbergh story with great enthusiasm, dispatching reporters to cover e\ery port at which it would be possible fop Lindbergh to land, and. while denouncing the American press for photographing little Jon against his parents’ wishes, nevertheless

made prominent use of that picture. The Sunday Dispatch of London devoted half the back page to a photograph obtained bymeans which are deplored with no little vigor. The Sunday Express printed it three columns wide on Page 1, and other papers used it in varying widths accompanied by expressions of disgust for the methods which made it available to them. Lest there be misunderstanding. let it be explained that English newspapers are not public

institutions, but private companies conducted for profit by practical idealists. Their purpose in printing the picture is to sell papers, and the object of a practical idealist in selling papers is to draw advertising and increase his advertising rates. A considerable portion of the advertising in the dear old Mother Country would be respected by most of the barbarian American press as contrary to decency, public health and public morality. tt tt tt They're Very Practical MANY practical idealists profit enormously from advertisements supported by anonymous and obviously faked testimonials for a phoney and injurious obesity cure which was exposed and outlawed in the United States several years ago. In handling the Lindbergh story, none of the. papers of the Mother Land has yet thought to point out certain risks in the Old World which offhand would seem to be even more dangerous to the Lindberghs than occasional snapshots from the camera. I am thinking of the risk of another European war in which the Mother Country would find herself, according to her own excellent press, unable to defend her babies from the explosive incendiary and asphyxiating bombs. Possibly I take too literally the warnings of English newspapers, but. after all, they are held up to us as models of honesty, and who am I to make allowances? Recently the gas mask has become a standard item of household equipment, as commonplace a.i the hot water bottle, in stores, everywhere in Europe, and it is natural to suppose that the gas masks are intended for use in air raids. B B B Another Interesting Angle ANOTHER interesting novelty of European life to an American who is conscious of America s imperfections and eager to improve by observation, is the cave in which women and children such as Mrs. Lindbergh and her baby are to be sheltered from high explosives dropping on their homes in the event that Anthony (Tomboy) Eden should insist upon a personal war with Italy for the protection of Britain's African colonies and her sea route to India. The death rate from crime in the United States is deplorably high, lo be sure, but at its worst is only 11.000 a year among 120.000.000 people scattered over a large country much of which was frontier no more than 30 or 40 years ago. It is impossible to compare this with the death rate among English women and children in air raids of the great war because they did not acknowledge their casualties. However, they had 90 dead in one building in the heart of London one night, and the English press is constantly predicting that bombardments in the next war will be much worse. It is a great paradox of English journalism. On the one hand the press of the Mother Country joins American Royalists in welcoming the Lindberghs to England, where their privacy will be respected. But on the other hand the same press employs every trick of craft to whoop up the arrival of the fugitives and turn out vast crowds to pursue them through the streets while English photographers hang from lampposts trying to get pictures of Baby Jon. Gen. Johnson Says— Okla., Jan. 4.—They say the Old rs. Guard won’t let Bill Borah be nominated because J a y oft - mon ey man - Here’s what he said the “I never advocated anything except expansion of the currency on a sound gold reserve,” adding that we could issue $2,000,000,000 of currency and “still have sl.lO in gold behind each dollar." The Senator is right. That of itself would not b inflation. That, standing alone, would not be dangerous. It is what the public might do in fear of a continuation of could be both inflation and dangerous. If the Senator mpans literally what he says about a sound gold reserve, and especially if his whole fiscal program is convincingly based on real progress toward a balanced budget, he would be the soundest money man we have listened to in a long time. a tt a SENATOR BORAH Ls a real liberal with his feet on the ground. If he can hog-tie the Old Guard and then run on the discarded 1932 Democratic platform with an improved Farm Relief program. present Washington office-holders had beuer get a cancellation clause inserted in their apart-ment-house leases. Against what now threatens to he the Socialistio program, he would carry all the conservative rightwingers. most of the liberal middle-of-the roaders and give his opponent a hot fight among the Tugwellians of the extreme left. There is nobody among the elephant-trainers with half as good a chance. But the Old Guard dies. It never surrenders. It just commits suicide. At least it did at Waterloo, where that defiance is supposed to have been uttered and wasn’t. It did in 1932 and 1934. It will do lt again if it lets Ed Hutton. Lamont and DuPont nominate another hardshell. That’s the best way to more and wilder Hoptugs and Hotdogs. • Copyright. 1936. by United Feature Syndicate Ine i. Times Books KATHERINE MAYO does not seem to like peopl* of India any better than she did when she wrote “Mother India.’’ At any rate, she is out with anew book—“ The Face of Mother India”—in which she offers visual proof of her charge thar Hindus are an unclean, incompetent and eternally contentious people. This book is composed very largely of photographs. which are well worth looking at. whether or not you share Miss Mayo’s views about India. They show India in all its aspects; the magnificent mountains of the northern frontier, hawknosed hill people, modem colleges and other institutions established by the British, workers, farmers, students, priests, temples and shrines and stock exchanges—a remarkable collection of views showing all aspects of Indian life. Agree with,her or not. you will find that her book makes a deep impression Harpers u publishlng it at $3.50. (By Bruoe Catton.)

Fnfwd :• Secornl-riitss Matter at Pnstoffire. Indianapolis, Jnl.

Westbrook Pcgler