Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 264, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 January 1936 — Page 9

It Seems to Me ml BROUN WASHINGTON. D. C. Jan. 13,-They say that the voice of Mr. Justice Roberts dripped with honey as he said that the high court was always loath to set aside an act of Congress on the ground of unconstitutionally. But at this point his tone grew sharper as he uttered the words, "We naturally require a showing beyond the possibility of a doubt." And at this precise point I think that Stone. Cardoza and Brandeis might well have risen to their feet to inquire, “And do you think that our dissent

casts upon the majority opinion no shadow of a doubt?” Asa matter of fact, if even a single member of the Supreme • Court failed to detect any unconstitutionality, that might well constitute a reasonable doubt, for surely there should be no one on the high bench incapable of casting a shadow. But if the Constitution is to be conserved from the wild and reckless attacks made upon it by the sabotaging six it will probably be necessary to pass an amendment. Essentially this will be a matter

Hey wood Broun

of restoration and not of change. The people of America are rather tardy in realizing the fact that the structure of the basic document has been very radically altered by the ruling majority of the court. If there were only true sincerity behind the announced purposes of the Liberty League, its first activity would necessarily be an attempt to keep the Supreme Court from kicking the Constitution around. The warning of Mr. Justice Stone on I his particular point, in his dissenting opinion on the AAA decision, went unheeded by a little willful group which seems intent upon destroying the traditional balance of power by obliterating the legislative function of Congress. ana AAA Only Springboard /"\N Wednesday Rep. Marcantonio of New York dropp;d into the hopper at the House of Representative? a proposal for constitutional revision. Its purport can adequately be summed up in the opening sentenre, "The Congress shall have power to establish uniform laws throughout the United States to regulate agriculture and industry." Mr. Marcantonio is a Republican, although in some quarters he is considered slightly more radical than that label would imply. But there is nothing in his suggestion of a revolutionary nature. In fact, he is merely urging that a clause be put back into the Constitution which the present court has stricken out. It is well to remember that the decision read by Mr. Justice Roberts merely used triple A as a springboard to write the most sweeping pronouncement ever handed down from the high bench. Three times the original Constitutional Convention went on record against the right of the Supreme Court to invalidate the acts of the national legislature. John Marshall made a bold stroke when he overrode this expressed intention of the founders, and he chose a case in which the issue at stake was trivial. Otherwise there might have been an outcry. But even Mr. Chief Justice Marshall might well have been inclined to join with Stone, Cardozo and Brandeis in saying to a rampant majority, "Boys, aren’t you going just a bit too far? Remember that, after all. you are not the exclusive owners of this Constitution. In theory, at any rate, it dqes belong to the people, and their interpretation must be the final one.” non .lust Like Old Grads AS yet there has been no way to check the reckless six marauders from laying hands upon traditions considered sacred. They are behaving a little like old grads back at a class reunion, and their theme song seems to be, "Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here." And when they come to the rousing chorus of “What the hell do we care! What the hell do we care!” it is almost possible to see and hear Sutherland and Pierce Butler smacking their steins on the table and marking time with their feet. Nothing but a slight excess of school spirit can serve to explain the cavalier way in which Mr. Justice Roberts and his mob renoved the general welfare clause from the Constitution. Certainly there can be no legal or rational support for the contention that the welfare of agricultural workers is not a matter of general concern. In the earlier decision against the Railway Pensions Act Mr. Justice Roberts again wrote the opinion which said that labor was a local issue. It is inspiring, then, to find emerging from the Republican ranks a man like Representative Marcantonio who wants to get away from these newfangled notions of the Supreme Court majority and go back to the clearly indicated intentions of our forefathers. There ought to be united and enthusiastic support for his back-to-earth proposal that “the Congress shall have power to establish uniform laws throughout the United States to regulate agriculture and industry.” I Copyright, 1936)

A Liberal Viewpoint

BY. DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES - 1 THE question of the future of medical "practice in the United States will be vigorously debated in the years to come. Even the most respectable authorities freely admit the growing difficulties in continuing the practice of medicine as a competitive and profit-makng business. The trend is certainly toward some sort of collective practice, whether state health insurance, group medicine or thoroughly socialized practice under state control. In their interesting and timely book. "The Patient’s Dilemma:—A Public Trial of the Medical Profession” (Coward McCann. $2.50>. Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum and Mr. Paul Maerker Branden present one of the most effective indictments ever penned of medical practice as it is conducted today. They then outline a very reasonable and practicable plan for the socialization of medical practice. They express their fundamental convictions very well indeed in the following words: "What the American public—laymen as well as physicians—must learn is that medical service is not a business and rendering such services is not a commercial transaction: "That illness not only entails expense, but loss of wages and. all too often, the loss of one’s job; "That preventive medicine is not a luxury, but an economic necessity: “That sickness among indigents and semi-indi-gents represents a public menace: and “That doctors, and other professionals, can not render adequate services or practice their profession honorably if they are not assured of a fair livelihood. "To solve the multifarious medico-social problems confronting the United States today, it must be realized that, even more than education, medical service is a social function and. as such, it should be provided, controlled and directed by the state.”

Times Books

T. S. STRIBLING leaves Jils Tennessee mountains and his Southern reconstruction, in his new novel, and tries his hand at a satire on modern American politics. His novel is named “The Sound Wagon.” and it has everything in it, as they say. but the kitchen. Everything, that is—except a saving touch of realism that would have made at least one of his characters believable. <Doubleday. Doran; $2.50.) Mr. Stribling tells about an ambitious voungHawyer who runs for Congress, gets elected' and proceeds to learn the facts of political life. Mr. Stribling has packed this tale with a rich and pungent satire that seems wildly exaggerat'd until you remember some of the things that have actually been happening hi America lately. His only ♦ ouble is that the has written his book amateurish’/- Not one of his people or situations ever come to life. Considering the excellent work he has done in the past—work which won him a Pulitzer Prize—this defect is amazing. His book j eads like some hopeful soul’s very first novel. t ¥

Foil Leased Wire Service of Ihe United I’resj Association

LIGHT COMES TO INDIANA FARMS

Brighter Future Dawns as Boone County Pioneers Rural Power

BY ARCH STEINEL pitches its black curtains over Boone County farm homes. On State Road No. 32, just as on every wagonrutted trail in the agricultural section of Boone County, a buxom, jolly farm wife trims the wick of a ceal-cil lamp. "It’s smoking again,” she ex.claims angrily as she flicks a match to the kerosene-smelling receptable. The family settles to that quiet hour in farm homes when the dining room table becomes the reading room and debate ground of myriad questions from the colic of Aunt Susie's baby to the posthole and fence-fixing of their neighbor “down the road a piece.” "I see by the piece in the paper that they’ve got the first electric pole up in Lebanon for OUR electric light line,” vouches the family head with eyes raised over spectacles. a a a NODS of enthusiasm greet the speaker’s words. Mother runs the mental gamut of the household and what electric current will do for her. "Now there's the gasoline engine for the washer—that’ll be. replaced. The electric iron we got for Christmas from Mary-Ann can be used. There’s the electric pad for Grandma's rheumatism —and —” “ —And,” broke in the heavyjowled farmer,” there's lights for the barn, brooder, anew water system—and—.” But the "ands” go on piling up with the uses to which Boone County farmers will put the power to be provided them in the first rural electrification project of Indiana. A project that is to have its first 161 miles of electrically lighted farms by May 1. a a a SLIP a few miles up the road from Lebanon to State Road No. 47 and the farm of Sumner Leckrone and then into his cattle and lamb barn. Leckrone’s almost steel-cut smile sharpens his ruddy cheeks as he bends over a milk pail and tries by the smoky shimmer of the lantern that squats askew and dangerously on the straw floor of the barn to guide the spray from his cow into the pail. "Electricity on my farm will see all this go. This barn will be lighted. I won't have to give my lambs their bed-time feeding by moon, by lantern, and by guess. There'll be no more lanterns kicked over in the cow-barn,” he said in words as soft as the down on his chicks in a nearby outbuilding. Mr. Leckrone is a man who'd always be called by a respectful surname, and more so by his neighbor, for he’s a Republican farmer who took a foreclosed acreage during the depression, after renting through the good farm years, has nearly paid his first SIOOO mortgage to get title to his 117 acres and says he’ll finish the job within the next few years. —"And he was a radical Republican,” declare his women-folk in the farm home. a a a "nnHIS rural electrification JL means a lot to the farmer,” says Mr. Leckrone as the milk sings with a "swish” into the pail. "Now I’ve got it figured out that I can use it to grind my own fodder. That’ll save a lot. I can feed it and not waste it as in the past when I fed it raw. “And I'm raising lambs. I give them an extra feeding at night, about 9 o'clock. The electric lights will light the barn. The chickenhouse, on chilly nights, can be heated by electricity and the chicks kept warm throughout the day. "But that isn’t all. My wife and mother will not have to break their backs pumping water. We’ll have good light to read by. The radio can be turned from a battery set to an electrically operated one.” he said as he shifted the lantern from the target of a champing Holstein hoof. "This farm of mine was bought at $73 an acre. I figure that by putting in electricity and being on a state road that the price of the acreage will jump at least to almost $100,” he declared. a a a HE did not give credit to his own improvement of the onetime foreclosed farm upon which another farmer caught in che depression coils was forced to relinquish to an insurance company. The fact that the window-lights of his farm home were Qroken, that the fences were dilapidated, and he repaired them were not credited by Mr. Leckrone for the increased price of the acreage. His establishment of a sugar camp on the farm and diversification of his hvestock with lambfeeding did ' not figure in his mental, picture of an increased value of his acreage. He sang only the paean of a na-

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The Indianapolis Times

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’lie it in crepe! Winds sing its obituary! For in Boone County, as it will in other counties of Indiana, the wind-mill (upper left) —badge of agriculture—may pass with the electrification of Hoosier farms. Lines on the first rural electrification project, 587 miles of wiring, are being strung in Boone County. "When electricity comes! I won’t be ironing and wetting my finger every few minutes to be sure the old hand-iron is hot,” says Miss Ruth Lines (upper right), R. R. 3, Lebanon, as she is photographed in one of the first farm homes on vState Road 32 to receive the benefit by a $567,000 Federal loan for electrifying the county’s farms. Mrs. Eldora Lines (lower right), reading the family Bible by the meager glow of a typical farm home’s lighting system—the lamp that is carried from bed to breakfast and back again.

tional Administration that was bringing the city’s advantages to the farm. "They have done a lot for the farmer. No one can say that they helped the farmer more than he's ever been helped in past years,” said the smiling agrarian as the milking finished. a a a IN Mr. Leckrone's home his wife and mother discussed the household needs with the coming of electricity. "There’ll be anew bath-room in that pantry,” chorused the two women as they pointed out a cub-by-hole with spice-laden cans. "But the stove won’t go. No we’ll keep. that for there's nothing like biscuits, cakes, and pies baked in a wood or coal stove,” the two women said expertly as they refused to concede that city apartment house dwellers and their •electric ranges have an advantage over antiquated methods of cookery. "It's the windmill’s last fling in the country,” broke in Mr. Leckrone. “Yes. Dad, but don’t forget one other thing—what the boys want. That's Charles, our oldest who is 18: and Bob, 14—you know?” interrupted his wife. "What's that?" asked the farmer expecting whimsy and getting one in the answer. “Why! the electric milking machine,” laughed Mrs. Leckrone. a a a JUST a few miles away, on State Road 32. which will be the first to be electrified in Boone County, the folk in the home of Arthur and William Lines, brothers, are gathered around the lamp-lighted council table in the dining room. Figuratively the lamp has been placed in the attic. The washer throbs quietly with an electric motor. "Why it- was so noisy with a gasoline engine,” says Mrs. Eldora Lines, wife of William Lines, "that I could hardly make myself think. That's why I'd always wash by myself and not let any one stand around and talk to me.” "You can use that electric iron you brought in from Bridgeport,” added the pretty daughter, Ruth.

INDIANAPOLIS, MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 1936

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"Well, if it don’t come soon I'll be all played out by the time we get electricity,” interjected her mother. "It’ll mean anew sewing machine,” continued the daughter, “or an electric motor for the one you .got.” a a a w'e had an electric one X until we moved out on the farm a year ago and traded it for

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

'VX7 r ASHINGTON, Jan. 13. —'The ’ ’ week since the momentous AAA decision has been one of sphinx-like silence for the New Dealers. But they have not been idle. Behind the scenes they have been busy charting a campaign against the Supreme Court. There is one opinion on which the New Dealers are completely unanimous, from the President down—namely, that if they do not defeat the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will defeat them. The resultant strategy they have evolved, so far, takes the following lines: 1. Sit tight until the court has aroused public opinion by throwing out more New Deal projects. 2. Later, move either to grant police powers to and increase the general welfare powers of Congress by amending the Constitution; or, on the other hand, to abridge the power of the Supreme Court. So far the latter looks easier. 3. Meanwhile, stage an educa-

the foot-pedaling kind,” explained Mrs. Lines. • "The stove? No, that’ll stay. You can’t beat flapjacks, biscuits and cakes from a wood or coalburner. But say, you don't happen to be one of those electric salesmen, do you? If you are. we don’t want anything. We won’t believe it’s here until we see a

tional campaign on the battles between Congress and the court during the entire history of the United States. Considerable work already has been done on No. 3. Asa result, the public may hear something about the proposal of James Madison to enable over-ruling a veto of the court by a three-fourths vote of Congress. a an Lincoln's Arguments A LSO the public may hear much of the Dred Scott Decision, may enjoy the unique spectacle of a Democratic .President hurling into the teeth of the Republican PaVty the words of that party’s most famous President—Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, commenting on the decision, said the Supreme Court had got the doctrine of popular sovereignty down "as t v in as homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.” Other powerful arguments made

line coming right into the house. No, sir!” —And so throughout Boone County, morning, noon, but mostly nightfall, lamps of hope are burned in words and mental calculations on farms that await, like the Leckrones and the Lines, for the rejuvenation of the farm and placing it on a parity with city dwellers.

by Lincoln in opposition to the Supreme Court have not escaped the boys who have been researching for the President, especially where Lincoln said, “It it not resistance. it is not factious, it Is not even disrespectful to treat it (the decision) as not having yet established a settled doctrine for the country.” There is just one flaw in bringing up the Dred Scott case. This is the fact that Chief Justice Taney, who handed down the decision w r hich helped precipitate the Civil War, was appointed by the Democratic President whom Roosevelt paid SSO to honor at the Jackson Day Dinner last week. Roger Brooke Taney was a Maryland lawyer and slave-holder who first won fame by defending John Gooding, notorious Baltimore slave-snatcher, caught smuggling 290 Africans up the Chesapeake. Later President Jackson made Taney Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. (Copyright. 1936. bv United Feature Syndicate, Inc.).

By J. Carver Pusey

Second Section

Knfon’d ni S<vnnd-Ci Matter ■ t Pnstoffice. Indianapolis. InL

Fair Enough mook ftffi PARIS, Jan. 13.—Ten days ago in Paris there was talk of a revolution of some kind, possibly with shooting in the streets and a general rough house between the Communists and the Croix de Feu. Some Americans and other foreigners were quite nervous for a few days—not from personal apprehension. but merely from anticipation. The French were making grabs at the wheel

and shouting directions at Mr. Laval and ill-tempered remarks at one another and, anyway, the French are used to it. The old man has skidded and turned over and smashed up time and again, and the passengers have suffered heavy casualties, but the survivors always crawl out, comb the broken axles and loose gears out of their hair, screw on some new hub caps, and start off again as airy and reckless as ever. This crisis, or "creeze." as they call their critical moments, oc-

curred about Christmas time and continued through the joyous Noel. All along the Boulevard Des Italiens. day and night, the wide sidewalks were jammed with citizens. u tt a Christmas in Rome THE “creeze” in France was an interesting contrast to the "creeze” in Rome. Mussolini had forbidden the Christmas tree this year because the trees customarily are imported from sanctionist countries. The Pope had backed up II Duce with the supporting reminder that the Christmas tree was a pagan symbol, anyway, with no basis in Christianity. Tire stores and shops of Rome were not exactly short of merchandise, but with the exception of domestic leather goods there were few luxuries, unless you mean to be ironical and classify military trappings as luxuries. Toys were almost entirely warlike, including soldier dolls. The Italians were very grim and somewhat depressed, although it would be bad reporting to deny that they were for Mussolini. They are out on the limb with him now, and if he falls they all get hurt. The French, on the other hand, though grim as always, were not visibly depressed and didn't need to be for anybody but against the world and one another. Only a short time before there had been a hilarious love scene in the chamber when the Communists and the French Klux agreed to disarm But within 24 hours they were at one another's throats again. a a a Gets Signals Crossed IF in the United States the President should ever find it necessary to plead with two armed and sullen elements of the population to be nice now and give up their guns, there would be much alarm. Certainly no other people on earth have ever been the objects of so much tender solicitude by outsiders. There were two of those "creezes.” The first one happened when Col. Jean Fabry, secretary of war, grabbed up the football and started running to the wrong goal, being tackled in the nick of time by his captain. Some politician had offered an amendment to the recruiting bill which would reduce by half the length of military service required of any youth in the next four classes who happened to be the oldest in a family of five or more kids. What Fabry did then was either a historic bonehead play or an audacious double-cross against his own team. He demanded a vote of confidence, and the cabinet was about to go down with a crash when someone got Laval on the phone and he tore over to the chamber to bawl hell out of Fabry.

TVA Case Is Great High Court Drama BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON. Jan. 13.—For Supreme Court drama, you have to go back to the historic steamboat case in John Marshall's day to find anything comparable to that involved in the TVA case which brings this historic old court up squarely against the mightiest creation of the machine age. The question is whether the TVA act, which authorizes the government to construct a series of

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Clapper

provement of navigation. The Federal government’s control of navigation is an implied power, derived by the courts through the power to regulate commerce among the states. That interpretation came from John Marshall in the famous steamboat monopoly case, Gibbons vs. Ogden. Robert Fulton, after inventing the steamboat, obtained a monopoly from New' York state for the exclusive right to run steamboats in the waters of New York. A state law authorized the seizure of any non-monopoly steamboats found in the w-aters of New York state. Retaliatory statutes were passed in New Jersey, Connecticut and Ohio forbidding steamboats operated under the New York monopoly from plying the waters of those states. Several other states set up exclusive steamboat monopolies. The newest vehicle of commerce w'as being chained down, strangling the economic development of the country. Tke infant union was being broken up again into the helpless chaos of the old federation. n n n THERE was not a word in the Constitution about navigation. Steamboats had not been invented when the Constitution was drafted. But Justice Marshall rose to the occasion and declared that the right of Congress to regulate commerce among the states also implied its right to regulate navigation. His decision, inspired not by a narrow literal construction of the Constitution, but by an attempt to adapt a flexible charter to an expanding civilization. put the Federal government in control of the trade arteries which were vital to its development. nun NOW. more than 100 years later, another invention places a similar strain upon the Constitution. Electric power is anew thing—it is younger than the youngest judge now on the Supreme Court. Commercial electric lighting was introduced in 1878. The electric utility industry had its birth in 1882 when Thomas Edison established the first central station in New York City. Chief Justice Hughes was then practicing law in New York. Justice Brandeis was 32 years old. This changed completely the aspect of civilization. leading to the internal combuston engine. tha telephone, the radio and countless other applications. ana IT happens that in these streams over which the Supreme Court a hundred years ago established Federal authority are sources of tremendous quantities of this electric power. If the streams belong to the nation, electric power latent in thenvwould seem to belong to the nation also. The TVA Act was in part designed to provide an agency which would develop this power and sell it. Yet you find the solicitor general of the United States going before the Supreme Court and saying that unless this is a scheme to improve navigation, the Federal government can’t do it.

Westbrook Peglcr

dams and power projects in the Tennessee River Valley covering a whole group of states, is Constitutional. In arguing the case before the Supreme Court. Stanley Reed. United States Solicitor General, said frankly that if this enterprise is not primarily a navigation project, it is unconstitutional. His theory was that the Constitution gave the Federal government jurisdiction over navigation, but that it could not go into the power business, except as an incident to the im-