Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 34, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 April 1936 — Page 9

Washington ROMMCIO April 20.—The fuss over big AAA benefit payments has served to bring out angles of the farm program which, although they won’t be made into campaign issues, seem to reflect more seriously on the record than the mere fact that big payments were made to big producers in accordance with law. Displacement of sharecroppers and tenant farm-

ers, notably in the South, is ground for one of the chief complaints. The news that Thomas D. Campbell had received about $50,000 for not raising wheat was not considered as significant as that Campbell as a “sharecrc >- per” could pocket 85 per cent of the benefit payments while Indian owners of land which he rented pocketed 15 per cent at a time when cotton sharecroppers theoretically were averaging about 15 per cent of benefit payments and cotton land owners about 85 per cent.

Rodney Dutcher

The R. E. Lee Wilson plantation in Arkansas received the largest cotton payments—sl99,7oo in 1933 and 1934. Interest in that sum is accentuated by charges of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union that the firm changed from a sharecropping system in order not to have to share benefits, threw hundreds on reliel, and rehired workers at 75 cents for a 12 to 14-hour day. * u a Paying Twice '■pHIS practice has been widespread, it is said, necessitating large relief and resettlement expenditures in addition to AAA benefit money. Many croppers and tenants are alleged to have been phenagled out of all share in benefits and the AAA here has been powerless to correct that, because its local representatives usually are plantation owners. Under the new AAA soil program, owners are supposed to give sharecroppers about 25 per cent of Federal payments and no one here is prepared to say how many evictions or evasions may be expected. There has been constant conflict within AAA ranks as to what should be done to protect croppers and tenants, the plantation owners’ side being upheld by Cully Cobb, chief of the AAA cotton section. Croppers actually have been receiving 11 to 12 per cent of benefit payments, officials say. Meanwhile, the threat of the Rust brothers’ cotton picker hangs heavy over the whole situation. 000 Enter Oscar G. Johnston A LSO into the picture comes Mr. Oscar G. John--t Aston, manager of the Federal cotton pool and manager of the British-controlled Delta and Pine Land Cos., which received the third largest cotton payment. Johnston has in time past been virtual boss of the cotton program. It was he who jammed through the government's cotton loan policy and especially the 12-cent loan rate over the original objection of Secretary Wallace and many others. The loan policy loaded the government with 5,000,000 bales of cotton and, according to experts, caused a large decrease in cotton consumption—especially in foreign markets, since cotton owners who could get 12 cents a pound from the government naturally didn’t care to export at lower prices. A Brookings Institution report on AAA cotton control asserts that by the fall of 1935 the AAA was financing the holding of nearly twice as much cotton as the much-abused old Federal Farm Board, in spite of marked reductions in the amount of cotton produced. (Copyright, 1936, NEA Service, Inc.)

Howe Legend Has Been Exaggerated BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, April 20.—Without in any way minimizing the deep sense of loss which President Roosevelt must feel over the death of Louis McHenry Howe, the legend of Howe as the genius behind Roosevelt carries, as do most legends, some exaggeration. Howe, hard-boiled, grunting, was a great “No Man’’ for his effervescent chief whom he served so long and faithfully. He provided the cynical brakes of cautious age. Beside him, Roosevelt, actually 11 years younger, appeared the impulsive adolescent, spurred by high purpose, riding forth in eager search for chivalrous deed, be the evil-appearing object ahead giant or windmill. Howe was the short, earthly, shrewd little Sancho Panza, plodding beside his gallant knight errant. Roosevelt’s impulse is to say “Yes.” Howe's always was to say “No.” 000 Analyze strong institutions and men and you often will find the secret lines in a driving, adventurous personality, with an obscure owlish, restraining gnome perched on the shoulder, close to the ear of the great man. Os course some men have this cautious stabilizer inherent in themselves, and in such cases you have an automatic balance. More often this trait must be supplied by a second person. Leadership consists in positive, not negative, qualities. With great strength goes tremendous vitality and momentum, and likewise often a similar magnification of weaknesses. A French philosopher said it was the prerogative of great men to have great defects. Or as someone else paraphrased it, greatness consists not in absence of defects, but in an abundance of strength. 000 SO it is with Roosevelt. The more you study him at close range, the more you are impressed—at least this observer is with his marked strength and his conspicuous weaknesses. How could he have rushed so blindly, against the advice of PWA engineers and many others, into the Quoddy tideharnessing scheme, without even taking the precaution of seeking the approval of Congress? Now you have his inglorious retreat from this impulsive action. Roosevelt's record is full of such instances. It has been said frequently that these fumbles have been more numerous since Howe became seriously ill some months ago. Yet one has only to look at NRA, w .r>d other parts of the earlier New Deal record, to see that there were plenty of mistakes then. But at that time the country was not so conscious of them. Under the sway of Roosevelt’s vast popularity in his first year, his very faults were viewed as virtues. What now is referred to as his happy-go-lucky air then was described as the spirit of optimism. What now are considered his hit-and-miss methods then were described as the inspired improvising of the quarterback, who did not know what the next play would be, but was sure of his goal. Actions of a President take on the particular color which the spotlight of public opinion happens to be ’ hrowing on them at the moment. Helpful as Howe was, Roosevelt made mistakes with him and will make them without him. 000 YET, so great is Roosevelt’s strength that in spite of them, they do not seem to break him down. Republicans are less hopeful about the election than they have been in months. Every poll, every primary election, the private surveys of politicians, agree upon the popularity which Roosevelt holds in spite of everything. Final proof is the demoralization of the Republicans. 0 0 0 Roosevelt will miss Howe. He has no one else to whose restraining hand he responds so readily as he did to Howe’s. But it is a loss of protection rather than a loss of power, for Roosevelt is less dependent upon others for his motive power than a more unimaginative type of man, such as Cleveland, lot instance, . s

TRAILING THROUGH THE STATES • * * nan ana ana ana Life Is Leisurely, Enjoyable in Modern Home on Wheels

The Timet present! herewith an article on the nomadic life of a “trailer family," written by a former member of The Timet’ staff. Other articles will follow later. BY GEORGE H. DENNY pAIRHOPE, Ala., April 20.—Pardon our sunburn, please. We’re on a sun stalk. We’ve just come back from Florida and the swimming suits are almost dry. We may go back to Florida. We may decide on the Texas coast near Mexico. That’s the joy of this trailer business. No need for a schedule or a plan. Park and eat and sleep when you’re hungry or tired. Comfortable beds, a complete galley, ice box, water tank and lights that oper-

ate from the car battery make us independent of hotels and tourist camps. The trailer urge crept upon us gradually. For years we had noticed! out of the corner of an eye, the steady increase in the numbers of unwieldy contraptions, mostly built from second-hand siding and a cast-off window sash, that swayed along behind ancient cars. They seemed to be inhabited by berry pickers and other forms of transient labor. Some had room for a goat and a crate of chickens, as well as the usual covey of kids. We saw them parked in the cherry orchards of northern Michigan. The kids seemed noisy and healthy and we did envy the head of the family his chance to fish the calendar round. 0 0 0 IN the last two years the trailer flock grew amazingly. The additions were shiny, stream-lined jobs; two-wheeled and two-toned. Many were hitched to gleaming new cars. Then one evening last July I finished a day of trout fishing at a bridge pool on a Michigan stream. As I was taking down my rod another angler appeared. We compared catches and he invited me to his camp for a cool drink. A few yards from the pool, hidden by pines, was his trailer. His wife was cooking supper on a neat little gasoline stove. He was a retired banker. Four years before they had so’d their home, bought the trailer and lived on wheels ever since. He took the drinks from a roomy ice box and I stayed to a meal of fresh trout. He told me of the places they had hunted and fi'hed and loafed. Summer in < anada and the Northern states, both East and West. Winter in Mexico, Florida and California. No taxes, rent, utility bills or coal smoke. Every week or two they dropped by some general delivery window for-mail and papers. Once they had to hurry home to be present at the birth or a grandchild. 000 HIS wife chimed in with contented comment from time to time as she washed the few dishes and handed them to us to dry. These people weren’t apologizing for their mode of living; they were proud of it. They had reduced life to the simplest and, to them, the most enjoyaole terms. When they felt the need for bright lights they registered at a hotel, took evening clothes from the moth-proof bag and saw a show. They were able to buy food from farmers and road stands at impressive savings. They named a monthly figure for living expenses, including gas and oil, so low as to be nearly unbelievable. After supper we sat outside under an awning, protected from mosquitos by net side drops, and watched a fire dissolve a circle of pine-scented darkness. The trout stream made little clucking noises as it tugged at the alder roots and slid between rocks in the riffle. Now and then a fish splashed at a low-flying moth. I came away with my head in the stratosphere. In the next few months we poked into every goodlooking trailer we saw. After the wife was satisfied on the question

rHIS CURIOUS WORLD + By William Ferguson "I- - TWILIGHT V r ~ ' N ~'. LASTS, AT AN V * ONE SPOT ON \ BELOW THE WL HORIZON... EVEN THOUGH TROUT '° LIVE IN SWIFTLY MOVINGr °° STREAMS BECAUSE OF THE e(^ GREAT AMOUNT OF OXYGEN ,1 DISSOLVED IN SUCH A yaA * jv* XtSasps and bees * “ LIVE UNDER A JZ&2& "FEMALE REPUBLIC" FORM OF GOVERNMENT

As early as the eleventh century, the duration of “astronomical” twilight was detei mined as ending when the sun was 18 degrees below the horizon, and observations since then have not made it necessary to change this figure. However, a shorter period, known as “civil” twilight, is employed to designate the period when a certain amount ol daylight still remains.

The Indianapolis Times

of stoves, lights, closet space and a mirror the rest was easy. 000 IT took a bit longer to decide to make the break but the seed was planted well and the result is parked near us now. Brandnew, custom-built, 20 feet long; room for us, two children and a nurse. Three single beds and a double bed with a bundling board to separate the kids, age 2 and 4. A stock of canned goods and dried rations that w'ould last us a week in an emergency. Drawers and closets contain everything from diapers to the Sunday best. There’s room for the fish pole and a shotgun. Our friends want to know where we are going next, As I said, we don’t know. First, find the sun. Next, lie around in it until the last vestage of coal soot is replaced with tan and the cold germs have fled. Then flip a coin. Heads to Florida, tails to Mexico, and if it stands on edge we’ll lash on the pontoons, hoist the mains’l and be off to the West Indies. Sooner or later fve want to explore Indian ruins in New Mexico. There are a lot of dandy spots in Arizona, as I recall. How about the ghost mining towns of Nevada? The big trees and the blue mountain lakes and che steelhead trout rivers of California sound interesting. 000 THE Canadian Rockies should have a place or two where we can escape the summer heat. They do say that Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks are worth seeing. There are sleepy little ranches on the Montana highlands where you can rent a horse for $1 a week. Who said there would be a good road to Alaska in a year or two? A camera and typewriter record our wanderings. We keep a daily log of expenses, miles traveled, fish caught, weather, political leanings of the natives, bumped heads and stubbed toes of the children and other important happenings. Farewell to. coal bills and keeping up with the Joneses. Somehow we feel it is a sound idea to find out why cotton pods open and see Indians fashion their silver and turquoise jewelry. I want to talk to a prospector just back from six months in the hills. My wife is curious about the origin of cowboy songs and folk ballads. It’s no use telling the children about western sunsets and the Grand Canyon and a deer coming down to the lake to drink before the morning fog lifts. They will have to see for themselves. I am laughing gently at the doctor who recently told me I must have a sinus operation at once. I am laughing loud and long at the coal dealer who asked me why I ordered only one ton last time instead of the usual five, AIRLINES OFFICE MOVED At rican Traffic Activities Changed to Airport. 7 'cal traffic activities of the Ar.erican Airlines in the future are to be directed from offices at the Municipal Airport. The Claypool ticket desk was closed yesterday. William H. Roose, traffic representative here for the last three years, is to join the Chicago sales force.

MONDAY, APRIL 20, }936

%W ■ 0

I ' . 1,.—.—, ■ _ ,

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

WASHINGTON, April 20. Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission are not saying much about it, but the. rapid rise of the stock market is worrying them considerably. Recently William O. Douglas, newest and most forthright SEC Commissioner, called in Frank Meehan, assistant director of the trading division. It is Meehan's job to detect pools or other violations of SEC rules on the Stock Exchange. However, Douglas Intimated in plain and pointed language that Meehan was not detecting them. The market is a way overpriced, Douglas told him, and all sorts of undercover pools are operating. “You’ve got to remember,” he concluded, “that when the next crash comes, the SEC is going to be on the spot. We are the commission set up to protect the public, to prevent runaway markets. “The Senate investigation of the Hoover crash will be mild compared with the next investigation. And you’ll be the star witness. They’ll say: ‘Just where were you, Mr. Meehan, when such-and-such stocks sky-rocketed? Was it not your job, Mr. Meehan, to be in charge of the trading division? Were you not supposed to prevent pool operations? Just what, if anything, did you do about it?’" Not long afterward, Meehan

Deportation Bill Action Delayed - BY RUTH FINNEY Times Special Writer WASHINGTON, April 20. The one-man filibuster of Senator Reynolds (D., N. C.), still is delaying Senate action on the Kerr-Coolidge deportation bill. The bill was being debated in the Senate when the Ritter impeachment trial began. At the close of the trial, however, it was laid aside and the Mississippi flood control bill taken up, since Senate leaders believed the filibuster would take up an undue amount of time. Senator Coolidge (D., Mass.), chairman of the Senate Immigrati6n Committee, and Senator King (D., Utah), its ranking member, are planning to seek consideration of the deportation bill as soon as flood control is out of the way. However, Senator Reynolds has served notice that he will try to bring up the tobacco compact control bill, instead. Meanwhile the fate of 2800 aliens, described by the Labor Department as of “good character,” who are facing deportation unless the bill becomes law, remains uncertain*

George Denny hooks up the trailer.

“Just like home,” says Mrs. Denny.

resigned. He now is occupying desk space in the office of George Breen, one of the manipulators of the famous Sinclair oil pool, which during the days of the Coolidge boom market netted the participants a clean $12,000,000 without their putting up a cent. 0 0 0 TAyf'RS. ROOSEVELT has a unique reason for having all her clothes made in New York. “It is not that the styles and shops of Washington are inferior,” .she says. “It is because I have more time when I’m in New York. Down here I never have a minute.” 000 THE Easter egg-rolling on the White House lawn has come to be a racket for youngsters under 10. A rule exists barring adults from the grounds unless accompanied by a child. This year scores of children did a thriving business as escorts for adults who wished to mill with the crowds but had no child. The average fee charged was 20 cents. One boy made $7. Another egg-rolling racket is the practice of parents intentionally losing their children in the crowd to gain publicity. When a child becomes lost it

GRIN AND BEAR IT + + by Lichly

' h A / ft M, X '‘ i ' I iih .

“I took one less than whatever you had on that hole”

is taken to the steps of the Executive Mansion and held up before the entire crowd by a White House aid, who announces the child’s name over the microphone. Then, breathlessly, the parent rushes to reclaim the strayed infant, and bows to the applause of 50,000 onlookers. 000 THE withdrawal from the Senate of crusading Edward P. Costigan of Colorado leaves a big hole in the New Deal political setup. The President considered Costigan one of his stanchest friends. He is hoping, however, that Oscar L. Chapman, Assistant Secretary of the Interior and Costigan’s political manager, will enter the Colorado senatorial primaries. As chief sponsor of the Grazing Act, Chapman has a big following in the Rocky Mountain states. In Washington, he was a regular guest at the Roosevelt Sunday night suppers at which Mrs. Roosevelt scrambles eggs. Only the intimate are invited. He was also one of the few bright young men of the New Deal who did not get branded a “brain truster.” (Copyright, 1936, by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)

Second Section

Entered at Second-Class Matter at Postoffice. Indianapolis. Ind.

fair Enough WHMPBItt 10RK, April 20.—Two young men were executed quietly in Sing Sing the other night for murdering a man who had picked them up on the road to give them a lift in his car. The double execution was a routine event and was given just enough space in the papers to tell the plain facts. The

victim of the murder was a man of no prominence, the crime showed no ingenuity and the two killers drove straight into the arms of the law in the dead man’s car a few hours later. They didn't have brains enough to realize that the alarm would be telegraphed to thousands of policemen within a radius of several hundred miles. It was a cheap murder and a cheap execution and 100 words was sufficient to tell the final chapter. The execution of Bruno Hauptmann, on the other hand, was an event of international importance

and the press of European countries gave it all there was. American public opinion, however, seems to have choked on the dreadful details of Hauptmann’s last hours and of the tragic experience of his wife and child. There are those who believe the press could have put a kindlier face on a revolting occurrence. 000 Readers Make the Rules BUT the emphasis, or over-emphasis, if you insist, was a response to the public interest which lays down the rules by which editors gauge their space and treatment of big stories. Let us suppose that on the night the Lindbergh child w T as kidnaped the New York papers and the press associations had decided to cover the story as a minor incident, sending no staff men to the Lindbergh home. Suppose, instead, that they relied on country correspondents and had printed the news on a back page in no more words than it takes to say that the child of a well-known flier disappeared from his crib in a house on a lonely mountain and that a ransom note was found. There is no further news of the case until a fussy old man delivers $50,000 in currency to a mysterious figure amid the shadows of a cemetery at night. That, too, is told in just enough space to contain the facts and the treatment is the same when the body of the child is found and the kidnaping becomes a murder. Next we have the arrest of a man with some of the money *n his pockets and the discovery of $15,000 more cached in the garage of his home. Now comes the trial and, eventually, after many delays and much gruesome nonsense on the part of public officials and notorious eccentrics with a love of personal publicity, the formal execution of the murderer. The entire story of the Lindbergh-Hauptmann case could be told in less than a column, but any editor who had undertaken to play it that way would have been fired from his job and adjudged insane. Not only his employers, but the readers themselves, who are the public, would have demanded thousands of columns of detail and description, and the fact that they did get all there was to be had down to Bruno Hauptmann’s last hour on earth merely is an indication of their interest. 000 IPs Not a Sweet Story NATURALLY, some papers handled the story with less tact than others, but those papers have their public, too, and if some people prefer their news raw and sensational why shouldn’t they have it that way? Both a dignified story of the Hauptmann execution and a howling, wild-eyed account convey the idea that a live human being was strapped in a wooden chair and lifted out dead five minutes later. Is there any language on earth which could make of that information the sweetest story ever told? There never is a story so big, however, but that a bigger one can sweep it out of sight. In 1913 Omaha was blown to splinters by a spring tornado and the details were just beginning to trickle in when the Ohio River went crazy, flooding the city of Dayton and washing the debris of the Omaha story out of print in 24 hours. If France had declared war on Germany the night of the Hauptmann execution, the story of the carpenter’s finish would have been shoved deep inside and might have been left on the stone. (Copyright. 1936)

Gen. Johnson Says—

TT7ASHINGTON, April 20.—Roosevelt’s as good as * * elected. The Old Guard can make more blunders than six New Deals. They had a shining target in the Brain Trust. Th t 3 L threw a t awa y by getting one themselves. They had the New Deal on the defensive— where it can t afford to be. But they let Mr. Hoover make a speech a month, reminding everybody that 12 years of “Republican rule” cooked us and three years of the New Deal has retrieved 50 per cent of that !nM ibl !. ruin ' That distantly gives the New Deal its l-o 2 offensive —and it’s just as good now as was then. Then they gang up on their only liberal candidate, Senator Borah, and come out with a Kansas Coolidge—a Big Business Man disguised as a synthetic Sockless Jerry. It is pure ballyhoo, including the aspirant’s speech saying exactly what such a decoy ought to say—no more, no less and nothing different. It’s too perfects—like a basket of wax fruit. (Copyright, 1936, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

Times Books

so the saying goes, Is staler than yes--L terday’s news. Maybe so, but few histories are as fresh as the accounts which contemporary newspaper men dashed off about famous episodes of United States history. A colection of such writings, from*, the Colonial period down to the assassination at Sarajevo, makes “America Goes to Press” (Bobbs-Merrill; $2 75) a fascinating volume. A copyreader on the Baltimore Sun, Laurence Green, began with America’s first newspaper Boston’s Public Occurences of 1690, and thumbed through musty files of more than two centuries to compile this provocative anthology of journalism and history. He found such page one stories as the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Yorktown, Lee's surrender, the Chicago fire, the Custer massacre, Jesse James, Lincoln’s assassination, the Titanic. • • ANTICIPATING a criticism that the contents of the book are bloody, Author Greene says, “Ours has been a bloody history, and blood often makes the best extras.” The "news of yesterday” is given as it was written. The book is full of good reporting and bad reporting. There are historical inaccuracies which in themselves show the authenticity of these written-on-the-spot stories. There are instances where the true import of an event was not realized at the time, as at Sarajevo. Some of the events covered are significant, some trivial. Important happenings are left out altogether, simply because they did not furnish exciting copy at time. “America Goes to Press” should be retd as % close-up view of how newspapers handled big, fastbreaking stories while history was in the making. (By L. H.)*

r

Westbrook Pegler