Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 March 1937 — Page 9

Liberal View

EW YORK, March 15.—In my opinion Nero had nothing on Senator Borah and other debaters on Capitol Hill who are preparing to delay the passage of President Roosevelt's very moderate and much-needed proposal for court reform.

Any prolonged debate over this obviously necessary and very restrained measure will hold up all matters |

of serious legislative and administrative progress at a time when there is really a desperate need for rapid action,

The fact that business has re- | ported a temporary up-turn and |

dividends have been increased will not delude any informed observer into thinking that our economic crisis has passed. The measures of the New Deal thus far, especially since they have been sabotaged by the Supreme Court, are at best only a stop-gap. The patient has not been cured. He has only been given heroic hypodermics in the form of unprecedented public spending. The basic disorders which flattened him out between 1929 and 1933 have not been dealt with. Even so authoritative and so friendly an appraisal of the New Deal as recently written by the editors of the London Economist concluded that: have still hardly been touched.” Unless we are able to deal in a fundamental manner with these “great problems” we are bound to find our way back to the conditions of 1933 or go on spending until the nation becomes bankrupt. Then, all that will remain will be thorough-going inflation, as a sort of economic sacrament of extreme unction. After that will come the deluge. It is obvious that there can be no fundamental

Dr. Barnes

changes in our economic and social system so long as done |

the Court blocks remedial it has

since the beginning of 1935.

action as

”n

Amendment Better

» ”

T is perfectly true that it would be better if we |

could get an amendment which would make it

impossible for any Supreme Court, however small or |

reactionary, to set aside Federal statutes. It would

even be better if we could get an amendment giving |

Congress the veto power over such voiding of Federal legislation. But if we are going to talk along this line we would have to follow such logic to the bitter end and hold that it would be far better still to call a constitutional convention and write a new constitution which conforms to up-to-date knowledge and contemporary conditions.

It ought to be apparent to any reasonable person

that these “better ways” would so delay the outcome as to make it impossible to save the American system by any constitutional method.

Fascism Alternative

» »

ET those who are now so tender over the Court |

and its prerogatives ponder the alternative. All sentimental disclaimers to the contrary, fascism is bound to be the ultimate fate of the country if Roosevelt does not come through with a real New Deal. It would be instructive if the friends of .the Court would read up a little about what is going on in Italy and Germany and reflect on where the Court would get off in a Fascist United States. Our civil liberties will be safe only if and when we preserve those general social and economic conditions which are compatible with liberty and justice. And we cannot bring about such conditions so long as the Court stands as a bulwark against even reasonable progressiveness. And it may be hoped that the President will not back down with regard to the age of 70 as the maximum for Supreme Court justices. It would be better if he had set 65 or even 60.

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT OKLAHOMA CITY, Sunday—Since I last wrote vou in Alva, the dedication ceremonies at Northwestern State Teachers College have been concluded.

One of the most amusing incidents came at the very |

end of the outdoor program. After Dieut. Gov. Berry had made his speech, a song especially composed for the occasion had been sung and I had said a few words, two small Girl present me with some flowers. They were down in front of the platform and they had to get up on it. This was finally accomplished with the aid of President Brown and myself. Somebody murmured the Girl Scouts must have a motto: “Never say die.” At 8:30 Saturday morning, our hostess, Mr. and Mrs. John Doolin, called for us at the hotel to motor us to El Reno. Mrs. Walter Ferguson, a fellow columnist, was in the car and I was very happy to have an opportunity to talk with her. We have frequently appeared on the same pages of various papers, and I have always had a sense of friendliness between us, though we have only met casually before. The roads were muddy and slippery ¢ were late in reaching EI Reno. Because of the cold. the ceremonies were held in the high school auditorium instead of being held outside the little house which the National Youth Administration has reconditioned as a youth center. I spoke a few minutes there and then went over to look at the little house.

It seems to me that this activity of the NYA is |

nmarticularly valuable and I am very glad to know thev have a number of these youth centers throughout the state, some of them on a much larger scale than the one I saw on Saturday. The bovs and girls have done all the work on this little house. At the back the boys have a shop where they installed the plumbing, wiring and carpentry work. The girls have made curtains, will do cooking and have a room in which typewriters and sewing machines are available.

New Books PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS—

“ HESE problems of life which are considered in the following pages . . . have to do with spiritual values and issues of life, not with houses or lands, or

ancestors, or with rules for longevity,” says Rufus M.

Jones, Quaker philosopher and teacher, in the introduction to his recent book, SOME PROBLEMS OF LIFE (Cokesbury Press), Originally given as the Cole Lectures at Vanderhilt University, the material of the book is actually the fruit of Rufus Jones’ long life of study, travel, and 43 years of teaching young men at Haverford College. Haven Palmer, Gandhi, and many another of the world’s great teachers and thinkers, he here reduces to a few simple chapters what he believes to be the realities and mainsprings of life. what a man thinks about the meaning of life is the most significant thing in his life, Dr. Jones tells us. And so his aim in all the chapters of the book is to convince men of their high destiny, their “super-biological phases,” to refute the overpowering effect of the fatalistic theories of behaviorism, naturalism and mechanism. His concluding sentences sum up the book admirably: “There will never be a time when problems of life will all be solved. . . . But throughout all times and generations what will matter most will be the spirit behind the deed, the way of life that is good in itself.” ” ILES DABNEY struggles desperately in AS OF THE GODS (Appleton-Century) to find a reason for his existence as an individual, his usefulness in the short span of life allotted to man, and how lasting can be his efforts. Dabney realizes that no one can help him, for too many hide from the inevitable, others evade a direct answer, and some even misunderstand his search for clear vision. He works out his solution alone, behind a mask of habits in his role of city planner, husband, father and friend. Rollo Walter Brown writes the account of Dabney’s quest, which although universal, yet seems individual and overwhelming to each one of us.

¥ 3

= =

“The great problems of the country |

political and legal |

Scouts were to |

kind host and | | first large U. S. sit-down strike, they

sO we |

Personal friend of William James, George |

The Indianapolis

Imes

Second Section

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1937

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

SENATE'S ‘GUILTY CONSCIENCE’ Myr. Ashurst Never Lets What He Said Yesterday Bind Him Today

By THOMAS L. STOKES

Times Special Writer WW ASHINGTON, March 15.—On the erect shoulders of Senator Ashurst (D. Ariz.) has fallen the burden of pushing President Roosevelt's Supreme Court Reorganization Bill through the Senate. hours for the gallery and his colleagues, some frequent pourings of cool water upon the fires, and the addition of some new Ashurstisms to those which have brightened the Congressional Record for 25 years. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a handsome man who looks the statesman of old, a verbose gallant, a kindly jester, a master of bizarre phraseology, a political philosopher, a consummate practical politician and, in debate, a Chesterfield of grace and courtesy.

That means some amusing

He can cat his words of day before yesterday with

relish.

He is a master of self-analysis.

He sticks the pin into

his own shirt-front as accurately as into the stuffed shirts

of his colleagues. Senate's guilty conscience made vocal. Of himself he said the other day: “There can be no doubt that 1 have my full share of faults. I suffer from cacoethes loquendi, a mania or itch for talking, and from vanity, if you please, and morbidity (at which his colleagues chortled), and, as is obvious to everyone who knows me, an inborn, an inveterate flair for histrionics. “But there has never been superadded to these vices of mine the withering and embalming vice of consistency.” = n on HE Senator was being twitted about his most recent fall from consistency, in the Supreme Court matter. After the Supreme Court threw out AAA, he deplored the talk then current of doing something about the Supreme Court or the Constitution. Only a few months later he introduced an amendment to give Congress broad powers to regulate agriculture, commerce and industry. Eight days before the President proposed that Congress enlarge the Supreme Court, Mr. Ashurst had ridiculed the idea that such a remedy might be proposed, saying ‘‘a more ridiculous, absurd and unjust criticism of a President was never made . . . no person whose opinion is respected has favored attempting such a reckless foray and folly.

He is the ¢

| | |

“I have no sympathy with attempts to whittle or chisel, by indirection, circumlocution and periphrasis, and ‘house-that-Jack-built’ methods in order to get power . . . the way to reach the desired objective is by bold frankness, by asking the people of the states to ratify the necessarv amendments.” He met the President's proposal with head held high: “I never let what I said yesterday bind me today. No Senator can change his mind quicker than 1.” ”

OR need anyone fear that he will not stand by the President, as long as the President insists upon this particular program. For Mr. Ashurst is a politician, and as a politician he has decided that safety lies in following the President. In a letter to a constituent he once said: “I should be lacking in frankness and deficient in courtesy if I failed to tell you that I shall support President Roosevelt all along the line.”

» ”

E'S seen a bit of life on his way up. He was a cowpuncher at one time, a jail turnkey at another. Borm near Winnemucca, Nev, he went to public school at Flagstaff, Ariz., attended business college at Stockton, Cal, and eventually enrolled at the University of Michigan. He was the first United States Senator from the new State of Arizona and has been returned regularly. “He is as full of politics as a dog is of fleas,” said the Arizona Daily

u »

Star in an editorial the Senator put in the Record. Threatened with defeat in letters from his state because he voted for the Roosevelt Econoiny Bill, he said to the Senate: “Some time ago I made the astonishing and for a while, to myself, the distressing discovery that the perpetuity of the American Government did not absolutely depend upon the re-election of Henry Fountain Ashurst to the Senate.” ”

FEW months later, when the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce denounced him and Senator Hayden for not getting enough Federal money for Arizona, he wrote back: “I believe you are correct in your conclusion that a& number of candidates—all excellent gentlemen—will try to displace me at the next election, but it is beginning to appear as if I shall be re-elected. Not by reason of any particular merit that I possess or by any political activity on my part, but by the folly of my opponents.”

” ”

U.S. TESTS POWERFUL NEW DEVICE OF LABOR—THE SIT-DOWN STRIKE

By WILLIS THORNTON

NEA Service Staff Correspondent

| S though a child had been pre-

sented suddenly with a high[powered motor car, the United States is pushing the levers and [trying out the speed of its most

| powerful new industrial device—the | sit-down strike.

Less than six months after the

blanketed the country. The eagerness of the American worker to try lout his new gadget has produced what seems almost a mania of sit- | downs comparable to the vanished | vogues for mah jongg or jig-saw | puzzles. Unexpected phases and results of the sit-downs have revealed themselves almost daily. Thoughtful la- | bor leaders and industrial leaders | are studying the record to find out | how fast the car will go, how well | it steers, and whether it has any | brakes. It would be hard to overem{Chte the spontaneity of the sit{down strikes. It is extremely | doubtful that the ILewis-directed C. I. QO. actually planned ths auto | sit-downs as and when they oc- | curred. | No Lewis leader has ever offi- | cially sanctioned the sit-down strike (jas the C. I. O. tactic, and the [A. F. of L. has mildly deplored its {use as a frequent negation of the rights of the majority, as a threat | to discipline and contractual relations, and as smacking of “com- | munism.” Nevertheless many A. | F. of L. unions have been as quick | to seize on the sit-down technique locally, observing that, regardless of finespun argument, it worked.

” = =”

I" many of the widely scattered sit-downs, no recognized labor leaders appeared at all, or certainly | not until the strike was well under way. Given a single example, workers all over the country instantly saw the possibilities, and acted. In fact, the very simplicity of the | sit-down method constitutes an indirect threat to union leadership. Take the example of a “standup” strike in a Cleveland restaurant. The waitresses were not, and are not unionized. They just “got together,” appointed a temporary spokesman, and stood hy their tables, leaving meals unserved until an agreement was reached on their demands. Within 15 minutes they had the management's agreement to negotiate demands. Such simplicity as this, with no walking delegates, no permanent officers, no perpetual dues deductions, is scarcely pleasant for professional union leaders to contemplate. ” ” un SARL, the very volume of the strikes has embarrassed labor leaders, They were ill-prepared and ill-equipped to handle the flood. In some cases, as when John Lewis ordered the Uniontown miners out of the mine tunnel where they had “sat down,” the very ease of starting sit-downs militated against discipline and even against contracts.

Many leaders of large unions] found that once they had signed an agreement, local units which never would have dared declare an orthodox $trike without the national union's backing did not hesitate to ‘sit down” on the job at some minor displeasure, thus jeopardizing the stability of the national contract. The hasty and impromptu nature of most sit-downs has shoved the Wagner act into the background. Neither employers (who often question the constitutionality of the act) nor organized workers (who feel that the act's machinery is too slow and uncertain compared to the direct action of a quick sit-down) have made use of the Wagner act machinery of late. The procedure of holding an election in an appropriate division of industry and allowing the winner to bargain for all has gone by the board in the flurry of sit-downs.

” » »

RESIDENT GREEN of the A. F. of L. finds himself in a curious position. A year or more ago he worked for passage of the Wagner Act. At the time he was hoping that his auto union, the United Auto Workers, would achieve a majority in the auto plants and thus exclude from bargaining such minority units as the’ Mechanics’ Education Society, the Dingmen's Welfare Club,

signing Engineers, and the like. Today, with the United Auto Workers gone over to Lewis’ C. I. O., and approaching a majority, Green finds his A. F. of L. unions in a small minority, facing the prospect

of being barred from bargaining

should Lewis’ United Auto Workers demonstrate a majority. Mr. Green is not so sure, now, about exclusive bargaining for a majority.

” ” HE legal questions involved in sit-downs remain unsolved, al-

most untouched. No one claims that sit-down strikers have a legal right to remain unworking in the employers’ plants. Moral right, practical right, there is an argument there, but legal right, no. Yet the law has been literally enforced against only a small minority of sit-downers. The Fansteel strike in Chicago, the Electric Boat strike in Groton, Conn, the Douglas Aircraft strike at Santa Monica, Cal, are among the few where sit-downers were driven violently or by a show of force from their posts. Every thoughtful person is concermed with this clash between the traditional laws of property and the de facto procedure of the sitdown strike. No important suggestions for reconciling the two have been forthcoming. A Michigan legislator has offered a bill making it a felony for either party to a labor dispute to attempt negotiations while in possession of the property of the other. State Governors like Cross of Connecticut, Hoffman of New Jer-

”

sey, and Quinn of Rhode Island

the have

Metal Polishers, the Society of De- |

announced uncompromising SO lorente to the legal code of toay. The conflict between the ‘“human rights” of sit-down strikers and the property rights of employers is going to be a knotty one for lawyers to chew on for some time,

Sit-down strikes reached a new high in technique in the Chryslerowned Dodge plant in Detroit, where perhaps the most elaborate organization yet contrived took over the plant. Every department named police. wearing identifying ribbons, whe patrolied regular beats

throughout the rules with another

plant. Here is one . sit~downer hE

policeman discussing the

rights |

3 Cammin

BR SS aS

| {

Above: Attorney General Cummings tells the Senate Judiciary Committee his reasons for supporting the President’s Court proposal. Shown questioning him

Sullivan Claims Rule Sometimes Dangerous

are Senators Borah (R. Idaho), Ashurst, Committee Chairman, Neely (D. W. Va.) and McCarran (D. Nev.). Right: An Office portrait of Senator Ashurst.

» SRR. 3

By MARK

ASHINGTON, March 15.—In the controversy about President Roosevelt's court proposal, many Catholic periodicals and Catholic clergymen express opposition. For this there is a reason. The same reason must lead Lutherans to take the same position. I mention those two groups merely because they have had recent reason to appreciate the protection which the Supreme Court throws around religion, and freedom of religious teaching. But the protection exists for every religious denomination, and for unbelievers as well. It exists for every minority of any kind, whether a religious body or any other school of thought. Following the Great War there was throughout America a tide of suspicion against aliens in America. Accompanying it, and partly resuiting from it, arose the Ku Klux Klan, with a special suspicion not only against aliens but also against Catholics, Jews and Negroes. At that tinie, there existed against some ieligious and racial groups the same kind of prejudice that is now being fomented against an economic group, the so-called “economic royalists.” About 1920, the combined influences of antialien sentiment and the Klan were able, in 21 states, to build up majorities. These majorities passed laws against minority groups which they did not like. They passed State laws which in effect outlawed all religious and private schools, and other laws which outlawed the teaching of foreign languages in any public or private school of primary grade. ” n ” N 1922, Oregon enacted “the Oregon Compulsory Education Act.” It was by direct vote of the people, through the popular initiative, which is part of Oregon's lawmaking machinery. Hence the law expressed the direct, conscious purpose of a majority of the voters. The vote was 115,606 in favor to 103,685 against. The law did not directly make church schools illegal. It required that every citizen must send his children to public schools, under threat of penalty. The law (here condensed) read: “Any parent having control of a child under the age of 16 years, who shall fail to send such child to a public school, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, each day's failure shall constitute a separate offense; and shall be subject to a fine of not more than $100 or to imprisonment for not more than 30 days, or both.” The law, of course, would completely destroy not only church schools, but all private schools. Two Oregon schools united in contesting the law in the courts. One was Catholic, the “Society of Sisters.” The other was the Hill Military Academy, an ordinary nondenomi-

Majority

SULLIVAN

N the lower courts, the schools lost. They appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the Supreme Court, three additional church organizations, realizing the threat to all reiigion and all religious teaching, filed briefs against the law. They were the American Jewish Committee, the Seventh Day Adventists and the Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In another case from Nebraska, a teacher named Meyer had been found guilty of a “charge that on May 25, 1920, while an instructor in Zion Parochial School, he unlawfully taught the subject of reading in the German language to Raymond Parpart, a child of 10 years . a collection of biblical stories being used therefor.” There were similar cases from Iowa and Ohio. = ” ” N the Supreme Court of the United States, the cases were treated as subject to the same principles and as covered by the same provisions of the Constitution. The decisions in all the cases were written by Mr. Justice McReynolds, who is still on the Court. All the statutes from all the states were found unconstitutional; all the private schools and teachers were up-

held. Among other things, Justice |

McReynolds said:

“We think it entirely plain that | the act unreasonably interferes with |

the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children. . . The child is not the mere creature of the state.” In part, the schools and teachers were upheld on the ground that the laws were an unconstitutional impairment of property rights. It was held that the laws prevented parents from sending their children to private schools, and thereby, in effect, destroyed the schools as properties, and destroyed the occupation of the teachers. With Justice McReynolds, six other justices united in holding the laws unconstitutional. There was dissent by two justices strangely assorted. One was the late Mr. Justice Holmes, considered an outstanding liberal; the other was Mr. Justice Sutherland, considered a strong conservative. ” » ” ETWEEN those school cases of the early 1920s and the situation today, the analogy is obvious. Today, President Roosevelt says that certain things are desired by a majority of the people, and that therefore the Supreme Court ought to be changed, so that it will declare constitutional those things which a majority of the people desire. Let us now apply Mr. Roosevelt's present contention to the situation in 1922. At that time a majority of the people of Oregon and other states desired to take steps which would destroy all religious and other private schools. The majority was

prevented from so doing by the Su-

ayy

ht Es Shaky

PAGE 9 |

Our Town

By ANTON SCHERRER

Wi the possible exception of State Librarian Christopher Coleman, who runs the Ilistorical Bureau, there isn’t a soul around here who remembered that 50 years ago the Legislature had its first meet ing in the new State House. “An opportunity to inspect the beauties and archie tectural elegance of the new State House,” said the Indianapolis Journal (Republican) of Jan. 7, 1887, “brought crowds of visitors, among whom the ladies had a large representation, to the opening of the 65th General Assembly. They strolled through the wide and imposing corridors, taking apparent ly as much interest in the incompleted portions as in the rich furnishings of the Senate and Representative chambers. “It was a common remark that in many respects the best results although the

Ind,

Mr. Scherrer It is fair, though, to believe

the difficulty of hearing distinctly

The Journal refers, of course, to the A. GG. Smith affair, and the general understanding that he would assert. his right as President por-tem. of the Senate. “Interesting developments were expected by the lookers-on,” said the Demoeratic Sentinel of the same date, “and when Mr. Smith advanced to the stand and took the President's seat, the brief suspense which ensued pecame strained and exciting.

» Presented Bishop

" LL was still, but President Smith, nevertheless, rapped vigorously with the gavel before proe ceeding. “The Senate will now be Knickerbacker Episcopal Diocese of Indiana, “Here a scene occurred which was disgraceful in the extreme. As the bishop stepped forward and lifted his hands to invoke the divine blessing and pray for the peaceful and orderly performance of the impor tant duties devolving upon those there assembled, the Democratic Senators rose and stood with bowed heads: but the Republican members, wholly unmindful of the solemn ceremony, and with utter disrespect to the bishop, retained their seats, muttering disapproval and creating a half-suppressed noise.

” ‘Clamor Grew Louder’

“The Republican clamor grew louder, and the members on that side refused to vote, but the coure ageous Democratic Senators, led by President Smith, effected an organization without great difficulty, and then took a step further by electing Mr. Smith to the presidency and clothing him with power to maine tain his rights. “The Democrats were masters of the situation,” concluded The Sentinel. The only other thing I knew about the first sese sion in the new State House is that when it came time to hand in bills, Senator Schloss of Vigo said he wanted to introduce once, but did not have it with him. “All good statesmen,” replied Mr to have bills ready in their pockets.”

A Woman's Vie ew By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON IG business, aided by the arts of salesmanship, promotes the idea that married women should live in luxury and idleness. I have before me an advertisement from an insurance company which

pictures a perky young woman in a fashionable road-

ster, holding up a jeweled vanity case and powdering her nose. Underneath is the caption: “Ten Bucks a Year Will Protect the Wife.” The statement seems exaggerated, but it’s easy to catch the inference. The wife is to be protected from worry, and work, and poverty. And it's quite likely that the fellow who thought it up is a loud ranter against the worthlessness of modern women. Maybe a lot of us are worthless. But who made us that way and who keeps us that way? Men— individually and collectively—the combined force of masculine pride, arrogance, prejudice and shorte sightedness. A man thinks it is noble to work himself to death in order that his wife and daughter need not toil, Why? Not because the women enjoy that sort of life, Perhaps they would prefer to be busy and useful. But they must abide by what papa says, because papa pays the bills and very often is actuated solely by some hoary tradition handed down by his grandpa. Or it may be that he is committed to the theory only because his friends are. He moves in a social and business group where men maintain their feeling of superiority through the dependence of their womens folk. Really, the average American man is a pumpkine head when it comes to women’s problems. Most of the time he simply refuses to admit she has any, If he spent a tenth as much thought on helping her vo be a useful, happy citizen as he does in accumu lating annuities for her after he's dead, women might become man’s real helpmate instead of just another beneficiary in his will,

Your Health

By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

Medical

| July, 1885, more than 50 years ago, the famous French scientist, Louis Pasteur, gave the first Pasteur treatment to a human being. to control the condition called rabies, or hydrophobia. Today we know that this disease could be elimie nated with scientific methods, if complete public coe operation could be obtained. Hydrophobia seldom, if ever, appears in Great Britain because of proper use of the Pasteur method and because of a quarantine on dogs and other animals which may be brought into the country, Pasteur made his discovery in a relatively simple manner, He knew that the virus which causes this disease attacks the nervous system. He took the brain of a dog that had died of hydrophobia and injected some of this material under the skin of other animals, which then developed the disease. Pasteur felt sure then that the brain of the infected animal contained the poison. After trying to weaken this poison so that it could be injected into a human being, to give him the dis ease in a mild form—as, for example, vaccination does in smallpox—he finally arrived at the procedure now used. Material from the nervous system was dried in a tube and kept that way for some time. When that material was injected into a dog into which later was injected some infectious material from a mad dog, the dog to which the preventive material had been given did not get the disease. The first animal experiments were completed in May, 1884, and were then confirmed by other scien tists. Several months later the method was used on a boy named Jean Baptiste Dupille who had saved several children from being attacked by a mad dog and had been severely bitten while doing it. The boy lived, and a monument in his honor was erected in front of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Throughout the world there are few monuments erected either to doctors who have made discoveries that have saved thousands of lives, or to patients who have helped the doctors in their work. The one for Jean Baptiste Dupille is probably the only one of its kind.

» ”

of the

” u

Smith, “ought

Editor, American Assn, Journal