Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 April 1937 — Page 18

PAGE 18

The Indianapolis Times

: (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

5 i ‘ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE * “President Editor . Business Manager Owned and published Price in Marion County, daily- (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co. 214 W. Maryland St. =

by 12 cents ‘a

week.

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Mai! subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 ‘cents a month.

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard NewsPaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations. ; 31 Rlley 5551 £ SCRIPPS ~~ HOWARD | : Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1937

NO HOPELESS SPLIT : HEN the President’s Court plan was proposed, a principal argument for it was that it was the only way. It ‘was contended that the amendment route was too slow and that followers of the New Deal were hopelessly split as to what form an amendment should take. A A surprising resistance from liberals, however, was the result of the President's dramatic move to fashion the Supreme Court to his own desire through direct use of the appointive power. 2 ; Many amendment alternatives were proposed. Of these, two have received almost all of the attention. One, * the Wheeler plan, to give Congress the power to repass by a two-thirds vote a law declared unconstitutional. Second, the O’Mahoney plan, providing that a law cannot he declared unconstitutional except by at least a two-thirds

vote of the Court itself. Now the much emphasized contention that the liberal

leaders cannot get together is canceled out, so far as these two main proposals are concerned. Senator Wheeler has announced that he will accept the O'Mahoney amendment and other liberal leaders seem to be converging on that as the remedy for Court obstruction. So the contest is now fairly well narrowed down, with a possibility that the O'Mahoney amendment may be favored by the Senate Judiciary Committee as a substitute for the

. President’s plan. on ” 2

WE believe the nation would be well served should that come to pass. As we have said before, we consider the two-thirds rule in the Court itself the best of all the alternatives in the solution of the problem+ of overbalance which runs to the judiciary but which under the President’s plan would then be switched to the executive. We don’t

o 8 t 4

believe in curing lack of balance by setting up another lack |

of balance. Te Sh The two-thirds rule adopts for the judicial veto the

principle which already applies to the Presidential veto. A veto is extraordinary. It calls for more than usual procedure. the President's veto, two-thirds of the members are required. Under the O’Mahoney plan precisely that ‘would apply to the Supreme Court’s authority toward an ‘act of Congress. Most of the public resentment against the Court arises from 5-4 decisions, when the vote of one man kills the work of all the lawmakers. But when six instead of five decide that Congress has failed to fashion its statutes within the ‘Constitution, an entirely different proposition is presented and an entirely different public reaction results. That the two-thirds power has been so long accepted without resentment in matters of Presidential vetoes, and also in matters of impeachment, submission of amendments and ratification of treaties, is the strongest kind of argument for applying it in bringing back that equality and co-ordination as between the branches of our Government which constitute the first principle on which our democracy

was designed.

GEORGE C. PEARSON | EW men are privileged to found a business and for 60 years as its active head watch it grow with the times. But such was the life of George C. Pearson whose funeral is today. A He founded a piano store in Indianapolis in 1873 and continued as’ president of the firm, which now has 20 ‘branches over the state, until three years ago when he was 82. It takes energy, intelligence and courage to conduct a successful business for 60 years. These Mr. Pearson had. We regret his passing. :

SEE AMERICA--IF YOU CAN i : HIS Land of the Free, we are told, is still a very lovely country in spots—but just try to see it. Harking to the call of the open road, your hopeful rubber-tired gypsy sets out blithely to drink in the beauties and wonders of his native land only to find himse!f flanked by a double panorama of garish signboards advertising everything from pickles to corsets. may rest his eyes on a Fat Girl Barbecue stand, a pile of junked tires or maybe a snappy looking auto camp. Only occasionally will he get a fleeting glimpse of a. newly budded maple, a greening hillside or what the poets call a purling brook. We know of no way of raising his visibility save through some such campaign as 40,000 clubwomen of Virginia are staging this springtime. Convinced that theirs is a handsome commonwealth of rolling pastures, colonial homesteads and historic battlefields, these women have organized a state-wide campaign to beautify the highways ® of their Old Dominion. They will list the billboards and LE other eyesores, tell their Legislature about them and then ® ‘insist on a law regulating or abolishing them as public ' enemies. : More power to their brooms! And when or if they succeed we hope their movement spreads to Indiana and other states. For years we have been carrying on a. systematic process of what the Mock Turtle in “Alice in Wonderland” called “uglification” of our countryside. Let's unwrite that

chapter if we can.

IT IS LONGER |

HE henpecked husband was wrong when he remarked that married men don’t live longer, that it just seems longer. It .is longer. ‘That tireless gleaner of vital statistics, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., studied the life cycles of a batch of bachelors and benedicts in New York State and found that the latter are much better risks. Between the ages of 30 and 45 the mortality of married men is less than half that of those enjoying single blessedness. | All of which seems to indicate that Disraeli didn’t know what he was talking about when he said; “Every woman

should marry—and no man.” *.

3 cefits a copy; delivered *

Therefore, before Congress can pass a law over |

' tious but somewhat . fallible,

Here and there he.

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

When Police Grill Suspect for 30 Hours, as Was Done to'Mr. Gedeon, They Admit Failure or Incompetence.

ASHINGTON, April 8 —According to the papers that I read, the father of Veronica Gedeon, the little New York model who was murdered Easter Sunday, was questioned for 30 hours and emerged from this

experience with two bruises on his nose. The bruises may represent fair wear and tear although a man in police ‘custody should be safe from

accidents and the burden of proof rests on the cops. However, a 30 hours’ examina- . tion is nothing but an attempt to break down a man by main strength, and any time a confession is obtained this way it should he. tossed out of court by the judge if the prosecutor hasn't the decency to spurn it himself. Homer Cummings did this several years ago when he was the state = prosecutor in Bridgeport, Conn., and made a celebrated case of a matter which, in other hands, might have been merely a routine killing and a cheap, minor-league hanging. Old Homer just smelled

Mr. Pegler

The Hoosier

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

LACKEY LETTER CALLED

‘AID TO COURT FOES

By E. F. Maddox ‘Though my views on social, economic and political issues of the day may not be in harmony with those of The Times I find it an interesting and informative newspaper. The person who is too self-centered and sure of himself to listen to or read the views of his opponents will be at a great disadvantage in-any con-

troversy or debate on the issues in-

volved. ‘Some person once said, “Save me from my friends,” and Mr. Roosevelt is probably saying that now. Among other things, Hiram

. Lackey wrote in the Forum recent-

ly: “After President Roosevelt converts the courts . . .” Of course he added other words to show that would happen after Roosevelt con-

| verted the courts, but the fact that ‘he intimated the President intends

| to convert the courts is the main

something and though the prisoner had made a com- !

plete confession which dove-tailed with the evidence, he set out to break down the confession and proved to the satisfaction .of the court that the accused was not the man who shot Father Dahme.

They never found out who did shoot the priest

but old Homer definitely showed that the killing was not the doing of the man who had put his name to the confession. The prisoner was not too robust mentally, being neither a half-wit nor a heavyweight but just a little on the flabby side, and Homer told the judg: that such a man might weaken under constant questioning and confess to every unsolved crime since the. Cain and Abel case, just to get the.

cops out of his hair, * n E- 4 2

LD Homer also had to break down the expert |

testimony of several authorities on the pretennot to say phony, science ‘of ballistics, and it was further necessary for the prosecutor to discredit the word of several casual informers and impugn the sincerity of at least one. The State prosecutor threw down his own case when he might have had a hanging. The Attorney General of the U. S. A. is definitely among those who doubt the reliability of confessions wrung from fuddled and frightened laymen in an atmosphere of steel bars, handcuffs, disinfectants and bulldozing suspicion. The mental state | of an inexperienced man yanked out of his home at night or grabbed out from behind his counter at the grocery store to face a lot of hard-faced bulls and a couple of tricky prose-

| cutors of the wheedling, friendly type, hour after

weary hour, is not good for justice or the man’s own future. ” E- 2 E-4 Y rights, he ought to set his jaw, receding though it be, and refuse to say aye, yes or no to anybody on any subject, whatever befall. Legally, he

| doesn’t have to open his mouth, and even if he is

to believe that he is only a witness, not a suspect, he will do well to keep a still tongue in his head except, perhaps, to demand a lawyer. And he is wise to insist on" a lawyer known to him or introduced by some trustworthy friend, just in case the attorney should prove to be another cop or prosecutor. : : Detectives are paid to get evidence, not confessions, and a 30-hour inquisition of any man is an admission of failure, if not proof of incompetence.

| point.

Then he adds the climax to his

| first statement: “May I suggest that

the reactionaries. just be patient

l until we get a new blue eagle with | teeth as well as claws, without a

Court to clip its wings of justice.” Did he mean to say “without a

of justice.” That is exactly what the opponents of the Court Reform Bill have been trying to prove and Hiram has helped them by his own

| words. . ..

" ® 2

| HITS VANNUYS FOR COURT

| PLAN OPPOSITION | By Patrick M, Hogan, Columbus |

An open letter to Senator Frederick VanNuys: : We, the people back home, can't understand why you oppose President Roosevelt's plan to enlarge the Supreme Court. Let us face the facts, Senator. Since the days of President Lincoln, economic royalty has gradually narrowed the chances of the underprivileged until in 1932 4 per cent of the families in this great nation controlled the money market. Industry had the Government groggy, while 15 million bread-winners sought in vain for work.

Then came a man withthe spirit of Lincoln, and his sincerity was so genuine that the people hailed him as a saviour. He believed that the Constitution was for the general welfare and he made a New Deal for masses made helpless by autoc-

‘racy and greed.

Not having suffered hardship, privation and near starvation, you may

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns; religious controversies excluded. Make your letter shert, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

not realize that the NRA, AAA, etc, were godsends to this nation. | They

farmer, but civilization also. | Had the people been forced to starve in the face of plenty they would have overthrown the Government and brought on the worst of all wars. But when these New Deal measures came to the Supreme Court, some of the justices. steeped in legal dogma, saw everything in the Constitution but the general welfare of the people who make and support this Government. ‘Understand it thoroughly that we,

the people, are back of Roosevelt. You may receive letters opposing the plan—from economic royalists— but the common people have -no stenographers, typewriters and are not given to writing their Senators. However, they know how to| vote, and they are going to keep in Washington the Senator who represents

Court to clip its wings of justice”? them and lives up to his promises.

8 = =n OFFERS SUGGESTIONS ON TRAFFIC SAFETY

By C. M. Here are some suggestions I wish to offer for aiding in lowering our high traffic casualty list: Pull up the street car tracks and

MISUNDERSTOOD | By PATRICIA BANNER

You're a very, very funny gir], When you say “no”’—then you mean “yes.” And what you're thinking, I | must guess, You keep me puzzled—I'll confess, You're such a funny girl. | Oh! I'm a funny man, you say— I can't see how you get that way When I say I'll be home at eight And then show up a trifle late Perhaps at two or three or four 1 know it makes you pretty sore. I try my best to be so good—I guess I'm just—misunderstood.

DAILY THOUGHT

For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out. of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus 25:55;

ET thy servants be such as thou mayest command, and entertain none about thee but those ‘to whom thou givest wages.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

place them at the sides of the streets near the curbs. ;

In the center downtown area,

| within a district of at last four !

blocks square, make all streets one way with the exception of Meridian and Washington Sts. Right and left turns shctild be eliminated in the heavily congested downtown area.

| The: rule against these turns should

: | apply to street cars as well as other not only saved the working man and |

traffic. Free transfers should be issued by the street car company for use only in the “downtown area. Let street car patrons pay their fare as they enter going to town and pay as they leave going away from town, thus insuring the car company against the use of free transfers in traveling north and west .on one fare. Parking should be prohibited on the Circle from 7 to 9 a. m. and 4 to 6:30 p. m. busses excepted, of course. Pursue a license revoking system for drunken drivers, speedsters and other traffic law violators, with “no fix” regulations. Retire some of the present police officers who are 70 years old or thereabouts. Put in youngsters who are not yet neurotics about handling traffic. Pedestrians should be given 50cent fines for crossing streets. with the red light against them. - Make the warning light burn two or three seconds longer to permit clearing the street for a traffic direction change. We should put some teeth in our traffic laws, or see that someone who is pot politically obligated enforces the laws. If some licenses were revoked for one to five’ years, many people would drive more carefully. In the case of a drunken driver who kills the head of a family, if the offender were forced to support the family it might serve as a warning to others. Why not fine the liquor dispenser who sells to a man who, after drinking, drives a car? : u n ”

LETTER ON FAVORITISM

BRINGS REPLY

By A. D. G. Please, Mr. Culbertson. Your letter in The Times regard-

ing favoritism amuses me very much. If any favoritism was shown, you certainly received it for months, perhaps because you worked in the building where your car was parked from 8 a. m. continually to 5 p. m. daily. . You admitted you were one who received a parking ticket, but that was as far as you cared to go. . Is it fair to other automobile owners who also want to park the one and a half hour granted by the Police Department? It is my regret that your letter was not read by all who tried in vain to park in the block you men-

tioned.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun ~~ Writer Suggests International

Conference on Armament, Not in Spite of but Because of Arms Race.

ASHINGTON, April 8.—Two or three of us: me in the bar of the | National Press Club having our morning coffee before going over to the White House for President Roosevelt's weekly newspaper conference. One of the correspondents was ? complaining bitterly that of late the’ press confer= ences have become perfunctory. “If anybody asks a really pertinent question,” he

said, “Roosevelt turns it aside with some humorous sally, and all the boys in the front row laugh up his gag, and the questioner is made to seem foolish. Just the same I'm going to get after him today and find out when he's coming through with his message on relief.” : But Mr. Roosevelt has an un canny telepathic sense in dealing with reporters. Befgre my friend had an opportunity to ask his question as to the date of the relief message, Mr. Roosevelt announced it himself in his opening remarks. Nor would it be fair to call the last conference perfunctory, since the President was extremely explicit in his short economic lecture on durable goods and consumer goods. . It seems to me that Wall Street had a somewhat ‘illogical attack of the jitters when it was ane nounced that the President thought that copper ard steel were selling at too high a price. After all, this represents a world price, and any switch in PWA policy hardly represents more than a diop in the bucket. Moreover, it should hardly come as a surprise to traders to learn that there are those who feel that labor has had less than its fair share of increased revenue I thought that John L. Lewis had made this evident already. : ” s 8

OF" more significance to my mind was the President’s support of Secretary Hull's denial that there is any present plan for America to take the initiative in bringing the powers together for a gen=-" eral economic or disarmament conference. Unless there is some curtailment of the weapon-forging race I cannot fer the life of me see any effective means for decreasing steel or copper prices. People are very slow to realize how catching the spirit of conflict can be. Those who think of safety in terms of the wide spread of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans underestimate the cruising radius of the war microbe. It is folly to pretend that a completely isolated position is possible... The wars and the rumors of war in Europe do concern us whether we like to admit it or not. 2 2 8 | EE though we manage to preserve peace, such a status will be in part technical: Our ‘economic system is already being riddled by high explosives. A battle in Spain can very well be the fundamental motivating factor for a sit-down strike in Flint. I am for an international conterence .on because the time seems so unpropitious. This paradox is perfectly sound. When the powers get together with high hopes there is the very grave risk of disappointment and ensuing rancor. i But now there is nothing to lose. Nobody would expect very much to come out of the conference, and so any gain whatsoever would be so much velvet. And it is difficult to conceive of a more| embittered world than the one in which we live at present.

Mr. Broun

armament,

General Hugh Johnson Says—

All Other Legislative Action, Much of It Very Important, Is Held Up Awaiting Decision on Court Reform Which May Not Come Until June.

ASHINGTON, April 8—The Cour. fight is a paralyzer of legislative action. The log-rolling,

| which is part of the job of getting any important bill

through the mill on the hill, can’t go on when a vote on the Court is a good swap for votes on a dozen other measures. It chills the horse-trading, because any standout or “undetermined” vote has a sort of corner on the vote market.

Any unimportant Senator can suddenly become a political colossus by just not making up his mind on what he is going to do about the Court. The other

| trades can’t be closed. Everything stands still.

Mr. Joseph Kennedy, chairman-designate of the new and powerful Maritime Commission, is biting nails in righteous indignati The time within which he must negotiate several dozens of millions worth of mail contracts is dwindling down to nothing, and he hasn’t been confirmed and he can’t start.

s # 8

E hasn't been confirmed because Senator Black insists on dictating to the White House just who shall be permanent members of the commission. Senator Black can dictate in this bold fashion because the Administration can’t afford to get wires crossed with any senatorial support on the Court conflict. In the meantime there is no start toward “launching the American mercantile marine again upon the seven seas.” % k If a way i el a de

| affect prices both on the

Rulings by Two Republican Ex-Attorney Generals Hold Time Amendment, as Proposed by Wheeler in Court Issue, Is Uncons

't found to give the forthright Mr. ati Jo

have to get another chairman. He is extremely likely

| to tell them that if they don’t want to put it back on

the seven seas, they can go dump it in the frog pond. Almost everything else is tied up in the same way. Certainly nobody knows what can be done about wages and hours—except through state action—until the Court decision on the Wagner act or the congressional decision on the Tourt, or both.

2 o 2

A°® a matter of guess, it isn’t as complex as that. It is a long shot that the Court will not sustain the Wagner act—at least not in any such sense as wil make possible what the President wants in the way of labor legislation. In other words, the whole body of Federal policy—on what the Administration regards as principal points—is tacked as tightly to the floor as the feet of a Strasbourg goose—or as Joe Kennedy. Release all depends on some decision on the Court controversy, and that isn’t expected until June. In the meantime—and largely due to this same paralysis and uncertainty—there are as many riots in the labor market as shindys at Donneybrook Fair. Prices of both commodities and Government bonds— one going up and the other down—exhibit some of the usual symptoms -of an inflation due to panic, or at least jitters. The Administration has begun to use some of the old Hoover-Coolidge medicine—trying to > . Exchanges and on the

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

Vy Slaton. April 8.—The Administration has a couple of aces up its sleeve to counter Senator Wheeler's idea of holding a nation-wide referendum on a constitutional amendment to the Supreme Court within the next six months. In the files of the Justice Department are three opinioris by previous Attorney Generals as to whether a time limit on constitutional amendment is constitutional. : One comes from William D. Mitchell, Attorney General under Hoover. Mitchell, although he did not belong to Senator Wheeler's political party, was an excellent Attorney General. Another comes from George E:. Wickersham, who served under Taft and who, although not of Wheeler's political faith, was also a good Attorney General.

Both Mitchell and Wickersham ruled that a time |

in constitutional amendments was unconstitutional. The third comes from A. Mitchell Palmer, who served an Woodrow Wilson and who, although of Wheeler's political party, was generally rated as one of the worst Attorney Generals in recent history. He ruled that the time limit was constitutional.

#2 = =a

Limit for tutional,

czar of the railroads, now is no longer even a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. To get the importance of this, remembpr that Joe Eastman has been serving on the ICC |ever since Woodrow Wilson appeinted him in 1919. In the 18 subsequent years, Eastman ¢ame to be one of the outstanding authorities in the ralilroad field, When the New Deal! came into office, Eastman be= came Roosevelt's No. 1 railroad adviser. hen Congress established the position of Railroad |Co-ordina« tor, in the hope of accelerating railway consolidations, Roosevelt gave Eastman the job. | | Eastman’s term of office expired Dec. 31. In soms strange manner not only did this escape public notice, but so did the even more extraordinary fact that the President did not reappoint him.

# = #

ASTMAN has no explanation for the apparent rebuff. Early last winter the President offered him the chairmanship of the Maritime Commission, but Eastman declined the job on the ground that his in terest was in railroads, not ships. | ‘ Prom Administration quarters come two explana tions for the mysterious situation. ee Eastman'’s friends say the President plans to make ‘him one of the six young men on the reorganized Si

Eastman’s. enemies say Roosevelt. is