Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 April 1937 — Page 18
PAGE 18
The Indianapolis Times
(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager
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{SCRIPPS ~ HOWARD | Give Light and the People Wil Find Their Own Way
/THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1937
‘WOULD IT HAVE HAPPENED?
F course merely enacting a Federal law would not end lynchings. Once a mob gets in motion it cares little for laws, regardless of what statute books they are written in. But it is interesting, we think, to speculate as to whether that mob which tortured and lynched two Negroes down in Mississippi Tuesday would ever have got in motion if the Gavagan Antilynch Bill had been in effect, instead of merely in the process of debate. . When news of the outrage reached the floors of Congress, one Mississippi lawmaker arose and said that his State did not “condone” such lawlessness, and that ‘the good citizens of the State will resent it.”
But how did the *‘good citizens” of Duck Hill, Miss., manifest their resentment? Did they do anything to stay the mob? According to news dispatches from the scene of the crime, the only ones who even put up an argument with the mob were the Sheriff and two Deputies, from whose custody the victims were taken. And, as seems to be customary in such incidents, the officers couldn’t recognize a single one of the 300 mobsters. Thére were plenty of good moral and patriotic reasons why the “good citizens” of Duck Hill should bestir themselves. But there are no financial reasons. As a matter of fact, the action of the mob saved Montgomery County, Mississippi, the expense of providing the Negroes a trial by jury on the murder charge to which they had pleaded innocent. But if the Gavagan bill had been law,- Montgomery County, Mississippi, would be subject to a. Federal Court penalty up to $10,000 for each victim—$20,000 for the two —the money to be given to the victims’ families. Your guess is as good as ours. But for what it may be worth, our guess is that had Montgomery County been faced with the possibility of such penalties, the “good citizens” of the county who pay taxes would at least have made an effort to prevent the mobbing. And that, we think, is reason enough why Congress should enact the Gavagan bill.
THE LAW’S DELAY
HILE attention is focused on court reform and plans to speed up the Federal judiciary, it might be well to take time out and consider the courts nearer home.
On Nov. 19, 1917, a coal company suedsa mining firm
in Marion County Superior Court 4 for $25,000. After a |
ruling in 1920, the case was appealed to the State Supreme Court. . and then taken on change of venue to Boone County. Years passed, and another appeal to the State Supreme Court resulted in an order for a new trial.
This week, nearly 20 years later, the case was dismissed because most of the principals involved have died.
The great bulk of ordinary lawsuits is in these local |
courts. It is here that criminals are accused and tried. Here we form our’ opinions of American justice, for about
our only contacts with the machinery of justice are in these
courts. Obsolete procedure, the political selection of judges, legal hems and haws and other outworn methods combine to clog our State, County and Municipal Courts. They make justice expensive and uncertain. They tip the scales against the poor man and in favor of those who can hire highpriced or politically influential lawyers. Here is the place to begin reform.
“EVEN THIS SHALL PASS AWAY” UNTIL now the smile on the face of the farmer has gone a bit wry when he was reminded that prices of about everything but cotton are “back to parity.” The reason is that droughts have cut his crops so low that his net income is still below that of the five-year average of 1909-14. But from Washington comes news that should cause a broad rustic grin of unalloyed satisfaction. It is a prediction by J. B. Kincer, chief of the division of climate and crop weather of the Department of Agriculture, that the end of the drought “cycle” is in sight. Weatherman Kincer did not look inte the sky or a teacup or a crystal to get his prophet’s vision. He looked back over rainfall records of 100 years. That graph convinced him that the long drought cycle of 1909-1936 has “reached bottom,” with an upswing in precipitation due for an indefinite span of years. “For the first quarter of 1937,” he said, “the country is in good shape. There is abundant moisture everywhere, and planting should produce good crops if there is no change in the present trend.” ‘While rejoicing at the prospect of probable wetter
years, America should not rest its labors toward a better
planned agriculture. We have had plenty of warnings against misuse of our basic resource, the land. Terrifying dust storms, costly floods and the slow destruction of topsoil by erosion teach us that nature needs the co-operation of men even during the years of plenty.
THIS IS TOO MUCH
AS if international affairs weren't messed up enough already, the Merchant Tailors Designers Association of America suddenly attempts to ring in on us a new men’s style arbiter of the world—King George VI. We protest! Man and boy, we've followed the fashion leadership of Edward Prince, Edward King and Edward Duke of Windsor entirely too long to desert it thus abruptly. We bowed to the inevitable when Edward left his throne for love, but the Mershant Tailors Designers Association needn’t think it can depose him as men’s style arbiter of the world without hearing from us. We'll join him and Mrs. Simpson in exile rather than let the new pretender to that title be the arbiter of our styles.
We won’t—we positively will not—appear publicly in
‘short pants like those that George wears when he runs foot races with the Boy Scouts.
| a little, five-mile area of citrons
! with devouring diseases and live | .like wild dogs in stone igloos in
It was sent back 7 rial | < to the County Court for new trial | which are maintained at a dead loss by government
subsidy,
Italia | township almost anywhere alorg the east coast of
| conducted by the nulitary establishment, | the Kit of an itinerant umbrella-mender when com-
- than one.
“There will be, (such a wave ot Popiar: sentiment |
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Is There a Giant Killer 1 In the House’—By Talburt
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1097
And Now, Gentlemen—A Little Order, Please—py Herblock
Fair Enoug h By Westbrook 9)
Il Duce's Boasts of Development Of Libyan Desert Are Held Too | Childish for Serious Consideration.
IAMI, April 15.—In Florida, the cable stories from Rome about Mussolini's development of the Libyan desert and his grandiose plans for the future are too childish for serious consideration. Italy has held Libya for 25 years and the total achievement of -the superrace in a quarter of a century, including 15 years under the Duce, consists of - three hotels, a gambling casino, a palace for Italo
Balbo, the Fascist Governor, one ~~. asphalt road into the desert and Pp
and truck farms spread out from
the town of Tripoli.
The Italian population, aside | nid from the few exiled optimists who G: do the farming, consists entirelv % : of garrison and hotel staff and the majority of natives are scaoby
the settlements or in fox-holes scooped out of sand-hills in the desert. Mussolini is proud of the hotels,
Mr. Pegler
and of his seaplane bases. But the whole development of this important colony of the new empire would be put to shame by a single
Florida and his seaplane shops and equipment, all ook like |!
pared to the great Pan-American port and works in | Miami. These dictators talk so big and loud that in time | they [tend to convince not only themselves but the ! neighbors.
Thus the impression is made that Mussolini has
' achieved miracles of development and colonization i when actually the net result would not warrant 4
paragraph in the American papers if performed By private enterprise in this country. #08 on ACK from Miami, Palm Beach or any of the bright cities and towns of the Florida pleasure coast, lie stretches of pine and palm and fertile muck, lakes full of fish and swamps full of cypress timber. The population is largely of the pioneer type, though they hardly realize that, for this is still a frontier state in-
side the coastal strips of both sides of the peninsula. It is hardly necessary to recite again the treasures of climate and soil which lie between the ocean and the gulf in the long peninsula of Florida for that was done to the limit of human endurance in the days of the mad boom a decade ago and more. Asparagus, beans, tomatoes, celery, strawberries, sugar, fruit, fish,
- turpentine and lumber appear on the list and the one
great lack is conscience, for the spirit of the state is hard and avarice excludes all thought of social and civil duty. ¥ =n.» B% Florida is still new and another boom is gathering now, assisted by talk of inflation and | the argument that land is the only investment when money goes on the loose. There may be time for education and political reform when the scramble is over. There are towns thrown together, abandoned and gone to weeds in Florida which would humiliate Mussolini’s proud Bontinia, the tailor-made farm village on the reclaimed swamps near Rome and there are areas of farm land drained of water and producing crops in which Benito’s reclamation would hardly make an acre. Yet this country is constantly hearing, with a distinctly threatening note, of the marvels done by the Duce and, such is the power of reiteration and a popeyed theatrical" glare, accepting these claims at face value though marvels much more amazing lie ready
| set out at all.
| PRESIDENT AND COURT'S
| tutional amendment, to override the | oupreme Court's veto.
| define the word “power,” which in | this case means sovereign or official
| ercising the veto, (2) the power of
for inspection here at home.
: = A The Hoosier Forum | wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
| GARBAGE THIEVES INVITED TO THIS HOUSE [ By Robert Folger
I have many times resolved not to break into print, but here's something [too good to resist. In The Times recently there was an article on the front page titled ‘Police Wage Drive on Garbage Thieves.”
“I'll take my hat off to the thieves
°if they will come down in my neigh-
borhood. Our garbage sets out from two to eight or 10 weeks during summer and winter. I have a pail now, covered and waiting for the collectors, that is approaching the ninth week.. Please send those thieves around my way. I'll put a red flag on the
: > pail at the rear of 114 S. West St.
COLLECTIONS MADE ‘WEEKLY,
{ FOREMAN SAYS
| By | Garbage Trailer Division
Fred Schiner, Foreman, Cily Ash and
Collections are made on S. West
| St. once every week during the win-
ter and it seems unusual that there | would be no collections at a point | regularly passed by the collectors.
| I believe that if the garbage is not | collected at 114 S. West St., it is bo- | | cause the container has not been!
set out in the proper place or not |
t 3 » a
POWER HELD EQUAL ' By Earl G. Cline, Albany
Congress and the President have sufficient power, without a consti-
To prove this siatement, we must
power. It is also necessary to announce the following truths: (1) The power of a veto is a meassure of the power of the body ex-
the President is fixed, (3) the power of the Supreme Court is fixed and (4) the power of Congress varies with the size of the vote of its majorities. The power of the President's veto lies somewhere between the limits of a mere majority and a two-thirds majority vote of Congress. Since, however, it must equal the average majority vote of Congress, for practical purposes it should be considered equal to the power of Congress. : There is no reason for believing the Supreme Cours vote is either more or less powerful than that of the President. If it is not, the two vefos are equal in power and both are equal to the power of Congress. . But the power of a veto is the measure of the power of the body exercising the veto. Therefore, the power of the President and that of the Supreme Court are each equal to the power of the Congress, and all three Federal bodies are coequal in power. If Congress and the President were to act in concert their combined power would be double that of the Court. Under such conditions, if an invalidated law were to
be reconsidered with due regard to
General Hugh Johnson Says—
Court's Upholding of Wagner Act Is Further Proof That Choice of Schechter Case as Test for Validity of NRA Was Exceedingly Unwise.
EORGETOWN, S. C,, April 15.—Over and over again this column has insisted that the Supreme Court, given a case in which the facts justified it, could not fail to hold with Chief Justice Marshall, who in Gibbons vs Ogden, laid down the rule governing Federal control of commerce. The Federal power, accerding to Marshall, extends to that commerce between man and man within a single state that affects or concerns more states
Labor contracts are “commerce between man and man within a single state.” It was almost certain that the first time a sufficient factual background should be presented to the Court to prove that under modern conditions such commerce affects or concerns more states than one, the decision could not possibly be otherwise than the decision on the Wagner act.
8 # ”
HEN the Schechter case was decided, the President was harassed with diametrically conflicting advice. One side said that he should try to pick up the pieces of NRA on a suggestion so clearly laid down by Justice Cardozo that there could be no ground for mistaking it. Have Congress ratify the codes. Rewrite the law to conform with the decision. The other side insisted that he accept the Court's decision as wholly destructive. That argument was:
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters
must be signed, but names will be | DISAGREES WITH MAYOR { ON MERIT SCHOOL
| By re-enacted, such a law ought to |
withheld on request.)
its constitutionality and were to be
stand. It would have the full sup- | port of two branches of Government, and thus the Court would be outvetoed two to one. If such a law could not stand. it would mean that the Court is more powerful than both the Presi-
dent and Congress combined. This |
being the case, we have two governments, to oppose it. However, it is absurd to think
that we have two governments. |
Therefore, Congress and the Presi-
dent do have sufficient power to |
override a Supreme Court veto. 8 oN ”
GUFFEY ACT LEGALIZES
| TRUSTS, BELIEF
By H. 8. The new Guffey act is a first step toward legalizing trusts as public utilities. The only thing ever devised to protect the public from coinbinations that might control prices: has been the Sherman act and state antitrust acts. The only excuse for any sort of business is its service to the public. Any business {hat is against public welfare is a nuisance, and that is what the Sherman act prohibits. The new Guffey act, however, presumes the only important thing about business is to make it a means of exploitation of the public through stabilization of prices. This is not only vicious in its conception, but it will be the means of starting us toward a collapse of buying power that will wreck the very group that proposes the device. . Consumers are the only support of any business. When business has made a greater consumer profit possible through reduction of prices, and increasing of quality for less money, then can the consumer give profit to business. The whole setup under the Guffey act leaves all waste of equipmeént
STAR RYTHM
By HELEN M. SALITROS
To the click of castanets In the hands of the wind,. The senoritas of night Dance on and on, Until they meet the sun At edge of day— Quietly they withdraw. But tonight, their rythm will go ron
DAILY THOUGHT
‘But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.—Matthew 9:13.
GOD all mercy, were a God:
unjust —Young.
| Indianapolis.
a government and one
duplication for production and endless‘waste in distribution outlets untouched. These are left in the coii-
| trol gadget and are to be paid for |.
by the consumer. n 2 2
“One Who Thinks He Knows”
I wish to take issue with our honi orable Mayor on some of his state"ments about the Merit School in Only absolute organization men are chosen for the school. - Mental and physical tests are held at the close of the. school, the results of which are not made known to the applicants. It is a laughing matter to a man who hasn't a common school educa-
I tion, let alone the high school diplo-
ma, which is supposed to be required of each “brother in the lodge.” Everyone knows the bill is conceived and dedicated to the proposition that all Indianapolis Police and Fire Chiefs. shall reign forever. Anyone who has ever voted the Republican ticket might as well save his time if he wishes to be an applicant to the Merit School. So why is it called merit? Before I finish I want to state that I tried to beat the Merit Sys-
| tem, but it finally wore me out. I
had to work too long at a nonpolitical job at Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee wages. I believe that thousands of us have the idea that Otto Ray is the man for the Mayor's job. ” un 8 BELIEVES U. S. COULD STOP SIT-DOWNS By James R. Meitzler, Attica Congress is now deliberating its antilynching bill. The American League to Abolish Capital Punishment asserts that only about one murderer in a thousand is executed. Considering this, together with all
the trouble and expense the law has
in convicting criminals and the impossibility of keeping them incarcerated when sentenced, the killing of a few murderers without due process of law by an outraged community seems a thing of small maoment. However, if the Federal Government has power to intervene when lawless murderers and rapists are deprived of their lives illegally, it certainly has power to step in when law-abiding citizens are deprived of their property by a labor mob which is aided and abetted by a state's
Governor in defiance oi a court or-,
der. We have seen factories wcrth millions seized and held for ransom —not by poorly paid, overworked men, but by labor’s aristocrats. We have seen: the Governor refuse to carry out the court’s orders to restore the property to its lawful owners. We have seen the owners forced to pay the ransom by submitting to the ternis of the kidnapers. We have seen this breakdown of property rights and law condoned by one of the President’s Cabinet. But not a word from Congress, nor from the President. . They are too busy safeguarding the rights of criminals to bother with the rights cf honest men.
It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun
Chief Justice Hughes Proves : At Gridiron Dinner That He Still Knows How to Keep a Secret.
EW YORK, April 15.—I witnessed a - strange sight in Washington on Saturday night. The Gridiron Club was giving its annual spring dinner, and the President of the United States and the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court were seated at the head - table. Upon the stroke) of 12 Charles Evans Hughes would be 75 and eligible for retirement under any man's
plan. A little before the fateful hour a kind of Gridiron glee club |sidled in, and the two or three hundred members and guests joined in singing, “Happy birthday ito you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, Chief Justice, happy birthday to you!” | If you like, this was a curiously Rotarian gesture, but I must ad- - mit I was in favor of it. I'm for _ (all things which tend to make the = members of the High Bench : mortal and human like the = of us. As far as the candid eye could detect, the most exalted jurist in the land liked the demonstration all right. He bowed and smiled at the newspapermen and advertising agents who sanz in his honor. But at the moment I did not realize just what might have been behind the happy countenance of Chief Justice Hughes. Earlier in the evening I had an opportunity to speak to him for 47! seconds. Naturally we did not discuss high policy. I merely asked him whether he remembered that he had been the lawyer for my father’s company some 35 or 40 years ago. Mr. Hughes did remember and even topped my reminiscent mood by recalling the fact that when he was a young lawyer and I was in even shorter pants than now we had split a rocky nine-hole golf course in upper New York State. 2 8 ”
UT the smile on the face of the Chief Justice probably rested upon the fact that at the Gridiron dinner he sat in an enlivening and very special position. He was surrounded by a complete set of - Washington correspondents d other high-geared newspapermen, and under his belt he had the knowledge of one of thé most important news stories of the - year, since he was already in possession of the facts as to what the Wagner act decision would be. But it was his exclusive story, and he was not -- going to share in with anybody by wink or intima- - tion until the release time came in Court on Monday 5 at high noon. It must be pretty thrilling at 75 to sit so palpably - in the driver's seat. Of course, the question now arises as to whether favorable decisions help or mpegs the President's — = proposals.
Mr. Broun
” ” o 2 UT it seems to me that the President's position = has been strengthened. Granted that we are = dealing with circumstantial evidence, I would still = contend that at least three or four recent aleriy = opinions would have been dissents but for the fact of = pressure. Stud poker players say, “When you've got a pot - won keep it won.” And that, I think, is a good motto - for the President. If the present pressure has brought tangible re< sults in a more liberal interpretation of the Constie : tution, then I believe that is the very time to main--tain the winning hold and keep it in being until - a couple of shoulder blades are forced down upon ° the mat. If five members of the Court now seem to be agreed that we are functioning under a living instrument it might be a good idea to preserve and make an attempt to break through the pill boxes and the concrete wall set up by the four others.
The Washington Merry-Go-Round
New York-to-Paris Air Race Scheduled This Summer Is Off Because: - Air Lines Feared Accidents Would Discourage . Future Passengers.
against the Court's decision that in the next session of Congress, you can get whatever you want.” followed the latter advice, clucking “giddyap” to his horse and buggy. The last time this question approached the Court there were two cases upon which it might have been decided.. One was the sick chicken case. The question was whether killing a chicken in one state affects other states. “The other, as in the Jones & Laughlin case, just decided, had to do with a great nationally integrated lumber industry. In the latter case it was clear beyond peradventure that the law was regulating “commerce between man and man” within a state which affects or concerns more states than one. 3 ” ” o UE to the personal ambitions of one man who, for various reasons, could not argue the lumber case before the Supreme Court, it was deferred in favor of one he could argue—ihe sick = chicken monstrosity. The principle decided by the Supreme Court on Monday came before it in 1935 in a grothesque case, inadequately presented and ineffably argued. The Court has done a courageous thing. The trouble with this Administration isn't the Court. It isn't the President. t's the cooties in the seams of
she latter's shirk, i »
He
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
ASHINGTON, April 15—It is still an official secret, but the widely touted New York-to-Paris air race scheduled for this summer is off. The spectacular contest’ was conceived by the French government to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Col. Charles Lindbergh's flight to Paris. Large money prizes were offered and a number of countries announced their intention to enter their fastest planes and ace pilots. What now upsets the race are the plans of the big airlines to start a regular trans-Atlantic commercial service this summer. They feared that accidents in the stunt race might have an adverse effect on their business. : Assistant, Commerce Secretary “Sailboat” Johnson went to bat strongly for the airlines and put pressure on the French. The State Department and the French Foreign Office are now deliberating the form the public amnouncement will take explaining abandonment of the race. 2" | # USTICE OWEN J. ROBERTS holds the key .to what: the Supreme Court will do on the Social Security Act.
If the Philadelphian lines up for the law, it will
be upheld. If he goes against it, the law is out.
There is no magig in this forecast. The alignment |
in theCourt was clearly revealed last week during - the three days of argument on the issue. The questions put to opposing lawyers by Chief = Justice Hughes and Justices Brandeis, Stone and Car--dozo showed definitely that they favored the measure.
- Conversely, the queries propounded by Justice Butler,
McReynolds and Sutherland indicated pronounced disapproval.
Justice Van Devanter was absent nursing a cold. However, he unfailingly votes with the conservative group, and is practically certain to do so on the social security issue. This divides the Court four to four,” with Roberts holding the deciding ballot. 1 What he will do on the momentous test is known only to himself, Of the eight Justices who heard the. arguments die was the only one who asked no ques-. tions and made no comments. Throughout the pro--ceedings he maintained an inscrutable silence. : ’ 4%.» . SAMPLE query from Justice McReynolds to attorney during Social Security Act argument: “Where do you find any duty imposed on ths Federal Government to pay old-age - pensions?” : “That duty is on the states,” replied the attorney of the protesting company. “Is there any duty at all?” persisted Justice Meaves vg We have een 150 years. without it, ven: ;