Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 May 1937 — Page 14
PAGE 14 he ‘Indianapolis Times
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ED 3 ir N -o Give Light and the P 5:
WEDNESDA
d ===, Riley 5551
, MAY 19, 1937
bh ¥ ALL IN ONE DAY R. ROOSEVELT, we think, wins and he loses. He loses on his court-packing plan, which in our judgment the events of one day killed deader than the wellknown smelt. He wins, in that the resignation of Justice Van Devanter, while in itself a hard blow to the packing program, means a court that will lean to the liberal instead of the conservative side and thereby permit continued and speedy progress toward the remaining New Deal objectives. A court well balanced, we believe, under the new alignment, if Justices Hughes and Roberts (or either, for that matter) keep to the form that they have been demonstrating especially of late and frequently have demonstrated in the past; if they don’t put on those old glasses that the President once spoke about, glasses which “blur new facts” in the examination of complicated and changing conditions. On those two will depend largely whether the court issue will be pressed in the form of an amendment, as it should be if the Court does not heed the new and complicated conditions which beset our fast-moving modern life. Vast education has been a by-product of the whole court controversy. That is all to the good and out of it all one thing is clear. Any fundamental change in our form of government should be by the people, by the amendment, method as specified in the Constitution and not by the executive or by Congress or by both in any such way as the President’s proposal called for. As things will stand in the new alignment, Justices Hughes and Roberts can and we believe will serve as governing forces between the conservative and liberal! groups on the Court to prevent the recurrence of the stalemate which became so dangerous to the nation’s progress in handling its vast and critical problems. ! Should even a semblance of such a stalemate begin to appear, certain it is that a public demand for amendment will be loud and irresistible. Wexbelieve that the 6-to-3 idea on declaring laws unconstitutional is the best answer in that event and also that some limit on term of office might serve to create a regular and orderly turnover to assure a court~gersonnel in tune with the times. : anwhile, certain portions of the President’s proposal which don’t. touch on the packing scheme at all should be salvaged and put through as separate legislation—such as the plan for a proctor, as an aid in expediting justice all down the line; the feature dealing with misuse of the injufiction in lower courts; and the one which provides that in all cases involying constitittionality there shall be direct and immediate appeal to the Supreme Court.
“THEY'RE GETTING HUMAN THE other day the world read that the people of Moscow turned out in force to see and applaud a revival of Tolstoy's great love story, “Anna Karenina.” Maurice Hindus tells in Harpers how fond the Russians are becoming of hot dogs, eskimo pies, crossword puzzles, fox trots and loud speakers. And now comes “Pravda,” official scourge of Soviet unorthodoxy, in an editorial rebuke to one Alexander Serebrovsky, Vice Commissar of Heavy Industry, for allowing a bibulous sculptor to cast a dozen huge bronze busts of him to adorn an exhibition. lt seems that Comrade S. violated the Stalin ideal of modesty and that the sculptor violated the temperance code by working on the busts “between drinking bouts.” : You know, we're beginning to cotton to these Russians. Evidently they're just folks after all, as the old Puritans turned out to be on week-days. They like a touch of love drama, they can enjoy a crossword puzzle as well as the class struggle, and they fall for busts—both bronze and liquid—like ordinary mortals. Next thing we'll hear of them organizing baseball games between the Stalinists and Tr8tskites, singing cowboy quartets about “Home, Home on the Steppes,” a bit of free speech and democracy.
GET BUSY, MAJOR! VER since lie learned to read and write at the age of 16, Maj. George-L. Berry has heen co-ordinating. He coordinated mind and muscle as a fairly successful prize fighter. He co-ordinated the printing pressmen into a powerful union which he has headed for 30 years. He coordinated land, crops, cows, pigs and chickens into a profitable 30,000-acre farm and became the ‘richest farmer in l'ennessee. He did some co-ordinating as an engineer officer in the World War. He co-ordinated workers’ support for President Roosevelt in the last campaign as ead of Labor’s Nonpartisan League. And the President hamed him the New Deal's Co-ordinator for Industrial Cooperation. Now, through appointment by Governor Browning of Tennessee, Maj. Berry has become that state’s junior member of the U. S. Senate. Well, we can’t think of any place where the services of an experienced co-ordinator are more urgently needed.
“A SMASHING BLOW?”
ALTER I. PLANT, state deputy of the District of Columbia Knights of Columbus, recently radioed his plan for stamping out communism.
“I earnestly plead with our Catholic employers,” he said, “to follow the social and economic doctrines outlined by the Popes in their various encyclicals on the relationship between the workers and their employers. By so doing they will contribute in a large measure to the nation-wide drive against communism.
“It is an incontrovertible fact that a general hiking of wages gnd better working conditions would be a smasiing blow to the nefarious activities of Communists, who live off unrest and trumped-up charges of mistreatment.”
We agree that this formula would prove a better antidote to radicalism than all the bush-beating laws, the antired raids and the millions of words of alarmist oratory vut together.
and maybe treating themselves to |
_ THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES In the Administration Household, T'oo—By Herblock
AND DO
ALL SIX
TAKING
SPACE
STILL WANT TO KEEP
THOSE EXTRA SUPREME court! ROBES? THEY'RE JUST
A LOT OF
GE
You
OF
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_ WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 1937 burt | | CONGRESSIONAL
REDUCING PARLORS
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Those Who Knew Jim Farley as N.Y. Prize Fight Tsar Are Not Surprised At His Blunt Language on Court.
ASHINGTON, May 19.—Those Americans who are shocked by James Farley’s blunt language in the Supreme Court matter seem to forget, if they ever were aware of, Mr. Farley’s career as chairman of the New York Prize Fight Commission. But to those who were close. observers of the little dictatorship which ruled the cauliflower industry by whim and edict in those days it is no Se that James would use political pressure to compel a change in the Supreme Court. When James was boss of the Prize Fight Commission heand his two associates had a rule forbid- EE ding the presence of questionable = ee characters at the contests of the go lithe, lean bodies. Not only were 3 questionable characters to be denied official credentials as managers and seconds, but they were to be barred from the arenas even as cash customers in the interests of chivalry - and the. ideals of American youth. But James was also a practical politician on his way to decide the future of the United States Supreme Court and there came a time when, invariably, at the big fights at the Garden, in the first row of seats, just around the corner from Jim’s cfficial throne, there sat a group of the most distinguished booticians and speakeasy magnates of the prohibition era. :
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% heweeo®
Mr. Pegler :
n ”n ” HUS prepared for little departures from conventional enforcement, nobody was much surprised when, on the night of Primo Carnera’s debut in the Garden, who should come down ihe aisle with him to serve as counsel in his corner but Honest Abe Attell, the genius of the fake World Series of 1918, and Jack Johnson, who had written a book stating that he had thrown his fight with Jess Willard and thus had cast a foul blot on that which is known as the fairest bauble in fistiana’s crown, the heavyweight championship of the world?
There came an occasion later when Old Satch, as Primo came to be called, was barred from pugilism for life on account of a highly unethical episode with one Bomko Chevalier in California in which it appeared that a pistol had been seen. But not long after that there came an occasion when James J. Johnston, Mr. Fggley’'s intimate friend, held a charter on tne Brooklyn ball-yard and Primo’s promise to fight someone for him if Mr. Johnston could arranze amnesty. So, in due course, Primo’s life term in banishment was commuted to the time already expired and Primo fought for Mr. Johnston in Brooklyn. 2 2 s R. FARLEY explained his course in a iew practical words. His friend Mr. Johnston had -a chance to make some money. : “He was my friend,” Mr. Farley said. is a friend if he won't help a friend?” The heavyweight championship was a ‘beautiful and sacred thing in that phase of Mr. Farley's career but he lightly tossed it into competition as a political favor to be won by a toul. He was not a boxing man, himself. Neither is he a constitutional authority and it is possible that the integrity of the United States Supreme Court is no more impressive as a public treasure now than the heavyweight championship of the world ‘was then.
“What good
The Hoosier Forum
1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
TERMS ECONOMY DRIVE ‘ONLY GESTURE’ By Mabel German
The most recent political gesture in Washington is an economy drive. You may rest assured, however, that it is only a gesture. Reports on Congressional activities are that. all appropriations are being passed. Why? It means a political funeral for the Administration ‘if the Hopkins relief program is not carried out. If it is carried out, it means inflation. We who earn our keep by the sweat of our brows have all we can carry as it is. We learn by word of authority 30,984,000 are at work, 8,241,000 have been re-employed since 1933. Yet, two billion dollars more will be spent for relief this fiscal year than was spent for unemployment relief in 1934. As many people are employed on private jobs as were in 1929, yet unemployment relief rolls are greater than ever. Why is the Administration ducking the issue of taking an unemployment census? An example of economy as exercised by the Administration is the large sum paid for the fishing trips of the President covering about four years. Many of us who help pay this can't even buy a fishing license. Things look very rosy on the surface, but unless something is done to stop this spending of taxpayers’ money we are headed for the worst collapse this country has ever seen. And unless something is done to stop socialistic legislation and centralized authority in Washington, we will no longer have a Government fo. and by the people. We need statesmen who have love of country and freedom to come forward and lead the way back to Americanism. It can be done.
un n E-3 » TAKES JOHNSON TO TASK FOR CRITICISM By S. H. L. General Johnson's criticism of the Wallace and Bad speeches, in which they advised{ business to lower prices and -ificrease wages or face possible increase of profit taxes to meet the needs of the underfed and ill-housed, is not well taken. There is no way in which a profit economy can continue to function if 1t does not supply buyers with more goods at lower prices continuously. Profit is not obtainable if the customers do not profit more than the producers. The attempt to profit at the consumers’ expense is what brings about a collapse of consumer buying power, which wrecks the whole business playhouse, The spending of ctedit by the Government for public works and relief has in part supplied the buying power which business failed to provide. The failure to tax income
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these: columns, religious controversies :xcluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)
power has made prices go up and money value with relation to goods and services go down.
Government credit will not be available again to clean up the mess or cushion the shock of the next business collapse. The collapse is only a matter of time if producers do not create greater consumer profits. #. non HUMAN VALUES PLAYED PART IN VAN DEALS By B. _. The Senate committee's investigation of the financial deals of the late Van Sweringen brothers contains few more painful episodes than the one relating to the Kentucky scrubwoman who, having saved $2000 by laying aside one or two dollars a week, invested the lot in “gilt-edged” bonds issued by a Van Sweringen corporation and promptly saw half her investment w'ned out. The woman wrote the brothers a letter pleading that they buy back her securities “at the best price you can give me,” as she had five dependants to care for and times were getting hard. She got a polite note from a secretary saying that the brothers ‘were unable to be helpful.”
The tale of the rise and fall of SUGGESTS TAX ON
these “financial titans” is usually told in cold figures. This little incident is a useful reminder that there were poignant human values involved in the story, too.
LOVER'S QUARRELS By VIRGINIA POTTER You say I've lied and cheated— You claim I've been unfair, And yet you say you love me--I don’t see how you dare!
Oh, why will lovers quarrel And say such bitter things— How can love keep on glowing, Surviving stabs and stings?
You have no right to doubt me, And some day you may Sce— I wasn’t such a scoundrel, As now, you'd have me be!
DAILY THOUGHT
And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.—II Chronicles 14:2.
OTHING but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a greater good to a less.—Whately.
{of purchasing power that
strikes. . | | - |
that throws our
CRITICIZES JUDGE FOR QUESTIONS By del Mundo
Circuit Court Judge W. R.)|Hunter, plicants |
Kankakee, Ill, asked six aj for naturalization papers if they believed in sit-down strikes. [The applicants answered in the negative. In a subsequent lecture tof the applicants, Judge Hunter saigl: ‘Sitdown strikes are a form of
strikes can, and should, be punished.” In speaking of applicants {for citizenship, he said: “If they] are in favor of sit-down strikes they don’t deserve to be citizens of this country. Such strikes are un-Angerican.” Neither did the Tories of [1775 believe in the revolution for
slave-owners believe in proclamation of freedom slaves.
The economic royalists have been |
sitting down on about 40 million Americans for several yedrs and keeping them in -a condition} of economic serfdom. I wonder) if the judge. thinks this action is American or un-American. Neither do I believe in {the sitdown strike, as such. Nor do I believe in the inadequate distribution brought the sit-down strikes into being. However, if the sit-down strike will give us an economic | system that will be of th> people, by the people and for the p:ople, then give us more and more of the sit-down
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IDLE CAPITAL By Bull Mooser, In 1929, when we awoke| to the fact that we were in the midst of a depression, there were 20 billion dollars of idle capital in this nation. A review of the record shows that a similar condition has existed at the beginning of every depression. Economists now admit that idle capital is the unbalancing factor economic system into a depression. ; Why not. discourage idle capital and therefore depressions by placing such a heavy tax on idle capital that the financiers will find it unattractive to take their capital out of production. We have a precedent for doing this from English history.
Crawfordsville
When the large landowners took so’
much land out of cultivation that the laboring classes suffered for want of employment and food, Parliament placed an almost! confiscatory tax on the lands, forcing them back into ‘cultivation. Unless we adopt some such method as this to force the banking families to keep their capital in production, I see no alternative to the Government's going into business to
| make work for the laborers.
anarcny | and are violations of the la. Such |
freedom | from the British. Neither [did the Liincoln’s | for the
It Seems to Me By. Heywood Broun Columnist Never Has Seen More
Tragic Eyes Than Those Belonging To John L. Lewis, C. I. O. Leader.
TAMFORD, Conn., May 19.—It was raining when I stepped off the train in Washington on Friday, but I found a chair near the bar in-the National Press Club, and as soon asl had dried out I went to the Earle
- Building to watch John L. Lewis, the labor
leader, do a broadcast. : He declined a reading desk, and as he warmed up
i he hammered his points home with short right hooks
to the jaw of the ether. Although Lewis came up out of fhe mines and has spent the greater part of his life in talking to labor audiences, there are almost no collo= quialisms in -his vocabulary. Nor is he under any necessity of coining slang and snappy phrases be< cause he can, with vocal shading, make “The Supreme Court of the United States” sound far more biting than “The Nine Old Men.” He was talking of labor's demand for democracy and a free court stripped of oligarchic powers. Whether on the air or on a platform it always seems to me that Lewis is addressing an invisible audience. Even though thousands are in front of him there is that look in his eyes and that note in his voice which seems to indicate that he wants to push back the walls and get his words . out to the millions. x ;
After the broadcast a press photographer took a few shots, and I tried unsuccessfully to get the boys to co-operate in obtaining a picture of the Lewis smile, which is extremely warm and friendly. “John can't smile in front of the camera,” his brother ex=plained. Still, he laughed heartily enough when I confided some of my personal ambitions to him. Not even. the most candid camera has ever caught much of the real John L. Lewis because: it doesn’t get the eyes, which are possibly the most extraordinary pair now current. I have never seen more tragic eyes in my life. I think thaf if it were possible to develop a print from the retina it might be found that John L. Lewis carries with him always the picture of shacks in a company town and a tired line of men shambling oft to work on a gray morning. How could he forget? = n 8
\OR generations: the Lewises of Wales were men bound to the bowels of the. earth. John L. has great physical strength, but his pallor marks his line= age, and just how his terrific toil has set its scars upon him. Anybody who doesn't realize that this is a man who is completely on the level is without decent com= prehension. From the studio I went back to the Press Club for the Pen-Machano ball, where ‘I had the privilege of introducing Maury Maverick and Ann Corric. Mr. Maverick is a Congressman and Miss Corrio is a strip-tease artist. : 8 on u
Y catching the 3 a. m. train I was able to get to New York in time to bet $5 on Snark (although owned by a Republican) and boo Herbert Bayard Swope, the State Racing Commissioner, and the Australian starting gate after the last race. i I motored back to Stamford to continue my study of birds. I have discovered that they don't like to fly. I am also working on the theory that Henry Ford has
Mr. Broun
enough to provide this spending |
General Hugh Johnson Says—
If TVA and Like Projects Promote 'General Welfare," Under AAA Ruling
It Will Make No Difference if They Were Built Primarily for Power. as
ASHINGTON, May 19.—No piece that has appeared in this: column has brought such a deluge of contradictory dope as the one that had a good word to say about TVA. So many reams of figures, arguments and analyses have flooded in that it has not yet been possible to study them all and come to any fair conclusion about one of the most highly controversial questions of this era—Governmental development of hydro-electric power. ‘One thing is clear. Through an oversight, that piece ascribed credit for the Norris Dam to Mr. Lillienthal and failed to mention Dr. A. E. Morgan. Among protests about that is one from Mr. Lillienthal himself. Of course, Dr. Morgan is the. engineer of the TVA triumvirate and the excellent technical work on that dam is principally his. °* The protests from power companies cover so many important points that only a few can be discussed in a single column. The first is that TVA masquerades as a navigation project, whereas it is essentially a power installation. . 2 8 ”
TT column pointed that out clearly. Figures sent to me indicate that the Tennessee River could have been improved for navigation for $74,000,000, while completed TVA cost $500,000,000; that the
difference is the cost of the power project, and that. it is so great as to be axiomatic proof that the pri-
mary purpose is not navigation.
This is a true pill. The Supreme Court in approving the legality of Federal distribution of power from |
A
The Washington Merry-Go-Round
delusions of simplicity.” I am sleeping under blankets.
President Tells Congressional Leaders He Will Stand Pat on Courf And Relief Issues; One Conferee Described Him As 'Tough and Sore.
Muscle Shoals said it ¢id so because the war-time installation there had been unquestionably for national . defense—a proper public purpose. It held that when incidentally such an installation produces power, the Government has a right to transmit it and sell it. But it so pointedly restricted the holding to the circumstances of that particular case as to leave wide open the question of whether when navigation and defense are so plainly secondary as in the Norris Dam, the Government can go into the power and light business.
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TT is a vital legal question and it has a new angle, growing out of the AAA case. It seems pretty clear that the Court now holds that the Federal Government can tax and spend to promote “the general welfare.” If TVA promotes the general welfare by generating power and controlling floods in the Tennessee Valley. it will no longer make any difference whether it is primarily for navigation and defense or primarily for power. It still will be valid. That raises a. real question. Are TVA, sobuavics, Grand Coulee and Passamaquoddy merely for the
welfare of particular people and particular localities,
or do they ‘promote the general welfare”? Under Mr. Justice Roberts’ rule nobody can finally answer that in any particular case but the Supreme Court itself.
‘By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
7 ASHINGTON, May 19.—The President minced no words when he conferred with Congressional leaders following his return from Texas. He was blunt and full of fight. One of the conferees described him as ‘tough and sore.” “There will be no compromise on the court issue now or later,” the Presicent told the Democratic _ chieftains. “And that goes for relief, too. I am standing pat on both issues.” ? : Mr. Roosevelt expressed the firm conviction that the Administration can win on both measures, and he made it clear that he expected the leaders to back him 100 per cent. In return, he assured them of militant support. Of the four leaders who consulted with the President only one, Vice President Jack Garner, urged a conciliatory attitude. The Texan, who has become increasingly restless ove: the prospect of spending the summer in Washington, away from his spacious farm veranda end lazy fishing expeditions, advised compromising on the court bill with a two-judge deal and accepting a cut in the relief budget. doing.”
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HE other three conferees, Senate Leader Robinson, Speaker Bankhead and House Leader Sam
| Rayburn, advocated a finish fight.
Robinson said the votes to carry the court bill in
the Senate were to be had if a sufficiently vigorous
Roosevelt's answer was “nothing
effort wa made to get them. Bankhead and Rayburn declared flatly the relief appropriation would go through the House without a cut. They also promised that if the Senate passed the court measure it
would be approved by their chamber. :
Postmaster General Jim Farley had a hand in the President's decision to stand pat and fight. “There is more to this than just the fate of the court bill,” Farley said. “What the leaders of the opposition really are aiming at is 1940. They are out ; to wrest control of the party from the Administras : tion so they can put over a reactienary as the next Presidential candidate. > > “If we are'licked on the court bill we gre pretty -: nearly washed up. We can't compromise’ and we can't afford to lose.” " 8 a
ENATE Administration leaders have agreed to authorize an investigation of SpanisH, German and Italian Fascist operations in the United States.
Senator = Gerald Nye and Senator Bill Borah, sponsors of the probe, have received private assur= ances that their proposal will be allowed to come to a vote and will not be opposed by the Administration, This virtually assures its approval.
The investigation is certajn to prove sensational, A great mass of evidence is in the hands of Nye and * Borah, including pictures of secret Nazi meetings in’ this country and documents proving gun-running and spying operations. : |