Evening Star Newspaper, December 2, 1934, Page 39

HIGH LIGHTS OF CONGRESS DURING THE EIGHTIES Carpenter Gives Intimate Description of the Men and Customs Which Mark the Lower House. This is the thirty-first of a series of weekly articles on interesting persons and events in the Natijnal Capital during the 80s, by Frank G. Carpenter, world-famous author and traveler. The next chapter in the series wilt be published next Sunday in The Star. CHAPTER XXXIL BY FRANK G. CARPENTER. O CONGRESSMEN smoke during the session? Why, bless you, yes! I have seen ladies grow sick in the gal- leries from the vile odors of tobacco which rose from the two- for-five-cent cigars glowing in the mouths of the so-called gentlemanly Congressmen beneath. I have seen members smoking in their very seats and have peered through the wreaths of smoke to catch the eyes of the members behind them. They chew too! Every desk has a spittoon of pink and gold china beside it. The Congressmen are a neat set! The House is this moment littered with scraps of paper, like a garret. In front of the Speaker's desk are bits of letters, torn newspapers and other paper and under the desks of most of the members are heaps of the same nature. There is a spittoon beside the chair of the Speaker, for Mr. Carlisle is an inveterate chewer | of tobacco and his heavy jaws caress | the cud as joyfully as they do free- | trade statistics. As far as order in the House is | concerned, there is none. If an| ordinary member has the floor a bedlam straightway arises. His fel- low members talk out loud to each other and each goes on with his business as if he were alone. Dozens of members are writing letters, others are mailing documents, some are sleeping and many are talking and laughing. If a member wants to cross the hall he does not hesitate to rush between the Congressman speaking and the Speaker, and: if another wants a page he will clap his hands with a noise like the shot of a pistol, regardless of the fact that his brother orator may be in the midst of his finest period. It is no uncommon thing for a member to be talking, with not a single fellow member listening to his | speech. Even the Speaker does not always pay attention. In the House. The ceiling of the House chamber | is a wonderful structure, made of | glass and cast iron. Through this | the House is lighted—in the daytime by the light of day and during the evening by 1,500 gas jets. This ceil- ing is made in panels painted and gilded, each’bearing the coat of arms of one of the States of the Union. Just over the entrance door of the House is a large round-faced clock which regulates the time of opening | the session and which limits the time allowed to each speaker. It is a| sober, judicial looking old clock and | its face is a terror to the average long-winded Congressman. { Over the Speaker's desk and op- | posite this clock under the press | gallery is a gold eagle looking out over the Speaker's head, and ap- parently ready to fly. On each side | of it hangs a dingy American flag | covered with dust and discolored with | age. The two doors in the walls at the sides of the Speaker's stand lead into | the members’ retiring rooms, in which | are hung crayon portraits of all the | Speakers since the organization of Congress. They cost the Govern- ment $50 apiece and some are fairly | good likenesses. This room is well | furnished. It has a number of sotasl and easy chairs. Two doorkeepers, | at an expense of a couple of thou- | sand dollars a year, bar out the public. | Sometimes I think the Capitol far too fine a structure for the men who have the right to seats in its cham- bers. The average Congressman con- siders himself a great man, but he is only a clerk after all. He is paid by the country to come here and appor- tion out the public funds to the run- | ning of the Government. Other men | decide how much the Government | needs, and they furnish the Congress- | men the figures. The average mem- | ber knows nothing about it, but the best member for the country perhaps | is he who knows the least. We merely pay these men to divide our money for us. The Government is already organized. We have all the laws we need, and the United States, if it were | not for the necessity of the formality of passing the appripriations, could do better without Congress than with it. | Still we have it, and we have to pay for it. We pay well, too. The esti- mate for the legislative expenses of the current year is put at more than $3.500,000, and the House of Repre- sentatives alone will cost nearly $2.- | 600,000. It takes $413,000 a year to pay the saiaries of our Senators; $1,- 800.000 to pay the mileage and salaries of the Representatives, and the under- strappers about the House and Sen- | ate get salaries of $700,000 and more each congressional sesison. An Old Dentist. There is an old dentist in Wash- ington who boasts that he has pulled over 100,000 teeth by actual count. He has been in the dental business here for more than 20 years, and has manipulated the mouths of Presidents, generals, Senators and Representa- tives. I saw him today. An odd fel- low, as lean and miserable as the apothecary who sold the poison to Romeo, he walks as though his joints were strung on wires, and he has a pair of as hollow, hungry eyes as ever looked forth the misery of a dyspep- tic's stomach. “Yes!” said he in response to my re- quest for him to tell me something about tooth-pulling, “the molars I have pulled will fill several bushel baskets, and their bone dust would have made the largest garden rich. I have pulled all kinds of teeth, from the first pearl-like product of the year-old baby to the crumbling tusk of the nonogenarian. I have yanked out the grinders of coal heavers and have torn the jaws of foreign minis- ters. I acted as dentist for President Johnson, and the false teeth which his daughter used to masticate the ‘White House dinners with were made by my hands: I have pulled at least 30,000 teeth by the use of nitrous oxide and this I employ exclusively at the present time. It deadens the sense of the patient for two minutes and in this time the work must be done. I can administer the gas and take out two teeth in two minutes. The man with the toothache takes his seat in my chair. I give the gas, a sound of the bumping of a railroad train going through a tunnel fills his ears, he awakes and his tooth is out. There is no pain, and the gas does not in- Jure him. “Do I think too many -teeth are | Calhoun and Webster. | to the | soft necktie. pulled? Yes, if proper care is taken of the teeth they should last a life- time. I have many families whose teeth I take care of the year rourd. They come to me every three months and I look them over and rectify any- thing that is going wrong.” I am sitting in the press gallery of the House. The Representatives in their various degrees of disorder are carrying on their usual antics in the great pit known as the House cham- ber just below me. I jot down as I 100k on such items of gossip as strike my fancy. The funny men of Congress are Sam Cox, Tom Reed, Tom Ochiltree and Roswell T. Horr. Cox is the only real humorist among them, and he is the champion of the House. Get him on the floor and he effervesces like the best of Mumm's extra dry, putting the House into a good humor and giving it something worth while at the same time. His wit is of a re- fined quality. There is no vulgarity about it, and it flows as naturally as his own generous blood. Horr’s wit is coarser than that of Cox. He is a big man with a round, red face and short silvery-gray hair. He has two ounces of fat to one of nerves, while Cox is all nerves and no fat whatever. When Horr laughs it reminds you of a bowl of jelly in violent convulsions. Cox also laughs heartily, but his flesh does not shake as he does so. Tom Reed has no finer sensibilities than Horr. He is also big, fat and gross. His humor, however, is of a cruel, poisonous kind which rankles and burns in the hearts of some of his fellow members. He strikes only in sarcasm and his tongue cuts to the quick. Tom Ochiltree is not a wit as far as the sessions are concerned. He seldom speaks, devoting his time in Congress to writing and chatting. He is a short, fat. red-headed man, and his face is the facsimile of a steak of the same cognomen as his big middle name, which is Porterhouse. Ochil- tree has a bold face inclined to the brazen. His every step is in advance. and his cheek is proverbial. His hu- mor lies in this and in the prepos- terous character of his stories, which quite equal those of Baron Mun- chausen. Lupe P. Poland is the only relic of the old statesman of the days of Clay. He still clings swallow-tail coat, with the bright gold buttons which were used | by all of the fashionable men of that time. It is cleaner and prettier than the Prince Albert or the cutaway of the present. In fact the dress of men has been growing simpler during the past century. Washington, who died in 1799, wore ruffles on his sleeves, and half of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, wore powdered wigs. Jefferson sported knee breeches, and Madison was proud of his originality in having worn a suit of clothes of American make at his inauguration. Daniel Webster usually wore a suit of snuff-brown color, with a large Martin Van Buren was fastidious about his clothes, and al- ways appeared during the Summer in the whitest of white duck linen. His suits were cut in the latest styles: he wore very high stock neckties, out of which peeped his standing collar. Andrew Jackson also dressed well, though he did not make his clothes a great matter. Henry Clay wore a swallow-tail, and a standing collar ex- travagantly high, while James Bu- chanan was precise in his clothes, always appearing in full dress. Today half of our public men go about in suits as business-like as those of the bank cashier. William Walter Phelps, with all his millions, wears clothes which cost about $25 a suit, and he likes a red necktie. Tom Reed dresses in dark tweed business clothes. Lyman of Massachusetts wears a green scarf: Orlando Pot- ter’s gray clothes would not sell for $5 to a second-hand clothes man, and the black ones of Col. Woolford of Kentucky are shiny with age | Charley Neal of Philadelphia is natty in his dress, his red neckties are al- ways new and his collars clean; Jim Beiford, on the other hand, some- times wears clothes that are posi- tively dirty and they hang on his square, angular form like the old ones of a farmer who has framed them on a cross to scare the crows. Both Carlisle and Randall wear little inch-wide black neckties and both are generally dressed in black. Both stoop a little and neither is very careful as to his appearance. Judge Reagan of Texas appears in a black diagonal Prince Albert coat and a turnover collar, and Perry Belmont's little frame, every ounce of which can be nourished with its income of many thousands a year, is clothed in closely buttoned black broadcloth. Gov. Long, who is to read the ad- dress at the dedication of the Wash- ington Monument, has a good tailor, | his wide blue seersucker pants of last year making him the envied of all the Washington dudes. Bluff Oscar Turner of Kentucky often comes into the House without a vest, and holds up his pantaloons with a belt strap. Dorsheimer clothes his six-foot form and his 300 pounds in black diagonal. San Cox always appears on the floor in black, and Horr of Michigan has on a suit of business cut and of a pepper-and-salt material. “Calamity” Weller's clothes are as rough and crazy as his brain. His Guiteau-like face looks as though it needed a razor and his hair always stands on end. Phil Thompson, the little fellow with the pleasant face and the mild air, dresses very neatly, and his clothes fit him. Phil Thompson has a twin brother who dresses just like him, and who is his image in face and form. The doorkeepers cannot tell them apart and Phil's brother, who is not a member of Congress and has no right to the floor, can move in and out of the House at will, the officers of the House taking him for Con- gressman Phil. At one time it is said that when Phil was a prosecuting attorney in Kentucky and not feeling well one day, he asked his brother to go and try the case for him. He did so and the court did not know the difference. Salaries. These Congressmen are each paid salaries of $5,000 a year. There are 325 of them, and about 25 out of that number are worth their salaries. The best could not make more than half that by the sale of their talents to the world in any capacity, and if some of them were forced to live by the sweat of their brows outside of politics, them would go on a low diet, and | tention. not from choice either. Look over the men of your acquaintance! How many of them are worth $5,000 a year outside of their Capital. ) Pick out 325 men from any part of the Union, men whose brain and muscle ‘alone are worth $5,000 & year in the market—and I will show you that they are.of a far higher grade than those making up this body. How did they get here? I imagine that many of{marked to attract general public at- THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTOM D. C, DECEMBER 2, 1934—PART TWO. Crime Actually Decreasing Swirl of Widespread Lawlessness Expected After Prohibition Repeal Has Yet to Make Appearance. Year BY ERNEST K. LINDLEY, Author of “The Roosevelt Revolution.” MONG the unexpected by-prod- ucts of the first year of repeal A is a lost crime wave. During the last few years of prohibi- tion a great many people con- fidently predicted that repeal would | usher in a huge crime wave, as boot- leggers and' their allies in the illicit liquor traffic, thrown out of their ac- customed occupations, would be forced | to seek new sources of income. All but a few of the most fanatical drys realized that prohibition had built up a vast underworld, far more numerous, far better organized and far richer than any that this or prob- | ably any other modern nation had ever seen before. It seemed altogether | reasonable to suppose that with the legalization of liquor these interlock- ing syndicates and gangs, with their great resources and ripe experience in making a living outside the law, would turn to other illegal sources of profit. The belief that for a time, at least, law_enforcement officials would be confronted with a problem of new dimensions became almost axiomatic in many circles. The blunt truth is that the predicted crime wave has not materialized. In- stead of an increase of major crimes | since repeal there has been a decrease. | Figures Testify. 1 Here are the total figures concern- ing several types of crime in 71 cities of more than 100,000 population dur- ing the first nine months of each of the last four years: NUMBER OF OFFENSES KNOWN. Murder, Auto etc. Robbery Burglary Theft | 1209 15291 52,377 66,874 1254 14426 57,557 56,400 1332 13834 58530 52941/ ... 1212 11,448 55,400 49,028 The murder column includes all | cases of non-negligent manslaughter. | The figures for aggravated assault and | larceny, which are not given above, also show a slight falling off during | the first nine months of 1934, under | repeal, in comparison with the first | nine months of 1933, although in each | instance the figure is larger than for | 1932 and 1931. At no point in the standard statistics collected from 1,228 cities by the Division of Investigation is there any indication that repeal brought about an increase in crime. The main trend appears to have been in exactly the opposite direction. Why did the widely predicted post- repeal crime wave fail to develop? No answer can be supported with definite proof, and in attempting an explanation one may be in danger of erring as much as did the prophets of a boom in crime. But at least part of the answer can be made very plausible, even if it cannot be proved. Illicit Liquor Alive. In the first place, the illicit liquor traffic has not been wiped out. Only three months ago the officials of the Treasury and the Federal Alcohol Con- trol Administration estimated that at least half the hard liquor being con- sumed in the country was of illicit origin. At least part of this illicit liquor was the product of the small independent local distiller who used to be known as a ‘“moonshiner.’ But in the urban areas bootleggers were still operating, and in the dry States the positions which they established under prohibition remained practically undisturbed. ‘While Treasury officials believe that the new safeguards adopted to prevent the flow of illegal liquor into legal retail channels, coupled with per- sistent efforts to close up illegal dis- tilleries, have greatly reduced the supply of bootleg liquor since late Summer, there is no doubt that many bootlegging syndicates are still at ‘work. In the second place, some former members of the bootlegging profes- sion are now to be found in the legalized liquor business. No one knows how many. However large, these two groups automatically reduce the number of men in the illicit liquor trafic who were forced to seek new means of earning & llving. A third qualifying factor lies in the unknown extent of racketeering and gambling. In some cities there were and still are crime syndicates which had many sources of revenue other than the illegal liquor traffic during the prohibition era. No statistics are available to show whether or not there has been any increase in racketeering and gambling since repeal, but if there has been any increase it has not been sufficiently Many observers think that racketeering has decreased in some cities as a result of the breaking up of well organized racketeering groups by successful prosecution and by shifts in control of municipal governments during the last two years, To whatever improvement in law enforcement has been achieved by local suthorities in many communities must be added at least two other im- portant factors. First is the success | newspaper which the Federal Government began | to have in the late years of prohibi- | tion in sending bootleggers and racke- 1 teers to prison by the “left-handed” | method of convicting them of iicome tax evasion. Second, and perhaps most important of all, is the expansion of the Federal Government's authority to combat crime and the remarkably suc- cessful application of that authority by the Division of Investigation of the Department of Justice. The record of the Division of In- ~Drawn for vestigation in kidnaping cases since the Lindbergh case in March, 1932, caused passage of the Federal kid- naping law, has probably established a new level of efficiency in this coun- try in the detection and apprehension of criminals. Thirty-two cases in all have been handled by the Division of Inivestigation—a few other cases fail- ing to qualify for Federal participa- tion because State lines were not crossed and the mails were not used. In 31 of these cases one or more CONTINUOUS REVOLUTION The Sunday Star by Stockton Mulford. arrests have been made and in the | store or factory he runs. D3 SMALL BUSINESS SEEN FEARING CONTROLBY U.S. Stories of Personal Experiences Con- vince Observer New Deal Exerts Unfair Supervision. BY MARK SULLIVAN. F WE are to think accurately about the new world in which we live, we must, as President Roosevelt put it in his address to Congress last January, “readjust many of our ways of thinking.” Many of us are deceiving ourselves because we continue to think in old words of which the meaning has changed. Much of this is our cwn fault. Some of it is due to the art of propagandists—they are cunning with words, and manipulate them in such a way that we fail to understand fully what is being done. Among many examples I think we must divide the familiar word “busi- ness” into two words. There is s0 much difference between the condi- tions of big business and the condi- tions of little business that no one word can adequately cover both. To try to think of the two in terms of one word is almost as misleading as to think of law and medicine as one profession. Great Difference Cited. To illustrate: Mr. Gerard Swope is president of the General Electric Co., with a capital of several hundred m:! lion dollars and employing about 39.- 000 workers. Now between Mr. Swope and a little manufacturer or shop- keeper with a capital of say $50,000, employing 5 to 20 or 30 hands—be- tween these two the differences are much greater than the things they have in common. The attitude of the two toward government and the effect of government policies on the two is so different that it is utterly mislead- | ing to group the two in the one classification, “business.” The little business man is aAn owner. usually the sole or chief owner of the ‘That fact alone accounts for an immense differ- | ence. Without knowing anything | about it I should doubt whether Mr. Swope’s ownership in General Electric is as much as 1/100th or even 1/1,000th | of its enormous capital. The sm-ui business man, as a rule, created the| business he runs; most of the heads men have a sense of fear and oppres- sion. I cite some examples that have re- cently come to me in letters from vari- ous parts of the country. They con- stitute, very roughly and sketchily, of course, a survey of the state of the Nation as seen by the small business man. In Natchez, Miss., Mr. Joseph Zuc- caro had a little capital—I should judge from the records,of his case it must have been about $10,000 (which, incidentally, he has lost as a result of his experience with the New Deal). Mr. Zuccaro with a partner decided to go into the ice manufacturing busi- ness. They were informed that they could not make ice without getting permission from N. R. A., because the code of the ice manufacturing industry | contains the following extraordinary | provision: “If at any time an individual, firm, | corporation or partnership desires to | establish additional ice production * * * said party must first establish to the satisfaction of the administrator [of N. R. A.] that public necessity and convenience require such additional | production.” Mr. Zuccaro asked N. R. A. permis- | sion to go into the ice manufacturing business. When he found he might | have difficulty he got some 900 citi- | zens of Natchez to sign a petition in | his behalf. His application went be- fore an N. R. A. Committee of Arbi- | tration and Appeals, which committee was made up of three men already in the ice manufacturing industry in towns not far from Natchez. Mr. Zuccaro's application was de- nied. In a letter to me he says—very mildly, as it seems to me: “I am sure that America’s ideals are not reflected in such summary disregard of its citi- zens’ most sacred and inalienable rights to engage in a gainful and honest occupation.” Plant Closed. In a little upstate New York town, with the alluring name of Trout Brook, Mr. C. W. Peak was a small manufacturer. Was, but is no longer. other case—the Bremer kidnaping—the | of big business are hired administra- | The account of his destruction I con- law enforcement authorities say they!tors. The small business map as a dense from a letter he wrote me: know the identity of the four kid-| napers. | The Stoll kidnaper is still at large and the Robles case has not been | cleared up, although one arrest has been made, while the verdict in the | Lindbergh case will soon rest with a | New Jersey However, in most of the big kidnaping cases of the last two years, the Division of Investiga-| tion, in co-operation with local author- | ities. has made a clean sweep of both principals and accomplices. The record now stands: 72 persons convicted: | | sentences aggregating 1,186 years 11 GIVES MEXICO STABILITY Awakening of National Feeling by 1910 Events Manufactures New Country for Masses BY GASTON NERVAL. . | NEW government was inaug- | urated last Friday in Mexico. In vears gone by this an-| nouncement would have been expected to include a descrip- | tion of the successful revolution, the | seizure of the capital, the selection of | the strongest “caudillo” among the | victors to head the new regime. Mex- | ico used to be the country invariably | associated in the mind of the average | reader with revolutions, | political plots, and almost continuous external friction resuiting from the former. ‘The presidential inauguration which Mexicans witnessed last week, how- ever, was peaceful, orderly, and com- plied with the best of all known dem- ocratic standards. Tt followed a gen- eral election which both winners and losers admitted to have been free and | fair. Moreover, it came after several | years of uninterrupted internal peace, years crowded with violent upsets and restlessness for most of the other Latin American republics. South Americans used to point to Mexico as the example to be avoided: Disorder, | personal ambition, instability. Today the picture is reversed. There are but two or three countries south of the Rio Grande which can match the record of internal stability which Mexico has established in these years of economic depression and political discontent. The reason for this is that Mexico is the only Latin American country which has had a real revolution. The so-called revolutions in other south- ern countries, of which Americans hear so much, are merely coups d'etat, “cuartelazos,” personal attempts— sometimes successful, sometimes not— to substitute a group of men for an- other, with little alteration in the so- cial or the economic make-up of the community. But in Mexico the move- ment which began in 1910 with the overthrow of the feudal Diaz regime, | and still is going on, has not stopped at the simple change of personnel in the administration of the country. It has definitely removed from® power a clique of aristocrats and wealthy land- owners who for centuries had exploited the natural resources and the largest part of the population. It has liber- ated the masses. It has articulated their aspirations. It has outlined an economic system adapted to their pe- culiar needs and genius. It has awak- ened national consciousness. It 1s, slowly but certainly, manufacturing a new Mexico. Phases of Revolution. ‘The several changes of government by violence which distinguished the first decade following the fall of Diaz were not isolated, meaningless evi- dences of chaos, as outside observers thought. They were phases, stages of the greater revolution; they were the inevitable and painful steps in the march of that movement which was recreating Mexico. They were, pre- cisely, the result of popular uprisings against officials who had deviated from the original principles of the 1910 revolution. But “the revolution” itself went ahead. Its principles subsisted. They survived all the violent upsets un- avoidable in a period of change and among people of the psychological characteristics of the Mexican. The spirit of “the revolution” marched on, until, out of the struggle, a new order came to being and a more settled and more constructive stage waé reached. 1t is this stage of construction that Mexico has been going through for the past few years. Naturally, just as the period of transition was marked by short-lived, rather color- less regimes, experimenting with new theories, the constructive period ne- cessitated a strong government. And a strong government the Mexicans | originally placed it in power. | world-wide depression ranks first, do of People. have had for the past few years, but one unique in its kind. Strong government, in the popular language, is almost synonymous with reaction, autocracy. oppression of the masses. But not the Mexican. The Mexican “strong government” is the only one in the world. except the Russian, which is left of the center. Of course, it is considerably less to the left than the Russian; it is far ; 16 life sentences: : 2 persons lynched; | months and 2 day 2 death sentenc | 3 suicides, 2 murdered; 22 now in| | custody. Facts such as these are| stern warnings to criminals to avoid | crimes which will bring them, up | against the Federal Government. Hoover's Opinion. While unwilling to leap to conclu-| | sions that he cannot prove. J. Edgar | | Hoover, chief of the Division of In-| vestigation thinks that the Federal Government is a powerful deterrent to crime. When the question was put to | him, Mr. Hoover agreed that there were plausible reasons for expecting | I an outburst of crime after repeal. “One hesitates to say what has be- | come of the prohibition bootleggers | rule has his all in his business. The big business administrator is com- | monly a man of wealth independent of his business connection. | Mental Attitude Different. The difference in mental attitude between two men thus situated is &s great as the difference between, for example, the mental attitudes of a farmer and of an artisan, or a shop- keeper and a Government employe The difference in economic point of view is much greater than the differ- ence in religious mental attitude be- tween a Catholic and a Protestant. To think of the two as having wholiy common interests is almost fantastic. The mental attitude of Mr. Swope toward the General Electric may be something like that of a college presi- | dent toward his institution: the men- tal attitude of the small business man has the intense personal concern of a parent for his child. What Mr. Swope might assent to in N. R. A. might be bitterly rejected by tne small business man. I hope no one will imagine I am making a merely demagogic distinc- tion between “big business” and “little business.” I am simply calling atten- tion to the plain Jact that to think of | the two as one is inaccurate. I do| not argue for the preservation of the ! | because there are no figures to back | one more than for the other. But I | up any statement.” he said. “But it |should add that, as it seems to me, the | was natural to suppose that many of | policies of the New Deal tend to fos- | them would resort to other illegal|ter big business and harm little busi- | methods of obtaining an income. The | ness. And I think that the little from being a dictatorship of the | average professional criminal is at DS | husiness man is the very ideal of what proletariat, but it is, nevertheless, a strong government working in favor peak between the ages of 20 and 30. | After* 30 he will probably be killed or | we should preserve in America. The little business man is the true “rugged of the lower classes and in detriment | in jail or will have retired on his| pdividualist.” and the tendency to ex- | of the vested interests. Marches Ahead. Instead of being orthodox and re- actionary, the Mexican ‘“strong gov- ernment” has constantly marched | ahead, promoting and enacting ad- | vanced social legislation, spreading popular education, improving the | status of the Indian. heeding, as far | as it thought it could, the clamor for | reformi and social change which had ‘This | record is enough to answer the criti- | cism of extremists of the left who | accuse the present leader of Mexico | of having betrayed their cause. One | of these leaders, J. M. Puig Casau- ranc, former Ambassador to Wash- ington, told the wwriter, in an inter- view three years.ago: “We have not gone to the right. We have only cut down the pace of our march. We have, perhaps, stopped temporarily, because the force of circumstances demanded it. | ‘We realize that certain physical con- ditions, among which the present | not permit us to effect immeédiately radical changes which are still on our program. The stability of the government, the prsservation of order, domestic harmony and the economic recovery of the country are today our main endeavors. When the crisis has passed we will resume the march toward our final goal.” Recent events in Mexico show that those statements were sincere. As soon as the economic depression has let down the trend to the left has been resumed with added vigor. Of course, the unusual phenome- non of a revolutionary party which, once in power, keeps on being revo- lutionary could not have been pos- sible without the existence of a strong organization, disciplined and trained and able to control thoroughly the political life of the country. This role has been filled in Mexico by the National Revolutionary party, which has provided the men and the plans for all the more recentk administra- tions, almost to the exclusion of any other. It is from the ranks of the Na- tional Revolutionary party, naturally enough, that the government just in- augurated in Mexico has been chosén. The new President, Gen. Lazaro Car- denas, & man with a distinguished military record and long experience in the administration of public af- fairs, has been for years gne of the outstanding 'leaders of the party which is carrying out the ideals of the Mexican revolution. It is, more- over, the National Revolutionary party which has drafted the program of the new administration, the six- year plan, which is designed to ac- celerate the planned industrialization of all natural resources and to make Mexico a socially-minded country. The presence of an all-powerful organization like the National Revo- lutionary party has prompted critics of the present Mexican regime to charge that Mexico is under a one- party system along the lines of certain Fascist European states. The differ- ence, however, is that in Mexico the one-party system is not at the serv- ice of military chieftains or indus- trial barons, but at the service of the people of Mexico. (Copyright. 1934.) gains. Take away the livelihood of a| large number of these men under 30, and most of them find other means | of obtaining an income. They are not likely to go back to factories or farms. To use a homely phrase, they don't want to go back to sweat. “I think that the chief fields that | they would be likely to turn to are kidnaping. extortion. robbery—espe- | cially bank robbery—and gambling. | A certain number of kidnapings fol- lowed the Lindbergh kidnaping of | 1932. These were performed by two | types of kidnaper: the gang crimina < and the individual criminal. Some of | the gangs that we caught as kidnapers | had been in the bootlegging racket. | But we can't say that bootleggers have turned to kidnaping, because there have not been enough kidnap- ings to justify such a generalization. However, I think that our campaign on kidnapers has served as a deter- rent. It has made the average crim- inal stop. look and listen before he engages in kidnaping. To Make It Hazardous. “It would be much too optimistic to | suppose that we have wiped out kid- | naping. Kidnaping is referred to in| the Bible. It existed in the Middle | Ages. We have not reached the Utopia | in which there will be no more kid- | napings. But our aim is to make it | as hazardous as possible. “I think the smashing of several notorious gangs has given crime a definite setback during the last year. ‘The Touhy gang, the Sankey gang, the Barrows gang, the ‘Pretty Boy' Floyd gang, the Dillinger gang and | others have been broken up. It is| altogether natural that this would result in reducing the number of kid- napings and bank robberies. The average gang kidnaper also has been a bank robber. “There has been a marked falling off in the number of bank robberies in recent months. Last May Congress passed the national bank robbery act, making it a Federal offense to rob a national bank or any bank contain- ing Federal funds. Since last May bank robberies have averaged 12 a month, whereas the average during the previous year was 16 a month. ‘The bank robberies also have declined in size. We have information con- cerning cases in which criminals in the underworld, planning a bank rob- bery, discussed whether the bank was a national bank or a State bank and whether, if it was a State bank, it contained any Federal funds. “The largest number of bank rob- beries occurs in California. That is because of their branch banking sys- tem, with so many branches in stores and other places without proper pro- tection. There are also a good many bank robberies, of course, in the ‘crime corridor’ that runs from Texas to Minnesota. There are not so many bank robberies in the East and the South. “That leaves us to consider two other phases extortion and gambling. We have no definite means of know- ing whether racketeering and gam- bling have increased since repeal, or whether former bootleggers have gone into gambling.” As old gangs were smashed, new | ones undoubtedly grew up, but Mr. Hoover said that one objective of the Federal Government was to up underworld solidity by isolating the términate him by Government policies | seems to me tragic. Recovery “Evangelists.” " At this moment the President of the United States Chamber of Com- merce, Mr. H. I. Harriman, and a former president, Mr. Silas Strawn of Chicago, are going about the country in an entirely laudable effort to en- courage business. They are acting in a spirit of “let's go,” of assuring busi- ness that conditions are better and that all business should go ahead and achieve national recovery. It is true conditions are better. And the efforts of these two evangelists of recovery | are most worthy. At the same time I am satisfied that many small business criminals who could be reached un- der Federal power. “In every case,” he said. “we are going after not only the principals but all who assisted or who knew about the crime before or after. In the Dillinger case, for example, we | have gone after doctors, lawyers, and all others who gave assistance. We have made 15 or 16 arrests in this case. Heretofore, if you were a gang- ster in Washington and I was a gangster in Chicago, either would | give the other shelter. We want to | make sheltering a criminal danger- ous. We want to make the commis- sion of a crime like a typhoid germ, so that from the moment a crime is | planned the criminal is a typhoid | carrier and any person he touches will | be contaminated. No man can oper- ate any length of time as a lone wolf.” Difficult Prosecution. Income tax prosecutions—with which Mr. Hoover has no connection—have been another difficuity with which the bootlegger and racketeer have | had to reckon. In the last six years | Al Capone and about 20 other rack- eteers have been sent to prison for income tax evasion after efforts to convict them of violations of the pro- hibition laws and other statutes had failed. About 50 indictments for in- come tax evasion are now standing against other racketeers, including | such Capone lieutenants as Murray L. Humphrey, Louis Lipschultz and Thomas E. Molloy. Department of Justice officials frankly admit, however, that this | “left-handed” way of getting at rack- eteers is rapidly losing its usefulness. Since the Capone conviction, they re- port, racketeers have stopped using bank accounts and safety deposit boxes and have gone back to the simpler tin box which was in vogue before many of them became cocky— and careless. For bootleggers, however, the indi- rect income tax approach probably is no longer necessary, since bootlegging is mow a violation of the internal revenue laws instead of the prohibi- tion laws, and the Federal Govern- ment is finding that with the return of legal liquor it is not so difficult in the wet States to obtain convictions by the direct attack. With internal revenue officers on his heels and the stern evidence before him that it is dangerous to enter into any field of crime under the eye of the Division of Investigation of the Department of Justice, the future of the bootlegger and his gangster aids is less than bright. % | ceased. “I have operated a wood chemical plant in this small town for the past 35 years, employing from 40 to 50 men. Under the code of the hard- wood distillation industry I was com- pelled to nearly double the price per hour paid to my employes and reduce their hours, which together increased my operating costs 100 per cent: * ¢ * I operated under the code for six months and have now closed my plant. The closing of my plant, be-* cause there is no other industry here, has put some of the employes on relief work. Nearly every man rep- resented a family.” Near Malone, N. Y., Mr. Will Pres- ton is a section hand on the railroad. He has a family of six and lives on a small farm of about 20 acres. His earnings are perhaps less than $15 a week. To increase his income a little he keeps one brood sow. Last Winter she bore a litter and Mr. Preston raised four of the pigs. These he slaughtered recently and sold to the local meat dealer. For the four he received $37.44. Presently a Govern- ment tax collector called on Mr. Pres- ton and demanded a processing tax of “$8 and some cents with an exemp- tion of $3—a net tax of $5." . Undertaking Experience. The following narrative of harass- ment of small business is condensed from a letter that came to me from a small city. I give the facts as they are set forth in the letter—some of the details of life behind the windows of an undertaking parior are new to me: “In an undertaking parlor just close to this office a Government man came in and wanted to talk with the em- ployes. It seems that the custom among undertakers is to have college boys sleep in their quarters, so when a call comes the boy can go out with the undertaker and bring in the de- Many times these boys are not called for several nights at a time. Thus they can go to college in the daytime and get heir room rent for the possible calls they may take in the night, and thus work their way through school. The Government men have decided that these boys are entitled to full pay, because they are subject to call. Hence the Govern- ment man interviews these boys and posts them on their rights. He com- pels the proprietor to pay these boys a large amount of back pay. The Government man wants the proprie- tor to pay him, the Government man, and he in turn is to refund it to the laborer. He says that this is to clear his records and know that it is all satisfactorily settled. The undertaker | is usually timid and a quiet and dig- nified fellow and easily bluffed. The Government man let him off with a stiff admonition not to commit the offense again.” From an intelligent and public- spirited man in a Midwestern small city, whose associations are with small business, I received the following com- ments on- the state of mind he en- counters: “That which thwarts our recovery most is fear. I have never seen people so uncertain. Formerly our Govern- ment was so far from us that the aver- age man thought very little about it, but now the average man, as you meet him on the street, is wondering what the Government is going to do. Fear of Overtime. “The N. R. A. code officials are busy scattering literature to workmen tell- ing of their rights and that all they | need to do is to complain to the Gov- ernment and the Government will adjust it. These Government men are very numerous. * * * I called a carpenter to do a little work. Thurs- day afternoon at 4 o'clock he stopped. He had yet one door to swing but told me he could not do anything until the next Monday morning because his 40 hours were up and the Government men would arrest him if he worked overtime. He said they had been to see him and they would not stand for any breaking down of code wages or hours. “The general feeling among busi« ness men is that if their code stands they will go out of business. We all stand in fear of the Government. In Russia, Germany and Italy fear of the government is in every man's Breast; but without exaggeration I will say there is no more fear of Mus- solini or of Hitler than we have of our Government on our own streets. The common saluation among busi- ness men is ‘Well, what is the Gov- ernment going to do to you?'” If this picture is correct, if small business men are in fear, if they have a sense of threatened oppression, then there can hardly be business recovery. Some 20 years ago Elbert Hubbard wrote that “business is done on en- thusiasm, on hope, animation and good cheer.” And small business is much the larger part of all business. Busi- nesses employing fewer than 250 hands are something like 95 per cent of the total business of the country.