Evening Star Newspaper, July 24, 1936, Page 9

Talk Mirrors Character of Landon Declined to Adopt Theatrics for Forth- rightness. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. HE effect of Gov. Landon’s speech of acceptance in terms of votes is the all-important thing today. By those who have already com- mitted themselves against the New Deal, the speech will be regarded as a corroboration of their views. By those who have already decided that the New Deal and Mr. Roosevelt have an excellent and unimpeachable record, the speech of Gov. Landon Landon will be regarded as “just ®mnother Republi- <can speech.” = But what of the largest group of all the inde- pendent voters who make up their minds only after weighing the merits of the campaign as it pro- | gresses? It is this vast number who | today hold the answer to the question | of whether Gov. Landon gained votes | by his address. | In a normal year, without the ap- | Ppeals of passion or the widespread dis- tribution of Government favors and | Government money, a speech like that delivered last night would win a large | humber of independent votes. For it was simple, straight-forward, honest, | unequivocal Americanism, spokes without the tricks of emotional exhor- | tation and without the dram of an artificially stimulated setting. David Lawrence. Contrast Marked. The contrast with the Franklin Field scene, where President Roose- | velt delivered his speech of acceptance | is something that cannot be overlooked in an appraisal of the two occasions. | Flamly the President’s words and his | assembled audience in Philadelphia | were part of the plan to produce a | dramatic effect over the radio. | Landon, on the other hand, seems | to have adopted the opposite track. | The Landon speech was one for sober, unemotional thinking for that great middle class of intelligent people who do not need to be harangued, but wish to be reasoned with in a campaign. | There was, indeed, very little with which a person devoted to the Ameri- can philosophy of Government could disagree. Even many supporters of | Mr. Roosevelt will concede that the principles of good Government are substantially as Mr. Landon expressed | them. | Where, then, lies the difference? | The voter who has lost faith in the | vig-zag from right to left and back | again under the New Deal will put his | reliance on Landon's character and capacity to carry out with true fidelity the principles he has just enunciated. | The Landon speech puts in the fore- front of the campaign the question of character in relation to the responsi- bilities of public office. Does Landon mean what he says? Will he carry | out his promises and platform pledges? Did he sound like a man who would promise one thing in a campaign and do another when elected? Character Is Answer. The average man has no less capac- 1ty to judge what the answers should be than the student of Government. For the answer is imbedded in those intangible things called character and sincerity, candor and forthrighiness. Out in Kansas, these qualities appear to be meaningful, at least the Kansas | electorate has already had a chance to | decide whether, when Alf Landon says & thing, he means it and whether he ied upon (o carry out his| Thus, in 1932, there was a | three-cornered race for Governor of Kansas. Landon got a plurality of | about 5,00 votes. In fact, out of the | total vote of 781,907, he got only 278,581. But two years later, whea Democrats were making gains in the congressional elections and when thc‘ New Deal tide was still running high, | Gov. Landon was re-elected by about 63,000 votes over his single opponent. And in that 1934 election, Gov. Landon obtained 422,000 votes. or about 23,000 | votes in excess of an actual majority | of all votes cast. Also the total ballot | of 796,000 was an increase of 14,000 over 1932. This indorsement is what attracted nation-wide attention and helped to win the presidential nomina- | tion for Gov. Landon. | Clings to Ideals. ‘The speech of acceptance will, no doubt, be weighed as the utterance of 8 man of sincerity. It was a speech that Gov. Landon himself labored over, a speech that is typical of his back- | ground and his atmosphere. It re- | veals that he declined to step out of the | role of Kansas Governor to engage in | tieatrics or to make himself over into a speaker of an avogether different| type. | speech is in essence Gov. Landon's personality and his character, and on that he can be judged as readily as on any subsequent speeches he may make unfolding the details of particular pieces of legislation. For a speech of acceptance is a candidate’s creed and philisophy—it is not de- signed as a detailed statement either emplifying the platform or outlining the particulars of proposed Govern- ment policies. This is reserved for subsequent acdresses in the campaign. (Copyright. 1936.) | party of South Africa and may split NG .STAR. WASHINGTON, D. C., FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1936. Both Parties Launch Hard Drive Two Months Ahead of Usual Date. BY WALTER D. ROOS. Bpecial Correspondent of The Star. | I it has started is 3 Normally, Pennsylvania campaigns have opened about Labor day. This year, with both parties claiming the electoral vote and the State a recognized battleground, the campaign has been going full tilt the 1934 election, have confined recent outward activity to a speaking tour by Gov. George H. Earle for the purpose of winning the State Senate, the only branch of the the upset in the 1934 election. President Roosevelt, originally expected to speak both in Pitts- burgh and in Northeastern Penn- talks from his train when he tours the flood areas of the State. His tour probably will be during September. The Republican campaign shifted into high gear last Saturday when National Chairman John D. M. Hamilton gave a pep talk to a State- cannot be won without the hardest kind of fight. “Mr. Roosevelt’s party intends to make a desperate effort to win the 36 electoral votes from your State,” the National chairman said. “That is as evident as is the character of the campaign they intend to campaigning by several thousand woman workers. The market- basket and food-price issue, and the eflect of New Deal dorrowings upon children’s financial future are to be stressed in rallying woman voters to the Landon cause. has been heavily Democratic in the last two years. Determined efforts to win the younger voters and cordial overtures to Democrats displeased by the New Deal also have become major objectives of the Republican campaign. Special organization work among farmers this State. These campaign plans are expected to be in full operation when Gov. Landon comes into Pennsylvania next month for his first major speech in the East. That rally will be at his birthplace, at West Middlesex just east It is becoming increasingly apparent that charges of misuse of public money for political purposes will be the major issue of the early stage of the campaign. This issue will not be limited to generalities regarding Federal overspending, but will include direct charges of politics and waste P Ivania Fight R ARRISBURG, Pa., July 25—A fighting campaign had been ex- pected in Pennsylvania this year, but the lively fashion in which surprising. two months before that date. The Democrats, who have been organizing for Roosevelt ever since State government which the Demo- crats have failed to control since sylvania, may confine his Pennsyl- vania campaigning to rear platform wide rally of party workers at Hershey. Asserting he is “positive” Pennsylvania will go Republican next fall, Hamilton warned the victory conduct.” Under Hamilton's guidance, plans were perfected for vigorous A rally of women from 22 counties has been arranged for next Satur- day at Ebensburg, opening the drive in the western end of the State, which also is planned, although the rural counties for the most part are strongly Republican and a farm poll this week showed Landon a 2-to-1 favorite in of the Ohio line. More than 100,000 are expected at the rally, which will be either August 15 or 22. in W. P. A. and extravagance and misuse of State relief funds for political coercion. Such charges have been heard almost daily during the special legislative session in progress during the past three months. Gov. Earle’s original demand for 371,000,000 for relief until mext January 31 was challenged by Republicans as greatly excessive. The compro= mise figure of $45,000,000, G. O. P, Senators have insisted, is far enough above actual needs to give Democrats a surplus for campaign use bejore the presidential balloting. The same issue was hammered hard at the rally of county chairmen and committeemen by Hamilton, who denounced “political perversion of unemployment relief that has taken place in Pennsylvania at the hands of & ruthless party machine.” “In instance after instance,” Hamilton said. “the corruption you have long suspected has been proved by incontravertible evidence. The published history of the destruction of a non-partisan relief administration by political opportunists has yet to be disproved. “I will never believe the American people will be sold out by money coming from Washington. Jim Farley was as wrong when he predicted Pennsylvania would go Democratic in November as he was when he, a former boxing commissioner, predicted Louis would knock out Schmeling in the first round.” The politics-in-relief issue is certain to be kept in headlines until the election because of a State Senate investigation. The Senate originally started to investigate the operation of the W. P. A. in Pennsylvania, but was halted by an injunction of a Federal court. A new inquiry, proposed this week by State Senator G. Mason Owlett, Pennsylvania’s new Republican na- tional committeeman, does not pro- pose to limit the investigation inerely to W. P. A. operations or work relief. The resolution of authority directs the investigation be pushed into charges that electoral freedom as guaranteed by the Federal and State Constitutions is being denied to the unemployed who require relief; that citizens, in order to obtain work relief or direct relief, are “compelled to register as members of a particular political party,” and that elec- tions in the State “are beiffg corrupted by the granting of relief or work relief to persons not in need thereof as a consideration for partisan politi- cal activity.” The Investigating Committee is empowered to conduct its hear- ings throughout the remainder of the year and it is likely a summary of findings will be made public before the November election. Both parties have done their utmost to use the special legislative session as a sounding board for the campaign. While Republicans have charged the Democratic administration deliberately inflated re- lief cost estimates in order to swell relief rolls immediately before the November election, the Democrats have accused the Republicans of trying to force relief grants below actual needs and refusing to pro- vide an adequate tax program. Another factor in the campaign is the effort to unionize the steel industry. The leader in that fight, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, has declared for Roosevelt. His chief State aide is Lieut. Gov. Thomas Kennedy, the mine union’s secretary-treasurer. Kennedy has promised that steel workers who may lose their jobs during the unionization drive will be cared for by the State relief organization. The result is expected to be that organized labor will be very active in the Democratic campaign this Fall. Most of the union men and most of the steel workers had been conceded to Roosevelt from the start, but the drive in the steel industry may make them considerably more active in their political efforts than they otherwise would have been. Townsendites Go Back to Impossible $200-a-Month Sum Again Proclaimed as Objective. BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE Townsend folks are back to their original plan. During the two years or so of discussion, criticism and countless exposi- tions of fallacy in their plan, they had wavered a little about the possibility of paying $200 a month to every person over 60. In the only bill any of them ever brought be- fore Congress they refrained from mentioning any § figure; they mere- ly proposed that : a prescribed tax be laid and that the proceeds should be applied, as far as they : would go, toward paying to old . folks pensions of : (an undefined amount. Apparently, however, the Townsend leaders realize the propa- ganda and slogan value of a fixed amount. In their recent convention | they went back to their original| amount and made it more definite than ever. They presented a resolution | that there shall be added to the Con- | stitution of the United States an amendment reading as follows—this is | now the authoritative Townsend creed: “A citizen of the United States whose | life record sall be found free of habit- | ual criminal record shall on reaching |the age of 60 vears be permitted to receive from the Treasury of the | United States a citizen's service award | for their 40 years or more of public service in amount not less than $200 per month based on buying power of the 1936 dollar * * *." Eleven Significant Words. | The last 11 words of that have a special gsignificance. In discussions since the Townsend plan was first put out, critics have frequently told the Townsendites yes, it was possible to give the old folks $200 a month each, | but that one prompt consequence would be an inflation, in which each dollar would become about 20 cents. | That still remains true. It is physically possible to introduce in Congress the resolution quoted above. It is physical- | ly possible for a majority of Congress | to vote for it. It is physically possible for the President to sign it. It is | physically possible for the Treasury to | begin making the payments of $200 a | month to the some 10.000,000 persons |over 60. But a certain result (after | some uncomfortable immediate conse- |quences) would be an inflation in| which the buying power of the dollar Mark SulMvan. the impossible possible. It is contained in the following words: “Provided that the citizen making the application for such award shall agree under oath to, and shall, spend the entire monthly allowance for goods or services within 30 days of the time of its receipt.” Magic of Spending Offered. ‘That is the magic in the plan. That rapidity of spending is going to put 50 much money in circulation, is going to make the circulation so rapid, is going to make business so good, that taxes will roll into the Treasury in incredible amounts. The Treasury will so overflow with receipts that the old folks can all be paid their $200 a month—with no inflation and no other effect except universal happiness. To provide funds for the $200 = month, the Townsendites are going to have a new kind of tax. They call it a “transaction tax.” A “transaction tax” is merely a new and bigger name for a sales tax. The proposed Town- send tax is such a sales tax as nobody ever dreamed before. Ordinary sales taxes merely cover sales, usually only sales on a limited number of com- modities. But this Townsend tax is| to be on everything, every purchase of goods, every payment of a salary, every giving of a check—everything. The measure is set out in the proposed constitutional amendment: “There is hereby established the Federal law that no transaction for the sale or transfer of goods, or pay- ment for services shall be legal that does not show evidence that 2 per cent of the value of such transaction, sale or payment for services has been or shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States.” May Win Needy Something. How that would work—or rather | how it would not make the Townsend plan possible, is a thing which com- petent economists will need to explain to the Townsend folks. No doubt, out of the present discussion of old- age security, something will emerge which will give something to the needy aged. But it can’t be $200 a month, | nor half that, nor a quarter of that. Probably a fifth of that, about $40 a | month, is the highest that is prac-| ticable—unless we have inflation—and | this would be only to the needy. | Aside from economics and statistics, | there is something that might be rec- | ommended to the Townsend folks. It is something in the world of poetry. Every Townsend follower, just before | he goes to bed at night, should re- cite four lines of verse from Housman: ‘That two and two make four, And never five nor three, ‘The heart of man is sore, And long ‘tis like to be. | That, recited just before going to | bed, might tend to keep dreams within | the limits of the possible. And it would teach the Townsendites, if they reflect upon it, that they are in the same fix as the rest of us. Each of | us has his own dream of the un tainable; each of us in his own ma | ner is sore of heart because of desire for something that cannot be. (Copyright, 1936.) Polish Put on Views Landon Speech, However, Stands Behind Ideals Revealed Prior to His Nomination. BY JAY G. HAYDEN, OPEKA, Kans,, July 24 (N.AN.A) —To appreciate fully the speech l of acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination, which Gov. Alf M. Landon delivered here last night, it is necessary to understand how completely it epitomized the character and the basic philosophy of the man who made it. The speech recalled again and again statements on exactly the same lines that Gov. Landon had made when this writer visited him last October and again in April. True, nine months ago his ideas were not 80 well expressed as they are today. Never a glib talker, he fumbled a little for words to express his thoughts, but the philosophy that guided him was clear. In April he talked much the same but his ideas were more fully devcloped. And it was so again with the smooth flowing speech of scceptance. His diction had been further polished, but the thoughts were identical. Take, for example, his view of the depression and the way to get rid of it. “The country is ripe for recovery,” he said. “We are far behind in expenditures for upkeep and improvements and expansion. The total of this demand—in industry, in new enterprises, in our homes and on our farms—amounts to billions of dollars. Once all this consumer demand is released, the problem will be not where to find work for the workers, but where to find workers for the work. “‘One of the signs of the ending of past depressions was the launching of new business ventures. It is true that most of them were small. Al- together, however, they provided work for many millions of people. In the present depression this demand for work has not yet appeared. Few new ventures have been started. Why? Because the small business man, the working man who would like to become his own boss—the average American—has hesitated to start out for himself. He lacks confidence in the soundness of Federal policy; he is afraid of what may come next. “We must dispel this fear, restore his confidence and place our reliance once more in the initiative, the intelligence and courage of these makers of jobs and opportunities. That is why I say, in all earnestness, that the time has come to unshackle initiative and free the spirit of American enterprise.” * k% % Gov. Landon said all this in his earlier conversations, and, to illus- trate his viewpoint then, he drew from his experience as an independent prospector and builder of small business in the oil flelds over a period of 20 years, in which he had ridden out more than one local depression, lost money and been compelied to start all over. Take again his discussion of the relationship between social re- Jorm and fiscal economy. Some one has described Gov. Landon as a “venturesome liberal in all things except finances and the funda- mentals of business management.” He believes in old-age pensions and other like measures for the protection of the under privileged, but he argues that these only cam be successful if they are kept within the means of the Nation and synchronized with productive " economy. i “Mounting debts and Increasing taxes,” he said, “constitute a threat | 1o all of these (social) aims * * *. | “Crushing debts and taxes are usually incurred, as they are being in- | curred today, under the guise of helping people—the same people who must | finally pay them.” Headline Folk and What They Do Chapman Proves Life of Consul Is Not One of Ease. BY ROBERT STRUNSKY. ITH a civil war raging in Spain, additional proof is offered that a consul's life 5 is not an easy one, contrary to popular belief. The safety of his fellow citizens resides in his hands, and the fact that it is sometimes in grave jeopardy may be seen in the urgent appeal to Washington for a warship by Wile liam E. Chapman, American consul at Bilbao, Spain. A veteran of the Spanish War and the Philipe pine campaign, Chapman’s con- sular career has been long and distinguished, as well as dangerous. He still remem- bers vividly, and " he has his dia- phragm to remind him, the fight in | Puerto, Mexico, when two figures stole through the skylight of the consulate and fired a bullet through him. One | of the Mexicans had a knife in his | teeth; the other carried the revolver: their mission simple assassination; the | time, July, 1927. It took quite a while to recover from | the wound. He was transferred to Cali, | Colombia, and thence to Canada. From | Canada he went to his present post. He was born in Mount Pisgah, Ark., and in 1899 voluntered for the Spanisih War. He was assigned to the Philip- pines and remained there after the war to teach school and edit a newse paper. Upon his return to this country he entered the War Department, and, in 1915, was admitted to the bar. Shortly | William E. Ch: » kY Landon’s conception of the course which the next President should pursue also is the same today that it was nine months ago. He expressed it in the closing paragraphs of his speech, when he said: “If T am elected Chief Executive of the Nation, I propose to restore our Government to an efficient as well as a constitutional basis. “I shall call to my aid those men best qualified to conduct the public business—and I mean just that * * *. “I shall co-operate wholeheartedly with Congress in an effective re- organization of the numerous Government agencies, to get rid of those that are not necessary, to eliminate duplication, to insure better adminstration and to save the taxpayers money.” Landon’s address was simple and in all respects crystal clear as to its meaning. It attempted no feats of political phrase-making. It was free of personalities and bombast. It avoided the appearance of an attempt to deal with everything and appeal to every conceivable class interest, which has been characteristic of this type of utterance. overcrowded. (Copyright. 1936 ) It was easy and not Tax Defaulters Were Flogged. | would become what is now the buying | package of food, or a shave, or any- power of about 20 cents. That is, a thing else that now costs 20 cents, Cutten Estate Left iVid;)w; | Americas as a whole rejoiced at the overthrow of czardom in 1917, irre spective of what was to follow, for as | | thereafter he received his first consular | post at Nogales, Mexico. Now 59, he is | guarding the lives of Americans in | Spain and waiting anxiously for the arrival of the U. S. S. Oklahoma to | evacuate them in Bilbao. | | A Tennessee Democrat crosses swords | with President Roosevelt on the qu: tion of economic royalism as enun |ated by the Chief Executive in his | Philadelphia speech. Drawing upon an | arsenal of facts and figures, Prof. Gus lDyer of Vanderbilt University in an | open letter to the President, assails | the assertion that a small group of | “economic royalists” run the country. With convincing simplicity, in contrast to the normal statistical approach, the | Southern economist paints a picture to | show that the small business man is | not only holding his own, but con- solidating his position. Virginia born and the son of & Con- federate Army captain, Gustavus Wal- er Dyer has been teaching economics at the Nashville institution since 1899. | would then cost a dollar. | "So now the Townsend leaders, hav- | ing been warned, propose not to let this happen. They now stipulate “$200 | per month based on buying power of | the 1936 dollar.” Impossible Restriction, This, every economist and student knows to be impossible. The Townsend folks propose & thing that can only be | accomplished by inflation—and then they decree that it shall be done with- out inflation Well, the Townsend falks have a touching but misleading faith in the, | power of statutes. One is reminded of la statuate which, legend says, was | once proposed in the Legislature of Arkansas. (Possibly it was some other State, and perhaps some reader may | know the facts that gave rise to this story.) The proposed resolution, duly embedded in statutory phraseslogy, !read: “Whereas much time is unneces- | sarily wasted in public schools and business offices through multiplying by | 3.1416; therefore be it resolved. that on | and after January 1, 1885, the circum- | ference of a circle shall be three times | its diameter and not 3.1416 times.” In fairness to the Townsend leaders, it should be said that they have a gadget which they think will do the trick. When you tell a Townsend be- liever that $200 a month to 10.000,- | 000 persons over 60 is a literal im- possibility, he gently and patiently | | points to the gadget which is to make 100 Million Down to $350,000 | 1ate as the beginning of this century | He is now 69 years old, the father of By (he Assoclated Press. CHICAGO, July 24—A one-page 000 in personal property and 550,-|peoplc when taxes due were not forth- document on file yesterday disposed of | 000 in real estate. the $350,000 estate of Arthur W. Cut- | by leaving it all to the widow, Mrs. | Maude Boomer Cutten. 1 The estimated current value of the estate, fixed yesterday by Attorney Dwight Green, was about half of lhel sum the Government seeks for alleg- edly unpaid income taxes for 1929, ' 1 1930 and 1933. United States District Attorney Michael L. Igoe said he would file a lien for $644,469 against the estate. Cutten, a native of Canada who | came to Chicago as a youth, rose from | a $7 a week stock clerk to become the “little giant” of the grain pits, rated one of the outstanding speculators of the century. His career ended amid two serious brushes with the Federal Government, | one of them an effort to debar him from trading, in which Cutten won out, and another an indictment charging income tax evasion. Cut- ten's death June 24, at the age of 66, cut short efforts to bring him to trial. The financial crash of 1929 was understood to have wiped out much | of his holdings, but fellow traders believed he had largely recouped. Green sald no inventory of the estate had been made, but that he Mixed Marriages Jar Party. Mixed marriage between Asiatics and Europeans is rocking the United it. The issue has dominated platte- land politics for several years, and has at times flamed into a campaign issue. ‘The matter recently was put to the government by the United party, but was met with a refusal to take legis- lative measures to prohibit such mar- riages. & v Treasure Hunting an Industry. Huge Gold Nugget. 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The birth of an heir to the | The will was drawn January 15 throne inclined the last Czar to such ten, grain trader whose wealth at its while Cutten was recuperating from | clemency that in a spirit of conde- zenith was extimated at $100,000,000, | pneumonia, scension he abolished such flogging. | was certain it would not exceed $300,- | flogging was customary among the | six children, the editor of the Southern Agriculturist and a lecturer before various industrial organizations. He has dropped the last two syllables of his first name, preferring to be called Gus. ’ OPEN ALL DAY L4 ” . 8§ SATURDAY 7/ ¢ ROSNER of /325 F, St here’s the wav the SAVINGS line up: Group One Grosner $29.75 Suits The same smart wor- steds you've admired all season . . . in Chestys, Drapes and conserva- tive models. Group Two $40 Suits This group includes the famous Kuppen- heimer and Grosner tai- loring in Drapes, Twists, and other smart models. 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