Evening Star Newspaper, November 23, 1936, Page 11

HE opinions of the writers on this page are their own, not necessarily The Star’s. Such opinions are presented in The Star’s effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its readers, although such opinions may be contradictory among Tugwell Gone,|| News Behind the News This Changing World But His Ideas Still Live Further Steps to Con- trolled Economy of New Deal ex-Aide in Prospect. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. HERE are two distinct attitudes which may at the moment be assumed toward the future of the New Deal, both by those who have supported it and by those who have opposed it. One is to take it for granted that President Roose- velt has finished the major part of his experimenta- tion and that he will henceforth try to perfect some of the re- forms already be- gun, and that this will involve a sort of busi- ness - as - usual point of view with only some moderate changes here and there in the interest of true progressiv- ism. The other atti- tude is far more realistic and takes for granted that Mr. Roosevelt was never fully understood either by his critics or by many of his somewhat conservative-minded supporters, espe- cially in the South, who keep on as- suring their friends that the Presi- dent is at heart a conservative and means to turn to the right. In the weeks that have followed the election there has been a sort of I-told-you-so feeling expressed by the moderates or conservatives in the Roosevelt ranks who have pointed to the exodus of Undersecretary Tug- well of the Agricultural Department as corroborative proof of the correct- ness of their analysis. w4 David Lawrence. New Laws in Prospect. It is the duty of a Washington correspondent to report conscientiously what is going on, whether he person- ally likes the goings on or nct. To say, therefore, that America is about to enlarge her experiment in controlled economy and that the next session of Congress will see the enactment of several new laws to carry further the objectives of controlled economy is merely to record the truth, pleasant or unpleasant as it may be, depending on whether one looks on the Roosevelt victory as the end of a fight for sim- ple progressivism or the beginning of a surgical operation on the capital- {stic system. There is no clearer example of this than in the comments being heard about Dr. Tugwell's resignation. The Joy with which the resignatisn has been received in certain conseivative quarters indicates that they have learned nothing from the election re- turns and that they are about to continue to drift in an atmosphere of wishful thinking and hoping that maybe the New Deal is going to let up on them after all. I have disagreed with many of Dr. Tugwell’s policies and doctrines, but I respect his point of view and be- lieve that if controlled economy did | happen to work out successfully peo- ple would some day look upon Tugwell as the pioneer martyr to a cause. For | his self-effacement does not erase the | fact that his policies have been put | into effect and some of his proposals will be written into law in the next Prospect of War Within Year or Two Years Is Considered Remote Here. BY PAUL MALLON. FRENCH lecturer, who plays dummy for the ventriloquists in the French foreign office, informed the world from here the other day that there would be war in Europe within the year. It caused nary a ripple of interest or comment, probably bee cause every one realizes the French foreign office is now in about the same state of mind as Republican headquarters on the.day after election. French diplomats have bungled their job during the past year. They should have played closer to Mussolini than to Russia. Spanish devel- opments have gone against them. They are losing Belgium. They are in a bad spot. But, while some new cases are in the offing in Europe, no one here really expects hostilities to break from the current course of events within A year or two years. = = Official and unofficial authori- ties here have the war situation pegged this way at present: Any nation before going to war will ask itself two questions. Can we win? What can we win? Just now there seems to be no nation and no combjnation of nations which can answer either of these questions with any real en- thusiasm. In addition, every nation has just weathered a aepression and is entering upon a period of economic improvement. Their debts, finances and currencies are all in saed shape. The United States is probably better fitted financially for war than any other nation. We have most of the gold of the world. But every economist within the New Deal agrees war would ruin us. They know and frankly say it is unthinkable. You can get the idea by imagining President Roosevelt’s predicament in financing a war on top of the $32,- 000,000,000 debt le has already accumulated in the war against the depression. These considerations might be sidetracked by sudden events in the current realignment of Europe on a basis of fascism versus communism, but the best authorities here do not believe it. - Ok X X The Joe Davies appointment to the Moscow ambassadorship was strictly in payment of a. political debt. Presidential spokesmen say the Président did not, alone consider the money donated by Davies in the last campaign, but the help he gave also. It seems he made a speech about two weeks before election, stating the New Deal was a pretty good thing. Those who have read the speech believe the presidntial spokesmen are spoofing. It must have been the money. . : Behind the appointment also were implications which Moscow will not miss. The President first sent the reds a sympathetic and energetic emissary, Bill Bullitt, hoping that the debt would be settled and a commercial relationship established which would be beneficial to both countries. Bullitt encountered diplomatic du- plicity, became discouraged, turned anti-red and was transferred. to Paris. Now Mr. Roosevelt is going to let the reds work on a skilled lobbyist and a hard-boiled lawyer whose wife has more capital than most cap- italists; that is. let them work on him—and vice versa. * % ¥ % Ambassador Davies got started beautifully by saying in his first press conference that he was al- ways “more or less” a student of communism, that he had read a lot about it and was “more or less” well grounded in its rudiments. Afterward the Washington rep- resentative of the official Soviet government news agency (that is the only kind of mews they have in Russia, official government news) walked up to Mr. Davies and said: “I'm the representative of the Tass Agency.” Davies looked blank and asked: “The what?” The name of the agency was repeated by its representative, whereupon Mr. Davies confessed he had never heard of it. The conclusion was thereupon established that, when the Ambassador said he was “more or less’ a student of communism, he intended to put the emphasis on “less.” * ¥ k¥ Lack of inquisitiveness on the part of the Supremne Court is causing some apprehension among lawyers. During recent arguments the justices have asked very few questions of the arguing attorneys. Last year they asked very pointed guestions, which hinted, in some degree, how the cases might be decided. The complacency of the court is somewhat discouraging to the lawyers. Their argumense have been cut short. They suspect the justices want to avoid the situation of last year, when they made the front page headlines almost daily with their significant inquiries. Incidentally, in many ways the court is dispensing with formality. Chief Justice Hughes does not follow ‘the historic procedure of reading all the certioraris granted. He merely announces these have been filed with the clerk. Formerly each new entrant at the bar was introduced separately, but cow one attorney may introduce several at once. It speeds up procedure. (Copyright, 1936.) themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. We, the People Little Worth Seen to Argument That National Emergency Is Over. BY JAY FRANKLIN. HORTLY after the election, one of the leading officials of the Roosevelt administration was asked what, in his opinion, was the most important thing which could happen between then and the new Congress, in terms of public opinion. He pointed to the figures on the front page of his newspaper and said: “For the conservatives to read the election returns and try to find out what has happened. If they realize what these figures mean, the country will benefit enormously.” This New Dealer then went on to state that the vote was a mandate for greater national unity in the interest of the average man and that it re- vealed the American people as not being afraid of radicalism in the choice of the men or measures required to bring about “the more abundant life.” It is possible to dispute this view- point as being too simple an explana- tion of- what happened on November | 3, but there scems to be singularly little sense in the argument that Roosevelt has complete freedom of choice as to ;hls policies, that the emergency fis over and that there is no need to do anything about anything from now on. Such an argument is dangerously misleading and may be as perilous to those who believe it as was the “Digest poll” and the partisan wig-wagging of | the late political unpleasantness. | For it reflects the pathetic desire of | human beings to hear only those things which are comforting and to ignore | or resent those which do not yes their personal prejudices. For ex-i ample, one of the shrewdest of Wash- ington’s lobbyists now complains pri- vately that his employers cannot for- | give him for having warned them that | Roosevelt would be overwhelmingly re- | elected. And he, in turn, confesses to having resented this column’s analysis of the “Digest poll,” on the strength of | which exposure of distortion in favor | of the Republican candidate he wired | fight his way with “Main Street,” | “Babbitt” his principals to abandon all hope in the Landon cause. It all comes down to this: If the conservatives wish to kid themselves that nothing particular happzned on November 3, we are headed for a bad headache. It would be far better for them to face the unpalatable facts fairly and squarely and to decide how they can make their business interests follow the election returns. L ‘The Nobel Prize award to Eugene O'Neill is flattering to our national vanity but emphasizes the fact that box office success is still the sole test of artistic achievement in the eyes of the world. The award would have been a priceless encouragement to the whole rebel movement in American writing if it had been made when O'Neill was writing and producing the plays which won him this belated in- ternational recognition. “The Emperor Jones” had to make | its own way years before the august committee rushed to the aid of the victor. Just as Sinclair Lewis had to and “Arrowsmith” before he was similarly “honored,” so O'Neill had to wait until he had won his battle before he received any encour- agement in his struggle for creative literature. It seems as though these prizes are really a device by which the selection committees honor them- selves by decorating the men who suc- ceeded in spite of indifference and neglect. It is nice for Mr. O'Neill to get the Nobel Prize but it would be even nicer if the Nobel, Pulitzer and other prizes were given men who conquer public | apathy in the artistic arena and not years afterwards when their reputa- tion is already so secure that they can no longer be helped or hindered by the attitude of a committee of safe- playing pundits. (Copyright. 19306 + toward execution in the legislative | proposals now being drafted in Wash- ington and which one may rest as- | sured will be recommended in Presi- dent Roosevelt’s messages to Congress during his second administration. For controlled economy is a compre- hensive mechanism—one part of it | meshes with another and one step leads to another or else the whole | | New Deal scheme breaks down and Mr. Roosevelt is intent on proving to history that a government-con- trolled economy can succeed. (Copyright, 1936.) 300 GRADUATES . HOLD HOME-COMING Southwestern University Group | Guest in Annual Event at Y. M. C. A More than 300 graduates of South eastern University were guests at that institution's _second annual home- | coming Saturday night in the Central Y. M. C. A. Building. The home-coming banquet was served at 6:30 p.m. in the assembly hall, CHURCH PRINCIPLE RETAINED IN UNION Leader Says Methodist Protes- tants “Lose Life to Find It.” By the Associated Press. BALTIMORE, November 23.—Dr. James H. Straughn said yesterday that in the tri-Methodist plan of union the Methodist Protestants had won the principle of lay representa- tion in church administration, for | which they fought and broke from | the parent body of Methodism 103 years ago. | Dr. Straughn is president of !he‘: Methodist Protestant Church, which has ratified the plan of union to bring it, the Methodist Episcopal | odist church. | in the plan of union. Church and the Methodist Episcopal Hitler and Mussolini Upset Diplomats’ Apple Cart by Recognizing Franco Junta. BY CONSTANTINE BROWN. PAIN has once more become the chief cause of sleeplessness for European diplomats. Everything was so nice until last week. There was a neutrality pact signed by all the powers. Nobody kept it, but that did not mat- ter. The diplomats could say that if there was any of arms and munitions to the rebel or loyalist camp that was strictly against the existing treaties and as such could not be taken seriously into account. Now Hitler and Mussolini go and upset the apple cart by recog- nizing the Franco junta as the only de facto government of Spain. True enough neither Italy nor Germany have retired from the neu- trality agreement—there would not have been so much fun if they did— but they can now give openly all the support they want to their Spanish friends without actually breaking the provisions of inter- national law. Pranco, prompted by his men- tors in Rome and in Berlin, has hastened to declare a blockade of Barcelona and other ports still in the hands of the loyalists. In the old days Great Britain ‘would not have protested against this blockade. A few British men-of-war would have been dispatched to the Spanish waters and if any of the Franco cruisers or gunboats had at- tempted to interfere with British shipping it would have been too bad for the warships anc Franco. Things have changed now. Secretary Eden sent a sharp protest to the Burgos government reasserting the right of ships flying the British flag to go wherever they please. But in the meantime he issued a warning to the British merchantmen to keep away from troubled waters. It is more prudent under the circumstances. The Madrid population is terrorized. The shout “the Moors are coming” fills them with terror. Franco’s foreign legionnaires and Moor tribesmen are a cruel lot. It will take some handling on the part of their officers to pre- vent them from looting and burning the city, especially after the stubborn resistance the Madrid population has offered to the in- vaders. i The wine speculators in England and in France expect to draw some substantial profits from the Spanish civil war. They are now engaged in purchasing all available stocks of sherry wine, which will go up in price within the next few months because hun- dreds of thousands of gallons have been destroyed by the revolutionaries and the loyalists. * % % % It is expected that the recently announced Japanese-German under- standing will have important repercussions not only in the field of inter- national politics but also in national politics in Japan. ‘The military are once more growing restless. They consider the semi- civilian government of today as a helpless administration and argue that since Germany and Italy have become so powerful under a dictatorship, there is no reason why Japan should not follow suit. Reports from Tokio indicate that another “purge” similar to the one which occurred last Spring might be performed on the Japanese civilian politi- cians. This time, however, the military will not permit the establishment of a gov- ernment with even the ap=- pearance of constitutional= ism. Premier Hirota was presented last week with a scheme coming from naval and military quarters asking him to concentrate all the powers of the government in a super-cabinet executive body composed exclusively of naval and military officers. The aim of this super executive cabinet is not merely to direct Japan's foreign policies, but also to control capitalism in Japan, setting up a sort of military communism, The military want to do away with the powerful firms such as the Mitsui, the Sumitomo and the Mitsubishi, which practically control the entire economic life of Japan. e Church South together in one Meth- |is in the new set-up. In doctrinal | matters there will be no change, all “The Methodist Protestant Churcxl'; three bodies being alike.” ion,” id, “is | :toinge‘:wbu?‘; mu :l:(:lw;e ::y rep- | Dr. Straughn explained “there are resentation, equal to that of the clergy, i only a few restrictions placed on the | in administration of the church. bolb | lay delegates to the annual confer- in the annual, jurisdictional and gen- | ence_they may not vote on matters | eral conferences, is definitely written of ordination, character and relation of ministers” and said “this seems justifiable as physicians alone may “Literally we lose our life to find it. Everything that has been vital to us ' pass on qualifications of physician: | losing fight | new encysted in the American body | politic. Gov. Earle Unusual Fig- ure in Nation’s Politi- cal Apostasy. BY LEMUEL F. PARTON. EW YORK, November 23— George H. Earle, II, Philadel« phia sugar magnate, fough$ President Theodore Roosevelt savagely and denounced his “coarse assault on the Supreme Court” His son, George H. Earle, III, Governor of Pennsylvania, would have found T. Rs trust-busting pretty tame stuff, After 20 years of polo playing, money-making and Republican pare tisan orthodoxy, Gov. Earle proe vides the most ins teresting political apostasy of the depression years, or possibly of any years, so far as this country 1§ concerned, Among Gover- nors, none save old “blood = to the- bridle-reins" Waite of Colo=- rado ever made a wider swing to Gov. Earle. the left. Gov. Earle veered from the right. His refusal to restrain the “bootleg miners,” who are digging and selling about 4,000,000 tons of other people’s anthracite a year, and his explanation therefor, in which he bluntly proposed | the alternatives of nationalization or | sanctioned expropriation, is something new in American State capitals, whether or not the Greeks ever had a word for it. The bootleggers have formed a strong political group, joined by local business men, who share the prosperity back-wash of the illegal mining. Owners of the coal fight & Again. there's something Philadelph looking mi Harvard an World War. 46-vear-old. boyishe aire Governor went to joined the Navy in the He gave his yacht to the Government. It was converted into a sub-chaser, with young Earle in com= mand. President Wilson decorated him for gallantry. He returned to Phila- delphia, picked up his polo playing and the family sugar business and greatly increased his fortune. He be« longed to good clubs and was, so far as anybody knew, a zenial conformist to the political traditions of his class. In 1932, giving no warning, he ane | nounced he had become a Democrat. In 1933 President Roosevelt made him Ambassador to Austria. Among cone suls, attaches and others, he fanned up anti-Nazi sentiment. A Nazi took a shot at him and nicked off the heel of his shoe. He took it in his stride and said nothing. He resigned to become the first Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania in 43 years. In 1935 he took flying lessons and now gets about 8 lot in his two-seater autogiro. In the same year he said, “The Constitu tion must be elastic enough to allow for an economic revolution.” (Copyrizht, 1936.) Motor veh ar traffic in England and in many other countries in the British Empire keeps to the left. | after which a dance was given for the alumni. Jaceb Sandler, vice presi- dent of the Southeastern University Alumni Association, presided at the Congress, but will bear the name of Representatives and Senators who will take all the credit. Tugwellism Not Gone. | | earnings for manipulative purposes| it may be valuable to cast up the would follow. situation presented by the problem of Once all funds were forced into controlling the allocation of capital ! and fixing prices.” It is essential for every conserva- | tive, every progressive and every busi- ness man and every labor leader to study Tugwellism. For whether Mr. Roosevelt ever publicly concedes it or | not. his next messages to Congress will embody the Tugwell principles. | How can one probe such an asser- tion? The answer is that Dr. Tugwell, as the father of the present tax on undistributed surpluses of corpora- tions, has just achieved the most no- table vindication that any man in| public life could hope for. Conserva- tives in the United States Senate, like | Chairman Pat Harrison of the Finance Committee, are now singing the praises | of the law they originally opposed and are saying that the distribution of dividends and wage increases shows what a fine piece of legislation it geally is. Rex Tugwell is too serious-minded and to modest to gloat or chuckle over what is happening but one might| hazard the guess that if he were to | speak his mind, he would ask, “If I| was right on the corporate surplus tax, why am I not right on the other | parts of my plan to regulate the allo- cation of capital in America and pre- vent the growth of booms or the com- ing of severe depressions?” Flashback w0 1933. Let us re-read what Dr. Tugwell wrote in 1933 before most people in the business or labor or political world really knew how much President Roosevelt was leaning on the young professor of economics in Columbia University. The book is called “In- dustrial Discipline” and was published by the Columbia University Press and its chapters, read in the light of what has happened since, constitute the fulfillment of a prophecy far more potent than the lucky prediction made by Jim Farley on the electoral votes of a national election. Mr. Farley guessed the mathematics of an or- ganized voting machine of national proportions but Tugwell guessed the economics of a capitalistic evolution to which word some people are tempted to prefix the small letter “r.” How then, asked Dr. Tugwell in 1933, shall the problem of capital allocation be attacked? Here was his answer: “In general, the principle invoked would be to drive corporate surpluses Into the open investment market; for most of the trouble comes from self- allocation occurring strictly within a single organization. It is overop- timistic internal expansion and the use of funds, earned in the past, to commit the concern to increased ac- tivity which cause the problems of surplus which yearly grow more acute. Changes Reinvestment. “To meet this problem, it is fre- quently suggested that a tax be im- posed on funds, over and above re- placement, which are kept for expan- slon purposes. If taxation forced these funds into distribution as divi- dends they would have to seek re- fnvestment through the regular chan- nels and a concern’s plans for expan- sion would be subject to check in the investment market. It might be said incidentally, also, that K a salutary 4 check upon present practices in issu- ing stock dividends and concealing [ A the investment market, however, some other means of supervising their uses would be needed. This might be done through the Federal incorporation of businesses. For new capital issues, then, revision of orjginal characters would be necessary.” Judging by the talk being heard in New Deal quarters this month in Washington about legislation to com- pel Federal incorporation of busi- nesses, Dr. Tugwell may soon be able |to chalk up another score for his prophetic vision. The American Fed- eration of Labor is known to favor the plan because it will give the Federal Government powers that are only partly being exercised now through the labor-sponsored Walsh-Healey act governing the award of Federal con- tracts only to those who accept labor standards set up by the Washington administration. Bill Already Drawn. Likewise Senator O’Mahoney of Wyoming, who had a bill on Federal incorporation at the last session of Congress, has indicated he will press it for passage in the new Congress which begins in January. There is some doubt about the constitutionality of such legislation, but this would not prove an obstacle to passage by Con- gress and trial in the Supreme Court and ultimately indeed a constitutional amendment if the invalidated experi- ment showed signs of winning popu- lar approval. Just what may be expected from this legislation was outlined by Dr. Tugwell, also in his book in 1933, as follows: “If industries were to be controlled, incorporation of business enterprises would need, in effect, to be transferred from the States to the Nation, though some subterfuge might need to be employed. The flow of new capital into different uses would need to be supervised, prices would have to be controlled, and some vital interests, now wholly or partly neglected, would need to be protected. These last would include the weaker businesses, con- sumers, workers, farmers, technicians, all of which suffer now from disad- vantages and discriminations which are too obvious to be denied. All these seem, from the present point of vantage, necessary elements of & scheme which would give the Federal Government powers commensurate with the responsibilities widely laid at its doorstep. * * * Means Other Than Amendment. “There are those who will say that what the public actively desires, it will find ways to achieve, but it is worth noting that such achieve- ments are easier if some scouting is carried' on ahead of the event, if possibilities are explored and experi~ mented with in the imagination. “One possibility” is constitutional amendment. But that seems far off indeed. Are there ways in which ex- isting institutions can be better used to attain the.same results? On the whole, it is better to make use, so far as that can be done, of familiar instru- ments; it is easier to persuade people to acceptance if what is to be done |- can be shown to involve, not some- thiig new and untried, but merely the extention of present half recog- nized and feebly used means. With this in mind, and quite conditionally, That was in 1933 and a constitu- | | tional amendment wasn't decided | | upon, but a series of laws to achieve | the same objectives. The theory that | { N. R. A. was right because it “affected” interstate commerce, the passage of | the securities and exchange act ostensibly “to prevent fraud,” but | actually to provide an instument to| | regulate the flow of capital, and lately | the Walsh-Healey law to accomplish | to a certain extent what the invalid | N.R. A. was prevented by the Supreme | | Court from achieving—all these steps that have been taken prove how right Dr. Tugwell was about “familiar in- struments.” Hence, it is important to record that even though Dr. Tugwell resigns, | his works remain and his ideas are | going to be carried even further | | 1 can tell you now and James R. lirnnglgn Knows Best! Grandpa Jones proclaims with knowledge In a voice that's loud and clear, “Though | never went to college banquet. There were no speeches. Each graduate was presented with a bound booklet, listing the names, ad- dresses and occupations of the various alumni. This booklet, designed to enable the graduates to keep in touch with each other, was prepared under the direction of Dr. James A. Bell, president of the university. Arrangements for the home-coming were made by a committee composed of J. S. Rogers, president of the alumni association; Sandler, Margaret Hickman, second vice president; George W. Kydd, secretary, and Lester E. Elff, treasurer. The government of Colombia is aiding municipalities in the construc- tion of aqueducts, electric light plants and buildings. here: “If @ man has education, There is nothing quite so fine; But the pride of this great nation Is ITAUAN SWISS COLONY wine. “Though it's true that | am old, 1 am strong—1'll tell you why, *ITALIAN SWISS' has kept me bold, That's the wine I'll always buyl" McClure, 807 F S1. S. W. 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