Evening Star Newspaper, February 7, 1937, Page 31

» FEAR OF WAR’S START IN PRAGUE DISPELLED Materials for Rebellion on ‘German Model Simply Do Not Exist, Says Visitor. Note: Many Europeans fear that the nezt trouble zone, out of which ‘may develop a widespread war, is in Czechoslovaki. A considered ap- praisal of the situation in that country is given here by a well- knbwn American writer who has recently made an intensive survey of conditions in Central and West- ern Europe. I a visit to Prague. England and Russia are humming with stories that the next war will start here, perhaps next Summer, perhaps next month—a war on the Spapish model, beginning with an insurrection of the Germans in Czechoslovakia un- der the leadership of the semi-Nazi Sudetendeutsche Partei, which would then be supported by fhe German Reich. Now, some day Germany may attack Czechoslovakia. But unless France and Russia repudiate their defensive alliances, that would mean a general war, for which Germany is by no means ready yet. This particular story is only laughed at here, by Czechs and Germans both. Naturally the local Germans insist that they have no intention of start- ing any trouble. Naturally the Czech government, like any government, in- BY ELMER DAVIS. RAGUE —Europe’s latest war scare is quickly dispelled by sists that it has the situation- well in | hand. But it does not take thé foreign | observer long to convince himself that the materials for a rebellion on the Spanish model, such as these rumors predict, simply do not exist here. Goal Not Clear. It is hard to find out what the Sudetendeutsche Partei—usually ab- breviated “SdP"—really wants, still less how it proposes to get it. Its leader, Konrad Henlein, has said, “No responsible political movement would count on war as an instrument of policy,” and the great majority of Czechoslovak Germans would probably agree. SAP leaders insist not only that they are loyal to the Czechoslovak state, however, they may want it re- constructed, but that the rise of their party has been the best insurance against rebellion, since it has given the Germans of Bohemia a hope of redressing their grievances without re- course to “political adventures.” To the foreigner, their activity seems by no means as wholly bene- | ficial as all that. But certainly the Czechs are showing an increased will- | ingness to examine thése grievances,' to discriminate between those that are real and those that are propa- ganda (there are plenty of both) and to make a real effort to redress complaints that have some justifica- tion. At any rate there can be no mili- | tary mutiny of the Spanish type, in which most of the generals and. offi- cers of the regular army rose against the government and took some troops with thém. Czechoslovakia has uni- But dismissal of these rumors does not dismiss the problem of the Ger- mans in Bohemia. (Even Henlein admits that the Germans of Slovakia are better off than they were under the Hungarians who ruled them till the end of the war.) In Bohemia the Ger- mans are only a third of the popula- tion. For 300 years they were on top and the Czechs were underneath, and they could hardly be expected to enjoy a reversal of the situation. For some years after the war they all refused to co-operate with the new government, but since 1925 some of the German parties have been represented in the coalition cabinets which must always be formed, in this land of small parties. There remained German radical Na tionalists who refused to co-operate, but they were in a minority till the election of May, 1935, when the SdP, which had superseded the older parties, won 44 of the 300 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. A leader of one of the German gov- | ernment parties has observed: ‘“Three | things made the SdP—Hitler, hard | times and the mistakes of the Czechs.” | Hard times were particularly hard on i the Germans of Bohemia because most | of them live in industrial districts pro- | ducing for the export trade, which has | just lately begun to pick up again after years of decline. J(Germany's policy | of self-sufficiency was partly respon- sible for the decline, but the 8dP does not say much about that.) Situation Badly Handled. The government was not to blame for this, but it handled the situation { badly. German districts seem to have | got their fair share of rellef funds, but German firms got few of the government contracts which helped to keep business going; and when the government started a public works program to relieve unemployment, most of the contracts in German dis- tricts went to Czech firms, which were able to underbid by employing Czech workmen at lower wages. .These are genuine grievances, even if the SAdP has exaggerated them. It has not been able to make out a case in the matter of minority cul- tural rights; German-language schools in districts with a German majority are supported by the government, as is & German university. Wherever | a community they may use their own | language in the courts, and their votes naturally control the city and communal governments in: districts | | there are 20 per cent of Germans in | THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. FEBRUARY - () 1937—PART TWO. Lewis Career Reaches Crisis Future of Labor Leader Depends Upon Outcome of Present Labor where they have a majority. In proportion to their numbers, however, they are badly underrepre- | ! sented in the civil service (Which in- cludes railroads). This is partly their own fault; at first their refusal to co- | operate compelled the government to | | use Czechs everywhere, and German | disinclination to learn the difficult | | Czech language has made it hard for | them to qualify. But the presence of Czech postmen and ticket agents in German districts is the sort of an- | the call. Power Is Great. AND GREEN FAILED tion who believe that the president of the United Mine Workers should com- ply with that request rise to their feet.” Another pause. “The chair sees one delegate arise. “Again, let those delegates of this convention who believe that the policies enunciated by this convention should be carried out by the president | of their organization and his associate officers rise to their feet.” A cheering, shrieking response met Then Lewis turned to Green who had stood, flushed, during the demon- stration: versal service, so the Germans, being | noyance that can make more trouble | 22 per cent of the population, are|ihan more serious grievances. 22 per cent of the army, too. Bul| The SJP makes much of these com- they are distributed in units With | plainte but just what it proposes to Czech or Slovak majorities; there are | g, ahout them is still obscure, even no German battalions which could | aster you have talked to its leaders by mutiny in a body. Few German Officers. Of the professional officers of the peace-time army, there are 9,000 Czechs and Slovaks and only 500 Germans, none of whom has a higher rank than lieutenant colonel. The the hour. Henlein has denied any de- sire to import Fascism, any hostility to democracy or to the State. He in- | sists that the Germans do not want to be treated as “second-class citi- zens,” which is reasonable enough. T WELL, 'M LISTENING— BY J. A. FOX. HE floodlights of swarming pho- tographers beat harshly on the stage of Constitution Hall. Down in the cushioned re- cesses of the vast auditorium, only dimly outlined in the early dusk of | question. | that you have been treated with all | | spoke together in an undertone, then “President Green. you have received the answer of the United Mine Work- | ers of America to your ultimatum. It is not for the president of the United | Mine Workers of America to nmmuyf with mere words an expression of | principle and a conviction so deep seated, so pronounced and so tradi-| tional as exists with reference to this “You come as an ambassador from another organization to the United Mine Workers of America. I hope, sir, the courtesies and honors due an am- bassador, but you have and you may carry back-to your organization the answer of the United Mine Workers of America that has just been given by this convention.” Speak in Undertones. For just a second Green and Lewis the head of the federation marched But his more recent speeches echo a percentage of German reserve officers | good many Hitlerite phrases, and he 13 somewhat larger, but not enough to . says the siate should be a federation be a serious danger even if all the!of nationalities, not a society of in- Germans were potential mutineers, 85 ' dividuals. His demand that “our they certainly are not. Finally, there | racial frontiers must be respected” are few Germans of any rank in the | scems to mean actual political au- tank corps or the powerful motorized | tonomy for the predominantly Ger- heavy artillery, and virtually none ! onory for, the predominantly Ge & January afternoon, s year ago, 1,700 | from the plaform, to a shrill jibe from | members of the United Mine Workers | 4 far corner: of America hunched forward—tense, | «Back to the mines, Bill!” silent—gripped by unfolding drama| Tne ymplication in Lewis' reference as the long-smoldering struggle 10T | to Green as an “ambassador” was not mastery between two conflicting | joet gt least on some of his hearers. philosophies in the labor movement, | y; wqs g challenge for equality. Lewis was whipped into flames before them. | g ready and making his bid. | for the industrial union structure. in the air force. As for a civilian uprising, neither the means nor the will seems present ! No State Within a State. But this would cure few of the among the Germans. The SoP in | Germans’ real grievances and would voting represents only 60 per cent of | be impossible anyway. A map of the the Germans in the country; and | districts with German majorities, privately its leaders admit it would ' mostly along the northern and west- never get the support of the German ern borders of Bohemia, looks like & Socialists—about 15 per cent of the |slice of orange peel. They could never total—or of the Communist 6 per be organized as a single State, and cent. | even if they could be, what would Czechoslovakia tolerates no private | happen to the half million Czechs who armies such as helped Fascism to|live among these Germans, and to the power elsewhere. The licenses re- quired for the possession of arms are granted with caution, and the frontier guards can probably prevent the smuggling in of any serious quan- tity. If & “putsch” were attempted— and no responsible authority expects | it—it could almost certainly be put down before any outside aid could arrive. No Enthusiasm for Invasion. German interference, then, could not even seem anything but downright in- vasion; and for that, not even Hitler’s most ardent admirers in Czechoslovakia could feel any enthusiasm. Two-thirds of the Germans in the country live along the northern and western fron- | tiers of Bohemia, which would be. the first and most bitterly contested the- ater of war. Whoever won the war, they would lose it. Caught between the heavy guns of Krupp and of Skoda, with two great air fleets fighting over- | head, they would be simply blown off the map. And they know it. | million Germans who live outside in districts with a Czech majority? President Benes put his foot down hard on this demand in & recent speech at Liberec (Reichenberg) de- claring he would not tolerdte a state within a state, and adding that the government could not give responsible posts in its service to Fascists or to Communists, whether they were Czechs or Germans. | Like all radical parties, the SdP draws a good deal of its strength from people who had been so hard hit by the depression that they were ready | to try anything; better times may cool | them down. Last November’s local elections, in about one-third of the country, showed a slight recession in the SAP vote. If this is a trend it is still a faint one; but if the govern- ment continues its present policies, it looks as if the SAP has passed its peak. | (Copyright. 1926, by the North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.) Retailers Try to Hold Prices Down As Costs and BY HARDEN COLFAX. In spite of the increases in the cost of food and other necessities since the depression began, Government figures, confirming those recently compiled by the American Retail Federation, show that every dollar will still buy more than it did in 1929. Bince the start of the depression, of course, the American farmer has had his income raised, and factory and mill workers are now getting approxi- mately 40 per cent more than they did then. At the same time, prices and living costs generally are lower than they were in the old days of so- called prosperity, and the federation now announces that, based on Gov- ernment figures, individuals with in- comes amounting to 80 per cent of what they had in 1929 can now buy more goods with their present earn- ings than they could eight years ago. Basing its findings on a study of figures compiled by the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics, the federation reports that even though the average employed factory worker in 1936 earned about $3 less than he did in 1929 his weekly pay envelope last year would permit him to have all the items that he could have bought with his 1929 check and still leave a balance of $1.50 in purchasing power for items he could not have afforded in 1929. As estimated by the Department of L4 Buying Power Rise Commerce, the national income for 1936 was about 33.5 per cent greater than in 1933, which was just about the bottom of the depression, Last year, according to the Department of Agriculture, the cash income of the ' American farmer was about 54 per cent greater than it was in 1933, Ac- cording to the Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics, the weekly earnings of the in- dividual factory worker averaged just a little over 39 per cent more and total factory pay rolls were some 66 ;;;;acent higher than they were in While this increased purchasing power of income is due primarily to higher income and’ lower prices, all the statisticians, Government and pri- vate, agree that recent rises in whole- sale prices make it inevitable that increases in retail prices in the near future are unavoidable. During No- vember and December, 1936, average wholesale market prices rose to a level of about 2 per cent abové the same period in 1835. Further rises to be coming as the result of substan- tial increases in prices of many raw materials and advances in employ- ment and pay rolls. Just how soon these increases will reach the ultimate consumer cannot With the final curtain was to come | a new force to be reckoned with in employer-employe relationship in this country; one that thus far has tied up a good part of the automobile in- dustry; promises to go into steel—and | further. For an hour these toil-marked miners had listened as William Green, stocky president of the American Fed- eration of Labor, alternately pleaded, cajoled, by implication threatened— as he sought to sway them from the new standard to which a little while before they had sworn allegiance— the cause of industrial unionism, espoused by their own president, John L. Lewis. Plea by Green. In the blinding glare of the lights Green, a product of the Ohio coal fields, exhorts his audience with evan- gelistic fervor: “I have spoken to you as a coal miner and as president of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor. I some- times wish I were still with you as a coal miner, whether in the ranks or as your spokesman. I never sought this position. I was drafted into it, and those who drafted me, the Execu- tive Council, might have done better— I don’t know; I cannot answer that, but I thought when I was selected that it was not only a personal tribute to me, but it was an honor to the United Mine Workers of America, with whom I have lived all my life. That is the way I feel now, and that is the way I shall always feel, and, whether with the American Federa- tion of Labor as its president, or out and finished with my work, let it be soon or far in the distance, I shall give to the United Mine Workers of America the best I have, until time shall be no more!” He sat down, wiping away the per- spiration, and a battery of cameras clicked. From the side of the stage, Lewis, massive and shaggy-haired, moved ponderously to the front and began to speak, measuring carefully his words as though he weighed each syllable: “The president of the United Mine Workers of America will permit the delegates to the thirty-fourth con- stitutional convention of this organiza- tion to render their answer to Presi- dent Green of the American Federa- tion of Labor., Let me call upon all delegates to this convention who have changed their minds on this issue on account of~the address of President Green, to rise to their feet.” A pause. “The chair sees two delegates. Gets Vote. “Again, the question recurs upon the flat of the executive council of the American Federation of Labor, read to this convention as an ultimatum by President Green. It demands that the president of the United Mine Workers of America, with his associates on the Committee for Ladustrial Organ- ization, like quarry slaves at night, scared to ‘their dungeon, dissolve, dis- band, cease and desist with reference be accurately foretold at the present time, (Copyright. 1837.) to the Committee for Industrisl Ore ganization. Let those delegates of this thirty-fourth constitutional conven- « It recalled the prediction of a writer in connection with the coal strike of | 1922. “Within the next decade or s0,” he | said, “it is likely that one of the tower- | ing figures in the industrial field of America and the world of trade union- ism at large will be John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, the man who has virtually held in the hollow of his hand the will of more than 600,000 miners during the coal strike of the last three or four month John Lewis has been nurtured in in- | dustrial strife. He will be 57 years | old February 12, and more than half | of his life has been spent in the em- battled ranks of labor. The son of an Iowa coal miner, he had but little schooling before follow= ing in his father's footsteps. Seven- teen years of this in the central fields, and then, in 1909, Lewis got his real start in labor circles when appointed legislative agent for the mine workers. He attracted the atention of Sam Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, and in 1911 be- came his personal representative, serving for six years. Then came an appointment as chief statisticlan of the Mine Workers, headed at the time by John P. White of Towa and when White left in 1917, and Frank J. Hayes, vice president (now Lieutenant Governor of Colo- rado), assumed the presidency, Lewis was named vice president. White's health failed the next year, and Lewis stepped into the breach, first acting as president and later, winning elec- tion and taking office in his own right, February 6, 1920. Took Absolute Charge. ‘There never was any doubt as to who was in the driver's seat after Lewis took over, and he fought oppo- nents within the organization with the same facility with which he at- tacked those outside. He led one strike in 1919, in which the Federal Government intervened, and won for the miners the largest wage increase they ever obtained. In 1922 the coal diggers again went out when they refused to take a wage cut that was general in industry, and after a six-month tie-up, they suc- ceeded in holding their ground, in- creasing the prestige of “King Lewis 1,” as enemies dubbed him. In the meantime the union was having internal troubles, fomented, Lewis and his supporters charged, by the Communist regime at Moscow, seeking to gain control of the Amer=~ ican labor movement. Rather oddly, in view of the situa- tion now prevailing, the Lewis faction charged that an alm of this cam- paign was “conversion of all craft trade unions into single units of workers within an industry known as “industrial unions,” with c)-ordina- tion under a super-Soviet union, owing allegiance to and accepting, the mandates of the Communist In- ternationale and its subsidiary, the Red Trade Union International at Moscow.” This was the well-s - bered “one big union” scheme. There was bloodshed in this war- fare, the “Herrin massacre” in Ili- \ TO CONVINCE HIM. nois being ascribed by Lewis directly to the machinations of Moscow. Eventually, Lewis succeeded in quelling the disorders within his own organization, stamping out all but one rival group, the Progressive Miners’ who operate in Illinois. Face Evil Days. Along about 1924 the Mine Workers began to fall on évil days. Thousands of men were thrown out of work; con- tracts were broken and for nearly a | decade things were going from bad to worse. Lewis kept his shattered lines | together as well as he could, and from | this near-debacle emerged with an even tighter grip on the union ma- chinery | Because of the collapse of so many | of the district organizations into which the Mine Workers are divided. the International Union put its own representatives in charge. As a re- sult, something less than half of the districts today are autonomous, the activities of the others being directed by leaders sent in from headquarters. This is irksome to a minority, but the | centralized control will stay where it| is until Lewis is satisfied a change can | be made without stirring the inevitable | rivalries that local elections would | bring. The labor-minded Roosevelt ad- ministration was & boon to the Mine Workers. First the national recovery act, with its collective-bargaining pro- vision, and later, the Guffey act, gov= erning the bituminous industry, gave the organization a badly needed boost, | and though both pieces of legislation | have been outlawed by the Supreme | Court, their effects still are reflected | in the growth of the mine union. As| a result, it now claims 550,000 mem- bers, constituting a substantial pillar The strike that the Lewis forces now | are holding in the automotive industry | climaxes a campaign the miners’ head launched in 1933. For years the| unionization of the mass production | industries has been the goal of labor. | During the lifetime of Gompers he sent Lewis into the Pittsburgh district | in an effort to organize the steel} workers, but without success. As the infant automobile industry expanded, snother attractive labor vista was opened, but here, too, although indi- vidual crafts obtained recognition, the | sum total of results was not satisfac- tory. Elsewhere in the industrial set- up there also were gaps in the lines | of organized workers. Lewis Launches Drive. Encouraged by the labor upswing in the new administration, Lewis went into the convention of the American Federation of Labor here in 1933 with his plan for a concerted drive to or- ganize the mass industries, just as the coal mines had been, with every worker & member of the same union, rather than as affiiate ol an individual craft. Only with such solidarity, he argued, could the union cause prosper. Ef- forts to proceed along craft lines, Lewis added, had demonstrated their futility. No headway was made then, but a year later a plan was decided on at 8San Francisco that promised to bear fruit. It did not work out that way, for the craft union element, control- ing the federation, did not propose to see any infringement in their own jurisdiction, and whken Lewis sought to force the issue the following year at Atlantic City, he was defeated. The battle raged so bitterly there that Lewis was involved in a physical en- counter with one of the principal lea ers of the opposition, Willlam Hutche- son, president of the carpenters. So Lewis started his one-man drive. The first step was the formation of the Committee for Industrial Or- ganization, in which the miners were joined by the International Typo- graphical Union, Amalgamated Clothe= ing Workers, Ladies’ Garment Worke ers, Textile Workers, Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers, cap and millinery department of the Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers and Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. There have been other affiliations since. Lewis then started burning his bridges by vacating a vice presidency and place on the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, and, finally, made the break complete by defying Green at the Constitution Hall convention, when Green re- peated the demand of the federation Executive Council for dissolution of the C. L O. Since then the miners and some of the others Rave been suspended by the federation, & seemingly useless gesture, as Lewis has ignored the major labor group. Announces Program. When Lewis embarked on his or- ganization crusade he asserted it was his intention to “form unions just as big as the corporations.” He still sticks to that plan. Some of his opponents see in his efforts & desire to become the over- lord of American labor. That, of | it handed to them on a silver platter. | Upheaval—His Personal D—3 MAKING FARM TENANTS OWNERS HERCULEAN JOB Government Confronted by Whims of Human Nature, But Opportunity of Assisting Willing Ones Is Apparent. . BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE projest of making farm tenants into owmers has reached the “second-thought” stage. Not exactly the second- thought stage, for that implies that the thing has been done—and has been found to be not what first thought ex- pected it'to be. It would be more ac- curate to say that the tenant-into- landlord project has reached the stage of looking at the facts. And a look at the facts reveals some obstacles not apprehended in the beginning. I still think, as I have rather fre- quently written, that the extent of farm tenancy in America is a national detriment. I still think it ought to be | cured, and hope it will be. But I am obliged to admit, as the New Dealers | have been obliged to admit, that the process is not simple. It can't be done overnight. And it cannot be done | wholly by Government flat. Yet there must be a reason for ex- cessive farm tenancy, and there mu;t‘ be a way of ending the reason. There | must be a reason why farm tenancy is greater in some States than in others. Comparison of the conditions ought to AND WE MEAN BUSINESS. —A.P.and Harris-Ewing Photos. course, is guesswork. Back in 1921 Lewis made a fight for the presi- dency of the American Federation of Labor against Gompers, but lost, and, after Gompers died in 1924, Lewis | backed Green, then secretary-treas- | urer of the miners, for the position, and always thereafter put the latter in nomination at the annual elec- tions. Further, one astute observer believes that if Lewis had been so minded he could bave capitalized on the split in the Building Trades Coun- cil in 1934, and perhaps lined up enough votes to wrest the federation presidency from Green. There are others fully convinced that Lewis right now has his eyes | on the White House. He told a re- cent interviewer that is “fantastic” and emphasized he is not in politics. ‘What the future might bring, however, he was not prepared to say. Lewis probably has enough on his | hands at present without adding poli- tics. Along with the automobile strike, | he soon will be after a new contmct,1 in the bituminous fields to replace the one expiring March 31. The miners seek a 30-hour week without reduc- tion in pay, instead of the 35 now | worked, any they don't expect to have | | Even his opposition within the ranks | of workers is divided in its feelings toward Lewis. Some of the leaders in the American Federation of Labor are convinced he is sprouting horns. Others disagree vigorously with the | principles he espouses, but cherish a | ‘warm regard for him personally. This much seems certain. If Lewis is successful in lining up the millions of workers in the mass production industries, and wins from them the same loyalty that the miners give him, he must, indeed, be reckoned with in any future appraisal of labor relations over-the entire country, for Lewis handles his own just as a mas- ter chessman moves his pieces across the board. * Examples of Tactics. ‘There were two striking examples of his tactics at the onvention here. The minority, cryin for autonomy, sought to force a roll call to get every- body on record. but fell far short of the necessary voting strength. Lewis had pointed out tha the poll would take a day that might well be spent otherwise, particularly in view of the certain outcome. £iill there were murmurings from a few, so the bulky mine president, over the protest of the majority, ordered the call to pro- ceed, and for hours the secretary droned names, to the conclusion that had been foreseen. Lewis wanted the dissenting bloc to be entirely satisfied they were backing & losing cause. Again, the convention voted to raise Lewis' salary from $12,000 to $25000 and grant corresponding | boosts to the other general officers. A small minority protested that the proposal had been steamrollered through, so Lewis over shouts of “No! No!” rejected the proferred in- crease, as did the other leaders. Self-educated, Lewis has acquired a polished mastery of the English language. He speaks impressively and always slowly, the pitch of his voice deviating only occasionally from its booming cadence. % Married, with - two children, he makes his home in Alexandria and has little time or regard for social affairs. A daughter, Kathryn, is her father's secretary. A som, John Llewellyn, jr., is in school. Lewis has never affliated with any church, He can turn s phrase when angry that would make a mule skinner 7 give us a clew to the cause. 2 In Maine the percentage of farms operated by tenants iz only 43—prac- tically nothing. In Oklahoma the per- centage is 61.3—over half. Why the | difference? Observe another pair of | States, one Eastern and one Western. In Pennsylvania (a ge~d farming -State) the percentage of farms| operated by tenants is 15.9. In Iowa | the percentage is 47.3. Again, why the difference? I am not sure I know the answer. | But I have & glimmering of surmise. | And I should like some one better equipped than myself to explore this | suggestion. I suspect the reason for the larger percentage of farm tenancy in Iowa than in Pennsylvania lies in the fact that the price of land in Pennsylva- nia has remained stable over the past 70 years, while in Iowa the price of land has been rising spectacularly most of the time (with occasional sharp drops). Price Affects Permanency. Because the price of land in Penn- sylvania remained about the same from decade to decade, farm owners were not tempted to sell; they re- mained on their farms, regarded their farms as primarily homes, to be | Kkept to be lived on and to be handed | | | In Iowa, on the other hand, the| price of land was rising. during some | periods rising spectacularly. Conse- | ‘Take Mr. Wallace’s figure, $4,000 & farm, and multiply it by 3,000,000, The result 1is $12,000,000,000—8$12,- 000,000,000 which the Government would need to pay out if it were to buy up all these tenant-operated farms. Twelve billion dollars is a lot of money. Even to the New Dealers the amount is staggering. Mr. Wal- lace says—and everybody will have to agree with him—that it is imprac- ticable for the Government to buy all these 3,000,000 farms and turn them over to tenants. The project must be approached in some slow, gradual and more modest way. Another obstacle encountered was that venerable confounder of all re- formers, namely, human nature. It was discovered that not all tenants want to be farmers—many prefer to remain tenants. And it was discov- ered that not all tenants are fitted to be farm owners. Not all tenants have the qualities to acquire and manage farms. Whether a tenant buys his farm from the Government or from a pri- vate owner, he must in either case make a partial payment. If he has not been able, as a tenant, to accu- mulate enough money to make thr first partial payment on a farm, it a sign that he is hardly fitted to b a farm owner. Certainly it is impo: - sible for him to become a farm owne: for the first “down payment” is indis- pensable. Something I wrote some weeks ag on this subject brought me many le - ters. Many of the letters came fror farm owners eager to sell their farms. From these letters I infer that therc is no lack of farms for sale. What i lacking is tenants wanting to buy and able to buy. A man in Oklahoma writes me that he owns a farm of 80 acre-, containing a 4-room house and a barn and chicken house. The value of t buildings is about $600. This ow: is willing to sell the 80 acres and the buildings for $1,200. But, he savs, “there are no purchasers; there are tenant-farmers who would like to buy the place, but they do not have any- thing to pay down. I would be willing to take a payment of $300 in cash and give long time on the balance.” $300 Start Necessary. Pretty clearly, if & tenant has nrt been able to save up $300 to make a first payment on a farm of his ov he is not likely to become a farm owncr even with the help and guidance of the Government. The Government. I understand, will in all cases requive a down payment from the person to quently the Iowa farmer was tempted | Whom the Government sells a farm. to sell; he was led away from think- | The New Dealers discovered yet an- ing of his farm as primarily a home; iolher difficulty in human nature. The he came to think of himself as a | Government might take a tenant, set speculator in land. | him on a farm and make him owner For many years in the country |Of the farm. But suppose the tenant, banks of Iowa and in many of the |NOW a farm owner, should at once city banks, a visitor could see on the | Sell the farm or rent it to a tenant. walls a poster reading something like | Obviously the net of this operation this—I quote from a letter from an would not be any decrease in the nume Towa citizen who himself quotes from | ber of tenants in the country. So the New Dealers came to the memory: “The best investment on earth is | the earth itself. Iowa is the best part | of the earth. Jowa farm land has | doubled in value each 10 to 12 years for more than 60 years. Buy an Iowa point where, in their plans, they would prevent the new owner from selling his newly acquired farm. The Gova ernment would buy the land and seld it to the tenant on small annual pay- ments strung out over 40 years. But farm while you are young and be rich in your old age.” 1 suspect that rapid rise in value of | farm land may have been one of the | worst things that ever happened to | Towa. I imagine Iowa might have been a happier and more prosperous ' the Government would not let the pure chaser sell his title to the farm unfl# after he had completed all his ments. And the Government would not permit the purchaser to make his final payment until after 40 years, “sute had land prices arrived -early | at some stable price, and remained | there. Actually, Towa land rose from | | about $9 an acre in 1865 to upward of | $200 in recent years. | | When the New Dealers, with the | sympathetic support of nearly every- ' | body, began to consider the project of | turning tenants into farm owners, even though the plirchaser were able and eager to pay in full. In short, the Government would take a tenant and put him on a farm and make him an owher. But he must remain,an owner, willy-nilly, for 40 years. When Congress starts to debate the subject and write a law these and other difficulties will be threshed out. they found that one obstacle is finan- | In the end it is possible it may come | cial—the sheer quantity of money | down to some such simple program as needed. The total number of farms | this: in the United States in 1935 was| If there is a tenant who wishes to 6.811,999. Of these upward of 40 per | become a farm owner, let him look cent are operated by tenants—consid- | about and find a farm which he wants erably upward of 40 per cent. Secre- } and which is for sale. Let him make tary Wallace, in one of his speeches, | his own contract with the owner. Let ave the number of farms operated by | him make his first payment. At this tenants as 2,865,155. point the tenant can turn to the Gov= For convenience, call it 3,000,000 | ernment. The Government would ad= farms operated by tenants. The | vance the amount necessary to coms= objective is to turn these 3,000,000 | plete the purchase. And the Governe ment would let the tenant (now bee tenants into farmers owning and | operating their own farms. Now let | come owner) pay his debt to the Gov= us look at the cost. The average price |'ernment in small payments over & of these 3,000,000 farms would be | period of 40 years at a very low rate about $4,000 each. That is the figure of interest. used by Secretary Wallace. I sup- That is the simplest way. Whether posed it would be higher—and I|it, or some other way, will be the one am fairly confident it will be higher | adopted by Congress will appear in & if the Government starts in to buy few weeks. farms in a wholesale way. (Copyright, 1937.) Successor to Stalin May Continue to Co-operate With Capitalistic Lands (Continued From First Page.) der, King-dictator of Yougoslavia, nated by the terriorist Nikolaev in the Smolny Institute two years earlier. “The dictator had descended to the rostrum. Born Dzhugashvili, but known by his revolutionary name of | Stalin, he had successfully survived all the hazards of nearly 40 years of revolutionary plotting, Siberian exile, war, revolution, civil strife, terror- ist plots, party schisms. Lenin had said of him: ‘I trust Stalin, but Stalin | trusts nobody.’ When that struggle | for Lenin’s mantle was at its height, a foreign Ambassador had written home of him: ‘The great advantage this man has over his rivals is that he lives a regular life and is never sick.’ “He had begun to read his speech, timed to last 150 minutes, when s small black object sailed through the air and struck at the base of the ros- trum. Dictator and rostrum vanished in a spurt of flame and smoke. “Stalin was instantly killed. Most of the other oligarchs died where they dropped, or on their way to the doors. ‘Two terrorists were the assassins. Doubtless, in the confusion, they used guns to complete the work of the bomb. 5 “Stalin was the third of the Caesars of that age—the age of the interreg- num between the first and second World Wars—to fall. He had been preceded by Dollfuss, Austrian dicta- tor, assassirated by a pro-German Nazi gang in Vienna, and by Alexan- e e envious, but thoroughly dislikes any- thing even bordering on smut. A life-long Republican, he was un- derstood to have declined the labor portfolio in the Harding cabinet. In the last election President Roosevelt had no more ardent supporter, and the mine workers themselves, departing from their traditional non-partisan policy in regard to presidential can- didates, lined up solidly behind Roose- velt and gave & half million dollars to the Democratic campaign fund. - shot at Marseille by a terrorist mem- ber of a disruptive political group. “When Stalin fell men perceived not only that geographical and inter- national political factors had macde the enormous Communist state the keystone in the arch of a world divided between rival economic empires, but that owing to his personal qualities and the power he exercised in the red state, Stalin had been the keystone in the Russian arch. “The headless bolsheviki, weaving | about, in fear invited the Zinoviev- Kamenev opposition group to rally with’them to the defense of the Com- munist cause against the supposed white capitalist and German enemies within the red state. Back in power, the left-wing men recalled Trotzky from exile. Promptly the Soviet ine stitutions were purged of Stalin men. “Actually, the left-wing men had conspired with the Nazi secret police to achieve their coup. This was a re= tracing of historical footsteps, for the same German forces, under the Ho- henzollern regime, in order to weaken Russia and force her out of the World War, had transported Lenin and 30 other bolsheviks across Germany in a sealed train, and released them, a cloud of red bacilli, in Petrograd. “It was while the Trouzkyites were engaged in consolidating their power that Germany and Japan struck. 'lylu assault from the west and east was to prove the prelude to the Second World War. * = * : Thus might the future historian have written if the Zinoviev-Kamerev group had succeeded in their conspire acy against the ruling oligarchs. The details are not inventions of the writ er's imagination. They are imported from the official record of the trial of the 16 before the Military Collegium in Moscow last August. 'As the 16 were rubbed out, instead of rubbing out, one can only guess what would have happened if they had succeeded, (Copyright, 1937)