Evening Star Newspaper, March 16, 1937, Page 11

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, 1. €. TUESDAY, PalmyDayson Horizon for “Fixers” Business May Be Forced to Avoid Courts and Hire Politicians. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. OLITICIANS, lobbyists, political lawyers and prospective candi- dates for big jobs &s liaison e: ec Government are rubbing their palms, figuratively speaking, in anticipation of the new era which they expect will open up in W es between industry and | News Behind the News Guffey-Vinson Coal Bill Is Held Model for New N. R. A. BY PAUL MALLON. HE little-noticed Guffey-Vinson coal bill is supposed to contain a hidden key tc President Roosevelt’s N. R. A. revival plans. It passed the House last week without creating a ripple of interest. The debate dealt largely with extraneous matiers. Leaders in charge neglected to offer the usual explanations of its provisions. Not even & record vote was taken. Nevertheless, those who know more than they say publicly about administration plans believe the measure is likely to prove the model bill for the new approach to price fixing, maximum hours and minimum wages, Such a suspicion is bolstered by the announcements that John L. Lewis is now setting out to organize the electrical and oil industries. It has not been announced, but he also has his eye set on rubber, where the next break may come. His ally, Sidney Hillman, is going after textiles. The speed with which they are expanding is causing most observers to predict that the basic industries may be in his hands within a year. ington if the Con- gress s d adopt President Roosevelt’s plan 1stices 1se to of who will re override acts Congress Roosevelt's words for- mally admitting that he wants to “pack Supreme were. “I will int judges will not undertake to override the judg- ment of Congress on legislative policy This, in effect, means that Congress would have virtually a free rein and there would be little gained by persons | or businesses damaged under such | statutes they sought redress in the | courts. What such s doubtedly on t of many bus nesses is & determination to avoid law- | s and try to reach adju s and commiss bu- reaus and other governmental officers To do men will employ | lawyers or s or politicians thought to have a drag with the New Deal. exact David Lawrence. his, business Command Fancy Fees. During the last four men who have been positions of importanc gned. | Some of ti when leaving, do not | come back to have further con tact with Government. Others ust because of g ton. F e paid to such r years, many in Government | & mystery are ready immunize the by New Deal b Occasionally as “‘czar” of w. &s treasure tional Comm: there's a big fat Thus to ned his post the Democratic Na- tee to be head of the bring un- job | Distilled Spirit guaranteed sa ituu a It is unde wod that besides his $100.000 a year, the expenses of Mor- gan’s office will rur tween $75,000 and $100,000 a vy eddition and at to his new w some of t employes of the Democrat Committee ear n former ational of $500,000 for the | next five yea | | somewhere be- | he will take over | The rer has bee the di aciua two Cabinet officers be Morgan to take the jc a4 man sk Morgan, of vious experi ness but he has had a great deal of experience in the last few years in party politi He knows the State political organizations very well and | lots of members of the New Deal Administration here. May Prevent Vexations. The liquor induustry has been close to the New Deal ever ce was brought about thro Roosevelt's active advocacy of repeal of the eighteenth amendment. But the pendulum swings back and forth over periods of time on matters of liquor legislation and it is deemed desirable from the point of view of the distillers to protect themselves egainst vexing interferences of one kind or another, especially in the ates, by engaging a man to repre- sent them who knows the language of politics. It was an alliance between the ! whisky interests and the pol ns | which produced conditions that helped | nt sounded fore they & The that out d | wanted amendment. Most of the distillers now | epeal” | Mr. | If price fixing codes are established for each of these industries along the lines of the coal bill, Mr. Roosevelt would have practically a new N. R. A, without packing the Supreme Court or rewriting the Constitution, This Guffey-Vinson bill goes the whole way of the N. R. A. for the coal industry. It creates a na- tional bituminous coal commission within the Government, and puts a sales tax of one-half of 1 per cent on coal (raising about $4,000,~ 000 a year) to support the commission. Self-supporting regional code committees are established. The anti-trust law is suspended. Minimum prices are to be fixed, and, if necessary, maximum prices. A code estab- lishing unfeir methods of competition and marketing practices is written in the bill The only thing left out is the unconstitutional labor provision, but there is a trick in that. The new price fixing is to be done on a basis of mining costs plus « fair return, and the bill says specifically that wage rates and hours of employment are to be considered in computing costs. That is all John Lewis will need The consumer may need something more, He is supposed to be pro- tected by a consumers’ counsel at the commission. The counsel will get $10,000 & year as a roving attorney for the consumer, but his power seems to be mainly that of objecting publicly by reporting to Congress. * % x o The wording of the new law is the work, not entirely of the nominal authors, but also of former Assistant Attorney General John Dickinson. He tried the old Guffey case before the Supreme Court. Speaker Bank- head has announced his belief that the bill gets around the court’s con- stitutional objections. The fact is it probably will not get to the court for another year or two, if then. It is certain to pass the Senate soon, but any one who wants to sue will have to wait until he suffers some damages. If time and tide do not change the Supreme Court before the bill gets to it, certainly Mr. Roosevelt will be more disappointed than he is now In view of all these consid- erations, many & congressional friend of Mr. R. doubts that he needs his court repacking program as much as he has been saying, at least as regards hours and wages. While there may be some doubts about his complete ability to fix farm prices under proposed legislation, there is certainly no doubt that he will fix coal prices and coal hours and wages under the Guffey-Vinson bill, === ok ox % Only nine men in all Washington are supposed to be beyond the authority of a Government to reward its friends and punish its opponents, but lately doubts have arisen as to whether even the nine are immune. * % % Since Senator Tom Heflin left, there has been no best-storv-teller in Congress. Now Senate cloak room habitues are ready to award the vacant title to Senator Bachman of Tennessee. He is & bosom companion of Vice President Garner. Between the two of them, they know all the stories there are, and, perhaps, one or two which aren't, yet. * X ¥ * Seven distinct sugar lobbies are operating here now in connection with the proposed sugar bill (Copyright. 1937.) to bring on the eighteenth amendment ' and it was an alliance between boot- | lawyers and Washington contacts legeers and the politicians that pro- | what government wants them to do, duced conditions which helped to re- | Negotiations to secure freedom to op- peal the eighteenth amendment and |erate with a minimum of incon- rce the adoption of the twe: venience will require g -betweens and this is the great money-making op- } portunity of the politicians. It was always more or less like this under the Old Deal. There were little to find out through their political engaged in the legitimate industry are anxious to abide by whatever regu- lations are prescribed but they recog- nize that in various States they are being held up in various ways by ef- forts to put through legislation harm- ful to their increased sales. There are other instances in which industries and businesses have looked toward men prominent in the New Harding regime and there have been lobbyists and fixers here for genera- | tions, but none to compare with the political personages of today and their | fat incomes made possible under the | New Deal. One reason for this is Deal to aid them in straightening out | that under no administration in Amer- tangles with government. Heretofore | jcan history have there been so many if a commission or bureau in the | political appointees to Government executive department of government | jobs. The spoils system is more far- appeared to be taking an arbitrary or | reaching under the New Deal than one-sided action, or if Congress, at the [ under all the Old Deal administra- behest of special interests, passed a |tions. With these political appointees law harassing business, the tendency was to look to the courts of law for Justice. | There will be little occasion to wait 1 for the judgments of a New Deal Su- preme Court. Big business and little business, through its trade associa- tions, will seek in more direct fashion extent to some of these same political lawyers and politiclans on the outside of government, the cycle of political | adjustment of disputes and differences | of opinion between the New Deal and the business world is complete. (Copyright, 1937.) ) / 1 THE opintons 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 | “green houses” on K street under the | owing their jobs today to no small | themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. Facing BY MARK SULLIVAN. HOSE who look beneath the mentous change now being at- tempted in America will watch for & landmark in the outcome of the t-down” strike in the Chrysler plants at Detroit. The Detroit court has decided that g. the sit-down is §§ illegal, and that i the sit-downers must leave the plants. What happens from now on will be significant. The ultimate outcome will have much weight on whether the sit- down is to secure an accepted sta- tus in America. The sit-down, as a phenomenon in all parts of the country, has as much meaning as President Roosevelt’s pro- posal to alter the Supreme Court. The two are equally far-reaching and are related. ‘The revolutionary quality of the sit- Mark Sullivan, right of private ownership of property. When employes remain in a shop against the will of the owner, they of course pass into the status of tres- passers. As such they are subject to eviction; the process is one of the most familiar in the law. Courts, in all cases brought before them held that sit-downs ave passes. Governors varied in thelr attitudes ‘The beginning of the sit-down strike in an important sense, the strike that probably will be the key case in any future history, was the one in plant of General Motors at Flint, Mich,, some weeks ago. There the court lived up to its obligation com= pletely. Upon application by the owner of the shops, General Motors the court issued the u: warrant of eviction and ordered the sheriff to serve it. The sheriff read the war- rant to the sit-downers and was “booed™ by them the same time the sit-downers sent a telegram to the | Governor of the State, Frank Murphy, | declaring that they would not obey the court’s order of eviction. Also, at the | moment the eviction proceedings were | being heard in court, the sit-downers | extended their occupar into an additional shop of the same owner. The sit-downers were clea of the court. Two Courses Open. al tres- of States have al The sheriff, able pearsonally evict seve hundred downers, could have followed either of | two courses. (At least, this is the pro- cedure in most States: I assume it holds in Michigan) The sheniff could swear as many deputies as he felt he needed, or he could apply o e | Governor for the nece help. He chose the latter co Gov. phy, according to newspa sent no reply Inst o | conference of heads of Ge and of heads of the str Gov. Murphy said he did cord with the wish of Pres velt, After several days to obvious ient Rooses of con an agreement. Thereupon the downers evacuated t shops v tarily By this outcome, the s effect won the strike, and won it by means of the sit-down. It does ot matter that they did not win every- thing they had contended for. as they won any conce on at all they won it at the price of ceasing the sit-down. To express it in a dif- ferent way, General Motors paid a price, a kind of ransom, for the return | of the property to its owners | If this Flint case gets standing as a | precedent, then something new will | have been introduced into American u The new thing includes a fa downers in how to protect Daintiness surface to identify the mo- | down strike lies in its relation to the ‘ have | the defiant | this in ac- | ence, the owners and strikers reached | Sit-Downism’s New Test Standing of Courts in Protecting Property Also Crisis. reaching limitation of what has hith- erto been universally looked upon as the right of an owner to hold property and be protected in his ownership by the courts and the executive officials ®f government. After the success of the sit-down in Flint, it was certain, of course, that the sit-down technique would at once be imitated. The question was whether other Governors would or would not follow the precedent set by Gov, Mure phy. Newspapers reported that two Governors, Cross of Connecticut and Hoffman of New Jersey, announced in advance that if sit-down strikes were attempted in their States, they would put the force of the State behind the courts in suppressing such invasion of private property. In Illinois, sit-down strikers were evicted by the sheriff | with the aid of deputies; in that State, | the Governor was not asked for help. Similarly, in California, a sit-down strike was ended by the co other 1o \forcing agencies, nout recourse to the Governor, In Michigan it was predestined that once Gov. Murphy had failed to respond to the sheriff’s call for help, | and had condoned one sit-down strike, would have others laid on his £ The present sit-down in th sler plant goes farther 1 respects than the one in Fl weeks befc If this Chrysler strike n in which C aid in of ¢ to ordes ) p course he , then the e looked upon 50 far as in t} sit-down is 1 only 1 down strikes have been 1 these State courts | own property relation b Mr. Roosevelt's pr hited to be an illegal posal about Co t has in mind to br 1g about ich will actica labor legislation Mr. Roose- States pr Court | be an accepted, it of view -down is to be observed for light the America must be ithout force ¢ day, General phrase in an General Motors, their downers viole Motors used opposite appea the same connection and | MARCH the | el Pre- | he said bloodsk force and viol an only be over active force and 3 Those wh 0 see whether America w wrough this period without the emergence of violence on | & cons} observe care- | fu! developments in the W speak, So far | 'MAKES HUBBY HAPPY Free Cook Book of Prize Recipes Angostura-Wuppermann Cerp., Norwalk, Conn, f | themes for good p in, | 16, 1937. We, the PeoEle Legal Profession Undergoing *Devaluation” in Revolt of Public Against Lawyers. BY JAY FRANKLIN ERHAPS I oversimplify the situation.’ The speaker was a young Midwestern business man who had been called to Washington to hold an important financial position under the New Deal. A blue-blooded former Repub:ican, with a conservative background, he was as far removed from the happy thought reformers of 1933 as from the brass-knuckled strikers of 1937. 1 had asked him for his personal opinion on the President’s Supreme Court plans “Perhaps I oversimplify,” he repeated. “As I see it, from time to time in human history, some one particular small group gets far out of line with the rest of the people. At one age it is the military, at another the priesthood, or again—as recently—tie money lenders. Today it is the lawyers. And whenever this sort of thing happens the people just reach out and shove ’em back into line. That's what we're doing now.” “Take my own case,” the official continued. “I managed my own personal affairs so that I never had to go to law. I never brought suit or was sued. Perhaps I was lucky, but I never tried to make use of the courts. In my business the only use I had for lawyers was to have them put in final form agreements which were fair and acceptable to myself and the people with whom I dealt, Sometimes my counsel would tell me I couldn't do a certain thing or that I couldn’t do it a certain way, but on the whole his job was simply to draft an agreement already arrived at. Then I read it, the other fellow read it, and if it seemed to mean what we had already decided do, we signed it and forgot about it. “I guess most laymen think of the law pretty much as I did before I came down here But here—good Lord!—you never know where you are. The cour and lawyers mess things up so that you can't go ahead with the simplest = and most reasonable things gum the works. and must be given a spanking if we're going to do our “No, I don't think that the pillars of the Republic sre totterir because Roosevelt plans to appoint some new judges. I don't parti care what he does to the Supreme Court Just so long as he does someth to it. Perhaps I over-simplify,” he concluded “but It come to take the lawyers and tell ‘em where they get off * ok K ox I quote these remarks, which were uttered without any thought of publication, because they illustrate a pretty widely held conpic- tion among many moderately conservative business men, both in and out of the Government: The idea that the lau yers have gone too far and have tried to make men fit the laws rather than make the lqu serve the needs of humanity. The revolt against the lawyers, as privileged profession, is now underu ay. Up to 1929 there were two privileged cas bankers and the lawyers—who assumed to mana S and our sacred honor. The financial crash removed b big bankers, but the big lawyers remained with us, spinning t sophistries and entangling men and measures in a stic rulings and injunctions until, after four years of determi action, it seemed that the only way of solving our problems w aside these many-legged word weavers and get down to b Lawyers are not popular in this country and & tion.” The Supreme Court fight is only pert of th legal profession is to be reduced from a position of interest of a few powerful corporations to one of whole community, & Kk the a lo from th eir legalistic ed political as to brush ss tacks em due process by social astery in respect vice ¢ ok o Senator Burton K. Wheeler's he is now only a fake liberal. Nc President on the Supreme Court reforms — liberals have always fought each other over the means even when they agree on the ends radio address at Chicago proved that this is not because he is opposing the has given them their strength is their ability to recognize their common enemies When S ter Wheeler referred to “two liberal newspapers” which op- posed the President's plan he showed that he could no longer recognize the®enemy even he saw the these two particular papers have fought the New and abandoned their traditional Democratic policy Gov. Lardon for the presidency They used to be liberal papers once, just Wheeler 1 be young once. They are not so regarded now by * p newspapermen, and as for the Senator from Montana, he is now 55th year, and has alreedy passed from the period of heroic activity the “thou shalt not" phase which characterizes so ma former rad (Copyright, 1937.) s of Deal in their tooth order 1 as Senator Smoking Cars Painted Red. In Berlin's electric subway smokers are red and | cars are painted vellow Trials Furnish Plots. Many playwrights have found | s in the reports of cases in the law courts. An American You Should Know Katherine Lenroot Has Job of Mothering an Entire Nation, BY DELIA PYNCHON, GITATION for child conserva- tion through the long arm of the Federal Government began in 1906. Six years later it culminated in the creation of the Children’s Bureau in the Department of Labor, spon- sored by Senator Borah The Children's Bureau has had only three ¢ Katherine Le root is its third. She came { Wisconsin to be special agent in the Social Serv- ice Division in 1915 and in 1934 became chief Daughter of Judge Irvine L. £enroot of Su- perior, Wis, Representative and Se ator in Con for 18 years, Miss i Katherine Lenroot, Lenroot can logically trace her public spirit to home infiuence, from which, theoretically, “all blessings flow.” aduate of the Ul | consin, s niversity of Wis- lizing in sociology and and welfare Wisconsin State e Advisory Com- ice, League of Pan American s Lenroot has ad- children’s cause in other 16,000,000 Pamphlets. cars for en's Bureau was e and report fact co-operation Wi collected medium rained been the by for 16,000,000 ts pub the They co ginable abe i the |t workers have fler.” It sing Bible Duties Increase. n's Bureau n of Fed security act ys that fied. 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