Evening Star Newspaper, April 9, 1937, Page 11

Labor Board’s Policies Held Confusing Even Wagner Cannot Discover True Mean- ing, Observer Says. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. T HAS been said that parents some- times do not understand their own children. So it might be said that Senators sometimes do not under- stand their legislative offspring. A case in point is that of Senator Scheme to Aid Consumer Goods. BY PAUL MALLON. I N EXTREME secrecy, President Roosevelt has been fondling a new plan Reserve Boarders and Treasury money-men have been consulted, but it is understood they did not originate it. The wuthor is supposed to be one of Mr. Harry Hopkin's bright young men in W. P. A., and both Mr. Behind the News for the last two weeks. This time it relates to prices. Hopkins and Interior Secretary Ickes are behind it—if you can imaginse Roosevelt Has New, Secret Price Plan—Believed He has concealed it generally from congressional ayes. Federal that. Details have been very successfully guardsd, but one or two officials who have consulted the President have an idea it follows the price-line which Mr. Roosevelt has been hinting at in his last two press conferences. He is apparently disturbed about the recent increases in durable goods, including steel, where the price-rise Jollowed the new wage and hour arrangement effected by Mr. Lewis Wagner of New York, author of the national labor relations act, usually | known as the Wagner law. | The other day in the United States | Senate occurred an interesting debate | between Senator | Vandenberg, whose State of Michigan h & s been the victim of “sit - down” strikes and Sena- tor Wagner who & promised when it was passed in 1935 that his law would go a long way toward re- ducing the nu ber of indu disputes in Amer- ica Here is the exact quotation from the offi “Mr. Vande T desire to ask | Senator a question for information. | the assumption that t himself invoke t has | been made t is not correct. On | the complaint of any one the Labor | Board may act; or it may make in-| upon its own init | “Mr. Vandenberg as to that, bu 1t would nc an employe and r alleged vi that comp be held . . . Question on Employer’s Right. “Mr. Vande Let me go back to the law again, becat be sur I cor understand the Senator. Do I correctly under- stand that an employer has the same | right that an employe has to invoke the act? | “Mr. Wagner: I think so—simply by appearing before the board and explaining the difficulty, and upon | that actic board makes an inquiry i a3 to the violation of law. | “Mr. Vandenberg: Whence arises | all this misinformation then? ‘ “Mr. Wagner: I do not know. There has been a great deal of misstatement, | even in some of the opinions of lower | courts . . . { | [ and upon tion might e I desire to| Mr. Vandenberg: “I understand the Benator's own opinion to be that an employer has the same right as an employe to apply to the board under | the law.” Mr. Wagnert “To present his griev- snoes.” It might be supposed that Mr. Wag- ner would know what the National Labor Relations Board is actually | doing under the authority which the law he sponsored gave them to admin- ister. Here, however, is what the National Labor Relations Board said in its last annual report, which has been officially promulgated as a public document: “It should be noted that only an employe or a person or labor organi- sation acting on his behalf may file a petition for investigation of a con- | troversy concerning represeniation. | Thus employers of labor may not request the board to undertake such an investigation.” | *“True Meaning of Law.” S0 it would appear that the labor board is doing one thing and Mr. Wag- | ner, who drafted the law, thinks the | board 15 doing something else. And | when United States Senators cannot | discover in a debate just what the true | meaning of & lJaw happens to be in so | far as scope of administration of its very simple terms is concerned, it need | not be wondered that the general | public is often befuddled, too, by the multiplicity of laws and provisions of | laws put on the statute books by Con- | gress with the expectation of public obedience. | Incidentally, the labor board has washed its hands of any possible con- nection with a large number of labor disputes involving conflict between | labor organizations themselves. It was | plainly stated in the Wagner law that | the board was to determine the “appropriate unit” for collective bar- gaining. Recently most all the major labor disputes of the country in which sit-down strikes have figured have turned, not on wages or hours, but on representation—who shall represent the men in collective bargaining nego- tiations. The board not only has refused to hear employers who wanted | redress against conditions produced by coercion of their workmen by fellow | ‘workmen—this, indeed, is the defect of the law itself—but the board has| declined to designate the unit for col- lective bargaining as between labor | organizations in dispute, as, for| instance, the C. I. O. unions and the | A.F.of L. unions. In answer to three different petitions, the board refused _to act in cases involving these juris diotional disputes. The reason givel by the board in its own words is this: "It is preferable that the board should not interfere with the internal | affairs of the labor org’mizanons.‘l Self-organization of employes implies | s policy of self-management. The role | that organizations of employes even- | tually must play in the structure | established by Congress through that | act is & large and vital one. They The Tareyton W?e’b HERBERT TAREYTON Now ONLY 19¢ and the C. I O. ‘The idea is said not to be drastic, but turns Government spending away from bridges, dams, etc., into things like the Florida ship canal and Passamaquoddy, on the assumption that the prices of consumers’ goods will thereby be stimulated. * % ok ¥ ‘The man behind the anti- lynching bill is Representative Gavagan, who comes from the Amos and Andy district. A Tam- many man, he has successfully fought off efforts of Negroes to capture his seat. He got busy early this session with the anti-lynching people and crowded Chairman Sumners of the House Judiciary Committee into reporting the bill. Mr. Sumners has been proud of the fact that his committee has never reported an anti-lynching bill during his administra- tion, but the 218 signatures obtained by Gavagan frightened the House | because the labor board is influenced | leaders, who feared reprisals and possible defeat. Senator Wagner has passed the word to his House friends that he can get the bill through the promptly. Senate if the House would act It appears he may be right about that, but the forcing of this issue during the bitter Senate squabble over Mr. Roosevelt's Supreme Court packing plan will help the split within the Democratic ranks. Several experienced Democratic Congressmen are expressing the opinion privately that, if the President wins his court packing plan and the anti-lynching bill is passed, the cleavage within the party will not be healed during this administration. * % * * The new Federal Reserve Board bond-buying policy was not an economic move, but a life preserver for Mr. Morgenthau. Despite all the many funds administered by the Treasury Secretary, he actually was short of ready money with which to support the bond market, in the face of the natural economic tide of increasing interest rates, commercial loans, com- modity prices, recovery. This may be disputed with official figures, but is nevertheless true The step really runs counter to serve policy. requirements. He did it to keep prices the economic theory of Federal re- Chairman Eccles has put into effect two hoists in reserve down, to hinder inflation. The theory was that, by increasing the reserves required of banks, he could keep them INEFD from lending that money in the stock, commodity or business markets, where it might be used to make inflation boom But he ran counter to the policy of Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, who was trying to make the banks carry the vast Federal debt at low interest rates. Some banks had to sell their bonds in order to meet new reserve re- quirements. Whatever selling there was for this and other purposes hurt Mr. Morgenthau's bond market, blocked his game. There 1s some talk now about Federal Reserve reducing the reserve requirements again $o as to get out of Mr. Morgenthau's way, but the suggestion is premature, if not facetious. The change undoubtedly represents only a temporary halt in Chair- man Eccles’ boom control moves. If business keeps expanding and interest rates keep going up, what he will do is problematical. He says: *Balance the budget, not theoretically, but really.” That appears to be not only an economic desirability, but a financial necessity. * x * x A capable business man was asked the other day the usual question of greeting, “Well, how do things look to you?” His response was this story: “My mother once had an old colored cook, Dinah, whose husband was very ill. Mother went down to the kitchen one morning and asked Dinah how the husband was getting along. The reply was: ** ‘Well, the doctor says he is improving, but ah doesn't know whether it is for the better or for the worse’.” (Copyright, 1937.) will best be able to perform that rule | if they are permitted freely to work | out their own solution to their own | internal problems.” Seen Internal Affair. Thus the disputes between different types of labor unions, involving as they do today “sit-down” strikes and | lawlessness, coercion of innocent work- ers and economic losses to the Nation as a whole, seem to the labor board to be just an internal affair of a couple of union groups here and there, This is in marked contrast to the idealistic purposes and objectives pro- claimed when Senator Wagner and President Roosevelt participated in & pen-signing ceremony with moving picture cameras reeling off a new era of industrial peace for America. To- day the national labor act is to all intents and purposes a dead letter by President Roosevelt, who in turn | has a political fear of the power of | John Lewis. The Wagner law prob- | ably will be declared invalid in cer- tain sections next week, but it con- | tains the foundations of a good labor | policy for America provided it can be amended to include among “unfair labor practices” the misguided acts of over-zealous labor leaders as well as of unscrupulous and tyrannical em- loyers. (Copyright, 1837.) Boice-Crane 4-Inch Jointer | No. 950—271," Overall Has extra long and accurate tables . . . extra long “fence guiding sone” . . . and joints 34-inch deep. Not only accurate, but rugged, too. One of the popular Boice-Crane power tools of proven success comprete " $28.50 FREE DELIVERY J. FRANK ELLY INC. SUDDEN SERVICE Lumber and Millwork 2121 Ga. Ave. NOrth 1341 CIGARETTES “Thenes something adout them you'll like” A \ PULITZER LIST AWAITED Prizes in Letters and Journalism to Be Announced May 3. NEW YORK, April 9--Dr. Nich- | olas Murray Butler, president of Co- lumbia University, will announce the Pulitzer Prize choices in letters and journalism for 1936 at the annual alumni dinner of the School of Jour- nalism May 3. This announcement yesterday was made along with a statement the Ad- visory Board of the Columbia Gradu- ate School of Journalism, which func- tions as the Pulitzer Prize Committee, will meet April 30 to select the prize winners. Boy, 7, Governor of Hospital. George Thornton, 7, of Mottingham is the youngest hospital governor in England. He has just been elected & life governor of the Royal Eye Hos- pital, Southwark. The honor was con- ferred on him because of his success as a collector for the hospital. George was a patient at the hospital two years ago. THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FRIDAY, APRIL 9 1937, e e e Al 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 themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. Police Jail Terrorism Third-Degree Tactics Liked to Nazi Concentgation Camps by Writer. BY DOROTHY THOMPSON. LTHOUGH we are immensely proud of our civil liberties and teach every school child the contents and implications of the Bill of Rights of the Constitu- tion, few people in the still free and so-called civilized world permit daily, hourly, such crude and brutal in- fringements of ;... " those rights, from : . duly constituted ° officers of the law, as we do. For minor of- fenses we permit ourselves to be lectured and bul- lled by the police, although their duties include no such privileges. And heaven help any of us who may, rightly or wrongly, be sus- pected of a seri- ous crime. For without submitting the case to the people, the local police will suspend of themselves the fifth amendment of the Constitution, under which no person in a criminal case shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. The brutalities of Nazi 8. A. men, the castor oil tactics of the Black Shirts have all been de- scribed in detail for a horrified Ameri- can public. But they are the same tactics which our own police officials blithely employ continually, in fla- | grant violation of the basic law. Nor is that all. The sixth amend- ment to the Constitution entitles every citizen to a speedy trial by an impartial jury, and the eighth amendment forbids excessive bail or “cruel and unusual punishment’— | the latter even after conviction. But punishment which ought to be un- usual and is certainly cruel is in- | flicted on American citizens regularly | in police jails before they have even been indicted for crimes, to say noth- ing of being convicted. And as our law operates there is little they can do about it. ‘The most appalling case recently was that of Frank Monaghan, a hotel man of Uniontown, Pa., father of & | Yale professor, who was atrested in Fayette County, Pa. for “driving while intoxicated” and was hideously beaten to death by detectives and policemen in the fingerprint room of the jail. The autopsy, I am in- formed, revealed that he had not been drinking. Eleven ribs were broken, his skull was crushed, his nose and jaw were broken and he was badiy cut up as well. A local reporter | testified that he overheard the man ery. “My God, don't do that . .. T can't stand that Give me a chance! Don't put me under there! I can't stand it!” He was 64 years old, and this was the United States of America in the year 1936. Seven men have been indicted for murder. When it goes that far, some one, maybe, will be held responsible. But if Mr. Monaghan had escaped with his life, we probably should have | heard little more about it. Only the other night I met a dis- tinguished PFrenchman who is visit- |ing in this country at present and who recalled a journey here several years ago. He bought a fourth-hand car in California, drove it to Penn- | sylvania, there it broke down, and the repairs were so formidable that he offered to sell it for a few dollars to the local garage man The stenog- rapher in the office where he had | purchased it had mistakenly regis- tered the engine number, which led to the suspicion that he had atolen the car. He was escorted to the local jail and there set upon by three husky cops, who punched him in the jaw and in the abdomen in an ef- fort to extract a “confession.” He was saved from plain and fancy in- quisitional torture by the fact that he carried in his pocket a friendly letter from a rich and well-known American industrialist, and the en- counter ended with a bruised jaw and a dinner tendereed the prisoner by the police. The point of the story is that the three energetic cops seemed to have no remote concep- Dorethy Thompsen. law of criminal assault and battery. "Phese cases are called to mind by the Gedeon case. Police Commis- sloner Valentine said that Mr. Ged- eon was not beaten. “The ma: is quoted as saying, “had a double hernia, and I told the boys mnot to touch him.” The remark is bril- liantly illuminating. The boys were told not to touch him, not because “touching” him is {llegal, not be- cause Mr. Gedeon, were he black with crime, had certain rights un- der the Constitution and the law, but because he had a double hernia! Apparently, “the boys” steered clear of his abdomen, because he issued from his thirty-three-hour uninter- rupted “cross-examination” with only a badly bruised face, neck and ear. But if “the boys” hed shattered Mr. Gedeon’s eardrum and deafened him for life, if they had put out one of his eyes, and if afterward it should be revealed that he was to- tally innocent of the crime to which he was being “urged” to confess, Mr. Gedeon would have no resort except to try to indict the imndividual police- men who were responsible. Similar Situation Abroad. In England or in France the heirs of Mr. Monaghan and the French professor would all have had cause to sue the state itself, and they could certainly have collected handsomely. And any one of these cases would have s0 inflamed public opinion that it might easily have caused the fall of a cabinet! Not only are these tactics uncon- stitutional and criminal, but they are, from the viewpoint of intelligent penology, plain idiotic. The police themselves think that whoever killed the Gedeons and their lodger was demented. They are looking now for & homicidal maniasc—who had been, according to the reports, in two or three asylums and discharged as “cured.” In any country where there is intelligent treatment of crime such a suspect would be hospitalized and cross-examined, not by half a dozen bruisers with rubber hose, but by trained psychiatrists, who would almost ceptainly extract convincing evidence one way or the other. Not since Galileo has a confession wrung from a man by toture been con- sidered by civilized men to be worth the paper it is written on. Apart from that, the character assassingtion which goes on in our enlightened country during criminal processes baffles description. Mr. Gedeon has already been tried and practically hanged in half the news- papers of New York. His hands are strong, his eyes are peculiar, his ways are strange. He happens to be an upholsterer, who has access to pri- vate dwellings, and I should think that after all that has been written his business with respectable house- holders would be ruined. Now the mad zculptor is being publicly tried, not by an impartial jury, but by the police commissioner, who flatly an- nounces to the world that he is the gullty man, and by half of the press of the city. Maybe Mr. Irwin, if and when apprehended, will be found to | be as guilty as the Borgias, but he isn't, according to law, guilty yet. And in England, half the newspapers | of New York could be prosecuted for criminal libel. Sees Law Losing Respect. Respect for iaw is not engendered by these methods. Thousands of peo- ple in this country still think that Hauptmann was not guilty; first, because he was tried both ways in the press, and, second, because the people distrust police methods. There are two bills pending in Albany to stop .hird-degree methods in New York State. They ought to be passed. And since the Monaghans and Gedeons can hardly appeal to the Supreme Court, similar bills should be introduced everywhere. ‘What are our police prisons anyway? Naz concentration camps? (Copyright, 1937.) Shillings Counterfeited. Counterfeit shillings found at Bradford, England, contained more tion that they were guilty under the silver than genuine shillings. A Surrealist’s impression of a ma n without Wilkins Coffee. This Changing World Europe Sees Effort of Mussolini to Bring Show-down With England on Spain. BY CONSTANTINE BROWN. UROPEAN statesmen are fretful again. It looks as if Italy means to bring about & show-down with other “interventionist” nations in Spain. And when one talks about Italy, it must be remembered that Germany is being involved too. Whatever is done by Mussolini has Hitler's approval and vice versa. * ok ok X The attack on the British destroyer Garland. by alleged Spanish in- surgent airplanes might prove a delicate problem for the Rome and London diplomats, if the belief of British naval quarters that it was a ‘wanton provocation is correct. Rebel airplanes attacked twice on Tuesday the British destroyer. There is no question that no air- man can really hope to hit & small vessel from 10,000 feet distance. Naval maneuvers have shown that & squadron of airplanes would have & hard time hitting a 35,000-ton battleship. The chances of one or two airplanes hitting a 1,200-ton vessel going at high speed and zig~ zagging are less than nil. The airplanes flew the rebel colors. But that does not mean that they were Spanish. The opinion in certain British quarters is that the airplanes and the pilots were Italian and that the attack was planned in Rome in order to force the British to a show-down with Gen. Pranco. The purpose of such an incident is to humilate the London government. Franco, who has not replied to a note the British sent him some six weeks ago, had instructions from Rome not to give a satisfactory answer to this new British protest. And Mussolini would like to know how the British are going to take a direct insult to his majesty’s navy. * ok X X On the other hand, it appears that I1 Duce is determined to put an end to the farcical proceedings of the London non-intervention commission. It is an open secret all over Europe that despite the pious expressions uttered by diplomats in London, every nation interested in the Spanish civil war is sending military support to the faction they favor. The fact American volunieers have been arrested on the Spanish- French frontier has absolutely no significance. It was just window dress- ing. The authorities knew that a score or 50 of Americans would not decide the victory of the Loyalists; in the meantime, the publicity attached to the arrest of the American citizens would indicate that the non-intervention agreement is being honestly enforced. Mussolini’s and Hitler's intention to stop the farce and put things in their proper light might bring about a crisis. Il Duce does not want to “smuggle” his men into Spain. He wants freedom of action. Italy and Germany have made it a point of honor to defeat the ‘“reds” as the Loyalists are called. And as things are going on, it looks as if Mussolini we have to throw off all pretense of neutrality. * X % x It is because these war clouds are getting heavier, that the Belgian government has decided to revert to its pre-war neutrality guaranteed by all would-be belligerents. Belgium does not want to take a chance of be- coming the battlefield of Europe 3 once more. The situation in Leopold's kingdom is as follows: Since the end of the World War there has been a slow, but sure movement towards a policy of independence from any compromising military entanglements. Leopold is a consti- tutional monarch who does not want to usurp the functions of his ministers. But he is willing - - to become their mouthpiece whenever necessary. It is for this reason that a few months ago he announced that Belgium wished to return to her pre- war status as a neutral. The Belgium Flemish nationalism won its way among the younger generations. This movement was centered chiefly in the preservation of the Flemish language identical as a literary tongue with Dutch. The Nazis saw in this move their chance of winning a brother Ger- manic people, and soon, in alliance with the Flemish nationalism, there sprang up under M. Degrelle, the Fascist Rex party. In the meantime, the more sober sections of Belgian opinion—Catholics, conservatives, etc.—did not like the connection with France. The Belgian general staff approves the “back to absolute neu- trality” move because they figure that if ever France went to war with Germany it would be only to repeal an aggression against Russia or Czechoslovakia. Leopold presented the case of his people in London. Eden and the other members of the British cabinet listened attentively to the young King and in all fairness to their former war ally, they could find no flaw in Belgium's request. Thus, whether they wanted it or not, the British agreed to support the Belgian thesis. (Copyrisht, 1937.) Headline Folk and What They Do Dr. Nash Holds Leisure Is Dangerous to Civilization. BY LEMUEL F. PARTON. OR the last 8 or 10 years Dr. Jay B. Nash of New York University has been turning in alarms which cry the mortal danger of leisure. Currently, he tells an audience of educators at Spokane that “no great civilization ever has developed leisure and lived.” He sees no reason why America should be an exception. Dr. Nash, professor of physical edu- cation, is, incidentally, an official of the American Posture League. Con- sidering the fact that Sitting Bull seems to be the country’s patron saint just now, it might be inferred that the professor is scolding the sit- downers, but that isn't it at all. He was warring against leisure long be- fcre the start of the recumbent, or semi-recumbent, era, mainly on the grounds that leisure makes an alto- gether flabby and useless human race. He feels pretty deeply about all this, and usually brings in Rome and its decadence, as he did in the Spokane address. A friend who has been back-trail« ing the Latin poet, Ennius, in his native Calabria, fllls me in with the story of the leisure issue in Rome about 200 B. C. Certain gloomy citi- zens were insisting that, with the gladiatorial combats and such, Rome was becoming a nation of kibitzers | and would surely go to the dogs. En- | nius, a genial skeptic, the author of | the “Saturae,” commented on the fact that the rational organization of | leisure “made it more of a business than business itself.” Seneca was disquieted by the “vices of leisure,” but Cicero considered it “the mother of philosophy.” There seems to have been sharp disagreement among the Romans, For 15 years Dr. Nash was director of physical education and superin- tendent of playgrounds at Osakland, Calif. He was an instructor in edu- cation at the University of California and has been on the faculty of New York University since 1926. He is a member and officer of many societies in the fleld of public health and | recreation, a vigorous protagonist of | industrious leisure. | Clarence Darrow once said that he became a lawyer because he wanted to get out of hard work on the farm. “The easiest jobs with the shortest hours always pay the best,” he added. Gene Sarazen hated school when he was in the eighth grade and quit to | help his father, an Italian contractor, build houses. Driving nails developed a steel wrist. | One thing that bothers Dr. Nash is | that, as a nation, we suffer from “spectatoritis.” That, of course, sug- | gests base ball, and in the news is | another reminder of the thin line be- | tween leisure and business. The De- | partment of Justice, responding to the appeal of Representative Raymond J. Cannon of Wisconsin, orders an in- vestigation to ascertain whether major ]lengue base ball violates the anti-trust | laws. (Copyright. 1937.) You...justthink you're hard to fit! 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