Evening Star Newspaper, June 15, 1937, Page 11

- THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON. Garner’s Act Stirs Rumors of Breach Withdrawal in Time of Crisis Indicates Dis- approval. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. HE biggest mystery in Wash- ington today is why John Garner left town. Has the Vice President bro- ken with President Roosevelt? Has Mr. Garner felt that his withdrawal at this time from the Senate would emphasize to the public his com. plete disapproval of the present : trend of admin- stration policies? Certainly it is most unusual as Congress moves into the critical weeks of a ses sion for the Vice President to ab- sent himself on % & six weeks' v cation. It is % true that M., g pawrence. Garner sought and obtained the “boss’ permission” as he familiarly refers to the Presi- dent, but this does not explain his willingness to leave just as the Su- preme Court bill is ready for debate and consideration. Under the rules the Vice President eannot, participate in Senate debate, 80 if he has any views to express he cannot do so as would any Senator. John Garner feels that he is a soldier in the ranks. He said as much in his speech of acceptance a year ago when he was renominated for the vice presidency. When reports are published that he has broken with the President, it would not be surprising even to see the Vice President endeavor to em- phasize the importance of his taking 8 rest at this time rather than the reasons being suggested here in Wash- ington. As a soldier, he obeys, but nevertheless it is no longer a matter of concealment here that the Vice President does not agree with the lat- est proposals from the White House. Mr. Garner sits at the cabinet table, but it is doubtful whether even in the presence of the 10 members of the cabinet he would speak his mind in frank criticism of administration policies. Reliable reports have it that Mr Garner has been having a series of personal interviews with President | Roosevelt, in which he has attempted to tell him how deep-seated. for in- stance, is the opposition of Demo- cratic Senators to the Supreme Court plan. He has discussed other legisla- tion and has suggested, it is said, that Congress finish up a few appropria- tion bills and adjourn forthwith. The President is reported to have agreed that at least the Vice Presi- dent needed a rest. It will be re- called that Mr. Roosevelt went on a fishing trip to the Texas shores of the Gulf of Mexico and came back with tales of how he had been talk- ing with various persons and they all seemed to think the Supreme Court needed to be enlarged by six justices. Now Mr. Garner goes to the self- same State of Texas and maybe Mr. Roosevelt thinks the Vice President will get a different perspective when he gets down to Uvalde, Tex. than he has had heretofore, John Garner likes to go fishing, too. Mr. Garner's views on pending questions have from time to time been communicated to his colleagues in the Senate, so they know he has had fundamental dif- ferences with the administration, but when it came to cracking the whip and lining up the votes on such things as the “death sentence” for the utili- ties, the Vice President did yeoman service for the administration. Just why the chief liaison officer that the White House has for the Upper House on Capitol Hill should | leave when he might be most needed | is difficult to explain, but it does not seem reasonable to accept at face value that the purpose is merely to get a rest. Certainly when there's a tie vote the Vice President is an im- portant factor in administration pol- icy. There have often been occasions when a tie vote had to be broken by the Vice President. The departure of Mr. Garner means, therefore, the loss of one vote for the administration. Entirely apart from this is the effect zl the morale of Democratic Sena- 7S, In the last few weeks I have talked Wwith a number of Senators on the Democratic side. Most of them tell me that the Supreme Court bill has hung like a cloud over the work of the whole session, that the friends of the President are disappointed at his unwillingness to work in harness as & member of a team and that his de- cision to play a lone hand and insist arbitrarily on his own will has caused no end of embarrassment on Capitol Hill. Lacking in enthusiasm for the party program, tired, unhappy and distressed beyond public expression at the failure of the President to act decisively when the “sit-down” strike erisis occurred, the situation for al- most half the Democratic membership of the Senate is about as unhealthy as it could be from the standpoint of party solidarity. Maybe Mr. Garner thought that the best way to persuade Mr. Roosevelt about the seriousness of the situation was to go away for :ix weeks and let the President and the country ponder the significance of the differences of opinion between the two men who led the Democratic party at the polls less than & year ago. (Copyright, 1937.) YOU'LL NEVER REGRET YOUR INVESTMENT —in Heating Your Home, the mod- ern way, when we install The— + In addition to receiving reg- ular dividends in Health, Com- fort and Satisfaction, your op- erating expenses are reduced to the minimum. ASK US FOR DETAILS. MAURICE J. OLBERT . Heating Homes for over 30 Years 1908 M St. N.W. . . . Dlst. 3626 What’s Back of It All U. S. Warms Up Diplomatically Toward *Oslo Group”—Neutrality Sentiment Grows. BY H. R. BAUKHAGE, ODAY is war debt non-payment day (that is, except for Finland). ‘The debtors don’t know it—yet, but the program from this side of the Atlantic may be a little different from now on. The United States is warming up to a new neighbor in Europe. Our defaulting {riends may soon find that this means that we are cooling off toward them. Officially it is now being admitted in Washington that the objectives of the so-called “Oslo group”—Belgium, the. Netherlands, Luxemburg, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway—"coincide with our own.” These nations are banding together to promote prosperity through better trade relations. (Belgium is the only war debtor in this group. Finland is the only one of all the debtors to have a clear record of payments.) What isn’t admitted around Washington is that there is definite sympathy in the White House and State Department for closer ties with the Oslo group. The invitation to Premier Paul van Zeeland of Belgium, now on the high seas, to call at 1600 Pennsylvania ave= nue is part of the evidence. * ok k% Mr. van Zeeland is coming here to get an honorary degree from Princeton. It isn't expected that there will be an epochal announce- ment following his “side trip” to ‘Washington. But the visit is enough. The former Princetonian is slated to succeed Dutch Premier Colijn as head of the Oslo powers. Things have not gone far enough for the United States and its “new neighbor” to enter into formal agreements, But the new relationship is highly important for two main reasons: It gives this country a chance to co-operate in world affairs with an out-and-out neutral group at a time when the feeling for neu= trality is strong in America. It gives us greater diplomatic independ= ence in showing Great Britain and France that we are not compelled to work exclusively with them if we want to avoid the “dictatorships.” Closer trade relations with the Oslo group may make the British gov- ernment more conciliatory toward a reciprocal trade agreement with this country, as some of our friends among the dominions have been telling London it should be. * X ok ¥ Meanwhile let us look on this happy scene. From a roomy office in the corner of a wide-portaled house near Rock Creek Park instructions go out to an officer of the National City Bank in New York City. They are not unexpected. A messenger is ready there to transfer a neat package of United States bonds to the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank. Finland makes another war debt payment. Tall, blond, blue-eyed Dr. Sigurd von Numers, secretary of the Finnish Legation, pushes the button that results in the transaction. There is no celebration. Just another little business matter attended to. Minister Jarnefelt, studying the Helsingfors papers by the light of the midnight sun (he is home on leave), in all probability is finding little news about the payment. ‘These are the reasons: Strictly speaking, it isn't actually a war debt at all. It's a food debt and contracted by a country that wasn't actually in the war. (Finland was a part of Russia, but her troops were never drafted for service.) Furthermore, the money was not borrowed until after the war, when she had become an independent nation. The second reason why this simple business transaction isn't being shouted about is that the Pinns are a modest as well as hardy race and not given to boasting about their credit in a world of debtors. At least one member of Con- gress stands prematurely committed against his will on the court bill. He is a new Democratic mem- ber who opposed the measure pri- vately, but was afraid to go on record as to how he intended to vote. He did a lot of questioning, no answering. So the rest of the delegation decided on a little trick. Gathered at a luncheon, the senior member arose and said the time had come to take a vote on how the delegation stood. “Let's do it alphabetically,” said the veteran. “I'll call the names.” He began. The baby member's began with “A.” He rose, puffed a moment and shouted “no.” There was a moment's silence, Each answered “present.” (Copyright, 1937.) Then the other names were read. nomist at Kansas State College, say: investments in soil improvement are the soundest that a farmer can make, but they are not quick turnover ones. Soil Improvement. E. A. Cleavinger, extension agro- Purveyors' Club to Meet. The Purveyors’ Club, composed of representatives of about 15 large local business houses, will hold its regular weekly luncheon meeting at 1 p.m. tomorrow in the Valley Vista. THE 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. Seven Men to Remember Senate Democrats Who Opposed Court Plan Held Important Cogs in History. BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE report of the Senate Ju- diciary Committee against President Roosevelt’s court measure is a historic docu- ment. Its circumstances make it so. It was not necessary that its contents should be distinguished. Yet in fact there are sentences and passages worthy to stand » s with the classic pleas for inde- pendence of the courts made by : Patrick Henry, John Marshall, Edmund Burke and many an- other. One sen- tence, “Independ- ent courts are the last safeguard of the citizen, where his rights * * * come in con- flict with the power of govern- mental agencies,” is almost a para- phrase of Patrick Henry's famous “The judiciary are the sole protection against tyrannical persecution of the law.” Readers of the report, starting at the beginning, may think it technical, involved, forbidding. That is because the committee had one supreme task and thought best to do it first. The President's measure was itself tech- nical and involved—it was made s0 for a deliberate reason. As the com= mittee says, of the President’s meas- ure and of his way of presenting it to Congress: “It was presented to the Congress in the most intricate form * ¢ * for reasons that obscured its real purpose.” Consequently the commit- Mark Sullivan. the committee had to untangle what sarily the result, presented in the opening pages of the report, seems technical, analytical. Achieves Force, Eloguence. But with that out of the way, the | committee achieves a force, and some- times an eloquence, appropriate to & major battle in the seven-century-long struggle: “This bill is an invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this country. * * * It applies force to the judiciary and in its initial and ultimate effect would undermine the independence of the courts. * * * Shall we now, after 150 years of loyalty to the constitutional ideal of an untrammeled judiciary, duty bound to protect the constitu- tional rights of the humblest citizen even against the Government itself, create the vicious precedent which must necessarily undermine our sys- tem? * * ¢ It is a measure which should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be pre- sented to the free representatives of the free people of America.” It seems doubtful if that, and the | report as a whole, can be answered. There is no attempt at answer now— | the minority of the committee, sup- porting the President’s measure, has Mr. & Mrs: 3 L) Buy GAS as carefully as you buy Buying furniture is important business .. your budget! Mew Yobue AMERICAN GAS. ON SALE FROM MAINE TO FLORIDA — AT “THE SIGN OF GREATER VALUES" American Oil Co.— Also Maker of Amoco-Gas..World's Finest Motor Fuel FURNITURE and you'll end up hg}re . lots of money involved! But your gasoline is important, too! It’s one of the biggest items in, Here’s good news for careful buyers! Important improvements’ in what was already the world’s largest refining unit. . . new. equipment . .. new patented processes. . . ; enable us to build-in new, extra values in regular gasoline—values you couldn’t get before because the facilities didn’t exist! The new gas is called New Value tee's first job was one of clarification; | had been deliberately tangled. Neces-| not made a report. If there is to be reply to the analysis of the President’s measure made by this majority report, the reply must come later, in the de- bate on the measure which presum- ably will take place in the Senate. But, reading this report, one won- ders if the debate will ever take place. One wonders if the President's friends in the Senate will ever call the meas- ure up. If they do not, perhaps the opponents will. If the President's {riends do not call the measure up for the purpose of trying to pass it, possibly the opponents will call it up for the purpose of forcing a debate and a roll call in which the measure can be buried forever. Names Missing From Report. One thing the report does not con- tain. It does not contain the names of the men who wrote it. Only one name is mentioned. Because Senator King of Utah is the second ranking Democrat on the committee, and be- cause the chairman of the committee, Mr. Ashurst of Arizona, was in favor | of the President’s measure, it fol- ;lowed that the report, being adverse to the measure, was presented to the Senate by Mr. King. But the occa- sion should not be allowed to pass without calling attention to the other Senators who helped write the report and, by their actions, made an ad- verse report possible. In the whole Judiciary Committee there are 18 Senators. Three are Re- publicans, Borah of Idaho, Austin of Vermont and Steiwer of Oregon. These were against the measure. There was one who was neither Republican nor | Democrat, Norris of Nebraska, whose formal designation is “Independent.” Senator Norris favored the President's measure—though it is evident he did 50 with some disquiet. There re- mained 14 Democrats. These divided evenly, seven for the President’s meas- | ure, seven against it. These seven Democratic Senators who opposed the President's court measure ought to be borne in mind | They ought to be borne in mind today | and in the primaries and elections in which they come before the people at the ends of their present terms, some of them next year, some in 1940, some | in 1942, Wrote Names in History. But they deserve to be remembered beyond that. They merit something | more than the satisfaction of their | own consciences, and something more | than the feeling that they belong in a gallery of immortals of American | and British history. They take places | in the long roll call of worthies who, | beginning with Magna Charta, have | fought for independence of the ju- | | diciary, for judges who would protect | the citizen against the Government, | | in a series of struggles which include | | some civil wars, many beheadings, | | more imprisonments and a multitude | of other persecutions. These seven Senators should be remembered for that, and the contemporary American. reading his daily newspaper, should know that he has looked on at a battle Marble Champion of Ellis, Kansas, calling card salesman, WALTER P. CHRYSLER tells his story We, the People Study of Consequences of Mola’s Death Advised for All Democracies. BY JAY FRANKLIN. F WAR is to become unsafe for generals, it is a political fact of the greatest significance. The Spanish rebels have already lost two of their best leaders as a resuit of airplane crashes. Lart Summer it was Gen. Sanjurjo, picked and trained by the German general staff to lead the present rebellion against the Madrid government. His death forced the substitution of Gen. Franco as “front” for the Spanish Fascists. Now it is Gen. Mola, author of the offensive against Bilbao and reputedly the best leader on the rebel side, who has died in an airplane accident. The World War was not like this. Gen. Joffre conducted military operations from the placid safety of a barge anchored in a canal. Later on, by a sort of gentleman's agreement, it was understood that neither the allies nor the Germans were to bomb each other’s headquarters. Thus the cycle is completed and we are back where he were when & spatter of bullets from the Confederate picket line cut short Stonewall Jackson's career at the Battle of Chancellorsville and deprived Lee of his “right arm” on the eve of the Gettysburg campaign. We are back much further than that. * %k x This is a natural incident in the changing character of war- fare. In 1914 war was a matter of masses of men, of masses of artil- lery and ammunition, of food by continent loads, of money by billions and of mass economic; It was a democratic war. Modern war, like modern politics, has been taken over by the specialists. The machine gun, the airplane, the tank, the gas bomb, the grenades and automatic rifles of contemporary hostilities have repealed democracy on the battlefield and may repeal it at the b box. Since democracy rests on the rifle and revolver—the equalization of killing power—the new authoritarianism may rest on the tommy gun and “pineapples” of the gangster—the concentration of killing power in the hands of experts. If this is the case, it means that the whole world is due for a change as significant as the change which occurred when the armored knight on horseback proved superior to the footmen in the ranks of the Roman legion. When the Gothic cavalry cracked the Byzantine nfantry, the Middle Ages—the age of chivalry—the age of the polit- ical supremacy of the man on horseback—replaced the ancient world. The age of chivalry pinned its faith in leaders, in heroes, in men who were not afraid to face death themselves, rather than in masses of men taking orders from a few directors behind the battle lines. The Caesars were safe from all but assassins, but King Arthur never knew when he might have to joust with a knight errant. Mortality was high among medieval rulers and it may be that modern rulers must face similar risks. What Mola's death will do to the rebel cause is unknown. Certainly the Loyalists will be encouraged and Mola'’s men must take their chance with a new commander. This will cause delay, confusion and perhaps failure in the drive to exterminate the Basques. If the latter should be the case, Mola's death must rank as a decisive event in modern politics, for it will prove that the age of mass action is passing in warfare and in gov- ernment, and that the individual leader is not only everything, but that he will never be safe from the hazards of hostilities conducted by small bands of specialists operating over a wide terrain among a largely neutral cirvil population In other words, it is now a question whether politics or warfare can much longer be conducted on the theory—true until recently—that killing power had been equalized as between man and man, with a small amount of initial training and equipment. death and its consequences in Spain should be studied carefully by e body in the demo- cratic world. For if murder has now become the prerogative of small groups spe trained and equipped for the purpose of killing large groups of men quickly, it means that the real basis of democracy has disappeared and that henceforth we must be prepared to modify the theory of democracy to fit the facts of modern homicide. (Copy | of the same kind that has filled many a page of British history. The seven Demo tic Senators on against it if and when it comes to a roll call in the Senate knowledge that these other Demo- the Judiciary Committee who voted | crattc Senators were ready to support against the Presids | them may have helped to make posal are King, possible for the seven to stand out in Nevada: Van Nu front. One hopes the roll call of the New Mexico; Burk: b: full Senate will take place, if only to , Texas, and O'Mahoney, nally Wyom- give to all the Senators who oppose ing. the President of their party oppor- These seven stand out because. be- | tunity to get their places on the rec- ords of a historic battle. B 5 ] T e 3 = g S 5 g 3 3 g gt go on record. There are some 27 to 30 other Democratic Senators who Doubtless | . D. C.E TUESDAYE JUNE 15E 1937, —11 An American You Should Know Herbert Feis Is Helping Promote Peace in Economic Realms. BY DELIA PYNCHON. ERBERT FEIS is full of pree occupations. It is no wonder, He is economic adviser to the State Department. New questions arise daily that have never arisen before. Now it is rubber and tin. Last month it was exporta- tion restrictions on scrap iron and steel. Then what? These were not State Department matters formerly. Times have changed. Since the World War Feis says that there is an in- separability of economic and poe litical problems, Business m e n used to go ahead, make their own foreign arrange- Herbert Feis. ments. Now prie vate business re- lationships are more subject to gov- ernmental regulation and control. Though the role of government ex- tends to include the new problems, America chooses her own economic It is an aisle of greater freedom. Feis understands these changes. He has been a seeing, thinking, acting part of them. A native of New York | City, a graduate of Harvard Univer- sity in 1916, with a World War re- cess from studies, Feis saw service in the Navy. Returning, he continued his education, secured his Ph. D. at Harvard in 1921. He became a mems= ber of the Council of Foreign Rela« tions. He taught, traveled, wrote for nine years. His book, “Europe the World's Banker,” is a cross section of seething economic force. To look at Feis with his wealth of curly white hair over a youn , phil- osophic face is to say here iz a dreamer. Talking to him, you atill say here is a dreamer, yet with the imagination, the reasonable, seasoned practicability to make his dreams come true w a humorous twinkle, Feis says, “We are a kitchen. We turn out dishes for other people’s consumption from a ham sandwich to a stale ban- quet.” Ham sandwich orders pre= dominate from here, there, everye where. State banquets become more numerous. The State Department is the natural liaison branch with all other governmental departments on Because of the shortage of labor | Secretary Hull, matters connecting with the outside wor For instance: The tri-partite money agreement, France-Engiand- America, was really Treasury busie ness. Feis represented the State De- partment in conferences. Defaulted foreign bonds connects with the work of the Securities Exchange The peaceful hand outstretched is e for the Canadian trade for recent Japanese rela- which now can be discussed friendly calm tions, with a Working in a close relationship to Herbert Feis {s build- are known to be against the Presi- |in the Irish Free State the Irish hir- | ing up economic relations of & perma- dent’s measure, and ready to vote|ing fairs are poorly attended. milk peddler, apprentice mechanic, machinist. .. BY E wasn’t always the man whose glittering name flashes past you on the new shiny wheels of auto- mobiles, but with his born ambition as a mechanic he wasn'’t long in starting on the road. Let him tell you his own story of his life and career as ‘“an American Work- man.” Boyden Sparkes, whose word portraits of famous men have appeared so often in the Post, is his collabora- tor. The first of several parts appears this week. Life of an American Workman WALTER P. CHRYSLER In collaboration with Boyden Sparkes nent nature, American Gas! Try it foday! More than ever it’s the greatest regular gasoline buy!| ROCKNE OF ROWING ‘Who is the man who never pulled an oar, yet created the stroke that has revolutionized rowing? Al Ulbrickson, Coach of Washington University’s Olympic winning crew, tells you on page 14 ' CUSTOMER'S GAME It’s not new for a salesman to try to lose a golf match to a customer, but when you're caught at it you're on a spot! Read *“Customer’s Game” by Donald Hough. CURTAIN RISING Abruptly, two terrifying nights turned a little girl into a grim-faced woman. She knew now that one has to be awfully brave to live. A stark, dra- matic story by I. A. R. Wylie that may make you cry a little. NO LUCK IN TEXAS A Texas belle shoots a dam’ Yank; but you'd have to know her, and the South, to understand the strange finish of this story by Major John W. Thomason, Jr. —%@WM%//M%”V e, Ox-Proud by Charles Rawlings ... Runaway Gold by Raymond G. Carroll . . . Tom Jeff Uses a Repub- lican by Joseph*Alsop, Jr., and Turner Catledge . . . The Great Goldwyn by Alva Johnston ... The Case of the Lame Canary by Erle Stanley Gardner . . . Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. .. Fun... Cartoons . .. Editorials . . . Post Scripts. “"There’s lots to enjoy in this week’s Post. Get your copy now!