Evening Star Newspaper, July 21, 1937, Page 11

Lehman Note Goes Beyond Personalism Stamp of Patriotism Placed on Stand Against Bill. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. N'S letter opposing plan to “pack” of the hour. The White House attitude is one of ill- concealed discomfiture. The Con: s the be said on the r circumstances tend e the impression that a grac 1 process of being formu- of the President with gh votes to recommt te for the original | the opponents of which they ought to tackled. It would seem therefore, as if an & agreement misit be reached to 1 aside the sub tute court bill and arrange for the appointment of a sub- committee of the J Committee to begin study of a new bill, this to be d at the Janua session of David Lawrence. tion of Senator Har opi as jority leader ossible seles eon of M was cons! 0 be an of the plan, Democr on such a p: it k £t0Ws on Mr. Roo: of having ; ing In other heme and he- Toned Down. ms of what not so The | Rooset to believe | 8 way use some uneasiness. | As a m come at a he st int of the opposition ent’s plan. Another e last paragraph of tion, which read as| the | reement | words, | however, T believe to be | Its enact- | e constitu- | s | member of the ad-| ntion to the | ' as if to | not explained, but effort is being made to exy e Lehman I r on the t it was moti- ted by considera for the mi- nority groups in America—Catholics ays been alert which might dangers, ac- | he freedom of York State has an un- y large number of Catholic and ish voters and it would be natural, of course, for a Governor to reflec the wishes of a substantial number of | his cons | It remains am { ery why this in any Jetter unless it was intended to point out that Mr. ILehman was under pres- sure from his con ents. | There has been some comment here- be the Lehman letter as a means of sim- sal by Senator Wag- position toward the court | bill which he is assumed to have taken heretofore. If Senator Wag- ! ner, responsive to the many aroused eitizens in the Empire State, wanted | to shift ground the Lehman letter | would be the most natural way to help him do it. The Governor pointed out that he did not write as the chief executive of a State, but only as an Individual citizen who has the right, of course, to appeal to the Senators on matters of Federal legislation. Takes Independent Stand. Mr. Lehman could have written to Benator Copeland, too, which might, on the other hand, have been con- fused in some way with the New York City political situation. The fact that the Governor wrote to Senator Wag- ner and made his letter public promptly can mean only that the Governor wanted to see the court bill beaten and that he had taken his stand with the other fine men in the Democratic party who consider that| party loyalty ought to stop at the edge of the precipice beyond which lles a breakdown of constitutional govern- ment. It is unfortunate that some thick- end-thin supporters of the President here are so ready to criticize Gov. | Lehman. All government seems to| them a personal matter. This has been one of the New Deal weaknesses from the beginning—the feeling that government was a personal affair. Gov. Lehman was big enough and brave enough to regard the issues in en impersonal way, It hurt him, no doubt, to do what he did, but the acts of a statesman who is courageous enough to subordinate all considera- | tions except love of country often carry with them the penalty of criticism | by those who follow the politician’s ereed of personal ambition and ex- pected rewards from party loyalty rather than adherence to fundamental brineiples of patriotism. (Copyright, 1837.) po: i What’s Back of It All Laborites Counsel Criminal Action Against Repfibfic Steel Under Old Conspiracy Code. BY H. R. BAUKHAGE. F THE counsel of those who aren't afraid to take a long chance with the odds against them prevails, Republic Steel may meet with a dar- ing attack as a result of the hearings before the National Labor Relations Board, beginning today. The function of N. L. R. B. is, first, to investigate unfair labor prace tices; second, to hold hearings; third, to report their findings. ING If the testimony in the hearings just starting reveals informa- tion upon which it is felt criminal charges may be based, labor sympathizers may request action by the Department of Justice. As pointed out in this column some weeks ago, members of the Department of Justice have unearthed an ancient statute, passed after the Civil War to prevent Ku Klux and other interference with the voting by Negroes It is section 51, title 18 of the United States code and it forbids con- spiring to interfere with the performance of a citizen's constitutional rights. * oK kX The law was used as an entering wedge in the Harlan County, Ky., investigation, not yet concluded by the Department of Justice. According to unquotable sources, an attempt may be made to show conspiracy under this statute on the part of Republic Steel. But here is the long shot: Conservative legal advisers of labor have been urging against an attempt to launch any further attacks on this basis until the Kentucky case goes to court and is ruled upon by the Supreme Court, They will be surprised if the L. R. B. testimony is used to this end. N. EEE Edward F. McGrady, ace con- cilial of the Department of La- bor as weil as Assistant Secretary, who, it is alleged, has resisted many tempt 1s to give up his public service (at $9.500 a year) has been tempted again. The salary was to run to fifteen grand, if mecessary, and the job was to take over for Maj. Berry, president of Labor's Non-Parti- san League, that organization which gave such enthusiastic support and took such generous credit for the re-election of President Roosevelt Maj. Berry, who, you may recall, is now junior Senator from Pen- nessee, thinks that his duties, holding two jobs, may be conflicting. Mean- while, looking for his successor, the league apparently feels that it needs not only an efficient head. but also a man with a reputation for non- partisanship. Hence the offer to the Labor Department official According to best advices, Mr. McGrady regrets, * K x % ay that Ed McGrady is one of the most self-sacrificing public Jncle Sam has had in the last two decades. They predict if he goes. it will be only because he feels that things just aren't ng out so that his services are still of value. Otherwise, he'll con- tinue to keep St. Anthony No. 2 man at turning down attractive offers. Mr. McGrady started in making sacrifices early. He believed in strikes when they weren't as popular a hey are today, and, as a result, is tolerably familiar with the inter of a lot of jails, where he was dumped for doing what's perfec gal today—participating in labor activities. Now he considers his job stopping strikes, not prolonging them, and he has by no means lost the confidence of the workers, either. He's solved the problem of serving two masters—he can often get a better bargain for both employer and employe than either could get alone. Uncle Sam as a demon rum distiller is seeing things on the walls. Not pink elephants, say the folks with their eye to the bunghole of the Virgin Islands’ rum barrels, but handwriting—in red ink, Not that Government house rum isn't good. But it isn't smart, say the epicures. And it isn't the sins of the spirit, either, but the body. The body of the rum. It's too heavy for the effete American taste, is the criticism of the critical. Apparently, the dis- tillers followed an old proverb and went wrong. They thought it wasn't wise to try to teach an old rum-hound new tricks, so they made their product well, but not 5o wisely. They re-created the bev- erage of the type that gave old Admiral Grog his reputation, put the punch in rum punches and made rum sauces saucy—in the MR bad old days before prohibition. But tastes, it seems, have changed. Palates have become frivolous and lighter minds and morals of the postwar era demand a lighter body. ‘These are the sober facts. * % ko GET OUT OF RUM MAKING./ As usual, figures conceal the story. And the official distillers don't admit it—openly. (Imports of the G. H. rum for May were only a little over $5,000 less than April, and well above the previous months.) Nevertheless, say the eye-to-the-bungholers, the Government is in a rather tough spot. must either put on an intensive advertising campaign to sell the ancient virtues of the fluid that made “Ten Nights in a Barroom" possible (and profitable) and probably draw down another volley from the W. C. T. U, or face expensive alterations. The latter would mean switching to the frivolous *light bodied” stuff that goes with hors d'oeuvres and olives on toothpicks, instead of the kind that floated a thousand ships. (Copyright. 1937.) ABOUT CIGARETTE PRICES - ONCE THE BEST COST TWO BITE- YESTERDAY FIFTEEN CENTS — BUT TODAY YOU CAN HAVE THE “TOPS” ror onty fO ¢ A PACK TRY THE NEW KIND AND PROVE IT. Once, good cigarettes cost 25 cents—then 15 cents. Today, a dime buys “tops”. The fine quality Turkish and Domestic tobacco—mellowed, heat- treated to suit your throat — wrapped in expensive French Champagne paper — that’s Domino. Saves you $18 to $36 a year. It pays to try them. (4 STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1937, trHE 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 contredictory among themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. We, the ngple “Hand of God” Shibboleths Held Out of Place in Dealing With Court Bill. BY JAY FRANKLIN. HEN the triple-A slaughter of the “little pigs” was followed by destructive droughts, in the farm belt, Republican agents thought it smart politics to warn the farmers that this was “the hand of God,” punishing America for the New Deal's presump- tion. At the time, Secretary Wallace was quite worried by this enlistment of Jehovah in the service of the Chi- cago Board of Trade, since experience has shown that the Almighty is an unpredictable element in American politics. The result showed that our farmers were not suckers. Senator Robinson was not dead a few hours before Senator Burton K. ‘Wheeler of Montana tried again to invoke “the hand of God" against the New Deal. He publicly besought the President “to drop this court fight lest he appear to fight against God.” At the same time, the pro-Roosevelt Senators were extolling Robinson a martyr whose memory must be vindicated by the success of the cause for which he died. This sort of thing recalls those des- perate military engagements in which the rival troops patch their trenches with the bodies of the slain. In a allowed: in national politics it is simply ghoulish. Present Needs Held Ignored. In fact, one of the great defects in our public life is our all-but-Chinese invocation of the dead to control the living. In particular, since the court fight began, the country has been drenched with the views of George Washington, Madison, Franklin, Jef- ferson, Monroe, Hamilton, Jackson, Calhoun and Lincoln. Political an- i something more trick with our statesmen is a vice. The mighty dead are used to perpetuate the abuses of the present, and formal pre- cedent is ever deferred to our own experience. It is, therefore, dep the course of an eddies like dir essing to follow iment which water over the drain- pipe in t ib—a stale line of discussion which circles around the ideas and experiences of men long dead and which welcomes any recruit to the graveyard who can be used to reinforce the ghostly company of our political prog other mea- sures, we should consider the needs of the present, which we alone are in a position to judge, and the probabilit of the future, which we can surely foresee a little more clearly than did men who have been dust for a hundred years Government is a practical aff, and we have wisely severed its con- duct from the mystery and exaltation of professed religion. History shows that where the two are mixed the result is tyranny, whether under the Moslems, the Inquisition, in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany or revolution- ary Spain. But One in Related Series. The death of Senator Robinson gives & chance to discard irrelevancies, restrain emotionalism, and return to the consideration of the problem which actually lies before the count Mr. Roosevelt's administration is try ing to correct a related series of abuses in our daily life. A Telated s measures—of which the judici form bill is only one—lies b life-and-death struggle this may be | Congress. An adult civilization eould debate these issues and pass or re- Jject these measures without dragging in “the hand of God” and without substituting ancestor-worship for hu- man reason. Government is a practical affair and deals with practical problems of eco- nomic, political and social relation- ships of human beings. No one who reads the headlines can doubt that there is urgent present need for ac- tion in many fields—in agriculture, labor relations, monopely, housing, tenancy, political administration, ju- dicial procedure. No one familiar with recent history can doubt that the Federal courts tend to prevent politi- cal action in the fields where action is most needed and that we can deal with present needs o by binding the immediate future of our judiciary. There is the unemotional, naked fact. Mr. Robinson died of heart- failure in a struggle against those who substituted emotion and obstruc- tionism and ditionalism for a can- did consideration of that fact. Only the unwholesome neurosis of an ebb- Ing statesman would suggest that we abandon the effort to deal with a purely practical issue through fear of the supernatural. We are not fight- | ing illustrious ghosts in 1937; we are still fighting the privileged corporate billionaires and their political hench- men, just as in 1932 and 1936, (Copyright, 1937.) “LIBERALIZED” RIVAL OF D. A. R. FORMED “Personally Acceptable” Proviso Is Sole Change Qualifications. e Associa‘ed Pres NEW YORK, July 21.—Mrs. Julia Church Kolar of New York announced | yesterday the formation of the De- s of the American Revolution zation, b requ Daughters of but nded to spon Liberal than those of Mrs. Kolar said some D. A. R. mem- bers expressed a desire to join the new organizatic Qualifica e same “We in to the Revolution, policies more e . AR membership excepting shall not - acceptable to shall a person be admitted, the Organ- e is Miss Margaret Hat- The organization will support all progressive social legislation and abc- lition of child labor, and will work to preserve civil liberties, Mrs. Kolar de- clared While the society will not start until Autumn, a committee was at work drafting a charter to oppose most D. A R. policies, Mrs. Kolar said. ! Nerves Convey Knowledge. The power to form habits, to learn. | is dependent on a property of the nervous substance of the higher brain centers. It is a faculty called associa- tion, associative memory. This Changihg World Franco Won’t Sign Own Death Warrant by Releas- statesmen don’t seem to have learned that ballyhoo does not pay. Prance, Italy, Russia and Germany agreed to accept “in ing Foreign Volunteers. A principle” the new British non-intervention plan based principally BY CONSTANTINE BROWN. FTER a year of intense political and diplomatic erises European on the willingness of the Spanish factions to dismiss the foreign troops fighting on thelr side. * % ok X Every European statesman realizes that Gen. Franco will not sign his own death warrant. The bulk of his fighting forces are composed of Italian troops and German &pe- cialists. 3 * % k x If he were to let them gon there would be mighty little left of the nationalist army. Within a few weeks after the dismissal of the foreign “volunteers” he would have to seek refuge in Germany or in Ttaly—provided Mussolini and Hitler were willing to shelter him. * % ok x Tt is for this reason that the Spanish situation continues to fraught with more dangers than any of the other world “danger spots.” Such pplliatives as devised by European diplomats can help n than an oxygen tent helps a dying man. In some rare cases h saved, but as a rule it just serves to prolong his agony. The European democracies are looking toward the United States for a blood transfusion, There is strong sentiment in London and Paris that only eflec- tive intervention on the part of this country could save Europe from another catastrophe. The tragedy is that even if the United States Government were prepared to take an active hand in the trans-Atlantic turmc the democracies of Europe are not quite convinced yet that they must make concessions to their antagonists. be more life is LR Fundamentally, none of the European powers are hankering for another war. But none of them are willing to come to terms with each other on the basis of reciprocal concessions The Germans still think in terms of a drive toward the East and don't want the other powers to interfere with their plans. Their ideas and plans might be changed if France and Great Britain would offer them some agreement based on a sounder economic and political co-operation and the return of the former German colonies, The Italians are worried lest Britain punish them for their Ethiopian escapade and consider as a threat to Italy’s national safety every time some member of the British cabinet refers to the “im- portance of the lines of communication with the empire” through the Mediterranea The French are worried that a real economic revival of the R would make that country stronger than it is today and thus increase menace to France's security. Great Britain suspects everybody, but her main concern is her air force on the Mediterranean. How these fears and suspici i be settled by a frank understanding among the major powers nobody has been able to find out yet. It should seem easy when e body the dangerous game they are playing. But for some incomp reagon nobody seems to want to take a chance for peace. They to suspect each other with a probability of going to war rather than trust each other—with mental reservations. LR In the meantime we, ourselves, are running no mean risk in the Far East Nobody in the State Department wants to bring about a situation whereby our relations with Japan might become as tense as they were in 1931 and 1932. But there are many American citizens in China who are being molested by the Japanese soldiery. Incidents of a serious nature might occur and play into the hands of those elements in Tokio which would like to have a row with us, fully convinced that we do not want to fight. The Japanese soldiers are pouring in in large numbers on the Asiatic mainland. The foreign garrisons, including the United States Infantry regiment, in Tientsin.are outnumbered 5 to 1 by the Japanese. What will happen if some strong-headed Japanese of bring about a conflict nobody can quite say. Local J. mmanders are known to have taken matters in their own hands and force an issue | despite what the civilians in Tokio may think. {CIVIL WAR MEMORIAL BUILDING IS PROPOSED Erection of & memorial building here to honor veterans of the Civil War is contemplated in & resolution intro- | duced late yesterday by Representative Secrest, Democrat of Ohio. The | resolution authorizes creation of a commission headed by Roosevelt to determine the design an Shrine and would contain a auditorium with an patriotic purposes. The reso a an appropriation of $50,01 expenses of the com the Ladies of the G. A. R. National large arena for sym- phony concerts and other useful and uthorige to pay the Who’s Who Behind the News King Ibn Saud of Savdi, Arabia, Is a Ruler Britain Can Trust. BY LEMUEL F. PARTON. NGLAND would feel better about things in general if old King Ibn Saud would mind his diet. The empire is banking a lot on him, as evidenced by Anthony Eden’s cagey speech in the House of Commons. and the b ecked old monarch finds his health slipping and aro pount King Ibn Saud e touch-off for off Anthon warning. Saud licked tha inder B ago, Tbr Yemen . ap- manded no indemnities or r T state of Yemer 0 the orbiv of Br K1 once an obscura Likes to live much d court in the t 4 hes tal 2d not the master n he rode his old toll of drivers, and in- are more fre- easy to under- accident his car as is without k is immediate the pedestrian who YOU'LL BLOSSOM OUT, TOO, when you see that 3-ring trademark—it always means Ballantine’s Ale or Beer! Discover what the 3 rings stand for. Back in 1840, Peter Ballantine made a 3-fold test of his brew—one drink to judge PURITY ... a second for BODY ... a third for FLAVOR. Left by his glass were 3 moisture rings—a proper trademark. Look for the 3 rings of quality, then ask for “Ballantine’s!” America’s finest since 1840. 65 G ST. N.W. 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