Evening Star Newspaper, August 2, 1937, Page 9

i \ HE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 1937. A—9 M ‘Smear’ Drive Centers on Michelson Roosevelt’s Publicity Chief Upheld on Radio Job. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. HARLES MICHELSON, pub- licity director of the Demo- cratic National Committee, who was first hired by John Raskob to smear Hoover and later under Jim Farley's regime to smear anybody and everybody who dared to disagree with the New Deal, is today the victim of attack himself. Sur- prising as it may be to him, there are among those who have been smeared by his pen persons who J believe he is well within his rights, under the New Deal conception of ethics espe- cially, when he ; secks to serve the g Democratic Na- i tional Committee BN and a radio com- B3 pany at the same time. Mr. Michelson has announced that he intends to accept a fee of $10,000 a year from the company to whom he is to supply public relations counsel This 18 in addition to the $25.000 a year from the Democratic National Commuttee. His employer, Jim Farley, raises no objection to Mr. Michelson's allocation of time to outside interests. But the Scripps-Howard newspapers, which editorially supported President Roosevelt for re-election seems to think Mr. Michelson's course is objectionable, saying recently: David Lawrence. “It is not illegal, but it is cert tmproper for Charles Michelson, pu licity director of the Democratic Na- tional Committee. to take added em- ployment as public relations counsel to the Crosley Radio Corp. Two Reasons Against ‘Action. “Mr. services to private busines: would be worth | much more than the $25,000 a year | he gets from the Democratic pam_; There however, two obvious rea- | sons why he should not work for the | Crosley Corp. and the Democratic committee al the same time: “1. The corporation wants things from the Government. helson is in a position from the Government. is the administra- y adviser. He sits with the President at press confer- ences. He deniably ps What’s Back of It All Neo-New Deal Movement Under Way as Leaders Worry Over Party Splits. BY H. R. BAUKHAGE. HILE the old-line political leaders on both sides of the fence are wringing their hands over party splits, certain other gentlemen are doing something about the situation. And, if they finish what they are starting, there is a chance that they'll do it up brown—-the “it” being a real neo-New Deal movement, and no mistake. A campaign, involving the co-operation of two separate and inde- pendent groups, has been drawn up quietly right under the noses of the old-liners. . The neo-New Dealers have issued sealed orders for an advance of these groups in double column. ‘The shock troops will be: Right flank, the Good Neighbor League; left flank, Labor's Non-Partisan League. That's the beginning of the strategy, not perfected in detail as vet, for the right flank is only as- sembling its troops, but definitely incorporated in the general orders. As foreshadowed in this column last week, the Good Neighbors are going to do a lot more than just chat across the back fence. Labor’s Non=- Partisaners have already started their work, virtually taking over the “legis- lative activities” (polite word for lobbying) of the C. I. O. The next step the Non-Partisaners will take is to write down the unfinished business of Congress (and the finished business, too, Jor that matter) and rigidly measure up every Congressman against the measures in which the league is interested. And, as one of the members put it, “We'll be there at election time.” Actual vote-getting is, of course, no new departure for the Non- Partisan League. It did plenty in the last election. But what isn't known, because the Neighbors haven't admitted it publicly themselves as yet, is the fact that they are going to “co-operate with the other organization in some bare-handed electior:eering, too. This is the way it will work out: As organizations for each group are completed in each State, ths respective leaders will “confer and agree on candidates.” * ok X X Strange as it may seem, Congress has had a chance to give an im- portant job to somebody and hasn't done it. It is the directorship of the United States Botanic Garden, and it hasn't been filled since 1934. This year no appropriation was made for the place. At present, David Lynn, Capitol architect, who knows his quoins and and ashlars, but who doesn't pretend to know a cow slip from a cowbell, is acting director at no salary at all. This garden, one of the show places of Washington, which rep= resents a half-million-dollar investment on the part of the Gov- errment and contains rare plants from all over the world, from the {00ty fowers along the back fence to rare and ezotic orchids, hasn't a single professional botanist on its staf. There was a time when the garden furnished Congressmen with flowers for distribution. But when the economy wave of 1932 hit Washington, it wilted the interest of the legislators in the official blooms at the same time it ended their free use for the Hill. Th present situation at the Botanic Garden has caused no little com- ment among professional botanists. Here is a huge institution, offering im- portant opportunities for horticultural research, without a scientific head to direct its activities. The Government has had at least one offer from a botanist, impor- tant enough to be listed in “American Men of Science,” to take over the Job at a dollar a year. But he had no encouragement. And so when Uncle Sam says it with flowers, he has to speak as an amateur. * ok ¥ X Despite their alleged reputa- tion for drawing room graces, mem- bers of the State Department seem to have as much trouble with the ladies as other mere men. Yow ToBe 4 ucaToculTurisT and an influ “Mr. Mich, his radio con shall not act ract for it people will believe the rad has hired his influence ministration and the administration | cannot afford to have it believed that | the influence of its trusted advisers is | 8 thing to be hired.” Administration Doesn't Object. Unfortunately, however, the admin- {stration does not object to the hiring of trusted advisers by corporations. Nor does the administration object to the sale of campaign books to corpora- tions in violation of the Federal cor- rupt practices act. But a fair and objective considera- tion of the case of Charlie Michelson is that it is really none of the adminis- tration’s business what jobs he takes. He is not an official of the Govern- ment. He works for a political party. He is no different from dozens of national committeemen of both parties in the past who continue in private business or in the practice of their professions either here or at Wash- ington. The simple fact of the matter is that the Democratic National Com- mittee is in debt and cannot afford to give Charlie Michelson a big enough salary to keep him exclusively in their employ. Almost any company for whom he may become public relations counsel—and that's his stock in trade ~—would directly or indirectly come in contact with the Federal Government. The question is whether the Crosley Corp. has hired Mr. Michelson as a lobbyist or an adviser. Mr. Michelson says it is the latter, Has a Precedent. Does the fact that Mr. Michelson gets a fee from a corporation disqualify him from whispering into the Presi- dent's ear during press conferences? Mr. Michelson can point to a precedent when the late Louis Howe, Govern- ment official and secretary to Presi- dent Roosevelt, accepted a fee from a radio manufacturing company for a regular weekly broadcast and another fee later from a utility company and didn't cease whispering into the presi- dential ear. If the situation were reversed, of course, and a Republican President were in the White House and a Re- publican publicity director acting as his intimate adviser and assistant via the ears, were to start taking fees from some of the big corporations, and if Mr. Michelson were still on the Job doing publicity for the Democrats, he probably would put in an order for some extra bottles of smear paint and 80 to work with redoubled energy. But leaving politics out of it alto- gether, the question turns on the in- tellectual integrity of Mr. Michelson and his readiness to draw a line be- tween his clients when their interests overlap, a problem quite often pre- sented to professional men in the prac- tice of law. It may be assumed that Charlie Michelson will endeavor al- ways to resolve the doubts in favor of the administration whose spokes- This time it is the valued and experienced head of the Office of Co-ordination and Review, which has to do with the meticulous task of checking diplomatic correspondence, Miss Margaret Hanna. She has just been appointed to the post of Consul at Geneva to succeed Prentice Gilbert, made Charge d'Affaires at Berlin. The question isn’t whether or not Miss Hanna deserves her pro- motion. It's a matter of money. In her old job. she would have had to wait until she was 70 to retire, and her pension would have been only about $100 a month. Now she can be retired in a few months at 65 and get a $300 monthly allowance, Career men in the Foreign Service contribute 5 per cent of their salaries to their retirement fund, which happens to be in a bad way at present. That's why some of them are making a “moue,” as they would probably describe it, at fate or somebody. (A “moue” is said to be a sort of silent Bronx cheer.) (Coprright, 1937.) IT'S SWELL TO FEEL SWELL trHE opinions of the writers o necessarily The Star’s. themselves and directly opposed Such opinions are presented in The Star’s effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its readers, although such opinions ma; n this page are their own, not be contradictory among to T%e Star’s, . New Politica | Technique Wages and Hours Bill Example of Employment of Compromise. BY DOROTHY THOMPSON. POLITICAL technique is de- veloping apace, which has two facets. Administration meas- ures are_introduced into Con- gress of breath-taking scope. Then, when yelps of pain have indicated that the original measures haven't a chance of being enacted, compro- mise bills are introduced which em- body the same theories, but which by contrast with the original meas- ures seem extra- ordinarily innoc- uous. That {s 3 one technique and not, of course, & new one. ‘The other is to frame bills with objectives so clearly desirable that any decent human being must concur in them, and to holler loudly “Tory” and ‘re- actionary” if anybody raises any intellectual doubt as to whether the legislation proposed will actually achieve those objectives. The wages and hours bill is a case in point. The original bill was of the most dubious constitutionality. If one rereads Justice Cardozo's opinion on the N. R. A. it is impossible to see how a court, full of liberal judges of the Brandeis-Cardozo-Stone caliber, could hava upheld such whole- sale delegation of power to a commis- sion, to govern by fiat. It gave to five men control over the industrial life of the country, over questions most deli- cate, with power to move wages and hours up and down pretty much as they pleased. Now, in contrast, the new bill is innocuous, and it would seem that a weary Congress, worn out by the Supreme Court fight, and heartily desiring vacations, might pass it without that “sedate and candid consideration which the maammde; and importance of the subject de- | mands,” without open hearings, and in | casual acceptance of the premises of Senator Black, one of its sponsors. Premises Open to Question. But it is precisely these premises | which are open to serious question. | No decent human being is going to | question the desirability of ending inhuman hours of work, abolishing child labor, diminishing unemploy- ment and giving everybody who| works & living wage. But the ques- | tion of exactly what government can best do to bring about the speedy | realization of those objectives is one | which demands very careful thought | and considerable deliberation, lest the legislation framed achieve ex- actly the opposite result of the one aimed at. -Apparently the framers this legislation have the most exag-| gerated respect for the system of pri- | vate enterprise, and an unlimited confidence in its capacity to work miracles, if only it is ordered to do %0. In a socialist state it is an .r-} cepted premise that of the length of You can’t buy a stale OLD GOLD! GREAT LABORATORY recently meas- ured the effect of stale cigarettes + on mucous membrane. Both “dry” and “soggy’ cigarettes were tested; both types produced definite tissue irritation. This emphasizes the importance of the FRESHNESS INSURANCE Old Gold gives toyou. You just can’t buy dry or “soggy” Old Golds anywhere in the U. S. A. In any climate, anywhere, Old Gold’s exclu- sive, weather-tight package brings you lusciously fresh “smokes.” The very finest prize crop tobaccos. Brought to you in the pink of smoking condition. That’s why Double-Mellow Old Golds taste better . . and ARE better for you. P. LORILLARD COMPANY, INC, (Established 1760) man he has been for the last four years, (Copyright, 1937.) EATIN CONTRACTORS & ENGINEERS E. J. FEBREY & CO. Est. 1898 ANY SIZE PLANT INSTALLED Thoroughly modern _ins Mons: thoroughly reliable ‘CALL NATIONAL 8680 Oopyrigns, 1937, by P, Lorillard Oo 1ase time which men must work in any given industry, and the wages that they get, depend upon the real wealth which is produced and finds a market; that wealth, in order to be consumed, has to be produced, and that wages are raised and hours shortened as the national income rises. But Senator Black’s procedure fis inverse. Higher wages and longer hours are not to be the result of an increased national income, but the cause of it. The future is indeed delightful to contemplate. For, given the original premise, there is no logical limit to its application. Why Be Pikers? If the universal-legislated 40-hour week and the universal-legislated minimum wage of 40 cents an hour will—as Senator Black argues—auto- matically distribute more jobs at higher wages, increase demand and thus increase prosperity, a minimum wage of 50 or 80 cents or a dollar an hour, with a working week of 30 hours, or 20, or 10, will presumab: create even more jobs and more purchasing power and more prosperity. So why be pikers? If a labor standards board can make a little miracle by fiat, why not make a truly grandiose one and give us the millennium immediately? The French new deal legislated a universal 40-hour week and it is already a considerable pain in the government’s neck It seems that in some industries production Ras actually increased under the law, while in others it has decreased to the vanishing point. And it seems that when you get a zero-hour week | the workers are not better off, and there is nobody to pay them except | the government. And it also seems that wages have some remote connection with pro- duction, and also with prices. One wonders to what extent the framers of this bill have considered its effect upon our foreign trade policy. Section 8 of the bill certainly shows that its framers are aware that it may necessitate increased tariffs It goes so far as to say that once the bill is in operation the United States Tariff Commission “shall investigate the differences resulting from this act in the cost of production of any do- mestic articles, or in any like or sim- ilar foreign articles, with a view to| determining whether or not an in-| crease should be made in the duty.” Export Trade Menaced. This section must have caused con- siderable qualm to Secretary Hull, who has been consistently carrying out the administration policy of | breaking down international trade barriers, and it indicates that the Drafting Committee does not believe | that hours and wages fixed by the| Labor Standards Board will be ab- sorbed out of excess profits, but may be passed on in price increases which | can only be sustained if foreign goods | are kept out of competition. If these price increases are in categories of goods for general consumption, even by persons of the lower income brack- ets, then one cannot see how an ap- parent increase in wages will be real. (Below) No Mors This Changing World Germany Watching Reaction of European Democ- racies to Japanese “Prank” in Far East. BY CONSTANTINE BROWN. OKIO is jubilant. In a few months—optimists in Japan say weeks— the five rorthern provirces, among the richest of China—Suiyuan, Shansi, Hopei, Cuahar and Shantung—will form a part of the Japanese Empire, just like Manchukuo and Jehol. The military and the financial and industrial magnates of Japan zlll have won @ new and rich territory without any very serious sac- Ace. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek will make many statements and will ) march his troops back and forth. But the diplomatic world believes any actual contact between his German-trained divisions and the Japanese Army is unlikely. It is & fact that China’s man- power is overwhelmingly superior to that of Japan. The Chinese could put today not less than 160 divisions in the fleld. But these troops are armed with heavy swords, more or less antiquated rifles and only & few machine guns. Modern warfare demands tanks, airplanes and gas. And the Chinese Army—with the exception of the six or seven Chiang Kai-shek divisions—has no such equipment, * ® ¥ X Of course, in years to come, they will have them. It might take the Chinese anything between 5 and 50 years to prepare properly for war. Meanwhile, it is highly doubtful that they will do else but worry the Japanese by tiresome guerilla warfare methods. The Japanese general staff is prepared, according to Tokio re- ports, for any emergency. Should Chiang, against all predictions, attempt to fight the Japanese in the North, Japanese naval squadrons will appear before Nanking and Shanghai. Landing forces are held in readiness at the Japanese ports for such an eventuality. Tokio believes Chiang will simply take it and like it. ‘The latest Japanese “prank” is followed keenly throughout Europe. Germany is particularly interested in i{t. Not because it has any special interest in the Japanese war game, but because of the reaction on Euro- pean democracies which have not tired in preaching peace by mutual agreements. Anthony Eden has made another speech in the House of Commons indicating vaguely—very vaguely—that some strong representa- tions have been made in Tokio. The result of those representations is obvious. The Japanese premier has been so scared that he was com- pelled to tell the British government officially that Japan will brook no foreign intervention in its present conflict. The Germans are hoping that the British government will confine itself to a similar action in the event of “something happening” in Eastern or Central Europe. * k¥ As far as the Government of this country is concerned. the chief worty of the State Department and the White House is the safety of the American citizens in Northern China. We would like to get them out of that war area, but the fighting which occurs on the Peiping, Tientsin, Tanku Railroad makes an evacuation difficult. The Japanese government has given assurances to the State Department that it will do all in its power to get our nationals out of the country. For once, these assurances are really sincere. The Japanese would like nothing better than to see all Americans out: not only from Peiping and Tientsin, but also from all other parts of China. * * % x There has been a good deal of ballyhoo some three weeks ago around the acceptance by the Italians and the Germans on the one side, and the French on the. other, of the Eden compromise proposal regarding the neutrality of the powers in the Spanish conflict. It has fizzled out now. The Germans and the Italians are in the same frame of mind regarding the volunteers as they were a year ago, and the French do not want to recognize Franco as a belligerant. The French saying, “The more things change the more they are the same,” is un- doubtedly true. Germany is striving to preserve her food supplies for any eventu- ality. The housewives have been warned to serve as scanty meals as possible Herr Heggenberg, one of the food administrators, has issued an ap- = peal urging people to eat more 4 3 horse meat. “The old Teutons,” he said, “were considering it as a great delicacy. Why shouldn’t you? But one can see that with a revprsnl‘w be regulated by flat in industrially of imports, our export trade, upon|backward parts of the country like which millions of Americans depend for their livelihood, will be severely | antagonism arising from injured. The danger in opposing this bill is not from the people who will dis- agree with this column, but from those who will agree with it, and from that argue that everything should be left to chance. Do not conclude that because we doubt whether wages ean 70_7W Yoot such A | tempts, and because we question the | basic premise of work-sharing as a means of achieving prosperity, that we think that government has no role to play. We only question the kind of thinking that has gone into the framing of this bill (Coprright. 1037, New York Tribune, Inc.) the South, because we fear sectional | Headline Folk and What They Do China’s Christian Gen. eral Is Straight-Shoot- ing War Lord. BY LEMUEL F. PARTON. IG, bulbous Gen. Feng Yu- Hsiang craves action. Among all China's rampant war lords, the old Christian general is the least inclined to turn the other cheek, and the one most conspic- uously free from charges of dealing under the table with Japan. It was 7y he, say the news /i Teports, who eased 2 Chinese troops into the Japanese Tientsin conces- sion, in eivilian clothes, threw s Japanese strategy into confusion and pretty nearly wrecked it. The peasants love him, If ever a human ; tidal wave engulfs the invading Jap- anese he will bs riding and prod- ding it. He has been fighting, off and on, for about 40 years, sometimes as a regular and sometimes in more or less privata wars. The politicians dislike him and every once in a while have him sent Off to the fog belt. The last time was in 1929, when he stirred up a revolt in an effort to start an “up-and-at- ‘em movement against Japan. But they always have to call him out of retire- ment, as when Chiang Kai-Shek was kidnaped last December. Feng al- ways has enough loyal soldiers in re- serve to count him in in any lar scale ruction—he has commanded as many as half a million men. When Chiang was rescued. he made peacs with Feng and the latter assumed full responsibility for the National Mile |mary Council. of which Chiang is chairman. His hold on the peasants makes an important focus of Chinese unity. He was born of coolie parents in Chaohsien, Anhwei. In June, 1900, he was a big, hulking lad, standing guard in a Peking compound, where some American missionaries had been trapped by the Boxers. He became friends with Mary Morrill, a mise sionary girl from Maine. One night he had a terrible dream about a snake under his bed. He asked Miss Morrill to interpret it What Miss Mo | dream is not rec later, Feng s: He was tro : why, and again saw con d him to C Feng is an ascet diet, wearing cot jecting h | When Miss M | she made hi; Feng Yu-Hsians. orrill made of the ded. A day or two woman beheaded. out knowing just Morrill, She led abstemious in his coolie clothes, sub- id erted him a member of the “Wave Beautiful, It is. in essence, nese name for the Methodist irch, but to Feng. the frustrated ist. it was an organization for the propagation of beauty. So when he n't fighting, he fulf his Christian duty, as he sees it, by searching for | beauty. He is a pacifist and dislikes violence in all forms, but before he gets \ back to his plum blossoms and his lao | tze, he would like to get just one good ]big walloping clout at Japan. (Copyright, 1037.) 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