University of South Carolina Libraries
\ % The Barnwell People-Sentinel Barnwell S. C- Tharsday, Aagust 6, 1936 BRISBANE THIS WEEK Paris: Of Many Newspapers Surprise for Karl Marx Mr. Eden Was Tire’d Out A Big Somersault This world is really no bigger, now, than the palm of your hand; wherever you are, news comes pouring in — a Pullman car on the Mohave des ert has the “Ex aminer”; flying across, the Le- v a n d brothers hurry to the air field at Wichita with the latest “Beacon”; and on the ocean, a newspaper ap pears every dav; the radio feeds it; in Paris, ten times as many newspapers as are published in New York tell you anything you choose to believe, from editorials written by men who do not know that the royal and im perial French families died and were buried after the war of 1870 to fiery-eyed moderns who think they can graft Karl Marx and Lerv in on Jacques Bonhomme, the French peasant, and produce a French Utopia, with a Russian ac cent and a pair of high boots. Arthur HrUluine They do not know Jacques Bon homme, who bought his land in the revolution at bargain prices with inflated assignats, and means to keep it, nor do they know the small sized French bourgeois, who thinks more of one four-cent franx than some of our governing geniuses think of a billion 59-cent dollars. The Marx-Stalm-Lcnin brother- hood in America, by the way, does not understand the inside feelings of the U. S A citizen, with his bungalow, automobile, radio set, washing machine and furniture, all “nearly paid for." Send HIM. instead of a bill for his last installment, the statement. “No more private property,” and see what he says and does You take your choice of dozens of Pans daily newspapers, the wild kind, that say anything and lose money. the tame kind, that say nothing and make money, but very little of it. the mummified kind, that still take ‘ Madame La Mar quise ' seriously, and think them selves bark in the days of old Madame L>e L>efTand and Lord Bol ing broke You have. also, newspapers from all the Lilliput countries nearby — F.ngliah. Italian. German- and the news is m them, only you must know how to extract H They are queer little newspapers and if that be provincialism, make the moat of it In l^mdon. for instance. Lord Hothermere s newspaper tells you that Mr Kden. British foreign sec - iclary, has gone to “a secret des tination” in the country for a week s rest English statesmen always go to “a sec ret destination.*' fur reasons unknown to Mr James Farley, who relaxes at the ringside, or Presi dent Roosevelt, who rest* Ashing. «n a battleship, with fifty report ers on another ship, nearby You wonder that a man as young as Kdrn she id need a rest Glad stone. at nearly twice his age. was talking in the Commons at four in the morning—but Gladstone's are few, Tim Healys also Rothermere s writer thinks Eden is all tired out after his Geneva speech, telling just why England lifted the Italian sanctions It was he who made a speech recently, just as earnest and much louder, telling why those sanctions must NEVER be lifted. That was turn ing a big somersault. The English know how to do that, and you are supposed not to laugh. Eden told Baldwin what the doc tor said, and Baldwin said, "By all means, my boy, hurry oil to a se cret destination,” and Eden hur ried In America, the businessman would say, “Doctor, there are a few things that 1 must settle first,” meaning, perhaps, his income tax. He would hang on and on, and final ly go to a really secret destination, in the graveyard. Driving through Normandy, from Havre, where the ships land, would interest American farmers, espe cially any whose lands are “worn out” after comparatively lew years of cultivation. On lands in this part of the world, wheat has been grown lor three hundred years, and today yields better, bigger crops than ever. In Rome, as in other places on the earth's surface, one city is piled up on another. Dig down through one and the other appears. Invasions, plagues, famines and the grinding ice have wiped them out. Those that read this today are the descendants of men such as the in habitants of the Stone age village. And still we are worried, looking down at the enemy, poverty, that may climo up and attack us in old kge. C Knitf FYitt ures 8> iixJh at#, j * >» t *#r% a • News Review of Current Events the World Over Governor Landon Accepts Republican Presidential Nom ination—Organized Labor Schism Widens— Spain Torn by Bloody Civil War. i, ■ By EDWARD W. PICKARD C Western Newspaper Union. rx>v. ALF. M. LANDON now knows officially that he is the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Before more than 100,000 of his fellow citizens he stood at the south entrance of the Kansas capitol in Topeka and re ceived the formal notification from Congressman Snell £•-:-¥ —of New York, who was p e r m a nent Gov. Landon chairman of the Cleveland convention. Around him were grouped a thousand leaders of the party, and in front of him were the throngs of his suppoiters and admirers who had gathered from far and near to do him hon or and to witness the ceremonies. Trains, automobiles, buses and air planes had been pouring them into Topeka for several days and the gaily decorated little city was crowded to the limit. Everyone was happy and enthusiastic and every one appeared confident that Landon would be the next chief executive of the country. The nominee’s speech of accept ance was the plain spoken, outright kind of talk his hearers expected. Asking divine guidance to make him worthy of the faith and confi dence shown in him, he said: “This call, coming to one whose life has been that of the everyday American, ia proof of the freedom of opportunity which belongs to the people under our government.” Here, briefly, is what Mr. Lan don had to say on some of the more vital issues: Recovery—“The record shows that these (New Deal) measures did not fit together into any defi nite program of recovery. Many of them worked at cross-purpoaes and defeated themselves. The na tion has not made the durable prog ress. either in reform or recovery, that we had the right to expect . . . We must be freed from incessant governmental intimidation and hos tility, W’e must be freed from ex cessive expenditures and crippling taxation We must be treed from the effects of an arbitrary and un certain monetary policy, and from private monopolistic control ” Relief—“Let me emphasize that while we propose to follow a policy of ecqpomy in guv ernment expendi tures. those who need relief will get it We will not take our econ omies out of the allotments to the unemployed We anil take them out of the hides of the political exploiters ** Agriculture—“We shall establish effective sod conservation and ero sion control policies m connection with a national land use and flood prevention program—and keep it all out of politics Our farmers are entitled to all of the home market they can supply without in justice to the consumer. We pro pose a policy that protects them in this right . . . W« propose to pay cash benefits in order to cushion our farm families against the dis astrous effects of price fluctuations and to protect their standard of living.” Labor—“The right of labor to or ganize means to me the right of employees to join any type of union they prefer, whether it covers their plant, their craft or their Lidustry. It means that, in the absence of a union contract, an employee has an equal right to join a union or to refuse to join a union." Constitution—"It is not my be lief that the Constitution is above change. The people have the right, by the means they have prescribed, to change their form of govern ment to fit their wishes . . . But change must come by and through the people and not by usurpation. . . . The Republican party, how ever, does not believe that the peo ple wish to abandon the American form of government.” State Rights—"There has now ap peared in high places a new and dangerous impulse. This is the impulse to take away and lodge in the Chief Executive, without the people’s consent, the powers which they have kept in their state gov ernments or which they have re served in themselves. In its ulti mate effect upon the welfare of the whole people, this is the most im portant question now before us. Shall we continue to delegate more and more powe’- to the Chief Execu tive or do we desire to preserve the American form of govern ment?” 1 you. As a fellow citizen and as a man I still regard you highly, but as an executive, despite your ex cellency’s fine intentions, I deem it best for the welfare of our com mon country that you be supplant ed in office." Dispatches from Rome said Fa ther Coughlin’s speech caused a “painful impression" at the Vati can, and Bishop Gallagher, the priest’s ecclesiastical superior, leaving for a visit to the Vatican, intimated he might report on the incident. IT SEEMS at this time that noth- * ing can prevent the great schism in the ranks of American organized labor. John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, and his fol lowers in the industrial union movement, are determined to go ahead with their plans for the or ganization of steel workers into a mass union, and now have expand ed their program, proposing to un ionize thus the employees of steel fabrication and processing plants. Moreover, Lewis and his asso ciates have declared they will not appear before the executive coun cil of the American Federation of Labor to stand trial on charges of "fomenting insurrection,” so it appears the council can do nothing but suspend the rebels and their unions, these constituting about one third of the federation’s member ship. If this is done, the final de cision as to expulsion of these un ions will be made by the national convention m Tampa in November. The members of the Committee for Industrial Organization, the Lewis group, assert the contem plated proceedings of the council are unwarranted 'by the constitution of the federation. Philip Murray, vice president of the United Mine Workes, gave out the news of the CIO drive to gath er in the steel fabricators and proc essors. who number between 300,- 000 and 400,000 men. As there are about 446.000 employees in the steel milla. the goal of the CIO is now the organization of more than three quarters of a million steel workers. LpXPLANATIONS and apologies are not enough for J. Edgar Hoover, head of the federal bureau of in vestigation, who was angered by the revelation that the doings of his "G men" had been under investi gation by secret service men of strenuous protests started an in quiry that at this writing is still going on.* Mr. Hoover also heard a rumor that some one was prob ing his “brokerage accounts," and this didn’t help to calm him. Said he: “Anybody making such an in quiry is wasting his time. I have no brokerage accounts, so any ef fort to find them will be futile.” It is admitted by the Treasury that the secret service has no le gal right to investigate the actions of any other government depart ment. CECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE ^WALLACE, addressing the Inter national Baby Chick association in Kansas City, discussed at length the drouth situation and the meas ures taken or contemplated for re lief. He suggested this four-point program for the protection of both farmers and consumers: 1. Judicious commodity loans, especially in years of excessive supplies. 2. The ever normal granary. 3. Crop insurance. 4. Government purchase of land which definitely never should have been plowed. M. L. Cooke C. G. CPANISH Fascists and royalists. m rebellion against the leftist government, were tempert/Uy m control of moot of the MNrtkem part of the country and were moving o n Madrid from Burgos and Segovia, threat ening to bomb the capital from the air if the government did not capitulate. In Barcelona, capi tal of Catalonia, fierce fighting was reported, and at the request of the Washington authori ties a veosel of the American Ex port line was hastening there to evacuate Americana, whose lives were m danger Catalonia had de clared against the relgls The rebels gained pol!Ps*»on ot San Sebastian, near the French border, and the loyalists were said to be making a desperate attempt to recover that town. Thu is the place where Claude G. Bowers, American ambassador, is in sum mer residence, and as communi cations were completely disrupted there was much anxiety in Wash ington as to Mr. Bowers’ safety Socialists, Communists and work ers in large numbers were joining the loyal troops for the defense of Madrid, and also helped in crush ing the rebellion in several towns, according to the claims of the gov ernment. In the south, where Gen. Fran cisco Franco commanded the revo lutionaries, there was almost con tinuous fighting, and in the engage ments between rebel planes and loyal warships some bombs and shells struck the Rock of Gibral tar and others fell close to a Brit ish destroyer. The latter fired warning shots and the acting gov ernor of Gibraltar protested to General Franco. CCATTERED rains over limited ^ areas brought only temporary, relief from the heat and drouth, and then warm weather started a new advance over the corn belt. The federal crop report ing board in Wash ington said the drouth was as se vere as that of 1934 and worse than any previous drouths since the western country was settled. The serious condi tions prevailed over practically the en- I tire area from the Rocky moun tains in Montana to the Hudson valley in New York and southward over western Pennsylvania, central Maryland, the Ohio valley, parts of Arkansas, and most of Oklahoma. It was announced in Washington that President Roosevelt had creat ed a national committee to study measures for remedying conditions in the drouth region through uti lization of natural resources. The committee is headed by Morris L Cooke, rural electrification admin istrator. Other members are Col. Richard C. Moore of the army en gineers. John C. Page, acting com missioner of the bureau of reclama tion; Frederick H. Fowler of the national resources committee; Rexford G. Tugweil. resettlement administrator, and Harry L Hop- kins, works progress administrator IN OLYMPIA. Greece, scene of * the first Olympic games, a torch was lighted by the rays uf the sun and a Greek runner seized It and started it on a 13-day relay to the sports field in Berlin’ where the Olympic flame la to be lighted on August 1. Five thousand distin guished persons were selected to carry the torch, theso including King Boris of Bulgaria. King Pe ter of Jugoslavia, and a long list of princes, statesmen and sporta- men. On the last leg it was to be borne by &. Loues of Greece, winner of the marathon in the games of 1896 A hundred thou sand youths will accompany Loues in a parade to the stadium. National Topics Interpreted by William Bruckart National Proas Bulldlnc 'Waohinston,* D. C RATHER COUGHLIN, the De- " troit “radio priest” who in a ^ speech before the recent Townsend- ite convention called President Roosevelt a “great betrayer and liar,” has realized the impropriety of his language. He has published an open letter to the President offering his “sincere apology." The priest also says:* “As my President I still respect , T HROUGH an executive order of President Roosevelt, all post mastership appointments in the fu ture are to be subject to civil serv ice examination. The order affects 13,730 postmasterships of the first, second and third classes as vacan cies occur. Incumbents chosen for reappointment must pass a non competitive examination, as must employees promoted to postmaster. In other cases the examinations will be open and competitive. Fourth class postmasters already were under civil service. C OL. AND MRS CHARLES A. LINDBERGH flew in a bor rowed plane from London to Ber lin, and were given a big reception by high Nazi officials, the press and the populace. The colonel was the guest of the air ministry at a luncheon attenoed by Germany’s best aviators. | JNLESS the protests of Poland ^ are effective, all opposition to Nazi power in the Free City of Danzig is due to be crushed. Dr. Arthur Karl Greiser. president of the Danzig senate, which ia con trolled by Nazis, has issued ad ministrative decrees ordering: 1. Dissolution of any organization whose members, with knowledge of its executive board, spreads news “endangering the state interest." 2. Prohibition of review by the courts of police measures of a po litical nature, including those aimed at the right of assembly, the press, and free speech. 3. Prohibition of Jewish ritual slaughtering for food purposes. 4. Imposition of thiee month pro tective custody on persons declared to be “endangering the public peace." Thus the city’s constitution is virtually set aside, and the Poles especially, having extensive eco nomic interests there, are indig nant. D EVOLT of the Cantonese ^ against the Nanking govern ment has collapsed and latest re ports say government troops have entered Canton and taken over maintenance of peace and order. There wa& no oppos ; tion and the city was quiet. Chen Chi-tang, the Canton war lord, deserted his followers and fled to Hongkong on a gurboat. There was a scramble to find Chen’s al leged silver hoard, said to amount to many million dollars, but much of it is believed to be deposited in foreign banks. L'lGHT signatories to the Lau- "sanne post-war treaty have i-ianted to Turkey the right to re militarize the Dardanelles, and they, with Turkey, have signed a convention covering the matter. Only Japan made slight reserva tions because it is no longer a member of the League of Nations Washington.—The steel industry of the United States has cast for it self a role in the Labor and forthcoming cam- PoliticM paign—whether it intended to do so or not. The same is true of John L. Lewis and his segment of or ganized labor—and it is pretty gen erally suspected that Mr. Lewis in tended to get labor questions well mixed up in politics. It is all more important because of Presi dent Roosevelt’s attack on “eco nomic royalists” in his Philadel phia acceptance speech. Whatever rights the steel indus try has or whatever rights Mr. Lewis and his followers h**'’ 0 . the fact remains that they are all knee deep in politics and there is every reason to believe that each side will suffer in public esteem as a result. It means simply this: each side is mixing up problems that are basically economic in charac ter with sordid, even unclean, po litical motives. This outburst is prompted by two things: the gigantic steel industry has taken the position that it will defend itself against encroachment of professional labor leaders like Mr. Lewis and President William Green of the American Federation of Labor and their satellites “from any source." The steel industry thereby has thrown down the chal- ! lenge and now that such a die is 1 cast, the steel industry will be compelled to do a number of in defensible things if it adheres to its ' program. The same condition is to be ob served in the organized labor situa tion. Whether Mr. Lewis is willing to admit it or not. his declaration that he will foster, even enforce. ! his scheme for organizing the steel workers is likely to lead to over- zealous acts by his followers—and overzealous and foolish acts all too frequently lead to bloodsheo • • • For • number of years, steel companies have refused steadfastly to recognize un- Steel Buekt ion labor as rep- Umons resented by the professional lead ers in the American Federation of Labor They have attempted to defeat the inroads of that organua- Uon by forming what is known as company unions, groups of employ ees on the pay roll of each corpora tion They have accorded to these groups the right of collective bar gaining and have insisted that they would deal only with the represent atives of the company unions for the reason that they believe they then are dealing with the employ ees concerned with questions of pay * and working conditions In that par ticular plant If the national un ions were recognized, officials of a given company always have had to negotiate with the expert union ne gotiators who are paid by the na tional organization The results have not always been happy, This combination of circumstances, to gether with a disposition on the part of the steel companies. I am afraid, to be rather selfish in their attitude toward labor has devel oped a continuing controversy that has raged over the last score of years It happened that the rather inso lent announcement of the steel companies, their challenge, came almost simultaneously with the de livery of President Roosevelt's speech accepting the Democratic > nomination for re-election. It was in this speech, it will be remem bered. where Mr. Roosevelt de nounced “economic royalists," in which he resorted to expressions bound to create class hatred and in which he used language that is certainly going to help discredit corporations which are large enough to attract national atten tion. Of course, I know that Mr. Roosevelt did not have the steel in dustry particularly in mind in his assault on massed capital but the effect is the same as though he had been shooting directly' at the steel industry because of the coinci dence mentioned above. The tragedy of the thing is that the professional ‘labor leaders are going to use the steel industry’s challenge politically. * 6 From all of the inside discussions that I have heard, it appears that the issue between The Real the steel industry Issue _ an d its workers is no longer simply whether the steel industry shall be unionized It is a question of how it shall be unionized. In addition to this, Mr. Lewis has been chisel ing away for several years in promoting his labor union idea of organizing all workers in one unit instead of the craft union idea that is basic in the American Federa tion of Laoor. That is to say, Mr. Lewis proposes to have a steel un ion or a shipbuilding union or a tex- * tile union instead of organizing the. workers in accordance with the particular jobs they do, whether they be engineers, painteis, car penters, moulders or any one of the various other crafts. Since the steel industry has it* company unions, there is a con viction in many quarters that Mr. Lewis might well pause to consider whether this is the time to carry forward his program of bringing steel workers under national labor union control. There are those who believe that the company unions eventually will become units in the larger labor structure of the coun try and, if that be true, it is made to appear that Mr. Lewis has hurt labor’s cause. On the other hand, the steel in dustry already is under attack by the government. Mr. Roosevelt suddenly “cracked down” on some of the major companies recently, charging them with collusion in bids on government work. He came out with this charge at* a time which undoubtedly will stiffen the backbone of the union agita tors—and it is not unlikely that by the same token he has stiffened the resistance which the steel com panies will use. Yet, it does seem that the steel companies made a fatal mistake in the pronouncement they have is sued. There are too many people who will be inclined to believe that the steel companies have taken ad vantage of an apparent assurance of collapse of federal supervision. There are few who believe that the federal compulsory collective bar gaining statute will last very long but the fact that this statute is due for the discard, it sems to me, hardly warrants the action which the steel companies nave taken. They are no more war ranted in that than union labor is warranted in taking advantage of the political situation to feather their own nest. A real dangei, in addition to this, is that Communist agitators are going to use this situ ation as one vehicle for spreading their propaganda of dissatisfaction and discontent and Mr. Roosevelt's ittack on massed capital unfortu nately lends itself to the nefarious schemes of the Reds. • • • It long has been said that the method of administering laws fre quently has creat- Tax Law ed more dissati*- Irritation faction among the citizens than the requirements of laws themselves Tax laws of whatever kind furntah a splendid example It has always been true since we have had in come tax laws that taxpayers have complained more about bu reaucratic regulation, indecision, lack of uniformity in administra tion and. generally speaking, slow processes of settlement than about the amount they were required to pay The same is true about our customs laws despite the fact that they affect fewer persons directly. The other day the Treasury is sued a notice to customs inspectors that was “effective immediately .** It was a change in policy respect ing the quantity of goods an indi vidual may bring in from foreign shores without the payment of the customs tax. Since 1798 or thereabouts, there has been a law which permitted a returning American to bring in commodities of whatever kind he desired, except narcotics, up to $100 in value but that law permit ted the Treasury to make excep tions. The Treasury nonce the oth er day was an announcement of an exception to this $100 exemp tion. It said that no inbound trav eler could carry more than one wine gallon of liquor without the payment of the custom: tax there on. A practice had sprung up since the import duty on liquors has been made so high of returning tourists bringing in almost the full exemp tion in liquor alone. Probably the practice was getting very bad and no one questions the judgment of the Treasury in determining poli cy. But it is the method employed in making this change that has aroused criticism. In orderir^f'the new regulation “effective immediately,” the Treas ury forced upon hundreds of trav elers the necessity for paying duty on their personal stocks of liquor in what amounts to a surprise or der. They had left foreign shores under one regulation and arrive un der another. I have no doubt at all that the Treasury’s reason for changing the rule while the game was being played will result in a considerable amount of revenue for the govern ment. But there are many who believe, as I do, that the depart ment in all fairness should have issued its regulation to become ef fective at some fixed date in the future in order that citizens who must comply with it would be pre pared by proper notification of what they were expected to do and the penalties for failure to obey. The incident to which I have re ferred is an outstanding example of inconsideration and such thirgs always cause citizens to have a hurt feeling, a feeling that the gov ernment changed the rules without consulting those who must obey the rules. C WMi«ra Nawai-apar OM*a