Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Way Back When News Review of Current Events the World Over Rrfnul of PocUl Employees to Deliver Mail to Stricken Plant* Stirs Row—Labor Flare-Ups Continue— Britain Blames Franco for Naval Blast. By EDWARD W. PICKARD • WMtoni N«w«p«p«r Union. A S A tenaU committee pondered the advisability of an inveati- gation Into the attitude of the post office department with respect to deliveries of mail to strike - crippled in dustrial plants, new incidents among em ployers, loyal em ployes and strikers flared up on half a dozen fronts. When John L. Lewis gave the or der throwing 70,000 men out of work in the plants of Repub- — lie Steel, Inland rarley Steel and the Youngstown Sheet and Tube company, hard-boiled Tom Girdler, president of the American Steel and Iron institute and chair man of the board of the Republic Steel corporation, kept loyal work ers housed In the Republic plants In Ohio and Illinois, so that despite the strike Republic was still turning out steel. In Warren and Niles. Ohio, postal authorities refused to deliver parcel post packages containing food and clothing to workers inside the plants. This action brought from Republic a protest to Postmaster General Farley, requesting that he Issue orders to postmasters to see that all legally presented and post pstd mall be delivered regardless of picket lines. ••Unless you see lit to comply with this request, which we believe to be entirety within our legal rights," company from ten to twenty years. The organization waa formed be cause we wanted an Independent labor organization, not one affiliated with any national union." R EADING the election returns of an overwhelming Democratic landslide last November, Charles Michelson, publicity director of ths Democratic national committee, said: "We will regret this." The great party majorities in both houses now show signs of splitting into regional and economic blocs, which is exactly what he was afraid of. Biggest wedge in forcing the split among the party ranks was, of course, the President’s bill for the reorganization of the Supreme court. This led s long list of bills, many of them expected to evoke heated con troversies in congress, which threat ened to postpone adjournment to mid - winter. Indeed, it was believed by some that if part of the program were not postponed, this session would run continuously into the next, beginning in January. Besides the Court bill, there are to be acted upon measures for the establishment of wage and hour standards for interstate industries, the curtailment of tax dodging, re organization of the executive branch of the government, helping farm tenants, conservation of soil, water power resources and housing. «• IS THE Democratic party going S ANTA MONICA, CALIF.— Taking pen in hand to write Uncle Sam's check for that next installment, I look longingly backward to what I'm sure was the golden ags of our genera tion. It waa the decade that began soon after the turn of the century and ended with 1114. Kings lolled se curely on comfy thrones and dicta torships in strong nations were un dreamed of. Without shaking the foundations of the financial temple, Teddy Roosevelt was filing the alliga tor teeth of preda tory wealth. People laughed at the mad suggestion that there could ever be another great war—let alone a world war. With suffrage in prospect, women were going to purify politics. Taxes were a means unto an end and not the end of our means. Standards of living climbed faster than did the costs of living. Automobiles were things to ride in at moderate speed, not engines to destroy human life with. Millions actually believed that, if prohibition by law ever became ef fective, drunkenness would end and crime decrease. Yes, l‘m sure those were indeed the happy days—the era when the Twentieth Century limited Irvin S. Cobb Washington. — It nearly always happens in the second term of any President that the Con£T0ts j congress begins to Bedks show signs of as serting its own will. This is perfectly natural. Members of the house and senate recognize, or have recognized in the past, that when a President enters onto his second term he has little more in the way of trading to offer them. That is to say, the President has about exhausted political appoint ments and, except for special pieces of legislation, the Chief Executive cannot compensate house and sen ate members with political plums. The New Deal congress in Mr. Roosevelt’s first term was subserv ient, indeed. It gave him everything he asked. But now there are en couraging signs of a more independ ent attitude on the part of congress. I use the word "independent’’ to mean that congress has begun to examine legislative proposals from the White House in the light of the viewpoint of individual representa tives and senators instead of an examination solely in the light of the argument of the President. The Supreme court reorganiza tion proposal brought the first sign of independence fay congress. This sign broke out in the senate and there are many who believe that Roosevelt does not require a billion and a half in new money for relief. But the house apparently does not have the courage to take an out and out position in accordance with its conviction. So it is trying to dodge the real issue by holding out for a provision in the bill that would set aside half a billion of the total for use exclusively on permanent pub lic works under Secretary Ickes as public works administrator. (Secre tary Ickes and Relief Aministrator Hopkins long have been snarling at each other.) To get down to cases on this relief fund controversy, it actually happens that the real argument is on the side of Mr. Roosevelt. Either he needs the whole amount for re lief or he does not and there is little sense in the house taking a run around the rosebush to cover a feel- Hng of revenge. Thus, the house is shown in a rather bad light. If it has spunk enough to spank Mr. Hopkins and if it does not believe that the President needs the full amount he has requested, then why does not the house approve of only a billion and stick to that position? There is another phase of this house revolt on relief funds that ought to be examined. I mentioned earlier that the members of the house and senate no longer expect ed political plums from the White House Now thee ere Irvine to eet PKKIMMI WAS A WILL COLLECTOR IF YOU lived in Chicago, fll.. ‘ years ago, you may have bought carpet tacks or a can of paint from a young hardware clerk who looked like nobody at all to you. A few years later you might have rented an apartment from the real estate office where he clerked; a liuie later you may have seen a young man persistently ringing/Ithe door- beU of that neighbor of yours who was careless about her furniture in stallments. For Theodore Dreiser, famous in American letters today, was‘in his youth hardware clerk, clerk in a real estate office, and bill collector for a furniture house. He was born in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1871. A poor boy, he attended the public schools of Warsaw, Ind., quitting at the age of sixteen to go to work in Chicago at $5 per week. An ordinary young man, with an ordinary background, who could have foretold that some day he would produce a book ("American Tragedy”) which would arouse toyel em ploye* who remained et their in its plant. Mayor Kelly ordered them removed on the grounds that such housing violated the city sani tation code Republic countered by having Pullman cars moved into Ms plant yards and housing the em ployee In them. The mayor ad mitted he couldn’t see anything wrong in that. rOUR hundred C. I. O. power " company strikers taught the 450,000 inhabitants of the Saginaw valley in Michigan what it is like to feel the power of organized labor when they sat down at their jobs for 15 hours. Electricity was shut off from 200 communities; hospi tals as well as factories were with out current before an agreement was reached and the strikers went back to work. It was a day’s pay lost for 100,000 workers whose em ployers’ plants depended on "juice” for life. General Motors employes alone lost $454,000. Mayor Daniel A. Knaggs of Mon roe, Mich., called for 100 war vet erans as volunteer police ts aid his fores of SO in preserving ths peace as 782 strikers at the Newton Steel company returned to work. The C I. O. hed threatened to IN A scorching 1 Francisco Franco, Great Biitaia ■ blamed the rebel regime tor the death of eight and the wounds of 34 sailors when the destroyer Hun ter ran into a mine off Almeria, Southern Spain, May 13. The protest called the affair an accident, but reserved the right to claim dam ages of $350,000. Meanwhile rains were bogging down the rebels’ northern offensive against Bilbao, but the Fascists launched a violent new offensive in the Pozoblanco sector about mid way between Toledo and Seville in southern Spain, aiming for the rich mercury mines near Almaden. A STRONOMERS were treated to ** the feast of a lifetime in the South Seas as they were permitted by almost perfect weather condi tions to photograph the longest total eclipse of the sun in 1,200 years. On Canton island the United States Navy and the National Geographic society, with eleven tons of equip ment, took unusual pictures and radioed a description of the m*f- to millions of to the and gosh, how he does dreed Ml For every yachtsman who really gets joy out of being afloat, there usually is another to whom the great heart of the nation should go out in sympathy. You almost ex pect to And him putting ads in the paper for guests who can stand the strain; everything provided except the white duck pants. • • • Problems on Wheels. A MERICA’S newest problem goes on wheels. One prophet says by 1938 there’ll be a million trail ers and three million people aboard them. Roger Babson raises the ante —within twenty years, half the pop ulation Irving in trailers and all the roads clogged. So soon the trailer-face is recog nizable. It is worn by Mommer, riding along behind, while Popper smiles pleasantly as he drives the car in solitary peace—getting away from it all. Have you noticed bow many trailer widows there ere el- reedy? But ae yet Leaders of the farm bloc to the are quite skeptical of the plan. Naturally, it to too early to forecast what is going to happen on this piece of legislation but it is important to note that the house is giving close end independent study instead of rushing the legislation through merely because the admin istration announced it was favor able to the proposition. There is discontent in the senate also. Mr. Roosevelt’s far-flung 'gov ernment reorganization bill has touched so many sensitive spots that some doubt actually exists whether it will get through at all, even after revision. The feeling in the seante on this matter is so widespread that Dem ocratic Leader Robinson made a statement the other day to the effect that "failure of the senate to pass the bill will be no public calamity." If their skepticism leads to a more systematic and thorough scrutiny of this bill and other pieces of leg is le lion, K seems likely to my opinion that some costly blunders assy be twe NcewtUMtanamf Mr evelTs derlarnUoae that meet expenses must be cut. they are coetinutnf to expend and. con sequently, R bos been necessary to borrow more money to order to keep the machinery of government operating. It is impossible to discuss the la test Treasury loan without linking to it the question of the admin istration's gold policy and, it is im possible to mention the gold policy without relating that the United States now has more than twelve billions in gold. The United States thus has approximately one-half of all the gold in the world. This would seem to make our nation the richest in the world, but having all of this gold stock is a very expensive prop osition under the administration’s gold policy. No one seems to know how the administration will untangle itself from the gold policy. If the United States continues to maintain the present price of geld, just so long will other nations ship gold to the shores of America. We have seen gold entering the United Stalls at the rate of sixteen million dollars a day for some days Of course, that to an abnormal rata but the imports so lugh that tf toe praaaat pace Is •« sf 0* months be pitched alfalfa, la Chicago Kant College of Law, he studied law, and then took post-graduate work in F.iglish literature at Princeton. Aft er that he worked as a teacher and on a newspaper. His beginning did not promise ex crement and adventure. But then came the World war. and Lowell to tha front with a