Evening star. [volume], March 22, 1937, Page A-9, Image 9

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
“Lynch Law”
Applied to
Strikers Apparently
Hold They Determine
Constitutional Rights.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
iix Y YE ARE under ft Constl
\ A / tution, but the Const i
\/ \l tution is what the ntob
” ' - says it is!”
This in effect is the new version
of American law formally enunciated
by the several chairmen of the com
mittees oi sit
down” strikers
who have forc
ibly seized pos
session of the
Chrysler motor
plants in Detroit.
The exact lan
guage contained
in a letter ad
dressed to the
Governor of
Michigan and
virtually also to
the judicial
branch of the
Government i n
David Lawrence.
the State is worth
examining because ot the historic
importance it may assume in the
future. The letter says in conclusion:
"You can do one of two things.
You can use your Influence to see
that our grievances are adjusted.
Or you can use the State's troops
to try to fore*1 us out.
"The first way will lead to industrial
peace and the elimination of the
cause for strikes. The second will
lead to bloodshed and violence and
more strikes.
"We are resolved to protect our
rights to our jobs with our lives.
The choice is fairly up to you.”
Direct Challenge.
Never before has an organized
group of American citizens—at least
in a so-called period of peace—issued
an ultimatum to a Governor. Never
in the last half century or more has
constituted authority in America been
given a more direct challenge. Courts
of law last week issued formal orders
to return seized property to lawful
owners, but these orders have been
flagrantly ignored and instead a
document which argues in effect the
right of revolution is widely pro
claimed.
Every State is guuaranteed a Re
publican form of Government by the
Federal Constitution and there is
provision for the summoning of
Federal troops whenever the Governor
of a State shall so request. If Gov.
Murphy needs help to enforce the
orders of the Michigan courts, he
ran get it promptly by asking the
Federal Government.
But there will be no such request.
And the Governor of Michigan
probably will not use force to oust
the strikers from the motor plants.
He does not believe in violence and
bloodshed as a means of solving in
dustrial disputes. Nor do many other
American citizens who are watching
from the sidelines the first big clash
of physical force with law' in an
organized labor attack since the gen
eral strike of post-war days in Seattle,
Wash.
Rea->on Needed.
If ever there was a time for the
triumph of reason over physical force,
It is in the Michigan dilemma. In '
such circumstances the processes of
public opinion must be made vocal
and effective. The first step is to
recognize that there are two sides
to the controversy, but only one solu
tion.
Spokesmen for the strikers con
tend that the motor companies have
refused to obey the Wagner labor
law, which calls for majority rule
for unions known to speak for a
majority of the employes. Assum
ing that the motor companies have
refused to obey the law which,
course, isn’t true as will subsequently
be demonstrated, the argument of
the "sit-down” strikers is that be
cause employers get court injunctions
to over-rule iaws, the strikers are
justified in taking the law into their
cwn hands.
It will be recalled that there rarely
has been a lynching of a Negro in
which the mob has not used the
same argument. Namely, that the
law Is too slow' and usually favors
defendants and hence it is necessary
to string up the victims as an example
to others.
Lynch law has for generations been
condemned, but only recently has
the true meaning of lynch law become
apparent to the American people,
especially in the South, where en
lightened opinion has been pushing
for a prosecution of lynchers.
Minorities in Jeopardy.
Minorities of all kinds—minority
religions, minority races, minority
groups are in danger when so-called
majorities take the law unto their
own hands or put themselves above
courts and judges and attempt to
say what the law is.
In the present situation, condemna
tion should not merely be visited on
the “sit-down'’ strikers, but Upon the
men who lead them astray. And the
labor leaders are in a sense hardly
to be blamed when they read en
couraging words for their concept of
law given them by the Secretary of
Labor in the President's cabinet; and
now by Chairman James M. Landis
of the Securities and Exchange Com
mission and also by Ferdinand Pecora,
a local justice in New York State.
Pecora told a Senate committee last
week that business and industry had
been engaged in "sit-down” strikes
against various laws, his inference
being that two wrongs made a right
or at least that the workers could not
be blamed if they adopted the same
tactics.
Landis, who is shortly to become
dean of the Harvard Law School, told
a convention of law' students in a
public address that the “sit-down”
strike might involve new concepts of
property rights and he intimated that
perhaps they might ultimately be held
legal.
Possible Supreme Court Appointees.
The significance of these comments
Is that Landis and Pecora are being
mentioned as probable nominees for
two of the six places on the Supreme
Court to be created if President
Roosevelt’s plan for enlarging the
highest court in the land is adopted
by Congress.
One Killed in Train Wreck.
BLUEFIELD, W. Va., March 22
(/P).—One colored man was killed and
two others injured yesterday, when a
Norfolk & Western pusher engine col
lided with an electric locomotive pull
ing 15 cars of freight.
The train crew escaped injury. Offi
cials stated the pusher engine backed
on to the main line, causing the wreck
which blocked both lines.
*
News Behind the News
Green and A. F. of L. Apparently Regaining Favor
of Administration.
BY PAUL MALLON.
YOU will soon find the new order edging around eloser to A. P. of L.
President Bill Green and keeping its distance from C. I. O. Chief
John Lewis. The reasons: Lewis let that Detroit Chrysler situation
get out of hand or, at least, he permitted the powers-that-be here
to understand he could not control when control seemed necessary to them.
At the same time Green took his briefcase in hand and went before the
Senate Judiciary Committee to help President Roosevelt with his Supreme
Court packing. Green’s help was eagerly given and was needed.
New ordainers never forget. They shift friendships as occasion de
mands. Just now, they are passing around word that their purposes can
best be served by having two strong labor organizations in the national
neia Funnermore, tney do not
want to bear too much responsi
bility for the widely spreading de
sire of workers to sit down every
where and anywhere.
This does not necessarily
mean they arc going to cut away
from Lewis, but that his enemy.
Green, is due for a couple of
official pats on the back.
For instance, a new meeting
of the A. F. of L. crowd has been
quietly in the making for the past week. The idea behind it is to adopt
a new and settled policy toward C. I. O. and Lewis.
The suggestion may seem to be far-fetched right now, but you
and Lewis may be surprised if his right-hand men, Sidney Hillman
and Dubinsky, are wooed back toivard, if not into, the A. F. of L. fold
by this new statement of policy. The matter is in the private dis
cussion stage, and some of the labor insiders are saying that, after
all. the Hillman-Dubinsky crowd of garment uxrrkers has been in
the A. F. of L. so long that they arc nearer to the federation way of
doing things. Furthermore, they have some benefit funds tied up
with the federation.
At any rate, the officially directed labor sword which has been cut
ting one way recently may turn around and cut in the opposite direction.
Despite these prospects, not an authority can be found here who will not
predict that unionization of all major industries will be accomplished
within two years. The bulk is likely to be found eventually in the C. I. O.
Our Moscow Ambassador, Joe Davies, is hopping back to the United
States for a "personal visit'’ before he has become fully settled at his post.
The old rumors are naturally recurring that he will be shifted to London
and Ambassador Bingham may retire because of ill health.
The truth seems to be that Mr. Davies is returning in connection with
the mysterious peace move which the President seems to be nursing along
in complete secrecv. such as surrounded his Supreme Court move. Every
official here ardently denies that suggestion. State Secretary Hull and all
authorities are telling friends that if the President is contemplating a
peace or disarmament step, they have not heard of it.
One thing is certain. Bingham's health is entirely satisfactory
to him He has let friends in this country know definitely the ru
mors of his retirement are false.
Note-—Hull said in a letter to the Communist-pursuer, Representative
Ham Fish, last week there was nothing new on settlement of Russian
debts, and held out no hopes of a conclusion on this subject.
* * * *
The Agriculture Department has always taken the lead in the pro
motion of belles-lettres in its publicity propaganda. Back in the Hoover
administration, it was the first to see that the publicity it was sending
out to farmers needed more zip. Consequently, it developed and circulated
such interesting pamphlets as "The Love-Life of the Bullfrog.” "How to
Make Baby Comfortable” and "Apricot Recipes for Indigent Indians.”
The current issue of "The Agriculture Situation” i March, 19371,
circulated by the agricultural publicists, goes one step further. It carries
fiction. That s a fact. The fiction
section is called "Rural Litera
ture. 1936." A footnote promises
essays and sketches in the April
issue and rural poetry in May.
While much of the publicity
announcements from Government
departments has smacked of very
poorly disguised fiction, this is
the first time they have gone in
for it openly.
■—l-^---The extensive bookshelves in
Mr. Roosevelt's office are bare. He keeps his reading material in the more
private recesses of his library in the Executive Mansion.
The Commerce Department Building is commonly referred to,
within the department, as "Kerim's Castle.’’ because of the influence
wielded by Malcolm Kerlin, adrninistratii'e assistant to Commerce
Secretary Roper.
An Englishman is said to be one of the experts working on hot money
at tlie Treasury.
There is an excellently managed inside campaign to make Frank
Murphy, the Iowa Legionnaire, Assistant War Secretary.
State Departmentalists romped all over the suggestion from Warm
Springs that a new official school for foreign service officers be instituted,
a sort of a West Point for the diplomatic service. Vacancies in the foreign
service average no more than 20 a year.
♦ Copyright. 1937.)
NAZI SCHOOLS BACKED
Saar Province Poll Reported 97
Per Cent for Secular Teaching.
SAARBRUECHEK. Germany. March
22 </P».—Voting by parents in Saar
Province whether to send their chil
dren to Nazi “secular schools on a
Christian basis" or to confessional
church schools gave the secular schools
an overwhelming victory in official
returns announced yesterday.
Gov. Josef Buerckel reported to
Chancellor Hitler that "oppositional
attacks upon secular schools forced
me to submit the question to ballot,
resulting in 97 per cent for secular
schools."
More than half of the Saar's ap
proximately 1.000,000 population is
Catholic.
BY DOROTHY THOMPSON.
RUSHING for the suburban train
Friday night, hastening to
catch it in order to spend an
hour with my little boy before
he went to bed, I snatched the
evening newspapers from the stand.
The news of the great world was off
the front page. On it were 400 chil
dren more or less,
400 dead chil
dren, the victims
of the school ex
plosion. In the
train I read as
much as I could.
There were pic
tures. A small
boy with a black
ened face and
gasping mouth,
lying on a
stretcher. A lit
tle lad swathed
in bandages with
his mother lean
ing over him.
Dorothy Thompson.
. . . They were digging a history
class out of the ground, from under
the bricks. Parents took home the
wrong children, they said, frantic,
hysterical parents. It was hard to
know what had been one's own child.
I read as much as I could. One
feels such a fool, in a train, with
people all around, when tears are
streaming down one's face.
Then I remembered a verse from
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I think
it is in "Aurora Leigh."
"A red-haired child
Sick in a fever, if you touch him
once,
Though but so little as a finger tip,
Will set you weeping; but a million
sick . . .
You could as soon weep for the rule
of three
Or compound fractions"
One weeps for the children blown
to bits In Texas. One aches in one's
very bones for their mothers, for their
fathers. One rages at human errors:
Were the pipes laid wrongly, was
the heating apparatus faulty, did no
one check on it?
One wonders at the irony of a situ
ation. where the wealth of a com
munity, the oil and gas in the ground,
the resources that supported the
school itself, explode to confound
men. There must have been care
lessness. somewhere, one thinks, rag
ing that there is ever carelessness
where children's lives are concerned.
But, ILsten. Childrenn starved in
Germany from 1914 to 1918. and then
they starved for months more, after
the war was over, after the armistice
was signed, with ships blockading the
ports through which food might have
come to them. Mothers tried to find
some new way of cooking the watery
turnips, some new way of dressing
the kraut. Fathers pushed the tiny
pat of butter across the table. Let
the kids have it, they said. Sac
charin in the pudding: carrots in
the marmalade; "ersatz.”
In Vienna the hospital wards were
crowded with pallid, coughing chil
dren. "Tuberculosis . . . undernourish
ment." Mothers brought their children
to perfect strangers. "Are you going
to England? Are you going to
Denmark? Could you take her
with you? Perhaps somebody there,
where there is food, would keep her
for a while." They crowded the trains
with children, and sent them away,
far from home, to the houses of
strangers, who spoke another tongue,
just that their legs might not shrivel,
and their bellied bloat and their heads
hang limp on their necks with rickets.
In our times.
NO OfflER BEER
IS MADE LIKE THIS!
~ fk
■^■It is a common belief that most beers are "pretty much
alike.” But that is only a belief. NO OTHER BEER can
give you the special, distinctive flavor that is part of the
character of Free State Beer! And remember, Free State
is the beer that is Aged UNIFORMLY Always—regard
less of season! Free State Brewery Corp., Baltimore.
REINER DISTRIBUTING CO., INC. (Distributor) West 2929-2930, 1073 31st St. N.W.
7 unt In! Cordon Hittonmark—'The Man In The Street”—W RC—T aoeday and Thuroday, 7 i4S P.M.
CJ“HE opinions of the writers on this page are their own, not
necessarily The Star’s. Sitch opinions are presented in
The Star’s effort to give all sides of Questions of interest to Us
readers, although such opinions may be contradictory among
themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s.
Children and Tragedies
Texas Toll Was an Accident, but Men Now Brew
"Accident” of War.
Today, for the sake of the “na
tional honor,” mothers again dole out
the jam or the margarine. Cannons
instead of butter, says Gen. Goering.
Go slow on fats, go slow on sugar,
bacon is a luxury, citrus fruits are
unpatriotic. Eat more rhubarb—when
there is rhubarb.
Purposeful Tragedy.
Children blown to bits. It was an
accident, perhaps an accident, plus
carelessness, plus human error. But
an accident. Nobody did it on pur
pose. in Spain they are blowing
children to bits, day in, day out, not
from carelessness. On purpose. A
bomb from an Italian airplane—or
from a Russian—drops in the street.
A little black-eyed boy, creeping along
the wall, sent on a quick errand for
a loaf of bread, lives half a second
of horror. Perhaps his mother finds
what is left of him later. A bomb
crashes through a roof, into a room
ful of sleeping children, and there
is a lurid flare where a house and
its occupants stood. In Spain, now.
Newspaper correspondents come
home from Europe. "There is no im
mediate danger of war,” they say
wisely. One hundred thousand Italians
in Spain, 20,000 French, a few British,
some hundreds of Russians, with
planes, with tanks. Thousands of
Germans. A terrific civil war, an
international war. There is no im
mediate danger, they assure us, that
half the world or all the world will
not be the same.
People debate ideologies. Are you
for order with Franco or for free
dom. Democracy and the rights of
workers with the Loyalists? For the
sake of order let us make a shambles.
For the sake of the workers let us
blow up other workers’ children.
There must be no intervention. So.
Mussolini, you guard the seas most
open to you—and under that guard
send in another 10, another 20,000
troops. Eat margarine and eschew
butter in Germany and starve your
own child to bring order into Spain.
And, by all means, let us raise a
few battalions in this country. Join
a league against war and fascism and
espouse war, if it's only a civil war.
Civil wars have some sort of special
holiness.
At the battle of Cold Harbor, in our
own Civil War, they killed 10.000 men
in 20 minutes. Men? Hundreds of
i them were 16 and 17-year-old boys.
Children, according to the child labor
amendment.
Get your rights, workers! Occupy
the factories: barricade the doors;
defy the law! Economic freedom!
Join the epidemic. This way lies the
new heaven and the new earth. Or:
Law' and order must be maintained!
Don’t compromise! Vigilantes, arm
yourselves! For the defense of the
home. If the law fails, lynch!
Hundreds of children w ere lulled in
the great blast. Killed by a freak.
Killed by an accident, by forces out
of the bowels of the earth. Had they
lived, only think, they might have
been blown to bits for an ideology.
(Copyright, 1937.)
This Changing World
Armed Protection for Whom, and How, Is Latest
Talk in Critical Europe.
Headline Folk
and What
They Do
Labor History Is Made
by Judge G. A. Welsh
of Philadelphia.
BY LEMUEL F. PARTOV.
A FEDERAL Judge issues an
order restraining owners from
attempting to oust sit-down
ers. Thus ruling, bv Judge
George A. Welsh of Philadelphia, in
the hosiery strike, is noted in the news
as “unique in labor history.” Counsel
for the strikers argued the worker's
Judge Welsh.
property right'
in his job, al
though the court
order is not re
garded as estab
lishing this right.
The judge indi
cated that his de
cision was made
"to avoid blood
shed."
Judge Welsh is
a Republican, ap
pointed United
States judge for
the Eastern Dis
trict of Pennsyl
vania by Presi
dent Hoover in May, 1932, He resigned
from Congress to accept the appoint
ment, having been a member of the
House from Pennsylvania since 1922.
He was secretary to the Mayor of
Philadelphia from 1904 to 1906, later
assistant city solicitor and a member
of the law firm of Welsh and Bluett.
He was a member of the Philadel
phia Board of Education for 11 years,
and has been since 1914 a director and
secretary of Temple University, from
which he was graduated in law. Ha
is a genial “mixer," a prominent mem
ber of several fraternal organizations
and has been looked upon in Philadel
phia as a man w ho would find political
advancement.
Judge Welsh Is 58 years old. a native
of Bay View, Cecil County, Md.
There are 168 sit-downers in the
plant of the Rosedale knitting mills.
The court order relieves them from
appearing in court, in answer to sub
poenas, and protects them from con
tempt of court for such refusal to
answer. The unique “ex parte’’ pro
ceeding will continue on the petition
of the workers, seeking a judicial de
termination of the “rights of both
parties.”
Gov. Allred’s commission of Inquiry
begins Its Investigation of the Texas
school holocaust. Varied explanations
are offered.
The first, backed by authority in
the field of explosives, is that of Dr.
E P. Schoch. professor of physics
and chemistry of the University of
Texas. He believes the blast was
caused by gas. issuing from vents in
the wall', which filled the interstices
of the hollow tile walls.
The inquiry following the Iroquois
fire in Chicago, on December 27, 1903,
in w-hich 598 persons lost their lives,
many of them children, stretched over
two years. Dr. Schoch doubtless will
be much in the news. Conflicting
explanations already are being offered.
Dr. Schoch is an aloof scientist,
rarely in the news, a former president
of the Academy of Science, and
fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science,
(Copyright. 1937.)
BY CONSTANTINE BROWN.
WHILE Europe's dictators are proceeding methodically with their
plans lor a ‘'settlement" of the outstanding world problems In
the course of this year, the great democracies are arguing back
and forth as to when, how and if their various military and
political understandings could come Into force.
The greatest argignent is going on right now in Great Britain.
There is a more or less general agreement that Prance and Belgium
must be aided automatically if they become the victims of an aggression.
THE EAST
The general approval given t®
such a support is based on two
facts—Great Britain cannot afford
to have these two countries de
feated by any nation and the
chances of Germany or Italy start
ing an unprovoked attack against
the French is extremely remote.
But when it comes to Eastern
Europe, the public opinion in
Great Britain is divided, with a
large majority of the people, cabi
net officers and parliamentarians strongly in favor of keeping out of
trouble.
Why should the ipight of the British Empire be put to test for
Czechoslovakia and Austria, countries which have "more frontiers than
territories?"
The problem is not as simple as all that, however. The French
government is tied up to Russia and Czechoslovakia by definite mili
tary agreements providing assistance in case of an aggression from
outside. If the French were to rive up to these agreements, and thus
lay themselves open to a German or Italian attack, would Britain's
promise to assist France still work? On this subject there is a pro
tracted controversy in London. Some say yes and some say no.
What the attitude of the government iBill be, nobody can quite say
at present.
The only thing known is that when last August the French
government asked the British whether if she were attacked by either
Germany or Italy as a result of helping the legal government in Spain
the British government would honor its pledge, the answ'er was no. This
was disclosed some time ago by the French foreign secretary, Yvon
Delbos, at the League’s assembly. It is possible that the same answer
might be given France if she wanted to assist Czechoslovakia or the
U, S S. R.
Mussolini was beaming when he traveled over the "blockade road,”
the new 850-nnle asphalt highway which his proconsul In Libia, Marshal
Italo Balbo, constructed in the last 18 months
The new road wlis begun in October, 1935, the day the League of
Nations decided to enforce a blockade on Italy because of her aggression
against Ethiopia. There have been sections built before, but the entire
■work had to be done over again. Despite climatic handicaps and the
difficulties of bringing into the country the necessary construction material,
Balbo managed to finish the work in time for Mussolini to open it last week.
There is a political significance attached to this new highway.
It begins at the borders of Tunis—a French protectorate coveted by
Mussolini—and ends at the confines of Egypt. It represents to many
political observers the link between the countries under the British
and the French flag which Mussolini would like to add to the jewels
of the crown of Italy, as he has recently added Ethiopia. It is a
great dream the Italian dictator is having, difficult to realize, under
the present set-up. But what will happen later no prophet can
foretell.
The protocol department of the British foreign office is having
trouble, not only because of the difficulties encountered w'hen Selassie
was invited to the coronation festivities, but because it does not know
where to find adequate living quar
ters for the distinguished guests.
The protocol officials have passed
the buck on to the home office, but
that makes matters worse.
They go on inviting all who
are included in the official list.
One of the invited guests, the
Shah of Zamban, accepted with
alacrity the kind invitation of the
British government and added that
he will be delighted to come. He
sent in his list of attendants which contains, among other members of his
staff, two cooks for every day in the week and 50 bodyguards who, he
insists, must be sheltered under the same roof as himself.
* * * *
The Committee on Non-Intervention in the Spanish civil war. which
was set up a fewr months ago in London, is having other troubles besides
I the political ones.
The cost of keeping hands off Spain has been distributed among the
various participating countries represented in that committee. The Ger
man government was invited to pony-up 135,000 pounds (about $700.0001
for the cost of supervising the neutrality agreement. The German gov
ernment was astonished at this waste of money and offered to pay $10,000
j cash, in foreign currency, and the balance either in blocked marks or in
manufactured products.
IRIUM HELPS MIIUONS
FIGHT DULL.DINGY TEETH!
PEPSODENT alone of tooth powders contains IRIUM, thrilling
new discovery for safely restoring luster to teeth!
To„*Po«de M I
bec^se , no1
FCoS-"OCT"-' "Safe!
secmj*®L
i lee* float _Thorough*
\ becwse °! SS m°°"'
Irium Wins Back Lost Sparkle!
“It’s like seeing a dull cloud lift and
the sun shining through again!”. . .
that’s how millions feel after their first
experience with Pepsodent Powder
containing IRIUM.
So amazingly effective is irium that
it restores to teeth the natural, lovely
brilliance many thought lost forever!
And Pepsodent alone of tooth powders
contains this totally new kind of foam
ing ingredient—irium—which loosens
glue-like film on teeth... then floats it
away like magic! And unlike soap in
many dentifrices, IRIUM does not com
bine with saliva in your mouth to form
new deposits of film and tartar.
That’s why teeth look brighter, feel
clean so much longer after using
Pepsodent Powder. •
Yet Pepsodent Powder is safe, be
cause it contains no grit.no pumice.
And it’s so refreshing that a wholesome
tingle rejuvenates your mouth, your
sense of taste, with every brushing.
Try Pepsodent Powder containing
USE PEPSODENI POWDER! ...it alone
contains IRIUM—for thrilling luster on teeth!
irium. See how it shows up any
other tooth powder you ever used—
bar none!
Proof is that people have already
bought nearly 10,000,000 cans! So try it!
Let it help you. too, wage a successful
fight against dull, dingy teeth!
All Pepsodenl
now on salt
contains IRUJN