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The

Nation

O U N D W T

1 R f i 5

VOl. CXLI

NEW

YORK, WEDNESDAY,

SEPTEMBER

18 1935

~~

No. 66

Contents

EDITORIALARAGRAPHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

EDITORIALS:

Geneva Stands Firm . . . . . . . . . 12

The President Completes t i e Recorh

. . . . . . . . .

13

National Defense and Thouaht . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

awrord

III.

THE A~XERI:

COLONY: B Y Maxwell S. Stewari

rood Krutch

. . . . . .

:NCE . . . . . . . . . . .

S TOTHIS ISSUE

Id Broun

B y

H.

L Mitcdellhd J R

Butler .

On the Alabama frodt. B hdertJackson . . . . . . . .

314

315

316

319

320

323

324

326

326

328

328

329

BOOKS.

An Interview with Paul ValCry. By Dorothy Dudley 3 1

Aittle Freedom Pleasel By Alexander Crosby . 3 3 2

The

World

of Hdrst Wessel.

By Edgar AnselMowier

. . . 3 3 4

Another, Secret Germanv

Bv T n r l v ; ~ q Lore

.

.

Euripides in Harlem. By Phll ip Blair Rlce 336

. 335

. . . . . . .

~ ~~~

BOARD OF EDITORS

PREDA KIRCHWEY

RAYMOND GRAM SWING

JOSEPH

W O O D

KRUTCH

AS5OCIATE

EDITORS

MARGARET

MARSHALL MAXWELL s STEWART

DOROTHY

VAN

DOREN

OSWALD

G A R R ISO N

VILLARD

CONTRIBUTINGDITOR

SUBSCRIPTION

RATES-DOMESTIC: on; Year 5;

TWO

Years ?

Three Years

ll.

CANADIAN. 50 cents year additional. FOREIGN.

1

a year addltional. T HREEWEEKSOTICE AND THE OLD

OF

SUBSCRIBERSADDRESS.

ADDRESS AS WELL AS THE

NEW

ARE REQUIRED

FOR

CHANGE

THE

NATION. Published weekly at 20 Vesey

St.,New Pork. Entered

as

second

class matter December 13 . 1697, at the

Post Office atNew York.

N. Y.. andnder the Act of March 3 1579

Copyrlght, 1935,

b y

the

Nation; Inc.

Muriel C. Gray, Advertising Manager. Walter

F.

Gyuenlnger, Circulation

Manager. Cable Address: Nation. New York.

~~ ~

T

HE ASSASSINATION

of SenatorHueyLongwill

immediately arouse sympathy for his memory that could

notbe felt orhimwhile he lived. Politicalmurder is a

vile crime, and

w e

share he egret and shame felt by the

country that he was defeated by a bullet and not in an open

political contest. W e also give him he credit he earned

for pushing through eforms inLouisiana, implifying an

antiquated state machinery, redistributing the burden of tax-

ation, andstimulating he nterest n education. Nor shall

we question

that

his championship

of

the poor was

as

sin-

cere as nythingn his equipment of distorted passions.

Givinghim every advantage of sympathetic consideration

does nothowever raise him to thestatus of martyr. Hue y

Long

was

Americas first dictator. His was a little dic-

tatorship in domain, but it was grim and vengeful

in

spirit,

and it wasa sensational challenge to democracy. Having

set up a regime of fear he had to live in it and went about

chis home state, and even his country, closely guarded o

avert he disaster which now has overtaken him. T o those

unfamiliar with LGuisiana the deed may appear on

a

par

with he assassination of otherpolitical figures, of which

there have been many in our history. But twas not the

same.

His

murder appears to have been a deliberately po-

litical act, one

of

the very few in ts category in American

experience. Thuswe havehad a laboratorydemonstration

of

a

dictatorship -of its good intentions, of itsmmoral

practices, and now of its vioIent ending.

IS CHARACTERISTIC

of

dictatorships that

L o n g

1 should not have left

a

political heir to whom Louisiana

can

loolr t o

maintain orderly government. H e did not invite

the close collaboration of gifted men, andhe reated

his

subordinates with amixture

of

vulgar yrannyandcordial

comradeihip. There was no crownprince; so now here

wil l be dozens of claimants. Whether

t h e

Long machine

will

breakup without violence only timewill tell, but hat t

will collapse appears ertain.Louisianawould be happier

if this promised the coming to power

of

a competent oppo-

sition. It does not. The anti-Longorcesreorrupt,

anti-social, andhalf paralyzed. We re thisnot so, Long, of

course, never could nave risen

t

the heights he occupied,

His deathundoubtedly means troubled times in Louisiana.

Nationally,owever,he poIitical situations simplified.

Now therewill

be no

formidable hird-partymovement in

the South threatening to wreck the Democratic Party. Wi th

the death of Long the field

of

demagoguery is left to Father

Coughlin, of whom one need be much

less

afraid.

CONSUMERS RESEARCH, refuke

of

theultimate

consumer, is the last source

from

which we should have

expected laborrouble. YetWashington,

New

Jersex,

where the plant is now situated, is the scene of a strike and

a ockout complete wi th

all

the rimmings, ncluding a yel-

low-dogcontract,a arge picket line, sheriffs deputies,

and

charges of agitation. The immediate issue

is

the dis

charge

of

three employees all

of

whom

had apparently been

in high favor with Mr. Schlink and his fellow-members of

the board of directors until they became active in the union,

Local 20055

of

the Technical, Editorial, and Office Assist-

ants Union, affiliatedwith the A. F. of

L.

The union does

notquestion the technical righ tof Consumers Research

t o

fire its employees at ,will-the yellow-dog provision takes

care

of

that. T h e principal object of the strike is to reduce

the abor urnover. The strikers

point

out hat he privi-

lege to discharge a t wil l in thefirst six months of employ-

ment has

been

exercised

s

liberally thatheum-

ber of employees who have left Consumers Research during

the last two years exceeds

the

number of its present staff, and

thatonly six

of

those originally

on

the

staff

when heor-

ganization moved to Washingtonnow remain. Theyare

also demandifig einstatement of the hree dischargedmen,

recognition of the union, and aminimumwage of 15 a

week. The paradox of laborroublen Consumed Re-

search goes back to anothermoreundamental aradox:

the success of the organization, both financially and as a so-

cial force,

is

dependent upon the mass support

of

consumers,

yet it has consistently ailed to cooperate withother COR-

sumers groupsand has steadily moved in the direction

of

autocratic control, which is not usually concerned with em-

ployees rights. The strikers

look

forward o a ong siege.

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September

18,

193.51 .

The

Nation 311

holdings.

So

also did Pam and Hurd, though s counsel

of th bank they received no fee. Now both these firms are

appearingorrockholders ontestingheiriability. The

RFC so far has collected some $25,000

of

the twice

14,-

000,000 to which i t has been assured it has a egal claim.

The lesson here demonstrated is that opinions

of

law follo&

the fee, no matterhow eminent the lawyer. But this does

notexhaust he parable. John A. Lynch, vice-president of

the bank and signer of the application for the loan, certified

that the banks assets were suEcient to repay the government

loan.

NOW

e is uing to prevent ny epayment

of

the

$50,000,000 on the ground that it

was

disbursed in violation

of the R F C act. Th e moralhere is that he government,

in bailing out abank, oughtnot o expect repayment

as

a

matter of ethics. Bankers should be rescued and

t he

tax-

payers should foot the bill.

N

EG OT IAT IO NS or tariff reciprocity between the

United States and Canada have made little progress,

if we are to judge by the correspondence between Secretary

Hul l and

W. D.

Herridge, Canadian minister a t Washing-

ton,

recentlymadepublic by theStateDepartment.Al-

thoughheCanadian government is

known

to have ap-

proached theAdministration n heearly days

of

March,

1933 - with

a

proposal to nstitute mmediate negotiations,

formal diplomatic discussions appear to ,have begun only

about

a

month ago. T h e delay is the moreunaccountable

in view of the

fact

tha t the Administrations tarif-bargain-

ing program stands or fall s on its ability to obtain an agree-

mentwithour neighbor to he north.

As

the chief source

of American mportsand, next to Great Britain,our best

customer,Canada occupies a more important place inour

trade than the whole of South America, Africa, and Oceania

combined. The difficulties involved ineaching n agree-

ement are admittedly serious. Canada is particularly nter-

ested in indingmarkets for itswheat , timber, copper, cat-

tle, dairy products, and coal-all of which compete to a cer-

tain extent with American products. The concessions which

it may offer in exchange for possible Americangrants are

limited by the Ot tawa agreements. Nevertheless, Mr. Her-

ridges letter, written last November, indicates a substantial

basis formutual concessions. If theAdministration ad

been sincere n ts efforts o break down existing rade bar-

riers, it would have taken the Canadian proposal

as

ground

for immediate discussion andttemptedoringbout

further mutua l tariff reductions.

E

H E A R T I L Y WELCOME thenews thatCali-

fornia is to have a genuinely liberal newspaper, spon-

sored by a committee of prominentSanFranciscocitizens

and backed by a number of the leading labor unions. There

is no state in theunion where he forces

of

reaction are

more deeply intrenched, and none where the progressive

ele-

ment

is

more desperately n need of courageous and sane

leadership.California is

in

a sense aprovingground for

fascism in theUnited States. If the irresponsible vigilante

movement can be checked there, he ntire ountrywill

breathe easier. If, on the ther and,he influence of

Hearst and his allies should go unchallenged, there would be

serious danger that fascism would sweep like a plague over

thecountry. For this reason we hail paper tha t promises

to oppose vigorously all restrictions on civil liberty,and to

stand unflinchingly fo r union labor, adequate unemployment

insurance, public ownership of utilities, and complete aca-

demic freedom. Under competenteditorship uch a

paper

can do much to crystallize he vague liberalsentiment re-

flected in Sinclairs 800,000 votes into a powerful, intelligent

radical movement capable of placing Cali fornia once mere

in the ranks of the progressive states.

S

ME

YEARS AGO Messrs.Mencken nd Nathan

devised a scale by means

of

which the seeker after self-

knowledgecouldmeasure the closeness of his approach o

the ideal

of

100 per cent Americanism. If,

for

example, he

believed all Germans-this was just after he war-liked

to skewer babies, he g o t five points ; f he took cheese with

apple pie, he got two more, and

so

on.

Now,

without ac-

knowledgment and with all the seriousness of which a mental

tester is capable, a professor at WashingtonUniversity has

just presented o

t h e

American Psychological Association a

similar method for asserting how conservative

or

how rad-

icalany ndividualshouldbe called. According o he ac-

count in theNewYork T ime s thereareseveralhundred

questions, bout the few hat are cited seem sufficient to give

the idea.

If

you assent

to

the proposition, Alimony for

divorced husbands is as logical as alimony for divorced

wives, you areverging oward he pink. If, on the other

hand, you agree that it is bad foramarriedman to take

another

mans

wije o he movies, you are ust hat ar

qualified for membership

in

theLiberty League. Th er e is

no suggestion of what it should be taken to indicate if the

subject says in both cases, Well,t ll depends. Per-

haps he should be rated Normally Intelligent.8

6

E HAVE

NO

RIGHTS which nyone need re-

spect. These words,which we quote rom he

article n he present issueby H. L. Mitchelland J.

R.

Butler, indicatebetter than whole volumes of statistics the

desperate ondition of the Souhern share-cropper. I n the

past eighteenmonths the New Deal, n he orm of the

acreage-reduction program, has come to he plantation, only

to intrench the landlord and reduce he hare-cropper,

in

many instances, to thestatus of day laborer.Appeals o

Washington have been worse than useless, forakhough

a

genuine nvestigation was* ecured, thus aising hopes or

redress, the report of that investigation was suppressed and

it was one factor n hesensationalpurge

of

the A A A in

the course of which any friends the share-cropper might have

counted

on

were summarily dismissed. But he

New

Deal

has had one good effect. I t has taught the share-cropper the

necessity of cooperation with his fellow-sufferers, both black

andwhite,and t has established on a. firm basis such or-

ganizations as the Southern Ten an t Farmers

Union

which

centers mainly in eastern Arkansas, and the Share-Croppers

Union n Alabama. Th eTenant FarmersUnion,

by

an

overwhelming

vote,

has decided to strike f o r the pitiful wage

of 1

a

hundredpounds or picking cotton. T h e terror,

official and unofficial, which they

may

confidently expect ,to

meet with is all too well revealed in the report from Ala-

bama (which also appears n his ssue), where members of

theShare-Croppers Union are already on strike.

It

hardIy

needs to be added that any contribution, from one dollar up,

will be joyfully received. T h e a t i on will be glad to for-

ward such contributions to the organization designated.

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