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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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