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Entered at the Postoffice at Raleigh. North Carolina as Second Class Today's Bible Thought GOOD FOR DISORDERED NERVES: And the work of righteousness shall be and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance 32:17. Morning Tonic (Andrew Carnegie.) We in this country in our republic day are striving against the many evils of human society, which is very far indeed from being yet perfect, but let us never fall to remember it is always steadily improving. Progress, though slow, is continuous and sure, for we know well now that man was destined to march forward to improved conditions as a law of his being. The greatest of the recent discoveries is that man, instead of being created perfect, but predestined to fall, has been slowly developed from the lower orders of life, and is destined always to ascent in the march to perfection, upward and onward.
Uncle Walt Mason It you could make life grand and sweet, and harbor peace beneath your fez, then don't endeavor to repeat the clever things your Willie says. Whenever I go out of doors to shoo the wolf and chase it hence, I meet some forty thousand bores, who push me up against the fence; they stand around in frenzied rings, paw me till I'm nearly dead, and tell me all the clever things their little ten-cent Willies said. And all this joyous dope that racks my breast and rids my soul of joy, was culled from ancient almanacs, was known to Adam when a boy. If you persist in making known your little Willie's palsied jokes, full soon, my friend, you'll walk alone, abhorred and shunned by soulful folks. As you go gurgling on your path to spring your little Willie talks, you'll see men climbing trees in wrath, and crawling underneath the walks.
The little Willies of this land have, through their parents, caused much woe. The time has come to take a stand and lay the Willie peril low. So when, to tell a Willie tale, there comes some fond and foolish dub, just say: "Your efforts won't avail--I've joined the anti-Willie-club." Distant Wrong "Nations, like individuals, are inclined to be overly self righteous," Carl Sandburg, Lincoln biographer is said to have told President Roosevelt the other day during comment on official American indignation over Russia's invasion of Finland. The writer recalled the fact that Abraham Lincoln lost his seat in Congress once because he opposed an altogether imperialistic war against Mexico. There were other occasions in our history-some in our dealings with other neighbors to the South-in which the United States has failed by a considerable margin to exemplify all the virtues of justice and disinterestedness.
We are outraged, of course, at the merciless bombing and machine gun strafing of Finnish civilians by Russia's powerful air force. Probably it is vain to speculate on such a theme, but what might have happened to the South if Sherman had been equipped with the modern engines of war? Certainly, considering some of the needless destruction that was executed on the theory that "war is hell." it is at least logical to suggest that its hellishness, three quarters of a century ago, might have been even more devastating if it had been equipped with wings and loaded with high powered bombs. Distant outrage stirs our indignation. There is in the American reaction-a normal and entirely civilized reaction something vastly deeper than mere friendliness for a little nation that has won our respect because it honored its obligations when stronger and wealthier powers set a precedent for repudiation, But at least some of the new stirring of conscience might be reserved for problems closer home. Is it, for example, barely possible that in this big-hearted, sympathetic country, this bulwark of the democratic ideal, the strong never oppress the weak, that there is always equal justice for the wealthy and for the poor? Is it possible that the powerful and the selfish are never permitted the ex-' ercise of special privileges which are denied the weak and the humble? THE NEWS AND OBSERVER, RALEIGH, N.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 6. 1939. "We believe," says Chrysler Presiident W. T. Keller of the recent labor dispute in the big automobile works, "the settlement should have been made without 1 loss of a single day's pay or a single sale." More and more both workers and employers must seek a system which provides for such settlement of differences without loss to either of them which means loss to many more than both of them.
In this particular case it may be true, as Mr. Keller says, that the dispute was "one of the most baffling and unjustified strikes in the history of American industry. On the other hand, it may be true, as C. I. O.
officials say, that "it was unfortunate that the corporation's concessions not forthcoming two months ago. The lock-out and the strike might thus have been averted." The certain fact beyond these partisan statements is that Chrysler lost millions in sales and the Chrysler employes lost their wages during the fifty-six days of the strike. Those losses were reflected in losses all over the country as well as in grocery stores in Detroit. The aim of industry and laborand of the public which is more important than either of them--should be a system of industrial justice which should make possible the settlement of all disputes without the loss of sales or wages. Workers and employers both have rights which should always be preserved.
But the strike or lock-out is always a substitute for reason in industry. All concerned would be better off under a system which substituted order and fairness for angry contention which puts a stop to the production of both men and machines. Loss To Everybody Firewater Meeting in Rochester last week New York State's "Six Nations" close a two-day powpow with a demand that the Federal government repeal a 117-year-old prohibition on sale of liquor to the Indians. The delegates passed a resolution proposed by Nicodemus Bailey of the Tonawanda Reservation, who declared that drinking, while evil, was a matter of "personal choice," and deplored the "race discrimination" involved in the ban. The prohibition, of course, goes back to the time when firewater increased the danger of Indian uprising in an America which still feared the tomahawk.
But times have changed since. Public safety is still important, but the palefare, loaded with firewarter in a modern automobile, is a greater menace to Americans than any Indians on the warpath. The Indians are not doing the massacreing these day. Still Wrong In a story about Secretary of State Thad Eure's protest against the misspelling of his name, The New York Times listed the 17 incorrect ways Mr. Eure has found his name spelled.
Below them, The Times quotes Mr. Eure on the correct way to spell it and, for the information of all its big circulation, spelled it wrong again: U-U-R-E. As in the case with some other corrections, more people know how to misspell his name now than ever did before. Mediocrity A survey by the American Magazine covering 300 top flight executives and hundreds of the country's leading personnel managers leads that journal to the estimate than 2,000,000 more men will be hired by American business in 1940. "Business," says the magazine, "is definitely in the market for really competent men and women and the number of opportunities is far greater than commonly believed.
The incompetent and the mediocre are the ones who are unable to place themselves." That is both a reassuring and an alarming statement. The disturbing factor is further emphasized by this summary of the opinions of personnel managers: 1. Thousands of openings require no experience; the growth of a promoting-fromwithin policy in American business means plenty of openings at the bottom for competent young people who like to climb. 2. Hundreds of business firms actually have jobs which they have been unable to fill because of inability to find employes with the desired qualifications.
3. There is a pressing demand for mechanics. (This backs up the view of William S. Knudsen, president of General Motors who recently wrote in The American Magazine that "even with all our unemployment the top-rank skilled mechanic is still the most sought-after and independent man you can The implication here is clear enough. There is a suggestion that the complexities and the speed of modern business and living require a higher level of competency than the training processes of simpler, slower days provided.
There is a lag between demand and competency. And if, as the American analysis suggests, this is a considerable factor in unemployment totals, the future, in spite of the promise of 1940 reemployment, is anything but comforting. Actually, men and women less than safely or profitably competent may represent an economic burden as real and as pressing as if they, for some physical handicap, were utterly unemployable. An American Reporter in Germany By WILLIAM L. WHITE.
Berlin-(By Mail)--This town is for the present adequately fed, and I have no use for the three kilos of butter and sweet chocolate which I brought in from Italy, and still less for the vitamin pills. The people in the streets seem fat, pink and healthy. But they are not overfed. The food tickets, which are doled out weekly to residents of hotels, allow each person 500 grams of meat a week. When you know that a fairly good sized pork chop weighs 100 grams, and also that Germany has two meatless days a week (Monday and Friday) when no one is permitted to buy or serve it, this would seem to allow only five meat meals a week.
But remember that fish and fowl are not considered meat and are not rationed, and you may buy and eat them in unlimited quantities. Bread is also rationed, and yet I defy any one to eat the entire amount to which he is entitled every week. Most Germans have at least quarter of their bread cards left over at the end of the week. Although Germany is short on sugar, it is not directly rationed except that hotels may buy only limited quantities and sometimes the sugar bowl is empty by the end of the day. Still more curiously, you need no cards to buy the rich coffee-cake and pastry of which Germans are so fond, and which seem heavy with sugar, eggs and fat.
You may eat all you can buy. Butter is another matter. Rations are very skimpy and I have divided my supply so that I get two small curls of iteach about as big as your thumbnail--on my breakfast tray to spread on my roll. In this way my butter cards just come out even at the end of the week. And you may have one egg a week.
But vegetables, potatoes, fish, wines, beer and many other sundries are not rationed at all and you may get them in unlimited quantities if you have the money. But how many people have, outside those who can afford to live at the better hotels? How often can a worker whose gold salary is $16 per week afford chicken? Can he afford to buy his limit of the rationed butter when it costs seventy cents pound? The answer is that, of course, he can't, so many German families get along on no butter at all, and can afford meat only once a week although they would be allowed to have it five times. The rationing system, of course, helps to keep down prices. Without it, a rich man might eat meat fourteen times a week. But since he is only allowed a hundred grams (the equivalent of a pork chop) five times a week, there remains a surplus which the middle classes are able to buy.
Newspaper men stationed in Berlin receive regularly from the Propaganda Ministry an extra allotment of meat and butter cards. And why not? The German nation chooses to starve itself for the honor and glory of lording it over Czechs, Slovaks and Poles, which is their business. On the other hand the American newspaper men do not have the deep spiritual consolations which come from ruling Poles and feeling superior to Czechs, SO I see no reason why they should not have the right to eat whatever they can pay for--a right which would be theirs if they were stationed in any other country. After all, the American newspaper men didn't start this war, and there is no reason why they should be punished because they are working here. There is also every reason why, if they are living on a special diet, they should not write glowing stories about how well fed the German people are.
For this reason I have been living on the regular German diet, so I can report that the average German, if he has money, is decently and most adequately fed, and the restrictions are only a minor nuisance. From the looks of the people and the stores about me, and from general reports on German food reserves (supposedly much greater than they were in the last war) I should say that the blockade will not seriously affect the nutrition of these people for at least two years, and would guess that the pinch will come in such war supplies as rubber, oil and minerals far sooner than it will be felt in food. I saw what they were eating when the 1918 armistice was signed, a diet of sawdust bread, cabbage, and a few potatoes, and I know what they can live and fight on if they want to. How long they will want to is, of course, a question no one can answer. WOBBLY MORALITY.
Fayetteville Observer. It is a pretty wobbly sort of morality that stops at a county line. Officials of Mecklenburg County, which is either too virtuous to sell whiskey to its own folks--or too deeply in the political clutches of its own bootleggers to do so-has just completed the sale of 2,244 pints of seized legal liquor to wet Johnston. It is a circ*mstance reminiscent of our dear good friends, the Massachusetts slave traders, who made fortunes capturing unfortunate Africans and selling them into bondage in the South, and then, as soon as the trade, was broken up, turning abolitionist sending an army down here to shoot us up because we didn't free the slaves they had sold us. Personally, we don't see any more moral wrong in officials of Mecklenburg County selling liquor to people in Charlotte than in selling It to people in Smithfield.
Postscript to the News From Abroad AMERICA, YOU! RUSSIAFINLAND EURO CHINA, plans will work well, at a reasonable cost, to the public. But the evidence is overwhelming that present services do not meet the needs of crowded communities in an industrial age. It is significant, too, that free laboratory devices have been adopted, though originally opposed on the ground that medicine would be ruined. Today 110 physician would go back to the old days when the needy were left find for themselves medically. The issue that will comfort Congress when the Wagner or some other health bill comes up for Congressional consideration has nothing to do with state medicine or socialism.
It is an issue that is concerned entirely with bringing the best medical care at the lowest cost to the millions that need but do not now receive it. The People's Forum POLITICAL CONTROL. To the Editor: December 9 is the date set by our Administration leaders for the American cotton farmers to give their consent to the political control of the American farmers. The government adjustment of acreage is more of a political control of the farmers than a production control for the benefit of the American farmers and public. I don't think it necessary to point out the political benefits of the government adjustments of acreage, for any reasonable thinking persol can find them if he will just view it from a political viewpoint.
Our administration leaders say it is non-partisan. Sure, that is for the purpose of establishing it. Observe the influence of the landowners over the tenants, some even going so far as to tell them how to vote or move. There is a striking similarity in our Administration leaders' system of so-called production control and the English and French method of warfare when summed up in. "Do as I say do or we will perish you to death." That is what I call a cruel democratic rule.
If it was a production control for the benefit of the American farmers and public our Administration leaders are trying to establish they would not have abandoned what they first promised and started out to do in 1934 and 1935. That is a production control through an allotment based on production, giving the landowners and farm operators the privilege of producing and selling their proportionate part of production free of tax but allowing no landowner or farm operator the privilege of selling more than his share of production above the actual cost of production. Such a control properly figured and administered is far more simple, practical and beneficial to the farmers and public than the adjustment of acreage by the government. JOHN A. VAUSE.
Mt. Olive, Route 2. RULE OR BE RULED. To the Editor: "The freest government if it could exist would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and render the great mass of the people dependent and penniless. In such a case the popular power would be likely to break in upon the rights of property, or else the influence of property to limit and control the exercise of popular power.
Universal suffrage, for example, could not long exist. in a community where there was great inequality of property. The holders of estates would be obliged, in such case, in some way to restrain the right of suffrage, or else such right of suffrage would, before long, divide the property. In the nature of things, those who have not property, and see their neighbors possess much more than them to need, cannot be laws made for therabthink the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous it grows clamorous.
It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and revolution." The above is from a speech by Daniel Washington Merry-GoRound Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen diplomatic information from Moscow indicates that the sudden attack on Finland was motivated primarily by the situation in the Balkans -especially Roumania. Secretly, Roumania is a more important Russian objective than Finland. And while le Finland is long way off, and ostensibly there is little connection between them, actually the manner in which Finland had stalled off Moscow was causing loss of prestige in the Balkans. In other words, Roumania was wondering whether Russia really meant business, and whether she in turn couldn't out-maneuver.
Stalin just as Finland seemed to be doing. This loss of prestige was what finally induced Stalin to act, according to ligence reports coming out of Moscow, Apparently, he figured that it was bet. ter to make such a vigorous example of Finland that Roumania and other Balkan objectives would yield without war. One group in the Soviet inner circle wanted to wait until Communist agitation inside Finland was so active that the country could be shaken into the Russian lap like a ripe plum, without a struggle, This policy was being pursued. But Stalin got impatient and that the Balkan program would to be decided, speeded up.
Reason the Swedes, despite neighborly distress, don't do something to help Finland, fear of Germany. Hitler long has had his eyes on Sweden's famous iron mines, and would like nothing better than an excuse to move in on them. The British, as usual, were wrong about Russia. Up until the last minute they were convinced Stalin would not move in on Finland. Our State Department, relying upon British information, thought so, too.
Today's N. C. Poem Spirit of the Press RACKETEER. Miami News. The vices and depravities among men give rise to the underworld of men.
Men want to gamble. They seek various forms of debauch, practice various types of excess, offer pay for the satisfaction of depraved appetites and tastes. A community seeking safety and health for itself must not pander to the worst in men. It must as best it can keep gambling in bounds and prevent as far as possible the spread of all forms of depravity. It makes laws accordingly.
To satisfy their grosser natures men must, accordingly, look outside the law. Thus arise the complex interests and activities of the a world operating outside the law. There are special risks in doing business outside the law. The only protection for such business is that enforced by the gunman or purchased of a perverted politics. Because the business is risky, it is profitable.
Al Capone, hard and reckless operator under the risks of his trade amassed wealth and through his wealth came near establishing himself on the social ladder. The man who made himself the mainstay of the horse race gambling racket was able, by the power of his profits to make himself an outstanding factor in the politics of one of our greatest states. It can be remembered here that some of the most respectable of early New England families owed their start to the bootleg trade in slaves. Now Capone of the bootleg liquor and ensuing rackets, who ruled his Chicago underworld with an organized violence comparable to that of Hitler and his brown-shirt bands, emerges from a long term in prison. His power is broken, his money gone.
Annenberg of the racing racket faces, at the same instant, a corresponding fate. It looks at last as if those termites of our social order, the racketeers, were on the run. Some secret has been found for squelching them. The secret is no secret, and most humiliating to us all it is. In this land dedicated to local self-government no local government, state or municipal, can claim the credit for doing this job.
Chicago, under its Capone and its Annenberg, lay down contently in its own corruption. Only when the federal tax collectors came on the scene were the termites scotched. We have done little of ourselves to turn the termites back. Our national government has served us beyond our deserts. THE REAL MEDICAL ISSUE.
The New York Times. A refreshing note of common sense was hounded in the presidential address of Dr. Edward S. Godfrey, State Health Commissioner of New York, before the American Public Health Association. Concerning governmental standards Dr.
Godfrey said that "it is highly probable that in health department clinics for veneral disaeses better histories are taken, more sources of infection and contacts are examined and treated, more general physical examinations made and better and more continuous treatment given" than in private practice as a whole. Contrary to what some doctors believe we must expect, Dr. Godfrey assures us that "satisfactory relations have been maintained between physician and patient in many government medical services." Nor is there any evidence that non-medical officeholders step into free clinics to tell either patients or doctors how diseases should be treated. It is time to drop loose talk about "state medicine" and "socialized medicine" and to brush aside the false issue of American democracy which has been injected into the case for and against the extension of medical service to the low-income groups of the population. Care must be taken to make sure that new SANCTUARY.
I thank these gods whoever they may be, For these quiet solitudes that are my soul, From these imperial heights from which I see The strifes of men and hear the battle's roll. I thank these gods for these strong pinnacles, These crags upflung in sun and sky and cloud, These verdurous, unconquerable hills Above the sweating tumult of the crowd. And though I come exhausted and alone, Scathed and bleeding from the battle's heat, For this fair fortress, this defensive stone, This sanctuary quiet, this safe retreatAh, I thank these gods! JAMES MILTON HOLMES. Benson. Webster.
The late W. C. Brann, commenting on it in The Iconoclast, says: "We know that here we cannot linger long; that we cannot serve two masters -that we cannot, will not remain both political sovereigns and industrial slaves. We know that we must rule the wealth we have created at the forge and in the field, or be ruled by it with a rod of iron. Men and brethren, which shall it be?" JAS.
H. WRIGHT. Henderson. COMMENDATION FOR SHARPE. To the Editor: Thanks for the item in "Under the Dome" on Monday about Bill Sharpe and my new book, "American Vacations." The columnist didn't say half enough about the good work of friend Sharpe.
If all the States had such up and coming hard working, accurate publicists my life would be a lot harder. The competition would be SO keen there'd be no deciding where to start and where to begin. But Bill wasn't the only Tar Heel to help. I bore down rather heavily on a lot of my friends. Travel writing is an interesting occupation, until you start to read your notes, or until you start writing from memory and get a few facts mixed.
In spite of the fact that I've possibly been in more towns in North Carolina than in any other State in the Union, I had to get Jay Bee Dee, or rather J. B. Dawson of New Bern, to tell me the name of the store across the river where we used to get Coca-Cola-and Pepsi-Cola after a hike across the bridge. I wish the book buyers of the country would show enough interest in American Vacationing for me to take the time to write a whole book about North Carolina, and to come down and go over the whole country again, too. And thanks for the publicity--but Bill's more deserving of a boost than I am.
LARRY NIXON. New York City. 25 Years Ago From the Files of The News and Observer. DECEMBER 6. 1914.
Fritz Kreisler, the world's greatest violinist who went to the front with his Austrian regiment when war began in Europe last Summer, arrives in New York with his American wife. The great violinist was wounded by a Cossack's lance and will be unable to return to the war. He tells of the terrible life of soldiers in the trenches. Mr. J.
M. Broughton, has gone wo Apex to be a debate judge. Inter-office phones, hardwood floors and luxurious rugs make the State Departments Building one of the most attractive office structures in the city. Rube Marquard, the great New York National pitcher, is rumored to have signed with the Brooklyn club in the Federal League. Earnest, economy-minded Henry Morgenthau insists that all members of his Treasury Department use his Coast Guard radio in sending government telegrams.
However, Henry's economy on a recent $3.24 telegram will cost the government just about $2,000,000. All this happened when Roosevelt removed the quotas on sugar, thereby increasing the tariff from 90 cents to $1.50. The announcement was carefully timed fo. late in the afternoon, when all customs offices would be closed, so no one could rush sugar through some formed customs house at the old 90-cent tariff. By next morning, the Treasury figured, all sugar importers and all customs houses would know of the tariff increase, and it would be applied uniformly.
However, Secretary Morgenthau's economy upset this plan. For the telegram from Washington to New York, sent by Coast Guard radio on the afternoon of September 11, did not reach the Customs House in New York until around noon September 12. The Coast Guard now blames naval radio for the delay. The Navy handles all Coast Guard messages, and apparently the Navy didn't think the message urgent, so put a lot of routine naval messages ahead of it. Anyway, the telegram took about 16 hours getting to New York.
Meanwhile the Collector of Customs in New York, having read about the tariff increase in the papers, frantically awaited the telegram. Finally, at about 10:30, he telephoned Washington and had the telegram read to him. However, regulations make toms offices await the receipt of telegraphic orders before raising the tariff, so although the telegram was read over the phone at 10:30. it was not actually received in New York until 12:54 noon September 12. So it was at exactly 12:54 that the tariff was increased from 90 cents to $1.50.
Meanwhile sugar dealers were dumping sugar in New York at the old tariff rate of 90 cents. And they dumped 80 much before 12:54 noon that the ernment lost around $2,000,000. If you don't see much of Frank Mur. phy these days the reason is that he doing a lot of behind-the-scenes digging 1 to bring about a labor peace. Both he and Roosevelt are desperately anxious to put this across before Frank goes up on the Supreme Court.
Movie Star Melvyn Douglas, garnered more fans in the White when President and Mrs. Roosevelt gave a dinner for him. At a New Deal luncheon also he met almost the entire Inner CircleIckes, Murphy, Tom Corcoran, Ben Cohen, Aubrey Williams, Lowell Mellett, Leon Henderson. All, incidentally, were invited to Hollywood. accepted.
Henry Wallace, acting as Santa Claus, with Milo Perkins as Santa Claus' helper, are planning a Christmas package to the cotton industry. It will new Stamp Plan for disposal of cotton goods to low-income families. Much pleased with the success of the Stamp Plan for disposal of surplus foods, Wallace directed Perkins, who runs the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation, to explore the possibility of doing the same thing with cotton goods. Perkins has had several conferences with business groups, and is almost ready to move. The plan calls for distribution to relief families of stamps, which will be accepted as cash in retail stores for purchase of heavy cotton goods such as mattresses, blankets, sheets, towels, overalls and piece goods.
Wallace is hoping to blot from American life the bitter US version of The Man With the Hoe--the poor farmer in patched overalls and threadbare shirt working in a field to increase the surplus of the cotton crop whose products he cannot afford to buy..
