A Corn Belt Conversion

August 15, 1928

GOVERNOR SMITH and Mr. George Nelson Peek have talked things over; as a consequence the candidate has reiterated his intention, if elected, to give immediate attention to the farmer, and Mr. Peek has announced that that suits him.

This is politically important, since Mr. Peek is one of the authors of the McNary-Haugen Bill and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the North Central States' Agricultural Conference. Mr. Peek acknowledges that at the moment he is speaking for only one voter— himself. Nevertheless Peek is a power. He has been called the Wayne Wheeler of farm relief. Neither man had recognized political standing, but both their whips and Congress cracked jumped. It was Peek's committee which twice drove the McNary-Haugen Bill as far as President Coolidge.

Governor Smith said:

"Control of the sale of agricultural surplus is recognized by our platform as an essential need, its cost to be imposed on the unit to be benefited. That principle is fixed by our platform, on which I stand-only the detail of its accomplishment remains.

"As I have said, I shall immediately, if I am elected, ask the best farm leaders and economists to work out this detail with me. Republicans like Governor Lowden, as well as Democrats who have studied this problem, will be called upon for this patriotic service."

Mr. Peek said:

"I feel certain that he has a clear and correct understanding of the farm problem and that he will solve it with intellectual honesty if he is elected President. ... I shall support his candidacy for President."

End of the Equalization Fee "CAN your statement be construed as indorsement of the equalization fee?" interviewers asked Governor Smith.

"My views are summed up in an editorial in this morning's 'World,'" he replied. He read the significant passage

"We take it that Governor Smith's declaration comes down to this:

"(a) That the Democratic Party is committed to the principle of controlling the sale of agricultural surpluses, the cost to be borne by the group benefited.

"(b) That the plan for applying this principle contained in the McNaryHaugen Bill is not acceptable to him. "(c) That he has no plan of his own for carrying out that principle. "(d) That he promises after election to work out such a plan."

Thus both candidates as well as the President are on record as opposed to the equalization fee of the McNary-Haugen Bill. Mr. Peek said that he was still

pleased with the candidate's position. The equalization fee seems to be out of the campaign.

The Price of Loyalty

IN declaring his support of Governor Smith, Senator Harris, of Georgia, has revealed something of what it costs a Southern Democratic office-holder to be loyal this year to the nominee of his party.

"Practically all who have mentioned the matter to me," said Senator Harris, "have urged me to remain quiet and take no part in the National election of my party, the party which honored me. Many have warned me of the dangerous effect on my campaign for re-election two years from now."

It is all but unbelievable that there are no Democrats in Georgia to urge a

Democratic Senator to support a Democratic nominee for President, but Senator Harris says that it is a fact. None the less, he announces that he will actively support Governor Smith, and the Columbus "Enquirer-Sun," Julian Harris's paper, applauds him, saying: "Senator Harris has merely done his loyal duty in announcing that he will support the party which has always supported him. . . . Democracy needs the aid of every true and valiant son at a time when betrayers from within are attempting to open her gates to the enemy from without."

If the Southern bolt has swept away some who might have been expected to stand firm, it has left some standing firm who might have been expected to go out with the flood. Governor Graves, of Alabama, elected by the Ku Klux Klan, has lined up for Governor Smith with the simple statement that he is a Democrat and that Democrats support the nominee.

"Unreasonable Scarecrow"

IF Mr. Hoover is elected, the tariff will go up and taxes down; if Governor Smith, quite the other way around. So Senator Smoot, Treasury watchman these many years, has been remarking.

"Exactly the illogical and unreasonable scarecrow the Republican Party constantly uses," retorts Senator Key Pittman. "Statements of such purport were made by Senator Smoot after the Baltimore Convention, when Woodrow Wilson was nominated. The Baltimore Convention pledged the party to enact a Federal Reserve Act. Smoot and his type of politician said the Democratic Party was opposed to business and would never do it.

"The Republican Party had been dis

cussing the necessity for economic legisiation for years and did not act. The Democratic Party, in less than twelve months after Wilson was inaugurated, passed the Federal Reserve Act by unanimous vote of the Democrats in the Senate and House.

"The Baltimore Democratic platform pledged itself to a fiscal system for the farmers. Senator Smoot and men of his type said we would never keep our pledge. Inside of a year the legislation creating the farm banking system was made into a law.

"There is no doubt that the Democratic Party's view with regard to the tariff has been in a state of evolution for the last twenty-five years. There is no doubt that with the growth of the West and South from a previous agricultural country to sections of varied industries, the theory of the low tariff has ceased to exist.

"The tariff plank in the 1928 platform contains the frank and definite expression of the Democratic Party today. It declares, unequivocally, for maintenance of high standards of wages and conditions of labor. . . . Men like Raskob and Woodin, who have greater business interests at stake than Senator Smoot and the rest of the Republican politicians, would not associate themselves with the Democratic Party . . . if there was the slightest doubt of the Democratic Party and the purposes of Governor Smith when he becomes President."

Bad Business for Big Business

BIG Business does not want to get involved in politics. This is not for the sake of politics, but for the sake of business. The General Motors Corporation is one of the important organizations in Big Business today. According to its president, its value as measured in the market today is "approximately $3,500,000,000," and of this "$2,650,000,000 is the value established by the public for the corporation's good will." The corporation wants to keep away from anything that brings that good will into jeopardy.

In a letter to Miss Emily Marx, Republican candidate for the New York Assembly, Mr. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., President of General Motors, replying to an inquiry, has written:

"As to the situation which has developed as a result of John J. Raskob, Chairman of our Finance Committee, accepting the position of Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, I wish to say most frankly that I regret

the situation and have been disturbed by it. . . . I feel that it is most detrimental to the interest of General Motors, as well as to any corporation, to have any situation develop which causes the impression in the public mind, rightly or wrongly, that that corporation is concerned with any political situation.

"Mr. Raskob made the decision and took the place without consultation with his associates; therefore we had a situation to deal with which was a very unpleasant one. . . . Our organization consists of over 200,000 individuals, and, naturally, they reflect every shade of political belief and opinion on public and personal questions. Each is entitled to his own individual opinion and the cor

poration is not concerned with such opinions."

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Later, in an address at Flint, Michigan, when the Buick Motor Company, subsidiary of General Motors, celebrated its silver anniversary, Mr. Sloan reiterated the principle that every individual in the organization has the right to think as he likes on "politics, religion, prohibition, or the like." And he added: "General Motors is not in politics. It will not permit its prestige, its organization, or its property to be used for political purposes.' He summed up the matter by saying, "Our business is to make and sell motor cars and other products."

The Foreign Vote

THERE are in this country 7,000,000 naturalized citizens entitled to vote. Who will get most of them? No telling yet, says Mr. Read Lewis, director of the Foreign Language Newspaper Service, after perusing a survey of foreignlanguage newspapers.

"It is apparent," he says, "that upon the candidates and the major issues of the campaign, such as prohibition, farm relief, and religion in politics, the divergence of opinion among the foreignlanguage editors is as great as among the editors of newspapers published in the English language. There is not only a lack of unity between the various racial groups, but each seems to be split within itself."

Thus the "New Yorker Staats Zeitung" is outspoken for Hoover, but the "Detroiter Abendpost" says he may reasonably expect five per cent of ninetyfive per cent of the so-called German vote recently promised him. The "Dziennik Chicagoski" is for Smith, and the "Kuryer Polski," of Milwaukee, is for Hoover. The "Glas Naroda Slovene," Republican daily, says, "Now comes the time when it will be said everywhere what a fine lot we are we foreign-born voters."

The "Swedish Nordstjernan," of New York likes Smith, but the "Svea," of Worcester, Massachusetts, says no candidate ever entered a campaign with greater handicaps.

So it goes; which means that the copying of these names is taking too much of our time.

Secularizing Turkey

MME. HALIDÉ EDIB was one of the leaders of the Nationalist movement in Turkey which produced the present Turkish Republic-was, in fact, Corporal Halidé in the Turkish Nationalist army. She has been lecturing at the Wiliamstown Institute of Politics, the first woman to appear there as a lecturer.

The new Turkey is, she said, not atheistic, but its government has been secularized, Church and State have been separated. Islam, she pointed out-unlike Christianity-has been not only a religion but a political system. This fact makes the abolition of a state religion in a Mohammedan country like Turkey more revolutionary than the separation of Church and State in Western nations. It was not Mustapha Kemal, with whose régime she is not in sympathy, that forced secularization upon Turkey; it was rather a long process going on for nearly a century.

"A people's religion," Mme. Edib said, "if it satisfies their moral and spiritual needs, is all the deeper and more sincere if it has nothing to do with such changing things as politics and government. A state which calls itself a Church State is bound to be restricted in its policy. It may be a good policy, but it is one

sided at best. Besides, a Church State hurts and perverts religion when it thinks itself free to use religion for bringing about this or that policy. Both religion and state must be free and independent of one another. A religion separated from the state and entirely given to matters of conscience and spiritual life is bound to be a broader and higher thing.... In Turkey, those things which be Cæsar's have been rendered to Cæsar, but the things which belong to God have not yet been rendered to God."

Texas Straws

CURRENT talk of a break-up of the Solid South is not supported by Democratic primary results in Texas.

The good news for the Smith forces is to be seen in the returns for LieutenantGovernor. The contest was principally between Barry Miller, a Catholic and avowed supporter of Governor Smith, and Thomas B. Love, dry champion and bitter opponent of the Presidential nominee. Miller's victory was decisive; the more impressive because he was seeking a third term, and probably lost the votes of erstwhile followers who are firm for precedent.

Governor Dan Moody's victory over L. I. Wardlaw, Ferguson candidate, was also impressive, but not so significant as

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ABOUT AGRICULTURE IF YOU WERE PRESIDENT?

FARMER VOTE

INDING

Darling in the New York Herald Tribune

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ticket, but at the same time demanded effective enforcement of prohibition and the election of dry Democratic Representatives.

Uncle Sam on a World Police
Force?

JUST how all the nations concerned interpret the Kellogg treaty outlawing war has become more important than the wording of the treaty itself. Sir Austen Chamberlain, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, has had some things to say on this subject in the House of Commons which merit the world-wide attention they have received-and particularly in the United States. In the course of a warning against expecting too much of the treaty, he remarked:

"The proposal is a recognition . . that war is a thing to be had recourse to only in the last resort. How much more it will be will, in my opinion, depend not upon any engagement taken by the United States Government, but on how the rest of the world thinks the United States, is going to judge the action of an aggressor and whether the United States will help him or hinder him in his aggression.

"If the American nation ranges itself behind its own treaty, then indeed the signature of the treaty will be an additional and most formidable deterrent of

war, and it will be in addition a most valuable security for peace.

"That is what his Majesty's Government has hoped it would be, and it was in that spirit that his Majesty's Government has been glad to co-operate with the United States in bringing its proposal to the fruition of union."

About the so-called "British Monroe Doctrine" that the Government outlined in one of its reservations to the Kellogg treaty, indicating areas of British administration and interest as exempt from interference on the part of other Powers, Sir Austen said in reply to Lloyd George and other critics:

"Does anybody suppose that the American Government in proposing this treaty means to abolish or change its policy in regard to the Monroe Doctrine?... Why should it be thought that this country is doing anything unreasonable... if it states what everybody knows that there are certain parts of the world in which we, too, have a Monroe Doctrine? . . . Our doctrine is not one of aggression or the desire of territorial expansion, but a pure measure of

self-defense."

Apparently, in outlawing war we shall be recognizing at the same time the legality of a good many other things that need careful consideration.

A Governor in Exile

THE death of William S. Taylor in Indianapolis calls to mind a murder sensation and political turmoil of over a quarter of a century ago. Taylor was declared elected Governor of Kentucky on the Republican ticket and took office. William Goebel, the Democratic candidate, contested the appeal and was declared elected by the lower branch of the State Legislature.

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Thereupon anarchy ensued. Two Governors were trying to hold the reins. Armed followers, largely mountaineers with rifles in hand, flocked into Frankfort. An intra-State war threatened. The tension was doubled when Goebel was shot dead on the street by a rifle man hidden in a public building. one charged that Taylor had fired the fatal shot, but he was indicted for conspiracy to murder, together with one Youtsey (who probably did the shooting) and Caleb Powers, who was Taylor's Secretary of State. Thereupon Taylor fled to Indiana-whether or not he was in any degree guilty his life was in danger every minute he stayed in Kentucky.

One of the unusual features of the case was that Indiana repeatedly refused

to grant to the Kentucky authorities the extradition of Taylor because Indiana's Governors believed that Taylor could not get a fair trial on the indictments running against him in his own State.

The Goebel murder is a long-gone-by incident, but it was fierce and strange, and its resulting partisan bitterness shook Kentucky's political base for years.

Textile Troubles

A STRIKE in the cotton mills has been

going on for about four months in the textile mills at New Bedford, involving, reports say, two thousand workers. Labor trouble has existed also in the Fall River mills. This economic unrest did not gain public attention at a distance until at New Bedford large numbers of strikers were arrested because of demon

strations and wholesale picketing. Yet that part of the question is local; the conditions that produced disturbance are of National importance.

In New England and Old England simultaneously there has been trouble in the textile manufacturing business-a little while ago 700 mills in England were closed. In both countries cuts of wages have been made at New Bedford 10 per cent, in England 121⁄2 per cent. But a compromise may be found. The dispute is simple to understand, but not easy to deal with permanently. The mill owners say that they cannot make profits because of swelling competition: in New England competition from the South; in Old England competition from China, Japan, India, and even America. The workers say, for their side, that wages should not be cut, because they would not be able to live on less pay than other workmen of equal skill receive.

Obviously, the question of trade and competition must evolve its own answer through economic demand and supply, coupled with intelligent adaptation of production to suit each country or locality.

As to the immediate question between workers and owners, we commend to them the recent example of English railway owners and workers. A wage cut was resented by the unions. A big strike loomed ahead. After deliberate discussion by representatives of workers and capitalists a compromise was reached. The men accepted a smaller cut than at first proposed on condition that it should affect every one, officials and all. The saving is at the rate of $15,000,000 a year. Rightly, J. H. Thomas, of the

The

National Union of Railway Men, declares: "It was a great settlement-a triumph for British common sense."

English Unemployment

LACK of work in Great Britain is the greatest problem that the Conservative Cabinet of Premier Baldwin has to face. The Government has just defeated in Parliament a resolution of censure pressed by the Labor Opposition for fail ure to deal effectively with unemployment. But victory in the House of Commons does not end the emergency in the country.

When the Conservatives drove the Laborites out of power four years ago, there were not as many unemployed workers in Great Britain as there are now. Then the Conservatives attributed the crisis to the after-effects of the war and to Labor incompetency in industrial reconstruction. But their trade policies never succeeded in cutting down the numbers of the jobless much below a million. Now there are nearly 1,275,000, mainly in the coal-mining, building, ship-building, and textile industries.

And the Conservatives themselves admit that it is no after-the-war trouble, but a continuing problem of economic readjustment. The use of oil has cut down the use of coal; demands for building are not sufficient to keep the construction workers busy; competition has cut into ship-building and manufacturing activity.

The Government says that over 200,000 workers and their families must move to other parts of the country or go overseas to the Dominions to find employment, and it will do all it can to assist them. But that plan does not content men out of work or their political spokesmen. Unemployment is likely to be the main issue in a general election contest before the next year is out.

Gold Is Gold

THE recent exhibition of a collection of old Roman coins, some of them going back beyond the time of Christ in date, led to an interesting remark by the collector, Mr. John C. Clarke. It was that these gold coins were worth neither more nor less today than they were two thousand years ago. If turned into the mint for coinage, they would make just the same number of United States gold coins as would the same weight of gold fresh from the mine. So that if these old coins were sold in the market any extra price would be because of their rarity. But these particular coins are not rare

at all. They may have romantic associations, but no extra cash value.

The ancients got along somehow without banking facilities, and the peasants of Europe have generally done so even to this day. When an old-time Roman was afraid of thieves or looting or war, he buried his precious gold and jewels; and if he died without telling others of the secret, the treasure might lie hidden for centuries.

So it is that gold and silver coins are being turned up to this day in great numbers when deep foundations or excavations or road building and railway cuts are in process.

It is true that these old gold coins once had a much greater buying power than they have now, but that was the ancients' good fortune.

No Rubber Peonage

Two years ago Harvey S. Firestone, an American manufacturer of large means and experience, told the world how he hoped to enlarge rubber production and help supply to overtake demand. He leased a million acres of land in Liberia from the Government and has been pushing the project ever since--rubbergrowing takes time.

Now come intimations that the Liberians who are working for Mr. Firestone's company are in a state of peonage.

The accusation is in the form of a statement laid before the League of Nations by M. Jurod, President of the International Society for the Protection of Natives. Just how much investiga

tion this long-named society has made does not appear. But the peonage theory seems to rest on the assertion that the loan to the Liberian Republic by the Firestone Company closes the door of rubber production to the Republic and to commerce at large-the idea being that such a condition must produce peonage in the future.

Mr. Firestone's answer to this is convincing. He says, "As the Firestone Company controls only one million acres in Liberia and there are forty-two million acres of land available, it is obvious that no such scheme is contemplated."

Wages, he says, are regular and adequate, and the workers are as free to quit their jobs as men in American factories.

As The Outlook remarked when this vast plan was announced, Mr. Firestone is no Colonel Mulberry Sellers and the prospects for large future rubber production are good.

Meanwhile Mr. Firestone's warm personal friends, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, are working at the rubber problem in other ways. Mr. Ford is just now sending equipment and engineers to begin rubber development in his fivemillion-acre tract in Brazil. As has been pointed out, that acreage is almost as great as Massachusetts. Even though a rubber tree takes seven years to get its bearing growth, it surely looks as if the future demand is in a way to be met. Mr. Edison is working on another idea

that he may ultimately find plants which have chemical elements of rubber enough to make their growth by cultiva

tion profitable. And, of course, there is always the possibility that some one may find out how to make synthetic rubber that is both good and cheap enough to be marketable.

Color Movies

THE newly announced "Kodacolor" or natural color motion pictures developed in the Eastman laboratories are a sort of reproach to every one who has ever harbored and who has not?-the secret hope of inventing something worth while, or at least worth a competence; for their essential principle has been readily available for decades to every reader of an elementary physics text-book. Others who have perfected color movies have had to resort to one complication or another, usually expensive and requiring expert skill.

The principle of the new process is utterly simple; but, since it has been described in the newspapers, no effort need be made to explain it here. To do so, in fact, would require a page, several diagrams, and the assurance that the average reader cared for the science of it. Suffice it to say that the film does not actually record a bit of color. What happens, essentially, is that a black-andwhite shade is recorded for every color in the object photographed. When the film is later projected, the process is reversed, every black-white tone going automatically back into its corresponding color. This is a matter of position; each position of a black-white shade has its equivalent color. Similar translations and retranslations occur more frequently