USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 18
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There is an explanation why such ideas are prevalent in this country. As our good (goody-goody) people have neglected their business as citizens of this great country and left it to other fel- lows to control for power and easy money, the word "politics" has come to be associated with corrupt officials and the game they play.
In our Better Government Association and in the campaign of the drys there is a terrible fear in the minds of some of our good people that we may "get into politics." Of course, we are in politics and we have a right to be. Anything pertaining to government is politics and it is the kind of politics that we have that determines the kind of government we shall have, and you can not determine it in any other way.
My advice to the good people who pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," is for them to get into politics, where they can help bring this condition about. The good people got the Eighteenth Amendment through politics and, if they had stayed in the game and demanded law enforcement and clean government, they would not at this time be all fuss and feathers about maintaining the amendment.
October, 1932
The pleadings of numerous members of the Republican party to the leaders of the Prohibition party to come into their fold and help to elect the Republican ticket is interesting, if not pathetic. But why should they expect the help and co-opera- tion of the drys now? When they were picking the candidates and building their platform, they gave the drys no consideration. If they could get along without the drys at the nominating con- vention, they can get along without the drys at the election. If the Republicans had stood like men for the Eighteenth Amend- ment, from the county to the national government, the Republi- can party would have gone over strong. But the ballyhoo of the beer brigade got them on the run, and they begin to see their mistake.
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To the People of Lake County, Indiana :
I want to be one of your next state senators. I have lived in Lake county about as long as anybody, and have taken as much interest in public welfare, and have fought for clean, honest gov- ernment for the last fifty or sixty years, and have helped elect a good many to office. Now I think I should have a chance to rep-
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resent the people of Lake county in the state senate, which I think I can do for the good of the people, better than some of those one-horse lawyers we have been sending down there. One fact, which should be a great recommendation of my candidacy is : I was born in a log house and slept in a trundle bed, chopped a lot of fire wood and split posts and rails. Was here through the trials and tribulations of early times. Have helped to build the county and paid my share of the expense. I know the needs of the people, and that is an honest, economical government.
Give the people a chance to keep some money at home, so they can pay off the mortgage, paint the house and barn, and the women can buy a new dress and a washing machine. In fact, use some common horse sense in our government affairs. It is time!
Vote for me, and I will serve you right.
-Sam B. Woods.
October, 1932
WHAT WILL BRING BACK PROSPERITY ?
The reply of all the big, thinking men of the country to the above question is that the farmer must be prosperous before other branches of business can prosper. As agriculture is the founda- tion of all business, it must be made strong to carry the rest of the structure.
Senator Nedjl's very forceful remarks at the last general as- sembly, in regard to the farmer, shows he is out of place for the best interests of the country. As reported by the Hoosier Farm- er, when the farmers visited the legislature, asking for tax relief, Senator Nedjl became very eloquent, and said: "What did the farmers come down here for? I'll tell you. It is to advertise themselves. Go home and put up the Ford and go to work, and quit your bellyaching." His general attitude toward agriculture is expressed in his outburst in the senate, "I am against the farmer from hell to breakfast."
For a man to unload himself in that manner, when discuss- ing one of the most serious questions before the American people today, shows the caliber of the man. He is not fit, in our opinion, to represent the people of Lake county, Indiana, in the senate. He came to this country because he thought it a better country than his homeland, and because we have high standards of living and morals, and now he tries to impose habits and morals of his caliber upon the people of this nation. With his wet propa- ganda, which, of course, would make paupers, and his pet scheme-the old age pension-he would add more taxes for the farmers to "bellyache" about.
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With temperance, industry, and a square deal, which should mean America (if we do not have too many Nedjls), the people of this country can accumulate enough property, so that they do not need the government to pension them. Remember, Mr. Nedjl, this used to be the United States of America. You fellows are trying to make it something else.
-Sam B. Woods.
THE PRESIDENT-ELECT
At this writing Roosevelt seems to be elected, so if he lives ne will be our next president of the United States, one of the biggest jobs in the world; and the only way the president can succeed is to have the backing of the people.
We all have a big job ahead of us to make conditions better, so let us all, no matter in what position of life, be it president or plow boy, financier or factory worker, hod carrier or shoemak- er, do our best for ourselves and one another. Go to work at anything we can get-at any price we can get. Work produces wealth, and work will get the machinery to going, and when it does we can look for something better.
With our form of government and with an honest, intelli- gent mass of people this great country of ours should be full of happy, healthy, well-to-do people. And if things are not right- before laying the blame on some one else, examine yourself thor- oughly and see if you have lived up to the full possibility of a citizen of the United States. It is a great responsibility and re- quires the best in us. Let us hope for the best and do our best to make Roosevelt's administration a success.
Roosevelt is 50 years old. He is of Flemish and Dutch breed- ing; he is thoroughly American, as his family in this country dates back to 1662. He is over six feet tall and weighs around 190 pounds. He studied law, but soon became interested in poli- tics after he graduated from school, and he has been a very suc- cessful politician. He enjoys public life and has a way of get- ting on with people.
Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt have five children and three grand- children, and they are a good looking bunch, so let us hope for the best.
ONE WAY TO CUT COSTS
The tax payers' brains are working hard to lessen the tax burden. One idea which is now attracting a lot of attention is Judge Martin J. Smith's suggestions for a change of court pro- cedure, which, if adopted, will speed up the court business. Some
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good judges of the question say it will cut down the cost of our court expense one-half or more, and also cause swift justice, which will lessen crime to a great extent. Through the State Farm Bureau the Smith idea was distributed over the state in every county. The tax payers associations and chambers of com- merce are becoming interested in Judge Smith's proposition, and Smith is going to write up a bill to be presented to the next leg- islature. We are satisfied it will become a law, which will stop this change of venue business and a lot of other fool things which we have now to contend with in court.
FARM MORTGAGES
Jay Pierce, a good farmer of Eagle Creek township, is hired by a big insurance company to look after between 80 and 90 farms that have come into its possession through foreclosing of mortgages in northern Indiana.
It seems to us that one of the worst and most far-reaching effects of this depression here in the United States is the fact that so many real farmers are losing their farms through the mortgage route. One of the great mainstays of this country is the farm home owned by the family that lives on it. It is claimed that there are nine million farm mortgages, most of them contracted for when the farm prices were high. Now the value of farm pro- ducts has shrunk from one-half to one-sixth of their former value and it is impossible for the farmer to raise the mortgage and in- surance. So the insurance companies and the big money lenders are ultimately going to get the farms and that means tenants on the farms instead of the owners. Every one who knows anything about it knows that such an arrangement is not for the best in- terest of the country as a whole.
The American farmer has been the foundation of the pros- perity of the United States, and if we have any property it will still be the foundation. There is a great deal of talk and interest in the eleven billion dollar debt the foreign countries owe us, but in our opinion that is not of so much consequence as the 150 billion dollars of public and private debt at home. Part of that, at least is owed by the farmers and small home owners whose property values have shrunk more than one-half and the re- maining half is owned by the money lenders. We have deplored the fact that a few people in this country own most of the wealth. Yet we are facing the situation now where, if something is not done, unreckoned millions of the remaining wealth of the com- mon people will find its way into large banks and other big moneyed institutions.
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THANK GOD WE ARE NOT IN RUSSIA
However the people look at conditions here in the United States, they should thank God they are not in Russia, under com- munism, according to a noted writer in the December 10 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, Will Durant. He starts out by say- ing: "I am afraid that communism cannot succeed, but I hope to God it does. . . . I was in sympathy with communism because I had seen in my own country (the United States) the breakdown of the most successful individualist economy in history. Never before had any system of production created wealth so rapidly or spread it so widely. Transforming a wilderness in the space of a century into a material Utopia, and coming in sight for a time of abolishing poverty among 100,000,000 people."
Our very power seemed to crush us and put everything out of joint. Russia's beautiful picture of everybody working for the common good, with brotherly love and common good for all, was going to make a heaven on earth. But the picture he draws is far from it. The people are nothing more than slaves, ruled by brute force from the higher ups and living in dirt and squalor, with the coarsest, unwholesome food to eat. They live more like animals than humans. Their family life is destroyed, and their children are herded in flocks and raised like a bunch of calves or pigs by the government. That of itself will destroy them in time. The home is the foundation of civilization.
What is the matter with the human family anyway? With good sense and management there is enough provided by the all- wise Creator to give every man, woman and child in this wide world all the comforts of life, if not the luxuries. And still, here in the United States, men, women and children are suffering for the common comforts of life. The only explanation is, we don't know enough to govern ourselves, so that all can get a square deal. With all our public education and learning the future looks no brighter than the past.
It would seem that people would become vitally interested in the science of government, and make an exhaustive study of cause and effect, and be more intelligent citizens. To that end I would suggest that the people form a club or some organization in every community, where they can get together and talk over these important questions of government; have debates on the many questions that are vital in the way of an honest and fair government for all the people. I believe we have the best form of government here that it is possible for man to devise. But if the Socialists or communists think differently, we will let them prove it.
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The tariff is another big question. Is it for the good of the whole people, or has it made millionaires and paupers? Let us get together and talk it over.
THE CRIMINAL
A certain class of good people claim to believe that punish- ment does not lessen crime. So when one of those brutish mur- derers are caught, tried and sent to prison, he should have a good lot of attention paid him, and comforts so fine that it will reform him and finally he should be turned back into society as a good and respected citizen. And they also claim the average criminal is of low intelligence, which accounts for his vicious- ness and misbehavior.
Carl Murchison, Ph. D., professor of psychology of Clark's University in Massachusetts, has been studying the criminals, and making tests and has come to certain conclusions, as report- ed in last Sunday's Herald and Examiner. There is with the ar- ticle a picture showing a cell in a penitentiary, with a book case, easy chair, radio and a smoking stand, more luxurious than the average working man can afford. We don't need high walls to keep the inmates from breaking out, but we need the high walls to keep the average citizen from breaking in to get these comforts. Here is a quotation from the article :
"The criminal is not a creature of low intelligence; he has much higher intelligence than the average honest man he preys upon.
"The criminal is not too stupid to earn an honest living. he is too smart to work that hard.
"The criminal is not too dull to realize that crime does not pay, he is shrewd enough to realize that under present lax laws and the modern system of parole, 'pardon getting,' as it is called, crime actually does pay.
"The trouble is not that the criminal is ignorant, misguided and does not understand that he is doing wrong, he understands only too well. It is the innocent sentimentalists who have been trying to reform the convict by kindness, and have thereby made a career of crime as pleasant and profitable as possible, who now appear as the ignorant, misguided ones, completely misunderstanding the criminal they were supposed to know all about."
Judge Martin J. Smith claims the same thing after sitting on the bench for thirteen years, and he thoroughly understands the viewpoint of the criminal. He says, "Our laws are so lax and so constructed that they favor the criminal to such an ex-
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tent that he will take a chance of getting away with it." And he is honest enough to work for a change of laws governing court procedure, making it possible to get swift justice and give the criminal his dues.
Judge Smith is now writing a bill to be introduced into our coming legislature to that end, and we hope everybody will use his or her influence with our lawmakers to have his suggestions written into our laws.
January, 1933
OUR COURT HOUSE AT THE COUNTY SEAT
Stop, look, listen, and think !
What is the matter with our court house at Crown Point, where so many of the inmates are going wrong? Some good men, before they got office, fell from too much hard drinking. Several others changed their mind about their first love after their in- come from the county office became great, and seemed to want to make a second choice in their domestic relations. Another seem- ed to be doubtful if there were enough votes in Lake county to elect him commissioner; so he imported some, and it turned out very unsatisfactory. So he killed himself to relieve the strain. And another one lost himself and his mind for a week or two, until conditions improved, and then he found his way back to the court house again, to the bosom of his friends. And now the woman that was said to receive the largest salary of any woman in the United States has "gone and done it," and brought dis- grace on the Lake county court house. Isn't it time we stopped, looked and listened, and did some thinking in regard to the cause? The remedy, we believe, is quit putting so much money in the little square window by the taxpayers at the treasurer's of- fice for the officials to spend. They can't stand it. Too hard on their constitution. The doctors tell us most all sickness is caused by germs, and the Republican germ seemed to work havoc. We hope the Democratic office holders will thoroughly disinfect, and then not allow any Democratic germs to break in.
January, 1933
TECHNOCRACY
In the early stages of the slump they told us it was caused by overproduction. Nobody believed it. So they have given us more reasons, and the latest out now is a new one, with a large new word, "Technocracy," which means, as near as we can un- derstand, too much machinery to do the work. The curse on Adam and all his descendants was that he would eat his bread
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by the sweat of his brow. The great effort down through the ages was to be able to eat bread through some one else's sweat.
But now the smart Yankee has invented a machine that will save him from sweating. And according to some very learned gentlemen, this machine business is what is the trouble right now. But like all other debatable questions, there seems to be a difference of opinion. According to 150 leaders of American life in the fields of industry, economics, education and finance, the machine is all right, and with the proper adjustment will lead us out of the "slough of despond," and will put us on the high ground of prosperity. And that is not all. We are going to continue to invent and manufacture new machinery that will still save the human family from toil.
So it may be that Adam eating the apple in the Garden won't affect the coming generations as it has in the past.
THIS AND THAT
Dr. David Wechsler of Bellevue hospital doesn't know what he is talking about when he says that man has reached his height mentally as well as physically at the age of 25. At that time man is in the pumpkin stage and just thinks he knows some- thing. Man just gets matured at 60, 70 or 80. Some of the world's best work has been done by men between 60 and 80 years old. Some time ago some one said, "A man should be killed if he lived over 65 years." If that was followed it would take away the cream of the nation. * * * *
We believe in woman's rights and the right to hold office, and we supported the women that ran for office here in Lake county, because we thought they were better constituted and would have more sense of economy, frugality and honesty in public affairs. But time has proved, at least up to the present time, that sex does not mean anything in particular in public office as far as honest service is concerned.
January, 1933
THIS MACHINE AGE
In 1929, President Hoover appointed a committee to make a survey of the machine age and the social and economic changes of the last 33 years. Dr. Ogburn of the University of Chicago acted as director of the survey. They have made a thorough in- vestigation at a cost of over $500,000 furnished by the Rocke- feller Foundation. Their report in short seems to be that we are going too fast on production and not fast enough on brains; or,
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in other words, lack of good business judgment to back it up. It is "cultural lag" or the failure of changes in economic life, education, government, religion and science to move forward at the same rate. Or, in other words, we are now top heavy on pro- duction, and an adjustment must be made. When it is made, we will go forward to a higher plane of living and general prosper. ity. This committee does not prescribe remedies. It makes sug- gestions.
Among its major findings on national problems confronting the American people are :
Social invention keeps too far behind mechanical invention.
Unless social invention is speeded up or mechanical invention slowed down grave maladjustments are bound to occur.
Economic planning is society's great need.
The governmental and economic organizations are growing at a rapid pace, while the church and family have declined in so- cial significance though not in human values.
A policy is needed to bring together all the disjointed fac- tors in social life so that labor, industry, government, education, religion, and science may travel along the same path at equal speed.
Our standard of living for the very near future may decline because of low wages caused by unemployment.
Problems of surpluses, markets, and shifts in population rest largely upon two movements-technological advance and declin- ing population growth.
The United States may have a stationary population, with 132 to 133 million in 1940 and possibly no more than 145 million by the year 2,000 due in a measure to birth control.
National problems affected by social trends are divided into three major groups by the report-natural resources, popula- tion, and technology and social organization.
Use of the gas engine has reduced the number of horses and mules by ten millions in fourteen years, thereby releasing thirty million acres of plow land and pasture. They suggest that low grade farm lands be planted to timber crops to lessen farm pro- duction. Their guess is that our population is not going to in- crease as fast in the future as it has in the past on account of re- stricting emigration and birth control. They propose to improve the human race by selection and discarding. More and more inventions are made each year, and there is no reason to think that technological developments will ever stop, but will increase more and more in the future. In 1851-1855, 6,000 patents were granted in the United States; in 1926-1930, 219,000, over thirty-
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six times as many in the same length of time in the last decade.
"The church is slow in adjusting to the city; the law was slow in adjusting to dangerous machinery ; local governments are slow in adjusting to the transportation inventions; school cur- ricula are slow in adjusting to the new occupations which ma- chines create.
"Unless there is a speeding up of social invention or a slow- ing down of mechanical invention, grave maladjustments are cer- tain to result."
Another possibility is a great expansion of exports; but in a tariff ridden world that also seems a dim hope. The divorce and family relations seem to stagger the committee. One out of ev- ery five or six marriages breaks up in a separation, and what to do is the question. The church is not formally in politics, but it has taken interest in such problems as those of the family, mar- riage and divorce, prohibition, capital and labor relationship, crime, and many community questions. What will its influence in the future be?
This committee has pretty thoroughly gone into the depth of conditions and has made a very fair picture; only it dates the slump from 1929, when the farmer was hit five or six years before that. So the committee is viewing conditions from a city stand- point to a great extent.
HIGH STANDARD NOT NEEDED
It seems a judge of the Porter county court does not have to live up to a high standard of ethics to be honored by some of our Lake county lawyers, who a short time ago congratulated the Porter county judge at the termination of his official career. We suppose the decision handed down by the judge in the Kirk- land case was the reason why they admired him.
February, 1933
"WHAT WILL BE THE SOLUTION OF THE UNEMPLOY- MENT PROBLEM?"
In regard to the above editorial heading appearing in last week's issue of the Calumet Weekly News:
If we are to have a five-day week and a six-hour day we can use all the unemployed on the farms by using two shifts on the five days, and if there are still some idle, we can put these to work on Saturday and Sunday, as the cows have to be milked on Sunday as well as on the other days, also the barns cleaned out and the stock fed. To be sure, when that is done, farm products, or, in other words, food, will cost double or more what it costs
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now, but that is what we will have to suffer to maintain this "high standard of American living" we have heard so much about.
But the fellows who talked most about this plan never con- sidered the farmer and his family, and the farmer knows that the other fellow is not concerned about his interests, and he has decided to look out for himself. Through the Farm Bureau or- ganization he is working out a co-operative plan to do his own business through the Bureau, buying in immense quantities and distributing in an economical way to all members, and selling his products co-operatively and getting most of the consumer's dol- lar. The farmers are through doing the hard work and letting the other fellows have easy profits.
The blind selfishness of the so-called business end and or- ganized labor are, to a great extent, what is the matter right now.
December, 1932
WHAT IS THE MATTER?
(A paper written and read by Sam B. Woods at the meeting of the United Drys last Friday evening in the Glen Park Metho- dist Church.)
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