USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 19
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The idea of the United Drys bringing out candidates for the law-making bodies was so the drys would have a chance to ex- press their convictions. When the votes were counted, we found the candidates on the average had about 400. There was about 90,000 votes cast in Lake county. So one in about 225 had con- victions on the dry question. There are several churches in Lake county that have over 400 members of voting age. Where, oh, where was the remaining mass of the faithful who pray, "Thy kingdom on earth as it is in heaven"? I have thought for some time that the human family had the same disposition as sheep. A teacher was giving her class in arithmetic this example : "Sup- pose there are 100 sheep in a pasture, and one jumps out, how many will be left?" One boy pipes up, "99." Another boy breaks in and says of the first boy: "He may know arithmetic, but he don't know sheep. If one jumps out, there won't be any left-for they will all jump out." Follow the leader-that is what the human flock does.
During the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment it was considered there was from 75 to 85 per cent of the people favor- able to the amendment. It was the fashion and the right thing to do. And when they got it put over, they felt such a satisfac- tion that they all laid down and went to sleep, and did not wake
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up until the outer breastworks were taken, and the mob were hollering for beer. The beer barons hollered so loud and long that the human sheep jumped the fence back to the pasture of the beer bottles, to the tune of 75 to 90 per cent.
I am not criticizing the wets. If they want beer in these United States of America they have a right to work for that end. The whole blame for the condition of things, as I see it, is with the drys. The liquor interests in this country have made the reputation of not obeying our laws, only when they were com- pelled to. And it was the drys' business, when we succeeded in getting the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, to see that the laws were enforced. A Valparaiso deputy sheriff, in speaking of this, said, "The law could have been enforced if the drys were in dead earnest and would have fought for it." I say, the drys are poor fighters when compared with the wets. They have layed down and let the wets run over them.
A man here in Gary belonged to the Gary County Club, and he was telling me he had quit going to the club on account of too much boozing down there. I said, "What do you quit for? Make the booze drinking fellows quit." Oh, he did not want to do that. He laid down and let them have their way. He had a wonderful chance to have those fellows respect the law. John B. Peterson, an old politician, says he would rather have one sa- loonkeeper working for him in a political campaign than six preachers. Why not? The preachers talk politics ; but they have a lot to learn in the game. I have heard preachers say, "We are not in politics," when they are talking about good govern- ment. According to Webster, "politics" is the science of gov- ernment; and when you are talking anything about government, you are talking politics. What is the matter with the country now? Too many good people are ignorant and have the wrong slant on politics.
I would like at this time to read a statement made by me 'way back in 1907:
What are the great organized moral forces, the churches, and their members, doing today for the bringing about of "Thy king- dom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? Very little, compared with what they might do. They seem to be hu- man and looking out for themselves and their church and letting the other fellow look after the public welfare. It seems to me, if the church dared and had the faith to think "that right made might," they could work wonders with the help of good, moral people outside of the church. This, to me, is so important that I wish to quote the opinions of two Englishmen, "Gypsy" Smith
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and the Rev. Thomas Law, who have recently returned to the other side after a tour of this country, as recently given in the Western Christian Advocate. Evangelist Smith was asked the following questions: "What of municipal government and poli- tics generally ? Is there more corruption here than in England?" His answer was:
"Undoubtedly. The best men will have nothing to do with politics, and the inevitable result follows. The church needs rousing to a sense of its duty. Why, I think it is my duty to vote as much as to say my prayers. How can I pray 'Thy king- dom come,' and then not care whether the man who is going to control our affairs is a man pledged to righteousness or to evil doing? They need a new conception of civic duty. The church could sweep the boards if she cared to."
In reply to a question as to the political outlook in this country, Rev. Law said : "The one alarming feature about Amer- ica is that the religious people and the churches are not in the least degree touching the civic life. They admit that this life is rotten, but they fold their hands helplessly and ask, 'How are we to remedy matters?' I told them that all Christian men and women in the country ought to tackle the situation, by taking part in municipal life and getting elected to positions of influence in civic life. Their reply was that when publie spirited Christi- ans tried this, it simply meant that the other side redoubled the bribery and corruption and got the better of their clean oppon- ents. I think this spells national and moral wreckage for Amer- ica. That is the weakest side of American life-the fact that the churches have no direct influence on civic life. The ministers deplore it, but say that if they attempt to do anything their churches regard them as giving themselves over to worldly con- cerns. I was forced to admit that the obstacles were too strong for individuals to overcome, but I said that where single efforts had failed a combination of the churches, properly organized, could succeed. I came away with the conviction that the future well-being of the American republic depends largely upon such a combination."
It is time that as a people we are doing something to relieve the political corruption we see about us. It is up to us as men, free and God fearing men, irrespective of church or party.
In going about the country in our late campaign, I found about one-half the preachers mighty shy about mixing up with politics. They don't have the courage to call their souls their own; they are afraid of a disturbance in their church.
A couple of years ago I was talking to a man who thought
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he was very religious about the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. I argued that if the people wanted the law en- forced, they would have to see to it being done, and to help en- force it, or it would not be done. He countered by saying, "You are liable to get killed." So I quoted Scripture, "He that loses his life for my sake shall find it."
We might go on for some time more, but I think you will get my slant of the situation. I am sure, as far as I am concerned, that the better class of people have got to take a more intelli- gent interest in politics to save this country. The church may be the means of saving your soul in the hereafter, but it is not hav- ing as much influence in saving the world at the present time as it should have, in my opinion.
In closing, I want to read what a bishop has to say about the role of the church in democracy :
The place of the church in a democracy was defined by Bishop Francis J. McConnell of the Methodist Episcopal Church last night at the La Salle Hotel before representatives of twenty- eight denominations assembled at a banquet in connection with the opening of a four day meeting of the National Home Mis- sions Council. Bishop McConnell is president of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and makes his resi- dence in New York.
The principal work of the church in connection with social, industrial, economic, and political problems, said Bishop McCon- nell, is that of creating a spirit in which right things can be done. He declared the full force of right public opinion-which is with- in the admitted right of the church to create-has never yet been utilized.
"It is not our business to create laws, although sometimes a law is a great help," Bishop McConnell asserted. "Rather it is the church's function to make a social climate favorable to right social action. The hideous prehistoric monsters were not killed by anybody. The climate changed and they died. Modern so- cial monstrosities will not have to be killed by anybody if the social climate can be changed."
January, 1933
THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF
The protective tariff interests are at it again and have got to have the tariff wall built higher. Wrapping paper, pig iron, leather, cotton cloth, handkerchiefs, linens, sheets and towels, woolen yarn, electric lamps, pearl buttons, shoes, cement, etc., are now coming into this country over the tariff wall, and it
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must be made higher to keep them out in order that the Ameri- can workman can get high wages working for the American manufacturer, and he, the manufacturer, to make a big profit.
That is all very fine and it looks fine if you don't look deep- er. We busted here on the highest wages ever known and the biggest profits for the manufacturers ever known, for the reason that the prices of our American made products were selling for a higher price than the farmers were able to pay, because their products did not sell for a corresponding high price. Surely there was a tariff on the farmer's products, but it did no good, and will never benefit the farmer as long as he produces more than the country consumes; or, in other words, as long as he has a surplus. Therefore the world's market governs the farmer's price and he cannot pay the price of American manufactured goods-boosted up by organized labor and short weeks and hours and big pay demanded by the American workmen.
The carpenters propose a four-hour day at $1.25 per hour, or $5.00 for four hours. The head of organized labor demands, with no uncertain sound, a five-day week and a six-hour day, with no decrease of wages, and possibly an increase. The makers of rail- road steel rails want $40.00 per ton, where they have made them for $28.00. Hogs are selling in United States stock yards around $3.00, cattle around $4.00, and grain and hay prices are practical- ly nothing on the farms.
These people asking for an increased duty on manufactured goods have very poor judgment, or they would know that it would only make matters worse. They are acting like a lot of babies and want to be protected. We have a better opinion of America than these babies have. America can compete with any- thing on earth, if they will just go to work and fight the battle, as the farmers are doing. There is no lack of employment on the farm. They are producing as much as they ever did, or more, and are doing their part to put the wheels of business in motion, while the babies in the manufacturing end want more and more protec- tion, and charge more for their products. They will never start anything on the up-grade. Work produces wealth, and these babies stand around and cry, "Protection!" So we will never get anywhere.
You can take the bars down and the American farmer and manufacturer can go into the world's open field and come out on top in a fair field, and no favors. There would be no lack of business. Wages would not be high-but a-plenty of the world's products for everybody. So what is the difference?
If we are to have a six-hour day, the farms can use up all the
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surplus labor we now have by making two shifts on the farm. But if this is done, the cost of farm products will be double what it is now. And what will the town people do about that? Think it over, everybody, and give it your best consideration. It is very important-even getting something to eat.
WHY THE SCAREHEAD?
Monday morning's Chicago Tribune had the following big headlines : "Billion Tax in Farm Act .- Burden to Fall on Con- sumer in Levy on Food."
Well, what of it? "Every dog has his day," and the protect- ed interests have been taking billions of dollars out of the farm- ers when they bought farm machinery and other goods during the past fifty years. The farmers' exchange with the manufac- turers was all unfair. The farmers got so reduced, and for that reason the country is on the verge of ruin, and the farmer has got to be built up by a hot house process to save the country, and the big monied interests know it, and that is why it is possible to pass this Domestic Allotment bill.
People have just begun to find out that the farming interest is the foundation of the whole business, and they are now willing to help build the farmer up to save their own hides. Two wrongs do not make a right, always, but in this case we have to have this wrong to save the country. From the raising of our tariff walls and other countries retaliating against us, our exports have shrunk sixty-seven and one-half per cent-over two-thirds. No wonder our farm prices are low and the farmers need a bounty.
January, 1933
THE ROSS TRAGEDY
The tragedy at Ross last week, of which Sheriff Roy F. Holley and two other men were the victims, jarred the entire na- tion and especially northwestern Indiana. The newspapers have been filled with it, proclaiming the virtues and bravery of Mr. Holley, whom we all honor. We feel the great loss, in his death, to the whole community, his friends and family. But there is something more to be said about this terrible catastrophe.
Here was a man, like thousands of others, who came from the old country to make his home in the United States. He bought five acres at Ross fifteen years ago and built a little shack for shelter for his family and himself. He was an honest, hard worker in the Gary mills and, from time to time, he added to the size of his home and cultivated his little farm. Last year he put
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a second story onto his humble home, as is shown in the many newspaper pictures.
His next door neighbors say he was a hard working, honest man, but when he thought someone was taking advantage of him, or trying to "put something over" on him, he would become very excited and angry.
There was a survey made on the land around his home, in- cluding his five acres, and the new line took some off one side of his farm. He became very excited about it, but when it was ex- plained to him that his line would extend over on the other side, and he would still have five acres, he was satisfied, and peace reigned. He rode to and from the mills on the street car, and the conductors and others tell me he was a well behaved and peace- able man.
There are not many of us who would shoot and kill a man for taking our wood after cutting down the trees, but most of us probably would feel like it and would send for the sheriff or constable and have him arrested. But he likely knew that a for- eigner, speaking little English, would have a hard time getting justice in our courts, and so he concluded to administer justice himself. About the usual route of a foreigner is: He gets into trouble and gets cut up. The doctor fixes him up, the constable arrests him and the lawyers try him. They all have a whack at the poor cuss and he gets mighty little justice.
The conditions in politics (here especially) give the for- eigner a mighty slim chance to become a good citizen-and it is not altogether the fault of the foreigner.
COMMENDS FEARLESSNESS
The Calumet Weekly News :
Last week a copy of your publication containing a Review, and Echoes, of the Ross tragedy, came to my notice.
While I do not wish to criticize, or in any way disparage the conduct of officers of the law in their line of action, I do wish to commend you on your fearless stand in behalf of the innocent victims, the Lantare girls, and trust that insofar as is humanly possible justice may be meted out to them.
-A Gary Citizen.
January, 1933
BASE BALL
Depression or no depression, the base ball season of 1933 is opening up as usual.
In nature one of the signs of spring is the green grass and violets beginning to reach up and show their little heads as the
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warm sun brings them back to life. But in the base ball season the beginning of life is the dickering between Babe Ruth and the brewery man, Jake Ruppert, who is the generalissamo of Babe Ruth and his companion "swatters". To be sure Babe does not consider that the present condition of things should interfere with his $75,000 pocket money, but Mr. Ruppert thinks "the high cost of living is reduced and $50,000 should satisfy Babe as compensation for one year of swatting." And so the dickering goes on-which is all a part of the opening of the base ball sea- son.
LAW MAKING AT THE STATE CAPITAL
We were down to the State Legislature last week and saw the boys in action, and we feel pretty well satisfied that they, as a whole, are trying to do the best possible for the best interest of the people of the state of Indiana. What any one person may think does not control things down there. There are about one hundred in the Lower House and over half that many in the Senate, and before you can get all those fellows to agree on a certain thing it takes a lot of dickering and a lot of time.
There is one thing we have decided upon and that there is not much use in finding fault with what is, "kicking behind the barn," or swearing. If the common people want something they must get their ideas expressed in a bill, go down to the legisla- ture and get it passed and signed by the governor when it will become a law.
The rank and file too often are not represented because there is no system or action where it will accomplish the desired ob- ject. The folks who are getting what they want have bills writ- ten up to represent their interests and are "Johnny on the spot" around the legislature and they get their bills through.
This being an American citizen is no child's play. To get justice for the majority of the American people is an earnest man's job and if the rank and file want justice they must show more interest and good judgment than they have done.
February, 1933
CRIME AND CRIMINAL COURT PROCEDURE
The wave of emotion which swept our nation because of the Lindbergh tragedy for a while seemed to lessen the kidnapping profession. But just of late it has broken out afresh, and seems to be quite an epidemic, both east and west. The Lindberghs are to have no peace or security from the devilish underworld with their second child, and according to a newspaper report do not propose to live in a country where life and property are
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not protected, and are going to France to live. If the Lind- berghs do that, the president should call for a day of mourning, and the whole nation should hang their heads in shame and ask the Lord to forgive them for allowing this "land of the free and home of the brave" to become so rotten and depraved that it is not possible for one of the first families of the land to live in America and bring up their children in safety and peace.
There is a reason for this condition here in the United States. One is, the people as a whole do not stand for a high order of morality and citizenship.
Former Judge Martin J. Smith has been working for years for a change of court procedure, making it possible for swift justice, and here is what he says :
"The foremost and underlying reason for the crime situation is governmental inefficiency in all our governmental depart- ments, from the top to the bottom of the system.
Governmental inefficiency in the United States is due to, and is an inherent weakness of, our democratic form of government.
"In a democracy there is a dead level of mediocrity above which governmental efficiency does not and can not rise.
"This governmental inefficiency is responsible for and has brought about the following conditions :
"1. An unwholesome alliance of so many of those entrusted with the enforcement of our laws and the administration of jus- tice with corrupt party politics and politicians.
"2. Incompetency on the part of so many of those entrusted with the enforcement of our laws and the administration of jus- tice.
"3. Laxity on the part of so many of those entrusted with the enforcement of our laws and the administration of justice.
"4. Dishonesty on the part of so many of those entrusted with the enforcement of our laws and the administration of jus- tice.
"5. The same identical situation in all the other departments of our entire governmental fabric, executive, legislative and ad- ministrative; national, state and municipal.
"This governmental inefficiency, in so far as it affects the crime situation, is responsible for our obsolete, inefficient and indefensible system of criminal procedure by and through which the courts are compelled to deal with the criminal class and ad- minister justice.
"Our criminal courts are given the task and charged with the responsibility of maintaining the supremacy of our penal laws and the administration of criminal justice, but they are de- nied the proper facilities with which to accomplish the task and
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discharge their obligation efficiently, effectually and satisfactor- ily to society. This is due to the fact that the legislative branch of our state government has failed and refused to enact proper and necessary laws for that purpose.
"We do not need more laws, as we have entirely too many now. We need less laws than we have now and especially so in regards to penal laws, but we need the right kind of laws and especially so in regard to our criminal procedure; in other words, our criminal procedure needs some important changes."
We are now trying to get a bill through the legislature em- bodying Judge Smith's proposals, and it is uphill work, as the ordinary lawyer and bar association don't want swift justice, be- cause if we did have, one-half of them would be out of a job. They get their money out of the criminal, so the more they can play with crime the more money they get. You know it is done many a time in our courts of justice or injustice.
Very often the criminal is not caught, and when he is, through the manipulation of our courts the punishment is not severe. So the criminal takes a chance; that is what makes so many of them. The attitude of the public toward crime encour- ages it. In the Chicago Herald and Examiner recently was a large picture of Lawrence C. O'Brien, who had just returned from serv- ing his prison term at Leavenworth, Kansas, for defrauding the United States out of $102,000 on his income tax, being received by his friends in his luxurious home and given a royal welcome. From the picture, Mr. O'Brien was the creator of a whoopee par- ty, and it did not seem to detract from the occasion to know (according to the Herald and Examiner) that Mr. O'Brien had made his money dishonestly through Chicago city graft.
Later-The Judge Smith bill was introduced and went to a committee of lawyers, and there was killed by not being reported out.
Our court business in Lake county and in the state is a rot- ten shame, and it would seem that if the people would not wake up and demand a change in court procedure, effecting the cut- ting in half of expenditures and swifter justice, they are a pa- tient, longsuffering lot of chumps.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
This is Sunday afternoon. After hearing Rev. Milnes' fine discourse on "Abraham Lincoln" at the Methodist Episcopal Church, and having a good dinner, our thoughts run along some- thing like this :
Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States about seventy years ago. The people made him president for the reason
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that they believed he was the best fitted to right the great wrong that was abroad in the land at that time. Mr. Lincoln's oppor- tunity for learning in every way, and especially a school educa- tion, was much less than the ordinary citizen has at this time; and still he became a great thinker and scholar able to fathom the great questions of that day. We all admire him and honor him for his sterling qualities and give him great praise, and let it go at that.
We have at this time a more serious condition than at the time of Abraham Lincoln's activities. There are now more men and women in slavery and want in the United States than there was in 1860. But where is our leader to lead us out of the wil- derness? After spending billions of dollars for public education during the last seventy years-the greatest chance the world ever knew to make wise men and women that should be able to grasp the great questions of the day-we seem to be floundering in a maze, not knowing what to do and apparently doing nothing, only appropriating vast sums of money for this thing and that thing, making a vast debt that the people some time will have to pay. We seem to be in about the state of mind that Nero was in when he fiddled while Rome burned.
It would seem that every community would get together and talk over the present situation and try their best to get to the bottom of this thing, and be ready to act in an intelligent way to end this terrible depression. But about all that is being done is to get together and play bridge or pinochle or talk over how to get together, some old clothes and food to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and mighty little of that, and no action to remedy the cause. Somebody has made a botch of the whole business of government and we are suffering the results, and don't know enough to remedy it. We do not believe that saying the depression is world-wide is a satisfactory explanation. That is no more satisfactory than the old gag, "Over-production was the cause of it."
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