USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 26
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What about taking the dependents out on the land and set- ting them up in business? How many would make a success ? A great many of the destitute now in the cities went there from farms for the reason that they did not want to do the hard work on the farms that was necessary for success. I know a family, not one hundred miles from Griffith, who were given (free of encumbrance) a good sized farm and buildings. They have lost it and moved to town. You can't give people a living; they must earn it. The government can't take care of everybody; every- body must take care of the government, if we have any govern- ment worth taking care of.
"HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN"
You know, when our happy Democrats made the laws gov- erning the sale of liquor they had a clause in it giving Tom Tag- gart at West Baden Mineral Springs a low license fee of $100 in- stead of the regular fee of $300. And it came to pass that Rep- resentative Lassen had a mineral spring at his retail tavern and several others founded mineral springs at their saloons and were able to get a license for $100. Since Lassen failed to get the nomination for state senator the mineral qualities of Cedar Lake water have vanished and they now all have to pay the regular rate for a license-so the papers report.
THE NEW DEAL
Most everybody seems to have a different opinion in regard to the management and working of the New Deal. If the big steel companies get no orders for steel, so there is a profit in making it, they shut down the mills. If the shoemakers get no profit making shoes they do not make shoes, etc., etc. If men can't get what wages they think they should have they go on a strike and will
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not work at all, and sometimes try to kill those that do want to work. And all this is perfectly right and proper. But when the farmers plow under some cotton or kill little pigs or practice birth control on their sows, the city people rise up in holy horror at the idea that the farmers are curtailing production to regulate the price of their product. It is preposterous to interfere with God's laws of production. Their idea of the farmer's business is that the farmer should produce as much as possible, so that the city people will always have cheap food. They would have the farmer work for about eight cents per hour, where, if the farmer bought a machine to help him in his work, the price of that ma- chine would represent labor at from $1.00 to $2.00 per hour. If the farmer wanted to build a house or barn the carpenter, mason and plumber would want from one to two dollars per hour. Roger Babson says we need more residential building; we are a million homes short; and he also says there are from 1,500,000 to 2,000,- 000 builders out of a job today. The reason for this is because of what they want for their labor. And, too, the cost of building material is away out of proportion to what it is worth. A man would be a fool to build a house at this time and pay the wages that the builders are demanding. In the honest nature of things, at this time conditions do not warrant it. But why should they worry? They can get welfare relief for the asking, so they don't have to work.
But I find that the people that are working and paying big taxes, and mighty good prospects of paying high taxes for a long time to come, are getting fed up on this thing of the public feed- ing a lot of lazy loafers who want big wages and a little work. Just when things are looking better and men are given work they go on a strike. Talk about the tyranny of capital-that is bad enough-but the tyranny of labor is worse. We may be compelled to do here what they are doing in Germany-drafting men in a labor army, and if they won't work they receive no dole. So it is to work or starve. That would bring them to time, and it looks as if that is about the only thing that would.
If we are going to get out of this depression the farmer must have a price for his product so that he can buy the product of the other fellow. And if the other fellows are not willing to show some horse sense and willingness to give fair play and justice, we will not have prosperity. This New Deal is spending billions to start things up, and this spending will come back on the same people that are now paying the bills. They will have to pay more bills, and there will come a time when patience will cease to be a virtue, and then who is going to pay for it all?
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MORE ABOUT COURT PROCEDURE
Some of you will remember that five years ago Erick Lund, then trustee of North township, was tried in court on a charge of filing illegal claims amounting to $13,552, and found guilty. He was given from two to fourteen years in the state prison. He did not go to prison, but went to the higher courts, and now after five years the Indiana supreme court has upheld the lower court. That is all unnecessary. In a change of court procedure, with swift justice and business-like action by our court officers, there would be no need of any such "monkey business" in our courts.
In Los Angeles, California, the officers of the courts became disgusted with themselves and determined to "get a move on" in the business of the courts and get things done; and they have done it. They were just like all the other courts in the country- behind from one to five years. Some of them were determined to put a stop to all that and without any legislative change in the laws, but a big change in the execution of the laws, they cleaned up the docket. Now the cases are tried at once, and it is a long case that is not decided inside of thirty days. They are getting far better results in swift justice, and the cost of the courts to the public is beautifully reduced.
In an article on the Los Angeles courts a writer says: "The lawyers, and judges generally, seem to think the courts are made for their benefit." The Los Angeles courts are run for the bene- fit of the public.
July, 1934
JOHN DILLINGER
John Dillinger was shot dead Sunday evening as he came out of a theater, so the Monday morning papers say. This may be another mistake. There have been so many mistakes with Dil- linger; this may be another one. Some claim it was a mistake tu give him so severe a punishment for his first crime. And it was certainly a mistake to parole him from the Michigan City prison the way he acted after he got out. The Crown Point performance with Dillinger was a bad mistake all the way through. Estill's love scene with him was a big mistake if he wanted a re-election as prosecuting attorney. The big mistake of all was the mon- keying around with Dillinger after they got him to Crown Point. If he had been tried, killed, and buried within 48 hours, that would have been business. But it was a great show and they wanted it to last as long as possible. The whole "caboodle" thought there was a lot of honor and glory in it. Dillinger was too much for the whole bunch and he made them look silly. It
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has cost the country an immense amount of money to get him again.
There is no doubt but that Dillinger has been the hero of the underworld and also a lot of young people that do not know where they are at think of him as such. It was inevitable that he would come to a deserved end unless he hid himself in the jungles of Africa or some other out of the way place. For the powers that be were bound to get him. It is always thus-crime of any kind has a bad ending.
TIME TO BE "SKEERED"
The Republican party was in power for years and let the country go to wreck. Roosevelt was elected by an indignant people, and he started out to do things. He has done a lot and we have been feeling that he should have our support and be giv- en a chance to "get the wreck together, greased up and running again." But we begin to feel like the woman who was asked if she believed in ghosts. She said she did not believe in ghosts, but was afraid of them. I am just wondering if it isn't about time to get "skeered." Never before was so much money being spent in peace times. More people are at work, but at what cost! Those at work are not satisfied with good wages (consid- ering the condition of things) and they go on strike, making dis- turbance and costs.
The building business is at a standstill with the exception of that backed up by the government at a tremendous cost, caused, more or less, by the attitude of the government. Building me- chanics want 1929 wages-$1.50 per hour. Building material has gone up 37 per cent on account of the New Deal. A man making brick and tile in this state for years could now, if let alone, make brick for eight and ten dollars per thousand and could sell them in his home market. The New Deal says you must pay the men so much, work them so many hours per week and sell your brick for $13 per thousand. His market is the small town and nearby farmers, and they can't and will not pay this price. So he quits making brick and he and the men are idle. Buildings would be built now if labor and building material were cheap enough. But a man would be a fool at this time to pay $1.50 per hour for workmen and the present rise of material.
Another thing that is "skeering" me is with what ease so many slip into public charity. It does not seem to worry them much. If they can't get big wages at the work to which they are accustomed they do not need to worry. The government will take care of them. In our limited knowledge, we do not know of
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a man who was ambitious, proud and determined to take care of himself but who has done it. We know a carpenter who worked at his trade receiving $1.50 an hour, as others did. When build- ing ceased he lost his job, along with others, but instead of de- pending upon charity he was willing to do anything he could find -fix the cellar door, make and hang screens, put new shelves in the closets, put a new roof on the barn and paint the neighbor's auto at a price they could afford. What is worrying me is that a lot of people are working, not thirty or forty hours a week, but ninety hours a week-the whole family working hard, the price of their product low and their taxes terrible. They are the salt of the earth and are doing more than their duty. They are taking care of themselves with two or three more riding on their back through taxation.
What encouragement is there to work hard, and be saving and frugal, and then have most of it taken to support someone else? From the way everything seems to be moving one wonders who is going to pay taxes in years to come. And what is the fu- ture for our children and grandchildren? We may have to adopt Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fittest." If they can't live they'll have to cease to live-or what have you?
SELFISHNESS CURES NO ILLS
Our good people in the churches tell us that the remedy for our public ills is to follow Christ. That means, we suppose, to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us"-to love one another and to be brothers in the pure sense of the word. What has been the rule is: "I will love myself as my neighbor loves himself and if he tries to outdo me in this labor of love I will make it hot for him."
Almost every nation has been acting independent of other nations, and what is the consequence ? We get selfish and hoggish and want to corner the good things of earth for our special bene- fit. International commerce, very necessary to the world's high- est well-being, has been interfered with by laws restricting trade by way of tariff walls which were supposed to give to some ad- vantage over others, and these would put up tariff walls supposed to give them "a corner of the earth."
The people of the United States were supposed to be a su- perior people, having a standard of living all their own. They did not have to compete with the paupers of Europe. A bad feel- ing was engendered and now we are in a race to build up war ma- chinery to kill one another and bring destruction and misery to the whole world. Organized labor is fighting organized capital to see who is going to be boss, instead of getting together and
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talking things over and arriving at right and justice for all con- cerned-all reaping the benefits of the abundance of this country, and being a happy, prosperous people. It seems we are possessed of the devil more than the spirit of Christ. Will the "brain trust," with its dictation and regimentation, bring about peace and harmony or the opposite ?
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN
If the Democratic party in particular and the wets in gen- eral thought they were putting something over for their honor or glory when they repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, they now have another guess coming; for if they did not bag a white elephant we do not know the name of it. It is a boomerang that is coming back and hitting them hard and they are squirming hard and don't know what to do or say next. Crime and lawlessness are increasing by leaps and bounds, and they can't deny it. The reason is the uncontrolled liquor traffic in the country. Drunken auto drivers have increased 300 per cent and all drunks in about the same proportion, and the Demo- crats from the high-ups to the low-downs are trying to get a rake- off from the business, from all reports.
MORBID CURIOSITY
We have had a glorious good time in getting John Dillinger, and lots of honor and glory for some and some of the opposite for others. We supposed, after he was dead and buried, his name would cease to appear on the front page of the big papers. But many of the people seem to like that kind of a racket and so the pa- pers are feeding it to them in large doses. The show men know what the people want and if they can't show them John they will show them John's whole family. At Indianapolis they line up for two blocks to secure tickets to see John's father, his sister and half-brother, and to hear them tell a little something about John. John's father claims (according to the papers) that he was of- fered $10,000 for his son's body by some enterprising showman. He must have figured that people would pay more than $10,000 to see John's body, so he had a very elevated opinion of the taste of the people. Mr. Dillinger, Sr., told them that they did not have enough money to buy his son's body, but it seems he is will- ing to sell himself and the whole family alive cheaper.
The Herald and Examiner has an eye for business and to give the people what they want. It is paying Mary Kinder, who was one of the women that was with John for four months after his break from the Lima jail, to write the story of how this outlaw lived and what he did during those four months of his life. Of
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course that is very important and appears on the front page with Mary's picture.
The papers reported that the big law enforcement officers of Indiana were going to have an investigation to find out who real- ly did kill John. We do not see what particular good it would do. We suppose he is dead, and that is the main thing. One agreement seemed to be that the federal officers would be given the honor because they could not take the money, and the East Chicago police would get the reward.
We expect John Dillinger will hold the headlines until some other morbid thing happens, and we may then get a rest. You know, a boy wrote a short time ago that he thought it did not pay to be honest, and it looks like it, if you want to be notorious. What good boy and good boy's family have caused so much pub- lic interest as John has?
It seems the human family is fearfully and wonderfully made and would rather wallow in the filth and slime of this world than bathe in the fresh water and sunshine.
AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL
Our forefathers fought, bled and died that we might have freedom. They formed the best government ever devised by man -"of the people, for the people, and by the people." One hun- dred and fifty-eight years ago these people had a great vision of a free people governing themselves, and made splendid arrange- ments for that purpose. To make a better and wiser citizenship they instituted free schools to educate the masses. The United States now boasts of more college graduates among its citizenry than was ever known in any country in the world. But with what results? With all our education and college graduates we do not know enough to run this God-given, rich and beautiful country- the United States of America. The failure has been with the peo- ple, not with the country.
It seems we have been educated to death on impractical or unbalanced lines. We have made machinery to make money, and have let the country "go to the devil." There is more hell raised than anything else in this "land of the free and home of the brave." We have given away so much freedom to our foreign emigrants that we have none left. Most of the names in the crime list are from southern Europe. The saloon is a foreign institution and has no regard for honesty or common decency.
The country now is covered with strikes and bloodshed, and the newspapers are claiming that the unrest is caused to a great extent by communists from foreign countries. Instead of our educated American citizens controlling things, it is left to ignor-
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ant foreigners and it seems the good American citizens have not ambition and determination enough to change this condition.
The founders of this government supposed that the country would be controlled by men, elected by the people, who would manage our public affairs in the interest of the whole people, but the people as a whole take very little interest in public af- fairs, and we have what we see. Some years ago there were 49 per cent of the possible vote cast in a presidential election. In 1932 there was a better showing-60 per cent of the possible vote was cast. You can depend upon it that the politician, who was in it for selfish purposes and graft, saw to it that his clientele voted. Had the 51 per cent and 40 per cent of the people entitled to vote, in these years referred to, assumed their responsibilities, condi- tions would probably not be as now. If these people think, what are they thinking about? Are they willing to go back to the dark ages and be governed by brute force, for instance, by a dictator, as in Germany, and as we now seem to be gradually heading for?
The governing of a people is a very serious thing and it makes no difference what kind of a government you have-where the people have anything to say about it, it will be no better than the people make it. So what we are getting here at this time rep- resents the capacity of the people. Will the trouble between cap- ital and labor be settled by strikes and bloodshed? Or will it be settled when the masses of the American people become intelli- gent enough to demand right and justice, brought about by just laws made by honest and intelligent representatives, elected to office by honest and intelligent American citizens?
CRITICIZES WHAT BORAH SAID
I wrote the following letter to the Hammond Times and am publishing it here in this paper : Editor Times :
Yours of the 10th of July, "What Borah Says," we quote from your paper :
"Is it sound to say that there are millions and millions of people in our country and in the world in want of food and illy clad, so let's destroy food, let's destroy the stuff of which the clothes are made? The less able the people are to buy, the more difficult we will make it for them to buy."
Of all the transactions of the new deal, the action of the A. A. A. seems to give the city people the most cause-viz. The farmers have not shut up shop and quit business. They are still doing business at the old stand, furnishing aplenty of food, for those that have money to buy it. They are only trying to limit production to the needs of the demand, and what is wrong in
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that? Why does not the United States Steel Company go ahead and make steel rails and pile them up and sell them at the best price the public will pay ? No, if you want steel rails they will give you a price based on cost of production with a profit. There is any amount of railroads who could use rails if they could buy them cheap enough.
Why does not your Hammond Car Manufacturing Company keep on making cars, the railroads could use them if they could get them cheap enough. In so doing they could keep the men at work.
If there is any class of people that need refrigerators, it is the farmer's wife. Why do not the refrigerator manufacturing companies go ahead and make all the refrigerators they can? There are more than forty millions of people that should nave refrigerators who have not. Why do you expect the farmer to be so generous as to furnish food for everybody whether or not they can pay for it any more than the manufacturer should fur- nish his product at a loss? The fact is, the city people have been furnished their food in abundance at low cost so long and con- tinuously that they have got to thinking it is their God-given right to have cheap food whether or not the producer gets a liv- ing wage out of it. That has been the situation. But I am tell- ing you right now, we do not propose to continue doing it much longer. One of the big efforts of the Farm Bureau is cooperative buying and selling. We will buy whole factory output and dis- tribute among the members, giving them at buying cost.
We are selling cooperatively through a central agent de- manding a price equal to the cost of production. With a profit we know we are the salt of the earth-we know we have been fair and reasonable in our demands. But the middle men have acted the hog, and have not given us a fair share of the price to the consumer.
So we propose to distribute our own goods which will be a benefit to both the producer and consumer. You city people don't want to worry so much about what the farmers are doing. If you will put your house in order, work as much for a dollar as the farmers do and keep your mills and factories going as much as the farmer keeps his farm going, we will go out of this depres- sion on high, with knee action.
August, 1934
WHY OUR CRIMINALS
In the Reader's Digest for September, H. L. Mencken dis- cusses "What to Do With Criminals." We think his head is located right on the subject, and we will quote from him :
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"The blame for the current terror is always laid at the wrong door. When a conspicuous criminal is at large, the poor cops are denounced for not taking him at once. But in nearly every case they have already taken him, not only once, but one- half dozen times. He is not loose because they have failed, but because the whole machinery of justice above them has failed." Mr. Mencken goes on with figures and proofs to show that it is not the fault of the officers to arrest the criminal, but the fault of the lawyers, courts and judges to do their duty after the crim- inal has been turned over to them.
"Two things are responsible for this wholesale cheating of justice. The foremost is the chaotic state not of the law, but of legal procedure. The law is everywhere sufficient to deal with every kind of serious crime. In forty of the forty-eight states the punishment for deliberate murder is death. If these laws were enforced for a year, at least two thousand murderers would go to the gallows instead of one hundred and thirty.
"What stands in the way of their execution is simply the incredible lack of conscience of so many lawyers and judges."
Here he goes on to show what we all know of the dilly-dally- ing and monkey business of the courts and winds up "and put- ting on a show for the newspapers," as they did in Lake county with the Dillinger case. In England the judge actually runs his court. If a shyster defending a criminal resorts to trickery he is hauled up at once, and if he persists, he is as good as disbarred. And if a prosecuting officer, forgetting the solemnity of the in- quiry before him, begins to strike attitudes and tear his hair, he is hauled up just as quickly. And thenceforth he prosecutes no more. An English judge makes up his mind without delay. He sees that his orders are obeyed instantly. And it is seldom that his judgment is upset or appealed.
In the United States a criminal trial is a tin-pot melodrama while it is going on, and before and after it are almost endless delays.
He goes on here to prove his point, but we all know about it in Lake county. "The blame for all this rests squarely upon the bench and bar of the country. Half the delays in justice among us are due to the failure of lawyers to show a reasonable profes- sional conscience, and the other half is due to the failure of judges to bring them to book."
He goes on to show the quack and grandstand players put on a lot of hooey that has no place in a court of justice, to kill time and get more money for the lawyers, when the people only want swift justice. If we would kill all those who commit mur- der instead of a small percentage of them we would get rid of
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these at least and it would have a convincing influence on those that are inclined that way.
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