USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 32
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Let the young man or woman go out in the world with good,
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common sense and determination, and be willing to work as hard and long as the young people did 50 or 75 years ago and they will be better rewarded at this time than they were then. This country was built up on hard work and low wages, and if we are going to build it up again it will be just about the same process. But if one-half of the people go on a pension and the other half have to support them the chances are good for us all to be in a bad mess.
LAWYER CRIMINALS AND CRIMINAL LAWYERS
"What I see in the papers" is that the United States of America has 131 lawyers to each 100,000 people. England and Wales had 47 lawyers to each 100,000. For Italy, Belgium and Denmark it was 40. So you see why we are suffering from the legal profession in the United States of America. We have had criminal lawyers and lawyer criminals galore-e. g., the Piquette stripe who defended Dillinger and was given two years in the federal prison and $10,000 fine. Hope some of the rest of them will take notice and note there is a limit on what a lawyer crim- inal can do.
DR. WIRT SPEAKS AGAIN
Dr. William Wirt, head of the schools of Gary, who had the sand and the sense to first complain of the actions of the New Deal, gave a talk before the Chamber of Commerce in Hammond a short time ago. As usual, when he talks he says something which we will quote in part :
"Only a handful of the nation's business men, financiers, and industrialists are sufficiently familiar with the economics of business, trade, and money to protect themselves from adverse conditions or to take advantage of improving conditions.
"The cause of this lack of knowledge by the vast majority of American citizens, including most of the bankers, lies in the faulty method of public school teaching since the birth of the nation."
"Dr. Wirt showed that the war caused high prices, and that after the war closed prices should have come down, according to the condition of things as represented by supply and demand, fair and just to all branches of business, with an intelligent regulation.
"If we had had that information in the past," he said, "we would have taken immediate steps to deflate prices to pre-war levels with one fell swoop. As it is, we blundered through, al- lowing nature to take its course and thereby extending the de- pression over a greater period of time than was necessary.
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"Nobody really is to blame for this condition, inasmuch as the American people have never been taught these fundamental facts in their public schools."
Dr. Wirt recommended a complete overhauling of every school text book in the nation to teach sound economie principles from the time children are old enough to absorb such knowledge properly.
He said this knowledge, if it is more widely disseminated, will save the United States many financial headaches in the fu- ture, because it will enable the average person to gauge economic conditions more accurately.
Dr. Wirt has been conducting a campaign toward that end for a number of years now. He has spoken on the subject all over the country.
At a meeting of the American Home Economics association convention in the Palmer house, Chicago, a criticism of subject matter taught high school and college students as too feebly related to the realities of life was made by Miss Ellen Miller of the Merrill-Palmer school, Detroit, in a symposium on the education of youth in family relationships.
Questions related to the family, relations between the sexes and the future problems of the students, Miss Miller said, should be discussed in classes for the student "to associate the realities of life with academic instruction."
"It is my personal conviction," she concluded, "that stu- dents who are permitted to discuss such questions freely and fully will need a minimum of adult guidance."
There is hope of an intelligent American citizenship when educators like Dr. Wirt and Miss Miller speak out in public on these important educational questions.
FARMERS AND THE AAA
There is a big crop of writers in the newspapers that are so terribly agitated over the AAA, calling it tyrannical and vicious. They say, "It will disrupt the settled channels of trade and commerce. It enhances the cost of living, influences wage levels in all lines of industry and affects conditions of busi- ness in every part of the country. . .. It would undermine in- dividual initiative and poison the very well springs of our na- tional spirit of providing abundant reward for thrift and for open, competitive efforts." What they say the AAA is going to do the protective tariff has already done. The MeNary-Haugen bill that President Coolidge vetoed was to give the farmer a chance for a better price for his product, so that he would be able to buy the other fellow's product. Or, as it was claimed at
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the time, put the farmer's business on an equality with other business, so that he could trade. But at that time the protective tariff beneficiaries furnished the campaign fund for the Republi- can party and got what they wanted, so Coolidge vetoed the bill.
If the MeNary-Haugen bill had become a law and it had worked out as its friends thought it would, and the farmer had gotten a better price for his product so he could have bought the other fellow's product, the mills would not have had to shut down and throw men out of work and bring on this cala- mity. If we are ever going to get things running smoothly again, everybody must have an equal chance in the race of life. That is, a day's work must give one as much as it does another. That bullheaded boss, William Green of the American Federation of Labor, who is demanding a five-day week and a six-hour day for all except the farmer, hasn't got his eyes open yet, or else he has not much in the top of his head.
Earl C. Smith, president of the Illinois Agricultural associa- tion, flails the attacks on the AAA. Speaking for the association's 60,000 members, he said, "Farmers of Illinois and the nation are squarely behind the AAA and the pending amendments, and will fight to the last ditch to retain for agriculture the same privilege of production and price control now enjoyed by industry through corporate understandings and the protective tariff."
Smith asserted the present widespread attack of some of the meat packers, millers, and textile interests on the processing tax, if successful, will have the effect of driving farmer toward more drastic means than have yet been tried in their fight for economic justice and a fair share of the national income.
Better give the farmers a square deal or some of these objectors may go hungry.
RAKES "VULTURE LAWYERS"
The American Bar association has been having a big meet- ing at Los Angeles, California, and it seems it is beginning to see the light and to feel something will have to be done to make the courts more respectable.
Federal Judge John J. Parker, speaking at the meeting, denounced attorneys of the "vulture type, the ambulance chaser and the police court racketeer, who have presented the lawyer in the role of a mere parasite, preying none too honestly upon the miseries and misfortunes of his fellows."
Judge Parker further criticized the "lawyer-criminal" who "counsels and advises in the commission of a crime and uses his knowledge of legal process to protect the enemies of society from the avenging hand of the law and who has led many to think
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the object of lawyers is not to uphold the law but to thwart and defy the law."
Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard law school, who presented the major address on criminal laws, said law schools, institutes for research, and ministries of justice-state and federal creation of which he advocated-should join forces in an intelligent over- hauling of criminal law.
It looks as if there is some hope for them yet.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
What is all this planning for future generations going to do for posterity? The early settlers here worked their heads off to get a lot of land so they would pass it along down to their children. Most of the children did not want to farm. They went to town and got jobs as street car conductors. Years ago we raised fine horses and had good buggies and harness. No- body now wants these things. The women used to knit all the socks and mittens, and now nobody knows how to knit.
There are millions and millions of dollars spent right now for conservation of different things, and it may be posterity will not want it or can not use it. The TVA is spending millions to produce electricity by water power, and just of late some fellow is offering a new idea of harnessing electricity by some process through the sun. They are spending millions of dollars in an effort to stop the washing of our soils down to the sea. There will be a lot of good land left and the coming generations do not want to farm anyway, so why not let it wash?
There is one thing sure-posterity will have some big debts to pay for our forethought and consideration for them, and it may be they won't thank us for doing so much for them and leave them to pay for it.
THE TERRE HAUTE STRIKE
Terre Haute is in the hands of a mob which has complete con- trol of the town, with the exception of one store-a grocery run by a woman, who pointed a pistol at the delegates who informed her that she must close her store, and drove them away. She still has her pistol and is still doing business. Governor McNutt has ordered 1,500 to 2,000 troops there to keep order, so that the merchants can resume business and furnish the people with food and other necessaries of life. General Wray DePrez, who is in command of the troops, has given his orders and it looks as if they were going to have law and order or somebody will get hurt.
Those men on strike, the same as millions of others in this
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country, have a vote and have their rights, the same as everybody else does, and if they knew enough to use their votes intelligently they could get justice, and that is all they can expect. But with brute force and mob rule they are going to get nowhere in the long run. Labor is in the great majority, and when they know enough to vote for right and justice, we will be getting some- where for the benefit of all. Brute force may win a battle, but it won't win a victory.
PAROLE SYSTEM HIT BY J. EDGAR HOOVER
Here are two articles that substantiate what I have said about the lawyers and our courts. They show why we did not get that bill through our last legislature.
The first article, from the Chicago Tribune, is as follows :
Six hundred American police chiefs heard J. Edgar Hoover, director of the federal bureau of investigation of the department of justice, deliver a stinging lashing to parole systems, shyster lawyers, and crooked politicians.
Addressing the International Association of Chiefs of Police in convention, Hoover traced the chief cause of crime to these lawyers and officials and included in his attack the "sob-sister judges" and "criminal coddlers." The parole system he branded "a national scandal."
The speaker warned "crooked attorneys everywhere" that whenever his department learns of their plans "to traduce jus- tice" the evidence will be traced "down to the last shred" and that "criminal attorneys will be sent where they belong."
"Here at this meeting," Hoover declared, "a criminal is understood to be a criminal, with a gun in his hand and mur- der in his heart. It is not necessary here in discussing what shall be done with that human rat-to persuade some altruistic soul that he is not a victim of environment of circumstances or in- hibitions of malformed consciousness to be reformed by a few kind words, a pat on the cheek, and freedom at the earliest pos- sible moment.
"Beyond this, there is the legal shyster in law making who, in meetings of bar associations and legislatures, cries out against every statute which aids the law-enforcement officers and works with fanatical zeal for laws which will hamper him. He orates loudly and blatantly upon the preservation of the constitutional rights of the criminal jackal and totally ignores the sacred and human rights of honest citizens. He is backed by the politician who is willing to trade the property, the well being the security and even the lives of law abiding persons for ballots spawned in prison cells, and the support of gutter scum.
"A vaster army are the sob-sisters, the intruders, the
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uninformed and misinformed know-it-alls, the sentimentalists and the alleged criminologists who believe that the individual is greater than society, that because any criminal can display or similate even the slightest evidence of ordinary conduct, then indeed he must be a persecuted being entitled to be sent forth anew into the world to again rob and plunder and murder.
"Why is it that these sentimentalists never think of the human wreckage left in the paths of such marauders? Why do they weep over the murder and remain dry eyed at the thought of his slaughtered victim ?
"The time has come when we must look upon all persons who help the criminal as being enemies to society.
"The sob-sister who weeps over a kidnaper, and who through a desire for notoriety influences public opinion in favor of mercy for that foul body snatcher, is to my mind little better than the persons who must be punished for having aided, abetted or har- bored him. The fuss-budget, busy-body who spends his or her time, for purposes of self-aggrandizement and a name as a philanthropist, in reducing the already too-short sentences of rapists, murderers, kidnapers and other outlaws, interferes seriously with the proper proceduce of justice. The shyster who passes laws for the good of the criminal is no better than his professional brother who hides that criminal; the politician who stuffs his parasitical being upon the fruits of underworld votes is as much a type of vermin as the scum which casts its ballots ac- cording to his dictation. The time has come for all of us to look upon them for what they are-enemies to our cause and enemies to society."
WHY DON'T THE LAWYERS CLEAN HOUSE ?
The second article, under the above caption, we clip from the Reader's Digest, condensed from the Forum and written by Jerome Beatty :
I don't know how many centuries have passed since the lawyers began to regulate the layman, but in the interests of fair play it's time for a turnabout.
There is nothing new in pointing out the disgraceful alliances between criminals and their lawyers. Everybody knows of the stupidities in court procedure. Every person who has been in- volved in a lawsuit has experienced delay, has paid exorbitant fees, has seen lawyers make a monkey out of justice.
But I believe few laymen realize that shysters control our legislatures and our bar associations to such an extent that our legal system is first a plan for making money for lawyers and that justice is an afterthought. Lawyers want it as it is.
Says Judge Pullen of California: "Plans for getting after
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the shysters who impede justice never get beyond the blueprint stage. One barrier to reform is the large number of unethical lawyers in the legislature who sidetrack any legislation that would hit a lawyer's pocketbook."
In law we find thousands of honorable men with good minds, and most of them are members of bar associations which con- tinually are presenting recommendations to the governor in a futile effort to clean up the bar. However, half the lawyers belong to no bar association whatsoever. Of the 160,000 lawyers in the United States, only 28,000 are members of the American Bar association. And even the bar associations are usually con- trolled by members who render impotent the activities of their honorable colleagues.
We have reached a point where the conduct and motives of the lawyers who hold the balance of power in their profession merit sneers from all just men. The honest lawyers appreciate the situation. They're frightened. But they don't know what to do. They realize that only with the backing of an aroused public can they accomplish anything. But they feel they'd be traitors to their profession if they confessed that they couldn't clean their own house and had to call in the layman to help.
A prominent New York attorney once wrote me: "After practicing in New York City for some 35 years, I feel convinced that the greatest aid to crime in this country is the unscrupulous and corrupt lawyer, and the bar associations do little to correct the matter."
Says John Kirkland Clark, chairman of the American Bar association's council on legal education : "There are some lawyers who really are in cahoots with organized criminals, who invoke perjured testimony, frame alibis, and engage in wholesale de- ceit of the court."
Judge Joseph E. Corrigan of New York says: "As the law is now, perjury is the commonest and safest of crimes. There is hardly a trial in which at least one witness does not lie under oath. Usually, of course, prompted by a lawyer."
Homer S. Cummings, attorney general of the United States : "If we fail to break up the liaison between certain members of our profession and the leaders of organized crime, we cannot com- plain when public movement is instituted to do for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves."
Guy A. Thompson, a former president of the American Bar association, has protested that it is unfair to criticize the bar when it does not disbar or send to jail dishonest lawyers. The legislatures, he says, are to blame because they have not passed laws which are adequate for punishing crooked lawyers. Mr. Thompson forgets that the only reason such laws have not been
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passed is because lawyers, inside and outside the legislatures have consistently opposed them.
Lawyers, even the unethical ones, agree that, if a power- ful majority of the members of the bar so desired the courts, the laws and the bars could be cleaned up almost instantly. All that is necessary is for legislatures to pass bills which have already been presented and defeated or pigeonholed in every legislature in the land.
Politics is made to order for a lawyer. He can handle his political job on the side, and public office usually helps his busi- ness. Lawyers learn to become thick-skinned and can laugh off attacks, libelous or true, that would shatter the nerves of a business man. Lawyers understand the art of stump speaking and of vote getting and know, after election, how to perform in order to assure re-election.
"POLITICAL BEHAVIOR"
I have been thinking there is nothing the matter with the country of these United States, but considerable wrong with the people who inhabit the country, or we would be in better shape for the good of the whole people. I have been reading a book called "Political Behavior," by Frank R. Kent, and will quote some passages which will give you an idea what he thinks about it :
"One of the most curious things about politics in America is the extraordinary lack of knowledge concerning its practices and principles, not only on the part of the people as a whole but the practitioners themselves. Here is a profession that not only vitally affects every person in the country, but in which more are actively engaged than in any other. It is a profession in which it is possible to acquire the very greatest temporal power and in which there are unparalleled opportunities for the develop- ment of talent and the display of character or the lack of it. In it the chance for prestige and prominence, experience and excitement, thrills, flops and general emotional disturbances are wider and more varied than in other fields. There are in it re- wards for the rich as well as for the poor. It attracts men of all stations and all ages. It has its lure for the patriot and the profiteer, the faker and the wholly sincere, the high-minded and the low, the reformer and the crook.
"Its amazing range is indicated by the fact that the precinct captain and the President of the United States, the obscure jus- tice of the peace and the eminent ambassador to a foreign court are equally politicians. It is a profession that touches all other professions, avocations, trades and callings in a way none of them
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touch it. Rich or poor, man or woman, big or little-politics touches all of us directly, deeply, intimately, inescapably. No clear-headed person will dispute that for a minute.
"There is no stage of life free from politics. Birth, death, marriage and divorce are all matters of politics. The schools to which we send our children, the very water we drink, every law and ordinance that governs society, that is of interest to us, is related to politics. So, whether you like it or not, politics per- meates your entire existence-and it is supremely silly to say, 'Politics is a dirty game and I don't want anything to do with it,' or, 'Politics does not concern me.' Not to be concerned with a thing that is of such vast importance is intensely stupid."
The author of the book, speaking of the great responsibility of the President, says that four-fifths of the time of every Presi- dent is consumed not by large but little things, not in the con- sideration of broad national and international policies, but of small machine politics. To some Presidents the patronage pres- sure-absorbing time, sapping energy, interfering with construc- tive thought and work-becomes an almost intolerable nuisance. The author explains the great power of the money interests con- trolling legislation in this way :
"The great money interests have their capital invested in the big manufacturing interests and the public utilities, and the general public have bought bonds and stocks in these enterprises estimated at about fifteen million voters, and no one that has stocks and bonds, be they great or small, wants the big interests interfered with lest it affect the earning power of his stock, and the big interests keep the small stockholders informed so that they can use their influence in a political way to stop any legisla- tion against the interests of combined wealth."
The big money interests have the system. They saw that public opinion was rising up against them-so they took in part of the public to be interested with them, and of course that includes a lot of our lawmakers.
The author, referring to the intelligence of the voters, quotes an old campaigner for the office of United States senator, and in his time a candidate for many offices : "What the people want is 'Give them hokum,' and you have got 'em." Hardboiled as is this philosophy, its soundness is beyond dispute-hokum is what they want and the candidate that feeds it to them is going to be the winner.
Speaking of the women in politics, Mr. Kent says : "Don't worry about the women. Ninety per cent of them vote just as their husbands do and, as for their influence in politics, they have not changed a thing. They have only increased the number of
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votes cast, but have not changed the result. ... They split on moral issues just as the men split, swallow the same hokum and are, in the mass, considerably less posted in politics than the men. That is not because they are inherently less intelligent but because they are more interested in social things and their families and children. Two-thirds of the women who are members of the na- tional committees of the two parties are thoroughly muddy- minded in polities, haven't got, nor will acquire, any really po- litical knowledge or understanding-were put on, not because of their political influence or gumption, but because of the newly made woman's vote. It seemed necessary to have a female repre- sentative from each state on the two committees. They have been elected in nearly every case by the local machine leaders with a view to avoiding friction. The ideal national committee woman, from the masculine standpoint, is the one who holds no views of her own and votes regularly and decidedly with the male members from her state. The women do not want to fol- low a woman political leader. They prefer the man and he does not have to flatter them to get their votes."
One fixed route of the politician, according to the book, is to be on the popular side of a current issue. It is not important to be on the right side. Those that go into politics with convictions, and insist upon being true to them at all times and under all conditions, are "cranks" who get nowhere. The time to consider right and wrong is after you have been elected-not before. But, according to the book, there is many a man who has played the demagogue and resorted to claptrap to get votes and when he got elected had a conscience in serving the people. The idea is this: If you want to get in a position to serve the people it is necessary first to fool them and get their votes. Then you have a chance to serve them. He says Abraham Lincoln's saying, "You can't fool all the people all the time," is practically out of date, for you can fool most of the people all the time. He says the mass of the people do not want, as a steady diet, the plain, un- adulterated, unvarnished truth. "Feed 'em hokum."
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