USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 36
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do this they penalize and ultimately destroy the competent and thrifty upon whom the incompetent must depend.
Eventually all suffer as amply evidenced in history. During the process of destroying the rich even the competent find them- selves debarred from the means of earning an adequate living.
Fortunately for America it has been rich enough to care for those who could not care for themselves in normal times but it is not rich enough to continue to do this indefinitely and ex- travagantly during man-made abnormally hard times.
If we would eliminate governmental waste and crime losses the resultant saving would allow us to expend ten billion a year providing for the deficient while removing the staggering tax load from the breaking financial backs of our thrifty and our rich upon whom we must depend for progress.
Politics and crime go hand in hand. They are like the Siamese twins, neither could exist without the other. The incom- petent make them possible. The competent tolerate them.
Let's eliminate governmental waste and crime.
It is brought out in a great many divorce cases in Chicago that the parties were married in Crown Point. The Chicago Tribune got interested and sent a reporter out there to investi- gate and to write it up. Last Sunday's paper contained the second article on "Marriage Mill and Gin Marriages" and how many of them came to an end in the Chicago divorce courts. They have a big picture of Justice Harvey Minas of Crown Point marrying a couple, and another big picture of Justice Harvey Minas, Arthur Taylor and John Kroft. All of them are actively engaged in the marrying racket at Crown Point.
The whole article is rich and-but a small part will give you an idea of what is going on. We quote in part: "Howard H. Kemp ex-justice of the peace and now a self styled 'Reverend' has boasted for years that he has an unique method of determin- ing whether a prospective bride and groom are drunk. If a couple are not too drunk to walk up stairs, he claims 'then they are not really drunk at all.' "
One girl who must have gotten up stairs claims she could not stand up at the wedding. Still the Rev. Kemp thought if they got her up stairs she was a fit subject for the holy bonds of wedlock. She was so drunk she did not know that she was married according to the paper. Rev. Kemp married a 14 year old girl to Robert Fout who was 29 years old. Suppose he was old enough to carry the 14 year old girl up the stairs. This same paper has a picture of Justice Kitchel's sign which reads :
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Stop and Save now
Legal Marriages
We Marry Others-Why Not You
C. D. Kitchel-Justice of the Peace
And another picture of the house in which he marries them carries this sign :
Filling Station and Marriage Mill Where Justice Kitchel Sells Gas And Unites the Love Sick Couples From Chicago and Elsewhere
This is at 53rd and Lincoln highway. Mr. Kitchel makes a charge of $2.00. He says he has been marrying over 100 a month, but with the warm weather coming and moon light nights to encourage business he is looking forward to big things and is thinking of raising the price.
The writeup says Mr. Kitchel's breaking in on the mar- riage racket is causing consternation among the established racketeering justices and parsons. They see some of the profits from their shrewdly run marriage mills flowing into the other pockets of a rank outsider.
We understand the repeal of the 18th amendment was to bring about temperance where the young people would cease to drink.
LAKE COUNTY FAIR
There was a meeting at Crown Point last week to determine whether or not the County Commissioners and Council should appropriate $5,000 to pay up the old debts against the Fair society contracted for by the management of the last two fairs held. As usual most of those present were in favor of asking the public to pay the debt. The idea seems to be "Let the government do it, that is what we have a government for." There was only one at the meeting that offered any objection to taking public funds to pay up their losses. He said the State legisla- ture passed a law governing agricultural societies in promot- ing fairs for the purpose of encouraging agriculture. The law allowed public funds to be donated for that purpose. This bunch that came down from the north part of the county- job printers, newspaper men, what nots and not whats, and got
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possession of the fair association were not interested in agri- culture-did not know any more about agriculture than a hog knows about heaven. In fact they did not know enough about anything to know what they were trying to do.
Therefore under the law they can not ask the public to pay the losses. And another thing, the law required a membership as a voting privilege in the agriculture association. Most of them that voted in this new gang never attended a fair meeting before and were not members of the Agricultural Association, there- fore, were not, according to the law, the County Commissioners and the County Council cannot appropriate publie money to pay the bad debts of this late fair association.
We have got to put a stop to everything going to the public to foot their bills and here is as good a place to start as any- where. The objector did not get much support at the meeting but we believe the general public will appreciate his point of view.
We feel the new organization that is now interested in the coming fair are very capable and well meaning for the in- terest of a good fair and money would be well spent in their hands for the welfare of the public.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS STUDY FARM PROBLEM
We are mighty glad to see that the National Association of Manufacturers are coming to their senses and are just now waking up to the fact that if business is to be carried on con- tinuously and successfully a fair exchange of values must be maintained. If they had realized that after the World War when the price of the farmer's products went down to the bot- tom, and had not used every means and taken every advantage to keep their prices up there wouldn't have been such a differ- ence. When the farmer could not buy the manufacturer's pro- duction they had to quit manufacturing. That threw the men out of work.
Practically the whole cause of our "bustup" here in the United States was the "hogish" disposition of the big manufac- turing interests and organized labor. They should have known that at the close of the war values would shrink and especially so when they saw the farmer's values cut in half or more. Had they had any sense or good business judgment they would have known that business could not go on that way.
The National Association of Manufacturers are discussing the farm situation. They know that farmers make up from one- third to one-half the market for their production. They are not
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studying the farm problem to tell the farmer how to conduct their business, but rather to gain knowledge of the farm situation so that they will be better able to conduct their business in such a manner that they will be able to do business with the farmer. They likely have learned that they are not the whole thing and that farming is one of the most important industries, even if the farmer hasn't been considered in the last 50 years when our legislators have been considering American industries. You may doubt that but it a fact and can be proved by going over the records of our law-makers who have been very solicitous of the welfare of American industry, but never considered the farm- er. Most of the law-makers did not know that farming was an industry.
In the past the big interests would find out what the farm- ers wanted and then they would pull the string and see that they did not get it. But now a change has come over them and they say :
"It is sheer nonsense to attempt to separate these two groups that produce the entire wealth of the country, because the future welfare of the American people depends so definitely on the prosperity of both, and it is to the end of keeping these two great groups prosperous that we are trying to educate ourselves on the farmer's problems. We only hope that the farmer, in turn, will understand our problems."
The trouble has been there has not been much intelligent understanding among the farmers or anybody else or we would never have gotten in the bad shape we are in. The farmers have been voting for protection and prosperity. The other fellow got the prosperity and then "busted" from the cause that made it.
There is an article in the Forum on the different propositions of extending life through rejuvenation methods-through gland therapy and other quack practice. The conclusion of this article sums it up as the state of the mind to a great extent which make some older at 40 than others at 60 and we could say some older at 50 than others at 80. The final advice is: "Strive to keep limber and loving and a little bit loony."
We think we are following the advice one hundred per cent.
MR. WOODS WRITES TO PRESIDENT FOR FARMERS FIVE DAY WEEK-GETS ANSWER
A short time ago President Roosevelt was urging the in- dustries to employ more men so as to take up the unemployment. I wrote him to put the farmers on a five day week and a six
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hour day as they are proposing for other labor and the farms could use all unemployed. My idea was to put the farmer upon an equality with other labor as they have been talking about but according to the following letter :
"Mr. Sam B. Woods, Griffith, Indiana.
"Dear Sir :
"Your letter of April 20, addressed to the President of the United States, has been referred by his office to the Department of Agriculture with the request that your letter be answered direct.
"Undoubtedly if the suggestion in your letter were carried out and agriculture went on a five-day week and six-hour day, either crop production would be materially curtailed or em- ployment would have to be largely increased. If production were maintained at about present levels by increased employment, it would probably mean a sharp reduction in the returns to the employing farmers, since the prices of most agricultural products are not determined by the cost of production but by the avail- able supply in relation to the current demand.
"As a recent report on farm labor issued by this Bureau shows there apparently is some improvement in the employment of labor in agriculture and as agricultural conditions improve, further expansion is probable. In the past, improvements in machinery or equipment which have tended to increase the effi- ciency of agricultural labor have never been reflected in the ten- dency to reduce the hours or days of labor but usually either to decrease the amount of labor hired or to increase the output of the farming unit. Because, as cited above, increases in cost of production are not reflected in increased prices of agricultural commodities the problem of adjusting agriculture to a different working basis would seem to present considerably greater dif- ficulties than a corresponding adjustment in other industries."
Very truly yours, (signed) C. L. Harlan, Principal Agricul- tural Statistician, Acting in Charge, Division of Crop and Live- stock Estimates.
They are not inclined to try and work it out that way. If the farmers went on a six hour day and a five day week the town people would pay three times more for what they eat. The farmers would get the cost of production and a profit as other business figures.
GRADUATES
The boy and girl graduates are with us once again. I have attended the graduating exercises of Griffith, Ross and Mer- rillville from which High Schools about eighty young people emerge out into the world or to a course in college.
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We feel very kindly and have an interest in these young people for they will very soon be the principles for action in this world of ours, and will determine the future of this great United States of America. They have had a wonderful and easy opportunity for an education compared to what most of the older generation had, and we hope it will bring good re- sults.
But it may be possible that they have had advantages that in the long run will not be so much to their interest as at first thought. For instance, it is so easy to get to school-a nice warm gym in which to play-instead of wading through mud and snow to school; and playing out in the snow or skating on the ice for amusement. Will these new graduates take kindly to buckling up against the cold old world's hard jobs, and fight the battle through? This United States was build up on hard work and low wages. If the younger generation have not been up against the real thing, can they apply themselves to the real thing ?
Ross and Merrillville had the noted preacher, Preston Brad- ley, from Chicago, give an address for the occasion. So about all the effort most of the graduates had to make was to sit and look wise, and when they were handed their diplomas, put the tassel on their four cornered hat from one side to the other. These graduation speaker's great advice to the graduates is "they must do things," "must be of use in this battle of life." Right then and there they are robbing the graduates of a chance to show what they could do. They have been educated at a great cost of time and money and there was the first opportunity for them to show what use they could make of their education.
At Griffith the graduates furnished the program and did it well. This was much better for the good of the graduates and more interesting to their relatives and friends. Mr. Brad- ley was the best speaker for such an occasion I ever heard, but for all that, it was not equal to the boys and girls doing it them- selves as that was what we had been educating them for.
They say if you educate a negro in the South you have ruined him, for he thinks an educated person does not have to work. Our idea of education is to give the person more power and leverage to be able to do more and better work. Many seem to have the idea that work is hard to get. We do not know of one man or woman who is willing and anxious to work and able to do something useful who has not work.
And we know of many people who would like to get good help and are not able to secure it. Is the spirit atmosphere of the school such as to promote and encourage better workers, or is the idea to get an education so they won't have to work ?
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With the great numbers who are now getting well educated- if part of them, at least, are not educated for better capacity for work, some of them, at least, will be out of a job.
IS YOUR AMERICANISM ONLY SKIN DEEP?
August 1936
In about two months we are going to have an important election to select officers to represent us both in the state and nation. Does the average American citizen give the political question enough serious study and consideration to be able to decide the big important questions that have come up be- fore the American people to be decided at the coming election ? Is he able to vote intelligently ? This is still a government of the people and if the people do not act honestly and intelligently at the coming election they may not have a chance later on to say anything about it.
This government was founded by an intelligent and high class group of men and their form of government was built for a high class intelligent lot of people. Later on we opened the gates and let all the off scourings of the earth come here, and made it easy for them to become voters. With their breeding and bringing up in their native countries, many of them had neither the intelligence nor the moral fiber to make good Ameri- can citizens. America was to be the melting pot that would make all these foreigners over into good American citizens, but the truth of the matter is this: Instead of us Americanizing them they have foreignized us. We have now an European Sunday. Political meetings are held on Sunday at Wicker Park with all the trimmings of a foreign crowd. Our Lake coun- ty fair grounds have always been held sacred-a beautiful place for the good people to gather and I have never known any in- toxicating liquors to be sold on the grounds until the last two or three fairs, and now there is plenty of beer. There have been several meetings there of late which virtually have been big lager beer picnics. Some of the men in our public offices in this county have gotten their ideas more from their breeding and bringing up in Europe than from anything they have ab- sorbed in the United States, and some of the departments look like a foreign institution. Some of these foreigners take to a public office like a duck takes to water. They will do anything to get an office and will do most anything after they get it. This "land of the free and home of the brave" is not going to stay that way without the better class of people waking up to their responsibilities as American citizens and using their in-
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fluence for good government. If we are going to let the bums run it we will have a bum government.
We have some preachers in this county who know their business-like F. W. Backemeyer, of Gary, and James Lawson, of Hammond, and the rest had better get in line for God and Country, for if we get Communism here we won't have any churches. The September Christian Herald has an article head- ed "A Minister in the Head Lines." It is about Lester Clee, minister of Newark's Second Pressbyterian church who took up with a dying church and made it the strongest and liveliest church in the state. Three years ago Clee took Newark's breath by throwing his ecclesiastical stetson into the political ring. Dis- gusted and aroused over the corrupt politics of the city and country, he stepped down from the pulpit and led a clean-up movement in the state that brought cheers from the populace and yelps of fear from the bosses and wrought such havoc in the decadent and dirty house of New Jersey state politics that the whole country has stopped and looked and listened. That's news! Clee is news. He is in the head lines. He has done some- thing. Mention his name in any conversation and the conversa- tion turns to politics-to the preacher in politics. There you have it. Here is a preacher who is trying to do something, try- ing to bring the Kingdom of God on earth. The rest of us had better get into action if we want to preserve this "land of the free and home of the brave."
-S. B. W.
OUR NATIONAL PARTY CONVENTIONS
The 1936 national conventions of both parties are a thing of the past and we are still alive and the earth is revolving as usual. The sun still rises and sets on schedule and most people are going on in the even tenor of their business as they did be- fore these conventions were called. This regardless of the fact that both Republicans and Democrats thought that great changes would be wrought.
About the great things that are going to be done, the Re- publicans are going to save the country and the Democrats have already saved it. While we were having a severe drouth all over the middlewest, there was no drouth at either con- vention. According to the newspapers, there was plenty of wet goods at Cleveland and it just poured at Philadelphia. It was such a downpour that it took twenty trucks piled high with empty bottles, to clear the place after the faithful, who were determined to nominate Roosevelt and Garner, had per- formed their tasks and gone home.
The whole thing was settled before the convention met and
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could have been carried out in one day, but the well planned program called for a great demonstration of noise and confusion for the consumption of the home folks over the radio. The pro- gram called for longer and louder cheering than ever before and when one demonstration had lasted an hour and seven minutes, the chair gave out the news that it was the longest on record, so the cheering stopped. The program had been carried out as planned and the radio audience had heard what a wonderfully spontaneous enthusiasm those Democrats had. Some of us knew that most of it came out of a bottle.
For another thing, Philadelphia business men had sub- scribed to bring the convention to their city, and in fairness to these men, it was only right and proper that the crowd should be held there as long as possible so that the merchants could get their money back with a profit. This they did. One fellow, who had a sizable appetite, reported that it cost him six dollars to get a full meal.
The women were very much in evidence in Philadelphia, especially when it came to high pitched serenading. There was one dear girl, whom we could hear over the radio, would head off with a screech as though someone had stuck a knife into her, but that could not have been the case for she continued up to the end, strong and shrill. She must have come from Garner's state where their lungs are good.
The favorite pastime of one of the beauties there was to be carried on the shoulders of the men in the parades. On one oc- casion, she almost lost her skirt but we suppose that was just a part of the program. The women received much attention but were given nothing responsible to do. The men wanted to make them feel good but yet put them where they could do no harm.
SHOULD OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM BE CHANGED ?
Sometime ago we raised the question whether or not we were getting our money's worth from our manner of education, considering the condition of the country as it has been and now is. What is the matter with us? Practically everyone will admit that the country is all right. So it must be that the people run- ning it are all wrong. And in making this statement we are going back farther than Mr. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
With all our education there seems to be great difference of opinion on the money question. Really we don't seem to know what money is and what it should do. Should we have a gold standard or a regulated currency ? How many people in the United States know anything about money? How many people in this country know anything about protective tariff, that has its influence on every man, woman and child ?
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We are sure that thousands of people have been voting for protection and prosperity thinking it was a beautiful thing to have. They got neither protection nor prosperity but rather the opposite.
I have talked to young College graduates about the every day public questions concerning their lines and everybody's else lines and it seemed to be a foreign question to them-as though they had never given it any thought and had not heard much about it. What have they been doing all these years in college?
We met a man a short time ago who had graduated from college so long ago that he now has a son taller than he is. He is a man of good sound judgment and good business ability. We thought that he would have good ripe judgment on the worth of a college education for practical use in the every day battle of life. We asked him what his college education had done for him. He hesitated, gave the question thought and then re- plied : "It gave me a lot of theories." Then he said: "The best thing I got out of college was my wife." To be sure that was important and a mighty big thing in a man's life. It probably was worth the money and time spent, and it might be this woman, had she not gone to college would not have got- ten this good man. So it made it worth while for her also.
But should not this matured college graduate be able to give the college more credit for his success in life? Should he not be able to look back on his education and see outstanding knowledge that had been of great help to him in every day battle of life.
We have today high school and college graduates galore who know little about the big questions of the day-questions that will determine the success or failure of the future of this nation.
How many high school and college graduates know how to intelligently vote next November for the best interests of the country-whether or not this is to be a government of law or a government of men, whether or not a government of the people or government by official authority.
Our political structure is built with political ideals and ideas. Has education furnished the right ideals and ideas mak- ing us capable to choose the good from the bad? If it has not have we the education that we should have.
In a late "Today" magazine there is an article headed, "Shall we keep our Colleges." The writer, one of the professors, says "Yes, keep them but change the manner of instructions. Get down to fundamentals and give the young people something of vital importance which will help them through life to decide some of these important questions."
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Is there now enough learning in this country to write as good or better Declaration of Independence and a better Consti- tution than our forefathers wrote? They were educated both in schools of higher learning and the school of hard knocks. They had a mighty sight of common sense and good judgment and they know history. They knew where the other forms of gov- ernment had failed to protect the individual and their object was to give everybody an equal chance in the race of life. We now have the form of government, but have we the people who know enough and have honesty enough to maintain it?
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