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Show NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS Written (or The Telegram By Ray Tucker WASHINGTON Washington has become a midsummer madhouse mad-house as a result of the controversies contro-versies over the supreme court and the Lewia-Qreen labor conflict con-flict They have provoked the crasiest friendships and enmities since Franklin D. Roosevelt crossed tha Hudson river more than four years ago. The Republican national committee, com-mittee, temporarily headed by the efficient William R. Castle Jr., is writing and mimeographing some of tha Democratic senators' most vicious speeches against the Roosevelt court program. It ia also cooperating with A. F. of L. President William Green in left-handed left-handed and covert attacks on the now-you-see-lt-and-now-you-don't White House alliance with John L. Lewis. Frank Gannett, Mr. Borah's vice presidential mate in the G. O. P. preconventton contest a year ago, ia financing distribution of millions of Wheel-er-Burke-McCarraa attacks on their party president. It sounds silly, but from a practical political standpoint, it isn't. The Democrats' ace publicist, pub-licist, "Charley" Michelson, is running the court show, with the president as stsge director. The Wheelerites can get no help from the party's paid headline expert. So they have crossed the street and linked arms with ancient political po-litical foes. Whether or not the union becomes permanent depends de-pends on circumstances. You will soon read a historical document designed to prove that no congressional politico has met defeat because of publio wrath over his participation -in a filibuster. fili-buster. What you won't know ia that It was written by William Hard, the G. O. P.'a publicist, to revive anticourt Democrats who fear vengeance at the polls if they resort to obstractive tactics. This documentary evidence of a midnight marriage between Re- ' publicans and block-that-Roose- 1 velt Democrats will rscount tha fate of statesmen who dared to stall for tims against former chief executives. It hits directly at the key thrust of senatorial White Housers, for they intend to smear tha opposition as deliberate deliber-ate malingerers. The late majority ma-jority leader, Robinson .almost too naively, revealed that strategy in his opening speech. - Mr. Hard's study proves conclusively con-clusively that few of the famous filibusters paid with their political po-litical heads for their parliamentary parlia-mentary stubbornness. Most of them "Old Bob" L Follette, Reed Smoot and Wood row Wilson's Wil-son's "willful twelve" lived to a ripe old political age. Either they died in harness or, like Messrs. Smoot and George Moses of New Hampshire, they hung on until the anti-Hoover wave engulfed en-gulfed them in 1932. Thus this Republican research and revelation revela-tion may hold In line enough wavering Democrats to defeat the president The No. i man of President Roosevelt's new "brain trust" Assistant Attorney General Rob-' ert H. Jackson recently shocked a private audience of trade association asso-ciation executives with a declaration declara-tion of war on big business, even though it Is legal. Mr. Jackson, who has the White House ear when "Toromie" Corcoran Cor-coran and "Bennle" Cohen aren't monopolizing it, announced that the Roosevelt administration is determined to break up vast units of production, distribution and retailing. He spoke, he said, aa a former resident of a small community com-munity Jamestown, N. Y. He recalled how absentee owners and directors inspired with no community com-munity spirit or responsibility managed the factories, the banks, ths chain stores and ruled the lives of the workers by remote control. Ha characterized such a ' situation as 'unhealthy." Original apostle of this philosophy philos-ophy in the Roosevelt household ia shy, unpubllcized "Ben" Cohen. He dins it Into the presidential ear on every occasion which is often. The lawa he haa framed for tha head man social, economic, eco-nomic, political would bring back the horse-and-buggy age. He has apparently sold the same idea to Mr. Jackson who, as federal law officer in charge of antitrust prosecution, pros-ecution, occupies a post where he can do something about his pet peeve business bigness. And he will within the next few months. The NLRB's seemingly most trivial ruling haa provoked more criticism than decisions affecting millions of employes and billions of dollars. It involves such a human weakness aa tipping the waiter, the hat check girl or the taxicab driver. In ordering a famous Washington Washing-ton hostelry to restore two waiters allegedly discharged for union activity, ac-tivity, the government agency stipulated that they must be given back wages and tips. Though the decision passed almost unnoticed, it meana that the United States government has officially recognized recog-nized the tipping system, surrounded sur-rounded it with the cloak of official offi-cial righteousness and classified tips as a form of wages. The decision apparently Irritated Irritat-ed the public, for it has drawn more protests than any other action in the board's brief history. It angered employes whose regular regu-lar wagea are fixed far below subsistence levels in the expectation expecta-tion that they will be supplemented supplement-ed by handouts from the customers. cus-tomers. It also offended the eating eat-ing and traveling public by underwriting un-derwriting the polite form of graft known aa gratuities. It's even betting thst the ruling will soon be reversed by the board's bright but young members. (Copyright, 1937, for The Telegram) |
