Salt Lake Telegram | 1939-12-18 | Page 6 | Merry-Go-Round

Merry-Co-Round By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN WASHINGTON The" search for spies, plus other crime-deterrent factors, has brought the question of universal finger-printing up for con-. sideration at the. White House. At first the president seemed to lean toward the idea that It would be a good plan to require everyone in the United States to be fingerprinted. However, he Is now inclined against it Reason the plan did not get very far was this: It was pointed out by close advisers that to make fingerprinting effective as a crime-detector, crime-detector, it would have to be done every year. A man who commits a crime naturally becomes be-comes a fugitive from Justice at once. His fingerprints fin-gerprints might be known, but this knowledge would not help catch him unless he and everyone every-one in the country were refingerprinted at regular reg-ular intervals. Such a system, it was pointed out to Roosevelt Roose-velt might eventually transform the United States to a status similar to Europe, where strangers registering in hotels have to fill in police reports or show a passport with their fingerprints stamped on it. So, for the time being, the White House has turned thumbs down on fingerprints. G. O. r. Farm Plaak Republican leaders know Just how Richard HI felt when he cried, "A horset A horse I My kingdom for a horse!" They feel exactly the same way about a 1S0 farm plank. It's become their biggest campaign headache. For months they've been trying to figure out a safe answer and still they aren't anywhere near it . On one hand is the fact that the middle west is the big hope of the Republican party next year. Here the G. O. P. made its heaviest gains in 1838 when local issues played a potent role. To carry it next year, as the Republicans must do to win the presidency, they must convince the rural voters that they can do better for them than the new deal. And that's Just where the rub comes. For on the other hand the new deal, through the various AAA benefit payments. Is dishing out big dough to the growers. Between 80 and 90 per cent of all grain belt farmers participate in this program. So if the Republicans condemn con-demn it too strongly, they may scare away votes. But if they don't condemn it they tacitly admit ad-mit the A A A is pretty good. How worried are the Republicans over this situation is shown by the fact known only to insiders, that they now have four separata groups hard at work trying to concoct a plank. Four Committees Oldest of the concocting groups Is the Glenn Frank program committee, which after month! of futile masterminding finally passed the buck to a subcommittee headed by W, J. Goodwin, Des Moines banker-farmer, and made up of members from Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, Minne-sota, the Dakotas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and West Virginia. A second committee grew out of a secret movement started last spring by Or. F. L. Gul-lickson, Gul-lickson, Wisconsin state G. O. P. chairman. He called a meeting of midwestern state chairmen in Minneapolis to tackle the Job of drafting a farm plank, on the theory that they knew best what the home folks wanted. The third group is the committee of agricultural agricul-tural congressmen appointed by G. O. P. Floor Leader Joe Martin. There are 78 members in the group, headed by Representative Clifford Hope of Kansas, but like the other two com-' com-' mittees, it still is unable to strike pay dirt The fourth and most significant group la made up of Republicans active in farm bureau affairs, plus members of state agricultural departments de-partments captured by the O. O. P. last year. Of recent origin and surrounded with much secrecy, this movement is of prime political importance, because for the first time since the farm bolt of 1932, potent local farm bureau leaders are flocking back to the Republican fold. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate