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Show Rruckarl's Washington Digest Old-Age Pension Schemes Figure In Primaries in Several States Lead to Success of Senator Pepper in Florida and Defeat of McAdoo in California; Delude Age and Infirm Voters; Fallacy of Plans Shown. By WILLIAM BRUCKART WN'U Service, National Press Bldg., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. A good many Easterners had nearly forgotten about Dr. Francis Townsend and his $200-a-month pension plan until lately they were suddenly awakened awak-ened by the far South and the far West. Sen. Claude Pepper won a Democratic nomination to the senate sen-ate in Florida largely because of espousal of the Townsend plan and Just recently Sen. William G. McAdoo Mc-Adoo had his public career abruptly terminated because Sheridan Downey, Down-ey, his opponent for the Democratic senatorial nomination in California, proposed and promised some fantastic fan-tastic scheme of paying $30 every Thursday to persons over 50 years of age. In addition to these results, there have been 12 or 15 candidates for the nomination to the house of representatives rep-resentatives who have won in primaries pri-maries by saying the Townsend plan or the $30-every-Thursday or some other impossible and illogical and unsound pension plan would be put through congress. I cannot describe de-scribe them all; they are obviously variations of the Townsend plan, and none of them will work any more than the Townsend bubble will work, and each has been used to delude aged and infirm voters whose ballots were needed to swing an election. It is tragic that such things have happened, and are happening today. to-day. The fact can not be ignored, however, becanse the condition is with us. The one thing to do, then, I believe, is to attempt to disillusion those folks who have swallowed the slick words of those campaigners or those racketeers who are preying upon the faith of folks who, through no fault of their own, do not have access to information that shows these schemes to be rainbows. And, as far as history records, nobody on earth ever has found the end of the rainbow where the pot of gold is reputed to be. I am not concerned about the public pub-lic career of Mr. McAdoo who has been in public service off and on since 1913. He never impressed me as being any great shakes of a statesman. As secretary of the treasury, he did the job probably about as well as the average political politi-cal appointee. I never have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Downey. So I can't comment. Senator Pepper's Pep-per's senate record is a great deal like many another senator's record, and probably will continue to be just so-so. In other words, here were two average senators one winning with the aid of the promises about the Townsend plan and the other losing because he stayed away from such promises, although he was thrice blessed by the President of the United States. That situation, along with some letters accusing me of giving the Townsend plan a "silent "si-lent treatment" in these columns, seems to warrant a new analysis of the conditions that now confront the country. It Appears Townsendism Is Not Dead After All . As I said there i3 evidence that Townsendism is not dead at all. It ha3 formed the basis of a dozen new panaceas, of which the S39-every-. Thursday is but an example. It happened that this scheme was proposed pro-posed in California which, particularly particu-larly in its southern sections, has a vast population of af?ed people who have gone there to enjoy the famous climate and have the health that it gives them. Old people are militarily mili-tarily behind these schemes. That is one of the reasons why Mr. Downey Down-ey was able to boast more than a million signatures to the petition that made the question an issue in California. And Florida, too, with a fine winter climate, 13 a fertile field for the racketeers who promote pro-mote such ridiculous programs. It 13 a harsh thing to blarne the strength of these movements, all of which crop up during depression times, upon elderly people. It is nevertheless the cold fact that they are the type among vhorn such schemes are promoted, and because tney have votes, the candidate for ofiice stoops to the level of adding further to hopes that never can be fulfilled In that manner. To show how silly the scheme of $':') every-Thursday Is 33 a campaign cam-paign Isiue for Mr. Downey just a3 an example he i3 a candidate for the United .States seriate. The pension dream he has advocated is planned as part of the welfare program pro-gram of the state of California. How Mr. Downey can do anything about it as a member of the United .States f.eriat.e, I can not understand, and I seriously doubt that Mr. Downey can explain It. Ior vill the plan vork If made into law without bankrupting the state of California. I doubt that It vill vork nriyyay, but assuming that It may vork, the state will be s-;urning fi burd'-n that vill ro:l it so rnu' h rnori'-y that the California Cali-fornia books will be ro far In the ti to cause Ib'-rn to appear s;,lotb'-d with blood. ThU lda of pla' ir.g "Btampfi" on each warrant th'h w'k no that an actual .M has been affixed by cash payment in a year will stop the transfer of them very shortly. Few storekeepers, for example, will accept them beyond be-yond the necessities of their tax payments to the state of California; it is certain also that those who continue con-tinue to accept them would not pay the face value, and the possessor would be forced into paying higher prices for the things that he buys. That is, the possessor would be buying buy-ing 50 cents worth of sugar and probably prob-ably would be handing over a dollar warrant for it. All of this is the result of a lack of confidence among the people in any form of exchange except the currency that is backed and guaranteed by the United States, as has been shown so many times before. Downey Plan Would Make Trouble for New Dealers Then, I believe I foresee some other trouble respecting such war- I rants as Mr. Downey's scheme proposes; pro-poses; not that I think his plan is 1 worse than any others but it serves as an illustration. It is proposed i that the possessor put a two-cent state stamp on the warrant for each week in his possession, or 52 such stamps in a year. Well, I imagine that the warrants would be in the hands of many persons who had no cash at all not a cent. Immediately, Immediate-ly, there would be a cry go up to have the state supply the stamps 1 free, and it is quite certain that j there would be some politicians dishonorable dis-honorable enough to campaign for office on that issue. j Now, assume that Mr. Downey comes to the senate; assume that j he is elected over his Republican , opponent in November. I seem to scent some added trouble for Pres- j ident Roosevelt and his New Deal , friends who have been promising j too many things and too much of j them. Of course, many persons be- 1 lieve that Mr. Roosevelt's methods to date have encouraged all kinds of quackeries because he has talked at length of humanitarianism. He has aroused the minds of elderly persons who are suffering under conditions not of their own making, i He has likewise aroused a lot of flabby brained individuals among j the younger people who live on il- I lusions. It is made to appear that 1 congressional leaders, seeking to follow presidential policies, are go- ! ing to be confronted with frequent ! bulges for national pensions of a 1 kind that no nation can bear. The number and type of these ! panaceas ebbs and flows with the 1 economic tide. When business is ' good and there is plenty of work, when storekeepers are able to sell and people are able to buy, we hear little or nothing of the dream-world 1 children of the Townsends and the Downeyj and the others. When there are "hard times" and there are thousands upon, thousands without with-out work and food and clothes, those suffering minds become easy prey to the silver tongue. 1 Pursuing the thought a bit further, it then becomes possible for a move- I ment which demands not $'10 every Thursday for persons over 50, but one demanding $10 or S50 every Friday Fri-day or $0 every Saturday. The amounts can be pushed up and up and the fervor of the suflering under un-der this illusion grows greater and greater. And always, such move- rnents provide the breeding ground for other racketeers who want to promote dissension and di.ssatisfac- j tion. Always, too, there will be po- ! Iitical champions for the "cause" I vhatever it may be, because there is something, some halo, about public pub-lic office that will lead men into the ' strangest views. President Cannot Dodge Some of Responsibility Mr. Roosevelt has said with rm- ' phasis several times that none of J these things will vork. lie believes 1 they should not be propagated and I spread, because he recognizes how ' easily miserable humanity can be lead ofr at a tangent. It is a type j of hysteria, an emotion. The President, Presi-dent, however, must not dodge responsibility re-sponsibility fur a part of it. As I said above, his methods have been conducive to hysteria of several kinds. These panaceas that threaten threat-en again to cause grief for his ad- ministration are but an outgrowth of I the numerous plans that have been ' given birth by various persons in j official position. True, they have been fed by the dregs of hard times, but they hod their encouragement first from illogical phases of the New Deal. Tru'T words vere never spoken than President Roosevelt uttered at Pittsburgh, Pa., In his 1W',2 campaign cam-paign when he said: "Any government, govern-ment, like any family, can for n year upend u little more than It earns, but you and I know that a continuation of the habit means- tho poor house." Adoption of any of tin; pension schemes, whatever their variation from the Townsend plan may be, means the poor house because be-cause there can not be enough taxes levied or collected to meet the need. 0 W"atTn Nwyu"r lum. 1 |