Show balance budget then revolution promise of landon forces would mean calamity to wipe out city slums by EARL GODWIN ASH I 1 N alf M X linclon Wn washington has not ony only a great load lead in numbers umbers of delegates but he has captured the republican popular mind and will be the G 0 1 nominee unless something happens and plenty can happen political Ical conventions are still run by the state lea leaders dersi and there are no more accomplished fixers than those who will attend the G 0 P convention at cleveland june 0 9 but the landon men ben are sure the kansas go governor vernor will oppose roosevelt so sure that they are already edging the republican propaganda around to the point where it will be more expressive of the landon idea the landon crowd in the east typifies fies the crowd which believes balancing the budget will save the country against everything including battle murder and sudden death why they are now building up a sort of stuffed shirt landon who will be rearranged to look like coolidge and thus create the psychology that with landon in the white mouse house we will have 1924 1928 again in those post war years when we were still riding on war profits and the stock market waves had not yet subsided we had bad the least uplifting and the least stimulating administration ot of government in our times it was tile the tera lera best typified by the full gas tank and the memory of the teapot dome scandals which came and went left not a ripple on the administrations conscience unemployment which was with us os then too but submerged and etherized etheri zed was something herbert hoover in the department of commerce played with on oil charts and graphs I 1 do not recall a single policy for the uplift of humanity or the amelioration of human misery m sery no long iong range planning or legislation toward the development or conservation of our national resources not one single thing attributable to that administration which lifts it above the level of a town meeting there was its true the great financial benefit from andrew mellons lons hand at the wheel in the treasury for it was the era of glorification of the american dollar but I 1 doubt that the pathway of mankind was tilted upward ordinary worker including children and old men fr the endless path to nowhere coolidge refused to sign the bill the farm faim sector wanted lie ile stalled on every advance tor for labor manufacturing interests killed the amendment prohibiting child labor on the coolidge regime now we might as well face this thing the landon forces are telling the world that alt alf will balance the budget it if elected to do so means cutting off all relief stopping all public works cutting the army and navy to the bone and dropping every effort at re em through government aid about the only thin tiling that alfs folio followers think about Is that magic moment tile the budget clicks and if as and when it clicks in the next nest year or so grab rab your hat and make for the cyclone cellar because this nation will see ece a jobless hungry army of in full revolution it if alt alf landon mean to balance the budget as he be says then lie be ought to be exposed CLEAR OUT CITY SLUMS public enemy no 1 Is the american city slum and at last something Is going to be done about it it there is a close connection between the regiment of gilen G ilen sien relentless federal detectives and the admi administrations program for a nationwide nation wide slum clearance plan those who govern this country should be liberal enough to see that if we had none of the sink of iniquity type of city slum we would have fewer gangsters practically all tillers killers holdup hold up men kidnapers and dope peddlers owe their foul breeding to the poisonous social atmosphere ot or the slums in crowded cities the senate nearly had a fit when senator mckellar McK eIlar of tennessee tried to mock block an appropriation to increase the force of federal G men from GOO to 60 25 lIc Kellar Is generally right elgh I 1 but he picked up a red hot poker when be tried to stop the department of justice from widening its network of keen eyed fellows who have been the nemesis of the SL senate showed the same enthusiasm in trampling over SIc ItIc Kellar as a high school football team displays a against a pet foe never tide of indignation in the senate run stronger G sien are popular they represent the american peoples pride in the fact that the federal government can c an DO things this government has been building up lip its crime suppression program ever eye r since the underworld got the better of us by reason of lax law enforcement during the fry dry era today the federal C G man Is a rival in popular imagination of the picturesque canadian mounted both organizations get their maw man with unrelenting accuracy but crime will breed as 82 long ions as there are city slums the complete anti crime drive must include things that go with extreme poverty such as malnutrition illiteracy child neglect and tile the hovels and unspeakable slum tenements in which thousands of american families fil mIlles now dwell I 1 dont know how bow long well intentioned peo pie have hare been talking about slum clear ance but as long as 1 I have been in washington newspaper work someone has been agitating the idea of wiping out the slums and replacing them with fine airy houses with plenty of space to eliminate overcrowding at low rents but few houses arise principal reason Is that tile vilest slums pay the biggest return on the capital invested that sot sordid did fact which besmirches smirches es of our best american real estate owners explains why millions of americans live in filth and why thousands of their twisted children go in for crime in a big way 0 LAW PREVENTS ACTION this administration has tried to batter down the legal wall that stanus stands between slum betterment and the owners of these millions of filthy homes but to the alie everlasting disgrace of the american people the present laws prevent drastic action in england and in other countries t too oo 00 the government walk walked ed in took the slums paid what the government believed they were worth and cleaned them out and built new homes england has built clean homes in place of former hovels and this constituted a great part of their re employment program but in these united states there Is a tangle of city and state law which has completely stopped the federal government from taking hold no matter how desperate the situation the courts hold that there Is no emergency mark the word that would justify the federal government in condemning this squalid property for the benefit of mankind the courts listen to the plea of 0 property owners who make their tenants live in pigsty fashion and crime breeds like flies in the name of the constitution and property rights they dont like the federal government going into tile the slums to cure crime but they are quite in favor of the federal G man doing anything lie can to apprehend the criminals which their hovels produce however senator bob wagner of new york who has a deep insight into the matter has written a housing bill which cleverly avoids a clash with the property right and constitution barrier it presumes to lend money to cities which will do their own houseclean in ing tear down their own slums and buli build d decent homes for the lowest income classes this Is something that must be done by the government for private capital on its own cannot atford afford to do it that Is one point upon which everybody seems to agree the wagner housing program Is the new deal pro program gram it involves not only the elimination of the city slums but in addition provides tremendous employment the present figure in the bill Is approximately and it may pass this congress however if it it there will vill be a tremendous drive to in in the next nest congress and if roosevelt Is reelected elected re there seems to be no doubt that this housing matter will be one of the fine big things of the second halt half of the new deal 0 BREAKING THE NEWS for years both political parties have followed the custom of waiting tor for three weeks or so to notify their candidate that the party had chosen him to run for president this gave all hands time to make up a good speech and arrange a snell party but roosevelt broke that precedent four years ago by flying to chicago as soon as the convention had nominated him lie ile accepted the nomination domination before the convention had even cooled down and what a hit bit he be made I 1 this year the republicans will take a leaf from his book and notify their candidate at the cleveland convention contention roosevelt and garner will nili be at philadelphia and will be notified and accept at the convention june 27 it is planned that the roosevelt veit acceptance speech at least w will III be radioed to every corner of the country this of course will be tile the official start of the campaign until the lie republican nothings ingi choice Is made noth nothing can be said of their plans but president roosevelt Is apparently going to make it a light campaign it if he be can keeping down his own speeches to a small number and discussing his philosophy of government and explaining his plans for the future it there is any it will viii not be done by the Pres president dent lie he Is expected to make that long iong delayed jefferson day address cello the home of thomas jefferson near charlottesville va july 4 it if congress adjourns in the first few days of june he may dash off to texas for the centennial celebration there or he may delay that until later in the campaign ue ile has a tentative engagement ga to speak at vincennes ind in connection with the george Georg rogers eRogers dark clark memorial and that trip will un be made a part of the texas journey ile he has also tentatively agreed to address the veterans of foreign wars in their national encampment at denver colo september 15 to 19 this may afford him an opportunity to talk about the bonus which the veterans wanted but which he vetoed Q western newspaper union |