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Show Ilruc1iart Washington Itlqcnt Old-Age Pension Schemes pj In Primaries in Several St ' Lead to Success of Senator Pepper in Fi . Defeat of McAdoo in California; Delude A 1 Infirm Voters ; Fallacy of Plans Se a5J j, By WILLIAM BRUCKART ' j VVNU Service, National Press Bide. Wast,- '' 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. Tn nrMitirn tr thpep rnciiltc '(,1011,1). HI has been affiXed b U , a ar wm stop t'e LaShpa very shortly X nsfer!' "l for example, will ,to .' yond the necel';,. ept , Pments to S ! Jtis certain alsoSf W tmue to accept them Se- D the face value mi , Prices for the thl pa)' 50 cents worth o, , 0UWfe: hU ably would be hanrt 8arj-'i' ' warrant for it .i (V result of alackofconfi M the people in anv f t(t , excent tL y forn 01 e,.. ! ' except the currency , . l - and guaranteedL 10 ' States. a ,. t by He r. .! 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, because 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 I 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 times brf0 T. eenshV Downey Plan y, Trouble for New t)!, , Then, I believe " ft other trouble respe .fe j rants as Mr. D0Bney. J Poses; not that I ftL !;; worse than any othS as an illustration t, ' W , that the possess r p T state stamp on the w a ,f week in his possess : stamps m a year. We , ' that the warrants wool t ': 1 i u in soon. free ! f1 tree, and it is quite honorable enough to cam- lranen, office on that issue. Now, assume that lr. t comes to the senate; aa' he is elected over his He: opponent in November. i'J scent some added trouble K " ident Roosevelt and his St- f friends who have been r 1 too many things and too 7 U them. Of course, many p Heve that Mr. Roosevelt's a: JJ to date have encouraged alii: C S quackeries because he has". I 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 at length of humanitarian has aroused the minds oh. 1 bed bu persons who are sufera . t, wo con conditions not of their on:. He has likewise aroused ' teet' Ani flabby brained individuals - rtiaffind the younger people who lir "neneve: lusions. It is made to a:-. mio congressional leaders, ast t00' 11 follow presidential policies, ;A ad ctr tog to be confronted w:St ' bulges for national peusib: "youmui kind that no nation can be;:. Mietspace The number and type . "e e' panaceas ebbs and forcr. ttl?llbm economic tide. When te: f" hal good and there is plenty d - ;--s of ne It when storekeepers are ali: : f'.eeD and people are able totu?,;; 2!lng tabl' little or nothing of the d:;:: You c children of the Townsend;; Downeys and the otters. -ry there are "hard times"::: I UI are thousands upon thoie: out work and food and cic : "tpymw. suffering minds beco-to beco-to the silver tongue Pursuing the thought at ? it then becomes possib!efc;: . :ii;vV:;& As I said there is evidence that Townsendism is not dead at all. It has formed the basis of a dozen new panaceas, of which the $30-every-Thursday is but an example.,. It happened that this scheme was pro-posed pro-posed in California which, particularly particu-larly in its southern sections, has a vast population of aged people who have gone there to enjoy the famous climate and have the health that it gives them. Old people are mili-tantly mili-tantly 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, is a fertile held for the racketeers who pro-mole pro-mole such ridiculous programs. It is a harsh thing to blame 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 whom such schemes are promoted, and because they have votes, the candidate for OtllCe StoOPS to the Vvnl f nrMi,,,-, ment which demands no: s; : Thursday for persons ove : one demanding $40 or " , ' l, day or $60 every So- amounts can be pure: and the fervor of tie der this illusion gro greater. And alva;s ments provide the br for other racketeers promote dissension v. - tion. Always, too, tt-r litical champions for - whatever it may be, , r:.y is something, some h 1 he office that will leads2- ; i : :i:: strangest views. 1 ;" President Cannot Some of Respond , Mr. Roosevelt has si- ';sv! I phasis several times these things will wo r. , they should not be P" spread, because he ru easily miserable bw . lead off at a tangent . of hysteria, an emo : dent, however, must n j snonsibility for a P:-r' . further to hopes that never can be fulfilled in that manner. To show how silly the scheme of $30-evcry-TlHirsdny is as a campaign cam-paign issue for Mr. Downey just as an example-he is a candidate for the United States senate. The Pension dream he has advocated is Planned as part of the welfare pro-Ci-am of the state of California. How tur. Downey can do anything about as a member of the United States senate, I can not undorstand. and I seriously doubt that Mr. Downey c'in explain it. Nor will the ,,,., woH. m;uk "'to law without bankrupt!,!;: the lte of California. I doubt that it win work anyway, but nssumiiu; mat it may work, tlu. slate will be assum,,,,. , bllnk,n ,. wi (.os( 1 so Imil-' money that the Cali-ri-iua books Win M) far iM h0 1 as t ,.miso u,m ,o Hotehed with blood. This idea of l.iL'inU ".stamps" on each warrant " week no that lm actual $1.0-1 said above, his nv , conducive to hyster.3 -kinds. These paw. en again to cau , ministration are but sn .... the numerous P'3"5 School dlv given birth by ?,0at offldal position. V , n i.k0 bocnfcdbyOie W su r n..d, but they had fn, first from ilMl f' New Deal. f;; . Truer words ,. thn President B-. . rittsburgh. ra.. , .t p 1 I Iq pain "'hen lie 5 . ; L'q, j l 0 ns. but m, t poor houso. ' A n tari.lien h .-.v bo. n.;Kf. H.hadn c,u.soUro ; , "thorou' levied or oelh;'; ,:' |