Tucson Daily Citizen from Tucson, Arizona • Page 8

PAGE EIGHT TUCSON DAILY; CITIZEN TUCSON, ARIZONA; THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL mi. fcucson Dai ID dilizcn Published Bzcvpt Sunday W1LUAM B. JOHNSON, Publisher JLLX PARKER. Editor null matter under met of March MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AwocUIti) Prest li exclusively entitled to for publication of all credited to It or not otherwise credited In and also the local njw published herein. MEMBER OF THE UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION MEMBER OF THE AUDIT BUREAU OF Home Delivered In Tucson, 20a Per Week Outside, 20c Per Week By Hall, 13.75 Per Year.

8So Per Month, Payable In Advance TELEPHONE 2400 FOR ALL DEPARTMENTS I have (worn upon Ood hoftillty ivery form of tyranny ovir tin mind of JEFFEBSON. A Fair Request When, if and where labor yields its liberty of initiative to help itself by accepting the protection of the government against an uncontrolled of living, it has a right to demand of the government that protection be made effective. It was 'therefore a timely and a reasonable request which President Murray of the CIO and President Green of the AFL made of Mr. Roosevelt when they upon him recently. According to accounts it impressed the President that way, too.

"We didn't ask that wage stabilization be set aside," President Green reported, "but we did complain that it couldn't be one-sided, with, wages stabilized and prices allowed to run riot. It is one-sided now." Acceptance of wage stabilization has been something less than complete and forthright. It has been grudging on the part of the groups for which these leaders speak, and it has been re- jected outright by John L. Lewis, but the latter's actions cannot be charged against Messrs. Green and Murray, who are his adversaries.

But the fact is that while the War Labor Board has been demanding that labor toe the line of the Little Steel wage formula, the Office of Price Administration, under Mr. Prentiss Brown, has been sanctioning progressive increases in the prices of food. Indeed, upon taking over the price administration he "predicted" there would be an average monthly increase of one-half of one per cent. Naturally, that is what ensued, for a prediction in the cir- cumstances amounted to permission. Nobody can say with authority what the net increase in the cost of living has been, for as- jerted authorities are disputed.

The figures 'of the Department of Labor are not accepted by the labor groups, who assert that their statistics show a greater increase than the 22 par cent increase in food costs in cities reported by Mrs. Perkins. But food is not the only factor in living costi, the consolidated increases of which since war started, reported by the same department, add up to 40 plus per cent. It is the wild ascent of prices in some localities that point up the ineffectiveness of central control. This control, centralized in Washington, as- aumed responsibility not only for prices, in con- aideration of labor's acceptance of a mathematical wage increase formula, but responsibility for maintaining a steady supply and equal distribu- tion of food, and it was a fair request that the administration fulfill its political contract.

Awake, Psaltery And Harp! When Democratic National Committeeman Frank Walker visited on a swing around the circle recently, he expressed concern about the mayoral election in which Henry Kelly, an administration henchman, sought a third term, and let it be knoVn that the administration would be pleased to have him re-elected. Naturally, then, there was rejoicing in high places when the mayor was given a majority of 125,000 in Tuesday's election. And with good reason from that point of view, in view of what has been happening to political machines no worse than that of Kelly, Nash Co. It was not as if only the one hundredth sheep was in jeopardy, while the others were secure in the fold; Kelly was about the sole remnant of the flock of political black sheep that had yielded good yarn to the. party.

As mayor of the town and boss of its powerful metropolitan, machine, Kelly had been host tp the convention which broke with political tradition and launched unlimited presidential self- succession. He had inspired if he did not actually arrange the famous cellar episode which had helped to stampede the convention. An humble Kelly functionary. Sewer Commissioner Tom Garry, was stationed at a basement microphone connected with the convention hall loud speaker system, to reiterate in stentorian words the demand for the indispensable man. With perhaps another enterprise in political innovation, in the offing for J944, Chicago might be essential in winning Illinois, and Illinois might be indispensable to winning the West, the West to the winning of the So as there was occasion for Chairman Frank Walker's concern, there is now occasion for his gratification.

Although Mayor Kelly is politically persona grata in the highest circles at Washington, his. rating is strictly menial like that of former Democratic National Chairman Eddie who finally had to be put in his place. It is the virtue of such sub-leaders that they usually know their place and do not presume on the familiarity with which they are treated by their betters. The relationship, peculiar to politics, is rationalized by the Machiavellian rule that the means are justified by the end. Applied to the present and prospective situation, this means that the re-election of Kelly and the perpetuation of his power may be retroactively hallowed by.

the beneficent consequences, in ascending series, to flow from the election of 1944. Thus-are formed the idyllic atolls of the tropic seas, which would not be had not the humble coral performed its self-effacing chore in the basement of the sea. Average Citizen Hurt By PAUL WASHINGTON, April. L. Lewis pulled-Mi man Thomas Kennedy ouf-of the': war labor; board in a maneuver similar to one lie tried before.

He ruined an earlier-ia'oor board by such a.rwlthv draival of support, but the situation is different now: On the earlier occasion, Leyrts 'represented CIO'and. his withdrawal of support" more than a government labor board could withstand. his will probably by CIO. Any way, Mr. Kennedy" hag not been functioning actively as a member of the' board for.

some monthi. Most of his work been done by a CIO So the maneuver merely'placed Lewis In a somewhat better position to defy the present" boar.d when.lt reaches a decision against it hag.been ar-, dently building. Many board all of the, outside talk Its members and other government officials, have been clearly directed lately the Lewis attempt to break dpwn the-administration's anti-inflationary barriers, including the "Little Steel" The administration has been obviously disinclined to give Lewig anything. But Lewis is getting help from respecttd and even antagonistic sources. The farm bloc in Congress 1 been simultaneously campaigning in the same direction as Lewis from the opposite side of the street.

Through the Bankhead and Pace bills and otherwise, it has been seeking to break down the pcice restriction portions of the anti-inflation barrier, while Lewis attacked the wage positions. To whatever degree it succeeds, it will help Lewis in his fight against the "Little Steel" formula because the sole Lewis is based on a contention that prices are already too high. Thus, Mr. Roosevelt and his mild 'anti-inflationary formulas are beset from two sides by forces believing that they are working against each other, although actually they are furnishing water to each other's grinding wheels. In the middle, lost and unrepresented, is the average, citizen on a salary is not a member of a union and not a farmer.

Campaigns such as those raging here now may force some wages higher, but not his, although they will force higher the prices he must pay for his livelihood. The $1 he-earned before the war has already been cut'to 76 cents in purchasing power by rising prices. Anything that sends prices up or even threatens to, whether it be Lewis, the farm 'bloc, or the government itself in the OPA, increases this hardship. Cow Draft An Army Why Not Draft The Rest Of ByCarlitk "Aye, There's The flufe" War production Board's order standardizing the length of caskets at six feet for the octagonal type and six feet three inches for the rectangular type is being protested by the Michigan Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association, which has launched an energetic lebensraum crusade in behalf of its clientele. The Michigan standard, derived, from past ex- perience, is six feet five, with six feet six for out-size clients.

"Whoever handled this order certainly never had any experience in the funeral business," they say. It's possible, we grant, wincing at the employment of the word "business" in that connection. The War Production Board's order was in': spired by the praiseworthy motive of economy in the use of critical materials, which includes lumber, but the case illustrates the impracticability of making'an arbitrary rule. WPB seems to have based its specifications on a country-wide average of height, ignoring the fact that the species attains a greater height in the Paul Bunyan country than in other regions. It is one situation in which adjustments cannot be made, for all the factors necessary for a perfect fit are arbitrary.

"There's the rub," as Hamlet said. It is a situation in which the empirical "know- how" of the WPB--which in other shortage crises proposed postponement of the lambing season and the removal of the horse-shoes of. animals while on fatigue duty--will avail nothing. It is immaterial that Procrustes, the legendary highwayman of Attica, met a similar howdydo by trimming or stretching his victims (as the case required) to" fit his famous iron bed. Traditions of dignity as ancient as King Tut reject all such handy-man innovations.

We can think of nothing useful other than to call attention to the advice of the Office of Defense Transportation that unnecessary traveling postponed for the duration. Now that the United Nations are pooling their larders, why not "United Rations?" The Zoot Suit It has not been proved that there is a relation between the zoot-suit and social perversion or depravity, but the police have inferred one from the fact that in recurring instances the suit was the uniform of hoodlumism, so to them all wearers of the unconventional attire are suspect. It therefore behooves all wearers to walk the straight and narrow path and thereby prove that the significance of the garb is only skin deep. Judged sartorially, the zoot suit certainly does not conform to the advice of Polonius, "Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy," but it must be granted that it differs only in degree from the ultra-fashionable affected by the fringe of the smart sets, and it has a certain authenticity. Not in real life, but in the art of George McManus, author of "Bringing Up Father." There the attire seems to express social frustration, and this may be the explanation of the current vogue of the -zoot suit.

But McManus may not be blamed for the vicious connotations remarked by the police. The zoot suit is only a slight of the fashion of a generation ago, when the overcoat, the flaring jacket, the unmatchong vest, the balloon trouser legs pinched at- the bottom, and a derby constituted the armor of the social killer-diller. Perhaps in some undefinable and confused way the zoot suit flaunts a morbid social consciousness and group identity. This was the origin of trousers or pants, as we call the garnient, or the "pantalon," as the French Jacobins called it. These radicals were called "sans-culottes" (literally, without breeches) in derision by the aristocrats, who of course wore conventional short breeches.

But derision only confirmed the Jacobins in the habit, making it virtually the uniform of revolution. It was a sensitive point because formerly the attire of the classes had been strictly regulated, with the masses wearing what their masters prescribed. This made it always possible to identify the economic and political status of a person by the habit he wore, so it is possible that the extravagances of la mode are merely libertarian excesses of the new freedom which the social revolution established. Mr. Ickes' announced hope that fuel oil rationing might be dropped next winter is possible of fulfillment.

Next year is election year. Political wisdom requires the softening of all rationing hardships to as great extent as possible while the campaign is on next Certainly if Mr. fckes expects to work for the fourth term as cleverly as he did for the third, a lot more oil is going to be brought into critical areas by one means or another. The fuel oil rationing program occupied a different category than 'the other rationing steps. This country has always had enough oil for any war and civilian purposes.

The problem was one merely of transportation arid supply. Pood and gas restrictions do not challenge the health of the people, but the fuel restriction did. A man'may live healthfully on a diet and even improve physically. But no physician has yet arisen to contend that fid-degree temperature, and even less in offices and homes, during winter cold, improves the health of the average man and woman. So while reports are running to the contrary and predicting a harder fuel winter ahead (oil men freely say so), I am stringing along with Ickes, for once, in the expectation that ways will 'be found.

PORK BY ANOTHER NAME By brow Pearson The Ruml plan seems destined never to be considered squarely on its merits. It is always getting into political complications. The unexpected defeat of the proposal in the house was unexpected only up until two or three days before vote. Then it was apparent that a number of Democrats began to fear the political results of Republican leadership in this matter. On the senate side, also, such an administration- nonconformist as Democratic Senator McKellar of Tennessee turned against the.

plan, although, he has been fighting the administration on other matters. Furthermore other Democrats professed to. fear the political effects of tax "forgiveness," misnomer that it is) among labor and'worker these factors were sufficient to cause the. defeat of the measure. And if it had not been defeated in the house, the stand taken by McKellar suggested it would face an "unexpected" situation the senate.

(Distributed by King Features Syndicate, reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited.) One of the reasons for the farm labor shortage is that the poets never completely sold the idea of life in the country. A ban on the shipping of beer in refrigerator cm may make it a hot, dry summer. Dorothy Thompson gets the Oscar for a piece whose title she grants may P. Morgan As A Liberal." Bartender Versus Bum By Arthur "Bugs" Our state Court of Appeals has handed down a decision that will affect the brave new world to come. By a unanimous decision of many to none the Court ruled a barkeep cannot claim workingman's compensation for being slugged by a drunk "on his way home.

i Mr. Mike Mcllack of New York said a customer came in and used reinforced language. There was a lady present so Mike streeted the "oum. The gent said, "McMack I will see you again." Mike thought nothing of that as drunks galore have made that revengeful tryst and also named the place. McMack closed the shack at three in the morning.

Four blocks away was the bum ambushed behind his. own breath. The bozo wanted to shake hands with ills left and thereupon Mike smacked him in the.eye with his right hand. Mike workingman's compensation through injury suffered during, employment as bartender. The State Industrial Board denied The Appellae Division-then comes to the bat and tears down this conclusion.

It states that a bartender on his way home forfeits all the dignity of his apron and is a common.citizen again. This writer like the Macedonian soldier appeals from Phillips drunk to Phillips sober. Although there is no higher court than Appeals we hope to catch them off base. The question is whether continuity of cause was so combined with continuity in time and space that the quarrel from beginning to ending should be taken as one. That is a very fine point to make and may be whittling the facts too fine; I would say yes.

Bufr am You might say no. But who are you? 1C 1843, King Syndicate) WASHINGTON, A It won't be announced, may even be denied, but practical purposes-we now have a new secretary of Cordell Hull, over' 70, having; given 40 valiant, and- fruitful years to public i stepping Looking out of his'window upon the magnolia trees, gorgeous in the Hull' thinks back to the days when he was a circuit in Tennessee, then a.mem- ber of the days when he helped pioneer the first; Income tax law; to the fight. Ire made against the sk3'-high, disastrous- tariffs of the Smoot- Hawley days; and to his briefer career in the Looking back over that, Hull hasi.thought many times he might retire. But things hat-e. held him is.

his ambition to see his trade treaties continued and renegotiated (this'bill is in. Congress). The other is Mrs. who, nursing 'his strength carefully, is determined that. he not resign.

Hull frequently finds, however, that he simply not have the physical strength to carry on. The dally 'grind is too much an absents himself a part of each week; Last he was forced to spend a total of six months away from Washington. The Sew Secretary Of State As a result-of these absences and the fact that Mr. Hull moves more slowly now, the President has found himself calling upon Under-seeretary Sumner Welles, who has now virtual-- ly become secretary of state. More and more frequently now, when the President up the telephone' he calls Welles instead of Hull.

He finds that Welles has the facts at his fingertips and works faster. Hull's answers of. late have grown more vague. This is partly his cautious temperament, partly 'age. Once Hull was proud of the fact that -he was'the o.nly member of the- cabinet maintaining daily contact with the press.

But now sometimes a week goes by without a' press conference. AH of the recent'speeches have been made by Welles, which makes the old gentleman a bit Touchy. In he wondered why it was that Welles rather than he was asked to speak for the state department in the Herald- Tribune forum. The answer was that the President specifically' requested Welles to do the job But the secretarv determined to stick it out until the lost horn blows--and he may be able to Claude Wickard--In Or Two men from Coon Rapids Iowa, met in Washington seven weeks ago and made a bet about the demise of Claude Wickard as a cabinet officer. Said A.

E. -Red" Bowman, sugar expert of the WPB: "Wick. ard is on theVsk'Ids; he won't last till the first of Said, corn farmer Bob Garst I admit he's on the skids, but heres ten dollars that says it will take longer than Slay first" Last week, the tvo- men met again in Washington, just after the President had stripped Wick- ard. of power and put Chester Davis in control. "Here's your ten.

stW Garst to Bowman, "But Wickard isn't out yet- responded Bowman. "Ah, hell," said Garst "I won't stand on a technicality Capital Chaff Grace Tulljv private secretarv 5 calls her office Lnion 'Station. "If. that opens once a day," she says "it openi hundred Umw." Says Major Ruth Streeter, head of the Lady Marines, "I wish we could serve overseas. For one thing, -It would give us a chance to earn service bars, and thej' certainly would brighten up the uniform'." about to see the.

greatest string of visiting, foreign presidents in history. Beginning May 5. and spaced, one every two weeks, they are: President Penaranda of Bolivia; President Barclay of Liberia, President Morinlgo of Paraguay, important of alt--President'Ribs of Chile. Park By Another Xante Wyoming's erudite Senator Joe O'Maboney is 'blazing mad at his old friend Secretary Ickes f01- turning.the famous Jackson Hole hunting and grazing area'into a national Some of the leading cattle men also are irate because they say it will' remove vitally needed grazing land at a time when meat and feed are so important. Some 20,000 cattle could be grazed on the Jackson Hole area, the cattle men say.

Ickes, however, has met this argument immediately by ruling that cattle- shall not be disturbed, and that cattle men can their grazing, activities in area, exactly as they have in thft past. However, the friendly row between O'Mahoney and Ickes goes deeper. For a long time, John D. Rockefeller, who owns largo Washington is part of Jackson Hole, has wanted tii ffiiret it f'rt a to give it to the government a national park. But Senator O'Mahoney and many Wyoming- ites were opposed.

Furthermore, it takes an act of Congress to create a national park, so O'SIa- honey had Ickes blocked. However, the law provides that the secretary of the interior may. create a "national monument" without an act of Congress. Actually there is not much difference between a national park and a national monument, except in the size and the name. So Secretary Ickes his now taken advantage of the Rockefeller gift and made Jackson Hole a national monument.

Xote: When Ickes took, over Jackson Hole' he surrounded ranch of his bitterest newspaper critic, Eleanor Patterson of- Washington Times Herald, with a national monument, which should enhance its value. WORTH WHILE STATEMENT A I 0 April out of a controversy enveloped, in an atmosphere of contest comes a ray of sunshine. Whatever'one may think of the merits of the "dispute over whether the anti-inflation lair of October last did'or did not permit farm subsidies to be included 1 computing so-called parity prices, was -in President Roosevelt's veto message a passage that is worth reading again: 1 have referred to the.legisla- tive history only because of some of the criticisms -of my action. I. know that some members of the Congress differ witl my interpretation of the law.

I credit them with sincerity. I ask that they credit me with equal sincerity. If that brief bit of common, sense doctrine could be taken to heart by controversialists, the criticisms and i of opinion which are such a necessary part of the' working of democracy would be far more effective in 'getting the end result constructive change than is the case today. The tendenc3 to 'attribute a motive to one who disagrees, the inclination-to meet criticism con- stantly by asking what is the motive of the critic--this is one the most disheartening aspects of present-day government. Too many people in posts of responsibility, think of government as a personal'instead of: an impersonal matter.

They look upon criticisms as aimed at them personally instead of at the func- acts of government done in the name of the people. The important question always is: What is the merit or demerit of the criticism--and not who makes the criticism. Tlie President is in the midst of a crisis--he is attempting to ward off the inflation spiral. He i has been advised that there arc in Congress' who think he misinterpreted his powers under the law of last October. He cites the history to show that his advisers were as much entitled to interpretation as were his opponents.

But the Important advance is that Mr. Roosevelt does not accuse his opponents of wrong motives. He credits them with sincerity--a course that is bound to erase much of the bitterness that has surrounded this particular controversy, in wWch members of the Democratic party have split with the White House. altogether too much By David Lawrence and recrimination in Washington. The ambition -for power and place can be commendable, but it also can breed an intolerance and an indiffo ence to the complaints of the people.

Too, many bureaus seek more power than they and too many officials seek authority than -they ai-e capable of exercising efCectively. But these excrescences would not do much damage to the public interest and they could be qonfined to a narrow area of injury were it not for the tendency every now and then ou the part of public officials to hide' Mistakes. The theory that must not be conceded or error acknowledged is deep-seated in the political mind. It would refreshing if the trend could bs reversed--if as fast as mistakes are made there was a wholehearted readiness to amend or eliminate the action taken. But, unfortunately, tliis doesn't happen often and those who are the victims of injustices carry away from Washington deep-seated antagonisms that i amount to actual hatreds.

In days like these when governmental action can be harsh, especially as regulatory measures affect the economic life ol individuals and i and groups, the necessity for a.brpad perspective is even more apparent. Hence, if the controversialists could start at least by crediting the other fellow with sincerity, much light and less heat would be generated. This is pai ticularly true of the many persons who write letters to'the national capital. Letters that start out by questioning motives or by accusing the recipients of itfc sincerity do not as a rule com-' mand replies but go into Officials in all branches of the government find it hard to carry on correspondence with persons who do not at least credit them with sincerity. goes too, incidentally, for the many persons who write to the press.

Debate is the healthiest instrument yet devised to make democracy work, but debate that Is personal loses its value. The tone of all public discussion could lifted by adherence to the doctrine so well expressed by President in his veto message other day. (Reproduction.