The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 12

RALPH McGILL Huey Long And 35 to 1 THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION EDITORIAL PAGES RALPH McGILL, Editor RALPH T. JONES. Associate Editor JACK TARVER. Editor FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1946. 1 HOWELL.

Prrtidenl nnd Publisher TROTTI. Vice President and Business, Manager V.i Wt3 PiTM I. When the late Huey Long quit his job as a tea salesman he told the sales manager of the McCormick Company: Safety Must Come First landing in the poor visibility conditions existing at the time. In the past several months two charter flights crashed in bad weather, one near Richmond, and one in Utah. Both had been allowed to depart from the airports when regular airlines were grounded.

The public wants to know why regulations do not apply to them as well as the regular lines. The most recent disaster in Newfoundland apparently was due entirely to human error. The pilot seemingly flew his plane into the top of a hill. The public, which likes to fly, doesn't understand these things. While approving the Landis statement, it will want to know why the CAB itself hasn't done a more effective job.

The airlines have a magnificent record of accomplishment, service and progress. They will be wise not to sacrifice any of it in seeking more speed at the expense of safety. Representatives of the Air Transport Association, the Air Line Pilots Association and the Civil Aeronautics Administration meet in Washington today to consider a matter of pressing importance to the future of commercial aviation. They have been summoned by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which has become concerned, and justifiably so, over the rising tide of air accidents. Todav's meeting follows a warning by Chairman James M.

Landis, of the CAB, that airiines must place major emphasis on safety rather than speed. Ton many recent accidents, he said, seem due to personal failure, rather than mechanical. The public, too, has noticed this and is wondering why Mr. Landis and the CAB have not done something about it. The public will wonder why the recent Kastcrn an liner which crashed near Washington was allowed to attempt a "I'm gonna be President of the United States.

For every man who makes a decent living in this country, there are 35 who just scrape along. I'll help those 35 and they'll help me." So, Huey Long set out cynically shouting "share the wealth" and "every man a king." It worked so well that a cold fear crept over the nation and a great sigh of relief went up when Huey Long passed on to that bourne from which no traveler returns. But, apparently, what he said caused no one to think save the sales manager, Charles P. McCormick, who went back to take the negative side of Huey's statement and revolutionize the tea business. He found that at least some of the 35 had never had a real chance and had not failed because of laziness or incompetency.

One great, dismal, obvious fault which the reactionary persons in our country stupidly fail to see is that in the political field the great majority of those trying to do something about the 35 who "just scrape along" almost always are the Huey Longs. An exception was Roosevelt, who tried on a national scale. And if you don't think anything was accomplished, take a look at the national income figures. They will how many persons have been pulled out of the "below income class in the past 10 years. And the war didn't do all of it by any means.

Maybe I am wrong to toss his name in this at all, but it needs saying. Because we are now in the midale of a national miasma which seems to be saying that all of a sudden this nation has got to make up its mind whether it is going to go to the extreme left or right. Nothing could be worse for the country than such thinking. What we need to do is to go ahead on the American highway. If this country ever is persuaded by the smart manipulators that our only choice is between the extremes, then indeed will I move over and sit in the pew with those who think that all is lost.

so happens I alwavs have despised Communism I.ijeicUi:m j)s lnotluMs. mive n0ver thought other than if the people of this country knew about the workings of this ideology and knew its leaders, they would be damaged by them. We are in trouble with them now because they, like the Huey Longs, knew about the 35 who just scrape along and went to work on them. They have taken over several unions, including the crews that run the shipping. It means that a very few persons have great power.

But, again, it must be said the only reason they were able to do so was because of the unintelligent attitude of the rest of us. The great drive now is on to make the decent, wholesome quality of liberalism seem to be Communistic, or at best, merely a sort of silly, Pollyanna sort of business having no place in a practical world. Or, that all persons with any liberal thought are whooping after Henry Wallace and demanding milk for Hottentot tots. Now Is the Time for All Good Men The Sub Party The campaigners seek to say that Ihe Democratic Party has been captured bv the Communists and the PAC. BILLY ROSE HACK TARVER Cutting 'Em Down Lunch To Be fin Executive Session The Congressional Restaurant will henceforth be closed to sight-seers.

tions deliberately devised to block our industrial development, to keep us hewers of wood and drawers of water for other sections of the country. 3. Republican financial and business policies that denied us opportunities and exacted tribute from us to the advantage and enrichment of other sections. "Many of the things done, by the Democrats have meant much to us in the South," Hill told a Montgomery rally this week. "We have profited greatly from various Federal-aid programs which we never would have had if Republicans had been in control of Congress." Despite defections within its ranks, it is the Democratic Party and it alone to which the South can look for continued consideration.

And it is the Democratic Party to which we must give support and allegiance, if for selfish reasons only. Under Republican rule, the South can expect nothing. However dissatisfied Southerners may have become with occasional inconsistencies and ineptitudes of the present administration, they can have no illusions about how they will fare if Republicans gain control of Congress at next month's That's why they are rallying to the aid of the Democratic Party in Georgia and throughout the South. During the past 14 years of Democratic rule, declares Alabama's able Sen. Hill, the administration has recognized the injustices done us by their Republican predecessors and has sought to help us remove the injustices, right the wrongs and give us the opportunity to gain a iner share of the nation's income and ealth.

The "Republican injustices" of which Sen. Hill speaks, he lists as follows: A Republican tariff policy that for over 100 years sapped us economically. 2 Republican freight rate discrimina Never let it he said our Representatives aren't sensitive tnl. They just couldn't en joy their pork chops with groups of meat' hunyry taxpayers looking on. Especially not with elections coming up.

Of course, the House gallery will remain open to the public. You can still see your Congressman sleep if not eat. But the Nation's Capitol will have lost one of its most famous tourist attractions when the 50-cent conducted tour no longer includes a glimpse of Rep. Rankin with his Gray Plate Special. Congressmen have liad enough of firing goldfish lives hence-forth tlte public trough will be prircUr.

And a shame it is, too. Some of the most spectacular filibusters are conducted with knife and fork. Nothing could be mote false. The PAC's investigation by a congressional committee reveals the PAC to have been kicked around more times than it won. When it did win it had the good sense to join others in support of a candidate who was good at getting votes.

Jim Folsom, of Alabama, is nn example. We will get nowhere breaking up the Democratic Party, which always has been one of diverse groups a Joseph's coat party. Bosses of the big city machines. Republican and Democratic, scrambled for the labor and Negro vote. I have taken a second look and I find that the same bosses are in control.

They will ride any vote that comes along, Negro, PAC or radical. It can't do this country any good to swing back far to the right and resume the Republican concept of the lime of Hoover and before of paying attention only to the one person in 36 who is making a decent living. If we do someone is going to take the other 35 and go to work on Some will turn to Communism and some will go over to the Hitler line or some other line such as Huey Long was espousing. Before long the country will really be fouled up and we will be in deep trouble. This country was founded on liberalism.

Liberalism believes in the freedom of the individual not a collectivist PJJ We used to take a great pride in the fact. We founded HUt; jt ff)r oppoi tunity of the individual, for the dignity of the individual life, for religious freedom and speech and living. It will be a very great failure if we let the smart and shrewd propagandists make us confuse a liberal attitude with Communism or the confusion of Henry Wallace's position. Certainly there isn't an ounce of liberalism to a ton of Communism. Hut, by the token, there isn't any in any form of totalitarianism.

McCormick took Huey ling's idea and moved a tea business out of the red into the largest and most successful tea business in the world. I think we can take the same idea and build the strongest force for democracy and the rights of man ever conceived by the greatest advocates of those rights. It would be a country against which every wave of Communism or totalitarianism in any form would break and fail. But we won't do it if we allow the campaign of today push us into a hurried, frantic, unnecessary choice of extremes. We have seen in Russia, Spain and Hitler's Germany what the choice of an extreme eventually means.

Stick to your liberal guns. The Case of Aurelius S. Scott JOSEPH and STEWART ALS0P and fined. He was also fined for disturbing the peace. In Atlanta he twice has been arrested on disorderly conduct charges.

By his vague and somewhat windy statements, Candidate Scott fits into the stereotype which causes some persons to think it wrong to educate the Negro. He has done his people great harm, apparently out of a desire, by no means confined to the Negro race, for publicity, or notoriety. While entirely unconcerned with Candidate Scott's future, we do think he serves as an excellent illustration of how not to be of service to the hopes and aspirations of his race. One of the many intangibles the first-rp'e Negro citizen lias to combat is the stereotype picture of his race which so manv persons have. And certainly one reason they have it is that so many Negroes fit into that stereotype picture.

We are reminded of this by the somewhat ridiculous Coroner's campaign in Fulton County. As part of that picture there is a Negro candidate, one Aurelius S. Scott. Unfortunately, he fits the stereotype, even to and including possession of a pohce court record. In Birmingham's court he was up for disorderly conduct RALPH T.

JONES What of Supplies For Home Upkeep? He came into the office, sat down at my invitation and announced he wanted to talk about something that was very important. 1 listened. wyJ IPS THE PULSE OF THE PUBLIC Backbone TJie Constitution' welcomes letters from its readers. They must be signed, should not exceed 200 words. Ed.

tor Constitution: 1 would I can never think of the snappy comeback until hours later. The other night at a dinner party we were talking of the manpower shortage. To make conversation, I asked the girl on my right whether she had hoard of it. "Heard of it?" she cracked. "I'm looking at it." I tried to think of a topper, but all I managed was, "I'll bet you say that to all the boys." Home in bed that night, I thought of plenty uf answers I might have exploded around her ears "I don't know whether to kiss you or set a trap for you." "No self-respecting 8 ball would be seen in front of you." "With your tongue and a loaf of bread we could open a delicatessen." "A head like yours coming out of a manhole would start a soccer game in any neighborhood.

1H''t IT WAS too late. I was home in bed and didn't even know Jane the Ripper's phone number. I admit I'm slow on the draw, but the thing that puzzles me after 20 years on the Great Wit Way is that I'm never around when aiiy of the great yockadoo-dle lines are born. I've entertained and been entertained by many of the legendary quip-flippers George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, Ben Hccht, Deems Taylor, Oscar Levant, William Saroyan, Groucho Marx, George M.

Cohan, Willie Collier all the way back to Wilson Mizncr. We've dined, played cards and sat around making gay chitchat. It's all bright and amusing, but not more than once a year have I been on the scene when a line worth reprinting was uttered. Well then, where do the jokes come from? They're made up in bed hours afterwards. They're twisted and pulled and pencilled and papered.

They're told and retold, and keep getting better with each telling. THIS GOES NOT only for the cracks they're repeating tonight at the Stork Club, but for the nifties Euclid told around the library in Alexandria. I suppose you've heard of the toastmaster who introduced a speaker thus. "Mr. Jones is a remarkable fellow.

You have only to put a dinner in his mouth and out comes a speech." Jones, they tell it, ad libbed back, "Our toast-master is even more remarkable. You have only to put a speech in his mouth and out comes your dinner." WELL, THAT'S the way Jones told it to Mrs. Jones at breakfast next morning. Ten to one he started his speech, "Ladies and Gentlemen, unaccustomed as Consider these famous snappers, all accepted as having been made off the cuff: Paul Bourget: "When an American has nothing to do he can always spend a few years trying to discover who his grandfather was." Mark Twain: "Right. Monsieur.

And when all other interests fail a Frenchman, he can always try to find out who his father was." A friend: "It is very good of you to say such pleasant things of Monsieur when he always says such nasty things of you." Voltaire: "Perhaps we are both mistaken." Young man: "I hope I'm not boring you." Rochefoucauld: "We may forgive those who bore us but never those we bore." JUST BETWEEN us girls, do you believe these are spur-of-the-moment lines, or did Twain, Voltaire and Rochefoucauld write a dozen drafts before they turned the final version over to the publisher? Well, you miiht ask. "Who does ad lib funny The answer is Bob Hope, who, according to last week's 'Variety." has 11 writers on his pay roll. to make a few remarks the letter by Mrs. Junior S'cphcns in the Wednesday issue cf The Constitution. I think it was very snooty in her to talk about 1he farmers the haven't stopped to think that every bite they eat comes fijom somebody's farm, and that if the farmers of America should raise only enough for their own stables for one year, the city dwellers would be like "The King With the Golden Touch." Money will not satisfy the pains of hunger when there is no food to buy.

(Ask the people Europe.) The farmer feeds the nation and this is still America so far no Hitler has the reins. We are still a free country with the Tight to protect our own, for which we should reverently thank God. MRS. JOSIE ALLEN. Tallapoosa.

Placing the Blame Constitutional Crisis Foreseen WASHINGTON For some time now the Government economists, peering into their befogged crystal balls, have discerned the outlines of a small cloud no bigger than a man's hand. The cloud is the bust to follow the present boom. Since President Truman's rather pathetic surrender on the meat issue, its outlines have become a little clearer. Previously it was thought vaguely that the cloud might burst some time in 1947. Now, with many qualifications, the economists are talking about "late Winter or early Spring" of 1947.

And if prices really get out of hand, say the economists, the cloudburst may be a painfully drenching downpour, although no repetition of 1929 is anticipated for the near future. Vermiform Annpnrlix Those Rloomy forecasts are based on VeimilOim nppeilUlX the llnammous assumption that prie control, which was so unconscionably long a-dying, is now to all intents and purposes dead. One official summed up the general attitude when he remarked, "Harry Truman didn't kill price control when he decontrolled meat; he just buried the unlovely remains." The Decontrol Board, which was established with much fuss and feathers, is now a vermiform appendix among Government agencies. It will no lunger have anything to decontrol. It can be quite safely predicted that dairy products will not recontrolled.

The Board's basic function was originally to act as a high court of appeals to review petitions for price rises derfled by Porter. It has not yet reviewed a single petition. And as Porter is now expected to decontrol faster than manufacturers can dream up petitions, the Decontrol Board might just as well submit to the usual fate of appendices and let itself be excised from the body politic. The only real hope among Washington's dwindling and beleaguered band of stabilizers is to keep some sort of control over rents, construction materials and a few manufactures in really short supply. And even in this respect they are keeping their fingers crossed.

Four If How bad will the inflation be? That, according to the I QUI il economists, is the central question. For if prices really push up decisively, the inevitable set-down will then be distinctly painful. There are hopeful elements in the situation. Production is beginning to get under way in volume in many sectors of the national economy. If incomes continue up, and the Government's tax program is left untouched, the Government will soon be draining off the market several billion dollars of consumer spending power.

Even with the expected collapse of price controls, the rise might be held to less than 10 percent. The economists think that, in this case, the recession, when it comes, will be no more than a quiet settling down, necessary and not too painful. But the economists add that a concatenation of four circumstances, all of them highly possible, might knock their gently hopeful forecast into a cocked hat. There are fours ifs: (1) If all controls collapse beyond recall in a few weeks. (2) If another strike wave starts.

(3) If businessmen, noting the constantly rising prices, decide to hold for a rise, and a feverish inventory boom results. (4) If the Republicans, in control of the House, happily cut the present high tax program to shreds. All of these ifs together (and it will be noted that they are all interdependent) could shove prices through the clouds. The inevitable collapse would then be really painful, if impermanent. Add to this the nervousness which exists in the Agriculture Department about a sharp fall in the agricultural export market when the world harvests are in, and you have the makings cf a pretty black 1947.

Tiri tn T)n? What makes the long term prospect even bleaker Vndl lO UO js tic hoi price control mess has demonstrated with startling clarity the inability of the American Government to govern, except in times of enormous crisis. Any other Government would have stood or fallen on its basic economic policy. But the present administration, its whole economic policy torn to shreds, facing a severe setback at the polls, will be with us for two more years. Moreover, if the vast majority of political forecasters in Washington are correct, there will be a Republican majority almost certainly in the House, and quite possibly in the Senate, while a well-intentioned but far from forceful Democratic President holds sway in the White House. This ptospect has caused many Republicans, and many conservative businessmen, to rub their hands in anticipatory glee.

But if a Republican Congress in times proves itself actually capacle of governing, under a Democratic administration, it will be a political mirade for which there is no precedent in American history. Many astute observers foresee in the next two years a constitutional crisis of the tirst order. But short of a constitutional convention, obviously at present wholly impractical, no one seems to have the faintest idea what can really be done about ft. way she did, for if it wasn't for formers she wouldn't have as rr.u to eat as she does and she remember this is still a free country for the farmers just as much as it is for city folks. Just as many farmers' sons died for freedom as business men's.

My husband was a farmer and he gae his life in Normandy, France, for the freedom of his country and I don't know what to think of anyone who would want to put the farmer under bondage. She ws speaking of election day. I can irnund her that there will be a- many farmers at the polls to vote as city people. She may fail the farmers ignorant, but they still have srnse enough to be the bn kbnnc of our nation. RONNIE K.

SKWK.LL. Aria ii svi lie. Ga. He had a story to tell, an argument to set forth. His subject, broadly speaking, was the housing shortage.

His specific problem was scarcity, or inavailability, of supplies for the maintenance of present houses in livable condition. His complaint was against bureaucratic government. He laid the trouble at the feet of Government agencies which, he said, had followed policies not, primarily, designed to help the people but, first of all, to maintain the bureaucrats in jobs. "Some of these agencies," he said, "even before the end of the war, began accumulating stockpiles of materials which are today held ih full warehouses, for some future use which only the bureaucrats know. The citizen who needs them, no matter in how small quantity, can't get them because of a complication of In other words, there are created scarcities in essential supplies, scarcities which are unnecessary." That was his idea.

I'm just passing it on. pj Wrtiicoc "Mind you," he continued, "I'm all for the GI. til nOllSeS should be. Had four boys of my own in the service during the war. Thank God they all came home safely.

Two of 'em, by the way, brought English wives home with them. Nice girls, both of them. Good wives. We're fond of them and proud of them. "But I do think it is unwise to make it so that only new construction, first available for GIs, can get a pane of window glass.

How about the older homes that must be kept livable? Are we to go without glass in a window, if unfortunately a pane is broken, just because somebody with a little authority says no one is to get any window glass except builders of new homes? It is not only unfair, it is downright foolish. "I've spent live days doing nothing but looking for a certain piece of piping and everywhere I go I'm told there is none I can buy, because it is all available only on priority to builders of new GI homes. So my veteran and his wife have to suffer, endanger her health, for a lack of a simple piece of pipe. "If these bureaucrats are going to be so stupid, they should at least provide a source of supply for such cases. T) Piielnoce "Thev say," he went on, "there is a shortage of rOOl DUSineSS housing units.

I expect that figure is conservative. But what's Ihe gain if, while they're building 000 new homes, 2,000,000 of the old ones become unfit to live in tor lack of a few simple supplies they can't get? "Suppose the toilet in your bathroom cracks? The only thing to do is put in a new one. But you can't buy one. They're all held on priority for new construction. So your house is without bathroom essential and, very soon, it won't be a fit place for folks to occupy.

It's silly, to my way of thinking. "If a window pane breaks in my house I can fix it. With Scotch tape, if the window frame is intact. But if the frame is smashed too? Well, that doesn't make any difference to the priority boys. 1 can go cold all Winter.

That's alL "An old house becomes unfit to live in. Say a house belonging to someone who is not a GI. So he moves out. He can't get a new house because they're all reserved for GIs. He's homeless.

"And that old house he had to leave could have been maintained in good condition by expenditure of a few dollars, at the start of the disintegration, if the material had been available, instead of being stacked up in bureaucratic warehouses under silly priority rulings. For want of a nail the shoe was lost and for want of a shoe the horse was lost and you know the rest of that. "Well, try and find a few lOpenny nails to repair your old house today and you'll find a parallel quickly. Save the old homes, say I. as well as building new ones." That's about what he said.

He may be right. I'm just passing on his ideas. For whatever they're worth. ers should be told exactly what to do? Subsidies now to be paid back by farmers' future generations show a trace of Communism in the lady's thoughts! As to farmers rearing large families, there are many exceptions. You see, Mrs.

Stephens, I'm an only child; however, I know some families whose children number 10, 12 and 15. But I suppose fivor six children seem like many to people who think on a small scale. Would anyone please inform me of the population of Liburn, Ga. ELIZABETH MASSEY. Rupert, Georgia.

Debt to Farmer Editor Constitution: In your paper of October 2 you printed a letter written by Mrs. Junior Stephens about the farmers of America. A a rule farmers are too well-mannered to pay any attention to such remarks, but after reading Mrs. Stephens' letter I feel obliged to say my bit in behalf of the farmers. Evidently Mrs.

Stephens hasn't read her history or her Bible very well. In history she will find that many of our greatest and most learned men were farmers or came from farm families. They have stood up for their rights heretofore and will always do so. If the city people want more meat let them get out in the country and raise it like we are doing. Mrs.

Stephens don't know when she's well off. If the country people had to buy all the meat and lard they use there would be much less for the city people. If they knew that the Government would take over their meat animals they would simply quit raising meat, then where would the meat proposition be? Perhaps there are many who City Folks Editor Constitution: We, white residents of Western Heights, resent and call lie to the letter you published in your letters to the editor section of Oct. 3, signed by M. K.

Echols. In the first place, to set the record straight, we are not low whites; there has been no turmoil in our neighborhood; ours is not a potential Negro community and never will be, for we intend to keep it white. In the second we can find no such individual as mentioned above and we doubt the existence of such a person. Our rommunity is thoroughly organized and through this organization we have stopped the advance of the Negro into our residential section. Certain people, unworthy of their white heritage, object to our efforts because they can no longer make fat profits in real estate.

We place the blame for the trouble we had squarely on their shoulders. One more thing, we wish to thank the Columbians for taking up our fight when the situation looked so hopeless and for show-ins us how to win. Thev have iriitr Constitution: Yes, it mould he very nice for "city Jojks" of Lilburn and other cities if the "icnorant hayseeds" would sell every meat animal they own for about one-half the cost of raising it. Too bad farmers must buy high-cost feed for these animals, have them inoculated, (or let them die of disease) and carry them miles to market. It would be much better for "city folks" and farmers, too, if these animals just grew up to be nice pieces of pork and beef without having to be fed, housed.

taught us one valuable lesson: the ana attended in any way. But nature decided upon the course cf animated life not we human beings. i Ha Mrs. Stephens heard that no Vkec tn be forced to do any- hire'' And was it not the form cf government that decided farm-1 white people of a community can have anything they want, when they are organized. This letter was signed by 163 residents of Western Heights..