The Fresno Bee from Fresno, California • 28

i PUBLIC THINKS Letters to this column should not exceed 200 word Anonymous letters will not be printed Rejected communications will not bo returned whether stamps are enclosed or not" v- 'v 5 Vw i -v' Af -l'-'- 72 i Mr 1 1 EDITORIAL PAGE J'1'1 4 i No Real Democrat Can Support Merriam 1 1 jr -V ''v- of7T-' 's'1 O- New Day By' Day By INTYRE (Copyright by The MeNaugbt Syndicate Inc) NEW Thoughts while strolling: Conde Mart's sartorial slick has the gloss of a billiard ball Add latest matinee idols Guy Robertson Some day I'm go-" iBoi to muss up Irena ardonf ness will no longer dominate state affair Wo are going around and around in a vicious circle getting nowhere but deeper into the financial mire Is It not time for a new deal ii stats affairs? God give ua at this time a man Uncorruptible not affiliated with our enemlea big buslnes Such a man we have la Haight Yours respectfully THOMAS MIIXS Parller Calif thinks of himself as an admirer of Franklin Roosevelt can not reconcile his conscience with such a In view of the fact that Frank Merriam did everything within his power to defeat Franklin Di Roosevelt in 1933 and will do the same thing in 1938 The whole' Republican state government undet his leaderships will exert the utmost of its power and Influencoto discredit the president in the next election The elements which are pouring out money like water to elect Merriam hate and despise tho Hem-Deal And -he is their man Thuait'ls not too much to say that the DemoeraU who have climbed on the Merriam bandwagon either must feel as happy there a man contemplating hie own funeral or they never actually believed in the principles of the Democratic Party For the special privileged crowd am now their comrades Tbs practitioners of the corrupt and corrupting power lobby government are now their Intimates And the eerier and libellers of Franklin Roosevelt now are their self-chosen political companions Xt is not true they have no other course to follow if they would not aasUt in the election of one who masquerades as a Democrat but is in fact no more one than Frank Merriam The platform of Raymond Haight essentially democratic And of all the candidates he easily stands most dose politically to the policies of the present Democratic national administration and the Ideals and practices of the great Democratic leaden of the past A vote for Haight la a voto for a New Deal in California patterned after that of Washington And every good Democrat aa well aa every good Progressive in the state of California knows i1- A HAIGHT SEEN AS ONLY WAY OUT FOR STATE Editor of The Bee Sir: Any one who has traveled around tho stats lately has been struck with the sight of great billboards setting forth the merits of our reactionary corporation-owned candidate for governor Must be costing a mint of money money that if scent to relieve distress in ths coming Win ter really would accomplish something AI menu in the press favorable to him No doubt the corporations are contributing and all to perpetuate for four mors years what we have had for the past three year The economic and financial condition of the atate at this time is much worse than is generally believed Do not think Ray I Riley would come out with such a warning as he has issued unless conditions were getting desperate and of all times just before election He warns that a cessation of atate government is a very strong possibility in tha near future- That will mean a receiver as dictator and forget he will raise revenue to balance tbe budget What we are paying in taxes now will be small in comparison And the 1935 legislature also must make an attempt to balance the budget which can not be done without extraordinary levies The much hated sales tax is already a burden upon the poor so the extra revenues needed must come from the men who can pay Will it all lead to revolution? Before going to the polls next Tuesday let us sit down and think seriously of the consequences to our state our fellow eitlsens and ourselves If the wrong candidate win On the one hand we have a reactionary and the desperate efforts of Invisible wealth to elect him should make every1 voter decide against continuing him in office knowing we shall have just what we have had since January 1931 Again we have as a choice a theorist and dreamer with impractical plans for ending poverty In California With a legislature hostile to him hie hands are tied before he start Again we will have about half the unemployed In the United States in our state Then we have Raymond I Haight young fearless and honest Let us consider him and if we honestly can not support either of the other candidates then let us vote for Haight He is progressive and I believe will make an honest effort to lift us out of the financial sinkhole and place us on the hard pavement of success and a balanced budget without bearing too heavy oa ihe-already overbuedened poor Yours respectfully THOMAS XL MILLS Parller Calif October 31 1934 VOTE FOR HAIGHT AND SAVE STATE FROM CHAOS Editor of The Sir: On Tuesday the people of California will go to the polls to select a chief executive for the following fivir year Can we go to the polls and vote into office a candidate who will continue for four more years the extravagant deal that has been handed to us In the past three years and ten months? We have seen in that time a surplus of millions turned into a deficit of many more million At this time our state is bankrupt ha in fact registered between twenty and thirty millions of dollars in warrants and as income is getting farther away from meeting expenditure soon our state will be faced with receivership or a dictatorship The invisible power of wealth dominates the reactionary Republican candidate and the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are spending to elect him show bow desperate is the situation The Democratic candidate is visionary a dreamer no doubt honest but mistaken Thera is no chance to put hie dreams into execution At this time tha plight of our atate is too desperate to experiment Raymond Riley has sent out a serious warning of what we face in the near future I believe the situation to be much worse than he indicates We are to be faced with a cessation of state government through inability of our peo- Sle to keep up the intolerable tax urden To balance tha budget at this time without placing an additional burden on our people that can not be borne It has been said that if wa vote for Haight wa will lose our vote That la rather a poor argument If wa all believed that ha would ba defeated but if we all believe be can ba elected and will conscientiously voto our conviction ha can ba elected and It may be the means of saving from destruction of our government Haight la young able and honest reckless expenditures such as have obtained during the past years will be curbed Big busi- By beings and run like everything John Mason Brown la the only redheaded critic Oh for some genius to fill Victor shoes Hasaard Short is incidentally almost wearing the Zlegfeld mantis With all the snuff sola In New York I never saw any one use it Harold Rose and his chic French bride Edwin Hill suggesU the hero of Robert Chambers story Bob Garland and Mencken look alike from the back And they are both from Baltimore Clara Bell Walsh's Skippy is stone blind but the friskiest pooch on the avenue Whatever became of Frederic and Fanny Hatton? might be called a memorial shaft to a broken heart- Nobody to my notion plays a stage lady so grandly aa Ruth Weston Rex la a ringer for Valentine Williams I thought one of the Vanderbilts was some one else and spoke familiarly And do feel well iced! What a striking appearance Dorothy Thompson makes in the news reels Doesn't seem cricket to cell the austere Bernard Baruch Molly Picon sounds like missing a step running down stairs Mess-more Kendall always looks as though he was Just chased out of Bond Street And Peter Arno than that who is to brighten there is no dressier Out of town newspaper stands at Bryant Park and Times Square ara the fomenting grounds of clever begging subtletle Tha moochers stand off to one side and with eagle-eyed precision spot ths paper patron select Thus after a selection from say Toledo he follows for a half block asks for alms and remarks he le trying to get back to Toledo It usually surges a kindred feeling that flushes out a coin The Rockefeller Center musical show offers something new in costuming The first act has a military setting In Vienna and the orchestra is arrayed In military attire The second act is in a grand Viennese ballroom and they change to white uniform Edgar Allan Woolf transferred to Hollywood scene was ones the most prolific writer of vaudeville sketches in tha land In hey-day there was scarcely a bill that did not include one of his skit His royalties at one time were elbowing 3100000 yearly He was also noted aa a toastmaster and master of ceremonies with keen and mordant wit All of which is remindful that there ara scarcely any vaudeville playwrights any more Once there were several dozen Lee Shubert continues the Rialto's most self-effacing entrepeneur A sedate but meticulous dresser he goes to tha auspicious first night sometimes with Harry Kauffman or Thomas Melghan but more often alone and later to ringside supper club table in the same solitude In his theater seat he rarely looks right or left or changes expression Thera an those who say ha has never been able entirely to erase from memory the tragic passing of his youngest brother Sam 8 Shubert killed In a railroad catastro-ph Whatever the reason he always gives Impression of haunting melancholy Incidentally this season has been conspicuous in recouping the shattered Shubert fortune They are sponsoring ons of tha most successful musical hit along with maker several other money The posterity hope of the Shubert is now centered on J's son John a youth with surprising flair for the theater His adaptar biiity Is something of a phenomenon for rarely do sons or producers follow footsteps of their father a Word too comes from the cinema capital that Patricia the sorrel-topped daughter of Zlegfeld and Billie Burke is expressing marked talent for the stage not as an actress but as one with a keen eye for costuming lighting and scenic effect In other words her dad's metier production No place Is so fascinating for prowling outsids of a second hand book shop as those musical Instrument shop I wandered through one on West Forty-eeeond the other day bootlegging a few pings on a xylophone plinks on a harp and muffled rat-a-tats on a snare drum But what want to get at some day when nobody la looking is one of those pearl-fretted Phil Baker-sized accordions and make It moan low A Year Due Both Ways For some years it bas been customary for The Bee to urge the people of Fresno to support the FaR ticket sale of the Fresno Musical Club and thus make It possible for the club to bring to Fresno artists of distinction who otherwise would not be heard her This year happily the situation is different The musical club announces that most of its tickets jfand rumpus at the outset with both marking time until after next Tuesday American Federation of Labor leaders agreed among themselves at their recent San Francisco convention that President Roosevelt came closer to being a member of their family than a blood relative of the employers Word was passed quietly not to do anything to embarrass the New Deal unduly until alter election day But Just wait until November 6th has come and gone If subsurface conversations mean anything you may look for a large-scale resumption of the capital-labor war shortly thereafter National labor headquarters refrained from wading into the Cleve- Experts say ths main hope of escaping fresh headache lies in the time element If the hot oilers stay put for alx weeks an upturn in demand is due which should take up the slack for the big companies and keep them happy on tho present price basis If they even an alert and active tender board will have tough time warding off smash Politics Governor Lehman 1 gaining as tha New York campaign draws to a close despite Tammany defections and the hostility of racial groups and should win by a tidy margin Robert aggressiveness has been something of boomerang He hae aliented many of hie party leaden by hla refusal to heed advice and hie bitter personal attacks on Lehman have won sympathy for the governor Lehman has an Intepee dislike for brawling which accounts for his refusal to meet Moses in open debat all the letter's charge of amounts to Lehman's friends say he has high personal regard for his opponent and is more regretful than resents ful that Moses has treated him so roughly IN TIIE VAN (From the Macon Telegraph) A British military observer says the always go into battle with two poets in the first line Just offhand though we'd say a couple of saxophonists or musical saw players would be more likely to dishearten the enemy Certain Democrats throughout California bin been making tbem-Sehrtt slightly ridiculous by their grtsdtloQQint announcement of their conversion to the cause of Merriamism and government of for and by the privately owned pubiio Utilities because so they say in the present hour their American- ism takes precedence over their party loyalty To any one who has followed the public and private earner of Frank Merriam the effort-to make his candidacy and Americanism synonymous in Itself is one of the sourest Jokes ever perpetrated on the public of California Far nearer the truth was the comparison recently made by a visiting eastern Journalist between Merriam and the sainted Warren Harding Both had the same suave exterior Harding was all things to all men and so Is Frank Merriam But as for a deep and abiding loyalty to great principles of government the career of both is almost as barren as are the desert sands of equatorial foliage Harding did the bidding of the oil ring Merriam throughout his legislative career has been the trusted messenger boy of the power interests Therefore when any so-called Democrat- announces himself for Merriam be surely discloses the fact that his Democracy never took" very deeply Can any one imagine for example a Thomas Jefferson casting his vote for any candidate for public office who has the record of Frank "FMerriam? That grand old champion of the people Andrew Jackson would turn over In his grave at the very suggestion that be could contemplate such a course And certainly any man who The Saar With Stance threatening to send troops into the Saar to the plebiscite of January 13 1935 and Germany warning France that such action constitute a challenge to tha pean pot begins to simmer again with ominous possibilities On January 13th the Saar an extremely valuable coal and iron territory will vote on the questions whether it will become a part of Germany remain under tha governance of the league of Nations or declare its allegiance to France The Nazia have been carrying on an intensive campaign In the Saar and until tha murders of rfiflps SQth they were reported to be meeting with success Since then however the people of the Saar seem to hare been regarding the blessings of Nazification with a certain skepticism Nor can they be blamed for that Meanwhile it clear that France will not let the Saar go to Germany if she can help it Hitler bas expressed equal determination the other way around So here national honor as well aa immensely valuable industrial property is at stake- And more potential trouble oxlste in the Saar than In alt the Balkans combined Tha outcome of the dispute will be worth watching end no doubt moat of the world now is watching it Reject Recall A proposition to recall Supervisor Todd Clark of the aecond district Is on the ballot for next election and before the voters of that district take snap judgment they should consider several things Tbs recall was not made a part of our governmental procedure to permit disappointed office seekers to vent their displeasure Its primary purpose was to punish dishonesty incompetence violations of public trust and general unfitness Xn the abort part df the term Clark baa served as supervisor he bas been guilty of none of these charges Melted down to their base It would appear that the accusations being made against Clark either consist of criticisms against hie method of allotlng patronage or of hie Judgment on some Inconsequential matter Supervisor Clark has mads a sin-effort to give satisfactory service He may have jnade ror in Judgment that wduld not have been committed by a mao with tteva political experience but bis honesty fa not questioned by tn Mt 4- entitled to serve out hie term of office at the end of which his record will speak for ltselt A spirit of fair play should convince the voters of the second district to vote No on the tecalL EQUALIZATION BOARD THOUGHT TOO POWERFUL Editor of The Sir: Xn an argument supporting Amendment No 2 on the state ballot Fred Stewart stresses- a plea for more power for the board of equalization in the granting or refusing of licenses to engage in tbe manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverage He asserts that ths board under the present law is -rthat the board grant permits to all applicants who can prove good character 1 irrespective of where the applicant Intend to open their places of business and that although a sales-place may be next to a school or church the board has no discretion but to grant the Stewart should post himself on the present law which forbids the sale of intoxicating liquors within certain distances of churches and schools irrespective of whether Stewart's board has or has not issued a license to sell In that particular location Stewart should read the form an applicant must fili out under oath which explicitly states that the intended location is not within the proscribed distance from any church or school The present law endows the state board of equalisation with too much power as It stand Sup- pose for instance that at soma future time the honorable member that now compose tha board should fall to be re-elected should di of otherwise be replaced by men more susceptible to intrigue Suppose all the breweries In th state should agree among themselves that one hundred per cent profit should be demanded on every barrel of beer made in California Suppose one brewery should withdraw from or violate that agreement and start a price war Couldn't a handful of unscrupulous men constituting the state board of equalisation force that brewery back into line by revoking its license and the licenses of those who sold ita beer on some technicality and put them out of business or at least entangle them in court proceedings to protect hi investment from utter collapse? No board should have ths authority to enforce tbe arbitrary dictates of privately owned concern which band themselves togethdb to take millions from the public lit exorbitant profits Yours respectfully JESS BROWN Fresno Calif October 81 1934 MERRIAM SINCLAIR ARE HELD DEFECTIVE MATERIAL' Editor of The Sir: Poor Uncle mail carriers have to carry tons of high-priced and misrepresents ti vs literature Illustrating the ilia of Governor opponent This ie an insult to our intelll genes as perhaps 90 per cent the presses in California havl donated or sold their work and paper to the Merriam interest But if the California voters ar like a herd of sheep one collie pup can drive hundreds into th river My opinion 1 that of thousands of other It is that the political timber used in this campaign If graded by a lumberman would be soft pins number three Take it or leave It and let It rot The Republican propaganda used in this campaign ie entirely bereft of decency It is my opinion th Democratic and Republican Parties were almost entirely out of material when they tried to put together a candidate and whitewash him for the race Being a Democrat and for President Roosevelt I still maintain we have all been gyped" In California politic The paramount question In my mind is how these millions of dollars in campaign expenditures are to be paid and in what manner? Perhaps the banking Interest utility corporation financial loan sharks and others prefer to use number three pine which to make it clear to tbe public is full of worm holes knot holes bark and other defect Yours respectfully A TUGGLE Tujara Calif i October 31 19ML 1 PORTRAIT OF ROAD HOG IS OFFERED BY WRITEH Editor of Th Bee Sir: You always can tell a swine driver fon he always drive in the middle of the road he always Jumps the signals he always honks hie horni when beck of some one else he always stops at Intersections so aq to take up the place of two cars He always dodges In end out sal as to show other autoists how to drive he always parka to as ta take up the place of two care always makes a right hand turiy when traffic signals are set against him and waits until he can inconvenience the most traffic He always exceeds the safe speed limit he always tries to run down destriana as If they had no right live he always tries to run down children as they ara Innocent and should die young and go to heaven He always scrapes brand newt fenders when parking he always straddles the white lines for leaf of falling off the road he always honks his horn at night to amuse poor sleepers he always pulls out frora the curb so as to fores other machines In the pathway of others He does everything to provoke profanity his great desire la to create tha impression that be le king of road hog and is brainless Yours respectfully A SCHLEMMER Los Angele Calif October 30 1934 STILL A CITIZEN Editor of The Bee-Sir: I ant for some Information A and were married in 19X8 A being a Canadian girl and ei American by marriage this mad American citizen Theniii J224 they were divorced and in 1026 re-married Now ie ehe still an American citizen or did she lose her citizenship through divorces Yours respectfully A SUBSCRIBER Fresno Calif October 29 1934 According to law any foreign-born woman who acquires United States citizenship by marriage retain that citizenship after divorce provided she reside in the United Stales- HARDER TO TASS (From Cincinnati -Enquirer) Many a driver who boasts he always cab pass tha ear ahead- could not pass an intelligence teat a HELPING HIM (From Boston Transcript) Those who go around cabin politician a demagogue are playing Into his hand That him a chance to make speech to hie followers explaining exactly what tha word mean LOSES ITS VOICE (From Washington Star) Another pet proverb Is When chargee of fund shortages ara made it seldom has voice enough to tell what became of it The Minute That Seems tries which already have adopted one know always exactly how many of their citizens are out of work Uncle Sam would like to have similar Statistics for a number of obvious reasons but they never have been available thus far in our history The labor department makes no pretense of estimating the precise number of unemployed and neither does any other federal agency The Federal Relief Administration knows how many people It has on the dole and the federal employment bureau knows how many it has registered but these figures fall far short of painting a complete picture The American Federation of Labor and ths National Industrial Conference Board the latter a private statistical agency for business make monthly unemployment estimate Using the same source material the A of I reported 10951000 out of work in September while the conference board placed the jobless at 9976000 A nation-wide census would not help those in charge of government to lay their plans with more precision Such a count would be accurate only as of the day it was taken A few weeks later the actual figure would have fluctuated by many thousands one way or the other Continuous knowledge of the exact number out of work would give federal economists a much-needed head start in figuring out necessary adjustments to offset the whirls and whorls in our economic structure NEW YORK By James McMudin Reform New Yorkers give Oil Administrator Ickes credit for a miracle The hot oil flood from East Texas has actually been choked off to a drip But thev shake their heads when you ask how long the boys will behave The inside reasons for the sudden untangling of a seemingly hopeless snarl differ somewhat from the apparent explanation Outwardly it looks as If new Federal Tender Board which waded into the scrap swinging earnestly with both has wrought magic that Houdlni might have envied The board scared the gizzard out of railroads and pipe lines which had been handling the bootleg product with threats of dire penalties If they didn't quit Hitherto the carriers have been getting affidavits from shippers certifying to the legitimacy of as required by but bothered to look behind the affidavit Illegal producers have gotten by easily on phoney document But now tho carriers have been told they'll be held responsible they're scrutinizing every consignment with microscope Note the Interstate commerce approach Texas producers may get away with defying federal jurisdiction on the ground that their operations ara intrastate but railroads and pipe lines know better than to try The board's aggressive action has undoubtedly helped but more Important factors were operative backstage to beaten reform The hot oilers ara far more fearful of price cut by legal producers than of federal agents breathing fir Crude at 9L08 barrel means gasoline around 4 or 5 cents a gallon Oil-loggers' crude at 35 or 30 cents means gasoline at cent This large differential Is what makes Illegal operations possible The law evadera' only Belling argument ie their quality le terrible If legitimate producer clashed erode to 50 cents and gasoline to 3tt or 3 cents it would leavs the hot oilers out in the wet Their sudden reform was chiefly due to the conviction that the big fellowe finally meant biillnese with their rice threat You ahoot jolea in your umbrella when a storm ie brewing The eal test will come in a few weeka when the large producers' resentment has faded and the cheaters think it's safe to step out again Then see them repeating the stunt that has served them weit-before getting injnnc tions from stete court to restrain the federal government from inter-f erring with their business Ickes can crack down on railroads and pipe lines all he likes Trucks srq plentiful and much harder to control WASHINGTON By George Durno In case the Industrialists about that enct organized labor circumstances leaders here say the unions would have lost no time forcing a national issue from the difficulties the Atlantic A Pacific chain is having with its Cleveland employes Labor men recognize the A as one of the most powerful corporations In the country even though it la privately owned a la Henry Ford Some A of I spokesmen charge off the record that the A A deliberately closed down in Cleveland in order to embarrass the administration on election eve As the union men say what plans they originally had ready for after election this charge must be taken with a certain amount of salt It doesn't take an elaborate spy system to learn that a lot of guns are being oiled in the labor camp Top men of the A of found themselves In general agreement at their recent get-together that organized labor most definitely has reached tho croes-roads Either It marches on to a bigger and tighter national organization in the next year with the help of sympathetic administration treatment under Section 7-A of the recovery act or It rets torn up and toed back a number of years This was why the issua of industrial vs craft unions was settled at San Francisco without a bit of debate on the floor One and all there present subordinated lifetime convictions to a realisation that union organization at the moment was a matter of expediency If blanket union will solidify the workers in any industry quicker than the business of regimenting them by crafts the craftsmen are prepared to join hands with white-collar men and unskilled labor Great Britain went through this name evolution of organized labor some years ago and Industrial unions art quits the British vogue Clay Williams chairman of the new five-man administrative board of NRA shortly is going to find out that dead cats still can fly regardless of General Hugh Johnson's retirement from the front Organised labor Is laying deep and devious plans to get scalp Union leaders privately claim tho credit for having forced Johnson out aa boss of NRA and they hold Williams to be a thousand1 times mors objectionable to their cause The A of convention unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Williams because of an alleged attitude" to labor As chairman of ths board of the Reynolds Tobacco Company and head of the eigaret and smoking tobacco cods authority it vyas charged Williams persistently has blocked adoption of a code that would give eigaret workers a break Here again the shooting won't Start until after election Then it will take the form of concealed obstructionist' tactics along the whole battle front Chairman Will-Isms seemingly is in for' a tough siege The Department of Labor is looking forward hopefully to adoption of some form of unemployment insurance by the coming congress for one reason that has no direct bearing on relief of the needy Only an unemployment Insurance system will give the government a constant and accurate check on the number of jobless Foreign coun sured And it tells The Bee it wishes to thank through these columns all who have rallied around and helped Ita ticket tale to success It is a pleasure to pats the club's thanks along But ons feels another suggestion might be namely that Fresno owes as much gratitud to the musical club as the club owes to the buyers of ita tickets Through a number of exceedingly lean years the Fresno Musical Club fought bravely what often looked like a lost battle to the end that this city might enjoy each season at least a few -musical programs of the highest class It Is no secret that the going was very hard at times And It should be no secret that bad the musical club been compelled to fold up much of value to this community would fcava been lost Congratulations therefore would seem to he due from both directions A Hardly Debatable Federal Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins made the perfect retort to critics of federal relief expenditures when he aid: is not debatable" Xt may be politics and petty graft are mixed up with the administration of relief funds here and there If they were not one would have to suppose the millen-lum had corns But hunger as Hopkins says Is not debatable The first Job is to feed people the ironing out of inequalities the detection1 of graft though necessary are of secondary Importance Hopkins who by all accounts fa a sincere end honest man doubtless would ba only too glad to have hla critics bring to his attention concrete instances of graft and favoritism in the handling of federal relief But he has alright to protest when ths whole -set-up is made a target for partisan abuse by people who havo 'nothing better nothing elet eve- to- suggest in Its place Herbert Hoover when president ones made a famous remark about politics with human misery" That Is what the undlseriminatlng critics of tho federal relief administration art trying tq do AFTER HAMMERlKS 0N Ifaf BMHROOM Door and shoui'ins to junior tor piivs sake: HURRY UP YOU WANf 0 CLEANED UP FOR SUPPER JUNIOR SCROLLS OUf OF HS ROOM THAT MWBE ITS 1HST TRiEND OF IN THERF WHO ARRIVED UNEXPECTEDLY 1 0 5PEND HE NfiHf (Ooprrlgfct 1954 by Tbe Sell Syndicate hi) 11-Z 1.