Judge — August 15, 1931 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Too Much for Us ¥ there is any public question more I baffling than the plight of agricul- ture, we don't know what it is. ‘Take for example the present state of the grain markets. The spring wheat forecast indicates 1 yield far lower than any for the fifteen years. But the winter wheat crop looks to be the biggest in history, except for the year 1919, The total therefor is some 8,000,000 bushels above last But the Canadian yield is some 000,000 bushels less. Putting two and two together—but wait a minute, the Farm Board has 200,000,000 in stor- . which under its present policy might be thrown on the market at the rate of 5,000,000 bushels a month. Pre nt Hoover contributes to the confusion by a public attack on specu- lators who sell wheat short. Others protest that short selling is a useful function and might even be “a bless- ing to farmers.” And so on and so on, It is quite hopeless for the la man to try to understand it. Ind it is a severe question whe a person can understand i a whole the agricultural problem is one of those that are too large to be passed through any one*brain in a single lifetime. And in this case two heads do not scem to be better than ase no two heads have been able to agree on what should be done. It is just about a hundred years now since a pleasant agrarian culture began to feel the pressure of indus- trial forces. Machines, a drift to the cities, a new class dominating finance and politics, tariffs, world re- lations—the whole complex. structure grew up around the farme past crop, him away from the prevailing pros- perity. Now, whenever the structure hegins to sway and topple, the he: est bricks fall on the farmer. We have no pet theory to offer. We are very sceptical about the pet theo- ries of others. At the same time we believe that now, as at no time in the JUDGE tiently to every proposal for relief and to test out those which pass rea- sonable And, above ail, we down those queerly blind people who insist that the farmer is getting along all right and that he is a lazy loafer and a chronic This nation will not be right until it clears its record not only of its city slums but also of its poverty- stricken countrysides. serutiny. must. cry The Lost Leader Hix sou missed Cal Coolidge’s Daily Dozings? We have. There is something gone out of the day's ling. Now that Cal has b ation for some weeks, we realize t we had been dependent on him a sense of the stability of the ancicnt truths, the piety of the obvious, the soothing touch of the trite. So many people are being origir many new ideas are upsetting our fevered minds, so many surprises lie in wait for us on cvery front page. We are worried about the reports that the hiatus may be extended in definitely, that Cal is not going to write any more unless the newspapers will renew his contracts at something » the munificent figures of his first Can it be that he quit for a son, that “just for a handful of silver he left us”! enon for Shocking Justice Wit ought to be the final blow n the long campaign to set Tom Mooney free was struck by the report of the Wickersham Commission. True, the blow was somewhat softened be- cause muffied ina mass of paragraphs about other things. And it fell lightly in some places because certain news- papers somehow failed to give it proper display. But the actual words of the commission are unmistakable. After summarizing the decision by which Mooney was denied a new tri it asserts, “Such a state of the law is 13 shocking to one’s sense of Apparently the Mooney be reopened in the courts. Nor should it be. Both Mooney and Billings should be pardoned by the governor of California. They have been in jail for fifteen ars. The witnesses against them have been proved guilty of perjury. The detective who helped convict) them and the judge who presided say their trial was unf. The ten surviving jurors have petitioned for a pardon. Yet beeause these men were labor a tators, because some great business it terests still think that radicals should be tamed on any pretext, fair or un- ir, the State of California has been afraid to pardon them. Governor Rolph may be made of braver stuff than his predecessors, and every de- cent element in America should now urge him to do his plain duty. The Rowdio Rerestixo our late renunciation, we tuned on the radio the other nig! ar the Philharmonic concert in New York. Symphony of Tet gloriously rendered. We reveled in it. The glorious ikovski was being We felt a warm glow of gratitude to the generous broade And then —just as the movement reached its climax, with but a few lovely bars to go, the voice of the announcer broke in. In wheedling tone it remarked that we had had the privilege of hearing most of the symphony, and that it was now ten o'clock, Bulova watch time, and so on, and so on. What decency, what grace, what hope of aesthetic salvation, is there the American spirit, when it will stand for such shattering of a musical mood by arrogant commercialism? Yes, we know that radio has its firm schedules, its solemn contracts, its sacred cows. But for our part we respect none of them. Radio entertainment must be divorced from advertising. R.IW. sters. comicbooks.com