Judge — December 1932 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

Judge JUDGE Christmas Forecast NSIDE information has come to | the old gentleman on the bench about some Christmas gifts ilready decided upon. At the risk of being a spoil-sport, he will divulge these secrets. For some of them are too good to keep. Most Christmas ists are a queer mixture of the prac- tical and the frivolous, the generous ind the cynical, the wise and the wistful. And of such is this list. For the hungry. The greatest out- souring of money for relief that the world has ever seen. Too bad that self-respecting folks who would gladly work for their keep have to get it ander the chilly label of charity; but that’s the way things are. And at least this nation, bewildered but grim, is resolved that none shall starve. For the thirsty. Beer pretty soon. For repeal;.they may have to wait. But nine states have just repealed their enforcement or bone-dry laws, which is some gain. For the unemployed. The prospect that if they can’t have a regular job, at least they can have part of the other fellow’s job. Big benevolent employers are zealously putting over the “spread-the-work” idea, which really means “spread-the-unemploy- ment.” For unemployed executives. Not much, except the chance to go to the Harvard Business School and take the special emergency course for ex- vice-presidents, offered as “a substi- tute for the demoralizing effect of waiting around for jobs.” ON For politicians. The gift to deserv- ing Democrats of some 135,000 fed- eral offices that don’t come under the civil service laws. True, these offices will be taken away from 135,000 wretched Republicans. But after all, that’s what the election was all about. For the farmers. The privilege of marching on Washington, to see whether they can get anything but love. For the taxpayer. A bill for higher taxes than he yet dreams of, and the prediction that his taxes are going to be still higher before they are lower. For Congress. The fun of sitting, between now and March 4, in the midst of the hottest hornets’ nest within the memory of what are humorously called “deliberative” bodies. For Herbert Hoover. The earnest assurance that he has many more friends than he seemed to have on Novembér 8 and that millions who voted against him did so with regret that they must wreak upon him ven- geance for the sins of a political party in which he never belonged anyway; respect for a man who drove himself to utter weariness at his post of duty, and on top of that went forth and fought to the bitter end, though it was for policies which we believed mistaken; gratitude for his many mighty achievements at home and abroad, obscured though they have been for a time by what seem to us his errors; genuine sympathy and affection and wishes for a long life ’ of public usefulness untroubled by the petty politicians who led him For Norman Thomas. Commisera- tion that his following was so small, that the protest voters were so des- perate for an immediate new deal that they couldn’t think about the long-time issue; and the suggestion that if we are ever going to have an effective third party, it must shed the threadbare cloak of socialism and wear a garment woven of new ma- terials indigenous to our own American soil. For the American Franklin Roosevelt. This gift he promised in his speech at Los Angeles: “I promise you an under- standing heart. I promise you all my service. I promise you the best that is in me. I cannot give you more than that.” We're not sure it’s enough, but for the present it will have to do. people, from For Franklin Roosevelt, from the American people. He asked for this one, in the closing sentence of the same speech: “Give me your help.” We shall, and with it even those of us who did not vote for him give our good will and good wishes. We shall continue to believe, as we were so often told, that his heart is in the right place. At the ‘outset we shall not be too critical. We shall try to be fair, as the American people usually are, So we wish him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. But as to the latter there is grave doubt; for 2s some one has said, “God Almighty never intended a politician to be happy, or he would have given him at least five minutes’ foresight.”