Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-06

ing throughout all sections of this great
country of ours.
Sectionalism Is a major threat against
the future welfare of this Nation and
its people.
Those whose study Of history goes
deeper than the dates of battles and the
names of great generals and the sue
cesSion- of presidential administrations
know that there was more than the
MaSon-Dixon line and the slavery ques-
ton involved in the Civil War that
nearly rent this Nation asunder.
The Civil War was an economic war
as most wars are, when you delve be-
meath the immediate occasions that
generally are the excuses, not the rea-
sons, for peoples taking up arms against
each other.
sectionaIism and lack of economic
balance brought on the Civil War in
1861.
A tariff system that enriched the
manufacturing States in the North and
impoverished the agricultural States of
the South had as much to do with it
as the fact that slavery existed south
of the Mason and Dixon line, while the
States to the north were free.
The industrial North in the SOS sold
their manufactured articles behind the
tariff wall, at high prices. The South
bought these articles in a domestic mar
ket at prices higher than the world
market, without tariff protection, at the
world price level.
repeat that sectional misunder-
standing and lack of economic balance
brought about the Civil War.
Lack OF economic balance and grow
ing sectional misunderstanding today
threaten the position of America as the
worlds most favored, most prosperous
Nation.
BIameS Lack Of Balance.
AS see it, the lack of economic bal
ance Is, in large part, the foundation
for these sectional misunderstanding
which all Of us so much deplore.
Deep-Seated Sectionalism In this coun-
try will never grow out of geographical
locations. The railroads, the high.
ways, airplanes, automobiles. newspapers
magazines, the telephone, the telegraph,
the radio-theSe have broken geographic
cal lines, annihilated distance, elimi-
mated time as factor in human rela-
tionShips.
What one man says in Washington
at this minute can be heard in San
Francisco the same minute; it can be
printed and studied in San Francisco
tomorrow morning. The farm lad in
Kansas can see and hear the Broadway
star and the Broadway chorus at the
same time that Washington can see and
heart is SynchroniZed with sound and
music-and the Middle West knows its
East better than the East knows its
West. For the East that the Middle
West sees and hears in the talkie NOV
les is more nearly true to life than the
Wild West that the East sees in the
same talkie movie.
There is no longer any possible geo.
graphical reason for sectional miSunder-
standing. If there is any sectional mis-
understanding, it must arise from con-
ditions far more important and far
reaching than any mileage measure
mentS.
And much as we may deplore the fact,
sectional misunderstanding have arisen.
The recent alignments and debates in
the Congress over farm relief, lasting
eight years; the more recent debates
and sectional alignmentS in the Senate
over the tariff have called attention to
the growing sectional feeling, a feeling
which insist is sectional miSunder-
standing, not section antagoniSm.
Criticism of Senate.
There has been considerable criticism
of the Senate lately for taking UP so
much time in talking it out" But the
whole country is going to have to talk
it out before We get together and strike
an economic balance that brings general
prosperity.
The sooner the country, as whole,
knows and understands the underlying
c. 'ses of the recent breaking of party
and forming of apparently sectional
lines in the United States, the better it
will be for the country as a whole.
Before any permanent mutual under
standing between conflicting interests
can be reached. all parties concerned
must have knowledge of the real issues
involved
knowledge is the basis of understand
standing; understanding is the begin
ming of wisdom wisdom gives vision;
without vision peoples perish and ma
tons disintegrate
Now to get down to some of the facts
that will give us knowledge of the causes
that led to coalition of the agricul-
tural West and South against the in
dustrial East in the Senate recently.
We cannot dismiss the breaking of
party lines and the forming of sectional
coalitions in the Senate by denouncing
the insurgent Senators, even though we
may not agree with all they do. can
say this with good grace to any Eastern
or Western or Southern audience, be.
cause I have not always voted with the
coalition nor always against it.
But bear in mind this fact:
The So-called insurgents in the Sem
ate are not inSurging ION their own"