The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-12-22
JOHNSON LASH
SEARS HOOVER
AND HIS AIDS
President Tears American
Constitution to Bits,
Fiery Foe Declares.
DEBT PLAN Is ASSAILED
Congress Travels Road to
Dictatorship, Charge of
Californian.
DEBT PLAN is ASSAILED
By United Press

By United Press
WASHINGTON, Dec. Ex-senator
Hiram johnson, California Repub-
lican orator, hurled jibes and bitter
sarcasm at President Hoover and
the Republican leadership in a two
hour, attack upon the Hoover mora
forum in the senate today.
johnson charged the President
with tearing up the Constitution,
and said that congress was travel
ing the road to a dictatorship in fol-
lowing the debt proposal.
Making a last stand for the debt
opponents, Johnson said Mr.. Hoover
obviously was working for reduction
OF foreign debts. He figured that
the one-year moratorium would cost
every taxpayer $50 and every Amer
lean man, woman, and child 81.
When the Republican party does
this" he told the Democrats, the
country is safe for democracy"
May Vote Tonight
Johnson's speech opened what
was expected to be the last day of
senate debate, but there was no
clear indication when the attack
upon the moratorium would sub
side. Leaders still expected a vote
tonight.
In closing his remarks, the Cali
fornia senator called upon the
United States to follow the harder
path in this debt matter.
Let us not go back to the place
where cowardice may take us along
the easier path which foreign ma
tionS approve" he said. I'VE may
face temporary hardship, but this
would be met. Let them default
If they will.
There never will be peace in
Europe until the treaty of Versailles
is destroyed"
ResentS Concession to France
Johnson particularly resented the
concessions made to France. He
pointed out that experts met as late
as Aug. IL to project thep roposal.
Haste was essential" he said.
There was a crisis that had to be
met in extra legal fashion by the
President. The miserable congress
could not be called in the crisis.
"You who are jealous of your
prerogatives-if there are any such
here-recall that agreement of July
6, when congress could not act,
could not be called, when the ex-
ecutive branch alone could act. You
pirate about the founders, the glo-
rious Constitution.
II am certain that you who ex-
pound it never will permit this
usurpation, but will resent the fact
that the Constitution has been flou-
ted, treated as a scrap of paper,
torn into thousand bits and scat
tered to the four winds"
ElOquence Is Soaring
'You may Undue your President
with God-like powers to deal with
the destinies of the American peo-
pie. But when he seeks to legislate
without the formalitieS of the con-
Stitution in a matter affecting the
very life blood of our people, when
he seeks to put upto them the bur-
den of. taxation that is not theirs
and you tolerate it--then you
have taken the first step toward a
dictatorship.
That step will arise in the future
to taunt you Senators, this is the
first false step. 1t is an entering
idea by which an executive official
may legiSlate as he sees fit.
TT is the first time in the history
of my life that an yman in execu-
tive Office sought to legislate by vir-
tue of a Western Union telegraph
blank in matter affecting $780,
100000 of the public money and
which saddles the taxpayers with
the deficit to that extent"
Quotes Foreign Declaration
Johnson quoted a declaration of
representatives of Great Britain,
North Ireland, Belgium, Italy, and
Japan, in which they said they had
wanted the complete suspension of
debts provided by the original NOR
atorium proposal, but accepted the
Franco-American agreement of July
s, in order to achieve unanimity,
although it has the effect of i'm
posing substantial additional bur-
den on Germany from 1888 on"
1T is plain" said Johnson, that
on one imagined they were dealing
with the original proposal, but with
a new plan, new ideal.
THE original proposal was in
tended for all inter governmental
debt, That's the proposal on which
you legislated by telegraph, and
that that's the proposal which it is
pretended is included in this reso-
luton"