Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1932-01-15
OULAHAN

tHS Ou1IeQ SIdCeS look ClIne OH from
his arduous duties to attend the fun
eral of a newspaper reporter. A hun
bred or nor of the highest officials
in Washington, members of the Cab
met, foreign diplomats, joined Mr..
and Mrs. Hoover in paying a last tri-
butte of respect to the memory of
Richard Victor Oulahan. L think it
is the only occasion on which a sim
pie reporter of the news has been SO
honored.
Dick Oulahan could have held al
most any public office he might have
aspired to, he could have been editor
in-chief of almost any great newspa-
per, but he preferred to remain a re-
porter in the city of his birth, writ
ing every day for the New York
Times the news of Washington so
truthfully and in such a dignihed
manner that he won the respect of
everybody in public life, while his
personal charm and character made
presidents and ambassadors his per-
sonal friends.
Dick Oulahan was my schoolmate
fifty years ago. His life and career
were the model upon which many
young newspaper men tried to shape
their own.
16r1 DcDc
With all the publicity that New
York and Chicago gang murders have
got, the public has a notion that those
cities must be dangerous places to live
in. But an Alabama college professor
who has been collecting the facts
about murder in the United States re-
ports that there are II cities in which
there are more murders in proportion
to population than in New York, and
80 that have a higher percentage of
murders than Chicago. There are
more murders in Memphis, Tennessee,
in proportion to population, than in
any other American city.
There is no such thing in any Am
erican city as gangs of murderers
roaming at large and shooting total
strangers because they don't like the
color of their neckties, though, some
such impression of life in the big CT
ties seems to be prevalent.
l have knocked around this world
a good deal, and as a newspaper re-
porter have had to go into some pref
ty tough districts at all hours of day
and night, but l never found it neces-
sary to go armed, nor have l ever
known of a sober, peaceful citizen
tending strictly t o his own business
being killed except by a lunatic.
PROHIBITION
~Anti-prohibitionists are incurable
optimists. Finland has just repealed its
prohibition law and American "wets"
are .jubilant.
How little chance there is of any
such action in this country is clearly
indicated by a poll of the entire mem
bership of both houses of Congress
taken by international News Service.
Only 155 members of the House of
Representatives were willing even to
submit the question of repeal to a pop
ular referendum. 1t takes 21S to make
a majority in the lower house of Con-
gress. Thirty-two senators, or exactly
one-third were in favor of a referen-
dunn. And the question of legalizing
beer could muser only 125 representa-
tives and FL senators to its support.
l think hat that proportion is a
fair reflection of public sentiment in
the United States. The anti-prohibi-
%tionists are indulging in what Emer-
son called 'wishful thinking"
WAGES
The International Labor Office of
the League of Nations set out to COM
pare real wages" in European indus
try with American wages. "Real wag-
es" means the actual purchasing pow
er of the workers earnings in terms
of commodities. AS we expected, the
investigators report that living costs
in European cities are excessively high
and that few European workers are
able to buy. more than the bare ne
cessities of life even in the best OF
times.
If this investigation results in in
creasing wages and giving overseas
workers a greater purchasing power
it will help a lot toward restoring eco
nomic prosperity in Europe, and that
will help all the rest of the world
DAVIS
Several weeks ago in this column l
called attention to the public career
of Norman H. Davis and suggested
that he was a good man to keep an
eye on. President Hoover has just APP
pointed him as one of the American
delegates to the General Disarmamnt
@a-f L LII - Ca,oyo