The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-03-20
AS | See It
by GEN. HUGH S. JOHNSON

CHICAGO, Ill, March 2O.-Huey Long chal-
- lenges Bernie Baruch to debate him. Father
Coughlia challenges the whole press of the coun-
try to debate him. AS reported here he says
that. if he is proved wrong, he will stop broad
casting.
The challenge is the fruit of medieval idea
that God takes a seat in the corner Of anybody
who is right in a controversy and by miracle if
necessary, will always defend the right
If rheumatic and toothless old woman was
accused of being a witch, the idea was that
science and learned judges could not render
verdict. There was a much better way to get
the truth. All you had to do was to tie her up
in a sack and dump her of the deep end into
still water. If she drowned she was witch. If
she didn't God had stepped in to prove it all
lie.
Elsa was heiress to Brabant, but the greatest
thug and best hatchetman in the empire said
mo, am" This was very simple to those old
savages and their emperor Henry the Fowler
simply said: This thug challenges Elsa to a
Ratchet contest so that God can mix in and we
will know that the one who hacks the other up
the most is right"
OF course, Elsa could not WELD battle-ax
but it was according to the rules for anybody to
pinch-hit for her. That time a magic knight
named Lohengrin came down the river and got
her out Of trouble by chopping the principal
thug up into mincemeat. Everybody applauded.
but is magic fair in life and death athletic
contest? It is like horseshoes in boxing gloves,
doping race horse, or five aces in poker game.
THE whole idea Of the challenge "to pub
l. lie debate" on a political question is to
settle it'-not by logic and reason-but by
calling up the best tom-tom heaters or each
side to see which can stir up the greatest prim-
tive popular emotion.
Bernie Baruch, who has one of the greatest
liberal minds in this country-as I shall in due
course prove-is a sensitive and reticent gentle
man. He is almost inarticulate in controversial
speech. Huey Long would make monkey out of
him in a mud-slinging tournament AS Calvin
Coolidge is reported to have said "It amt ftten
to enter a scent-sprinklng contest with a skunk "
1 disclaim any reference to Huey's political
odor notwithstanding his reference to me as a
dead herring. Yet it was one of the masters
of our decorous mid-century senatorial oratory
who said Of another great Senator CHenry Clay,
if memory serves that he was like dead mack
erel on a. beach in the moonlight "All one could
do was to glitter and to stink"
EATHER COUGHLINS challenge seems a
Il different matter He implies that the pa
pers suppress him and offers to get off the radio
if the press will discuss what he proposes.
don't know whether they suppress him or not. If
they do they are the more deceived His banking
bill is something which not one person out Of
a thousand understands. But he is selling it
daily to millions-not by explaining it but
by promising what it will do. He says it will
bring back the Garden of Eden. I think the
press ought to discuss that He is certainly SELL
ing millions on the radio by his method.
1t is utter folly to attempt to meet Father
Coughlin by silence. never suggested that he
be suppressed. I only proposed that he stop
using the emotional magic of religion in his
fight with reason and logic. If he wants to re a
hatchet-man in this desperate battle royal, let
him take off his magic coat and get down into
the SawduSt on the same terms as the rest of
the boys. Using the mystery of religion is also
like horseshoes in boxing gloves, doping race
horses, and five aces in poker game.
But let's not try to suppress him. Let's say
with Voltaire-tricky memory again-"I do not
agree with single word you say, but will de-
fend to the death your right to say it,"
Copyright 1885, by United Syndicate. All
rights reserved. Reproduction in whole
in part forbidden