Montana labor news., 1936-04-09
Is Relief Unconstitutional?

What appears to be an organized move on
the part Of the Parasite class to stop relief has
been launched in Washington, D. c., by a group
of Louisville landowners. Following up their
victory over the Roosevelt administration in the
matter of the proposed New Deal slum clear
ance project, these worthy gentlemen are de-
manding that the Supreme Court declare fed
eral disbursement of relief funds unconstituti-
onal. The entire relief structure of the New
Deal is thus placed under fire together with the
legality of federal spending power for such
purposes. Regardless of the merits of the gov
ernments attempt to have slum property con-
demned for low cost housing projects, which the
Louisville landlords characterized as "%commun-
istic," the fact remains that the slums are to re-
main because they are profitable. Louisville is
a city of slums, SO is New York, Chicago and
every other great city. But from these putrid
cess-pools of human misery and degeneration are
distilled the ease, comfort and luxury of the
landlord class as a whole. And, under the rules
of the game, nothing can be constitutional" that
stands between the social parasite and his prey.
The landlord is one of the oldest and most
venomous of social bloodsuckers. The history
of the sacred institution of landlordism is long
record of shameless and uncurbed exploitation.
Now that it is allied with the banking and in
surance and other predatory interests, its anti
social attitude has been tremendously intensi-
fled. During the depression these la%ndowning
leeches have fattened prodigeausly at the ex-
pense of the homeless, jobless and hopeless mil
lions. The modern landlord class is i~ntegrally
n Dart of tba rnonc+rottc r,acbopfcr, 81 axro1ot+o-
ton known as Capitalism. Evictions, fraud,
cheating and skull-duggery are the landlords
stock-in-trade But Wall Street works on a
wider front. The challenge given the relief dir
ectors in the NRA act which set up the PWA and
other relief agencies comes not from the group
of profit-mad property sharks in Louisville, but
rather, from the general headquarters of the en-
tire gang of capitalist extortionists in Wall
Street.
The amazing part of this maneuver is the
speed and well-oiled precision with which the
Wall Street mob" does it's work. So quick
they were to follow up an advantage that a
victory in the lower courts was the signal for
an immediate offensive against the entire relief
program of the liberal administration in Wash
ington. This move can only mean one thing
that the homeless and jobless victims of the
Price System are expected to shift for them
selves. And if they starve, freeze or die Of ex-
posure it is just too bad. 1t must be a terrible
blow to the silly optimism of the liberal F. D. R.
who assured us that all good citizens would CO.
operate during the emergency for the genera
good.
Rugged individualism is the economy of
Chaos. 1t thrives upon Reorganization and
planlessness. In the early days of the industrial
revolution it seized greedily upon the evolution
airy dictum, "the survival Of the fittest." In the
free-for-all struggle to dominate the market, the
capitalist coming out on top was acclaimed the
"%fittest." He was the victor and to him went
praise and adulation. In a world of intelligent
men he would have been held a moron, in a
world of cultured men, a boor; and in a world