Evening star., 1936-06-21
Capital Sidelights
BY WILL p. KENNEDY.

One of the last official acts of the
late Senator Duncan U. Fletcher of
Florida was to have printed as public
document the Modern Miracle Men"
by Rex Beach, relating to proper food
mineral balances by DR.. Charles
Northern. an Alabama physician now
living at Orlando Fla, whose discoveries
and achievements are of enormous i'm
portance to mankind" After wide ex-
perience and extensive study in stomach
diseases and nutritional disorders, DR..
Northern convinced himself that there
was little authentic, definite information
on the chemistry Of foods and that no
dependence could be placed on existing
data" Then he made an extensive study
of soils. 1T was he who first voiced the
surprising assertion that we must make
soil building the basis of food building
in order to accomplish human building"
On the principle that it is simpler to
cure sick soils than sick people. he
started his innovation. BY putting back
into foods the stuff that foods are made
of he proved himself a real miracle
man of medicine this document says,
for he has opened up the shortest and
most rational route to better health.
He showed first that it should be done
and then that it could be done
He doubled and redoubled the natural
mineral content of fruits and vegetables.
He improved the quality of milk by
increasing the iron and iodine in it,
He caused hens to lay eggs richer in
the vital elements.
BY scientific soil feeding he raised
better seed potatoes in Maine, better
grapes IN California, better oranges in
Florida and better field crops in other
States.
Read the Saga Of re Southland-not
a mournful lament o,er lost glories, "a
reminiscent self-satisfaction born of the
war gloriously loSt"-but a herald of
hope-the sun of the Southland glori-
ously rising. 1t was written by Repre-
sentative Maury Maverick. one of the
cleverest of the extension of remarkers"
in the House, and was printed in the
Congressional Record, designed largely
as campaign document, but well worth
reading.
He proudly points to the South rising
"out of slavish submission to an economy
which has given them the sweet imagi-
nary odor of the magnolia blossoms
also poverty, hunger, hopelessness. He
chronicles the recent formation in Wash
ington Of the Southern Policy Commit
tee. Numbering among its members many
nffnia1c N
various administrative departments of
the Government, it represents, he says,
"a valid Southern movement of gen.
timely progressive nature"
Maverick lists in picturesque language
some of the ills of the South: King
Cotton is dead; will never rise; human
drain" which in a single decade drew
$50, 900 Negro emigrants to Northern
cities; education higher, exploitation
great" exodus hurts whole Nation" t;
anonymous landlordism a curse" Then
he boasts of two damned Yankees who
marched on the South, but not like
Sherman-they came with an army Of
construction"
He lauds Senator George w. Norris
and President Roosevelt for setting up
the T. v. A., which he estimates has
given the South the first real hope OF
revival since the Civil War" Summar-
izing the achievements: Covering 10000
square miles, enriching the lives Of more
than 100000 people. T. v. A. has be-
come the great central dynamo for seven
States, has brought light and power to
the destitute South. Its enemies, the
utilities, backed by Eastern friends and
Southern gentlemen who have stolen
carpetbags, still fight it bitterly. They
profess to see in. T. v. A. deliberate
slap in their face from the hand of
Roosevelt. They picture the President
sitting in Washington like Count OF
Monte Cristo, throwing gold into pet
schemes, like T. v. A., merely to gratify
a personal hate for the private power
groups.
But they have not seen the truth,
he challenges, "for the T. v. A. is q
| great deal more than Just a negative
| gesture of spite. 1t is break for and
| in the South-the most successful enter
prise of the New Deal"
Maverick doesn't wave the "red shirt
rather his is a gospel of brotherly
love and cooperation in a common
| cause between the blue and the gray
| He says: There is another Southern
rebellion-no nonsense or equivocatior
| about the facts; no bugles. no faint
smell of magnolias, no inferiority COM
plexes; a rebellion in which Northerners
damned Yankees-lend assistance te
the grandsons Of the ragged troopers
who starved. and fought and died with
jackson and Lee. Both have found that
they have common enemy-not In
terms of sectional cleavage but Of eco
nonlic power"