Evening star., 1937-09-29

All signs INDICATE that Mr. Justice
Black is about to reveal the qualities of
a leech as well as the attributes of q
sphinx In other words, nobody thinks
he's come home with resignation up
his sleeve. If and when he ascends the
Supreme Court bench next week. the
Klan incident may be closed as far as
he is concerned, but it's going to remain
wide open for distinguished and double
crossed gentleman named Franklin D.
Roosevelt for many moon to come.
The New Deals biggest headache, vir-
tually all authorities are now agreed,
has already produced three results: Cd
1t has heavily damaged the President s
personal political prestige; CD it has
destroyed any lingering chance he had
of tampering with the Supreme Court,
either by enlarging it or curtailing its
powers, and go it has alienated wide
sections of the electorate represented
by Americas 25,O00,000 Roman Cath
olics, 5,000000 Jews and 100000 Ne
grOes. Democratic skilled mechanics
like Jim Farley. Emil Hurja and Charlie
Nicholson know what this means. 1t
means that bitter enmities have been
created among voting elements which
hold the balance of power in pivotal
communities throughout the country.
This applies particularly to colored citi-
Zens. For five years the Democrats have
made successful efforts to wean that
vote from its traditional Republican
allegiance. In places like New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit Indian
apolis and st. Louis the BLACK belts"
have come to be regions on which the
Roosevelt organization largely relies for
victory.
At every stage of the Black embarrass-
ment emphasis has been justly laid by
friend and foe alike on the fact that
F. D. R. himself is without a tinge of
racial or religious prejudice. His Post
master General and chief political lieu
tenant is a Roman Catholic. His Secre-
tary of the Treasury is Jew. He is the
first President to appoint Negro to the
Federal bench. At least dozen of his
closest advisers during the formative
days of the New Deal were, and many of
them still are, Catholics or Jews. A
member of the White House secretariat
is one-time private secretary of Cardi-
nal Hayes of New York. Men and Wom-
en- of the Roman and Hebrew faiths
are scattered through the higher brack-
cts of the administration. But even
this creditable record of racial and re-
ligious liberalism will not wipe out the
stigma that Mr.. Roosevelt's first SUI
preme Court appointment went to a man
defiled by taints of the vilest bigotry in
modern American history. White House
denials that Mr.. Roosevelt was unaware
of Blacks Ku Klux record are not con-
vincing If the men around the throne
didn't know the Alabaman once con-
sorted with the kleagles and the dragons,
it was their business to know 1t and to
tell their chief what they knew. The
ordinary man, even the ordinary official,
may make such blunder as the Black
appointment. The President of the
United States cannot afford to do SO.
X
w. P. A. or somebody else with au-
thority to mess up streets and parks in
Washington is excavating on the south
lawn of the Supreme Court Building. A
hole almost the exact size and shape of
a grave having recently been dug, tour
lists exploring Capitol Hill this week
asked their guide whether they're get
ting ready to bury Justice Black" In
vestigation discloses that nothing so
funereal is planned. It's sewerage op-
Grafton.
President Roosevelt's formal appoint
ment OF Frank R. McNinch. chairman
Of the Power Commission, to the chair