Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-08-05


provide an unexpected bit of trouble
in annoying the security holders of
some of the Southern roads. It is
almost certain to bring agonized
| cries from the truckers who will be
forced by competition to reduce
| their rates.
Muddied the Water
Meanwhile, of course, everybody
knows that the freight rate argu-
ment was just thrown in to muddy
! the Water-that nobody was really
weighing these freight rates serious
ly as an argument for the differen-
tial in favor of the South on wages
and hours regulation.
For of course no change in freight
rates is going to change the situa-
ton with respect to the colored
workers on whom the South depends
for such large proportion of its
labor. The fact that a farmer may
be able to send his crops to market
at little lower charge for freight is
not going to make him willing to
pay his workers more-not if he can
get out of it. And he is going to be
just as sore on his representative
and senators if they vote to do that
to him as if there had been no
change in the freight rates what
ever
So no decision by the I. c. c. is
going to modify the course of those
fighting for differential favoring
the South. 1t is merely going to
deprive those advocating the differ
entail of a sideline argument, and
deprive them of it just about the
time they are tired of talking any
how.
All of which makes it just a little
clearer why so many senators and
representatives would like to put
this bill, and a good many others,
over until next session. 1t may be
just as ticklish then, but they would
like to stop worrying now!
Very Few Left
Once there were plenty of Re-
publicans in high public office, not
ably in the senate and house of rep
resentatives, who had the same gen.
eral ideas about their party that
Joseph T. Robinson had about his.
There are mighty few, if any, left,
and those who even come within
striking distance of Robinson's bat
ting average are without exception
so branded as ''reactionaries" and
''Tories" that in presidential cam
paigns they are regarded by candi-
dates and national chairmen as liza
bilities rather than assets.
Robinson believed that the most
important thing to determine about
any official act of his was whether
it would help or hurt the Demo-
cratic party. Absolutely consistent
on this, he never allowed any per-
sonal view or prejudice to influence
him in the slightest if it seemed to
him to run counter to the chances
for electing a Democratic President
at the next election.
The best illustration is prohibition.
There may live man who can say
fatty that if Joe Robinson had not
been in politics he would have been
dry, or wet. But most of his
friends around Washington and Lit
tie Rock doubt it. Robinson was
never one of those politicians who
make public speeches one way and
talk privately the other. When Rob-
inson embraced an issue, whatever
may have been the original reason
for his taking that side, he went all
the way. He made speeches for it.
Then with extraordinary speed he
changed to the new position and be-
came just as fanatical about that
Loyal to Party
Prohibition was mentioned be-
cause it is one of the most easily
demonstrated cases. Robinson was
born bone dry under the party lead
ership of William Jennings Bryan.
He became wet when the party
turned in that direction at the 1928
Democratic national convention.
Like many others, Robinson was
convinced by the 1923 landslide that
the country was overwhelmingly dry
and hence that any national party to
win an election must be dry.
So at a national committee meet
ing the following year, held at
Washington hotel, when John J.
Raskob proposed a new plan open
ing the door to repeal, Robinson
made one of the most singing
speeches ever delivered at such
gathering.
"You shall not nail the skull and
crossbones of an outlawed trade to
the masthead of Democracy" he
shouted.
But three years later, when the
Democratic national convention
went all the way wet in it's plat
form and then nominated Franklin
D. Roosevelt, who accepted the plat
form, Robinson became an ardent
wet again!
What few Northerners and West
erners understand is the cause for
this extreme party loyalty. 1t is
sound politics in the South because