Right To Life

Some form of direct Federal Unemployment Relief appears inevitable.

When shrewd old James Eli Watson, Republican leader of the Senate, who knows well his President's antipathy to direct relief, made this declaration last week it became finally clear that the Senate weather-vane had been blasted half way round the compass by the cold wind of Want. To relieve or not to relieve was no longer the question. It was now, as far as the Senate was concerned, how to relieve?

What brought relief matters close to a head last week was a six-day debate on the Costigan-La Follette bill which was made the Senate's unfinished business. For weeks in committee the Insurgent-Demo-cratic heart of Edward Prentiss Costigan and the Insurgent-Republican heart of Robert Marion La Follette bled as one witness after another told them how the nation's private charity organizations had all but broken down under the load of local relief. The Costigan-La Follette remedy was a $375.000.000 gift from the Govern-ment through the States to jobless citizens.

"The issue," said Senator Costigan, "may be postponed by a reluctant timid or suppliant majority of the Senate, driven or hypnotized by the allurements or hostility of White House, financial or industrial interests. It cannot, however, be evaded. ... It involves nothing less than the inalienable right of American citizens to life!"

Senator La Follette eyed the chamber coldly and remarked that unless something was done pretty quickly "there would be some empty seats in the next Senate." It was about this time that the weather-vane abruptly whirred about. Aware that final say on the matter would be up to a Demo-cratic House, the Senate's Republican majority sat by and let Democratic Senators fight it out among themselves.

A steering committee of Democrats, Montana's Walsh, New York's Wagner, Arkansas' Robinson, studied compromise programs. They brought back several and out of the amendment boiling-pot one was finally concocted, to wit: a $750,000,000 Federal appropriation, half of which would be given the States outright for road construction, the other half to be loaned to States whose Governors, promising laws for repayment, certified that their relief agencies were no longer operative. An alternate proposal by New York's Senator Wagner, wise to joblessness, was that the money be apportioned to States on the basis of their unemployment registry in the 1930 census. Observers sensed that the Senate was groping desperately for a plan that did not smack of the politically fearful word DOLE.

When they were a howling irresponsible minority, the House Democrats evidenced a willingness to dip into the Federal till for anything and anybody. Now that they are in the saddle and conscientiously building up a record to exhibit to the electorate in November, these same politicians have become more and more careful and cautious.

When he heard what his party was doing across the Capitol, House Leader Rainey, old Amherst fisticuffer, threw a new proposal into the ring. Observing that the Federal Government had never had much luck getting back money loaned to States he advised: "If the Federal Government is going to distribute relief, then it had better handle such relief itself."

Speaker Garner said nothing, kept his cards to his chest and waited for the excitement to die down. Direct relief, even if inevitable, was still many a long political mile away.

All this rough-&-tumble by-play irritated Senator Costigan. He and his fellow-Harvardman Bronson Cutting constitute the Senate's two lone esthetes. It occurred to Senator Costigan that, having studied the problem for months, he or Senator La Follette might have been consulted when a substitute program was undertaken.

Put a pince-nez on Edward Prentiss Costigan and he looks somewhat like Woodrow Wilson before politics and illness hollowed his long cheeks. Once, when he began practicing law in Denver, he was a Republican. In 1912 he ran for Governor of Colorado on the Bull Moose ticket. Not satisfied with being beaten once, he was beaten again in 1914. Then President Wilson called him to serve on the first U. S. Tariff Commission. Incorrigibly internationalistic, he stayed there until 1928. Colorado's Democrats in 1930 sent him to the Senate where he found himself the last of the Wilsonians. A maverick, he naturally strayed with the Sons of the Wild Jackass. Once the late "Uncle Joe" Cannon asked Mr. Costigan what were his politics.

"I am a Republican by antecedents with Democratic propensities."

"Humph," growled "Uncle Joe." "What the hell is that?"

It is not surprising that Senator Costigan's Democratic colleagues view him and his policies with a certain suspicion. To them he is a man with a past. To himself, at 57, he is a man with a future. His real brethren are Senators La Follette, Cutting, Norris, and some day there may be a third party for which those now jobless and in want may be glad to vote.

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