National Reports
NETBOY, SAM ROMER, LAWRENCE T. KING, ANTHONY
National Reports 'Typical' Minnesota Is Worried By Sam Romer Minneapolis Many Minnesotans lack confidence in the national administration, even though the President continues to be popular. This...
...Above Seneca, the canal bed is dry and the tow-path overgrown with weeds and brush, and no recreational facilities have been provided...
...The state of Maryland, using mainly Federal funds, wants to build a high-speed highway from Cumberland to Washington, D.C...
...But the National Park Service muffed the opportunity...
...But a neat double-play executed by Postmaster Arthur Summerfield and George Etzell, GOP national committeeman in Minnesota, resulted in blatant newspaper headlines gleefully shouting that Senator Joseph McCarthy was going to investigate the possibility that there had been corruption in letting the contract...
...The first section, from Little Falls to Seneca, was opened in 1830...
...participation of the budget director as the Governor's personal representative at every stage of consideration of finance measures in committees and on the floor of the Senate and House...
...One excellent proposal is that made by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club to turn the Canal into a canoe-way...
...Their publicists now are telling newspapermen that they are ready with more ammunition...
...Charles Mayo (after the Rochester, Minnesota physician electrified the United Nations Assembly with his dramatic account of Communist brain-washing), but the good doctor rejected a direct appeal from the White House...
...to change the method of selecting local school-board members to give the citizens a greater voice in their appointment...
...At stake is what remains of the famous Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, now owned by the National Park Service...
...Another proposed candidate was Roger Dell, chief justice of the state's supreme court, but here again a campaign against Humphrey just didn't look attractive enough...
...Operations on a diminished scale continued up to 1924, after which the C & 0 was abandoned and the property came into the hands of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad...
...Their first choice was Governor C. Elmer Anderson, but the Governor was understandably reluctant to leave the state capital for the will-o'-the-wisp represented by a Senate race...
...There it stopped, for by mid-century the railroads had begun to invade the Ohio Valley, and, besides, the Canal company, having spent $11 million, was out of funds...
...more than of Maine can it be said that "as Minnesota goes, so goes the nation...
...The exercise of these broad powers, of course, could be offset by the existence of an independent-minded legislature...
...With the two-month session in its final three weeks, more than 400 bills—many of them minor local measures—have been introduced...
...Ore miners have been piling up tremendous overtime to feed the steel industry...
...Humphrey's basic strength is disclosed in the conniptions the Republicans are suffering in the search for a suitable opposition candidate...
...The National Park Service is willing to yield up this exquisite woodland area for the purpose...
...responsibility for preparation of the budget and budget bill...
...The locks would not have to be restored...
...And here the amount of damage Republican back-alley attacks can do to his evident popularity is crucial...
...But, with the Byrd machine controlling virtually every state office from the Governorship down to the 98 county courthouses, it is regarded as political suicide in Virginia to run for the Legislature on an anti-organization platform...
...Humphrey has taken no chances that his 244,000 majority over Joe Ball in 1948 was based on pro-Tru-man and anti-Ball sentiment...
...restored one or two houses, particularly at Great Falls...
...The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal By Anthony Netboy A war is raging in Maryland...
...But nature-lovers and conservationists, led by Supreme Court Justice William 0. Douglas, are up in arms...
...When President John Quincy Adams dug the first shovelful of earth for the Canal on July 4, 1828, he was opening a new chapter in American history...
...power to refer questions to an advisory legislative council...
...Twenty years elapsed before the waterway reached Cumberland in 1850...
...The pneumatic-tube salvo caused little excitement...
...Actually, the business barometer here indicates a rough seasonal squall —not as bad as that of 1949-1950—rather than an economic blizzard...
...This political dominance, according to the study, is maintained to a large degree by "exceptional legislative powers given Virginia Governors...
...A state legislature can move awfully fast—when it is guided by fiat from above...
...Nor did the slash brighten the farm-machinery outlook—vital to a state like Minnesota where even a minor component of industry must not be allowed to get out of balance...
...As a result, ore miners may be unemployed this summer...
...Although the water has been drained from the canal bed beyond Seneca, the lore and romance of history are everywhere...
...For this was the first sustained effort to connect the country west of the forest-mantled Alleghenies with the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond...
...over the canal bed...
...Virginia Legislature Termed 'Dictatorship' By Lawrence T. King Richmond With the Virginia Legislature in the midst of its biennial session, Richmond affords an excellent vantage point to observe the workings of a state government that has been termed a "suave dictatorship" in the exhaustive study on American state legislatures just published by the American Political Science Association...
...installed some picnicking facilities—and that was about all...
...it is whether he will return to Washington with a majority that enhances his position in internal Democratic politics...
...to provide tax relief for large families by raising dependency tax exemptions...
...Those of us who love the old canal and the panorama of wildlife that surrounds it are incensed at the prospect of seeing it converted into a highway...
...Today, with Minnesota's population evenly divided between the cities and the farm, it may well come close to being the typical American state...
...The nation has an opportunity to save an historic area of natural loveliness from desecration by the noises and odors of modern mechanical civilization...
...I am one of those fortunate enough to have lived until recently near the C & O Canal...
...Its 185 miles of right-of-way properly belong in the category of national shrines—and should be restored, not destroyed...
...One measure that is still pending —and given an excellent chance to pass—calls for tightening up the state's so-called "right-to-work" law, regarded by organized labor as one of the most restrictive anti-union statutes in the country...
...In the last six months, he has traveled 18,000 miles in Minnesota, visiting 297 cities and towns in 64 of the state's 87 counties...
...At this writing, it seems certain—as certain as political prognostication can be—that Humphrey will be re-elected...
...perhaps Minnesota Republicans now may bring forth their own Jenner so that they will be spared the trouble of importing him...
...The Post Office apparently had been doing this for years, and no Republican voice, not even that of Humphrey's Minnesota colleague, Ed Thye, was raised against the bill...
...Of approximately 50 that might be considered major proposals affecting the state at large, only one has passed both houses at this writing...
...This was shown when they leaped so quickly this winter to the conclusion that we are on the brink of economic disaster...
...Then the Republicans turned to Dr...
...There is considerable evidence to bolster confidence: Department-store sales are up, business activity continues at a record pace, big-city unemployment apparently has leveled off below the 1949-1950 high...
...The election in November will mark Senator Hubert Humphrey's first bid for re-election...
...This economic sketch forms the background of Minnesota's 1954 election campaign...
...this extra pay, on top of higher wage scales won in the 1952 steel strike, has made them the best-paid workers in Minnesota...
...I used to go there often to hike and meditate, particularly around Great Falls, where the stagnant water is green and brackish, the locks broken, the once-famous tavern and gatekeeper's house shuttered...
...But the Canal served a useful purpose for many decades, carrying the produce of the farms and mines of western Maryland to tidewater markets...
...The report, product of a four-year study by a 12-man committee of professors and students of state government, says the dominant force in Virginia politics is the "Byrd faction . . . which maintains a system of close cooperation between the Governor and the legislative leaders and committee chairmen...
...In the drive to clear up the terrific legislative backlog that has accumulated, there will be a lot of activity on Richmond's Capitol Hill during the next three weeks...
...He hasn't neglected his political fence-mending since going to Washington and, indeed, has been "running scared" since Congress adjourned last August...
...The result of this tight control by the machine over the political life of the state is evident in the workings of the current Legislature...
...But the system of supplying ore to steel mills is such that the mines must be emptied a year before the steel can be rolled, and the current steel-making rate of 75 per cent of capacity isn't reducing ore stockpiles very fast...
...There was some talk last year that the oil men might flood the state with anti-Humphrey money in retaliation for his stand against the tidelands oil grab, although there has been little evidence of this so far...
...A more significant indication of the GOP's intentions—and desperation—is the beginning of a crude campaign of calumny against Humphrey...
...he then took a closer look at the odds and decided to run again for Congress...
...Yet, these are dangerous times and we live in a climate of suspicion...
...There was some talk of Representative Walter Judd, who was intrigued...
...Minnesota is heavily dependent on a prosperous farm economy for its own well-being, and Secretary Ezra Benson's edict cutting back dairy price supports to 75 per cent of parity brought forth new "doom and gloom" predictions...
...to allocate $7,000,000—now earmarked as a tax surplus to be returned to the taxpayers—to improve mental hospitals and schools...
...High hopes were held for restoration of the Canal when the Federal Government acquired the right-of-way from the railroad in 1938...
...since 1858, when the state was admitted to the Union, it has voted "wrong" only four times in 24 Presidential elections...
...And then the Republicans began to tell each other that "where there's smoke, there's fire...
...power to name members to interim commissions...
...All this is not to suggest that the Republicans have surrendered—not by any means...
...The campaign looks to be a rousing slugfest, which is not bad news for Humphrey, a past master in this kind of political fighting...
...The one scary statistic which cannot be gainsaid is that of farm income, which is badly down and still falling...
...National politicians will be wise to observe the state's politics closely...
...In 1871, when the peak of traffic was reached, 540 horse-drawn barges moved along the Canal, carrying 850,000 tons of commodities...
...The most Republican-minded farmer now will think twice before ordering new farm machinery when he can make do with what he has on hand...
...its various little would-be McCarthys have not generated much response...
...But this apparently is not going to stop the Republicans...
...It looks now as if the Republicans will have to be satisfied with either a token candidate or one of the party hacks...
...It lists these powers as: "Item veto [the power to veto part of an appropriations bill rather than an entire bill...
...Here, as Justice Douglas says, "is a sanctuary for everyone who loves woods—a sanctuary that would be utterly destroyed by a fine two-lane highway...
...canoes could be portaged around them, as in the old days...
...It will be a rare county fair this summer which will not be graced by his presence...
...Indeed, the project is impractical to begin with, since the state of Maryland and the Federal Government are now completing a thruway from the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Washington...
...But these statistics do not satisfy many people, including Republicans...
...power to return a bill to the house of its origin with specific amendments, which is then voted on as a privileged measure and the vote actually taken on the Governor's amendments...
...They look toward next winter with fear and dismay, unsure of the Administration's intentions, wondering whether they exchanged the "mess in Washington" for a worse mess everywhere else in the nation...
...There was talk of converting this narrow 185-mile strip into a unique park, refilling the waterway and restoring the gates and some of the inns, gatekeepers' houses and other nineteenth-century structures along the tow-paths...
...The state generally is pretty level-headed and indisposed to hysteria...
...As chairman of a Senate subcommittee, Humphrey once sponsored a routine, rather obscure bill to allow the Post Office to use pneumatic tubes for mail transport in New York City...
...Since 1920, every Presidential candidate who won Minnesota's electoral vote has gone to the White House...
...Another cause for concern is the coming summer on the Iron Range, now enjoying a prosperity even greater than during World War II...
...That one calls for raising the maximum state unemployment compensation from $22 a week to $24...
...The real question is not whether Humphrey will be re-elected...
...But there doesn't seem to be much consternation about it...
...Legislation killed included proposals to repeal the state poll tax as a prerequisite for voting...
...It refilled the Canal from Washington as far as Seneca...
...Thereafter, railroad competition made inroads on its business, and in 1889 a Potomac flood did considerable damage to the Canal, forcing the company into bankruptcy...
Vol. 37 • March 1954 • No. 10
