Monday, Mar. 05, 1934
Kicking Party
Last week's events made a Roman holiday for cartoonists. General Johnson had invited every one with a kick against NRA codes to come to Washington and make it. One cartoonist portrayed the General with swelling bosom standing before the huge and hungry lion of Public Opinion while a placard announced "General Johnson will positively put his head in the Lion's mouth." Another had the General standing back to back with a jackass ("Great American Kicker"), and urging "Go on kick, I dare ya to!" A third had the embattled General surrounded with snowballs, brickbats and dead cats, belligerently challenging all comers: "Come on! Let's see y'u throw something at me."
That the public welcomed his challenge was evident from the fact that the programs of his five forums for complaint (1) employment, 2) prices, 3) trade practices, 4) code administration, 5) oppression of small business) were long in advance completely filled. Only exception to this eagerness to complain was in Forum No. 3 (trade practices). The United States Patriotic Society Inc. ran public notices in the Press saying that it would be glad to represent complainers at the meeting, free of charge. Meantime all code hearings were canceled by NRA for the duration of the battle.
Thus did General Johnson, by deliberately stirring up opposition, make another bid for the public's waning attention. Immediately after this field day he planned more serious business: to get all code authorities together to try to iron out code difficulties and differences. Important question at that meeting will be whether hours of work under codes can be still further reduced to cut into unemployment. Last week the General claimed that the NRA had made 3,000,000 jobs. However, the General admitted that there are now 9,000,000 unemployed to which some 3,000,000 will soon be added by Civil Works discharges.
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