Page:Congressional Record Volume 81 Part 3.djvu/153

1937

Since you are located in a district that is distinguished by haying sent to the Congress of the United States as its first Representative, Andrew Jackson, I could wish no more for you than that it might have been possible for that sterling American to be here in the flesh at this time to observe the product of your institution of higher education and deal with you. Its professor of economics. In keeping with his established reputation for courage.

I can scarcely find superlatives to adequately express my contempt for the opinions you express and the conclusions you have reached in the matter of the consciences within the breasts of those who are here, honored by their respective districts to represent them in the Congress of the United States, to say nothing of the greatest expression of confidence ever given any other man than bestowed by the American people upon Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States.

"Your conscience is the minister plenipotentiary of God Almighty placed within your breast. See to it that he does not negotiate in vain." So quoth John Adams.

Whatever the conscience placed within your breast. It has manifestly been warped and twisted by a bigoted Judgment, highly prejudicial to the profession you follow, that of teaching others. Your quoting of a charge to a Jury by a Federal Judge, embodying that commandment of God to Moses, involving the taking of His name in vain, borders on the assumption of the role of demagogue, particularly when Imputing the Judge's opinion, "that perjury is worse than murder", to apply it to the use of your own sinisterly prejudiced purpose of charging the President of the United States and Members of Congress with perjury in your landed conception with breaking their oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. Your holding the legislative and executive branches to be subordinate branches of the Government, and quoting of the oath taken respectively by Members of Congress and the President of the United States, leaves but one conclusion, that by excepting the Judiciary and their oath, you hold the Judiciary "supreme." The legislative and executive departments are subordinate to the people alone, while the Judiciary and Executive are responsible and subordinate, through Impeachment, to the people, under the powers of Congress.

Ensconced as you are in smug complacency on the faculty of an institution of higher education, you assume to quote in your letter the oath taken by Members of Congress, and that set forth in the Constitution of the United States, by which oath each President of the United States has assumed the duties of his high office. Disregarding the past, you assume to say that the Members of this Congress and the President of the United States are the perjurers—worse than murderers—who are in your bigoted opinion and warped and twisted Judgment the only ones to break these two forms of oath, since you impute it to no one else, but those now living whom you call upon to introduce a bill to abolish every form and purpose of an oath.

You are either too ignorant, or too lazy, or both, to know or find out that the Judiciary mutt, too, take an oath prescribed by law and before entering upon their duties. That your energies may not be taxed to the point, of exertion, or the state of your lassitude and inertia need not be disturbed, I quote you the judiciary oath from section 713, Revised Statutes of the United States, as follows:

"I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge, and perform ail the duties incumbent upon me as , according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeable to the Constitution and laws of the United States: So help me God."

May I not commend to your thought, if you are capable of thinking at all, the words, "do equal right to the poor and to the rich", and, "I will faithfully and impartially discharge, and perform all the duties incumbent on me", and, "according to the best of my abilities and understanding", and, "agreeable to the Constitution and laws of the United States."

When a law of the United Stares conflicts with the sinister over-privileged interests of the rich "economic royalist", the Judges call the law unconstitutional, according to their best abilities and understanding. It is then, such as you, with no regard to the Impairment of abilities attendant on old age, undertake to castigate Members of Congress for passing the laws of the United States, and its President for approving them, as breakers of the respective oaths of office they have taken, and invoke one of the Ten Commandments to tell us we are worse than murderers, lit me point out to you that Governor Hughes, now Chief Justice, once said: "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the Judges say it is."

Let me also tell you that the late and Honorable James M. Beck, a former Member of Congress and one-time Solicitor General of the United States, an eminent and outstanding constitutional lawyer, up to his death a year ago, in his own writings, styles the supreme Court: "Virtually and chiefly a continuation of the Constitutional Convention of 1787."

Let me say to you that I have never found anywhere a finer and more sincerely conscientious group of men and women collected, than here in the Congress of the United States. Each is individually honest in their own convictions and the "minister plenipotentiary of God Almighty within each breast is not negotiating in vain." There are no starry-eyed idealists and wild radicals here. Such exist only in the figment of the Imagination of the demagogue ever willing to appeal to and arouse the populace. The same thing, too, applies to the President of the United States. To these, each and all of these, you impute a crime worse than murder.

If the influence of your incompetent, warped, and twisted Judgment is reflected in the students of the institution standing for you on its faculty. I am happy to say that "Dick" Atkinson has cast aside and left behind him the contamination of the influence of your teaching.

"Shoemaker, stick to your last." Professor, stick to your own economics if Vanderbilt University can stand for such as you, but let politics and statesmanship to men of a greater breadth of vision than that manifestly possessed by you as exampled in your contemptuous letter.

With revulsion. I am

Disgustedly yours,

, Member of Congress.

The.

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.


 * This morning I received a mimeographed letter, similarly sent every Member of Congress I have had time to contact today. Most of them withdrew the unread insult from the wastebasket after I had directed their attention to it. This letter was dated at Nashville, March 11, 1937. and was mailed in an envelope bearing the postmark of the post office at Nashville, Tenn., 5:30 p. m., March 11, 1937.

The letter was signed by one Gus W. Dyer, Vanderbilt University. Immediately contacting Congressman Atkinson, of Nashville, an alumnus of your university. I learned that Gus W. Dyer is the professor of economics at your institution. His letter was most insulting, Imputing to all Members of Congress that we are violators of our oaths of office as is also the President of the United States, and by the quoting of our oath as well as that of the President, he further quotes a Federal Judge's charge to a Jury invoking one of the commandments of God to Moses and holding perjury worse than murder, to Impute to us and each one of us a felony worse than murder.

I feel no personal grievance against Vanderbilt University as a consequence of this subversive attack, unwarranted as it is. on the integrity of the President of the United Suites and all Members of Congress, and before taking the floor of the House to denounce this man for his Impudence, causing the insertion of his letter, my response thereto and a copy of this letter, in the Congressional Record, I am sending you an advance copy, in all fairness to you and your board of trustees.

Very truly yours,

, M. C.

Mr. MOSER of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, we hear much reference to the teaching of subversive doctrines and principles. If a professor of economics in an institution of higher learning had the gall and effrontery to cause such letters to be sent through the malls, what can he be teaching? I leave it to the discernment of the House. Professor Dyer is also a representative of the National Association of Manufacturers, in whose cause and in whose interest he uses the radio to broadcast his ranting expletives.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BANKHEAD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent, if I desire to do so, to incorporate in the Record my reply to Professor Dyer, who wrote roe a similar letter.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Alabama?

There was no objection.

Mr. BEITER. Mr. Speaker, a few moments ago I addressed the House on the life of Grover Cleveland. At that time I asked unanimous consent to extend my remarks but I failed to ask permission at the time to include therein several small excerpts by Robert L. Archer under the title "The President Who Came Back" in connection with the life of Grover Cleveland, and I do so now.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection, [sic]

There was no objection.

A DOLLAR IN THE HANDS OF SELFISH GREED AND MONEY MONOPOLY IS MORE DANGEROUS, MORE POWERFUL, THAN SHOT OR SHELL, THAN SWORD OR GUN

Mr. BINDERUP. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 10 minutes.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection?

There was no objection.

Mr. BINDERUP. Mr. Speaker and fellow Members of Congress, I first wish to take a few moments to pay tribute to Governor Murphy, of Michigan, prompted by the disparaging remarks recently made by the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. ], who preceded me on the floor. I believe I am just one of the many millions of citizens of the United States who honor and appreciate Governor Murphy