“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the speech or of Press” — The Constitution of the United States. The Dallas Post is a youthful, liberal, aggressive weekly, dedica- ted to the highest ideals of the journalistic tradition and concerned primarily with the development of the rich rural-suburban area about uni) freedom of More Than A Newspaper—A Community Institution The Dallas Post Established 1889 munity institution. rates on request. Subscription, $2.00 per Year, payable in advance. ers who send us changes of address are requested to include both “new and old addresses with the notice of change. Dallas. It strives constantly to be more than a newspaper, a com- Subscrib- Advertising A Liberal, Independent Newspaper Published Every Friday Morning At The Dallas Post Plant, Lehman Avenue, Dallas, Penna., By The Dallas Post, Inc. HOWARD W. RISLEY General Manager HOWELL E. REES.................. hi a rskentak Managing Editor 0] : = THE POST'S CIVIC PROGRAM 1. A modern concrete highway leading from Dallas and con- necting with the Sullivan Trail at Tunkhannock. 2. A greater development of community consciousness among residents of Dallas, Trucksville, Shavertown, and Fernbrook. 3. Centralization of local fire protection. 4. Sanitary sewage systems for local towns. 5. A centralized police force. 6. A consolidated high school eventually, and better co-oper- ation between those that now exist. 7. Complete elimination of politics from local school affairs. 8. Construction of more sidewalks. NENVS Zh ME ) Tre Fee MITEL ocr bl | ) Hie, joanne Ra ~ FROM OUR CONGRESSMAN J. HAROLD-FLANNERY ‘The amendment to impose a tax of ¢ a gallon on fuel oil offered by the writer was defeated in the House Jast week. The opposition represented a coalition of oil interests and pro- ducers as well as consumers and was esult of thorough and intense pro- paganda on behalf of some of the large companies operating particularly along the Atlantic seaboard. During e course of the debate it was dis losed that letters and pamphlets had been sent to household consumers of fuel oil which purported to show the serious effect such a tax would have. ~ Among other things it was alleged. (1) You face the possible loss of several hundred dollars which re: presents the value at present of your oil burner equipment. \ (2) You would be taxed as a user ‘of fuel oil while your next door “neighbor who burns coal would go ~ untaxed. *(3) It might force you to return to the burning of coal with all of the manual labor involved in shovelling. “handling of ashes, and other incon- eniences.” ~ Each recipient of this infornation was urged to contact immediately his Representative and as a result, an “avalanche of mail in opposition of the | ~ proposal descended upon the Mem- bers. This, combined with the efforts of those Congressmen from the oil producing areas throughout the Na- tion, brought about the result. The proposed Amendment, however, ser ved the purpose of bringing before Congress the danger of diminishing oil reserves and the necessity for con- | servation. —— ~The flow of “free seed” letters is beginning again, but indications are that there will be fewer than last year. For 15 years the U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture has been trying to convince 130,000,000 people that it has no free seeds or plants. Yet each year, as spring approaches, thousands of requests pour in from farms, suburbs and penthouses. All writers meet disappointment. The Department has no plants or seeds for sale either. —— The bill providing for an eight billion dollar transcontinental super- highway project, which was intro- duced by Senator Bulkley, has little chance of passage this session. It has been transferred from the Committee on Banking and Currency to the Committee on Postoffices and Post roads, and Senator McKeillar, Chair- of this committee would rather have a commission study the subject be- fore turning it over for action by Congress. The Senate and House Committees on Banking and Currency have before then companion bills regulating bank holding companies. The bills are sponsored by Senator Giass of Vir ginia and Rep. Steagall of Alabama. by Administration leaders. At the same time, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee has favorably reported a bill regulating “over the counter” operations of brokers, with Federal, State and municipal securit- Enactment at this session is predicted) building it has needed so long. ture. school district. pal pocket into another. would produce revenue. hire a full-time policeman. controversy is still undecided. energy being spent on argument. Township. » hourly rate, A COMMUNITY BUILDING If Dallas school board proceeds with its plans to abandon the old frame building that action may give the borough a chance to get the community Although it is an old building, the frame school was exceptionally well-built and could probably be remodelled to serve as a town hall at a cost I considerably less than that of building a new struc- Theoretically, the purchase of that building by the borough would cost the taxpayers nothing, since they have already paid for it once through the The transaction would be merely a matter of moving tax revenue from one munici- Alterations would, of course, necessitate an expenditure by. the council, but there is always the possibility that the building CENTRALIZATION IS THE SOLUTION The good people of Dallas Township appar- ently are divided in their opinions of the plan to As this is written the We deplore the We wish that energy were being expended in behalf of another suggestion made here frequently—the establishment of a consolidated, centralized police department for Dallas Borough, Dallas Township and Kingston For twenty-five cents a month per taxable these three communities could have a central headquart- ers, a radio cruiser car to patrol byways at night, three policemen, working on eight-hour shifts so there would be protection twenty four hours of the day, and a reserve corps of special policemen to be called during peak traffic hours in the sum- mer or on other occasions and to be paid at an EDITORIALS Dallas Borough now budgets about $1,200 for police expenses. One thousand dollars of that is the salary of the full-time chief of police. The other $200 is spent for special policemen. The borough gets full value for the money it spends. There is no complaint’ there. Our argument is that $1,200 worth of police protection is not adequate for a town with the size and ambitions of Dallas, radio, that In the first place there is no police station. We'll wager that fifty per cent of the residents of Dallas wouldn't know how to summon a policeman if they needed one, without getting advice from some other person. In! theory, Chief Leonard O'Kane is on duty 24 hours a day. Since a man must sleep sometime and is entitled to occasional relaxation there are times when the borough’s system of police protection disappears entirely. There are other times when, confronted by the natural law that a man cannot be in two places at the same time, Chief O'Kane has to postpone answering important calls because he is involved on some other urgent assignment. borhood. The situation in Kingston Township and Dal- las Township, both of which have more residents and homes than Dallas, is even worse. There there are nd full-time policemen and residents are com- pelled to rely upon their constables, whose duties are only vaguely prescribed, or the State Motor Police at Kingston. Another editorial on this page discusses the possibility of the borough securing the old frame school house! on Huntsville Street as a community Building. If that should be done the second floor might be changed into an apartment for a chief of police, such as is part of the Harvey's Lake com- munity building. That would mean that the chief would be available most of the time to take calls. The chief should recéive, beside his living quarters, a minimum salary of $125 a month. He should be a man of character and qualifications high enough to enable; him to direct the system of police pro- tection in the three townships. long. There should be two additional policemen at salaries of about’ $100 a month, one to work from 4 p. m. to midnight, the other to be on duty from midnight to 8 a. m. The first duty of these men should be to patrol sideroads (the motor police pa- trol most of the main roads). they should have a police cruiser, equipped with For that purpose radio to be tuned in to the Wilkes- Barre police sending station. The system might work this way. A resident is awakened at midnight by a howling dog. The irate and sleepy citizen phones the police station. The chief answers and takes the message. chief immediately calls ‘Wilkes-Barre police, dic- tates the message. police broadcast the instructions. The cruiser car picks up the message, steps on the gas, wheels up in front: of the irate citizens home, finds the dog, arouses its owners and restores peace to the neigh- The Over their radio, Wilkes-Barre Such a case would be typical of the average “nuisance case” handled by policemen. vantages of having such a system functioning, ready for the less frequent emergencies which involve threats to property or life, is obvious. nary circumstances not more than five minutes should elapse between the time the citizen tele- phones for the police and the time the cruiser car is on the way to his home. The ad- Under ordi- We question that any one of the three com- munities can afford adequate police protection alone now. The logical, sensible, common-sense solution is consolidation of local police agencies. We hope to see Dallas council or the supervisors in either of the townships, investigating such a plan before - ALL IN A WEEK Als the public debt touched a new high of $37, 632,120,451, into the Senate hopper was dropped a bill — for the relief of Charles McCarthy. If you are a member of the Knic- kerbocker, New York Yacht, Essex Fox Hounds, Turf and Field, Rac quet and Tennis and River Clubs of New York, then you are sure to be listed in the Social Register, sure to be treated with more courtesy and consideration than, say, a Bowery bum or a common thief. * * * Here's what happened one day last week to a member of all these swank clubs when he entered a police station in a typical East Side slum neighborhood. “Inside the station house a group of Bowery derelicts arrested on vagrancy and drunken- ness charges was herded away the desk and into the back room,” accord- ing to the Times, while our prominent clubman, wearing a dark overcoat with a velvet collar and a pearl gray fedora hat, “which he removed when he entered the station house,” was required to answer certain questions required of him by the law. * * * Lieutenant Simon P. Breen, a vop- per who knows his place, his duty, and probably his Gilbert and Sulliven —*‘a policeman’s lot is not a happy one’—asked if the gentleman had been searched in accordance with police regulations. Lieutenant Graf- necker, into whose custody our swell friend had been given, appeared, said the Times, “surprised.” The or- der was then given to give a vulgar frisking to a man who had received his sheepskin from Harvard back in the genteel day of 1911. “Have you any knives?” he was asked. This crude question was met with a smile, a very upper class smile, to be sure. * * <*> Whoever heard of asking a Wall Street broker if he had any lethal weapons on his person? Who would ever think of asking a former pres ident of the Stock Exchange, a Mor- gan broker and a brother of a Mor- gan partner, if he packed a rod, or had a Sicilian’s dagger up his sleeve? I am sorry to say the Times, which must stick to strict truth in its re porting, could only record that Rich- ard Whitney's answer to this police- ies exempt from said regulation. man’s naive question was in the ne- RIVES MATTHEWS gative. Mr. Whitney could have lieved him of his fountain pen. given the police a much more en- = X= lightening answer. “We don’t need When the ordeal of searching Mr. guns or knives in Wall Stredt. Such Whitney's pockets was over, an or- methods are crude. They went out deal which seems to have been pain- of fashion with the James brothers, ful for our class-conscious police and years ago.” And then the police should have frisked the well tailored person of Richard Whitney and re- Breen stood up behind his desk, as all should gentlemanly policemen GOOD BYE, BARREL! Mr. Whitney as well, Lieutenant’ when dealing with us taxpayers, and shook hands with the prisoner. “Mr. Whitney,” he said, “I'm sorry to see » you in this trouble, and wish you the best! of luck.” Lieutenant Breen did not say just how many years behind bars that ex- pression of his good will covered, but went on to say, in front of reporters, “The Whitneys have always had a good name.” “Thank you again,” Mr. Whitney repeated, always the perfect, gentleman. Bail was then arranged for our highclass friend, after which he drove to his home in the fashionable seven- ties. There, perfectly poised before what is in English law, every man’s castle, he submitted to the posing of pictures, but requested press phato- graphers not too snap his wife, who came to the door to meet him. You see, a gentleman's wife is a lady, and her picture never appears in a news- paper, except on the society page. It’s alright for papers. They're not ladies, s0 no one ever bothers to ask them whether they’d mind being snapped when tragedy enters their lives. But with a lady, it’s different. - * * Meanwhile Wall Street men froth- ed and fumed. Why did he have to misappropriate the funds of the New York Yachy Club, Manhattan's swan- kest club, of which he was treasurer? Surely there are still enough widows and orphans left to prey upon . They Street. Why didn’t he pick on them, instead of acting like a perfect boun- der, betraying tthe trust of his fellow yachtsmen? This much can be said for the men of Wall Street, When they discovered that Richard Whitney, five times president of the Stock Exchange, was]. . . a crook, they didn’t try to hush it up. Maybe, because of the SEC, they couldn't, but to the men of Wall Street, as far as the record goes, goes the credit for turning Whitney over to the police. The papers headlined it as a million dollar swindle, but in the panelled board rooms of high fin- ance, the Whitney case will always be knows as a breach of etiquette. = 3) BROADWAY LIMITED WwW. A. & First sign of Spring is always the flower show at Grand Central Pal- ace, where the displays range from a lonely pansy in a finger-bowl to land- scaped lawns complete with hedges and trees and houses. Always, the roses seem to be most popular with the visitors, and this year’s sensation was called “Queen Mary” for no particular reason we could discover. —_—0— Speaking of sensations, this column bows with awe and reverence before the intelligence of the Motion Pic- ture Academy in selecting Spencer Tracy and Louise Rainer as outstand- ing performers of 1937. We—ahem! picked them here two months ago. Remember? Aw, say you do, any- way. Local Gleanings: Mrs. William Rose closes her apartment and goes to Hollywood (all right, call her Fannie Brice then) . . . Gerty Niesen sails on the Paris for Paris, France, after collecting cheers and checks at Broad- way supper spots . . . Nancy Garner singing at a Bronx nightery says she’s kin to John N. Garner of Texas and Washington, D. C. . . . Mrs. Mac- Arthur, who does theatricals under her maiden name of Helen Hayes, writes home to say lots of towns have sold out all the seats in the opera house before the performance of her play “Victoria Regina” . . . It’s about Queen Victoria of England, King George's great grandma . . . She was a Wettin from out Kensington Way . . . Married that Albert What-you- call-him from Germany and he took her name but George's Pa changed it to Windsor . . . Georges brother married that girl from Baltimore. Now that Mr. Whitney of the Stock Exchange is out on bail local wits are calling that best seller “America’s First Fifty-nine Families”. Lia Our favorite sausage firm is the “Katz-Fuhr Sausage Casing Com- pany. / ale Down in Greenwich village is “Ye Olde Junk Shoppe” and a place on Seventh Avenue is run by “Ann Teek™ and sells—yep, you're right. ume mee Funniest Sights On The Stem: Ac- tors who can discard their costumes and make-up when the show is over but have! to keep their “stage” hair- cuts . .. as for instance Wallace Ford and young Broderick from “Of Mice and Men’. —O— The new superliner, “Queen Eliz- abeth”, had to buy the rights to that name from an excursion boat, which will call itself the Queen Elizabeth Second, which is what the present Queen really is. —— To show that columnists are some- times—well, sometimes—wrong, one New York daily diarist listed Ellery have always been five game In Wl Queen, the mystery writer, as having graduated from N. Y. U. in 1926. It happens that Ellery is two people, neither of them named Ellery or Queen. —— They Do Say . . . that Sally Rand is going to India . . . that Beatrice Lillie is sailing for London . . . that Hope Hampton's going to Hollywood and that Sylvia Sidney, who acts so coy about having her picture taken in night clubs, is going tb get mar- ried. —Qr— In case you were figuring on com- ing here for the fair next year they tell us 43,217 will be able to sit down all at once to meals in the various restaurants on the grounds, and we bet 43,200 of them will wonder why in heck it takes so long to get served. —The BroadwayParade Noy =