Planing Sounds

Democrat Frank Murphy of Michigan, which has two other favorite sons (Tom Dewey, Arthur Vandenberg) on the Republican side of the national fence, will tell you sincerely, and so will his friends, that he has no ambition to run for President in 1940. They say nothing about the Vice Presidency.

Speaking last week at Asbury Park, N. J., pure-hearted Frank Murphy made sounds very much like a man planing a 1940 political plank. He viewed with alarm "the astonishing total of approximately 4,000,000 Government employes receiving in salaries nearly $6,000,000,000 a year ! " Then he pointed with pride and sympathy at 30,000,000 U. S. families whose average income is $1,500. "I am convinced," he cried, "that it is the average families, in the main, who foot the bill for this enormous pay roll. . . . Thirteen percent of a family's annual income for the public pay roll alone is too much. . . .

"Either family income should be increased or the public pay roll should be reduced. And at this moment the most immediately promising step seems to be an operation on the public pay roll. . . .

". . . Instead of 4,000,000 employes, less than 3,000,000 should be plenty, and instead of ... $6,000,000,000 per year, less than $5,000,000,000 should suffice."

> Off & on the public pay roll since 1930, when red-faced Alabama withdrew him from the Senate, has -been James Thomas ("Tom-Tom") Heflin, 70, whose mortal hate & fear of the Pope of Rome used to be sure-fire political hokum. His last job, in 1937, was as a special attorney for the Department of Justice at $6,000 per year.

Tom-Tom is reported to have written Jim Farley a stream of job-begging letters lately, ending with one which told a story about a drunk who encountered the ghost of St. Paul. "Tell me," said the drunk, "did you ever get an answer to your letter to the Ephesians?"

Last week Pope-baiting Tom-Tom got an answer from Pope-revering Frank Murphy, who, turning a good Christian cheek, told his press conference: "I want him to get an appropriate job, and I will take full responsibility for it."

> Last week Frank Murphy appointed as his press relations man Joseph Aloysius Mulcahy, oldtime newspaperman who "dis covered" Frank Murphy politically in 1923.

> At a memorial service in Madison, Wis.

to honor the late great Bob La Follette, Frank Murphy last week beckoned Wis consin back to the New Deal.* Said he:

"The La Follettes are the best political stock in the nation."

* Secretary Henry Wallace, another candidate for 1940, also beckoned Wisconsin last week. Speaking at Milwaukee he said: "For all the liberal-minded voters of this State, there can be but one choice -- forward toward the splendid objectives of our great President."

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