Indiana Dictator

STATES & CITIES

Birth and breeding made Paul Vories McNutt an autocrat, the Democratic voters of Indiana made him Governor and, last fortnight, the State Legislature made him a 50% dictator. To this tall, handsome young man with his shock of white hair and his bristling black eyebrows went a grant of executive power over Indiana unmatched in its history. Well might the other 47 governors of the U.S. envy the supremacy of Paul McNutt.

Last week Governor McNutt, scholar, lawyer, War veteran, onetime (1928-29) national commander of the American Legion, explained what had happened: "People today demand ACTION. We have prepared our government to permit action. . . . State government has been getting out of hand. To bring it back under control demands centralization of power and a broad grant of authority. That power has now been granted in Indiana. . . . Instead of being the servant of the people I have become the slave of the people."

The Democratic Governor was empowered by the Democratic Legislature to reorganize the State government, now scattered among 168 boards and commissions, into eight departments--Executive, State, Audit, Treasury, Law, Education, Public Works, Commerce & Industry. A member of each department, he is to control its activities over the possible opposition of constitutional officers, by a majority vote of his own appointees. He was authorized to hire & fire at will all State employes, and those who are not rehired as part of the reorganization before June 30 are automatically out of jobs. He is free to juggle salaries up & down to suit his own judgment, thereby effecting an estimated saving of $2,000,000. Only the Legislature, with its power to tax and spend, and the courts, with their power to review and void, stood last week between Governor McNutt and dictatorship.

Fresh from Harvard Law School in 1916 Paul McNutt became an assistant professor and later the youngest dean on record at the Law School of Indiana University. During the War he rose from captain to major in the field artillery, served as instructor in U. S. camps, met and made a Texas girl his wife. Last year Republican mudslingers prepared to fling the following heckle at Democrat McNutt:

A lawyer who never tried a case;

A soldier who never fired a gun.

But when the Indiana G. O. P. also nominated a legionary-lawyer for governor, the heckle was left on the shelf.

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