, of the Union, from people of all classes and of
all conditions of life. An initial membership required. The recent excellent radio speech of
was thus immediately secured. It was a volun- Dr. W. E. Spahr, of New York University, on
tary membership and the mounting member- °°Tl16 TOW11Send P1an," brought more than five
ship that has been added from week to week thousand individual letters and post cards ask-
and from month to month has likewise been a ing for copies of the speech. In connection with
, voluntary membership. each publication there has been a competent
There was no intention on the part of the L summary for newspaper release. The several
Executive Committee of the League to have it press associations have sent to their subscribing
participate even remotely in the Congressional M papers hundredsgof columns of news dispatches
elections of 1934. The autumn of that year was 5 embodying League material. Newspapers of
devoted to the building up of a proper staff and every section have commented editorially from
preparation for the important task ahead. week to week. There have been hundreds of
With the convening of the Seventy·fourth thousands of individual news items of greater
Congress in January of 1935 the active work of or lesser length, columns of discussion from the
the League began. Immediately there was un- pens of feature writers and altogether a pub-
dertaken a factual study of important legisla- licity coverage such as probably never attached
tive measures as they arose, and from week to to any other organization aside from the two
week the League gave to the country an analysis major political parties within the same length
of these various measures that fulfilled a defi- of time. Within the last few weeks a special
nite need. So complete, so accurate, so fair service has been inaugurated for weekly papers
have been these documents issued from League and 1,363 are now accepting it.
headquarters that they constitute the most val- It is no exaggeration to say that the League
uable report that was ever had on legislative has been the most discussed and in some high
proposals within a stated period. And it is quarters the most "cussed” organization in the
a notable fact that while representatives of recent history of America. When before has a
the administration, from the President down President of the United States, pretending to
through his Cabinet to clerks of the lowest address the Congress on the state of the Union,
spoilsman’s grade, have bemeaned the League devoted a large part of his speech to an organi-
in every manner possible, there has been no zation such as this? And the very fact that
responsible attempt to answer the arguments ·Mr. Roosevelt attempted to damn the League,
that it has put forth or to question the facts _ the fact that his Cabinet members and his other
that it has adduced. oliicial spokesmen have by abuse and innuendo
A total of approximately ninety pamphlets and often outright misrepresentation made con-
have been issued, part of them speeches and é tinuous eEort to destroy it, is the most striking
part of them analytical studies. Not only have U evidence of the need for the work which the
they been circulated among League members League is doing.
but they have gone to all members of the Con- Closely allied in importance with the re-
gress, to the daily newspapers and to public search and publicity activities at headquarters
and college and high school libraries through- has been the task assumed by the National
out the land. They have reached people in all Lawyers Committee of the League under the
walks of life. In many instances requests have Chairmanship of R. E. Desvernine. That Com-
been so numerous that two and even three re- mittee was organized last summer. It embraces
printings of some of the documents have been 8iXtY·0116 of the leading lawyers of America, It
4 has been engaged in the study of the constitu-
5