Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 30 January 1931 — Page 1

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THE POST-DEMOCRAT

VOLUME XI—NUMBER 3.

MUNCIE, INDIANA, FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1931.

PRICE 5 CENTS

MAYOR DALE’S RULE 76 USED BY OTHER COTES

APPOINTMENT OF HENRY P. FLETCHER SCORED BY BORAH

“Hybrid Monstrosities,” Says Borah of Tariff and Power Commissions —Both Chairmen “Ignorant of Subjects.” Washini’toi!, Jan. 30.—In opposing the comirmation of Henry P. Fletcher of Pennsylvania to be Chairman of the Tariff Commission, Senator Borah (Rep., Idaho), declared that “Mr. Fletcher has apparently studiously refrained from informing himself in regard to the tariff. Considering that he cames from the great State of Pennsylvania, it might be said that he is wilfully ignorant of the tariff because of the course wriich he has pursued. He seems not to have any interest in it, any desire to know anything about it. . . I understand that at first he declined it on the ground that he felt he was not fitted for the work.” Senator Borah put into the Record extracts from the examination of Mr. Fletcher by the Senate Finance Committee, in which the President’s nominee for Chairman of the Tariff Commission, replying to specific questions, said he had no general views -on the subject, had made no speeches, nor written any articles upon the tariff and had read no book on the subject prior to his nomination. “It does seem to me most extraordinary,” said Senator Borah, “that the Chairman of that Commission should be selected from one wholly uninformed even of the general principles of the subject, and that his equipment should consist entirely of his services in the diplomatic field. ... Far from being an

®x Jhe most fundamental principles in regard to it. Why should it be thoughJt- wise that these expert commissions’ should have as their

lauds in principle and so casually destroys.”

One phase of the Hoover Administration’s legislative relief policy is: Millions for tribute to the tariff barons, but not one cent for starving Americans in the drough sections. •

American Exports to Best Customrers Show Continuous Heavy

Declines.

The enormous loss in American export trade to the best customers of this country is illustrated by the figures just issued by the Department of Commerce on exports to principal countries for the month of November, 1930, compared with 1929 and for the totals of the eleven months of 1930, compared with the eleven months of 1929. Exports to the United Kingdom declined more than $23,000,000 in November and more than $145,000,000 for the eleven months; Canada bought nearly $47,000,000 less for the month and $268,000,000 less for the eleven months. Export trade to Germany declined almost $18,000,000 for the month and nearly $112,000,000 for the eleven month period. Exports for the month to Italy were cut in half, from $14,000,000 in 1929 to $7,000,000 in 1930, and for the eleven months showed a decline of $48,000,000. Exports to Cuba dropped from $10,000,000 to $5,000,000 for the month and $31,000,000 for the eleven months. The percentage of American export trade to Japan showed a decline of $28,000,000 in 1929 to $12,000,000 in 1930, for the month, and a total drop of $79,000,000 in the eleven month period. Australia’s percentage of decline is still greater; American exports there were $10,000,000 in 1929 and only

chairman men who know nothing {$ 2 ,000,000 in 1930, by the monthly

about the subject and who have never given any consideration to it

whatever?

“A few days ago we confirmed— or I now suppose we did—the Federal ower Commission. The Chairman of the ower Commission . . . discloses by his examination that he knows nothing of the subject with which he is to deal. He has given no study and no consideration to it and does not profess in any sense to be an expert in regard to that matter. “Therefore, the question arises what kind of hybrid monstrosities are we creating and attaching to our government by constituting special commissions to deal with expert subjects and placing upon them men who are not in any wise •qualified as experts in regard to those subjects?”

“The present position of the Republican Party may be described briefly as ‘Lucas a non lucendo.’ ” Letter to editor of the New York Times.

comparison, and a loss of $68,000,000 in the eleven month period. The total loss in'export trade for the eleven months to all countries is $1,300,000,000, with a decline in

imports of $1,237,000,000.

President “Lauds Cooperation in Principle and Casually

Destroys It”

Concerning the disagreement be-

tween the Senate and President Hoover over the question of confirmation of members of the Power Commission, the New York World expresses the opinion that “Mr. Hoover would have made a better job if he had stood on the first of the two statements he issued” in that connection. Referring to the President’s seccncT statement, ad

dressed to the public, the

says:

“Not content to give his approval to the action of the three commissioners, an unnecessary step on

his part.

describe those members of the Senate who criticized the dismissal of the two officials as animated solely by considerations of party strategy and a desire to strike at the resident himself. The resolution which they adopted, he suggests, may have ‘attractive political merit ... it may contain a hoep of symbolizing me as the defender of the power interests if I refuse to sacrific three outstanding public servants.’ But is there any good reason why it should be necessary for the President to describe as a bit of personal spite directed against himself the inevitable dissatisfaction of the Senate with the manner in which an important new Commsision has begun its work? “Mr. Hoover impugns the motives of the Senate in this statement, as he impugns the motives of the Senate in this statement, as he impugns the motives of those members of the Senate who happened to disagree with his programme of emergency relief when he described them as ‘playing politics at the expense of human misery.’ Such statements as these are not only unnecessary but unjustified. They are death to that cooperation between the Executive and Congress, which Mr. Hoover so frequently

Warburg Attributes Depression Largely to Attempt to Maintain High Prices Through

High Tari.

Paul M. Warburg, the New York financier of the Federal Reserve system and helped to formulate its early policies, in a recent address to the directors of the organizations with which he is connected, after stating the lessons to be learned from the business depression, declared one of the causes to be high tariffs. He is quoted as saying that the attempt to maintain high prices through high tariffs and other artificial jneans was largely responsible for the depression. Mr. Warburg, who is known as one of the outstanding commercial bankers of the country, issued a warning in the spring of 1929 that a terrific market crash was inevitable if means were not taken to check rampant speculation, and the collapse followed in October.

Red Cross and resident Criticized

for “Failure to Realize Conditions”; Widespread Distress. Citing numerous instances of

hunger, impending starvation and widespread destitution in the drouth-stricken sections of his State, Senator Connally (Dem., Texas) took the Red Cross to task for its “failure to realize the true

World situation.” He said: “The authorities of the Red Cross

until within the last few days were claiming that its resources were adequate and that it was taking

Mr. Hoover chose to care of all worthy cases. . . . The

THE REBELLIOUS WALBURN

Vern Walburn, known generally as “Plug,” is one of Muncie’s most interesting characters. His experiences would fill a book. Plug is a professional gambler. He has operated here for a number of years. For the four years prior to the advent of the present administration, he had virtual control of the police department, which made things easy and comfortable. When I became mayor Walburn decided that he would continue to operate in spite of my edict both before after the city election that the open season for gamblers and liquor law .violators would last at least from January 6, 1930, untli January 1934, when my term of office expires. He has given me a battle that is more than noteworthy. I take my hat oft' to his ability as a ring general and as one battler speaking to another I defer to his willingness to use every club within reach to establish his feudal barony of lawlessness in opposition to the rules established by law prohibiting things outside the pale of the law. Frequent raids have been made on his gambling house but up to date in every instance he has emerged from Judge Mann’s court with flying colors. Early in the game Walburn became tired of raids, arrests and trials and began to invoke the law himself to establish his right to disobey the law. Several months ago he brought actions for damage against the chief of police and members of the police force, charging the defendants with interfering with his business, asking large sums in the way of damages. Plug’s latest lawsuit is a complaint filed in the superior court, in which he alleges that Chief Massey borrowed 1 money of him in September find November 1929 which was to be repaid on demand on or after January 6, 1930. The complaint was short and did not set out why the money was borrowed. Reading between the lines, though, it might be inferred that the resourceful Plug was coyly intimating that he had bought up a prospective chief of police. Looking back over the harrowing experiences of the past year which led the indignant gambler many months ago to sue to keep the police off his track, I would say that if he did really lend any money to a man who later became chief of police, expecting to be protected in his lawlessness he went to court with the wrong kind of action. He should have gone to Prosecutor Leffler and filed an affidavit against the chief of police for obtaining money under false pretenses.

WANTED—A SPINE. It’s funny, but I simply can’t get it out of my head that the prohibition act should be kept on the statute books unimpaired. I can remember back a few years when men and women banded themselves together and put the saloons out of business. Those opposing used crude arguments. The avalanche of protest against the barroom came so suddenly and with such overwhelming force that the whisky trade did not have

time to hire authors, statesmen and newspapers and magazines of renown to champion its ignoble cause. In those days the defense used four arguments: Personal liberty and the God given right of free born Americans to eat, drink and wear what they jolly well pleased, even if the guzzling of alcohol destroyed the lining of their personal alimentary canals, impoverished the home, and left its blight and taint on posterity. That the income derived from the sale of saloon licenses kept the wheels of municipal progress moving, and that the suddent withdrawal of that fixed income spelled financial chaos in America. That the knights of the bung starter would be thrown out of work, business rooms would be permanently vacated and rents lowered to a point that spelled disaster and ruin to landlords. And that just about closed the list of the calamities prophesied by those profiting by the sale of bug juice. During ten years of prohibition personal liberty has organized itself. It becomes respectable through a president who puts men at the head of the enforcement division who weakly say they cannot enforce. The vast bootlegging industry is a product of the kind of enforcement we have been getting. Hoover told Wickershaw to get the facts for him. He got them. The report tells Hoover the law is not being enforced. The president is responsible for the enforcement or nonenforcement of the liquor law, just as I am primarily responsible here in Muncie for enforcement of the law. The failure of the national prohibition law to prohibit is not due to a faulty principle, but to the Benedict Arnolds whom the president keeps on the payroll. Imagine a president permitting a comparatively few desperate criminals to defy the government and of the weakness of the jellyfish in the chief executive’s chair, who lacks the nerve to put men on the job that are not in cahoots with the bootleggers. It makes me sick to listen to sickly patrioteers goggling through life telling each other that this is the greatest nation on earth. The land of the free and the brave! The land rather of the sucker who believes everything he hears, even to the prohibition argument with its slavish and humiliating confession that “the law can’t be enforced.” Do you think that the prohibition law would not be enforced in Italy if Mussolini ordered its enforcement? The difference between Hoover' and Mussolini is that the Duce forced America to apologize to Italy because General Smedley Butler exercised his right of free speech. If Italy had prohibition and one of her MTckershams or Mellons would announce publicly that Mussolini was too weak to enforce it the offender would be eating his garlic in jail in twenty-four hours. And Bolsheviks may be inferior beings, but show me one of them who has the nerve to say that any man or group of men can start anything in the Russian Republic that the dictator Stalin can’t stop, or stop anything he starts. It’s high time that the human parrots of America quit peddling the propaganda that America “cant.”

WATER COMPANY INSPECTORS ARE SPREADING LIES

Inspectors of the Muncie Water Company, payers of 32 percent dividends to their select group of stockholders mostly around the stock market fringe, are busy spreading poisonous lies regarding success of municipal ownership and operation, of public utliities.

situation today is an admission that they need $10,000,000 more.” Chliirman John Barton Payne of the Red Cross organization appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee on January 6. In reply to a question from Senator Bratton (Dem. N. M.) as to his best judgment on the amount of money needed to meet the relief situation throughout the winter months, he

said:

“Our feeling has been, as I reported to the resident, that if we are permitted to proceed in the normal way, without excitement, we might get through the winter with our present funds.” The pres- 1 ent funds were given as $4,500,000. Chairman Payne’s testimony followed a visit he made to President Hoover. Accordin gto the Baltimore Evening Sun, Chairman Payne told the Senate Committee that “the Red Cross had the situation well in hand” . . . that it did not care to appeal for more funds, and that “the reason we don’t want to is because we don’t need them.” Commenting editorially op this testimony, the Evening Sun says: “Yet in less than a week Mr. Payne has flopped completely over (Continued to Page Two)

Harry L. Thomas, 1514 South Gharkey street, was one of the citizens visited by the inspector? with their propaganda that ‘.‘thf city couldn’t even pay interest or the water company investment/ But Thomas reads and hears r lot and the inspector made a poo: impression on this customer.

Why?

Because Thomas had read tha' he Muncie Water company divi lends for 1929 period were 32 per cent and that meant the selected offends of the American Wate’ Woi’ks & Electric Co. of 50 Broad street, New York City, had pock eted $134,050.71 in profit and in terest charges even in this period of widespread unemployment and depression. Now to be truthful the inspector 0 are either forced to circulate the lies they are telling or they art not really informed of the finan cial status of the company (foi which they are working. Now if Muncie operated and owned the water works the $134. 050.17 of profit and interest charg jes would be available for payin' the interest on the investment The water company values its prop erty and the right to do business here at $1,200,000 for TAXATION but $1,525,000 for RATE MAKING PURPOSES.ACTUAL CASH VALUE of thf plant equipment and mains if around the $650,000 mark but tc that is added by the company itf valuation of the franchise or rigid to do ALL the water business wffv. out competition at more than $800,-

Late Telegraph Flashes

Suspected Bandit Is Shot

out competition at more than $800 iear the RATE MAKING VALUE. Now if these inspectors would •.top and think about the silly lies hey are spreading they would find hat with the $134,050.17 profit and nterest charges annually there is uifficient earnigs to pay interest m the investment, pay the neces--.ary annual payments on the purchase principal sum and have sufficient surplus for replacements and ;till have good margin that would nake it possible to REDUCE the present water rates by at least TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT. Inspectors should be wise snough to know that the citizens jf Muncie have been informed at time to time of the entire financial setup of the Muncie Water company and that the public knows that the present rates are gouging he customers to make a fat profit ‘’or the Wall street utility barons who don’t even visit Muncie to my hello. Officials of the water company ffiould be better informed on the ■niblic opinion than try to force heir employes to spread such deliberate lies and expect to receive inything but the well known-razz-berry which their inspectors are getting daily. Incidentally the annual report of the Portland Electric Light company, . recently published, shows that after all charges were paid there was a net profit of $50,000 for the municipality of our Jay

Murphysboro, III., Jan. 31.— (UP) —A suspected bank robber was believed dying today while a posse of 60 men under the leadership of Sheriff W. W. Osborn of Jackson county_ searched the woods^ 15 miles north of here for his companion. George Davis, 31, St. Louis police character, was shot last night by members of a posse searching for two. bandits who_ yesterday held up the First National bank at Gorham, III., and secaped with $4,500. Davis was near death at a local hospital. ,—o Child Suffers Skull Fracture

000 thereby arriving somewhere county neighbor.

Evansville, Ind., Jan. 30.—(UP) —Joseph L. Maynard, 8, was injured fatally here last night when he ran into the path of an auto and was struck. The child suffered a skull fracture and internal

injuries.

o Freight Wreck at Princeton Princeton, Ind., Jan. 30.—(UP) —Two tank cars and a caboose were demolished and 150 feet of trackage on the Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroad was torn up when the last three cars of a freight train were derailed about two miles south of Ingle. S. E. Turner, conductor, sustained slight injuries. Fire, caused by upsetting of the stove in the caboose, was extinguished before it gained much headway. — o Plan Heavy Expenditures Indianapolis,- Jan— 30.—(UP)— Expenditures for construction- of public utilities controlled by the Insull-owned Midland United Company, will amount to approximate

ly $22,000,000 in 1931, it was announced by Samuel Insull, president of the company. ■ O Another Mine Disaster Linton, Ind., Jan. 30.—The second mine disaster within two days struck in the vicinity of Linton last night, although it didn’t entail loss of life, when the men’s wash room and other outbuildings at the Little Daisy mine were destroyed

by fire.

Loss was said to be several thousand dollars, although no accurate estimate was made. o Body of Man Is Found Today Muncie, Ind., Jan. 30.— (UP)— The body of a man, believed to be George Lowe, 35, Newcastle, was found along a country road three miles south of here early today. A preliminary examination by Coroner Clarence Piepho indicated the man had been murdered by a blow behind the right ear. Letters and a credit book issued by a Newcastle clothing store were found on the body.

Hoover Planning To Visit Indiana

Indianapolis, Jan. 30.— (UP) — Formal acceptance by President Hoover, of the invitation to address the Indiana Republican edh torial association here in April, has been announced by Paul R. Bausm,an, Monticello, president of the association. Mr. Hoover has given an extra session of congress as the only contingency which might prevent the appearance, Bailsman said. In that event Bailsman said VicePresident Charles Curtis and his sister, Mrs. Dolly Gann, would attend.

Several Indiana Municipality Heads Follow Lead of Muncie Executive In Opposing State Board of Health Edict for Costly Sewage Disposal System As Pollution Solution.

The fashion of the upstanding Medici collar, worn in sixteenth century Europe, probably came from China, says an anthropologist, for Chinese figures of the seventh and eighth centuries wear such collars.

When Mayor Dale promulgated his “Rule 76” challenging the authority of the Indiana state board of health to require Muncie to build a $2,000,000 sewage disposal system or the state board would do it, he little realized that the rule would be used by other Hoosier cities to-help them out of the dilemma of costly disposal systems when the necessity was somewhat doubtful. Mayor Madison L. Retro of Mishawaka felt the same way about it as the Muncie mayor when the state board recently descended sternly on that city with a mandate and the implied threat that if the St. Joseph county municipality failed to act the state board would strut its stuff. MITCHELL DEFIES BOARD. Then yesterday there appeared a story in the morning newspaper that the city council of Mitchell likewise informed Dr. King that his Rule 75 had been superceded by a healthy vote that the state board of health had no authority to require the officials of Lawrence county city to spend a vast sum of money in a project the officials didn’t believe necessary. It will be recalled that Dr. King about a month ago announced his Rule 75 which the board adopted to give it authority to order stream pollution sollution projects and if there was hesitancy on the part of the governmental unit in action the state board could proceed. This rule, however, was just an action of the board. . Upon the receipt of Rule 75 by the mayor here he immediately promulgated Rule 76 in which he informed the state board of health secretary that the authority of the board was hereby and henceforth challenged. In picturesque language the ma^or referred to the new rule as telling Doc King to “keep his nose out of our pet sewer.” This rule 76 was given state and nation-wide publicity by the press associations and shortly the mayor heard from several mayors and officials and citizens commending him upon his courageous battle with the bureaus at Indianapolis and from many parts of the state where similar demands had been made the state board of health received vigorously worded communications challenging its authority. DOC KING FORGETFULL. Doc King in his note regarding the Rule 75 evidently forgot his previous correspondence for in a letter received last summer there was no notification that on May 31st, the now celebrated Rule 75 had been adopted by the state board of health and lo, and behold a follow-up letter set the date of adoption as of Nov. 16. This confusion on the part of Doc King naturallv leads one to believe that he don’t know what is talking about or perhaps there wasn’t any Rule 76 adopted and the learned dispenser of vitimin and calories propaganda don’t know what he is talking about on that subject and others, too. Imagine the surprise of Linton Ridgeway, city clerk, received whe nhe got a copy of Doc King’s letter. It was addressed to Linton Ridgeway, Town Clerk. Linton’s friends chided him about being only a “Town Clerk” in Doc King’s estimation, but really we think that Kinkk doesn’t know whether Muncie is a city or a town. Doc’s sure about Muncie about in Indiana, but outside of that he’s too dumb to know whether it’s a citv or town. He’ll learn. MAYOR RETRO SCORES CONTRACTOR. Returning to the Mishawaka situation we find that Mayor Retro has similar ideas to the mayor here regarding the sewage disposal propects and the promotion of them bv contractor grouns closely allied with the Republican state gang. He says: “The united resistance of the council and taxpayers to the proposal to embark upon the staggering expenditures involved in the proposed sewage proposals, highly beneficial to contractors and sanitary engineers, but with small aid to any considerable body of workmen, has encouraged the administration to postpone the project until the city and our people are in far better condition to assume the enormous burden involved. Experts who have devoted a lifetime of study to this question suggested early to city officials the very strong liklihood that in the evolution of sewage disposal, new methods and pirnciples would soon come to light, the application of which would cerContinued to Page 2