Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 28 August 1931 — Page 2

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1931.

- THE POST-DEMOCRAT t Damocratic weekly newspaper representing the Democrats of Mancie, Delaware County and the 8th Congressional District. The oily Democratic Newspaper in Delaware County. Altered as second class matter January 16, 19X1, at the Postofflce at Mnncle, Indiana, under the Act of March I, 1879. PRICK « CENTS-42.M A YEAR. 223 North Elm Alreet—Telephone 2540 CHARLES H. DALE, Publisher. Geo. R. Dale, Editor. Muncie, Indiana, Friday~August 28,1931.

Council Wavers

In the purported explanation of the council action in cutting the city tax rate 23 cents now being published in The Press the majority faction waivers on their power to cut statutory and salaries fixed by ordinance. / This promiscuous slicing of salaries previously fixed by ordinances and boadrs was the basis for the spite cuts of the council in the Controller’s budget and their admission that they don’t have power to do so indicates that they receeded after so vigorously attempting to do something

outside their power.

In explaining the cut of $120 in the salary of Henry Harrison, court bailiff, as contrary to the ordinance fixing his salary, the council majority-—Press explanation is that the money will be restored to Henry’s budget item. This means that the other cuts such as the $800 from Bill Daniels salary, the $200 from the clerk of the board of works and various other spite cuts must be restored by the council or face long drawn out litigation in which they are bound to lose in the end. We were greatly amused at the explanation showing that salaries fixed by statute were retained, because the council couldn’t change them, but if they had the power they would lop off the salary of every person from the mayor

down to the street boys.

Item after item cut out of the budget by the council coalition must be restored by them for the slices were not moviated by a destire for economy, but merely to give the county Republican coterie the chance to raise their tax rate an equal sum to the amount cut from the city levy. With this as the ruling motive it is easy to see that when the majority faction attempted to obey orders from the courthouse they had to slash right and left and in doing so naturally cut out many items which the law required

be placed in the budget and tax levy.

Cutting out the 1 cent each for police and fire pension is purely contrary to law and these fund trustees are prepared to go to court to mandate the placing of them in the

Ptranount Ph»t

CAROLE LOMBARD

/"'AROLE LOMBARD was reared v- 1 with two brothers who took her training In hand at a very early age, according to their own ideas of what a sister—usually a necessary evil—should be like. Naturally

possible like her brothers,

was laughed at If

So

she

budget and tax levies. Similar attempt to eliminate these j th *yrates early in the Quick administration met with a prompt

court mandate than restored them and the same thing will 'played dolls, ridiculed If she cried happen this time. and left at home alone If ffhe

Instances of the majority coalition ruthless slashes for ta p le ^‘

spite work and to permit the county raise is found in the hobblSfshe developed. RvTheThnc city attorney’s budget. They cut $600 from the item of'she was sixteen she could sail a trarte&i t l£fts''and briefs on the theory that this year the city ri< *e a horse and swim and

attorney had paid wages to Mrs. Ann Walterhouse, the coun- f^

ty committee vice chairman,

for preparing transcripts and byiefs of pending litigation.

With nearly 50 cases pending in the courts, some of them instigated by a quartet of council coalitionists, these same councilmen expects the transcripts and briefs to write themselves. Of course, someone has,to write and type the transcripts and briefs and just because some of the councilmen don’t like Mrs. Walterhouse is no valid excuse for destroying that item for it is clear that the item should be used for paying wages for typing of transcripts and briefs. And there are more than a score of just such unwarranted attacks upon the various departments until the council’s budget becomes merely the basis for endless and costly litigation to straighten out. Col. Lockwood writing The Press editorial declared that to him it appeared that the council action merely led to a situation where it would necessitate costly litigation just to find out how much the council boys really £id save the taxpayers, if any. Last year just the same type of onslaughter, but not so deep was inflicted in the budget and after that veto by the mayor there was no attempt to pass it over his disapproval. It is hardly conceivable that the Democrats composing the coalition would become a party to such a stinking mess where it is even clear to themselves that the things they did was contrary to law and wholly outside their power. It seems that some of the coalitionists believe their duty is to the county Republican gang instead of the constituents,

but they will find out different.

MAYOR'S CORNER (Continued from Page IT as man to man, please let me out next Sunday. I’m tired of eating peanuts and cracker jack. I need a square meal. I’ll promise not to bother the kids, but just let me get my claws on that fat umpire!” I compromised with the old fellow and promised to let him preside at the next council caucus. If the plan works I won’t have to bring action to remove eleven of them. If the bear backs out I will have the squirrels Are We Adrift? He’s to See

and could bout them two sets out

of three on the tennis court. The fact that she grew up slim

and blonde and fragile looking In spite of. all these activities was Bomething over which the brothers

had no control.

When, In her last year at a Los Angeles high school, Carole decided to enter the movies, she went about ,'t wKb the same thoroughness with wKeb she had mastered sports.

Tirelessly and with a determination that left no room for discouragement she studied voice pitch, makeup, gestures, clothes, mannerisms and coiffures. She never cherished the idea that her looks—which by that time were quite an item— would be sufficient to send her far In pictures. She has earned a reputation as one of the best-dressed women in Hollywood but she denies that cldthes are a hobby. “Clothes are a business,” she says. “They should be a very serious business to every woman whether she likes them or not. 1 do not regard shopping as a pleasure, but I do it as carefully as I do my work at the studio.” She makes very sure that her figure, which many experts call flawless, remains at its TOS pounds. Slie has never dieted, however, and thinks that the “fad” diets whltfh exclude candy and other wholesoq e and necessary foods are foolish ai d dangerous. Exercise and sane, w<- Ibalanced meals are the clue, she thinks, to slenderness as well as health.

With the theory that the North American continent is slowly drifting on the liquid interior of the earth, Captain P. M. Williams, a naval reserve officer of New York, will leave with a party of 18 men on a scientific expedition to prove or disprove his contention early next year. The Williams party will establish headquarters in' Grar.tlar.d, the spot where the Northern Lights have their origin., ~ Captain; i— Williams is shown rcintias to the Arctic regions he will study

at the caucus. Shell barks are getting scarce at the parks. I’m like Eddie Cantor, who insists on helping

out Hoover.

Eddie has a number of plans: The five year plan, the twenty year endowment plan, the hundred pay life plan, the eny, meenie, miny mo plan and a dozen others and he just knows that one of them is

bound to work.

Colonel Lockwood must have had something of the kind in his mind when he wrote an editorial for his paper, the Muncie Press, one day this week. The colonel, I might says, is one newspaper man in Muncie who has discovered that the world is not bounded by the Muricie corporation line. He nows

his way around.

In a very fair, but slightly sarcastic vein, he ventured the editorial opinion that if the council passed the budget and levy ordinance over my veto, I would declare the whole thing unconstitutional, null and void and non compus mentis and proceed, so to speak, on an even keel and do what I darned pleased. And that’s exactly what I expect to do and I’ve more plans in mind than Eddie Cantor has for help-

ing out' Hoover.

Mr. Lockwood paid me the compliment of knowing a thing or two, at least. He sees something that the eleven wise men have failed to observe. He notes the long and uninterrupted line of headstones that mark the grav of every job the council has attempt-

ed to put up on me.

No doubt Mr. Lockwood had in mind how I licked the council last year about this time in a bud get argument and how I declared an order from the state tax hoard to be “unconstitutional” and got away with it, when the state board confirmed a budget approved by the council and disapproved the budget acceptable to myself and the city controller. My budget is now the one under which the city of Muncie is operating, regardless of the order of the council and state tax board. Neither the council nor the state tax board had the nerve to test the matter in court for they knew they would get licked

to a frazzle.

The trouble with the council majority is that every man is his own lawyer in that aggregation. They know all the law there is. They admit it. regardless of the triflng circumstance that Judge Guthrie and Judge Murray have invariably brought in minority reports dissenting from the legal opinions handed down by the eleven learned limbs of the law. The mere opinions of judges have no weight with them. No doubt the councilmen themselves will remember a get together meeting of the mem-

bers elect of the present city administration a few days after the election and before any of us had tak-

en office.

On that occasion one of the councilmen, who has .a job as a moving picture operator,* announced that he had bought a copy of Thornton’s compilation of cities and town laws and had already read it half way through. “I will have it finished inside of a week and then I will know more law than any lawyer in Muncie,” he remarked, and he meant what he said. He probably still thinks so. What a satisfaction it must be for this council-man-lawyer to be able, off hand, at any time, to hand down a supreme court decision reversing Charlie

Hughes.

And in what contempt he must hold the benighted lawyers of Muncie who wasted their time and money as students in the various universities and law schools of the land! I must say that at the time I had some slight misgiving as to the infallibility of the short-time law course taken by the councilman, and appointed a city attorney in order to play safe. The other ten councilmen had no such misgiving. Instead of seeking advice of the city attorney they go to the fount of jurisprudence, in the projecting room, where between reels, they become saturated with the red eyed law, as expounded by ope who matriculated in law all within less than one Week’s time. Speaking of law, Governor Leslie’s secretary stepped aside the other night long enough to make a speech in which he rapped the law makers. Mr. Chasey paid his respects to the late lamented general assembly of the state of Indiana by remarking that they were a set of drunken bums, or words to that broad general effect. It was very natural that Senator Roy Friedley, whom some of you may still remember, was the first to enter a plea of not guilty. In a statesmanlike gesture, with one hand over his heart and the other hand on his massive brow, four or five inches from his brain, the senator dedared that he never saw a member of the last legislature take a drink. That relieves my mind of a question that has troubled and perplexed me. Every time the boys took a drink they turned the lights out. Another person -who hastens to the rescue of booze fighting legislators is one Mr. York, superintendent of the Indiana Antisaloon League. Mr. York likewise testifies that he saw no drinking and that he saw no drunkenness and that he never saw a drunken member sitting in either house of the general assembly. What he failed to say was that there were usually a large percentage of vacant seats in both houses every morning at roll call, many of them accounted for by hangovers from serious drinking in hotel rooms the night before. Roy Friedly and the divine Brother York both knew what Mr. Chasey meant, but ignored the issue raised. If the senator from Delaware county would be frank and tell you all he knows of the things that took place in Indianapolis during the last session of the legislature you’d be surprised. You

might fall dead.

As the governor’s secretary has told you, the sixty-first general assembly was just one burning thirst after another, and judging from sights and sounds during legislative play time in the dark hours of night, women and song joined the trinity of graces that were employed to keep the mind of the leg-

islature on its work.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a copy of the last acts of the legislature, take time to look it over and then pause for a moment and bend your head I in silent prayer, for that precious volume received most of its inspiration from Mister Ginger Ale Highball, shaken up to the accompaniment of jazz music, by the lily white hands of hand decorated women of the underworld, introduced to the legislature by the utility lobbyists who bought the red likker that went down the gullets of debauched law makers. Don’t dare to tell me, Mr. Friedley, that Secretary Chasey did not tell the truth. If the session had lasted sixty days longer the medical fraternity of Indianapolis would have been called upon to combat

an epidemic of delirium tremens!

The banking world is getting ready to float a billion dollar loan to stabilize the British pound. Indiana should now go about some plan to standardize the circulating medium used in making laws. Sometimes it took but one drink to get a vote if a gal went with it. Some times it took a barrel, with or without the lady or ladies of easy virtue. The lobbyists who have the addresses of all the women, and who buy all the liquor, should organize and make a hard and fast scale. Also there should be a merger of lobbyists to save overhead. In the last legislature there were more lobbyists on the floor of both houses than there were members. In nine out of ten of the close conferences betwen lobbyists and Igislators that took place in the state house during working hours, no mention was made of pending legislation. They were simply fixing things up for the party that night. It was when everybody got oiled up at the party in some hotel room that the business of making laws was seriously taken

laws the alcohol and the perfumes of the primrose _ path of dalliance and nothing would be left but the covers and the title.' I got quite a kick out of an editorial in the Star ’ this morning. The county commissioners raised the county tax levy twenty-four cents as an offset to the twenty-three cent reduction of the city levy, sponsored by the council. When myself and the controller presented a bud* get ordinance, together with a levy authorizing an eight cent reduction in the city rate, we were damned with faint praise by the Star. When the council went me one better by a fifteen cent additional cut, the Star rejoiced with the gods. When the republican county commissioners shot the moon and raised the county levy twenty-four cents, things were coming pretty fast for the Star, but the editor was equal to the occasion. Here is what he said this morning, under the caption “Just Here and There,” which means no doubt, here today and there tomorrow: “The proposed budget would call for a county tax levy of about 66 cents, or 24 cents higher than the levy for this year. That budget is based, however, on the estimates submitted by the various county officials, and for some reason public officials always submit estimates calling for sums much larger than they know they will get,” The editorial riins on with a prayer to God and the republican county council to prove that the reublican county commissioners are just the kind of harpooners the Star declares them to be, if the Star meant what it said when it charged all public officials with sharp practices in handling budgets and levies. I think the Star would have hewn more closely to the line if it had charged all REPUBLICAN officials with wanting even more than they want. No such dishonesty was practiced in any of the city departments, all democratic, as that charged by the Star against the all-star cast of republican county officers. If any subordinate body in my administration had submitted an estimate of a dollar and a half more than was actually needed in that department, somebody would have been called on the carpet. It may be a quaint old republican custom, accepted by the Star as orthodox, because the republicans here have always done it th&t way, to try to» get their.estimates through on a high bid, and then - take what they can get, but I am not orthodox. I can conceive of no greater act of treachery and sheer dishonesty upon the part of an organized group • of public officials than to deliberately present to a collateral branch of the county government, possessed of the power to revise, a budget that exceeded by a quarter of a million dollars, the amount actually needed for the running expenses of the county. The Star says the county budget should be less than, this year’s budget, yet the tentative budget prepared by the county commissioners calls for an expenditure next year of a quarter of a million more. And not a word of censure from the Star! Merely a mild word just here and there, explaining the good old republican custom of trying to obtain a quarter of a million dollars under false pretenses, as a thing to be expected from the party exalted by that newspaper. If it can be proved that the Star was right when it asserted the commissioners submitted false estimates, they should be prosecuted criminally and removed from office. And if they stand the slam they got this morning from their own party newspaper without making a holler I will believe them guilty of the charge. I will be on the air again, broadcasting from Station' WLBC, next Friday afternoon at 5:30 o’clock. In that address I will tell you about the socalled Indiana Taxpayers Association, and its hidden connections, and of the co-conspiracy between that organization and the state tax hoard to increase your tax burdens instead of reducing them. I will show you how the serpent reaches into your own community to favor special interests here.

WOMEN WILL PROTEST RULE

Maryland B. P. W. Coun-

cil Claims Discrim-

ination.

Washington. Aug. 28.—(UP)— Prohibition Director Amos W. W. Woodcock, Wednesday, abolished one of the most controversial practices in prohibition enforcement«— use of women in making cases

against violators.

On the heels of the general order, forecast Tuesday, the director was denounced by a feminist organization on the ground that he was using sex discrimination.

ocrat, Louis

111., charged

agents

that East St.

were “association

with lewd women” and employing them in enforcement activities. The feminist protest came from the Business and Professional Women’s Council of Maryland. It said,

in part:

“Such a discriminatory attitude is obviously inconsistent with the actual conditions confronting the enforcement of this law and with [the conduct of a public office. It is naradoxical too that women should be ruled out of the prohibition picture only where there is danger of their receiving a pay envelope.” Woodcock denied any discrimination against women in general. “I do not believe, however,” he said, “that you wish to see women used as an aid to the purchase of liquor. Practically whenever this has been done In the past it has ’ either brought discredit upon the service, or gotten the individual agent into difficulty. It is to such use of women that I am opposed. I

doubt

Woodcock’s order was regarded Election you would wish to encouras an outgrowth of recent accusa-|age their use along these lines If tions regarding the use of women:you do so, I must respectfully beg as decoys and escorts by agents. ;to disagree with you.” Recently a young woman in Buffa- — - p ,

lo. N. Y., Avas held by police eharg-l Correct this sentence- “When I

mr. a .1 i • i i. & i.i . , ^ , ed wIth intoxication after her al-!get caught behind a horse drawn up. I hat for the legislature and the Virtuous rebut- le s ed .employment by Buffalo vehicle,” said the motorist “I al

tal of Senator Friedley. Squeeze from the hook of

agents to help procure liquor. Rep-jAvays remember that it has as much resentative Charles A. Karch, Dem- right on the highway as I have.” .

1 '