Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 8 January 1932 — Page 1

THE POST-DEMOCRAT

VOLUME XI—NUMBER 48.

"mUNCIE, INDIANA, FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 19321

PRICE 5 CENTS

THE MAYOR’S CORNER

“MUD HOLES AND HOW TO GET RID OF THEM”

By W. J. D. Well, as we got past the editor last week, we will keep our promise and see if we can fool him again this week. We have noticed quite a number of articles in our daily papers that advise Muncie citizens to trade at home. All well and good, but il we are 10 trade at home, why not give home folks the preference of the jobs at home? Go out to any factory and take notice of the license plates on the autos that are parked round such places during working hours, and whose owners are working inside the factory, and you will see that many of the plates were bought in surrounding states. The owners of those cars come here and get work displacing men whose homes are here, and who must be fed by charity. The out of town workers pay no taxes here, for many of them are only roomers and boarders, and have no interest in our city outside of what they can take out of it. Home workers spend all they make here at home, but the outside workers do not. They send their money back where their home is, and when any of them get laid off, they too, go back from whence they came. Why can not the factories here do like they do in Anderson and New Castle? One must be a resident of those cities before they are given work in the factories. If their plan was put to work here in Muncie, it would not cost the taxpayers near so much to feed the unemployed, and the Community Fund would not have to be so large as it is now under Mr. Dyke's ticket plan. Another thing we can not understand is why factory owners and merchants believe in low wages. During the late war wages were high, business was at its peak, everybody had' money and everybody spent the money as fast they got it (only a few) for silk shirts, new cars, plenty of eats, rent was paid promptly, no poor tax and the Community Chest was not drained to the last cent. If war time wages was now being paid, every worker would have a new car, landlords would be getting their rent, salesmen would be kept busy, factories would be running full force and the Township Trustee could take a vacation, and would not have to be locked up while taking it. Idleness is nothing but a crime builder, and the more idleness the more crime, a busy mind is never a vicious mind, and a well filled stomach never makes a vicious person, unless that stomach is filled with rotten booze. But an empty stomach causes riots, bloodshed and thieves. The wild beasts of the jungle are not dangerous when their stomachs are full, and neither are men, but both become dangerous when the pangs of hunger too long grip them, and man is the most dangerous of all animals when the wolf of hunger howls too long at his door. We do not know just how many persons were evicted from homes last week, but we do know that quite a few persons had that happen to them, and not one of the evicted ones would have been set out if they had had work at decent wages. One can hardly blame the landlord, for in most cases he has bills to pay, besides getting nothing for the use of his property. The modem machines, are doing the world's work in a few months of the year, and labor is being paid such low wages that it can not buy back but a very low percent of its products. The workers o£ the world are the spenders of the world, and the amount of what they spend is set by the amount they receive while working. One resident in the Southwest part of the city came to my office Saturday, last, all het up and wanted to know why I did not fill up the mudholes in her streets ? She said she heard the mayor talk last Friday week, and tell how much money was in the strong box of the city, and thought it was a shame that she and her neighbors had too wade mud with all that money laying idle. I explained to her that Old Man Injunction had grabbed the money and thrown it in the bank and the only way it could be released was by her councilman and his cohorts who thought the spending of it on muddy streets was a crime against the taxpayers. , If that money was turned over to the street department of the city more men would be put to work which would relieve (to a large extent) the load now carried by the taxpayers in the way of poor relief, and the mudholes would cease to exist. Money in the bank does no one any good except the poor bankers, but money spent helps every one, especially when it'£ spent to fill up mudholes, and there is not a person in Muncie who hates mudholes anymore than the writer. The lady asked me if there was anything she could do to help get the money to fix her street. I told of one way that might help, and that was for her and her neighbors to get the councilmen out there and wollow them around in the mudhole for a while, a»d then tell them the dose would be repeated every day until the holes were filled up. She said she would talk to her councilman first and then if nothing was done she would take my suggestion up with her neighbors. Here's hoping the councilmen do not get their clothes dirty.

Next Friday afternoon between 5:40 and 6 o’clock Mayor Dale will give another of his series of radio talks on municipal affairs over WLBC. Tune in and get the lowdown on government events affecting you. His frankness, originality of viewpoint and courage in speech will appeal to you. Don’t forget—5:40 o’clock NEXT FRIDAY afternoon. Following is his radio talk of this afternoon:

Muncie never fails to get in the headlines. Today # story comes from Washington that Jack Garner, democratic speaker of the national house of represetativnes, wants to know why Claude Ball dropped his contest against Congressman Ves-

tal.

That’s a question that has been asked here a great many times, with no adequate reply. At the time' the contest papers were drawn up after the 1930 election, it appeared that the division between democrat and republican congressmen would be close that the Ball-Vestal contest would decide the organization of the house of representatives. The first count of votes by election commissioners showed Ball, democrat, had defeated Vestal, Republican, three votes. One precicnt in Washington township, where the vote was recounted, disclosed an alleged error which gave Vestal a final majority of 9 votes over Ball. With the possibility that the final result of the count of votes in one small precinct in Delaware county would decide who should organize the house, the democrats or the republicans, the eyes of the world were focused on Delaware county. State Chairman Earl Peters rushe to Mduncie and made a tremendqus show of activity, just as he did in 1926 when Albert Stump defeated Jim Watson for senator on a showing of fraud in Lake county, where Watson stole enough votes to more than overcome the 10,000 lead of Watson on the face of the returns. I remember very distinctly of the visit Peters then made to Delaware county where glaring frauds were apparent, and of the mighty enthusiasm of the state chairman, and of the sudden waning of that enthusiasm, and of the question then asked alj over the state as to why the democratic state chairman should lose interest in a contest that would have sent Jim Watson £o private life. I touhght I understood Peters at that time but just then it was not apparent to me why Albert Stump did not cry out his wrongs to the high heavens and demand ’in thundering tones an investigation of a state chairman whose inactivity kept him out of the United States Senate. But as I recall it now Stump took it lying down, just as Claude Ball seems to have taken his lying down. I knew that Peters was secretly an agent of the public utilities, but I could not figure Stump out that way. Revelations in a hearing at Washington before the federal trade commission, disclosed that Stump had made eloquent non-partisan speeches all over Indiana in school houses and churches. He specialized in commencement day addresses, for which he was paid by school authorities. It developed in the federal trade commission . inquiry into the secret manipulations of the electric power monopoly that Stump was also receiving fees from the Indiana light slush fund for interlarding in his commencement day addresses nice little comments about electric, light. r It was brought out that he was paid out of this slush fund a total of $1,250. He was paid $25 a throw for fifty addresses. I am not openly charging Albert Stump with being in a conspiracy with Earl Peters to throw the race; I am simply showing what the records disclose. The Ball-Vestal contest, if you could call it a contest, has many things in common with the StumpWatson fiasco. Both started out with a mighty fanfare of trumpets, and both fizzled out in the same manner. It is not yet too late for congress to find out why Indiana democracy was betrayed in 1926. The time is ripe for Jack Garner to call for a searching congressional inquiry into all the facts relating to the dropping of the Ball-Vestal contest. In fact, I wired Representative Louis Ludlow at Washington today requesting that he and Jack Garner “shoot the works” in these two cases. If Indiana democracy has been bartered off by the accredited machinery of the party, it is time to scrap the machinery and get a new model. It was at a luncheon given yesterday at Washignton to the Indiana Democratic Club with Congressman Ludlow as host, that Speaker Garner ex-

ploded the bombshell, describing the dropping of the contest as being “suspicious.” Chairman Peters, who attended the luncheon, attempted to explain by saying he knew nothing “suspicious” in the dropping of the Ball contest. He is quoted in dispatches as saying that-the state committee had given the contest no attention because Ball had employed lawyers to represent him and that he supposed they were attending to the matter. With such a vital interest at stake it is almost beyond belief that the state chairman should offer such a weak defense. But if he passed the buck to Ball, the latter did not hesitate to pass it right back, if he made the statement credited to him this morning in the Muncie Star. I read from the Star: “They’ll not find any papers with my name signed to them withdrawing the contest,” Ball asserted. “The state central committee prepared the contest papers and I signed them and sent them to Washington. Williams, (according to the state central committee) took care of the matter for the state committee, and unless they were mistaken, the contest was filed too late. “I don’t understand it.” Mr. Ball thus says he doesn’t understand it. Neither does anybody else. That’s why I asked Mr. Ludlow and Speaker Garner to cause a congressional inquiry. Since the contest started the day after the election in 1930, there can be no excuse for failing to fil it in time at WashingtonSince Mr. Ball doesn’t understand, possibly Earl Everett, democrat county chairman, who aspires to succeed himself, might be able to throw some light on the subject. He served as county chairman in the 1930 campaign and made such a mess of things here that the county went republican by its usual tti&yofity while every other republican county in the state slumped toward democracy. Mr. Ball is a close political friend of County Chairman Earl Everett. So close, in fact, that he sent a wire to Secretary of State Frank Mayr pleading with him to retain Mr. Everett here as automobile license distributor. If Mr. Everett had displayed any activity in 1930 as head of the Delaware, county democratic committee, Mr. Ball would have been elected by such a large majority that he would have been compelled to take his seat in congress, whether he wanted to or not, and whether State Chairman Earl Peters wanted him to or not. Speaking of Secretary of State Frank Mayr, what has become of the investigation of his office ordered in a resolution adopted by the Muncie city

council.

It was charged that an employe of the secretary’s office attempted to “coerce” Earl Everett, a member of the council. According to Bob Parkinson, then president of the council, who carded local dailies with indignant protest, he and his twelve fellow councilmen were freeborn American citizens, elected by the votes of the “peepul,” and that they would rather die in their tracks than take orders and bend the pregnant hinges of the knee to any old Simon Degree who comes along with the bull whip and tries to tan their hides into slavish submission. It all sounded nice and heroic and was really the voice of a patriot and a statesman, but Bob had his fingers crossed and didn’t know it. „ Parkinson had been council president for twoj years and had everything set for his thi^ election! Monday night. The brainy council majority had tried Bob out on many occasions and he had never been found wanting when the boys wanted to play some funny joke on the mayor. No one could do it like Bob. He was always ready to perform./ Although elected as a democrat Bob’s principal function was to try to cast discredit on the democratic administartion. It was also Bob who led in the campaign to lower wages of the men who work on the streets and and the parks and a supposedly labor council backed him in his effortsHe was also the leader in the litigation against the city which tied up the gasoline tax fund by injunction, thereby keeping many men out of work in this time of unemployment. Bob was an allaround handy-man, in fact, for every special inter est that needed help. But he forgot one thing. He has a boss, Harry Guthrie, manager of the Star. He is an advertis ing solicitor for that paper. Mr. Guthrie is a pretty fair business man, even (Continued to Page 2)

Councilmen K leinfelder and Winder Not Responsible for Existing Conditions Regarding Lack of Available Funds. The mayor was quoted correctly in local daily newspapers, which stated that there were only two councilmn of the entire thirteen whose recommendations in any matter would be considered by the exeutive end qf the city administration. Insofar as the mayor is concerned Councilmen Kleinfelder and Winder, who have stood loyally hy the city, and have resisted the reactionary efforts of the other* eleven to disrupt every department, are the only council members whose recommendations have any weight with the mayor. It is therefore advisable for citizens living in any part of the city, irrespective of ward boundaries, who have requests to make, to consult either or both of these councilmen, the mayor, or the boards appointed by the mayor. The eleven members of the city council who have stubbornly resolved to oppose progress, have made their own bed and as far as the mayor is con»cerned they may lie in itAt the very beginning of this administration they entered into a conspiracy to oppose the mayor. They declared war. The mayor accepted their challenge, after learning that they were implacable, and indicated that he would ask no quarter and give no quarter. In spite of the everlasting opposition of these reactionaries the city has prospered as never before, but it has placed upon the shoulders of the mayor a multitude of burdens and handicaps that were never before in the history of Muncie encountered by a chief executive. The eleven councilmen who claim to represent certain sections of the city, in reality misrepresent those who elected them to office. They are responsible, either directly or indirectly for over thirty lawusits, most of them in the form of mandamus and injunction proceedings, consequently a large portion of the time of the mayor and his assistanst is taken up in organizing for the defense of these unnecessary actions. The most outstanding of these various offenses was the tying up by injunction the money derived from the state gasoline tax. That money, which should have been in use to repair streets and meet the requests of citizens of the various wards is now lying useless in the banks, instead of being put to work to give idle men employment on needed improvements. Eleven members of the council are responsible for this tieup of funds that would have put men to work and fixed up chuck holes in streets and alleys. When one of your councilmen, other than the two mentioned, Winder and Kleinfelder, who kept out of the conspiracy, assume to say that he will have this or that done, tell him to go jump in the

lake. -

How can he expect you to take him seriously when he is directly responsible for lack of funds to do the work, at a time when the city treasury is (Continued to Page Two.)

A BUSY UTILITY MAN

It’s hard for people here to understand how George Dyke, local telephone manager, became the clearing house for distribution of poor relief funds. He has an office with a woman manager on the fifth floor of the Johnson block and all applications for help made to the trustee or the social service must be verified from this office. That makes Mr. Dyke the responsible agent for the distribution of poor relief funds, therefore he should be consulted directly by those seeking help. Sitting in a detached position, free from the. stories of woe and hardship, he lets the lesser lights of his remarkable three-way orgainzation make the actual contacts and pass the buck, so to speak. Mr. Dyke undertook to extend his benevolent supervision over the city of Muncie, but didn’t receive an answer so he had his letter published in the Press, which gave the “Voice of the City” an opportunity to explode. The mayor told Dyke’s boss that public utilities were not in especially good odor this year, and that Dyke was not adding to their popularity by playing political Santa Claus for the poor and needy. The quicker the township trustee divorces himself from intrigues with a politico-utility errand boy the better off he will be. There is no reason on earth why the trustee should not decide for himself in matters of poor relief instead of taking the word of the telephone company for it.