Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 7 January 1944 — Page 4

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POST-DEMOCRAT, FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1944.

THE POST-DEMOCRAT Ji Democratic weekly newspaper representing the democrats of Muncie, Delaware County and the 10th Congressional District. The only Democratic Newspaper in Delaware County. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1921, *t the Post Office at Muncie, Indiana, under Act of March 3, 1879. PRICE 5 CENTS—$1.50 A YEAR MRS. GEO. R. DALE, Publisher 916 West Main Street Muncie, Indiana, Friday, January 7, 1944.

60-Day Subsidy Truce? A 60-day extension of food subsidies is no solution of the issue, but, if this proposal of the Senate banking and currency committee goes through, consumers can count it a victory for themselves. Had not a convincing public protest arisen, the Senate would have killed subsidies as blithely as the House proposed to do, and the cost of living would be on the way up. But this 60-day truce, even if finally approved by both houses, will be but a temporary victory if the housewives and heads of families who want the cost of living stabilized relax their efforts. Behind the movement to abolish subsidies and increase food prices stands the most powerful pressure group in Congress. The only thing which can counteract it is stronger pressure. Consumers must continue therefore to impress upon their representatives and senators the fact that they will not stand for higher food prices. Recent polls of public opinion show strong support for the subsidy policy, even among farmers, in the case of people who understand the issue. Admittedly a lot of people don’t understand it. The fight, then, is in large part a process of community self-education. Let us all appreciate these facts: 1. Britain and Canada have both successfully used subsidies to maintain a stabilized cost of living. 2. Unless subsidies are continued, food prices will definitely and sharply go up. 3. The subsidy policy will cost the people and the government less than the price increases which would otherwise take place. 4. The role of subsidies is simply to guartee food producers a return sufficient to elicit maximum production, without further raising prices to the consumer. 5. And, finally, subsidies are distinctly a temporary expedient, to be abandoned when inflationary dangers subside. Upon some congressmen the idea is evifently beginning to dawn that a vote of Iheirs which promotes a sharp rise of food prices between now and next election may not be smart politics. To confirm that impression they should be convinced that the people mean it when they demand a stabilized cost of living. 0. K. To Die-Not To Vote Congressional debate over the method of casting and counting the soldier and sailor vote next year boils down to one thing— Congressional debate over the method of casting and counting the soldier and sailor vote next year boils down to one thing— Whether the people trust their Army and Navy. The New York Daily News in its editorial Thursday sums up the situation very clearly. It does not trust the Government, the Army, the Navy or apparently anybody in Washington. Says the Daily News: “The bill . . . was patently one to see to it that the majority of service votes were cast ‘right,’ or at any rate, counted ‘right,’ meaning Democratic. ... It would be clumsy and an invitation to fraud to have the Federal Government handle service votes. . . . “The Federal Government should on no account be permitted to get its hooks into the handling of service votes in this war. It . . . would open up far too many temptations to the party in power.” There is something strange in the spectacle of men willing to trust their Government with the unprecedented task of winning the most terrible war of history—and yet lacking confidence in the same Government’s honesty when it comes to counting ballots. So we get a Senate-enacted measure that provides a system so feeble that it would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of service men. Guess why. We guess it is not merely the Federal Government which the Daily News, Cotton Ed Smith and their ilk distrust; it is the vote of the soldiers and sai olfs’htsremsshrdlu of the soldiers and sailors themselves. Our reactionaries are deathly fearful that those soldiers and sailors would vote for our inspired Commander-in-Chief. It’s O. K. for these politicos for soldiers and sailors to die for their country. It isn’t 0. K. for them to vote for their country.—Philadelphia Record. y Mr. Byrnes’ Last Warning James F. Byrnes, director of war mobilization, has put the subsidy issue in its proper perspective and clearly shown where the responsibility will lie if the nation loses control of prices and wages. The ban on subsidies, as it passed the House, was a measure to raise the price of food. It was cut from the same cloth as pending bills to raise railroad wages, raise the price of oil, and raise the price of milk. All these measures are attempts by congressional action to favor one particular economic group at the expense of others. But the most obvious fact about inflation control is that it cannot be accomplished by attempting to satisfy each economic group in turn. That would be like patching a tire

while constantly increasing the air pressure. All groups together, however, share a common interest in a stable war economy. To serve that interest, wages and prices must be stabilized in behalf of the whole people. In a real sense we face here a crucial test of democracy—a test of our ability, under our form of government, to submerge group interests in the greater interest of the community as a whole. With complete logic, Mr. Byrnes tells Congress: “If you insist on banning subsidies, and yet profess to oppose inflation, then you must freeze all prices and wages rigidly.” This would destroy the purpose which subsidy foes claim to seek, namely, justice for the producer. A rigid price freeze would compel some producers who have been receiving subsidies either to cease production or to continue at a loss. Nobody wants that result. The way to avoid it is to permit the judicious use of subsidies where necessary to elicit full production without breaking the line on prices. Once more we urge our readers who oppose higher food prices to write their senators, advocating continuance of the subsidy program.—Chicago Sun. V Do They Get Their Vote? “Is the government which can force its citizens to fight to defend their democracy impotent to protect their citizens’ rights to utilize their democracy?” asks Roscoe Drummond in the Christian Science Monitor. Then he answers: “That is the question which Congress will have to answer soon after its holiday recess. “Because the Senate has already exhibited a cynical, callous, dangerous disregard of precious citizenship rights of men and women in the armed services, it is well that this holiday recess is at hand to think it over. And perhaps the fathers and mothers and wives and brothers of the American fighters will help the congressmen think it over a little. “Why has the Senate rejected a simple, uniform federal ballot facilitating the vote of every qualified service man and woman for President, Vice-President and members of Congress? “They talk about constitutional difficulties. They talk about states’ rights. They talk about the poll tax. “Is it more constitutional for Congress to disfranchise its citizens by putting them into the army than to preserve their franchise after it has put them into the army? “Much of the talk of insuperable constitutional difficulties in this connection is deception and deceit. “The Senate by a vote of 47 to 5, and the House by a vote of 134 to 19, enacted a law in 1942 specifying that no member of the armed forces shall be required to register or pay a poll tax in order to vote in a federal election or in primary contests for federal office. There seemed to be no insuperable constitutional difficulties in 1942. “The only important difference between this legislation and the measure which the Senate conveniently spurned a few weeks ago is that the defeated act provided the means of giving effect to the 1942 law. “Why, then, was an effective soldier-vote bill defeated? “Why ? It was defeated because there frere too many northern Republicans who frere afraid the soldiers would vote ‘wrong’ md there were too many southern Democrats who didn’t want so many Americans roting anyway. “I wonder if the country is going to stand for this sort of thing. The coming recess makes a good time for Congress and the country to think it over. “Of course, the Senate passed something. It didn’t enact a measure; it enacted some words. It said—knowing an empty phrase when it sees one—let the states do it, which in this instance, is lake saying, let George do it. “It is a physical impossibility for the 48 states to enable the soldiers to vote. In most states, even those willing, the thing cannot be done. In 39 states the soldier voter must be registered. The absentee soldier would have to await at least six one-way trips of the mail to get his vote in. A soldier in the Far East, for example, applying to Springfield, 111., would be reached by the mail in 16 days. Assuming no delays, the six mail runs would mean an absolute minimum of 96 days. Yet in 27 states a voter cannot anplv for a ballot more than 30 days before election! “This, as 25 congressmen rightly said in a statement this we^k end, is ‘conscription without representation.’ “Do the American soldiers get their vote ? “Do they?”—Fort Wayne Joural Gazette. V A Difference in Pictures Remember not many weeks ago how some of the newspapers booming General MacArthur for President raised a howl when OWI sent a shipment of lapel buttons bearing President Roosevelt’s picture to the Arabs. The inscription was in Arabic, too, you’ll probably recoil. Just how these buttons could have been used as “fourth-term campaign material” as the G.O.P. papers charged, we fail to understand, since the Arabs aren’t going to be voting in our election—as a matter of fact, it looks like if the G. 0. P. has its way, our own boys won’t either. But getting back to the lapel buttons, guess fhat happened just the other day. Gen. MacArthur has asked OWI to send him 2,000,000 match-folders with his picture on one side and the United States and Philippine

flags on the other, for distribution on Japheld islands. Now don’t misunderstand us. We think MacArthur is one of the world’s greatest military leaders, and we think his match-distribution plan is all right, too. W r e can’t understand, however, why some of the Republican newspapers which did so much viewing-with-alarm the distribution of the Roosevelt buttons to the.Adabs haven’t similarly protested distribution of the MacArthur pictures. It does make a difference whose children have the measles, doesn’t it? y Subsidy Demogogues Now that the question of food subsidies is temporarily shelved, it is pertinent to call attention to the fact that subsidy payments have been the established practice in the United States almost from the birth of our national life. Manufacturing was subsidized by the imposition of tariff on imports which increased prices to the consumer. Early day railroad construction was subsidized by donations of immense tracts of public land. Sea commerce was subsidized, as was air tyansportation at a later date. The sugar beet industry was subsidized by direct payments from the federal treasury. Wheat growers, livestock and the lumber industries were subsidized, and even labor was subsidized by being accorded privileges which were denied other organizations. In fact, subsidies, in one form or another, direct or indirect, have been paid by the American consumer to nearly every form and kind of business and industry for so long that memory runneth not to the contrary. The plea of congressmen who opposed the administration food subsidy program, that it would “establish a dangerous precedent,” was, therefore, simply political demagoguery. It was transparent camouflage to cover their real motive, which was nothing more nor less than a desire to discredit the Roosevelt administration. The Republicans were determined to make the going for the President as tough as possible in the belief that inflated food prices will rebound to their political advantage. What inflation may do to American consumers is the least of their worry. The opposition to Mr. Roosevelt in his own party gave sufficient Democratic support to defeat the food subsidy program. In this connection, it is significant to recall that the Democratic opposition was led by men who had been, perhaps still are, members of the America First movement that brought Charles A. Lindberg from his self-imposed obscurity and has now relegated him to political oblivion. It was an out-cropping of the isolationism that, until Pearl Harbor, fought every effort to prepare this country for the war of which President Roosevelt warned the nation more than two years ago. This is not to argue for or against the paying of subsidies to producers of foodstuffs. It is simply by way of calling attention to the fact that opposition to the subsidy program had no merit of sincerity or common honesty. It was a political maneuver and those who engineered it had no other thought than political gain. Whether their hopes will be realized in the voting next November is up to the people themselves, and their voting is more likely to be influenced by the progress of the war than by the economic conditions which may develop during the presidential campaign. —- Oregon Democrat. V Votes, or a Smokescreen A House committee on elections soon must decide whether to recommend votes for servicemen, or to kick up a constitutional smokescreen behind which soldiers and sailors are cynically disfranchised. The Senate disgraced itself by pursuing the latter course, and great pressure is being exerted upon the House to do likewise. The states, Congress is told, can provide adequate soldier vote legislation themselves; and Congress cannot constitutionally do so. Both arguments reek with falsehood. As to the practicability of state action, the House committee has already been informed by the War and Navy departments that soldiers and sailors cannot participate widely in the 1944 election under such legislation. Even if all states passed uniform laws, the distribution of 48 different ballots throughout the world would prove a physical impossibility. Ballots can be transmitted to 11 million servicemen only if they are short and uniform, and so subject to bulk transportation to all units in a relatively short period. Since almost every large unit includes citizens from many states, the services would be required, under state legislation, to transmit to each unit a bundle of bulky ballots from several states. This would prolong and complicate the voting process to such an extent that, as the servives have stated, “air mail facilities could not sustain such a burden.” If the states cannot handle soldier voting, it is equally true that Congress can—if it will. Last year the Senate by vote of 47 to 5 and the House by vote of 248 to 53 passed a soldier vote bill which, while it proved inadequate, suspended state registration and poll-tax requirements for servicemen. Why is it constitutional to pass an inadequate bill, but unconstitutional to pass an adequate one? The fact is that Congress has full authority under the war powers to aid the states in taking the election to men absent in the service of their country. If honest doubt about this existed, Congress need only enact the bill and let the Supreme Court pass on it. In the House, as in the Senate, the sole question is not one of constitutionality, but of setting up adequate machinery enabling

soldiers to vote. The record each member makes on this issue will be long remembered. VLet Congress Use Holidays To Rediscover The People Tuesday the first’session of the 78th Congress adjourned sine die. After a threeweek Christmas vacation, the members will convene for the second session. Very few Americans are taking threeweek vacations this Christmas. No threeweek vacations for boys on the fighting fronts; and if you want to get a big horselaught ask any serviceman in camp over here if he’s getting a three-week Christmas furlough. No three-week vacations in war plants. For that matter, strict warnings have been given that all other Federal em- ( ployes in Washington are not to take any vacation time, or travel at all, over the Christmas holidays. Thus Congress is a very conspicuous exception in a nation at war. Yet we do not believe the country will mind, much, if the members of Congress use this vacation to learn what people really think of their recent disgraceful behavior. It should not take Congressmen much of this three-week layoff to discover what people think of their action in cheating the soldiers out of their right to vote. What the soldiers themselves think was told in Correspondent H. R. Knickerbocker’s story from Italy. Knickerbocker said, terse-

ly:

“If Congress fails to give United States soldiers serving abroad the right to vote in the next election, the Congressmen responsible will find that sooner or later they can’t win against the servicemen who are ‘going to run the country.’ ” Tell the Marine wading up a beach in the face of enemy fire that his federal government is not to be trusted to count his ballot! Tell the infantryman risking his life in jungle foxholes that the bill to make it easy for him to vote, may be, perhaps is unconstitutional! Tell the sailor fighting off a wolf pack of subs in mid-Atlantic that the prejudices of certain southern senators are more important than his ballot! Let any Roosevelt-hater in Congress try to sell such arguments to our fighting men —and see how far he gets. He can’t even sell them to the folks at home. Should the three-week Christmas layoff show Congressmen a bit of light on that subject, perhaps it also would inform them: 1— Of mounting resentment by housewives against farm bloc domination of Senate and House in its fight to kill food subsidies (let Senator X, or Representative Z, ask Mrs. Citizen if she wants to pay twice as much for Christmas dinner next year. . . !) 2— What John Householder thinks of the bill to jack up the price of oil still further; 3— Public sentiment on dairy interests’ success in retaining exorbitant taxation of margarine, the “poor man’s butter”; 4— What the vast majority think of pending measures to break through the line the President is holding on inflation. Yes, if the vacationing Congressmen learn that the people are disgusted with their subservience to pressure blocs in Washington — then real progress will have been made. Will Congress come down to earth? Get close to the people once more? We shall find out after the members go back January 10. We shall learn then if Congressional selfindulgence ^ for the Christmastide has borne happy fruit in an awakened sense of national responsibility—or whether the members are still determined to play Santa Claus for profiteering special interests. — Philadelphia Record. V Winding Up War Contracts Reports that administration and congressional leaders have reached substantial agreement on a policy for termination of war contracts give grounds for hope that the necessary legislation may be enacted soon after the present recess. Since a considerable volume of contracts is already in the windup stage, decisive action cannot come too soon. Bernard Baruch, who is framing reconver-, sion policy on behalf of President Roosevelt, James F. Byrnes, director of the Office of War Mobilization, and Senator George apnear to be agreed that war contractors should be paid off promptly, perhaps up to 90 or 95 per cent of the amount agreed on between themselves and the procurement agencies; and that these agencies, operating under policy directives laid down by some such over-all authority as OWM, should have final authority to fix the settlements. That would eliminate the comptroller general’s proposed audit of the settlements, which, while desirable on principle, might involve too much delay. If the comptroller general’s check against unreasonable payments is removed, some other check must be substituted. That might be achieved by clear-cut centralization of authoritv over the whole program in a trusted and able agent of the people, accompanied bv equally clear-cut centralization of responsibilitv in that agent. Under any system, mistakes will no doubt be made; some contractors will be overpaid. A successful policy will be one in which the mistakes are minor, and out-weighted by the benefits of a rapid and smooth reconversion. We need a positive.. uniform policy on termination, and an administrator held strictly accountable for its execution.—Chicago Sun.

BETTER COOKING WILL SAVE ACRES WORTH OF FOOD FOR THE NATION

American housewives can save the equivalent of many thousands of acres of vegetables by preparing their vegetables properly in the kitchen, said Dr. Louise Stanley, head of the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Home Economics during a recent broadcast of “Washington Reports on Rationing,” public service radio program sponsored by the Council on Candy as Food in the War Effort. < The Nation’s Number One home economist explained that research studies show tremendous losses in vitamins and minerals through the improper preparation of foods, especially vegetables, and she gave home-makers the following advice for making these losses smaller: '‘Peel, slice, or chop vegetables for salads or cooking at the last possible minute. Use as little water as possible, and that boiling hot. Cook just long enough to make tender. Discard no juice; if you have used too much water, save it for soup or gravy. And don’t cook ahead of time.” Dr. Stanley was interviewed by Ernest Bindley, newspaper columnist and Washington editor of Newsweek Magazine, who is hostcommentator for the program. Esquire Doomed By Frank Walker Washington, Jan. 7. — If there was no joy today in the house ol Esquire, no provocative smile from the shapely Varga girl, or no wicked leer from Esky, that pop-eyed cover man, you could blame it all on Postmaster General Frank C. Walker. Walker last night reversed the recommendations of his three-man trial board and banned Esquire magazine from the second class mails as of Feb. 28, 1944. The order was the outgrowth of lengthy hearings on Walker’s charges that the magazine was obscene, lewd, and lascivious. He said he had made the order effective after a 60 day period to give the publishers ample opportunity to take the case to court for review—a step that the publishers announced they would

take.

Revocation of second class mailing privileges generally is considered tantamount to a death sentence for any magazine. In Esquire’s case, resorting to expensive fourth class mail would boost its yearly postage bill by half a million dollars. Explaining his ruling, Walker said second class privileges were reserved for publications disseminating information of a ‘public character, or devoted to literature, fhe sciences, arts or some special industry.” —o BELATED XMAS PRESENT

Indianapolis, Jan. 7.—The Indiana Division of the New York Central Railroad provided a belated Christmas present for some Indianapolis’ needy yesterday when they dumped several carloads of low grade coal along the tracks and invited them “to take it way.” Railroad detectives stood on duty as more than 100 persons rushed to the scene to gather the coal in any kind of a container or vehicle they could find. W. B. Hodge, Indiana chief engineer, said the coal was of low quality and could not keep up steam in the engines. He promised that several more carloads would be dumped in the near future for whoever wanted it. o — More tons of freight of all kinds moved by rail originate in Pennsylvania than in any other state, with West Virginia second and Illi-

nois third.

Property Taxes To Be Increased Indianapolis, January 7. — Indiana property taxes to he paid in 1944 will amount to $108,467,034, an increase of $7,698,183 over the 1943 total, Harry Miesse, executive secretary of the Indiana Taxpayers Association, announced today. However, the story might have been worse, Mr. Miesse points out, because if the budgets had been approved as prepared by public officials, the tax* increase would have been $15,071,169. Cuts in requests for money for governmental expenses amounted to $7,372,985• and a reduction of one cent in the state property tax rate meant an estimated saving of $436,893. “Saving the taxpayers more than $7,000,000 is a splendid accomplishment”, Mr. Miesse said, “but the .reductions could have been considerably greater if taxpayers had devoted a little more time to their own interests. Generally speaking, reductions were made in every county where the taxpayers displayed a disposition to fight for economy. It is the same old story over again. Taxes will continue to mount, during the emergency period and beyond, if the public confines its complaints to the days it marches up to the tax windows and pays its bills.” “The increase in taxes would have been much greater had it not been for the continuous efforts of the Indiana Taxpayers Association from the time the budgets Avere started until the final totals Avere approved. The Association’s field representatives AA r orked Avith public officials throughout the state, advising hOAv economies could be made. After the budgets Avere prepared the Association’s staff appeared in many counties to attend hearings and protest against needless expenditures, The fight against waste was particularly effective in the city of Indianapolis and Marion County and in other counties reductions can be traced directly to the Association’s activities. The exact amount Ave saved the taxpayers has not been estimated but we know that it totals several millions. Mr. Miesse congratulated the county councils throughout Indiana, as they made the largest reductions in budgets, a total of $2,387,554. In Marion county alone the council cut $468,264 from the county budget. County boards of tax adjustment ordered cuts amounting to $1,604,893 and in a final review of all budgets the State Board of Tax Commissioners made additional slashes of $1,350,381. Total economies effected by city councils amounted to $1,390,487, but $1,079,219 of that amount was saved by the action of the Indianapolis city council in trimming the civil budget. The Terre Haute council saved the taxpayers of that city $210,551, and cuts of considerable importance also were made by the city councils of East Chicago, Gary, Hammond, Mishawaka and Lafayette. Reductions made by town boards aggregated $14,583, school boards reduced budgets in the sum of $129,723, township advisory board cuts were $50,714, and reductions ordered by library boards were $7,757. “There are two general reasons for the increase in property taxes to be paid next year”. Mr. Miesse said. “One is the presidential election Avhich will cost approximately $1,500,000 and the other item is salary increases. “At a time when federal taxes seem destined to go higher, it had been hoped that these necessary increases could be offset by corresponding reductions r. ’ the home front. However, the bulk of the people did not pro+^st emphatically enough to hold their OAvn taxes in line. They will face the same situation another year unless they organize in behalf of economy and guard against needless public expenditures.” o ORPHAN CUDDLES DOLL

George Field. 111., Jan. 7.—Five-year-old Virginia Jo Gowan smiled through her tears today. Her parents were killed ThursI day when an army training plane crashed into theft' farmhouse home. Her Christmas doll lay in ashes in the Avreckage. She herself was taken to Georgefield hospital with minor burns. But today she cuddled a doll in her arms. A WAC stationed at the air field had bought it for her. o Washington—In 125 years the Senate has sat as a court of impeachment 12 times, and has removed four men from Federal offices.

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