Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 18 August 1944 — Page 2

POST-DEMOCRAT, FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1944. f 7

■■ - .1 ... .^1 — ■ | .H..I ■ THE POST-DEMOCRAT £ 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, at 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, August 18, 1944.

Pearl Harbor: A Decision Vindicated President Roosevelt at Pearl Harbor evokes the memory of ships blasted and burning in the nation’s darkest hour. He evokes also the memory of a courageous decision. With the fearful and the hateful heaping calumny upon his head, he assumed, in December, 1941, the solemn responsibility of pooling American resources with those of our Allies. That meant fighting one war. It meant opening a new front in Africa, while holding and building up in the Pacific. It meant supporting our Allies in the face of heavy domestic pressure for the concentration of all our resources upon the Japanese. Throughout 1942 and into 1943, the President was reviled for that fateful decision. Representative Maas came home from the Pacific to shriek that “our strength is being scattered to satisfy various of our Allies but not as part of a general war plan.” The tory-isolationist press filled its columns with propaganda intended to undermine confidence in “the Washington strategists.” Bellwether of the frightened nationalists, the Chicago Tribune poisoned the air with incessant whining over “frightful mismanagement and neglect . . . incompetence and failure.” Because we did not let the war against Hitler fight itself while we waged a private vendetta against Tokyo, the Tribune and its echoes screamed: “The truth is that amateurs have been running the war and their conduct of it has been political.” Today the President, mapping new offensives against the cripled Japs while United Nations forces in Europe hound Hitler to his doom, sees his momentous decision triumphantly vindicated. Had he heeded the hysterical cries of the opposition in 1941 and 1942, we should not at this moment stand }o close to victory. Had he taken a Gallup poll to make up his mind, we might even now still be striking feebly at the periphery of Axis domination. And what of Mr. Roosevelt’s enemies? They no longer bleat of “amateur strategists” running the war. Instead, we are told that ihe President, while responsible for imagined failures in 1942, is not responsible for the triumphs of 1944. The command can be changed, they say, without loss to the mighty momentum of our final drives. The American people have no taste for a bout with that hypothetical question. But they know there is no substitute for great leadership. They know, as President Roosevelt tours the scenes of our initial defeat, now translated into symbols of irresistible power, that he gave us great leadership in the crisis. And they know that the days are not past when that kind of leadership is sorely needed. The same courage, the same vision, the

same determination that saw us through the black days of 1942 will be required to finish the war, to reconstruct a peace economy, and to cement the foundations of a new world order of peace and freedom.—Chicago Sun. Truman of Missouri an Enemies An ugly stream of insinuations against Senator Harry S. Truman apparently is part of the Republican campaign strategy. This newspaper fought hard for the renomination of Vice-President Wallace, but we do not think the American people will stand for deliberate attempts to smear Mr. Truman, whose service in the Senate has demonstrated ability, dependable liberalism and the sure capacity to rise above partisan interests and champion the national welfare. Much is made of the fact that Mr. Truman was sent to the Senate in 1934 by Tom Pendergast, the now-fallen Kansas. City boss. It is ignored that many a political machine when in trouble, has picked' excellent candidates, as in Harry Truman’s case. The test of a political leader is whether he transcends the organization in behalf of principle. Senator Truman does. For a decade he has been an effective, aggressive, practicing liberal in the Senate. He is today one of the three cosponsors of the Kilgore bill, which reactionaries are denouncing because it would provide decent postwar unemployment compensation. On such issues, Senator Truman is always on the right side —not with the alliance of Democratic Southern conservatives and the G.O.P. He was on the right side, years before the war, as a Senate committeeman investigating railroad financial practices and ruthlessly exposing them despite extraordinary pressure to “go easy*” It was as chairman of the Senate committee to investigate the war effort, however, that Mr. Truman came into his own. His devotion to the committee’s invaluable work continued to the end. Both Renubljcan and Democratic fellow members begged him not to resign as chairman, after his , vice - presidential nomination, but he withdrew, declaring that he did not want “even the shadow of suspicion that the committee’s activities are determined or influenced by political considerations.” The New York Times, praising this statement, added that the committee, under this leadership, had been zealous but never unfair or malicious, and admitted that without his personal touch it would “probably decline in importance.” Hatchet-Boys of the anti-New Deal press are gleefully recalling that in 1941 Mr. Truman declared “the White House” was responsible for confusion in conversion for national defense. The statement doesn’t prove much about President Roosevelt, whose record is the magnificent American war machine now in operation. But it proves a great deal about Harry Truman. Mr. Trumqn did not hold back his committee because it was uncovering material useful to the President’s enemies. He made his statement, bluntly and deliberately, in response to loaded questions from Senator Vandenberg. In that moment he passed his own test; he transcended party considerations, “organization” origins and every lesser issue to speak the word he thought the country needed. It was an act of courage and statesmanship which, sustained through the years, answers the current attempts’ to I traduce him.—Chicago Sun.

Lend-Lease Still Needed The lend-lease policy of the United States, we had supposed, was settled for the duration. But certain members of Congress have recently begun to raise the untimely question of whether the British are likely to get too much out of it. Sen. Wilson (R. la.) actually proposes that we stop all lend-lease after Germany throws in the towel. Other Congressmen, though refusing to go that far, demand that we refuse to give England any domestic lend-lease help while Japan is being beaten. What stirred these Congressmen up was an article in the magazine of the National Association of Manufacturers hinting that domestic lend-lease aid to Britain would help reduce her national debt at our expense. This is just one mo-v: example of the “it’s in the bag” psychology that threatens to prolong the war. If we put winning the war first, there can be only one answer to the question of how much help we should give our Allies—all they can use. If we don’t support Britain’s domestic economy after Germany falls, she’ll have to do so herself at the cost of the joint war effort. Specifically, she will have to build up her investments abroad, increase her civilian exports and her merchant marine. The very Congressmen who are most afraid of England’s postwar competition should be able to see that if we force England to get a head start in this way she will be able to compete with us that much sooner. But such considerations are beside the point. Winning the war still comes, first, and lend-lease will help us win.—Philadelphia Record. y Implied in the Oil Pact Adoption of the Anglo-American oil agreement as the basis of a United Nations oil convention bears rich promise for the future of world economic relations. But the promise will not be realized unless every nation, ours above all, carries through the contract to its full implications. The agreement would substitute for private and national control of the world’s oil resources international and public control. It implies, first, a far greater measure of government jurisdiction over the cartels that have heretofore ruled the industry and, second, the use of this new government power for the common welfare of all peoples. Upon the conscientious pursuit of these aims the success of the agreement will hang. Should private oil interests come to dominate government policy, the machinery now being set up could become a supercartel, perpetuating the evils of the past. Here as in other fields, foreign and domestic policy are shown to be inseparable. The government which enters international agreements for the orderly development of world resources' must be one which seeks' that development for the public good, and not primarily for private profit. The oil pact like every similar pact to come, will defend upon who controls its execution and in whose interest it functions.—Chicago Sun. V The Public Interest in Reconversion x Donald Nelson’s War Production Board order permitting limited resumption of civilian production becomes effective today, but the country still lacks assurance that reconversion to a peacetime economy of full employment will go forward at top speed. The same industrial interests which impeded rapid conversion to a war basis in 1940-41 are now seeking to hold back a swift change-over in the other direction. The Senate’s defeat of the Kilgore-Murray-Truman proposals for liberal unemployment compensation carried with it a significant change in over-all reconversion policy. The Kilgore bill laid down a clear policy that permission to resume civilian production shall not be restricted to prewar producers of the item in question. The George bill, as adopted by the Senate, fails to state that policy. What this means is that, if the bill goes through in its present form, adminisfration officials will have power to hold up reconversion in small plants until the big producers complete their war contracts and return to producing the things they made before the war. Fortunately, Mr. Nelson himself has taken a strong position against such a policy. He has declared that the public interest, and not the protection of any industrial group, must govern; that we cannot afford to permit unemployment in small plants in order to preserve prewar markets for big plants. Mr. Nelson, however, faces strong opposition, both within WPB and in other government agencies. The House must restore to the demobilization bill an unequivocal statement of policy that civilian production shall be resumed immediately whenever and wherever manpower and materials are available. Within a year after Germany is defeated, some five million workers will be released from war production and two million servicement will be demobilized. Two key answers to the problem thus looming are liberal unemployment compensation, to cushion the drop in purchasing power, and rapid transition to civilian .production while the war against Japan goes on. The Senate’s rejection of the first answer makes it all the more necessary to adopt the second. Only one restriction on reconversion can be justified and that is war requirements. Recent Army demands for increased quotas of certain weapons must of course be met. But it is perfectly possible, given efficient planning, to meet them and at the same time start small plants working on peacetime goods. Given this opportunity, failure to achieve it would be nothing short of criminal. We

Before the Com-

1 "■ NOTICE TO XAXFAYfcKS OF TAX LEVIES.

In the matter of determining the tax rates for certain purposes by the Civil City of Muncie, Indiana. 010 Notice is hefebv given the Taxpayers of the City of Muncie. Delaware County, Indiana, that the proper wid municipality/at thei? regular meeting place, at 7:30 p. m. on the 28th day of August, 1944, will consider the following

budget;

- GENERAL FUND.

Mayor's Office.

Services personal v $ 3,400.00 Services contractual 250.00 Supplies 165.00

Controller’s Office.

Services personal ..$ 7,400.00

Services contractual

Supplies

750.00 725.00

aC’

Current charges .............. 2,185.00

City Clerk’s Office,

personal $ 3,200.00

Services

Services contractual

Supplies . .- Current chi

150.00 250.00 30.00

arges City Judge’s Office.

Services personal 3 4,700.00

Services contractual Supplies .......... Current charges

100.00 240.00 30.00

City Attorney's Office,

■sonal

4,040.00

415.00 125.00 12.50 390.00

Services persi

Services contractual

Supplies Current charges Properties

City Engineer’s Office.

Services personal $ 7,860.06 Services contractual 47O.O0 1 Supplies .. 1 375.00

Building Commissioner’s Office.

Services personal $ 4,142.00 Services contractual 230.00 Supplies 375.00 Current charges 12.50 Complete detail of budget estimate may be seen

BUDGET CLASSIFICATION FOR CITIES.

Common Council.

Services personal $ 2,250.00 Services contractual 1,450.00 Board of Works and Safety. . Services personal $ 36,120.00 Services contractual 135,822.00 Supplies 5,565.00 Materials 1,450.00 Current charges 9,025.00

Police Department.

Services personal $138,836.00 Services contractual 2,800.00 Supplies .‘ 10,050.00 Current charges 300.00 Properties 10,200.00

Police Pension Fund.

Services personal •....$ 300.00 Services contractual 130.00 Supplies 27.20 Current charges 16,195.60 Working balance 3,000.00 Amount of levy 8,611.81

Fire Department.

Services personal ..7 $151,140.00 Services contractual 4,700.00 Supplies 4,500.00 Properties 3,075.00

Firemen’s Pension Fund.

Services personal $ 400.00 Services contractual 25.00 Supplies 50.00 current charges 39,742.50 Working balance 5,000.00 Amount of levy 31,753.83

the

75.00 187.50

200.00

Off ice of City Clerk or Controller.

Animal Shelter,

Services personal $ 2,840 00 Services contractual 475.00 Supplies 500.00 Board of Health. Services personal $ 2,200.00 Services contractual '300-00 Supplies l-Snoon Current charges L790.U0 Properties 750.00

City Treasurer.

Services personal $ 720.00

Supplies Current charges

Auditor’s Office.

Services personal $

PARK FUND.

Park Department.

Services personal $ 35,320.00 Services contractual 10.375.00 Supplies 3,550.00 Current charges 2.500.00 Properties 9,500.00

Gasoline Tax Fund.

Services personal $ 50,000.00 Supplies 6,000.00 Properties 61,000.00

Sinking Fund Commission.

Services personal $ 200.00 Current charges 12-ou

Debt payments 100,515.41 Improvement District Bond Fund. Debt payment $ 10,675.00

ESTIMATE OF CIVIL CITY FUNDS TO BE RAISED.

FUNDS REQUIRED FOR EXPENSES TO DECEMBER 31, of ebrfr.

INCOMING

YEAR:

.. .. Fund

1. Total Budget Estimate for incoming year $570,035.00 2. Necessary Expenditures to be made from appropriations unexpended Julv 31st of present year ... 252,073.59 3. Additional Appropriations necessary to be made August 1st to December 3ist of present year None 4. Outstanding temporary loans to be paid before December

31st of present year

None

5. Total funds required fadd lines 1, 2. 3, and 4) $822,108.59 FUNDS ON HAND AND TO BE RECEIVED FROM SOURCES OTHER THAN PROPOSED TAX LEVY: 6. Actual Balance July 31st of present year 112,073.59 7. Taxes to be collected, present year (December settlement) 200,000.00 8. Miscellaneous Revenue to be received August 1st of present vear to December 31st of incoming year (Schedule on file in Offic# of City Controller): a. Special Taxes '. b. Fees and all other revenue 75,750.00

0 'votftl Funds fAdd lines 6, 7, 8a and 8b) .7..:. . .$387,823.59 10. Net amount to be raised for expenses to December 31st of incoming year (Deduct line 9 from 5) 434,285.00 11. Operating Balance ... 80,000.00 12. Amount to be Raised by Tax Levy 514,285.00

PROPOSED LEVIES.

Net Taxable Property $49,967,205.00

FAME OF FUND

General Fund Sinking Fund Park Fund ... DisMijt Bond Imnrovement Fund Poli''e Pension Fund Fire Pension Fund

Siftking

Fund

$100,627.91

Park Fund

$61,245.00

Dist. Bond $10,675.00

Police Pension $ 8,611.81

Fire Pension $31,753.83

25,548.38

21,096.45

5,525.00

7,706.50

17,462.92

None

$126,176.29

$82,341.45

$16,200.00

$16,318.31

$49,216.75

None

22,096.45

942.10

11,031.30

10,462.92

25,548.38

20,000.00

4,582.90

3,800.00

12,000.00

$ 25,548.38

$42,096.45

$ 5,525.00

$14,831.30

$22,462.92

100,627.91 None 100,627.91

40.245.00 15,000.00 55.245.00

10,675.00 None 10,675.00

1.487.01 3,000.00 4.487.01

26.753.83 5,000.00 31.753.83

iber of Taxi

ible Polls .

Levy on Polls

$ .50

Levy on Property $ .95 .205 .095 .02 .01 .06

Amount to $474,688.40 102,432.77 47,488.84 9,993.40 4,996.72 29,980.32

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF TAXES COLLECTED AND TO

$1.34 BE COLLECTED.

$669,580.45

N»me "f Fund.

General

Sinking Fund . Park Fund .. Dist-ict Bond : Police Pension Fire Pension F

llected 1941, $417,505.11

Collected 1942. $448,574.58

Collected 1943. $453,975.33

80,274.94

57,635.16

34,179.47

45,704.05

53,110.50

46,542.94

15,436.49

12,924.13

10.370.43

, 11,954.75

12,783.55

11,583.00

, 16,000.92

24,009.76

24,871.01

$586,872.26

$609,037.68

$581,542.18

To Be Collected 1944. $426,402.50 97.791.00 48.386.00 9,877.79 6,744.36 25,956.96

$615,158.61

Taxpayers appearing shall have a right to be heard thereon. After the tak levies have been dete to U'C County Auditor not later than two days prior to the Second Monday in September, and the levy •fax Adjustment Board or on their failure so to do. by the County Auditor, ten or more taxpayers feeling themselves aggrie bv su C h levies mav appeal to the State Board of Tax Commissioners for further and final hearing thereon, by filing of p< ftff* «**• ■* i *“ r “'■ 3 octo6 " i5,i ‘ * m “••• »°* m reSAiss»sffl?& , &r^;

have been determined and presented (

fixed by the County themselves aggrieved)

of peti- 1

cannot delay reconversion without creating I unemployment—and that is too high a price | to pay for the protection of vested interests J in prewar markets.—Chicago Sun. y Lindberg’s Predictions Don Clark, writing in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine, delves into the past and recalls “the prediction long ago of one Charles Lindbergh in which he prophesied that Ehgland could never expect any help from Russia because the Russians didn’t have anything to fight with and wouldn’t know how to use it if they had! Further, that America could never overtake Germany in the air and, l^st but not least, that the war was already lost and could never be won, even with American help.” “Well,” continues Clark,” Uncle Joe Stalin’s boys turned out to be pretty tough cookies; we’re out-producing Germany five to one in our airplane factories (Japan, seven to one), and according to latest reports the war isn’t exactly lost as yet. Thank the Lord, a lot of Americans weren’t dumb enough to take Lindbergh seriously when they listened to him spout off over the radio some years back. “And it occurs to us that it’s a good thing for the rest of the world that the production of cannon fodder for World War III—about which Herr Himmler is so concerned at present—is controlled by Mother Nature instead of German scientists, industrialists and professional militarists.”—Journal Gazette. y Memo To the American Farmer During these war years you’ve not only fed America—and fed her well—but you’ve gone a long way toward sustaining her fighting Allies. The amounts of food you’ve harvested have been stupendous—almost unbelievable. And you’ve done it with manpower and machinery shortages, and under wartime handicaps. You deserve full credit for this magnificent achievement. But—weren’t you better able to reach these greatest production goals in history—and as a result double farm hicome — because nine years of the Roosevelt Administration had: Given you a backlog through the EverNormal Granary Program? Protected the fertility of your land through soil conservation? Found markets for your products? Saved thousands of your homes from mortgages on your farms to their lowest point in years ? Put thousands of acres of arid land under irrigation? j Furnished you credit at a rate of interest you could afford to pay? Made it possible for thousands of you who were tenants to own your own farms? Resettled and rehabilitated many of you who needed assistance? Electrified hundreds of thousands of your homes and barns? And right now, you have a postwar guarantee, through the Commodity Credit Corporation, of support prices for at least two years after the war, and, because of this administration’s foreign policy, of world markets for your products. V_ Sun Exposes Dewey ‘Plot’

r— filg-; HAVE YCU ft ■ I TRUE PICTURE OF YOUR ELECTRIC BILL?

Many folks don’t. They’re as far from the real facts as this photo in an amusement park mirror! Proof? In a nation-wide survey, 42% of the people sharply overestimated the amount of their last electric bill. 59% didn’t realize that rates had been reduced in the last fifteen years—and 95% didn’t realize how much! Actually, the average American family gets about twice as much electricity today as it did fifteen years ago for the same

money.

"For the same money.’* That’s the clue. You don’t realize that rates are down, because your bill may be as much as it was fifteen years ago—or perhaps even more. But you have more electric appliances now. You’re using more electricity—and you get about twice as much for what you pay.

INDIANA General Service Company

DON’T WASTE ELECTRICITY JUST BECAUSE ITS CHEAP AND ISN’T RATIONED!

'piililillHililllliliillllilillllilliiiiliiiliiliiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiy i O. W. TUTTERROW I STORES:-

Governor Dewey’s superplatform, subscribed to by his menagerie of Republican governors at St. Louis, is a contract to deliver the country to big business. The Republican nominee, like a clever salesman, does not guarantee his customers a pre1932 product, even though they might prefer that. The nation which he proposes to turn over to business would retain such accomplished reforms as mild wage-hour standards, aid to agriculture, limited social security, and standards public works. These slight changes in design he evidently regards as inescapable concessions to public taste. With such exceptions, however, he promises to deliver the country on an “as is” basis to corporate control, to have and to hold, in fee simple, no questions asked. Under the guise of defining the proper relationship between states and nation, Governor Dewey’s conference adopted the principle that an interstate business like insurance shall be immune from interstate regulation. It proposed to obstruct the national mobility of labor and minimize unemployment benefits by reserving public employment services and unemployment compensation to the states. It laid down a reconversion “program” under which gavernment would terminate war contracts, turn .over public plants to private interests, and abdicate any further responsibility for full employment. The common element underlying all these policies is not states’ rights but corporate privilege, not human freedom but business license. Governor Dewey has met the forces of economic royalism and his is theirs. — The Chicago ^m. 6 V

Dewey’s “Influence” The tremendous influence possessed by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican candidate for President, over the Republican voter was aptly illustrated in the congressional district vote on Hamilton Fish. Despite the fact that Governor Dewey ■practically read the congressman, out of his party and despite the fact that his district was gerrymandered against him the honoral Ip F ish won We have no use for Fish or what he stands for, but it is amusing to hear a prominent Republican like Dewey try to dictate to a congressional district what person that district shall send to congress and then see him get smacked down—and now. — Columbia City Post.

£= 901 No! Brady, Dial 2-4883 In Whitely

729 Macedonia, Dial 3211 EE Finest Foods Of Highest Quality In Popula. == Brands At Moderate Prices

Is an economical servant in the home. It is also serving as a vital part in war production. Be patriotic. Help conserve gas by keeping your present equipment in good repair for

higher efficiency.

Central Ind. Gas Co.

From where I sit... Joe Marsh

Ella Sproule versus the “Horseless Carriage'-

Miss Ella Sproule is a town legend, ^ever could get used to automobiles. Said there ought to be a law to ban the pesky things. Finally, Miss Ella went to Bermuda where automobiles were outlawed. Then the Allies need bases there—and now Miss Ella watches jeeps whiz by and mutters, “There ought to be a law!” Funny how certain folks, who don’t like something, think it ought to be prohibited. Or else they try to run away from it, and it catches up with them—• like Progress will.

Take the question of Prohibition versus Moderation. Even today, after Prohibition’s dismal failure, you can hear wellmeaning people say: “There ought to be another law.” From where I sit, there ought to be, instead, more facing of the facts—more realization that no law can ever take the place of tolerance and moderation, and decent law enforcement under proper regulation.

No, 90 of a Series