Indianapolis Times, Volume 39, Number 129, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 October 1927 — Page 4

PAGE 4

SCRtPPS-HOWARD

Morrow and the Mexican Revolution By one of those inscrutable quirks of fate, what might have been simply a banal meeting between Secretary of State Kellogg and our new ambassador to Mexico, Dwight W. Morrow, now assumes genuine international importance. Mexico today is on the brink of revolution. In fact, a revolution has started, though it seems to have been pretty much stopped in its tracks by the sudden death meted out to one of its mainsprings, Gen. Francisco Serrano, one of three candidates for the presidency. Likewise at this writing Gen. Arnulfo Gomez, a second candidate, is somewhere in the region of Vera Cruz, either in flight before the wrath of President Calles else reorganizing his revolt, while the third aspirant, Gen. Alvaro Obregon, former President and friend of Calles, is watching, prepared at a moment’s notice to lead the Federals against the Rebels. Hence the importance of the conference between the American secretary of State and the new ambassador as the latter prepared to take up the duties of his post in Mexico City. For, far more than we like to think, the success or failure of a revolution in Mexico just now hinges to a considerable extent upon the attitude of the United States. Ordinarily, of course, the United States holds itself aloof from the purely domestic rows of foreign countries. With Mexico and Central America, however, the situation is slightly different. In the event of a revolution down there we have, in the past, been known to be neutral, or to lean this way or that. We frowned on the Carranza government and Carranza lost out in the revolt which overtook him. We smiled on Obregon and the revolution against his regime flopped, partly because of the bullets supplied him from our side of the border, and partly because our moral support of his cause put a damper upon his enemies. Today Mexico has her eyes on Washington. Whether we like it or not, our every official move will have a meaning all its own. Whether active or passive, sympathetic to this or that faction or impeccably neutral, our attitude must inevitably carry a meaning, so far as Mexican revolutionaries art* concerned, and events down there will shape themselves somewhat accordingly. To an indeterminate degree Washington cannot escape some of the blame even for the present revolt against Calles. The bitter wrangle between the two governments over Mexico’s new oil and land laws, the insinuations emanating from our State Department that the Calles regime is tinged with red, and the intimations that the Mexican government was fostering Bolshevist activities against us in Central America, could not fail to lead Calles’ enemies to believe his elimination from the scene would not be distasteful in the U. S. A. and along with Calles, Obregon, since Obregon and Calles appear to share the same, views. Os late, however, President Coolidge seems actively interested in Latin American affairs. As early as last spring, upon the occasion of the United Press dinner in New York, the President signified renewed faith in Mexico and expressed his belief in an early settlement of our dispute with her. The resignation of Ambassador Sheffield and the naming of Dwight Morrow in his place further enhanced the impression that perhaps Kelloggism is doomed south of the Rio Grande and that a change of tactics if not a change of policy may be expected. Thus in the meeting between the secretary of State and the new ambassador to Mexico, on hand to receive his instructions, we like to believe that while Secretary Kellogg len* his voice to the occasion it was really the President who did the talking. For as we see it, Mexico’s immediate future—between now and next summer’s elections—depend a whole lot on the infusion of a brand new and more friendly spirit into our relations with that country.

Supreme Court Ethics Should a United States Supreme Court justice write a decision in a case involving interests which he actively represented as a private attorney before taking his place as a member of the high court? According to any code of ethics that a layman can understand, the answer ought to te an emphatic no. The legal procedure in one of the most important controversies that has ever arisen in this country seems to suggest a different view of this question. Before he became a member of the Supreme Court Justic Pierce Butler was a leading railroad attorney. In 1915 he headed a group of lawyers which appeared before'the Interstate Commerce Commission to urge that body to accept a method of valuation extremely favorable to the railroads. It was a method of railroad valuation which, if adopted by the commission, would add billions of dollars to the sum on which the railroads are allowed to base their rates. The Commission didn’t agree with the arguments advanced by Mr. Butler and the other railroad attorneys, and thus precipitated a legal controversy in which the stake for the railroads is at least ten billion dollars. In 1922 Justice Butler was appointed a member of the United States Supreme Court by President Harding. Last year a case involving almost the same principles a* those for which Justice Butler had pleaded as a private attorney in 1915 was presented to the United States Supreme Court. The case involved the valuation of the Indianapolis Water Company. Justice Butler wrote the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Indianapolis Water Company case, and a pretty good summary of that decision can be obtained by reading Justice Butler’s argument as a railroad attorney before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Next week the Interstate Commerce Commission and the railroads will start a court fight over railroad valuation—a fight that involves billions of dollars and the whole future course of public utility regulation. In that fight the railroads will rely largely on the public utility valuation precedent established by the Supreme Court in the Indianapolis Water Company eM. And that decision was written by a man who had

The Indianapolis Times „ (A SCRIPFS-HOVVARD NEWSPAPER) Owned and published dally (excep* Sunday) by Tt*> Indianapolis Tl-es Publishing Cos., 214-220 W Maryland Street. Indianapa'is, Ind. Price it Marion County. 3 cents —lO cents a week; elsewhere, 3 cents—l 2 cents a week. BOYD GURLEY. ROY W. HOWARD. W. A. MAYBORN. Editor. President. Business Manager. PHONE —MAIN 3500. FRIDAY. OCT. 7, 1827. Member of United Press, Scrlpps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association. Newspaper Iniormation Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”— Dante.

pleaded for just that kind of a deicsion before the Interstate Commerce Commission as a private railroad attorney. Perhaps there’s nothing the matter with the legal ethics involved, perhaps there are some subtle ethical distinctions that are lost on the lay mind. If so, an explanation of them would be extremely comforting; at this time. * Statesmanship President Coolidge inclines toward the view that national debt reduction is the best form of tax reduction at this time. That’s a statesmanlike inclination which would serve the country well if it should mature into a fixed presidential policy during the coming Congress session. • As this paper has frequently emphasized, debt reduction means permanent tax reduction, and the elimination of tax burdens for which the taxpayers get nothing in return. Last year the Federal goverment paid $787,000,000 in interest on the public debt. What did the taxpayers get for that? Nothing but the privilege of postponing payment for materials blown up in the war ten years ago. This year it is estimated the government will pay about $750,000,000 in interest on the national debt. That represents a permanent tax cut of about $35,000,000. But the continuing interest charge of $750,000,000 —about a fifth of all of the money collected by the Federal government—is an enormous dead weight for the country to carry. The only way that that burden can be lifted is by reducing the national debt which is still the enormous sum of $18,477,000,000. If there is to be tax reduction it must be at the expense of debt reduction except in cases where taxes are so high that they are choking possible sources of revenue by discouraging private enterprise. No evidence has been brought forward to prove that many such cases exist. The country as a whole continues very prosperous. What better time could there be for paying off the government’s back bills, and permanently relieving taxpayers of the staggering interest charges? There will be great political pressure for tax reduction during the coming Congress, in spite of the fact that any important reduction may be impossible without placing the government in a precarious financial position. In view of his expected retirement, President Coolidge will be able to ignore this political pressure if he cares to. If he does he will follow the clear course of financial statesmanship. A Boy’s Education Warren Stark, aged 14, had an unrighteous passion for bonfires. This caused him to fire more than a dozen buildings in Everett, Wash., for the thrill of watching the blaze. He was caught, charged with criminal arson, convicted and sentenced to serve six and one-half to ten years in prison. This youngster, whom mental experts have found remarkably precocious, is now lodged in the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. There, in view of his demonstrated mental ability and the opportunity for contacts ‘with veteran law breakers, he has every promise of developing into a highly skilled criminal by the time he completes his sentence and becomes of age. Governor Hartley of Washington thinks such a development would be very unfortunate and is trying to get the boy transferred to a training school for delinquents. Thus far he has been balked by other State officials. 1 An Ohio man who asked to be put in jail was given a job instead. Moral: Don’t ask to be put in jail. Senator Shipstead, attacked by bears in the mountains, turned a camera on fhem. The bears fled, probably fearing their pictures would appear in the Congressional Record. Clemenceau ate cold ham and pickles on his eighty-sixth birthday. We’ll probably be seeing a half-page about that one of these days. n Science has shown the brain of woman to be equal to man’s. The men Rrobably will be willing to accept that, if the women are. The can opener is the chief divorce ally in this country, a woman told restaurant owners. Don’t tell us that the men have been keeping their money in cans! A European physician announces he has found a way to create supermen. Ha! New York’s welcoming committee shall not go unmanned.

t r Law and Justice By Dexter M. Keezet

A man Was convicted ti murder in Alaska and sentenced to be hanged. The President of the United States commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. Twenty years later the man sought a court order releasing him from prison on the ground that the President had no authority to commute his sentence from death to life imprisonment without his consent. He claimed that life imprisonment was a more severe sentence that death and that the President, an executive officer, was without authority to increase the sentences of Federal prisoners. He gained his release from prison, but the case waS appealed to the United States Supreme Court on the ground that the prisoner’s consent is not nceessary to a change in his sentence, and that life imprisonment is a lighter sentence than death. HOW WOULD YOU DECIDE THIS CASE? The actual decision: The United States Supreme Court decided that the man was improperly released from prison. On the question of the necessity of the prisoner’s consent for a change in his sentence the court said "the public welfare, not his consent, determines what shall be done,’ ’and the court held that "by common understanding lif& imprisonment is a less penalty than death." The man was subsequently pardoned. ■

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. TRACY EAYS.'t The One Thing That Keeps So Many Absurd Laws on Our Statute Books Is the Fact That Some Folks Con Defy Them With Impunity.

For a second time the attorney general of Indiana has violated the statute which prohibits the use of liquor as a medicine in that State. Dry leaders declare that he ought to be prosecuted like any other individual, and they are logical, if not right. The one thing that keeps so many absurd laws on our books is the fact that some folk can defy them with impunity. People have no interest in repealing a bad law so long as they are not bothered 'by it. Let them feel its teeth, however, and they will soon get rid of it. The quickest way for Indiana to dispose of this silly unenforceable regulation is to prosecute and convict Gilliom, or try it at least. Weak Law,’Strong Man Gilliom is right, of course, when he says that no normal human being would see a sister die for want of a pint of whisk;. He is wrong, however, in supposing that he can bring about the repeal of an asinine statute by merely breaking it. In spite of their clamor, dry leaders probably will be more than glad to drop tlifc case against him before they get anywhere with it. They know better than to pit such a weak law against such a strong man. If it were some poor devil in the backwoods, they could be depended on to show more fight. . I Crooked Thinking Dr. Stelzle, president of the Church Advertising Department of the International Advertising Association, says that a survey of 1,000 cities shows that sentiment in favor of the Eighteen Amendment and the Volstead Act is as strong as ever. Not pausing to argue whether he is correct, some of that sentiment is based on the crookedest kind of thinking. A Mid-Western farmer told me that he was in favor of prohibition, because he could get all the liquor he wanted, while his laborers had to go without it. I have heard more than one employer offer the same argument. Too much of the sentiment in favor of prohibition comes from those who can drink all they please, while the rest of the country goes dry. The sad pari of fanatical regulation is that it falls hardest on the weak. Most of our prohibition statutes, .especially the ones like thal in Indiana, would not last six months if they were as rigidly enfoiced against millionaires as they are against pint peddlers.

Equality Vanishes This country is bloated with restraints and inhibitions which it lacks the nerve to enforce without regard to money, position and influence. The result is a disappearance of that equality before the law on which our fathers prided themselves, ar.d which is supposed to be one of the cardinal principles of this Government. Narrow minded reforms have made law enforcement a matter of class distinction. It is becoming almost traditional for officers to ignore blue stocking neighborhoods, $5,000 limousines and clubs where the dues are more than SSO a year in the enforcement of certain statutes. Some Must Toe Mark We can be very straight-laced in making common folk toe the mask. The Government has just barred out two little girls whom a California woman adopted nine years ago and whom she has supported in Europe ever since. Strict construction of the immigration law makes this possible, no doubt, yet what harm would their admission do? It is more than likely that if some prominent official, or oil magnate had brought them across the Atlantic, and had prepared the way with the right kind of publicity, nothing would have been said. Argue State’s Rights Republican leaders in Kentucky have asked for Federal supervision of the election which is to be held next month. They claim that the Negro vote in that State represents the balance of power and that the Democrats win through its repression. Southern Senators are angry at the move. Senator Glass ,of Virginia calls it “idiotic,” and Senator Fletcher of Florida says that if such a request were granted it would be an outrage reminiscent of Reconstruction days. One would have more svmpathy for these southern Senators had they not been enthusiastic in support of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead act. If the Federal Government has a right to stand between the white man and his glass of beer, why has it not a right to euarantee the black man his vote? Seven western Governors, nowwowing at Denver for more than a month in an effort to sett l ® the Coin-ado River nroWem. offer a vivid exnmnle of how the doctr’"* of State rights works. Thev are stronger than evr in favor of this doctrine, but admit that the Federal Government must step in before the > Colorado River can be developed.

• (Mancie Press) (Republican) Give credit to Virgil who yesterday resigned as president of the Indianapolis board of works and who, in getting out of the job gave as his reason that one who is under indictWhu Not ment should not hold a public office. .. J 1 Under such conditions. Vandagrifft said Mayor in a public letter, the office holder Duvall? cannot give his best work to the public because of his troubled state of mind and it is unfair for him to continue to take the people’s pay. While Vandagrifft has been a member of the malodorous administration of Mayor John L. Duvall, his indictment was the result of a private transaction having nothing to do with the board of works. Vandagrifft asserts that while the city administration there has been under investigation there has been no scrap of evidence relative to official misconduct on his part, but that does not alter his status in the eyes of the people, in his belief. “If this indictment had been pending against me at the time I was appointed, I would not have thought of accepting, and I do not believe the citizens oi Indianapolis would have felt that it was a proper appointment under such circumstances,” said the Vandagrifft letter. “If under indictment I would not have been th'. proper person to appoint, then, in my judgment, under an indictment I am not a

‘The Grandmothers, * by Glenway Wescott, Deserves Honor of Being Harper Prize Novel for This Year BY WALTER D. HICKMAN

Am quite sure that there will be no controversy over the Harper prize novel this year because the holder of this prize is “The Grandmothers,” by Glenway Wescott. The 1923-24 winner was “The Able McLaughlins,” by Margaret Wilson, and the 1925-26 winner was “The Perennial Bachelor,” by Anne Parrish. Here is a novel that has the rno .t individual and unique construction that I have encountered in many a year. Wescott’s great accomplishment is that he connects America today with the America of other yesterdays. This is done by the complicated process of a grandson, Alwyn Tower, telling the life stories of his many ancestors. The author actually permits Alwyn to take down the Tower family album and bring to life these characters at the time the picture was taken. In this way, the story moves from pioneer days down to Civil War days and finally we have the modern generation as expressed in Alwyn. It is Grandmother Tower who opens the eyes of Alwyn to the real •history of his relatives. We first meet Alwyn In a farm house shared by his father and mother with his grandparents in Wisconsin. The second chapter, Alwyn is a grown man at a watering place in the Austrian Alps. He then digs from his mental album the story of his relatives. The following chapters are devoted to the lives of the family. The titles of the chapters, such as “His Orp"'*father Tower’s Character,” “His Grandmother Tower’s Girlhood,” "His Great-Aurt Mary,” “His GreatUncle Leander,” etc., explains the contests. There is such a wealth of character drawing in these family portraits that I often felt that the characters stepped from the album and that I was quietly looking in on their life of other days. I am convinced that I am not too lavish in my praise when I state that “The Grandmothers” deserve the honor of being winner of the Harder prize. The blue ribbon has not been a handicap to the deserved popularity of the novel because it is now and has been for several weeks one of the best sellers in this country. It is with the most intimate detail that Wescott draws his characters. He has not just constructed a framework which might suggest a character but he has brought the character into actual life again. He has bdth recreated the atmosphere of the period that his character lived as well as the individual. There are thousands' examples of this great quality of character drawing in “The Grandmothers.” One fine example of this is when Wescott brings out the crazy quilts and “Alwyn’s grandmother could identify piece after piece: ‘My sis-

Inbad, the Sailor

What Other Editors Think

ter Abigail’s best dress when she was a girl. The dress I had made when your grandpa and I visited the relatives in lowa. Your aunt Flora's first party dress. A sacque that a woman named Minerva Foote gave me to cut up into a jacket for one of my children. The goods your mother’s Aunt Melissa Duff went on a lumber wagon to Milwaukee to get a whole bolt of, so nobody should have anything like it—she was the meanest woman ever lived. My cousin Matie Share's basque ’.” Can you not actually feel the character of Grandmother Tower and all those she mentions? Here is the most powerful story of America that I have encountered in at least ten years. I feel perfectly truthful in telling you that I consider “The Grandmothers” the real-

you can get the season’s / *mj[ smartest styles at this low W

proper person to continue to hold the office.” The logic is good and the motive appears to be honest. Now Mayor Duvall not only is under indictment for an offense against the people who elected him, and not for a private transaction as in Vandagrifft’s case, but he also has been convicted by a jury. And yet Duvall’s only reaction to it all is, “I will not resign.” (Newcastle Courier) (Republican) Those who want to remember back three years ago know that Arthur L. Gilliom was opposed by the Klan for the nomination of attorney general and that this opposition carried down through the campaign. A Muncie lawyer was the Klan choice for the nomination and Mr. Gilliom is entirely consistent in his stand. (Ft. Wayne New* Sentinel) * (Republican) Gary, the much vaunted “melting pot,” Gary of the numerous educational fol-de-rols, Gary whose school system has puffed itself up arrogantly, snobbishly, superciliously, as something better than the school system of the rest of America, seems to have succeeded eminently in raising up a fine crop of Simon Legrees. May we not expect Emerson high school of that city to adopt a fiery cross as its official emblem?

ly great American novel. And this is the first novel in ten years that I have felt deserves such a great compliment. Read “The Grandmothers” and I am sure that you will have a greater appreciation of this country and the men and women who have made it. “The Grandmothers” is published by Harper and Brothers. Indianapolis theaters offer today: “Hell’s Bells” at the Colonial: Haney Revue at the Lyric; Count Bernl Vici at Keith’s: Jazztime Revue" at the Mutual; “The Mojave Kid” at the Isis; “Swim, Girl, Swim”at the Apollo; “Smile, Brother, Smile” at the Indiana; “Tell It to Sweeney” at the Ohio; “The Stolen Bride” at the Rivoli, and “Old San Francisco” at the Circle.

OCT. 7, 1927

Times Readers Voice Views

To the Editor: I was gratified as no doubt thousands of others were to read of the announcement by Frank C. Daily that he would be a candidate for the nomination of Governor on the Democratic ticket. I think the time is ripe that the voters of Indiana should give more attention to the fitness of the candidate, and less to the party emblem. I have known Mr. Daily for a number of years and it is my personal opinion that there is not a man nor woman in the State of Indiana that is better qualified lor the office of Governor than is Mr. Daily. While Mr. Daily has never held an elective office, he has held other official positions, which he has filled with great credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of all the people. He has been tried and not found wanting. He is not only known in Indiana, but known nationally, as an advocate and defender of good, clean government. As Will Rogers says: “All I know is what I read in the papers,” and I read that the official machine in Indian (and that includes Marion County and Indianapolis) has not been running smoothly for some time, and it is rumored that Miss Indiana is wanting to clean house,, and if she does, now is the time to do it, for the candida’cy of Mr. Dally will place in her hands an equipment thoroughly capable of cleaning and keeping it cleqn. Mr. Daily is making a great sacrifice in making this race, as he will have to give up a very lucrative law practice, and he should not be asked to make a further sacrifice by having to make a long, strenuous primary campaign. So I would suggest, and I think it would be wise. In view of the superior qualifications of Mr. Daily, who has all the necessary assets and no liabilities, that the other prospective candidates who have bepn mentioned as possible candidates, that they would take the side tT&ck and remain there until after tin* primary, then come out on rhe main track and be boosters for the Frank C. Daily special. Yours for better government, A. R. WOOD.

Thumb-Nail Sketches

Home for small Peter was a cneroom garage behind a poolroom. At least, that was the place h came back to whenever he went anywhere. That was the place where he stayed when he hadn’t shoes In which to walk to school during the cold winter months. That was the place where his mother fretted over a onc-burner gas-plate, cooking the potatoes for his meals. That was the place where his baby brother was born, and where he lay shivering in his meager cotton blanket, listening to his mother's agonized cries. There weren’t enough bedclothes to keep his mother and the new rew brother warm and comfortable,' let alone himself and his bigger brother and the two little sisters whom he possessed, through no wish of his! No one had known of the family’s plight until the advent of the baby. No one had realized that here was a whole family sadly undernourished and discouraged. Besides the doctor who administered to the mother and babe, there came a worker from the Salvation Army who sent blankets, food and fuel enough for all. And there’s more to the story. When summer came Peter and his family were among the hundreds who were sent to the agency’s camp for seven wonderful days of eating, sleeping, playing and LIVING. In fact, Peter thought so much of camp life that when he had run a nail into his foot and had it ably first-aided and bandaged and some one asked him whether he wanted to go back home, he (xclaimed vehemently : The Salvation Army is glad it can belong to the Peters because of YOUR COMMUNITY FUND.