Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 185, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 December 1930 — Page 10

PAGE 10

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The Better Security Possibly the lawyers and bankers who are very zealous in behalf of the Insull proposal for a street car franchise may be mistaken in their declaration that it would be impossible to finance a municipal ownership program. The emphasis of the bankers on this point amounts almost to a threat to the people that they must give over their streets to this plan or face a chaotic condition of transportation. Tonight, when attorneys for the bondholders appear before the city council, some inquiry might be made as to the situation in which investors find themselves under private ownership. ft might be illuminating to future investors. It even might suggest that investment in public enterprises has a better basis of security than a privately operated utility. It is significant that no word of protest has been heard from these sources during the years that the present system was going on the rocks and that only now has the discovery been made that the city needs an Insull guardianship to grow and develop. There have been times when the street car situation was presented forcibly to public notice, when underpaid employes asked for living wage, when rates were before the public service commission. They were silent then. Tonight might be an opportune time for the public to learn just how much money is being set aside for management of the different pools of bonds that are to be tiaded for new slips of paper, how much money is to be spent for expenses of these refinancing operations, how much is to go to the brokers who have presented the plan in elaborately printed pamphlets that give little knowledge to the laymen, but are quite comprehensible to the financiers. There are only two things which give security to any investments in the street car lines. The first is the amount of money to be paid as fares by the people of this city. That would be the same under either public or private ownership. The other is the matter of management without waste. Under private ownership, the first capitalization admittedly is higher than the value of the present system. There is one element of waste at the start. It is absurd to believe that the Insull organization has a monopoly of ability to select able operators of street car lines. The city probably could employ the very men on whom the Insull interests will depend for operation, if it so desired. The proposed franchise starts with a handicap of overvaluation and the necessity of putting value into securities where none at present exists. Public ownership has no such hazard. Which is the safer? For the Veterans Veterans who propose the immediate cash payment of bonus insurance certificates as an emergency relief measure are chasing a dangerous mirage. It is one of those proposals that has tremendous senti- - mental appeal, but which violates reason. The fact that advocates of this measure have not been able to answer any of the sweeping criticisms of it made by Secretary Mellon probably indicates that it has no chance in congress. Nevertheless, it is impel tant that the veterans understand why. or it will be bobbing up again every year or so. Surely all Americans at this late day have come to understand the value of insurance as distinct from any other kind of financial guarantee for the future. The whole idea of this endowment insurance is that beneficiaries shall have security in their late middle age or old age. when they need it most. Admitting that the plight of some young and ablebodied veVTans now is bad temporarily, their plight will be worse when they have lost their youth and possibly their health. Neither the veterans, nor any other Americans, today are sacrificing their commercial endowment policies unless they have to. Then why should they be so short-sighted as to sacrifice their government policies? The principle is exactly the same. The cash value today of the bonus certificates is about $1,770,000,000. In fifteen years their maturity value will be more than $3,400,000,000. The difference Do the veterans who have been led to support this proposal realize that cashing in now would mean a loss to them of upward of one and three-quarter billion dollars? But let us say that, congress under political pressure could be forced to pay in cash now the full maturity—which means forced to double the amount of the present bonus—can’t the veterans see what would happen? There is no doubt that the effect would be a momentary artificial stimulation of business. It would l stimulate business for the very reason that it should / not—that is. because the veterans would spend most Df that money. For a few months it would be fine for the merchants and for the veterans. But then what? The result would be just the same as if the people of the country should draw out all their savings from the banks and cash In all their Insurance policies for immediate spending. It would exhaust the purchasing power of the nation; it would tend to wipe out the consumers’ market; it would centralize the wealth of the nation in the pockets of the few and pauperize the many. To conceive a process more disastrous in the long run to the people and to business would be difficult. The present depression and unemployment Is not a veterans’ emergency, but a national one. It is an emergency that will be met. And as it is met, the veterans, along with others, will be taken care of. That is their privilege a citizens. Why then, on top of that, should they consider sacrificing their special H A- / 1

The Indianapolis Times (A SCBIPPB-HOWARD NEWSPAPER> Uwp®d and published daily (ext-ept Suodayi by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos.. Weal Maryland Street. Indlanapolla. Ind. Price in Marion County. 2 cents a copy: elsewhere. 3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. BOY* GURLEY. ROY W\ HOWARD. FRANK G. MORRISON. K'lltor President Business Manager PHONE— Riley .V>si FRIDAY. DEC. 18. 1930. Member of United Press. Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

veterans’ privilege to receive an endowment later, when they will need it? Secretary Mellon has pointed out several good technical and financial reasons why the proposal would hurt business by choking the bend market and public debt operations. Those reasons doubtless have convinced business men and financial experts of the folly of the plan. But the rank and file of veterans should understand that the government in turning down the proposal is notbein heartless and hard-boiled toward the veterans. On the contrary, the administration in this instance is courageously rising above the dictates of demagogery and vote-catching, to preserve intact for the veterans the very bonus endowment system ■which the veterans worked so hard to establish. Learning Nothing .4 wise old historian remarked that the great lesson which history teaches is that we learn nothing from history. This seems to be notably true with respect to the economic depression which we are experiencing. This point, is presented admirably by John T. Flynn in an article on “The Birthday of the Slump’ in the Forum. Mr. Flynn’s thesis —and it is a significant and valid one—is that the worst thing about the slump is that it seems to have taught us little with respect to its causes or cures. At leaot the business and political leaders of the country appear to have learned nothing of value from our sad experience. According to Flynn, the chief actual lessons were: <l> The futility of attempted price fixing and production limitation cn a world scale; (2) the resulting world-wide overproduction; (3) the withdrawal of credit from other types of investment and production, especially crippling building operations; and (4) development of irresponsible credit institutions outside of federal reserve and reputable banking control. One would have thought that Mr. Hoover and his business leaders would.have taken such things into account and tried to remedy the evils before another calamity us. But they have not and everything is heading up for another such cycle as we have been through since 1927: “And so we go forward in the old line of sequences. We will get business under way, get people back to work, increase corporation profits, work up another speculative mania, produce more than we can use. use up our credit resources on speculation, cripple the building industry again, overstock ourselves with everything, get business into a decline, bring on a stock market collapse, slide into a depression, call it a “healthy reaction’’ if the Republicans are in office and blame it on the Democrats if the miracle of a Democratic administration ever should happen.” Here is a challenge to economic statesmanship. Will anybody of consequence get out and get under? Bravo, Dr. Wilbur Democracy’s worst enemy, ignorance, is being attacked in its stronghold by a national drive to stamp out illiteracy in the United States by 1940. In the war, the first strategy is to spot the enemy. This was made practically impossible by a ruling of Attorney-General Mitchell interpreting the recent census act so as to forbid the census bureau’s giving out the names of illiterates taken in the census. Secretary of the Interior Wilbur, who also heads the national advisory committee on illiteracy, has stepped into the breach with a plan to circumvent Mitchell’s ruling and at the same time protect individuals from having their failings aired in public. He will urge resolutions in both houses of congress instructing the census bureau to furnish the names to state boards of education, not to individuals. Thus the “enemy” be sighted and the campaign carried forward intelligently. Illiteracy In this world’s richest land is a disgrace, yet the 1930 census probably will reveal a total of about 4,500,000 persons over 10 who neither can read nor write. At this time, with immigration barriers up, a drive to educate everybody to read and write can succeed if P Is unhampered by red tape. Dr. Wilbur £ r es himself a practical educator by his simple expedient. To the scientist who said the germ for the common cold is too small to be seen by the microscope, the witty cynic says “Oh, don’t bacilli.” A dentist may be boring at times, but he's usually pretty quick on the draw.

REASON

TO the inhabitants of this part of the world, this recent trial in Moscow wherein five were condemned to death and three others to imprisonment for a term of years, then the sentences corrtmuted, was the most amazing judicial procedure of modern times. tt a tt The fact that the judges smoked incessantly was not such a jolt, for we remember, not so many years ago, when the Indiana courtroom was so smoky one almost had .to carry a lantern to find the witness chair. tt a tt In those nicotine days the judge and the lawyers smoked and the jury chewed. That was the way we divided responsibility. And we distinctly recall that when a newly elected judge put an end to it we thought he was abridging our liberties. a a a NEITHER did this Russian trial Impress one with its novelty because the order of proceeding was so different from our own, for every country has its own different schedule, the trial of Dreyfus in France some years ago, for instance, impressing an American as being nothing short of a riot. a a a The astounding thing about this Russian court room fracas was that it confessedly was not a trial, but a public entertainment. The whole country was in on it and each witness as well as each lawyer fed his re.narks into a microphone, through ■which they were carried to the country. a a a ONE of the results of this was that all the writnesses and lawyers talked four or five times as long as they would have done had the audience been restricted to those who were physically present. Which shows that it never would do to put microphones in the senate and house of representatives at Washington. a a a Then it seemed useless to hold this trial day after day, when all the defendants had made elaborate confessions. In this country it would have been a plea of not guilty and a short disposition would have been made of it, unless the lawyers for the accused had pulled a proposition suet) as Darrow did in the Loeb-Leopold case. a a a 3e audience hissed and shook their fists and far blood and, all in all, it was a lynching by law. The spectacle was drawn out to unnecessary length, for the likely reason that the government wanted to send cold chills up and down the back of others, contemplating movements against the present governX" - '

■n Y FREDERICK LANDIS

TEE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES .

M. E. Tracy

-SAYS:-

Whether We Like It or Not, We Have Come to Live in an International Era and Should Join the World Court. THOUGH it involves disagreement with the policy advocated by Scripps-Howard newspapers, I feel that President Hoover w’as unwise in placing the world court question before this sesion of congress. First, conditions were such as to make it difficult for him to present the question with unrestrained vigor, which is indicated plainly by the tone of his message. Second, they were such as to put congress in a restless and irritable mood. Third, they were such as to favor opposition toward most any White House proposal, regardless of merit. Fourth, they were such as to preclude possibility of a fair, thorough, straightforward discussion. Fifth, they were such as to make it more probable that the question either would be pigeonholed through pressure of other business, or would be settled by deals and coalitions with little or no bearing on it. n tt tt We Should Play Ball MY feeling originated in a belief that the time was inopportune, not in any change of view regarding the world court. Now that the fat is in the fire, I shall cease to quarrel over the wisdom of putting it there, and go back to the main question, which is whether to play ball with the rest of the world for a “reign of law,” or continue sulking in the corner. ' I can see only one side to that question. Whether we like it or not, we have come to live in an international era. What is even more significant, we probably have done more than any other people to bring that era about, to produce and perfect the industrial mechanism which made Chat era inevitable. . Finally, we placed ourselves under definite obligations to help meet the challenge presented by that era when our President and our delegates forced Europe to accept the League of Nations as a sine qua non of peace. a a a Heads in the Sand ELEVEN years ago, the government of the United States was squarely in line with the facts of an obvious situation. Ever since, j the government of the United States ! has not shown such obstinacy or j determination over anything as a ! persistent effort to deny, ignore or | sidestep those facts by sticking its j head in the sands of sheer provini cialism. We have been guided by the ; sophistries of a cheap and narrow j partisanship, instead of our implied | Pledges, and have stultified that very idealism by which we ribbed our own boys and their mothers into emotional ecstasies over “a war to end war.” We sacrificed 50,000 of our best on the battlefields of France, in a firm belief that we were helping to accomplish that object, maimed and crippled three times as many more, and assumed a debt which our children may not live to see liquidated. Scarcely had the echoes of the last exploding shell died away before we turned our backs on the whole proposition, with the complacent explanation that we had decided to avoid “entangling alliances,” lest they get us into trouble, just as though we hadn’t I run into all the trouble without them. tt n One of Them Is Wrong WHAT could we lose by joining the League of Nations that didn’t lose in 1917? What could we suffer through participation in the world court that we haven’t suffered without it? We still pretend to want a “reign of law,” but do we expect other governments to hand it to us on a silver salver? Taking up a more practical side of j the question, do we expect other | countries to help us promote trade |if we won’t help them promote ! peace? Or has the gold gone to our : heads? And do we imagine that we have come to a point where we can live and prosper alone? We have sung a different tune for the last ten years than we did when getting our boys ready to be gassed, shellshocked, or draped over barbed wire fences. They can’t both be right, there simply is no way of reconciling the kind of peace we have shown wulingness to support with the kind we told our boys and their mothers we wanted, not to mention the human race in general. The question of whether we shall join the world court, not frankly as we ought, but with childish reservations, is just one more incident in the sorry performance. Either we keep faith with our dead and the rest of mankind, or we don’t. Either we welch for the sake of temporary convenience or meet our responsibilities squarely, no matter .what the cost. The problem is one of morals, rather than expediency, and involves a basic principle of human conduct.

Questions and Answers

What is the duty on imported cocoa door mats brought into this country? Ten cents per square yard. What is the value of an Indian rupee in American money? About 36 cents. When were Martha Washington dollar bills issued? The first issue was Feb. 28, 1878; the second, Aug. 4, 1886. Where was Jessica Dragonette vrtrn and educated? How old is she, and is she married? She was bom in Calcutta, India, and received her eduation at Georgian court convent in Lakewood, N. J. She is about 24 years old, and is unmarried. How many Jews are there in Palestine and how many in the world? Latest statistics show a total of 110,000 Jews in Palestine, and 14,What is the water content of milk? About 87.25 per cent.

A Fine Way to Sink It Completely!

'ey

Overweight Raises Heart Disease Peril

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and ot Hyreia, the Health Magazine. TN cases involving large policies, insurance examiners are likely to study carefully the general appearance of the applicant. It is generally known that overweight after middle age adds to the danger of early death, and figures have been recorded showing that heart disease is more than twice as common as the cause of death in overweight men than in those of normal weight. A man with high blood pressure may have flushed cheeks, and a thick neck. In cases of heart disease, the cheeks may be flushed with brick red color and the lips appear slightly blue. The finger & may be clubbed at the tips. Rapidity of the heart is not necessarily a danger sign, because ex-

IT SEEMS TO ME

AT an early hour one morning this week I became 42 years old. This fact, I trust, will show in the column pretty constantly from now on. My years entitle me to become an elder statesman and a Victorian. In fact, I am old enough to know better. In the short span remaining to me I purpose to put aside childish things. Already I have sworn off poker, and very little about night clubs and speakeasies will appear here from now on. Reform of one sort or another will be my chief consideration. Having seen the light myself, I am anxious to bring it to others. Don’t you realize, you wastrels, that while you sit in stuffy rooms impairing the validity of constitutional amendments the clock keeps ticking away the minutes and the hours? Can’t you see that there are more important things to be done in the world? To be fair and truthful, I must admit that to an extent my new devotion to duty has been helped along by circumstances over which I have no control. Before bidding farewell to speakeasy existence it seemed to me no more than just that I should pay just one last visit. This I hoped would reinforce my impression that these gilded palaces are but dull and tawdry places Naturally, before swearing off, I wanted to be sure. nun One Last Look THERE is no gallantry in abstaining from frivolities you never have known. The prodigal son couldn’t very well experience the fine thrill of repentance until he had something to repent about. It would be overhumble for me to contend that in all my life there were no shameful episodes whatsoever. Asa small boy I pulled the pigtails of my sister, and it is possible that one or two disgraceful things have happened since. Still, the best and liveliest sort of repentance must depend upon errors not too ancient. Accordingly, it was my scheme to have one last fling before waking up to birthday resolutions. This program failed. One night club to which I went was padlocked, and the four others had moved away without leaving me the address. And so I had to go to bed early, with nothing on my conscience. Please do not doubt the solidity of my devotion to anew regime. From now on the morning sun of noonday never will stream into my bedroom without finding me awake and ready to arise and get to work very shortly. •'Dead Life’ THE long and stuffy hours of passionate concentration upon j the fortunes of poker are a thing of the past. There isn’t the slightest reason to question my sincerity in I this resolution. I’ve made it a dozen times in the past. At 42 any sensible man must j come to realize that he no longer is {young. He should begin to train himself in the pleasure of clinging : to his own fireside equipped with a | good book. He should begin to write his j memoirs. I intend to start almost ; any moment now. All I need is a 1 title. I want something in the "ex”

•DAILY HEALTH SERVICE

tremely nervous'pecple or those who have suffered a shock may have a heart rate as high as 100 a minute, the rate slowing down'and appearing perfectly normal after the person has gotten over his nervousness. By the use of the stethoscope, the physician listens carefully to the beat of the heart to detect any abnormalities in its sounds and particularly the presence of murmurs, indicating an insufficiency of the valves. By the use of thumping, he may detect the size of the heart, outlining its borders and determining whether it has become enlarged due to overstrain. The healthy person when sitting should have a pulse rate between 65 and 85, which becomes somewhat slower when he lies on his back. A rapid pulse may occur in heart disease, goiter, neurasthenia, and fol-

HEYWOOD * Y BROUN

line. “Ex-Man About Town” might do. But I want any such book to be accurate and comprehensive. There is just a shade of suspicion in my mind that maybe I haven’t entirely covered the ground. In another month or so I might have the material complete. Personally, I would not be inclined to accuse myself of backsliding when I moved about just a bit more if the purpose of these expeditions was clear in my mind. a a a Local Color TTB one thing to go to a night A chib for frivolity and quite another to drop in as a student of sociology and a collector of local color. After all, I must have accurate information, and my data should be fresh. It is possible, then, that you may see me in some favored haunt during the next few weeks, in spite of my advanced age. But do not, I beg of you, wave to me as if I were an ordinary habitue and one seeking boon companions. Even the most- casual observer hardly can fail to detect anew light in my eye and a sharpened pencil in my upper coat pocket. You—and I pity you from the depth of my heart—are out for jubilation, stimulation, a wild time, while I am solely a seeker of facts. This will be my for a misspent youth. Sadly and soberly I will stray

JOHN JAY’S BIRTH Dec. 12 ON Dec. 12, 1745, John Jay, an eminent American jurist, was bom in New York City, the son of a wealthy merchant. Following his graduation from Columbia college in 1764, Jay studied law in New York City and soon attained eminence in his profession. He was a delegate to the First Continental congress in 1774 and formed one of the committee of three which drew up the celebrated address to the people of Great Britain in which the “rights of the colonies” were stated. After he had served as chief justice of New York and president of the Provincial congress of New York, Jay was appointed United States minister to Spain. His real diplomatic fame, however, rests with his services at Paris, whence he had gone to join Franklin in negotiating the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States. Jay is considered to have had a prominent share on the American side in the signing of the Treaty of 1783. When he returned to New York Jay was appointed secretary for foreign affairs. Upon the organization of the federal government he was allowed by Washington his choice of all the public offices to be filled by the President’s appointment. He chose to be chief justice of the supreme court, which position he filled with marked dignity, and ability until 1795.

lowing excessive indulgence in alcohol and tobacco. Any time the pulse is over 180 a minute, special studies must be given to the condition of the heart. If the pulse is regular, the examiner is pleased with the possibility of the risk, but an irregular pulse may be a manifestation of anyone of several forms of disturbance of the heart action. *The examiner wil base his judgment on the condition of the walls of the arteries as he feels them with his finger. The walls of the blood vessels may be thickened due to an increase in its muscular layers. It may be straight or curled. If the wall of the artery is thickened with lime salts or curled by contractions of its fibrous tissues, special studies have'to be made to make certain that there is no constitutional disorder likely to shorten life.

Ideals and opinions expressed in this column are those of one of America’s meet Interesting writers and are presented without regard to their agreement or disagreement with the editorial attitude of this naoer.—The Editor.

through gay and noise rooms and in my hearts take no share in the festivities. 'Mine jhe Same’ 1 DON’T mean that If anybody says, “Sit down and have one with, us,” I inevitably mil refuse. Some outward show of participation in the hollow whoopee -of the place is a necessary duty of every seeker after local color. But unless I am a better actor than I ever believed, I will make a sad and gloomy guest at your table. Always in my mind there will dwell the thought, “One more chapter of this and I can be done forever with the kingdoms of dissipation.” It may even be that on the night before I sit down to do that portion of my book which is to be called “Poker and Its Evil Aspects and Consequences,” I will drop in upon a game for just a few rounds. Miss Edna Ferber, before writing her novel, “Show Boat,” spent some time on a craft of this sort. Sinclair Lewis had to visit “Main Street” to write about It. (Copyright. 1930. by The Times)

Views of Times Readers

Editor Times—l have resided here for seven years and read The Times all the time, and recently I read the best joke of the whole seven years. The Real Estate Board report Is that the city is overbuilt and rentals are on the down grade. Os course, the easiest way is the best way for the Real Estate Board, and anything will do to get the job off its hands. The real reason for the downward trend of rental property is because the real estate firms and owners are hogging every dollar they can squeeze out of their tenants, and doing nothing for them. They will not paper or paint or repair the property and make it fit to live in. Seven out of ten vacant houses in the city are deteriorating for want of paint and repairs. They have so much paper on the walls it is pulling the plaster off. They also hire the cheapest labor and buy the cheapest material. They are infested with all kinds of “varmints,” and that shows a poor health department. Other cities have ordinances to promote health in rental properties. Some of the owners of these houses should be made to live in them. If the real estate board would talk its rental owners into hiring skilled labor and using good material, and put their property in good shape, they soon would see that the city is* not overbuilt. Chicago rental properties are kept clean, and always are filled because they are kept clean. All water colors are washed off before they are retinted, wall paper is limited to two coats by a health I ordinance, exterminators are con- | tracted by the year to keep down pest infection. Hotels, roomI mg houses and public eating places I are inspected frequently. A fine city like Indianapolis could be the same way. -Many men who are idle and their families having to depend on weak red tape charity today could be working and living in some of these vacant houses instead of doubling up with

DEC. 12, 191

SCIENCE

BY DAVID DIETZ-

Engineers See Ray of Hope Shining Through Clouds of Industrial and Business Gloom. Tj' VERY dark cloud is said to have a silver lining. One might have difficulty in finding it in the present industrial situation, but the management division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers believes that It has sighted it. Tire annua) report of the division was presented at the society’s annual meeting in New York. In the long run. according to the report, the present trying conditions will strengthen business by teaching the value of sound practice over expediency. Charles ,W. Lytle, director of industrial co-operation in New York university, is chairman of the committee. “If the business cycle may be epitomized by dividing it into stages of confidence, doubt, fear, and hope, then we believe we are well into the fourth stage of the cycle,” says the report, one of a series tm industrial progress which was presented at the fifty-first annual meeting of the society. - tt tt tt Challenge Provided THE deprtssion of 1930 has provided a'ehallenge against which American management could test itself, the report claims. “As well-built buildings remain standing after an earthquake,” the report asserts, “so certain organizations have been able to show good results despite the economic upheaval. While all companies have been hard pressed and some have retrenched more drastically than may have been necessary, yet there have been many instances of foresight in which management hasconsidered the long-run possibilities as well as the present circumstances. “Apparently companies are less bound by history and precedents to continue policies laid down by the founders of the business, and they are less inclined to go to extremes merely for psychological reasons. But nearly every company has had to find ways and means for securing satisfactory returns on its investment from a smaller volume of business, so that every measure ' has been tested as never before. ' “Thus a certain clarification is being made which will distinguish between practices which are sound for the long run, and practices which are only temporary expedients.” it tt n Employment Aided IMPROVED machinery, blamed by many for causing unemployment, in the long run creates more employment, the report asserts. Total unemployment, the report adds, variously is estimated as between 2,500,000 and 4,500,000. Normal unemployment is from 750,000 to 1,500,000. “Whatever the unemployment may have been,” the report says, “many families have been distressed and everyone is the poorer. “Out of the experiments and discussions has, at least, come a general recognition that better stabilization is essential to the well being of all mankind. “Technological unemployment has received much blame, but on the other hand many data have merged to indicate that it is not the major difficulty. "If the facts are taken over a period of years, regardless of individual and temporary situations, improved machinery has made more work. “Over a twenty-year period employment has increased 40 per cent, as compared with a population increase of 32 per cent. “Since 1909 the Income of wage earners in the United States has risen from thirty billion a year to ninety billion.”

Daily Thought

The righteous are bold as a lion. —Proverbs 28:1. Let us have faith that right makes right, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it. —Lincoln.

strangers or living in some of the filthy rooming houses, if the real estate board would make an honest report of the cause and call a meeting of the owners and talk it over. A HOOSIER, But Not Proud of It, After Living Here Editor, Times —I have been read- * ing a great many articles lately by Mr. Tracy, also the letters In the people’s voice column about the present slump and unemploymentIf the President and controlling capitalists really wanted business to pick up, why did it take the President a year or more to even talk of putting $1,500,000 into a fund to carry on emergency employment that won’t be started for five or six months? Try to imagine how „ far $1,500,000 would go toward buying tools and machinery for such work. Why do Muscle Shoals, the Mississippi river and many other gov- j eminent projects have to lay over at this time, with nothing done on them? Just conference after conference held with no results, only a lot of progress talk, which merely disheartens the masses of peopl£. Now if billions of dollars >could be raised in a month or so for war ■ purposes, why can’t millions be raised in the same length of time for improvement and real prosperity, instead of talked prosperity? Isn’t a person’s life, health and morality worth as much in peace times as in times of war? Why, j then, should they be depressed and deprived of their rights to a good : living when it is in the country? “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” - The Communist party could not. ask for a better hotbed than today's i conditions to spread its churchless, | Godless party lectures. What a muddle we are in! The confidence of the people lost, with a surplus of farm and manufactured products piling up daily which can not be consumed under present * conditions. Ex-Soldier and Times Reader.