Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 112, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 September 1931 — Page 6

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Your Real Bosses At last the real bosses of the people reveal themselves. They are the members of the tax board. It is probably true that they do not make their own decisions. Invisible forces do that. But these board members are all that the people can see. When these members arrogantly declare that they intend to see wnether stenographers in the school board offices stop a minute to powder their noses, they have declared themselves the super government of the state. As to the ability of these men to run either school or any other big enterprise there is lacking much proof. The manner in which they were selected suggests otherwise. This government is based on the theory that it is at all times very close to the people and in the hands of those selected by the people. Not one member of this state tax board could have been elected to the school board at the election which overturned previous control. If any of the members had ever aspired to the office, they might easily have become members of the boards against which the people revolted. But named members of the tax board they have the arrogance to declare that they may personally inspect the offices to see just what clerks are working hard. That threat shows the attitude of the members. It shows them as un-American as any Russian commissar in his Soviet office. It is the attitude of all dictatorships. For one of these members to cast aspersions on the patriotism of the school board or school officials is merely to show that he has no concept of real patriotism or the real principles of American government. If he had, he would take some pains to preserve local self government. Probably these board members will cut the funds demanded by every civic organization for the proper operation of the schools. It is to be expected. When that is done, the people will know where to place the blame, but that will be tragic consolation. These members, listening to the voice of the masters, are determined to destroy the kindergartens, the libraries, the adult schools. Only a public uprising can save them.

The Swope Plan Upon the forward-looking thought and initiative of great industrialists hangs the fate of capitalistic democracy. That so many American leaders of industry now are realizing this and acting on it is the most hopeful of all current signs. Wednesday, Gerard Swope, president of the General Electric Company, talked to the National Electrical Manufacturers’ Association on the stabilization of industry. What he said might have sounded, to horrified ears of an older generation, like the doom of competition, the triumph of socialism with a capital “S.” But, thanks be, we have progressed far beyond that generation. We can speel socialism today with a small “s" and without a shudder. We accept sound socialistic principles like workmen's compensation and old age pensions as natural developments in enlightened democracy. And the old economic theories of cut-throat competition and devil-take-the-hindmost already seem barbarous. Therefore, when Mr. Swope urges the formation of great trade associations, representing employers and employes, which shall outline trade practices, establish methods of standard accounting, stabilize prices and employment and, in fact, control production in each industry, few will shriek the old protests in the once sacred name of competition. Nor Ls his insistence that the participating companies in each industry must adopt employe plans providing for life and disability insurance, pensions and unemployment insurance anything to dismay progressive employers of this era. Under the system proposed, “if a worker for some good reason left his original employer and went into the service of another concern he would not thereby forfeit his pension, his insurance, his unemployment insurance contributions or his status under workmen’s compensation.” All these accumulated gains would be transferred along with the worker. Security and stability of employment thereby would be increased. Mr. Swope would have each and all of these trade associations under supervision of the federal trade commission or a bureau of the department of commerce or some federal supervisory body, specially constituted. Here, then, from another head of one of the biggest companies in one of the country’s biggest industries Is a plan. It is a plan for employers to study. It is a plan for organized labor to ponder—for much would depend upon willingness of labor unions to adjust themselves to it. In detail, it may be improved. In spirit, no fault can be found with it. For it is based on the new, nevermore to be surrendered principle that the continuous security and well being of millions of workers is every iota as important as the profits and dividends of capital that employs them. It is the rational socialism of industry by industry itself. But that is not a socialism any intelligent twentieth century mind fears. The issue, as we understand it, is this: If depressions are to be prevented, and profits and Jobs stabilized, the old “rugged individualism” must give way to Industrial planning. Industrial planning is possible only on a national scale—otherwise the stupid or selfish employer wrecks the enlightened employer and the industry’s plan. Industrial planning can be brought about either voluntarily by industry itself, or by governmental coercion. The first way is the better way. But if it does not come that way, in time the government will have to step in. In praising the Swope plan, we have only one reservation to make—and that indeed is inherent in the plan as described by Mr. Swope and Mr. Young. It is that labor’s right of organization be unrestricted and that the government must have adequately in-

The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPFS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by Tba Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Marylaud Street, Indianapolis, lnd. Price In Marlon County, 2 centa a copy: elsewhere, 3 cents—delirered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subscription rates In Indiana. J>3 a year; outside of Indiana, 05 cents a month. BOYD GURLEY. ROY W. HOWARD EARL D. BAKER. Editor President Business Manager PHOWK—Riley tMI. FRIDAY. SEPT. 18. 1931. 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.”

creased powers for effective regulation of these superpowerful private trade associations. If the laws are changed to permit this giant unification of inquiries, neither law nor supreme court decision must restrict th* government in its regulatory function. Until such law can be framed—with or without constitutional amendment—the plan will not be practicable. Living History One of the most cheering intellectual developments of years is the announcement that a group of leading historians and publicists propose to give us some “living history” to help us understand and solve the problems of today. Led by Charles A. Beard, Harold G. Moulton, David Saville Muzzey, Walter E. Myer and Edward Alsworth Ross, they will publish a weekly magazine, the American Observer. The purpose announced is to “promote an understanding of the modern world and its problems, to the end that we may live wisely and efficiently as individuals and act intelligently as members of American society.” They hope that a sort of “applied history” will be of real service in this respect: “By a commingling of history and current policy, the past may become real and the present made vivid in the light of cen-tury-old tendencies.” These men may be on the right track. For a generation we have suffered'Trom teachers who look upon history as a dead and solemn subject describing events that are past and gone—a series of obituarial notices of the episodes and cultures of the past. We have suffered as much from this extreme view of “detached” history as earlier centuries did from historians that wrote to prove a thesis. Caesar conquered Gaul, but ifc does no one any good to know it unless he realizes that this was what preserved western civilzation and probably made possible the discovery and settlement of America. The British merchants and nonconformists beheaded Charles I, but this is of -value only as indicating the growing supremacy of representative government over royal absolutism. Our forefathers made a Constitution, but this becomes significant just in proportion as we try to estimate how it has been either preserved or manhandled by subsequent generations. Britain repealed her corn laws in the middle of the last century, but this is a relevant event only insofar as it throws light upon present-day theories and practices in the province of tariffs and wages. Beard and his associates can do much to help us understand our current problems in every field of life. A study of the theories of economists ffom Mai thus to Senior will enable us to form a proper opinion of faith cures for the present depression. The corn laws and the “tariff of abominations” help to put Grundy and Smoot in their proper perspective. Renunciation of public control over railroads and public works in the “reign” of Andrew Jackson has necessitated the labor of Norris and company in the effort to restore to the people some degree of control over the utilities which should serve them. * - The partially successful struggles to recover or preserve our vanishing natural resources have been rendered necessary by the foolhardy land policy of Thomas Hart Benton and of the “railroad congressmen” of the seventies. The battle of labor within its own fold, revealed by speeches on Labor day, become intelligible in the light of the history of labor from Terence Powderly and his “Knights of Labor” to William Z. Foster and his Communists. We can not fully understand why child labor laws are declared unconstitutional unless we know that a half century ago we passed a fourteenth amendment, ostensibly to protect the southern Negro, but actually to safeguard the northern “corporation nigger in the woodpile.” The prohibition fiasco would have been averted if our lawmakers back in 1918-19 had made a little study of the past reaction of the American public to unpopular laws. The proposal to end crime by harsh penalties evident in the Baumes laws and other acts would have seemed silly to anybody who knew about the British penal code of 1800. Finally, we may trust men of the intelligence of Beard not to draw any foolish analogies from the past. A German scientist predicts that food some day Rill be made from coal. And yet there are folks who complain of lumps in their mashed potatoes. A Chicago woman divorced her husband because he took a goat automobile riding and wouldn’t take her. Sure thing, the goat wasn’t a back-seat driver. Most movie critics, says the official sage, judge the films on hearsay.

Just Every Day Sense BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

I SUPPOSE we never shall grow so Intelligent that we can think of women as we think of men—and regard them as individuals and citizens. At any rate, out of Glasgow university has come anew treatise on “Modern Civilization on Trial,” and its author, Professor Bums, sees women as one of the gravest menaces to the white race. Dire things does he predict because we have too much freedom, too much escape from household duties, and a too easy contact with men and their world. This seems to me not only a threadbare but a very tiresome theory. If we argue that all creatures should eat by the sweat of their brows, and that man, too, grows less fine as his leisure increases, then it might be sensible for us to say that women should keep at their immemorial dreary routines. But so long as most of our efforts now are directed to lessening the labors of humanity in general, there is no sense in insisting that we should keep perpetually scrubbing. * THE truth is that we have no more escaped working with our hands than the men have. We still have many individuals who toil arduously at monotonous tasks, notably the miners, the farmers, the roadworkers, and certain other classes, but machines have given men as much leisure as they have given to us. And right now, the wives of the mining group work just as hard as their husbands do and suffer as greatly. There may be a washing machine in the farm kitchen, but there also is a tractor in the fields. And the riding plow for men came in years before there was running water in a rural home. Far be it from me to cast aspersion upon men and their industry. But I do not believe that anybody can prove that as a whole they work any more these days than women do. And can you differentiate between the sexes when it comes to destroying countries or races? We rise and fall together, after all, and men and women share a common fate. Besides all this, if hiStory is correct, many a good civilization has perished on account of the general cussedness of men. I suppose that while the stones were falling, they all screamed “cEjjerchez la lesjog.”

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

It Will Be Hard to Think Up a Plan to Equal or Better That Offered by Gerard Swope. NEW YORK, Sept. 18.—Without attempting to appraise its value, or advisability, I like the spirit which the Swope plan represents, the fearless, clean-cut thinking, the obviously sincere desire to offer something constructive. It opens the way for definite, purposeful discussion, lack of which has been one of our greatest handicaps. It is revolutionary, of course, but isn’t the situation out of which it grew? Haven’t we tried old-fash-ioned remedies long enough to suspect their effectiveness? a a a Stand Is Courageous li/TR. SWOPE has taken a courageous stand, not on impulse, but after carefully weighing the consequences. Every sentence in his address proves that. He has exposed himself to the possibility of bitter criticism, but that is, and always has been, the lot of those who lead. Those conservatives who want no tinkering with what they call “basic laws” will see his plan as nothing less than a Red challenge. The radicals who want the government to boss everything will regard it as too conservative. a a a Few Better Ones LIKE every human proposition, this plan presents difficulties as well as advantages. Insofar as it promises greater security for workers and a greater degree of stabilization for industry, it will appeal to popular sentiment, but insofar as it brushes aside some of our pet traditions, it will not. Those who have been schooled to believe in competition, anti-trust laws, and individual freedom, not only in politics, but in business, will find it hard to applaud this plan without an argument, but they will find it equally hard to think up a better one. ana One Great Danger THE great danger of the Swope plan is that politicians will take it over, once industry has put it into operation. To answer that, just ask yourself what politicians are likely to do if industry fails, or refuses to adopt some such plan. You have seen martial law irf the oil fields and one state legislature vote for a cotton holiday in 1932. You have seen public compensation laws and old-age pension laws spread over ah ever-widening territory. Indeed, you have seen innumerable signs to indicate that politics will undertake the job of stabilization and security if industry hesitates. a a a The Public Mind THOUGH the Huey P. Long plan for a holiday next year has failed, many southern states appear in a mood to restrict production by law. The Texas house already has adopted a bill to limit the planting of cotton to one-third of the cultivated land, and an Oklahoma conference has approved the same idea. That should show what is in the public mind with regard to stabilizing conditions. a a a Translating Thoughts A MISSISSIPPI dentist is offering to accept cotton at 10 cents a pound in exchange for his services and the University of Louisiana will take it for fees and tuition at the going price, with a proviso that if the price rises before it is sold, the seller will get the profit. Some small midwestern colleges are adopting a similar policy with regard to wheat, all of which suggests that the people not only are thinking, but translating some of their thoughts into practical action. a a a Prejudice Still Rules MEANWHILE, the mayor of Atlanta is informed that his services as Sunday school teacher no longer are desired by Grace Methodist church because of his anti-prohibition views. That shows that prejudice and tradition still exercise a powerful influence in this country, that many of us obey them not only with regard to the specific question involved. but with regard to our general attitude. Prejudice and tradition constitute the greatest obstacles to the Swope plan, nr to any other plan based on radical chance. a a a It’s Quite Curious IT is a curious thing that, though we fully appreciate what the elimination of prejudices and traditions have done for scientific and mechanical progress, we still cling to them in politics and economics. We not only have written them into the constitution, but into many laws and regulations, assuming that as long as our ideals are high, or our intentions good, intelligence doesn’t count.

Daily Thought

Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.—lsaiah 12: 3. The condition of salvation is that kind of belief in Jesus Christ which authenticates itself in reprentance for the past and in an amendment of life for the future.—L. L. Noble. Did the French army use taxicabs to carry troops to the front in the World war? Taxicabs were used to carry troops from Paris on Sept. 8, 1914, during the first battle of the Marne. General Gallieni, in order to move a division to the front as quickly as possible, requisitioned 1,100 Paris taxis, carrying five men each, to transport troops to Nauteuil. To what race do Arabs belong? To the Semetic family of the white race. What date was President Hoover in Indianapolis? President and Mrs. Hoover were in Indianapolis on June 15, 1931,

4 '■-.■ax- —sc —" 0

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Too Strenuous Exercise Is Harmful

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hrgeia, the Health Magazine. • A FTER all what does the average person accomplish by his exercise? The physiologists have found that a healthful man with well-developed muscles, who is working very hard, can sustain an average output of about one-tenth horse power for eight or ten hours. If he works himself up to an output of two-tenths-horse power, he is exhausted in two or three hours. Expert rowers in racing shells can work up to five-tenths or six-tenths-horse power, but they are all through after twenty minutes. A Ford car or any kind of motor gets far more done with less wear and tear on the machine than occurs with the human machine. For ten to fifteen seconds, the amount of time required for a 100yard dash, a human being can develop, according to Haggard, as much as three to three and a half horse power. But what of it? Any kind of an

IT SEEMS TO ME by [ ™ d

IT was impressive to hear Gandhi’s voice coming slow-footedly across the Atlantic from Kingsley Hall, in London. Back in the day When I had a radio job, it was my boast that my delvery was slowest in the current ether. But it would be impossible to compete w’ith the Indian leader in the matter of being deliberate. I am told by those who have seen him that this manner of speech seems wholly appropriate when the orator is visible. To the radio listener there was just a hint of theatricality. And it must be admitted that Gandhi prepared an entrance for himself by lingering over his goat milk even after the cry, “You’re on the air!” had come to him. u A True Believer BUT, in spite of the slow pace, there was no suggestion of indecision. Although impromptu, the speech carried the impression that the Indian revolutionist knew precisely what he wanted to say. To be sure, he did not depart from slogans and programs which he has enunciated many times before. The phrases themselves were not striking. But the intensity of emotional utterance did move at least one listener very mightily. Gandhi’s belief in peace rested upon his shoulders like a mantle woven fast. No, more than that. It seemed to enter into' the very essence of his personality. And the thing which excited me was that here in this warring world a brand new philosophy is on foot.. New not in the sense of theory, but wholly novel in the fact that a large-scale experiment is being made for the first time. a an A Glorious Vision INDIA may be a far corner, but it is one which swarms with hu-man-kind. Os late it has become the custom to say that the world of tomorrow will be shaped wholly on the outcome of the fight between capitalism and Communism, or, at any rate, some form of collectivism. But India is now being a gospel which has very slight relationship to the mode of America or of Russia. In his address he glorified the old days of the hand worker and the thread finer than that which could be made by any machine. Again, he spoke of the Indian villages in the days in which each small community was sufficient unto itself. And seemingly it is his notion that at least his own Country could return to a sort of primitive pastoral life. If he could bring to his followers a complete sense of fellowship, tribal warfare would not mar this loose federation. Os course, when Gandhi speaks of the spinning wheel and pf the garden patch he ought to go on and explain that he intends to renounce those devices which are pointed to with pride by modern civilization. Without mass production and the factory system there could hardly have been a radio through which Gandhi could chant his measured

Hovering ’Round

automobile engine does better than 20-horse power. One of the chief uses of exercise today is to aid reduction. Correct diet and exercise, adapted to individual needs, will aid health and life, but too strenuous exercise, particularly when accompanied by wrong diet, will destroy health and wreck mental efficiency. The worst thing about exercising to reduce is that exercise stimulates the appetite tremendously and following this a restriction of the diet becomes torture. Sooner or later the exercising becomes monotonous or difficult, but the habit of hearty eating is ingrained and continues long after the exercise is given up. That is what physicians call a vicious circle. Perhaps the most interesting information available in connection with the whole subject has been evolved by the eminent British physiologist, A. V. Hill. In may track events and other athletic performances the ability to win is not a matter of muscle strength, but rather of muscle sense. This means correcting timing, skilled performance and vital capacity. The practiced pitcher can throw

message over so many thousand miles. Possibly he might say that this would not matter. Perhaps I have been unjust in suggesting that his delayed appearance was wholly a theatrical gesture. Maybe there was symbolism in that, too. He might contend that the goat milk of the individual is more important than the precise time schedule of a national hookup. ’ ana Man Won’t Go Backward FEW economists, whether conservative or radical, will give much heed to the notion that man-

crtcoAy’i&Tw-

PAINLEVE’S SPEECH Sept. 18 ON Sept. 18, 1917, Premier Paul Painleve of France declared the of the French government on the minimum aims of France and the irreconcilable attitude of France and Germany on Alsace-Lorraine. Premier Painleve declared: “The disannexation of AlsaceLorraine, reparation for the damage and ruin wrought by the enemy, and a j>eace which shall not be a peace of constraint or violence, containing in itself the germ of future wars, whether strong or weak, shall be oppressed, a peace in which effective guarantees shall protect the society of nations against all aggression on the part of one among them —these are the noble war aims of France, if one can speak of w'ar aims when it is a question of a nation which, during forty-four years, despite her open wounds, has done everything to spare humanity the horrors of war. “As long as these aims are not reached, France will continue to fight.’*

People’s Voice

Editor Times—l am a constant reader of your paper and have been for years and I like your Voice of the People column. I don’t know whether it’s due to the unemployment situation or what is the cause of it, but I believe with some people it is a habit to say, “I’ll pay you tomorrow or I’ll pay you next week.” My husband is an iceman and I wonder if people realize that an iceman has to pay cash for all the ice he takes out, and when the people don’t pay for the ice they buy, he doesn’t make very much at the end of the day. I’m more sure that if people only would stop and think that even an iceman has bills to pay, and a family to keep, they would try and have the money when the ice is delivered to them. ICEMAN'S WIFE.

almost as well with his eyes shut. A practiced rifle or revolver shot can aim without sighting. A good mile runner can tell you the time it takes him to run his first lap without looking at his watch. Skill is thus an essential part of accomplishment, and when associated with endurance means success. Hill points out that one can not be a good runner unless he can expend energy rapidly, and the reason that womer. can not run as fast as men is simply that they can not exert th£ same amount of force and enery. The chief value of exercise is general stimulation of all body activities. Carried to excess exercise results in dangerous overstimulation. Muscle activity produces fatigue poisons. The average man thinks he has exercised well when he is terribly fatigued, stiff and sore after his efforts. Williams points out that “that exercise is most scientific which produces increasing amounts of fatigue substances, causing increased resistance to fatigue, but at no time resulting in soreness or stiffness.”

Ideals and opinions expressed in this column are those of one of America’s most interesting writers and are presented without regard to the:; agreement or disagreement with the editorial attitude "* this naner.—The Editor

kind can retrace its footsteps and give back the railroad, the airplane, the steamer and the vast consignment of luxuries and necessities which are the product of any industrial system. This applies to proletarian production as. well as that which is carried on for profit. As yet Gandhi has not said that he advocated this life of delving and spinnihg for any save his own countrymen. But if it worked in India all of us others might well be touched by it. Rationally I do not think it is possible. Emotionally I am wholly for it, and at the very worst it is a lovely dream for all of us who live within the canyons of a great city. While Gandhi was speaking a curious noise accompanied his words. I don’t mean static. It was the sound of voices, rather mocking in tone. I knew that it was not possible for anybody to heckle the Mahatma In the small room in Kingsley Hall from which he spoke. The next day I read in the paper that outside the house children were playing street games and shouting, wholly unmindful of the man and the message behind the shuttered windows. Yet, although they neither heard nor comprehended, their wisdom will in the end be greater than that of Gandhi or Mussolini or Stalin. They will live to find out what this new world is going to be. They will be able to feel it with their fingertips. iConvright. 1931. bv The Times)

Km NWE DESIGN jm jjl our shoes to make 81 re-buyers out of those ■1 *lll Eight Floors Quality Shoes HB I JJrW Jv MJf

SEPT. 18,1931

SCIENCE —BY DAVID DIETZ—

Tooth Decay, Bane of Hu--mans Since the Days of the Cave Man, Still Is a Puzzle to Science. THE decay of teeth may be due to certain bacteria which produce a chemical condition, which in turn causes the enamel of teeth to break down. This view is advanced tentatively by Professor T. D. Beckwith as a result of experiments which he has carried on in the department of bacteriology of the University of California. Dental caries, to use the medical term for the condition, is one of the oldest diseases of which we have knowledge. Prehistoric remains bear clear testimony to the fact that the cave man suffered from it. But it is a disease concerning which we know practically nothing. At present, it is not possible to do anything but to wait until a tooth shows signs of decay and then have the dentist drill and fill It. There are today two prevailing theories concerning the reason for dental caries. One school of thought maintains that the decay of teeth is caused by conditions within the body, or to state the case technically, that dental caries is due to endogenous factors. The other school believes that it is due to exogenous factors, that is. to factors or causes outside the body. Naturally one thinks first of bacteria as a possible source outside the body itself which might lead to the decay of teeth. a a a Infection Is Puzzling "PROFESSOR BECKWITH warns us against expecting any simple explanation of dental caries. He points out that bacterial infection implies the breaking down of the resistance of the tissues to the bacteria. “Bacteriologists rapidly have been approaching the conclusion that disease is much more complex than merely the growth of bacteria within certain tissues of a host,” he says. “Infection denotes a change in degree of activity of at least two different factors: First, there is to be considered the invasive power of the bacterial organism, and second, resistance on the part of the tissues concerned. “According to our modern concepts of growth of bacteria, their virulence, which is really their invasive power, may vary. Reasons for these changes are understood very imperfectly at the present time. “The ability to resist bacterial invasions on the part of the tissues of the host constitutes another variable. Infection thus results from the overturn of a balance between a potential invader on the one hand and tissues of changing resistance upon the other. “At the same time then one must not ignore the fact that, no matter how weakened in resistance tissues may be, there can be no infection without the presence of an infecting agent. “Unfortunately the infecting agent usually is close by in this world of ours, but these principles underlying infection doubtless hold in the consideration of dental caries just as they do in other examples of invasion by bacterial forms.” a a a Study Effect of Diet DIET long has been thought to be one of the items which effect the condition of teeth. Deficiencies in diet thus become a possible cause from within of dental caries. “Extensive work has proved that lack of certain vitamines is reflected quickly and definitely by a certain picture of changes, within tooth structure,” Prof. Beckwith says. “It seems very probable, moreover, that such changes resulting from improper diet may be attended by increasing susceptibility to bacterial invasion. Doubtless the question of the relationship of diet to tooth structure is one of vast importance. “There is a great demand for the element calcium within the animal body during childhood and also during pregnancy, for these are periods when bone and dental structure of the body are in procses of formation. Calcium is necessary to the formation of these tissues particularly. It is not strange therefore that dental caries often appear intensively during these periods.” Among the bacteria which have been thought to contribute to the decay of teeth, Prof. Beckwith say* that two different groups have been studied. These are a bacterium which takes the form of a long slender rod, and a streptococcus, that is, a sphere-? shaped bacterium which slugs to others of its kind, forming little chain-like structures.