Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 155, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 November 1931 — Page 4

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His Opportunity Senator Cuthbertson, fighting in the last session of the legislature against a proposal to put all holding companies for utilities under regulation, said sue ha law was unnecessary. He argued that the commission has all the necessary power to protect the people against grabs and grafts. Public Service Commissioner Culbertson, faced by an appeal from the people of this city for just rates for electricity and water, now has his opportunity. Just a casual glance at the financial reports would indicate the need for prompt action. Will he continue to threaten costly appraisals and delays or will he find what the holding company charges the local power company for coal and what Clarence Geist carries back to Philadelphia for so-called “management” ? The Unsolved Murder After weeks of trial, several thousands of dollars of expense, a strain upon public imagination, a jury finds itself unable to agree upon a verdict, and the mystery of the Lebanon picnic poison party is unsolved. The whole proceeding was stupid. The trouble began when officers of the law looked for a killer Instead of a maniac. Law, and especially criminal law, is fossilized in past precedents and traditions. It fails to take advantage of the discoveries of sciences which it calls Inexact but which are much more illuminating and practical than the exact science of Blackstone. Any attempt at wholesale killing is conclusive evidence of a disordered mind. No sane person could plan such an act. Even malice against some particular persons or greed for possible benefits could hot impel such a deed. Instead of detectives and lawyers, the case called for alienists. The search should have been directed for a disordered mind, not a malicious heart. The hunt should have been for someone who needed protective treatment and not punishment. Costly murder trials with their inevitable public Interest arc not the most enlightened method of protecting public safety. Doctors, as well as detectives, may still be useful. Indianapolis Protests Whatever the courts may finally decide, the people of this and every city should be grateful to the city administration for starting its legal battle against despotism under the guise of tax economy. The state tax board chopped the tax rate for this city and attempted to tell the city administration how it must run the affairs of this city. True, the city officials were elected by the people. The state tax board has the unhappy parentage of discredited governors. It is also true that the cut was made on the appeal of those in the employ of large corporations and that its attempted slashes were directed against low wage earners and then any funds that would enable Mayor Sullivan to fight for reduction of utility rates. But the chief question is whether cities of this state are to rule themselves or be ruled by this despotic board which is under influences at the present time that are at least dubious. Under the best men and with the best motives, it would be vicious. Under present conditions it is unthinkable and monstrous. This city makes the legal point that the legislature never intended to take away home rule from the cities. If it did intend to do such a thing and has really accomplished it in a manner that, will stand the scrutiny of courts, the next legislature must restore power to the cities. Self government is destroyed in direct proportion to the distance between the rulers and the ruled. To put the taxing and spending power of this city in the hands of an appointive board makes a joke of city government. It takes a joke of citizenship. The result of this suit will point the way to relief.

Before It Is Too Late If the state department wants to stop the Manchurian war before it spreads beyond control now is the time to try. In Tokio and Geneva it is said that the United States refuses to support the league council’s action in demanding withdrawal of Japanese troops. America is said to have broken the international front. Is that true? An editorial in the Osaka Mainichi, one of the largest and most influential Japanese newspapers, rejoices in the failure of the state department to support the league’s demands. In other words, Japan is pushing farther her war of aggression, in the belief that the United States is not siding with world opinion against her. If that is an accurate understanding of American policy, it means that the United States government has taken on itself—whatever its good intentions—the very grave responsibility of encouraging this war. We do not believe that is true. But we well can understand how the silence of the state department has permitted this dangerous belief to spread. We think that the state department, behind its mistaken screen of secrecy, is supporting in principle, if not in detail, the league’s demand for Japanese withdrawal. That the state department come into the open seems to us urgently necessary. ' The world has a right to know where America stands—whether we support this war or whether we are against Japan’s aggression. And the Japanese people have a right to know. Germany would not have gone to war in 1914 if she had known that Great Britain was against her. Historians agree that British frankness would have prevented the war, at least at that time. Is Japan to be allowed to precipitate a war with the erroneous idea that the United States is indifferent? A public statement of America’s attitude may not please Japan, but it certainly will provide a shock of enlightenment—perhaps a saving shock—to the Osaka Mainichi and Japanese public opinion, counting upon state department support. The United States government publicly has given its solemn pledge to co-operate with the league for enforcement of the Kellogg anti-war pact. The league is acting; the league is on record. The state department is silent. .

The Indianapolis Times <A BCRIPPB-HOWAKD NEWSPAPER) Ow ,TA£?w Pu . b * hed , da,ly <e3tce P l Sunday) by Tba Indianapolis Times Publiabtnr Cos M-22U West Maryland Street, Indianapolis, lnd. Price in Marion County 2 cent? a copy, else where. 3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subscriptlop rae in Indiana. 33 a year: outside of Indiana. f,s cents a month. P BUyD F,m D n ? ao* W. HOWARD. EARL D. BAKER. EdUor President Business Manager ■ SATURDAY. NOW 7. 1931. Member of United Press. Scrippa-Howard Newsoaner Anin/.o 7TZ T ; elation. Newapaper Information Herr ice and Audit Bureau n P f arculahona!** A * # °" “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

Boomerangs From Britain A British cabinet more embarrassing to American interests than the national government announced Friday hardly could have been chosen. Two posts touch American interests most directly. One is that of chancellor of the exchequer, which is concerned with tariffs and war debts, and the other Is the naval minister. For the first post they picked Neville Chamberlain, Tory high priest of a protective tariff. A Tory, Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell, also has been made first lord of the admiralty. This big navy man, a former naval officer, was chosen in violation of the long precedent of keeping service men out of the job reserved for a civilian. It was the Tory big navy group which helped to wreck the Coolidge Geneva disarmament conference. In stating the facts reading the high tariff and big navy policies of these two key cabinet officials, however, we are not passing adverse judgment. We believe that America’s high tariff provoked in large part the present British swing toward that disastrous policy, and that America’s slowness in cooperating with the navy reduction policy of the British Labor government is partly responsible for the Increasing strength of Britain’s big navy group. Therefore, Americans should be the last to condemn in self-righteousness this unfortunate trend in British tariff and naval policies. Young Killers The strange epidemic of murders by the very young has brought forth a rebirth of the spirit of legal revenge that penologists hoped had been buried long since under progressive sentiment. Russel Williams, 17, has been sentenced to death In Illinois. Jesus Borja, a 15-year-old orphan, has been found guilty of murder in California and must serve a life sentence. Herbert Niccolls, a Washington state lad, only 12 years old, has been given a life sentence. And so it goes. One of the notable recent advances in our civilization has been the recognition that the minds of the young are different from those of the old. The almost universal adoption of this double standard has resulted in a growing system of juvenile courts and reformatories. The recent Wickersham reports recognized this essential difference, and urged improvement of the reformatories, probation and parole systems, and juvenile case work. Nationally, we no longer believe in the total depravity of youth or in infant damnation. To execute minors or throw them into prison for life is to turn our backs upon the twentieth century, its science, its realism and its humanity.

National Reforestation Since it is better to do the right thing in the wrong way'than the wrong thing in the right way, the nation’s conservationists will rejoice in the victory for New York’s amendment providing for a state reforestation program. Apparently the voters of the Empire state very decidedly wanted to apply economics to their farm problem. Hence, they voted Tuesday for the clumsy political expedients of writing a recurring appropriation into their Constitution to ge twhat they wanted. As it stands, New York will spend $19,000,000 over a period of eleven years to buy up some 1,000,000 acres of idle and sub-marginal farm lands. These lands then will be taken out of competition with good farms and planted to forests, substituting useful and beautiful state forests for useless and ugly private farms. New York’s forthright tackling of its land problem should be an inspiration to the federal and other state governments. More than 100,000,000 acres of denuded forests and sub-marginal farms in .America have reverted to public ownership through tax delinquencies. Possibly 100,000,000 more acres are being farmed in normal times at a loss. In New England, 200,000 acres of farms are being abandoned annually. In the last decade, 46,000,000 acres have gone out of use nationally, forcing 3,500,000 Americans to desert the land. The bulk of this idle land is worse than an economic millstone on the country’s neck; the land is deteriorating through erosion, brush fires, and other causes. And while these millions of acres are loafing, our timber is being cut four times faster than it is growing. We face a timber famine within a generation/ Other states are stirring toward tree cropping. New Jersey proposes to add more than 300,000 acres to its state forests. Pennsylvania has put its state prisoners to work planting trees on state lands. California ha a big state park program. Now that progressive states have started, the federal government should get behind the movement to loan its scientists and its credit to the poorer states. From every viewpoint—agricultural, timber-supply, conservation, esthetic—reforestation on a big scale is essential to our national future. Hotels are bettering their service to increase business. If it gets much better, what will become of nobody’s business?

Just Every Day Sense BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

IT looks as if the Renaissance of American home life, for which we have clamored so long, is just around the corner. And who has fathered it but Old Man Depression himself! Only the other night we dropped into the home of a cquple who have been wont to dine and dance regularly, to find them playing anagrams with the children. And next door neighbor says he is going to read some Dickens this winter, since he can’t afford anew car, and that he’ll probably give up his golf now that he needs his country club dues for other items. In short, we are going to stay at home this fall because there’s nothing else to do when the pocketbook is flat. And that’s not such a bad thing, if you ask me. Overflowing night clubs may be a sign of financial prosperity, but they do not augur so well for future stability as those old-fashioned family fireside conferences with Pa and Ma and the kids sitting in. There were several fatal symptoms of our inflation fever. Constant gadding about was one of them. tt a tt TODAY the raucous noises have toned down, the dancing is less wild and liquor, being expensive, is scarcer. A good many white-collared workers have donned blue jeans. And there are lights shining from home windows again. Hospitality may not be so lavish, but it is a hundred times more genuine. We are getting back to a few of the simplicities that the poor always know. And if parents will spend more time with their children; if husbands will learn to talk companionably with their wives; if boys and girls will read more and dance less; and if the family circle can regain its lost entity, we shall find that depression masks the face of a friend.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS: __

We Have Money for Just One Purpose—to Facilitate and Increase Trade. Is the Gold Standard Worth Maintaining? NEW YORK, Nov. 7.—Things have come to a pretty pass when the President of these United States deems it necessary to let a special commission decide whether he is guilty of ‘‘abysmal ignorance” regarding naval policies. Since few took the charge seriously, few will take the verdict seriously, and since a sense of humor could have been depended on to exonerate Mr. Hoover, It now can be depended on to relegate the whole childish Incident to oblivion. nan Stimson’s Peace Plea ONCE more, Secretary of State Stimson pleads with Japan to end the war in Manchuria. One is reminded of the church delegation that asked Lincoln to stop Sunday battles during the Civil War. “I’ll be glad to,” said the Great Emancipator, “If you can get the enemy to agree.”

Another Bear Enemy SENATOR CAPPER of Kansas, also, has a scheme to prevent short selling, which he will lay before the coming session of congress. The shorts certainly are going to have a tough time of it if every senator and representative who has promised to do so, introduces a bill. That is just one of the prices we pay for depression, however, and a comparatively small one. Besides, it often results in good. # # # Cheap Gold —Then What? MEANWHILE, science will make another effort to bombard the atoms with transmutation as a possibility, albeit a very remote one. What a commotion it would create if science should discover a cheap, easy method of converting lead, or copper, into gold. The old “standard” about which we have talked so fervently wouldn’t look half so indispensable, would it? 9 tt 'lt Do Move’ TIME was when people thought they couldn’t get along without a wbod lot, but you hardly can give one away nowdays. As Galileo said, “it do move, all the same.” Gold has played a mighty part in human affairs, but chiefly because no good reason has existed for frying a substitute. Let gold lose its value, and see how quickly we’ll find something to take its place.

The Wampum Standard GOLD is a! wonderful metal—soft, heavy, noncorrosive and virtually indestructible. Still, a lot of its power is due to tradition. For 3,000 years and more, human beings have been taught to believe in it, with the fact that everybody wanted some as che main prop of the belief. You and I want it because everybody else wants it, because we can swap it for bread and meat when we can’t swap anything else. North American Indians used wampum in the same way and believed in it just as firmly. Inhabitants of isolated, sandy islands have been found using common, ordinary rocks. tt tt tt Worth Maintaining CHINA and quite a few other countries use silver as a basis for their currency. Their credit would be all right if the rest of the world used it, but with the rest of the world demanding gold, they can’t buy in proportion to their general resources and producing power. Sometimes you wonder whether the gold standard is worth maintaining, in face of this obvious restraint on trade; whether we wouldn’t all be better off if some medium could be adopted which would permit fairer and more elastic exchange all around. We certainly are not doing ourselves, or other people, any good by keeping up a system which diminishes the very thing it was supposed to promote. We have money for just one purpose—to facilitate and increase trade.

People’s Voice

Editor Times—Your fight against utility rates is most commendable. The public is indebted deeply to The Times for its previous crusades for better government and a square deal for the people. I really think, however, in your present contest for a decent utility rate, you should include the telephone company. Just a few years back we were paying $3.50 a month in the business district for what was called the new phone and $4.50 a month for the old phone. We were assured If they were permitted to merge phones would be cheaper and service better. The result is we are paying $13.50 for a phone which before the merger cost but $4.50. This rate from the standpoint of common sense and decency, can not be defended. It is fine for our big men and leading citizens to lead and be active in the great work of human relief caused by unemployment, but it would be a master stroke to relieve the householders and the small business man of a telephone rate that is positively unjust and unbearable. We are educated to the necessity of using the phone, yet the rate has been raised till only the rich and most prosperous can use and enjoy it. Not many people wish to see the government enter extensively in business affairs, but what do we expect to do when, in every instance that the capitalist gets control of a public utility where there is no competition, he proceeds to abuse and. ride the public. No, they shouldn’t, but they do. The cost of a business phone now almost eouals the office rent. Yes, from $4.50 to $13.50 is some jump, and if you use the new kind of receiver it is a little more. CITIZEN.

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Oxygen Valuable in Pneumonia Cases

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. THE use of oxygen in the treatment of disease began about 1917, when the famous British physiologist, Haldane, devised a face mask which was used successfully in treating cases of disturbance of the lungs due to war gas poisoning. The harmfulness of a lack of oxygen has been demonstrated by the symptoms of mountain sickness, in which the air is low in oxygen content. When there is lack of oxygen the person becomes blue because there is not a sufficient amount of oxygen circulating in the blood. The pulse becomes rapid. There are disturbances in the breathing, nausea and vomiting, slight fever, fatigue delirium and finally collapse. It is found by examining the blood of patients with pneumonia

IT SEEMS TO ME by h ™d

SOME men who are dependent for a livelihood upon the theater object because I said recently that such activities tend to corrode the brain. And, in particular, exception has been taken to the use of George Jean Nathan as a horrible example. If I understand the contention of the faultfinders, Nathan’s brain, good or bad, has not altered at all in twenty years. It may be so. Probably a stronger casg for my side could be built up around George Cohan. Here we have an instance of an active intelligence subjected to the long ordeal of contact with things theatrical, and I believe that few will care to argue that Cohan bulks as large as he did shortly after the turn of the century. It seems a long time since he was advanced seriously by many as the greatest of American playwrights. Any such list made out today would be a long time getting down to Cohan. Possibly the praise was indiscreet even in the old days, but there is no denying that anew force seemed to have come to Broadway when “Seven Keys to Baldpate” first was produced. tt tt U An Early Pacemaker THE error in appraisal lay in the fact that George Cohan brought no new ideas or subject matter to the playhouse, but only a skillful technique. I doubt that “Baldpate” would hold an audience now, but that is no reason why credit should be taken away from Cohan. He was among the first to cap-

m TODAY $9 7 WORLD WAR \ ANNIVERSARY

REBELS TAKE PETROGRAD November 7

ON Nov. 7, 1917, the garrison at Petrograd joined the cause of the Maximalists and seized the city with comparatively little fighting. The night the military revolutionary committee of the Bolsheviki issued a proclamation to the army, workmen and proletariat of Petrograd: “We have deposed the government of Kerensky. The change was accomplished without bloodshed. “The Petrograd Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates considers the following program of the new authority: 1. Offer of an immediate democratic peace. “2. Immediate handing over of large proportional lands to peasants. “3. Transmission of all authority to the Council of Workmens’ and Soldiers’ Delegates. “4. The honest convocation of a constitutional assembly. “Soldiers! For peace, for bread,' for land, and for the power of thei people 1” sr

Not a Soft Spot in Sight!

that it contains at times a very low amount of oxygen. 1 If oxygen is given to a patient with pneumonia, the amount of oxygen in the blood is raised greatly and the patients thereby, breathe more easily and have a better opportunity to recover. The use of oxygen has been delayed by the necessity for the development of special apparatus with which it may be supplied to those who need it. As an outgrowth of this need there has been developed an oxygen tent which is placed over the patient as he lies in bed. The gas is supplied to the tent from an oxygen tank connected with a motor and with suitable devices- for cooling. In pneumonia consolidation of the lungs takes place and the air spaces are filled with purulent material. Therefore, it is difficult for

ture the trick of pace in building mystery farce. He softened the way for others. And that is the trouble with technique unless backed up with a power and a pasison to deal in realities. Cohan had nothing to say, but he said it very well. That distinction having passed into the hands of younger men, there remains little to Cohan except the undoubted fact that when the history of the American stage comes to be written the historian will of necessity include a footnote reading, “Cohan, George—a producer and playwright who was popular around the time of the Spanish-American war.” tt Striving for impersonal AT times I have been gravely tempted to make my column more impersonal. A change in .heroes might be appreciated. Only yesterday an elderly gentleman assailed me in person with harsh words about my work. Since the scene was social, I thought at first that his intention was only humorous and kidded along as best I could. Soon I perceived he meant all he said; nor was he very tight, at that. “You are not educated at all,” he told me, “and because you know nothing, you are compelled to exploit your own personality continuously.” Rather feebly I answered that this at least was a subject with which I had some familiarity, to which he replied, “Yes, but it’s such an unpleasant personality.” When an argument gets to that stage there is nothing to do but hit your opponent on the jaw or walk away. I could not hit him, for he was an elderly man of almost 40. It seemed to me, however, upon reflection, that possibly I owed myself an apology. Asa matter of fact, lam not an unpleasant personality. This “I” never was precisely Heywood Broun. Even in autobiography a man is tempted to use his imagination and shuffle things ’round a bit. Possibly grave injustice has been done here frequently to an admirable character. The Broun of this page swaggers and sometimes cringes. He is presented as a patron of speakeasies, a poker player and a generally shiftless person. The real man behind this fictional screen is quite different. He is one of the hardest and most reliable workers I have ever known. And naturally one does not have to be all jittery with nun in order to write about it. There is such a thing as a sentimental abstainer who can cheer himself up by listing wines and ales and beers and touching none at all. I shall have to quit writing about Broun altogether or present him in truer and more attractive colors. tt B tt I Can Take It or Leave It FOR instance, it isn’t true that I am gluttonous for publicity. Only two days ago I passed up a chance. The advertising man said the cigar company (the John Doe Perfecto, Inc.) was desirous of mak-

the person to get enough oxygen. Thousands of cases of pneumonia have now been treated by this method, and the results are sufficiently favorable to warrant its consideration in every difficult case. Because the most serious cases have been selected for this type of treatment, it is at present difficult to evaluate it exactly. There are, of course, other types of cases in which lack of oxygen in the blood is conspicuous such as, for example, collapse of the lungs after operation, severe cases of asthma, severe cases of asphyxiation, heart failure, and other disturbances of the heart. Today many of the leading hospitals of the country have installed oxygen chambers, rooms especially fitted for supplying oxygen to the patient while lying in bed, the entire bed wheeled into the oxygen room.

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

ing a layout in which the names and pictures of a number of newspapermen would be included. I said that I could not accept election to the advertisement because I never smoked cigars. This seemed to break him up a good deal. “Not even after dinner?” he asked with real concern. My heart was touched, but truth is truth, and gravely I shook mv head. J „ We were both rather sad about it. ‘You’re the last one on my list,” he explained. “All the others have come in on it. Everybody whose name and photograph we use gets a box of banquet-size perfectos and a humidor with his name on it.” Then inspiration came to him. Couldn’t we say,” he suggested, that if you ever decided to smoke cigars you most certainly would like to try the John Doe perfecto?” (Copyright. 1931. by The Times)

Daily Thought

Receive us; we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man. —Corinthians 7:2. tt tt it FULLY to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.—Joubert.

fWe Can Fit Any Foot as the 8:30 A. M. to 6 P. M. Daily 8 A. M. to 6:30 P. M. Sat. wmsk 18-20 EL Washington

NOV. 7, 1931

SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ

Chemists Strive to Save Fisheries $10,000,000 a Year Now Lost Through the Rotting of Fish Nets. A FORTUNE awaits the inventor who can devise adequate methods to prevent the deterioration of fish nets. In all probability the average person never has given this subject a thought. But the facts are, according to Dr. A. C. Robertson of the University of Illinois, that depreciation of nets costs the nation's fishing industry $10,000,000 a year, or about one-fifth of the value of the annual gross catch. The life of a fish net is a precarious one. according to a report which Dr. Robertson has prepared for the American Chemical Society. The subject interests chemists because of the possibility of developing a chemical preservative for treating the nets. “Nets usually lead a short life.” Dr. Robertson says. “Not only do powerful fish, sharks and seals entangled in a net escape easily and demolish it, but floating debris often tears holes in a net or pulls it a Irift. “Storms effect even worse damage, especially if the net is fouled with marine growths. In addition to the damage caused by these external and obvious agencies, a net constantly is losing strength by reason of normal routine use. “The oil and slime from fish cause the net to ‘heat’ when it is deposited in a heap in the hold of a fishing vessel, and there is always a weakening influence which apparently is due to the action of the water.

Bacteria Destructive Bacteria, cause of so much damage in this world, also play their part in the deterioration of the nets. “It long has been suspected that the general weakening of nets was due to bacteria, and a recent study of the deterioration of nets in fresh water showed that certain cellulosedigesting organisms indeed were to blame,” Dr. Robertson says. “The hydra, or red slime, which the fishermen dreaded so much were found not to be guilty.” A species of hydra, popularly called “red slime” because of its color, is a small organism which is a particular cause of trouble in the Great Lakes, particularly in Lake Erie. Studies of its effect In Lake Erie have been made by United States government scientists. “The hydra settle upon the nets where they remain as a source of annoyance to the fishermen, whose hands often swell as a result of the irritation caused by handling nets thus contaminated,” Dr. Robertson says. “They also drift about the lake, stinging the fish and driving them wild. This red slime represents practically all of the actual gross fouling that affects nets in Lake Erie. “The fishermen believe the hydra rot the nets. However, it is thought on the basis of these experiments, that the only probable harm resulting from the hydra is the increased bacterial action caused by these organisms affording the bacteria a safe place for growth.”

Dyes Curb Injury DEVELOPMENT of net preservatives, according to Dr. Robertson, has narrowed to two types, a copper resinate fluid for the treating of gill nets, and a cuprous oxide paint for trap and pound nets. The difference in physical properties of different types of nets has made impractical the evolution of any universal net preservative. “The art of net preservation has benefited by the advances made in preserving marine piling and in treating other textiles,” Dr. Robertson points out. “The synthesis of new compounds might help the fight against the deterioration of nets.” Bacteriological inquiry revealed interesting phenomena which led to tests of new textiles and new types of preservative treatment. “It was noted that when the tensile strength of fibers began to decrease rapidly, the bacteria at the same time had entered the lumen of the cotton fiber, and that the two events were simultaneous,” Dr. Robertson continues. “The- fibers began to swell rapidly after this entry. The swelling was accompanied by a quick growth of bacteria, which presumably were feeding on the nitrogenous matter in the pitch. “The fibers wasted away within until destruction was complete.” To combat this destructive force in gill net experiments were conducted with dyes which stop the growth of the bacteria. “Dyed thread has the very real advantage of being as light in weight and as flexible as the original twine,” Dr. Robertson adds, “and hence has great opportunities before it in the preparation of gill nets.”