Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 263, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 March 1932 — Page 4

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The Drive Is On Two events on Friday show* the determination of the people of this state to protect themselves from bankruptcy that is threatened through unfair taxation, both official and protected. The first is the decision of the commission named to write a program for a special session of the legislature that promises to relieve the farmer and the home owner from the unequal burden they now carry. The other is the courageous declaration of Lawrence F. Orr, head of the state board of accounts, that utility rates must be lowered before any real relief can be secured. The committee recommends an income!} tax. Such a measure was killed in the last legislature by the most powerful lobby which ever gathered at the state capitol. An income tax would take the money from those who have it and lift the menace of sheriff sales from owners of real estate. Tt is admitted that only a small percentage of the wealth of the state pays the taxes. New forms of/wealth escape and real estate pays the bills. It is true that before there will be a really fair distribution of taxes the income tax must also include a tax on corporations, which have supplanted the individual. But the income tax is the proper start. The frank declaration of Lawrence Orr that the utility bills are in reality a tax will accelerate the drive that is being made all over the state for relief from unjust burdens established during days of inflation. In the periods of prosperity the utilities established for themselves the principle that they had the right to collect not on investments, but on the cost of reproducing their plants. They capitalized the war and its inflation. The Times suggested months ago that a legal principle of valuation that worked in periods of inflation should work in periods of deflation. Orr repeats this with emphasis. Utility service is an essential part of modern life. The water rates are a direct tax in this city. No building is useful, either for habitation or for commerce or industry without it. To permit the local company to continue its extortions is unthinkable. The same is true to a degree of electricity. The best way to avoid the disaster that is threatened by present conditions is to readjust the tax burdens and give the people a break—-or at least, half a break. Today they are slaves to injustice.

Will Cuthbertson ACT? Mayor Sullivan, acting for the people, has demanded that the public service commission investigate the methods of the local electric monopoly and its foreign holding company. He demands to know which of two sets of figures are correct—the reports made to the public service commission as to income or the statements given to the public in order to sell securities. He demands to know why the management of one company costs twice as much as the management of two companies before the merger. He demands to know the reason for the long term contract with the Insull interests for power at a much higher figure than the cost of production, with the inference that this was a part of a deal between two promoting interests for a division of the loot in Indianapolis. He demands to know why coal is purchased from a subsidiary of the holding company which owns the stock of the local electric company. A brief inquiry by Commissioner Cuthbertson into the two sets of figures should be a basis for an immediate order for reduction. If the company is losing greatly in revenues, he might be justified in refusing to take action. But if that be true, he should know why the company showed, in a pamphlet issued while such an appeal was made, that its revenues for the twelve months ending Sept. 30 of last year showed a very small decline over the revenues for the same period a year before. The law has a name for such statements, if they can not be reconciled. Commissioner Cuthbertson has plenty of time to give to an effort to prove that one candidate for 3overnor on the Democratic ticket is utility minded. He may hope to distract attention from his own long service as a legislator to utility interests and his present reward as a member of the public service comnission. Apparently he has no time to act on the appeal of Indianapolis for relief. Political activities will not be accepted as an excuse for his failure to give attention to this important ■natter. The people want relief—and want it now. Canada and the United States Gentlemen now speaking in congress for the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Wilson, apparently are so bankrupt of native statecraft that they boast cf having received their inspiration for the proposed $600,000,000 sales tax from the discredited systems of Europe, Australia and Canada. If we are to follow other nations in our fiscal policies, v.e hope it will not be the unhappy sales tax countries of Europe, nor the virtually bankrupt Australia. < As for neighbor Canada, why do these same Democratic and administration leaders who refused to imitate the Canadian policy of feeding the jobless now seem to swallow an unsound and unpopular tax on :onsumers which Canadians themselves want to get rid of? The house ways and means committee may have given Canada's sales tax exhaustive study. Several of them recently made a Junket across the border. Obviously, however, they did not learn about it from the Canadian people. The Canadian people, we hear from our correspondent, are about unanimous in declaring it far

The Indianapolis Times <A SCKH'PS-HOWAKD NEWSPAPER) Owned Hnd published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing; Cos.. 214-220 West Maryland Street. Indianapolis, ind. Prire in MarioD County. 2 cents a copy: elsewhere. 3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subscription ratea in Indiana. $3 a year: outside of Indiana. 65 cents a month. BOVD OURL.EI. ItOV TV. HOWARD. EARL. D. BAKER Editor President Business Managrer PH<)NE— Riley SMI SATURDAY. MARCH 12, 1932. 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.” '

from the rosy, painless and happy solution of tax troubles as advertised. The Canadian sales tax, we learn, is a war baby. How popular it is may be gathered from the fact that the Canadian Manufacturers Association, the trade and labor congress, all the major farmer organizations, many Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce have denounced it. These say that it discourages trade; is cumbersome and intricate; acts unfairly as between certain commodities; loads the tax burden on those least able to bear it; encourages profiteering and pyramiding. While the Canadian liberals were in power, the sales tax was under heavy bombardment from the conservatives as well as from the progressives. It was, in fact, reduced to 1 per cent in 1930. When the conservatives came to power in 1931 Prime Minister Bennett raised the rate to 4 per cent. He explained he did this not because he liked the tax, but because he feared to dislocate business at the time of depression by changing the tax system—a feeling not shared by the bipartisan writers of the American revenue bill, which changes the American system. Bennett, in fact, calls the sales tax “undependable.”

At 4 per cent, and with many more exemptions than in the house committee bill, the Canadian tax raises $65,000,000 this year. Even this is a burden of 330 oil every Canadian family. Based upon Canada’s experience, it is estimated that this S3O can become in fact $55 —in pyramided increases in commodity costs. Under the circumstances we can understand the comment of a Montreal tax expert that sales tax “victims gladly would exchange it blindfolded for almost any other kind of tax.” Throwing Away Business If there are any high tariff defenders left—outside the Republican old guard—they would better get busy. For the country is becoming pretty completely disillusioned about that million-dollar Hawley-Smoot monstrosity, which was touted to “restore prosperity in sixty days,” and, instead, doubled depression and unemployment. The latest group to take a crack at trade-killing tariffs is the American Committee on International Settlements of the International Chamber of Commerce. This committee is headed by none other than President Hoover’s friend, Silas H. Strawn of Chicago. After pointing out, somewhat plaintively, that numerous world economic and international Chamber of Commerce congresses since 1927 have called for liberation of trade from destructive high tariffs, the Strawn committee complains that: ‘ Despite these solemn declarations and warnings, nearly every country in the world proceeded to impose additional restrictions upon international commerce. In fact, since 1927, we have gone through an unprecedented period of increasingly aggressive and retaliatory tariffs and other restrictions upon trade.” So the committee “recommends consideration of a change in national policies throughout the world respecting tariffs and other restrictions on trade.” The United States government would not have started this latest suicidal tariff war, if more of the big bankers and industrialists on this committee had fought openly and vigorously against the HawleySmoot bill when the administration was forcing it on the country. This committee of sixty-seven includes the biggest names among the Republican and Democratic party campaign contributors. Are they ready, in addition to passing general resolutions, to work for specific and immediate reduction of the American tariff wall to hasten business revival? American export trade now, compared with a tenyear average, is running at an annual loss of two and a half billion dollars. Two and a half billion dollars’ worth of business would be very welcome to American business men and the unemployed. Sir Malcolm Campbell wasn’t satisfied with 253 miles an hour in his racing car. You never can satisfy these motorists! The idea of work startles children, a child expert says. Children must be smarter than we thought. They made Jack Dempsey a colonel in Kentucky. But most fighters don’t respect their superior ! officers. Further pi oof that the Philippines rapidly are ! becoming civilized is shown in reports of gang warfare in Manila. Arizona women are fighting for a bill providing for easier divorce. What they really want is easier alimony. Since the depression, America has become a land of law and no orders.

Just Every Day Sense BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

WE are being educated today to the danger that lies in hoarding money. It destroys business, they tell me. And it destroys something more than that for the individual who does it. It kills his appreciation of the joys that are within his grasp tcday. When I was a little girl, a wedding took place in our village that seemed as romantic and lovely as a fairy tale. A gorgeous girl and a handsome man settling down into a pretty home. The wedding was an event and the gifts very splendid for those days. The most wonderful was a chest of solid silver. After the couple had returned from their honeymoon it began to be whispered about that the bride was indulging in the rankest extravagance. She was using her good silver every day. Then in eighteen months the bridegroom sickened and speedily died. That beautiful part of the girl’s life had passed forever. Do you think during the long years she ever regretted that each night for herself and her lover she had spread her-table with the best silver? a a a THE housewife attitude has flourished with us. Save, save, save, they cry. But save for what? And how much? The present, we contend, is the only time we have, but most of us act as if the future were ours for certain. We postpone so many of the splendid experiences we might have because we are too stingy with our time. Time is money—how we have worked that phrase to death! Time is far more precious than money ever can be. We let it slip by us while we contemplate our dollars. We put off our possible pleasures, the charming yet simple holidays that husbands and wives might have together, the family picnics with our children, the visits to friends and relatives, the trips we could take, the good times we might have, all to hoard some more cash. Indeed, the most pitiful thing about all our modern scene is that we always are $o busy making a living that we have no time to live. \

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M: E: Tracy Says:

Do Our Public Officials Realize How Hard It Has Become for Many People to Pay Taxes, How Taxes Are Forcing Thousands of Them to the Wall? NEW YORK, March 12.—Sales tax or luxury tax, income tax or nuisance tax, this is no time to ask the American people for an extra billion dollars in cash. No private business could survive on such a policy. For that matter no private business could survive on the policy pursued at Washington since 1929. Had the Hoover administration begun to curtail expenses right after the stock market crash, it would not be facing such an enormous deficit. Had preceding administrations refused to repeal taxes favoring wealth and speculation, even in part, they could have built up an ample reserve with which to meet this emergency. The economic situation confronting our government is rooted in lack of foresight.

Economy Talk Meanwhile let us not forget that the public debt has been reduced by some eight billion dollars since 1919. That represents a surplus credit that the government might use, and which it should be using. Instead, the government proposes the identical policy for which it has been criticising banks—call for cash and refuse credit. Furthermore, it proposes to avoid such economies as the vast majority of people have been obliged to make. There has been much fine talk about saving money here and there, but for the most part, it has resulted in little, except the discharge of a few poorly paid employes at the foot of the line. tt it tt Swivel Chair Immunity UNITED STATES Steel cut the salaries of all its high officials before reducing wages. Did the government? Has there been a single move at Washington to reduce the pay of those who could best afford it? You can go to the books of most any great concern in this country and find that its operating expenses are down by 30 or 40 per cent. Better still, you find that those at the top are sharing the loss. When you go to the public books, you find a very different condition prevailing. You find some of the postoffice clerks overworked because vacancies have not been filled, but you find the boys at the mahogany desks drawing the same old pay and expense accounts.

Rank Inconsistency THE government is in a hole because it could get away with things the rest of us couldn’t. Now it wants us to pay off its deficit over night because it has the power to make us. At the same time, it wants all the banks to be liberal with credit and all the mortgage companies to be lenient with extensions. tt tt tt Why Not Bonds? IF one billion dollars in taxes each year for two years is sufficient to balance the budget, why couldn’t the same result be accomplished by a bond issue for two billion, but in order to be fair, iet’s call it three. With the public debt reduced by eight billion since 1919, is there any sound reason why such a bond issue should not be made? Is there any sound reason why credit shouldn’t be employed to the limit at a time like this? Do our public officials realize how hard it has become for many people to pay taxes, or how taxes are forcing thousands of them, if not hundreds of thousands, to the wall? tt u The Last Straw HPAXPAYERS’ strikes are becoming.!* angerously common, not so much from a spirit of unreasoned discontent as from necessity. Down where people live, and where a third, or a fourth of them are out of work, the margin of safety has grown pitifully thin. It often occurs, that a ten-dollar bill represents the difference between failure and the ability to hang on. Any kind of pressure, no matter how slight, should be avoided, if possible.

Questions and Answers

Who was Jean La Fitte? He was a noted pirate operating in the Gulf of Mexico. He was born in France and held a commission as a privateer from the French government, but degenerated into a pirate with Barataria bay, as his rendezvous. Upon the outbreak of the War of 1812 the British made overtures to La Fittd who refused to join them. Later, he joined with the American forces under General Jackson in the defense of New Orleans. and he and his crew acquitted themselves so well that President Madison issued a free pardon for all their misdeeds. La Fitte is supposed to have died in Yucatan in 1826. How many persons in the United States are gainfully employed? According to the 1930 census the number was approximately fortyeight million. What is the Lim-fjord? An arm of the sea extending across the northern part of Jutland, Denmark. How can an individual loan money to the United States government? By buying government securities. For what purpose was the leaning tower of Pisa built? A bell tower or campanile.

Daily Thought

The wicked flee when no man pnrsueth.—Froverbs 28:1. They whose guilt within their bosoms lie imagine every eye beholds their blame.—Shakespeare.

No Question Who It Will Hurt Most!

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE One Out of 26 Lives to Be 90

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hvjreia, the Health Magazine. ONE of every twenty-six white persons in the United States lives to be more than 90 years old! This interesting fact has been brought out by Dr. Raymond Pearl, who recently finished an analysis of the diseases and causes of death of the aged. Strangely enough, your chances of living to be 90 are better if you are a woman. For women, nearly one in twenty lives to be 90. The percentage for men is lower.' The usual cause of death for persons over 90 is senility, which merely means the person grew old and died. Actually, of course, even though a person may wear out at the age of 90, it is probably some special organ among the important parts of the body that breaks down and is the primary cause of death.

Times Readers Voice Their Views

Editor Times—l am sending you a comment on the present situation, as one who sees it from the sidelines. Why doesn’t congress, since it started it, and the President correct the mistake made when they passed and approved the tariff revision bill? You would think they believe it a crime to back down, so they let the people suffer. The country was going to the dogs when they passed it and by now they can see it is getting no better. Maybe it would be a good thing to have an investigation about why the tariff bill was passed. Everybody knows it did the people no good as it was supposed to. Then the question: Who did it benefit? comes up. Take the situation with Japan. Have we the force we should need in that case? If not, w r hy not? Because of lack of money. Takes money to build airplanes, navies and uphold an army. There did not seem to be a shortage of money when it came to keeping up the army of prohibition snoopers and stool-pigeons to uphold the prohibition law that the AntiSaloon League forced on the country. That is another reason we are all broke today, including some of the biggest cities. This country is being run by politicans, for politicians. When political parties get stronger than the government, it is time to shift back to the Constitution. We have ten Commandments. You can not add to or detract and live. F. R. Y. Editor Times—Officers and members of the Sunnyside Guild would appreciate it very much if The Indianapolis Times would publish a few facts concerning the work of the Guild. The Sunnyside Guild was organized in 1919 to furnish entertainment and help in many ways for | the patients at Sunnyside. In that

Your Garden Now is the time to prepare for that summer garden you are going to have. Our Washington bureau has a packet of nine of its bulletins that will be mighty helpful for all phases of garden work. The titles tell the story: 1. Beautifying Home Grounds. 5. Care of Lawns. 2. Flower Gardens. 6. Shrubbery and Hedges. 3. Growing Roses. 7. Growing Dahlias. 4. Gardening. J. Growing Chrysanthemums. 9. Garden Sun Dials. If you want these nine bulletins mailed to you in a single packet, fill out the coupon below and mail as directed. CLIP COUPON HERE Dept. B-24, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times: 1322 New York Avenue, Washington, D. C.: I want the packet of nine bulletins on Gardens and Grounds and inclose herewith 25 cents in coin, or loose, uncanceled United States postage stamps, to cover return postage and handling costs. Name St. and No City State I am a reader of The Indianapolis Times. (Code No.).

Dr. Pearl has shown that from the age of 60 to the end of life, the death rate assignable to breakdown of the circulatory system is higher than that associated with any other system of the body. It has been pointed out previously that the heart begins beating long before the human being is born and works constantly to the moment of death. It is not suprising, therefore, that the breakdown of the circulatory system should be today the leading cause of death after middle age. The woman past 90 no longer is affected by the causes of disease associated with the reproductive organs and the kidneys, whereas, the man, after 65 years of age, still is liable to prostatic difficulties. Indeed, most of the serious illness of men after 65 is associated with such trouble. People who live to 90 years of age do so because they begin with

time they have been happy to give to them a moving picture machine, lawn swings and benches, three pianos, a victrola, extra chairs for the recreation room and card tables. A greenhouse has been built so the patients can have flowers and the most wonderful thing is a master radio connected with each bed, which the guild maintains. There is a radio in the nurses’ home and porch chairs for them, a radio in the main dining room of the hospital, and a public address system for the doctors so they may reach each patient. Each month an entertainment is given, with refreshments for every patient at the hospital and on each holiday they are remembered. At Christmas a present is given and a lovely Christmas box and all the trees and things that make their Christmas brighter. The extra treat for this last Christmas was fifty bed lights for the two cottages, which are a great help for the patients there. This last year the Sunnyside Guild gave $2,500 toward the building fund of the nutrition camp at Bridgeport, feeling it was helping many boys and girls on the road to health. The guild also gave SSOO to the Red Cross. For more than a year the guild has increased its work and now is trying to help tuberculer families outside of Sunnyside. This has been an emergency relief and all this ■work has been done, through the visiting nurse at Sunnyside and the emergency relief committee of the Sunnyside guild. The guild has paid out more than $9,500 in that time and feels that the money has been spent well. Editor Times —Just a few words to voice my opinion. I am an exservice man with a wife and three children. I have had no work for eighteen months. Lost $1,700 in a little home we were trying to buy.

constitutions that are superior and resistant to infection. Throughout life infections and other harmful forces which surround us take off the weak and leave the strong. Medical knowledge and skill and improved sanitary conditions prevent an increasingly large amount of sickness and death before 50 years of age. Ultimately, Dr. Pearl points out, there is a group of extremely old people for whom infections have no particular terrors. They have developed resistance. Most of them die because their constitution or system breaks down. Dr. Pearl is convinced that if any considerable number of people are to live longer than they now do, it will be necessary for man to acquire by some means not yet cletc a circulatory system organically superior to the one that he now has.

Used my bonus to pay debts. Never have owned a car or radio. Now here is the problem. Fifteen years ago the government called for men to protect the peace of America, and we answered the call. Fine and dandy. Today we people call on that government to help and protect us from starvation and what do we get? A lot of promises. My family is tired of eating soup and more soup. I am tired of working two days for a measly basket of groceries, and of having nothing to wear but castoff clothing. You people who read this do not know how heart rending it is to hear your children cry on account of the watered soup they have been eating for months. It is about time something is done. When we say anything up at the trustee's office, they call the police, saying that there arc reds plotting trouble. Where do they get it, when we poor denis are slaving two days for a basket of groceries we could duplicate anywhere for $1.50 if we had the money to buy with? We have stood it as long as we can. If not for any one else but our poor children, Mr. Editor, won’t you champion our cause? God Mess you for all the good you have been doing for us in your paper. It is our opinion that tl\e trustee’s office, the Community Chest and this “made work’’ affair is a lot of political graft. What has become of the money from benefit shows, dances and polo games? Imagine money going to the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. from the Community Chest. Try to get something there for nothing. DOWN AND ALMOST OUT.

Editor Times—lt will not be disputed by those people informed on the subject that there is more abject poverty in the United States than in any other nation on earth except China and India. The number of Americans who know this likely is not more than 20 per cent, but it now must be increasing rapidly. Such condition in a country with remarkable natural resources could be brought about only by political and economic injustice and a general disregard of the principles of human decency. Gradual recognition of these facts, together with the growing collapse of our capitalistic system, no doubt will prevent the accumulation of huge fortunes in the future. People now can not believe the Hoover prosperity ballyhoo of 1928 any more than they believed the “rugged individualism’’ of 1931. But there is need to wreck some of these present big fortunes to alleviate human misery if for no other reason. Millions usually are wrested from the helpless public. Rockefeller, Mellon, Ford, Morgan, Insull, and others are old men. Doubling and trebling the federal inheritance and gift taxes now, instead of a few years later, might add a billion dollars to federal income. & S.

.MARCH 12,1932

IT SEEMS TOME By Heywood Broun

This Is a Bad Time to Shout That Law Has Broken Down Utterly and That No Child Is Safe. IT Is reasonable, and more than that, for America to be excited and concerned by the problem cf crime, of gangs and racketeers. But no crisis in any country ever was solved by the simple process of running around in short circles and screaming. “Isn’t this awful!" So great is the public panic that) the most palpable kind of quack remedies are being freely offered and in some quarters accepted ieagerly. In the first place, there is great carelessness about the facts. At the moment this is written no certain explanation of the Lindbergh case has been reached. The dramatic nature of the kidnaping has dwarfed all other news and warped the national perspective. No matter what the solution, it will not be wise to generalize too much upon a single incident, however great its emotional appeal.

Waiting for the Facts IT still is less wise to theorize and even build legislation upon a happening still shrouded in the dark. But whatever the eventual evidence, it will be best to have our decisions rest upon the mass of facts and not upon a single set of circumstances. Fear has been loosed, and that in itself probably is the most tragic consequence of the deed in Hopewell. To the real and acute anguish of one family is added the dread of millions. No child from now on will return from school five minutes late without causing his parents fearful forebodings. Nothing which has happened within my lifetime is more calculated to cause nation-wide anxiety and suffering. Accordingly, I think it is a singularly bad time for writers and speakers to shout that law has broken down utterly and that no American child is safe. This is an exaggerated conception. Gang development and gang warfare have been responsible for a great increase in the kidnaping cf adults during the last two or three years, but the seizing of small children still is of rare occurrence. The fact that it always receives such a large amount of newspaper space is testimony to its rarity. Naturally, it is the wish of every one of us that it should become not only rare, but impossible. Yet it would be much better not to add phantom fear to the equipment of parents. Congestion, unemployment, sickness, and the reckless driver give every father and mother enough to worry about as things are. These are by all odds the more likely menaces.

Enlist in Common Cause THE Lindbergh case struck two distinct responses in the public mind. In addition to creating lean’ it roused national and, indeed, international sympathy. Possibly there can be a crumb of comfort in the proof that we need not be forever ruggedly individualistic to the point of insulation against the suffering of others. But I do not regret the fact that a large element of the dramatic 13 needed to capture the universal imagination. It seems easier for us to heed the agony of one or two than that of millions. If a survey showed that in som© single city thousands of boys and girls were suffering from malnutrition, we would be sorry, but tha forces of county, state, and nation would move less rapidly to save and solve the situation. The remedies for ills which afflict us are generally not dramatic. We will have in many papers letters advising the organization of vigilanca committees, and citizens will be urged to take the law into their own hands. In other words, to cure lawlessness we will be asked to embark on more lawlessness. It has been said that plays and pictures and stories about the underworld have tended to make a hero of the gangster and to encourage him in the pursuit of his profession. Yet there never was a talkie which, flattered the ego of the racketeer as docs the panic cry of "The gunmen have us licked!” tt e tt Not Dramatic, But Useful WITHIN the last few days a newspaper editorial gravely considered the advantages of America’s turning to a form of dictatorship such as that administered bv Mussolini in Italy. It seems to me that it would be utter folly to scrap democracy until such time as we have made up our minds to try it. Many of the very people who now are wringing their hands in despair never have lifted a finger to fighS municipal corruption and the very* things out of which racketeering grows. To the man or woman who says, “but what can I do?” there is a very simple answer. It consists of the undramatic advice, “Take an intelligent interest in the affairs of our city, state, and nation and then go out and vote accordingly.” If we have a battle on our hands, let’s fight it with ballots, rather than bullets. (CoDvrieht. 1932. bv The Times)

m TODAY m V ... IS THE- ; WORLD WAR \ ANNIVERSARV

PARIS IS BOMBED March 12

ON March 12, 1918, German planes bombed Paris, killing thirty-four persons and injuring seventy-nine others. Sixty-six more were suffocated in a subway stampede. Four German planes were brought down during the raid by French anti-aircraft guns. German troops entered the out* skirts of Odessa, principal Russian port on the Black sea and third city in size in Russia proper, before the outbreak of the World war. The Russian Black sea fleet was reported preparing to leave Odessa. Numerous German raids characterized the activities on the western front. Many of the attacks were made in force and were preceded by heavy artillery bombardments.