Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 94, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 August 1933 — Page 10
PAGE 10
The Indianapolis Times ( A RC Birp-HOWAIin NEWSPAPER ) ROT W HOWARD TruHent TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Bu*ine* Manager Phone— Riley 5.061
Member of United Pre**, Rcripr* • Jloward Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Association. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulation*. Owned and published dally (except Sunday I by The Indianapolla Tim a I'ublUhing Cos.. 214-220 West Maryland street. Indianapolis. Ind. Pric* In Marion county. 2 centa a copy: elsewhere. .3 cent*—delivered by carrier. 12 centa n week. Mail iibiwiption rates in Indiana. >3 a year: outside of Indiana. 66 cents a month.
C”- l.vjht and (ha Peopia Win tin* Their Ovrn Ifi*
TUESDAY, ADO 29 f%33 • SPEED, SPEED, MORE SPEED A LTHOUGH other Hyde Park affairs may . "* get more ballyhoo, none of the President's recent conferences there has been more important than that with Secretary of Interior Harold L. lekys on public works. The building program is lagging. Either it must be • speeded up or additional millions of citizens w ill be on charity this winter. Apparently the public and even officials have not yet comprehended the relationship of the public works program to the NRA codes. There is a widespread belief that NRA by itself tan produce quick results. It can not. Taken alone. NRA codes can do more harm than good in some industries. There is a limit to which depressed industries can increase expenses—by higher wages and shorter work ■ hours—without more orders. It is true that the NRA codes, by increasing mass purchasing power, in time will provide the increased business and orders on whicli factories can operate. But that will take time. Meanwhile, we must go ihrough the critical winter months before the full beneficent effects of NIRA can be felt. In these intervening months, the purchasing power of individual consumers must be supplemented by large-scale orders to prime the business pump. That is the function of the public works program, under which congress has provided $3,300,000,000 for federal, state and municipal construction. During the last two months, there has been delay both in Washington and in the states and communities. Secretary Ickes and his associates had some excuse for delay, because they were guarding against graft and political favoritism. But now there seems to be unnecessary slowness lower down in the federal administration, and equally out in the states. Here is Secretary Ickes' appeal: “What I am urging now is action all the way down the line to translate this vast money force into wages and purchasing power. No matter how rapidly the administrator and the • board of public works allot the money, it does not serve its full purpose until it reaches the pockets of the workers. “To this end, I earnestly request all of- • ficials. as well as others associated with us * jn this great effort, to push forward at an even faster pace.” ? After three winters of experience, in which ; private and public charity broke down, surely , American communities at this late date do not ' need further argument to prove that the pub- . lie works method is a more humane and profitable way than doles to handle depression. MOLASSES AND VINEGAR ; MT7TTH opening of the nation-wide blue ; VV eagle drive, some high-powered adver- * tising experts are criticising NRA publicity as t “lacking in emotional appeal.* 1 At the same time, the National Council for ; the Prevention of War warns against the dan- * ger of mob hysteria, which too much emotional * propaganda easily might bring about. The ; war-time days, when some persons were per- : secuted for failure to buy Liberty bonds to the ; extent demanded by the local vigilantes, are * recalled with regret. Thus the publicity directors of NRA find . themselves between two fires, where they must ; draw a fine distinction as to what is a legitimate bid to our common sense and our feeling of responsibility for the other fellow, and what would be a mere cheap play to the emotions. Co-operation should be the key word. This is what is being stressed at the moment. Nonconformers should be persuaded. That means plenty of sugar for those who do their part. Our grandfathers told us long ago that mroe flies are caught with molasses than with : vinegar. POLITICS AND CRIME COME of the most interesting reading mat- ' ter of the year is likely to come out of . the New York grand jury hearing at which United States District Attorney George Z. , Mcdalle recently elaborated his charges that an intimate alliance exists between New York politics and New York crime. A charge of this kind is not new. and—to people at all familiar with the ways of municipal politics, in Manhattan or elsewhere—it is not especially surprising. Yet it is an accusation over which we have never, as a people, shown any capacity to become indignant. If a detailed list of names, places and dates can be given us, we might be able to get stirred up about it. • Inability of the average big city govern- • ment to suppress organized crime is one of the * most shocking symptoms which our society j displays. Gang murders, racketeering, kid- • napmgs, rum running, a conglomeration of -v lawless outbursts such as no other civilized land tolerates —these things are commonplaces in our municipal affairs. 1 Yet we seldom have the sense to reflect on 1 their causes. ‘ When Mr. Medalie declares that New York has these things because her gangsters are allied with her politicians, he states nothing ‘ more than a perfectly obvious truth. It is ’ true not only in New York, but in every other ■ city where organized crime is troublesome. ; A moment's reflection ought to show us ; that there can not be any other explanation. 5 Inefficient our law enforcement agencies may * be, but they can not be so stupidly incompe- ! tent' as to remain ignorant of the activities I of gangsters whose names and deeds are I known to the very school children. 1 Yet we continue to miss the point. We go : to the polls, year after year, and vote for the ' <rid crowd of machine politicians. We accept the spoils system without protest. We are complacent in the face of repeated . geveiauons that most city governments grant
favors to the rich and the powerful. And we can not understand why organized crime is so well entrenched. If Mr. Medalie, by citing chapter and verse for us, can show us precisely how such things work, he may start a wave of public sentiment that will help to eliminate the alliance between crime and politics in other places besides New York. . - —— NATURALNESS IN ACTING IN the moving picture “Tugboat Annie,” which scored such a great hit in Indianapolis recently, Marie Dressier gives a remarkable instance of the power of naturalness in acting. There is no affectation in this woman. And from this her power. You search the stages and silver screens for more naturalness in the thespians. In most of the renowned stars you usually find it missing in its fundamental form. And with this personal lack of naturalness goes too often an imperfection of makeup. Heroes and heroines grow old, but In many cases, while display .ng whitepowdered hair, have not a crease in their faces. This may be due to the desire to capitalize the matinee idol by preserving his or her youthful charms underneath the appearance of age. It is possible that producers believe that in the eye of the matinee idolator the matinee Idol is of no use if he or she only turns into a superb actor by obliterating the charms of youth. Artificiality and exaggeration, by a process of scientific precision, can produce natural acting and good aeting. But affectation is another thing, and it is of that the public sees too much in the general offering of films. For which again, we say, thank Marie Dressier for Marie Dressier. FIVE YEARS—AND NOW FIVE years ago Sunday a treaty designed to end all wars for all time was signed in Paris. Fifty-four nations affixed their signatures to the document. All promised to renounce war as an instrument of national policy, to submit future international disputes to arbitration. Today that treaty remains, in forfce—in theory. But its effectiveness as a practical barrier to war is gone, and perhaps gone forever. The world has turned its back on international co-operation and its face toward belligerent nationalism. In the light, of what has happened in the last three years, that is not surprising. There have been “unofficial” wars and threats of war. Nations have strengthened their armies, navies and air forces in preparation for future conflicts. Even public opinion—the same factor that forced through the Kellogg-Briand pact in 1928—has been remolded in the last three years. Japan’s success in defying the world in her conquest of Asia, Germany’s submission to the firebrand Hitler—to mention only a few cases—have hardened public opinion. It has become more realistic and less idealistic. BETTER VISION? 'T'HE Better Vision institute is the trade organization in charge of administering a code of fair competition for the optical manufacturing industry. But the code it has brought to the national recovery administration exhibits few* evidences of vision of any sort. It provides a forty-hour averaged week with permission to work fifty-four hours during peak periods, a provision which probably would permit the optical manufacturing industry to get by without hiring any more workers. Furthermore, a 40-cent wage could be paid to 75 per cent of all workers, a 32%cent rate to 20 per cent of the pay roll, and the 25-cent wage to 5 per cent of the pay roll. If- that scale stands, the Better Vision institute's minimum wages actually will be maximum wages. Seventy-five per cent of its workers will get sl6 a week, the others less. This plan is far from the spirit of NRA, which seeks to increase the pay of those who have been getting less. Its purpose is to increase purchasing power. What will the optical manufacturers do if all the workers in the country who need glasses have to buy them at 5 and 10-cent stores? The Belter Vision institute seems to be suffering from a serious astigmatism. ABUSING “MODEL PRISONS” SOME time ago New York state spent a good deal of money on a model prison—an institution out in the open country, without walls or iron bars, very different from the ordinary penitentiary. It was hoped that it could be a place for rehabilitation of young criminals. Right now the state is somewhat disturbed because certain convicts who have a good deal of political influence are getting transferred to that prison from such places as Sing Sing and Dannemora. The most recent transfer is that of a former deputy county treasurer, who was sent up a couple of months ago for going south with $248,000 of county funds. And right here you have a pretty good explanation of the -widespread public hostility to “model prison” schemes. A model prison that actually is used to reform young criminals is a good thing; one that merely serves as a comfortable refuge for crooks who have a drag is something entirely different. Until that sort of thing ends, the public will continue to look on prison reform movements with suspicion. 5,000,000 FEWER HOGS XT THEN the French peasants were unen- ’ ’durably oppressed by the depression which brought on the French revolution, they started cutting the throats of their landlords. So did the farmers of Russia when the hard times of 1917 led to a revolution. And in America today the farmers, desperately trying to get out of the pit of hard times, are also starting to cut throats. They are beginning to cut the throats—of 5,000,000 hogs, under Uncle Sam's supervision. The parallel between these cases isn’t so far-fetched as you might think. If the French and Russian governments had had the sense to try some agricultural relief scheme, such as this current hog-butchering plan, they might have prevented a whole lot of trouble.
MYSTERY IN REAL LIFE a n unemployed engineer in a middle westem city recently gave the police a perplexing puzzle by being found, lifeless, alongside a lonely road with a series of stab wounds in his back and a dose of poison in his stomach. It looked like murder, at first; but the police finally concluded that the man had killed himself and had arranged things to look like murder because of some final impish whim. This theory, the officers said, was strengthened by the fact that a detective story was found beside the man’s body. But a real detective story fan easily might make just the opposite deduction from this fact. There is nothing a mystery addict hates so much as the novel which presents a puzling homicide and then, in the last chapter, discloses that it really was a suicide. If the ihan in this case actually was fond of that kind of literature, could he be expected to ape a plot which, if he found it in a book, would fill him with a consuming rage? CONFIDENCE IS NEEDED IF the NRA program does no more than create an attitude of public confidence in a business revival, it will do a great deal to make such a revival an actual fact. General Hugh S. Johnson reminds us of this fact, by implication, in stating that one of the big needs of the day is a further loosening of commercial credit facilities. There is still a “hoidover timidity” from the depression period, and it has operated to keep credit more constricted than should be the case. “I do not believe you can 'get extension of credit by fiat,” he remarks. “You have to establish this basis of faith and confidence first, and that is what we are trying as hard as we know how to do.” If the NRA program can re-establish this confidence, it will have helped us a long way toward full recovery. GEN. JOHNSON’S FUTURE NEWS that General Hugh S. Johnson probably will resign from his position as recovery administrator late this fall is likely to provide the ordinary citizen with conflicting emotions. It is highly gratifying, of course, to learn that the general expects the program to be so complete and well-established that he will not be needed more than a few weeks longer. The mere fact that he is looking ahead to retirement indicates that a great amount of success has crowned his efforts. But most Americans, undoubtedly, will be sorry to see him step down. He has been a tremendously useful public official; he seems, besides, to be one of the most likable men the government ever has employed. It won’t seem quite right, somehow, not to have breezy General Johnson on the job at Washington. Story says light in torch of Statue of Liberty blew out during recent Atlantic coast storm, thus correcting the impression of many , anti-prohibitionists that Liberty’s light was extinguished a dozen years ago. Enthusiastic NRA admirer says “the blue eagle is getting business out of the red and into the black, and the future is rosy.” A code of many colors, we take it. It’s gratifying to learn that the National Photographers’ Association has accepted the code. Many persons had expected that they would reply in the negative. Government booklet says corn may be put to thirty-five uses. Kentucky mountaineers probably are wondering what are the other thirty-four.
M.E.Tracy Says:
ACCORDING to the census bureau, fewer persons were sent to prison in 1932 than during the preceding year. What is even more amazing, it is the first time in seven years that the number has decreased. The census bureau offers no explanation of this curious circumstance, which seems to upset some of our pet theories. By all economic yardsticks, 1932 was the worst year of the depression and should have given rise to a greater amount of crime and a greater number of convictions. The returns suggest that something is wrong with our deductions as to the effect of poor business on crime. We always have assumed that unemployment, lack of prosperity, lack of property, and so on automatically would result in more murder, theft, embezzlement, and forgery. Quite possibly, we fail to differentiate between conditions that are desperate and those that are comparatively hard. U tt tt IT goes without saying that average people will steal or even kill before they will starve to death, but a situation which confronts them with that alternative is rather different from the one with which we have bqpn dealing. Millions of people in this country have found it difficult to get enough to eat and wear, but thanks to wise relief measures and a generous public, they have not been driven to desperation. Instead of developing an anti-social complex, which generally is the basis of crime waves, the depression has tended to make people more considerate and sympathetic. Asa general proposition, they have been moved to help rather than hurt one another. That is not an uncommon effect of hard times, provided they are not too hard. With all its benefits, prosperity is apt to make people callous, especially if it is of the boom or speculative type. This country’s crime record owes something to the get-rich-quick philosophy which colors the American conception of success. There is no other explanation for the fact that poorer countries have suffered less from crime. tt tt tt BY every standard of material progress, we Americans are better off than most people. We drive more automobiles, bum more electric lights, and go to more movies. Our average home is better equipped than the average home in England, France, or Italy. Our average family enjoys greater advantages and opportunities. According to the most popular theories of social contentment, we ought to have less crime? but we do not. According to these same theories, we should have had less crime when the depression began than when it reached its peak, but such was not the case. Government reports show that business conditions were worse in 1932 than in 1931, yet the number of commitments to prison decreased by about 3,000. Obviously, It takes something mbre to account for crime than a list of commodity prices or a stock report.
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
: : The Message Center : : I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say It.—Voltaire =
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less.) By Disjruntied Visitor. First, let me confess that one of my reasons for writing this letter is to gratify my own private spleen. The other night being unavoidably detained it was necessary for me to cross your city in the neighborhood of 1:30 to 2 o’clock in the morning. While walking down one of your dark streets I was stopped, questioned, insulted, searched, threatened with everything from false arrest to plain thuggery, and altogether thoroughly terrified by an automobile full of your very vigilant guardians of the law. The next day, having been quite unable to sleeep, I felt pretty lousy. Also, I seemed to retain a rather persistent sense of resentment as a hang-over. Today, I am just wondering what great and profound public good was served by my intimidation. I do not believe that I am unreasonable. I didn’t resent being stopped and questioned. It was easy to explain where I was going. I didn’t even resent being searched. I like to believe that such things are done for my benefit and protection. I submitted courteously to both the questioning and the search. What I object to is the whole browbeating, threatening attitude of plain thuggery rampant in your police personnel. It didn’t make the slightest difference in the officers’ attitude that I was an honest, lawabiding citizen, on my way home. The last pleasant remark I had from the dignified lips of the law was: “One more word from you, Buddy, and you go to the jug.” This in answer to a timidly courteous question of mine as to whether I was disobeying any city curfew law by being in the streets at that hour. What I want to know is, how is treatment like this going to help you attain the necessary co-opera-tion between citizen and officer for law enforcement? One of the first things I noticed about your city was that your citizens, with one accord and with utter unanimity, ardently hate your police. I related this incident to a man I found walking the street from insomnia. His answer was characteristic. He ground his teeth. “I hate a policeman’s guts,” he muttered.
Dwarfing May Be Due to Gland Deficiency
AMONG the remarkable exhibits at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago is a considerable number of midgets and dwarfs of various types. In some cases the persons exhibited are sufferers from a condition known a sachondroplasia, in which there is an absence of bone formation or disturbance of development of the bones, which takes place before the child is bom, and continues thereafter. Occasionally this condition occurs in several members of the same family. Sometimes it is associated with other conditions which cause dwarfing, such as cretinism, which is due to an absence of the secretion of the thyroid gland. These individuals seldom develop fully, being mentally defective and seldom living to advanced years.
: : A Woman’s Viewpoint : :
IP not for justice, then for their own protection, men should protest the wage discriminations against women which, it seems, we may expect under the New Deal. In many industries the code clearly states the wage scale and. in several instances, women are to get less for the same work than men. Why, for example, should the code for small newspapers set the minimum wage for man’s mechanical labor at 40 cents and for women’s mechanical labor at 30 cents an hour? Because we still do not understand what equality means. The term “female worker, ’’ used extensively in the NRA instructions, is a reproach, very word female
The Hideout
Raiv Deal By a Barber’s Wife. THE hearts of the people were lifted when our beloved President held out a light for the overburdened people. I have worked side by side with my husband (who is a barber) all through the depression to try to make ends meet, and live a real American home life, regardless of the wolves in sheep’s clothing that profiteered on every corner. Now the real reason I am writing this is to ask, Are your family physicians going to be excluded from doing their bit on these medical examinations? If so, why? Or are those leeches going to be allowed to charge $4 for their services of a few moments, that will take a barber approximately one- third of a week to pay, as the average barber is not making more than from $9 to sl2 a week That is not fair, and I know that our President would not approve of it. Along with that there is $3 license fee, another new sterilizer, and, figuring it all together, it will mean just about one week’s salary to satisfy the leeches, and let the pet doctors get their dip of the poor man’s blood. Grocers are charging 3 cents more than they did July 1 for a pound of cottage cheese. They get 5 cents more on a pound of pork chops. The barber is one of the consumers, and is paying their prices, when he can, or doing without. It’s time for the investigators to get busy and correct some of these highway robberies, and it’s time for the housewives to report what they actually are doing to us. Barbers’ prices and wages have not increased, so why should groceries and other living expenses?
Why should it be that way? I thought a policeman was a public servant, hired to make those dark streets safe for your citizens, and even for casual visitors like myself. All right, then, whence this attitude of bullying intimidation? How did they get that way? The above related incident occurred on East Louisiana street, just west of the G. & J. Manufacturing Cos., Aug. 23. My name and address are with The Times city editor.
BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN
Editor Journal of the American Medical Association of Hygeia, the Health Magazine.
The most striking feature of a person with achondroplasia is the disproportion between the size of the trunk and that of the limbs. The trunk usually is normal in length, but narrow, due to shortness of the ribs. The arms and legs are, however, much too short, frequently being only half the normal length. The hands of such people are peculiar, being broad and very short. Moreover, when the hand is put down the fingers do not lie parallel, but spread out. Because of the shortness of the legs such people walk with a waddling gait and, as they grow older, there is a tendency for the back to
BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSO
hints at inferiority, and carries a faint odor of dishonor. Yet work is honorable. And so there should be neither male nor female—there should be only workers. all over the earth. a a a IAM much ashamed and frankly tired of the evasion and excuses offered to the American woman. I wish one of two things might happen. Either give us an honest deal or send us packing home without a chance to hold an outside job. We need a clean-cut statement as to where we stand in the new setup. And the present fine distinctions are an Insult, not only to us,
By Charles H. Krause, Sr. The Times is keeping up its reputation by permitting nonchurchmen to state their side and why they do not attend church. Not long ago a Methodist admitted to me that his church was going backward in membership. From Philadelphia comes the report that the Presbyterians had sustained a one-year net loss of 41,087 up to March 31, but that at Eastertime there is an ingathering of members which is not included in this report. Also, 82,448 names have been taken off the communicant membership rolls “for failure to conform to requirements.” The communicant membership of the church was announced as 1,968.788, which would indicate a tremendous low. The Roman Catholic church claims an increase of some 37,000 “converts.” Christian Science is gaining by leaps and bounds and making converts from Roman Catholics and orthodox Protestants. All admit that there is something wrong with our social order, but would the clergy proclaim a lasting remedy if it were convincing to them that it forever would abolish unemployment? Forty years ago, the Rev. Edward McGlynn was excommunicated for advocating the single tax proposition of Henry George, but was reinstated without recanting. Cardinal O'Connell did not succeed in silencing fearless Father Charles E. Coughlin. The Rev. A. H. Kenna of Roberts Park Methodist church was not so long ago transferred to St. Louis. Was it because he permitted lectures on labor and capital to be held in a small auditorium of the church? “There’s a reason” fqr the drift away from the churches.
So They Say
The blue eagle doesn’t know anything about intra or inter-state laws.—General Johnson, NRA administrator. The battlefield is for man what mother is for a woman. Mothers must give themselves to the bearing of children and fathers must fall on the battlefield to assure a future for their sons.—Franz von Papen of Germany.
curve inwards so that the buttocks are projected backward. The head is usually large; in fact, it seems exceptionally large in relationship to the size of the rest of the body. No one knows exactly the cause of this condition, but it is believed to be related in some way to a deficiency of secretions of certain glands. Neither is there any known method of treatment that is worth while. There-are other forms of dwarfing due to absence of the secretions of various glands, particularly the pituitary gland, which supplies the growth hormone, or secretion, to the body. In the absence of this secretion, the entire body fails to grow satisfactorily.
but to the national sense of fairness and honor. And such injustice can have but one logical result. It will be the means of keeping thousands of men out of work, because the employers, many of who already are at thenwit’s end to meet the pay roll, naturally will hire women when they can get them under the new code for less money, and still remain patriots. Man loves his sex, but not more than he does his pocketbook. Can the American working man ever hope for true justice for himself in a social order that tenders an economic half loaf to his women? I think not. Alt
.AUG. 29, 1933
It Seems to Me
BY HEYWOOD BROUN
NEW YORK. Aug. 29.—1 am a little bit puzzled by the amount of stuff which is appearing recently about “free speech” and “the freedom of the press.” I believe that these are important rights and that they should be preserved. Nor am I unmindful of the fact that in many sections of the country, either by statute or by practice, penalties of a savage sort are visited upon radicals, and Communists in particular. I am ready to shout “Hear! Hear!” when any member of an oppressed minority protests against these violations of h?s liberty. But I want to know just who has been telling such respectable organs as the New York Tribune and the Nation to get down off their respective soap boxes and move on. I see no blood upon the pate of Dr. Gruening or of ' Mr. Reid. n tt a i Wind in the Treetops AND yet both publications are in a lather about the threat ! which they think they see to their liberties in NRA. The current Na- ! tion. for instance, after asking itself ! a series of rhetorical questions, suddenly bursts forth, “But we never shall consent to these policies being tried at the expense of our liberties, individual and group, and we can not be frightened or abused into taking any other position or into remaining silent when it seems to us that their success is being jeopardized by mistaken actions and policies.” I think it is up to the Nation to tell all. lam curious to know Just who threatened it, and with what. He would be a bold man indeed who would venture to predict every possible happening which may occur in the age of the Blue Eagle. Silly things have been done under the stress of hoopla, and there may be others even more hysterical. I will not even take the risk of saying that because of NRA or under NRA no single infringement of the freedom of the press has occurred. All I can say is that I have not been informed of a single specific incident as yet. Every piteous howl which I have heard has come from a person who professes to believe that somebody is going to biff him right in the nose six months from now. Ido not say that nobody should cry out ' before he’s hit. If you see a big j bully drawing back his arm, it may be an excellent idea to howl for j help before the right hook lands, i But I can see nothing in the letter or even the most remote implications of the National Recovery Act which suggests that free and full criticism of the measure, in whole or part, is to be barred. It is almost ironical to suggest that the chief figures in the administration have put any soft pedal on criticism. It was General Hugh S. Johnson who predicted weeks ago, “Pretty soon the air is going to be filled with dead cats.” While it is triie that he has received some of the most rapturous praise every bestowed on anybody in American public life, plenty of cats have flown past his head. And nobody as yet has reported any reprisals. £ £ £ Carries Big Hatidicap IT is a pity that the Eagle’s valet happens to be a general. It is a handicap which Mr. Johnson will have to live down. When you say “General” to the average American his immediate associations are, “Have this man shot at sunrise!” He thinks of a general in terms of Von Kluck going through Belgium or Sherman marching to the sea. But it seems to me that the temperament of Hugh S. Johnson is largely legal. It is quite possible that some of his warmest admirers among the Washington correspondents have distorted his personality rather to his disadvantage. The emphasis has fallen chiefly upon his most pungent sayings. Not nearly as much attention has been paid to his reiterated insistence on some such formula as, “But that is what the law says. It’s perfectly plain, and I’m not here to change the law.” There is nothing in the law which even dimly suggests that anybody in the government has the right to confiscate the nation’s putty blower. tt tt tt One Round of Abuse BUT I think the weekly goes too far when It seems to say that nobody has a right to “abuse” its editorial opinions. Why not? That, I take it, is a part of free speech. The Nation itself has abused many people, and mostly very justly. I see no reason why it should wish to abridge my right, or the right of anybody else, to express the opinion that its present editorial policy in regard to NRA is extremely fat-headed. I agree entirely with the theory that this is not the time in which to attempt to regiment thought. In fact, I cannot conceive of any national emergency in which it is a useful thing to have * everybody thinking alike. Let the dead cats fly. The more the better! The only thing that puzzles and even shocks me is the strange spectacle of liberals and radicals joining hands with some of the toughest and most reactionary of industrial leaders around the tail of the selfsame cat. (Copyright. 1933, by The Times I Working Again BY HELEN WELSHIMER America is working! Once again There is the sound of labor in the land. Flame-bright the forges light the ending dark, And tasks begin for every reaching hand. There is the ring of anvils in the night, The swing of axes, march of workers’ feet, And steel flows molten, shining as a dream— Now we have learned shrill whistles may be sweet! Triumphantly the flag waves high and free Above the smoke where industry begins, Above the busy-ness of shops ana stores, Above the hearts purged clean of idle sins. Oh, always it is good to have a task. Life’s pattern must grant some work to men. So let the bugles play, the deep drums throb, America has gone to work again!
