Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 115, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 September 1933 — Page 16

PAGE 16

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FRIDAY. BFPT 22 1911

RUSSIAN TRADE |7 VENTS in Washington suggest that realism. at least, Is guiding the American policies toward Soviet Russia. President Roosevelt has selected his financial adviser, Henry Morgenthau Jr., farm credit administrator, to supervise various trade negotiations witi. Russia. Chairman Jesse Jones of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation continues discussions with Amtorg Trading Corporation over the proposed Soviet loan of between $50,000,000 and $75,000,000. Reports indicate a possible decision by President Roosevelt to extend de jure recognition this fall. A substantial loan to Russia now would be more than a good business deal. The money, of course, would be spent here to buy surplus cotton, possibly 500.000 bales, wheat, copper, aluminum, machinery. The ice was broken last July when the R. F C loaned the Soviet gmrrnment $4,000,000 payable m a year at 5 per rent Interest—terms that seem a little onerous in view of the high regard other nations hold tor the Soviet credit position. Delay in extending credit and resuming commercial and diplomatic relations with a great nation caper to buy from us is all too costly. Foreign trade is part of the new deal, too. A country of 170,000.000 people with lapidly-expandmg living standards wants to do business with us on a big scale. Foreign Minister Litvinow has said that a billion dollars worth of orders are ready for America or its competitors. This is not vain talk, for in the last five years Soviet purchases abroad amounted to $2,500,000,000. Unlike some of our customers Russia is good pay. Out of $4,200,000,000 of purchases from other countrips there is no record of a single defaulted dollar. Yet last year we sold Russia only $12,000,000 worth of goods. Everv other important nation has resumed commercial and diplomatic dealings with Russia. America, for sixteen years, has allowed doctrinaire considerations to close the door to normal relations. Apparently the Roosevelt administration is bent on business. THE ENEMY EROSION r T~'HE destruction wrought by recent rainstorms in the south emphasizes the importance of Works Administrator Harold Ickes' announcement that $5,000,000 of government money will be spent on soil erosion projects. This is the first sign of federal action in a problem of grave importance to America's present and future generations. United States department of agriculture soil experts have Issued warning after warning. They say that already erosion has destroyed arable lands covering 54.000 square miles. Here is a permanent loss of a farm area equal in size to all England. In addition to tills destroyed domain, erosion has so badly washed the topsoil of 195,000 other square miles as to make farming of them a precarious ordeal. Thus a region bigger than pOvSt-war Germany has been so impoverished as to support only a peasant type of farmer. And 156.000 other square miles of land, an area bigger than Poland and as big as California, are rapidly on their way to ruin. H. H Bennett of the bureau of chemistry and soils estimates that 3.000,000 tons of good soil are washed away annually. Conservatively. this represents an annual loss of national wealth of $400,000,000. not counting indirect losses from floods, silting of reservoirs and canals, other destruction. Like China and the Mediterranean nations, we inherited a garden of forests and prairies, of blue rivers and grassy slopes. Like them we have overcut. overgrazed and overplanted. Unlike them we still may save the bulk of our basic wealth, the land. We can reforest, terrace farms, plan soil enriching and soil-retaining crops, slowly rebuild the soil we have so quickly destroyed. By a na-tionally-directed planning of land-use and a real conservation program we can halt the inroads of the enemy erosion. The $5.000 000 set aside by Irkes doubtless will cause private landowners to spend double that amount, and it is estimated result in the terracing of 5.000.000 acres of farmlands. It Is a small beginning, but for that we should be grateful. THE HOME STRETCH IDAHO and New Mexico, far western sisters. have joined the unanimous chorus of ayes on the repeal roll call. With only five more states now needed to complete the call it is pretty safe to predict that on Deo. 5 America will conduct final burial ceremonies for the unwept experiment. On that day. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah hold ratification conventions, and expect 10 share the honor of driving the last nail into prohibition's wooden kimono. What then? Real statesmanrhip is needed to work out an adequate system of regulation. Both federal and state governments should usher in temperance by passing control laws. Congress should take care not to tax liquor so heavily as to encourage more moonshining *nd bootlegging. Nor should It erect tariff walls so high as to nurture into being overnight a huge and powerful liquor industry at home. Each state must evolve a law suitable to its people, and a deal of experimentation lies ahead. A half-score have passed regulation laws, others are calling special sessions for that purpose. So far the laws run the gamut of variety. Montana imitates Alberta's law, and prorides for state monopoly of wine and hard liquor sales. Delaware vests control in a one-man commission and permits the state to buy. store and sell liquor. New York. Colorado, Connecticut,. New Mexico and Rhode Island

bar the old-fashioned saloon. Nevada leaves it all to local authorities. It is Important that the states lose as little time as possible in passing regulations, other--1 wise they will encourage the schemes of racketeers to seize more control. It is even more important that these laws should prevent the recurrence of the preprohibition evils and advance moderate, open and civilized habits among the people. NEW DEAL CHALLENGE A GROUP which might be described accurately as advanced liberals and moderate radicals has been meeting in Chicago to consider the state of the nation and what may be done about it. They distrust the New Deal primarily because it resolutely has refused to attack the ramparts of finance capitalism which is regarded by many as Public Enemy No. 1. They believe that so long as the great speculative bankers dominate our economic order all remedial measures can never get beyond sniping at our basic economic evils. These men, led by John Dew r ey, Alfred Bingham, son of Senator Bingham (jf Connecticut, former Congressman Amile of Wisconsin and others, have formed a Farmer-Labor Political Federation and urge the creation of a new’ party which will actually devote itself to the interests of the “forgotten man.’’ Amile demanded an amendment to the Constitution abolishing absentee ownership which he held would have the following beneficial results: ‘ The adoption of this amendment would result in leaving every one in possession of his home, his personal effects, or his farm if worked by himself. It would restore these things to millions of our people who have been dispossessed of them by the system. It would leave to be administered scientifically the natural resources and productive machinery of the nation for the benefit, of all the people by gearing productive capacity to consumptive capacity, and would result in a universal standard of living such as is now only enjoyed by the rich." The Federation adopted the following outspoken platform; “We are at the end of an era. The world is in the throes of change. The old system is crumbling. We need courage and intelligence to build anew order. Modern technical developments in production enable man to fulfill his wants in abundance for the first time in human history. The equivalent of $5,000 a year today or more can now’ be assured every family. “Yet men starve in the midst of plenty. Women are in rags while cotton is destroyed. Boys and girls wander homeless while houses are empty. Millions of Americans have lost their homes, farms and life savings. “Four per cent of our population control 90 per cent of the wealth. A handful of bankers rules the lives and destinies of our people. The tw r o old parties which govern us are paid and bossed by these same Wall Street bankers. “This can not continue. We, the masses of the people, must rise up and win economic and political control, we must organize to establish anew social order, a scientifically planned system We must own and control the means of production and distribution. We must produce to supply human needs Instead of for profit. We must be able to enjoy the wrealth which modern science makes possible. We assert the right of every American to a livelihood. Economic security for all Is the basis of life, liberty and happiness. “We, therefore, propose the following, recognizing that these demands can be fully met only in anew social order: “A job for every worker on a high American standard of firing. “Security of tenure on the land for those who farm It, guaranteeing cost of production. “Abolition of speculation and profiteering in food and other necessities of life, to protect both producer and consumer. “A national insurance scheme to protect every’ citizen's right to economic security throughout his fife, including allowances for children during infancy and education, and insurance for illness, accident, maternity, unemployment and old age. “Restoration of unearned wealth to the community by heavy taxes effectively administered on large incomes, gifts and inheritances and by a capital levy. “Nationalization of banking and return of sole control over credit and currency to the federal government as provided in the United States Constitution. “Public ownership of natural resources, railroads, public utilities, mines and other basic industries and agencies for marketing farm produce. “Foreign trade shall be a government monopoly, and the fullest benefit shall be obtained through international co-operation.’’ Let those who are sulking because they think the new deal goes too far give a little prayerful study to these proposals. Let them further reflect that these do not go nearly as far as do the tenets of the radicals who will ultimately get hold of us if the New Deal proves a “flop." And let the custodians of the new deal prove, if they can. by actual achievements that we do not need to go as far as the Dewey gToup insists. A LONGER LIFE -pROFESSOR H. C.‘SHERMAN of Columbia tells the American Chemical Society that discoveries in food chemistry have increased man's fife expectation from seventy to seven-ty-seven years. “Older men and women soon will rule human affairs to a greater extent,” he said. “Our knowledge of chemistry and nutrition is ready to form a bulwark against disease, enlarge the prime of fife and postpone senility.” Thousands of old people living on the brink of economic disaster will wonder if this is good or bad news. Until recently old age has been to the poor a specter, a regret. Science, refuting old prophecies and working new miracles, has been adding health and years to people’s lives. Statesmanship has done little to.make those years secure and serene. But there is hope in the awakening social conscience of America. Already twenty-five states have old age pension laws to provide a minimum of security for those past the breadwinning age. The next step wall be universal and compulsory unemployment insurance to provide security through middle age. Chemistry and the medical sciences are giving the people of America longer life. The people, through their government, could make ( it a merrier one. *

ADVENTURE REVIVED ONE of the strongest of all the habits possessed by the modem American seems to be his habit of holding reunions. Apparently there is something about the bonds which are forged when men unite in a common cause that the years do not weaken very much. And of all the reunions of the year, the most interesting must surely have been that of the International Sourdough Association, held recently in Los Angeles. This outfit is composed of men who went to Alaska in the great gold rush of '9B. Its members are not, in all cases, wealthy; for every man who struck it rich in the Klondike, there were a thousand who got nothing but experience for their pains. But that, perhaps, Is precisely why these men find annual reunions worth their while. A reunion of this sort celebrates the sharing of a great experience. The men who attend it are men who are set apart from the rest of as by virtue of their having participated in something so stirring and exciting that they find it worth talking about all the rest of their fives. And the value of that experience is the same whether they got rich or not. Asa matter of fact, it is a question whether the typical gold-rush veteran ever, in the bottom of his heart, really cared very much about getting a lot of gold. He thought he did, of course; he said he did, and he acted as if he did. But the common sharing of a mad desire to get rich quick would not be enough to bring hundreds of men together each year in a great reunion. If it did we would witness annual conventions of the vettrans of the bull market of 1929. No, the gold-seekers of Alaska, like the men who opened up South Africa, California, Australia and the rest of the great goldv fields, were really after something else. Life suddenly gave them the chance to step outside of the ordinary routine, the chance to try out anew horizon and enter anew w’orld. They found that curious something w’hich we call adventure; they found excitement, danger and a kind of freedom that most of us will never know. Once upon a time the earth opened up for them and took on a guise we stay-at-homes never saw. It made them rich in experience if not in purse. A HAVEN Representative samuel dickstein of New’ York urges that the government relax its immigration rules so as to permit the entry into this country of fugitives w r ho have been driven from Germany and other European countries by religious or political persecution. It is probable that this could be done without in any w’ay altering the fundamentals of our immigration restriction policy. We would not have to let down the bars and permit the flood-tide of immigrants to sweep over us as it did in the old days. America used to be proud of the fact that oppressed people of other lands looked toward it as a haven. To pronounce the names of the new Persian cabinet lather your face thoroughly for shaving, then tell your wife what you w r ant for breakfast. Sally Rand. Chicago's nude dancer, w’alks into a police station with a black eye. Dressed up at last! Europe may be preparing for another war, but we'll know’ w T ar is coming when one of the nations tries to borrow a few millions from Uncle Sam. New Guinea brides stir wood shavings in their hubbies’ food, says scientist. They must be reading American joke books.

M.E.TracySays:

SUMMARIZING his ideas of what brought on the 1929 collapse, Owen D. Young remarks that it was the system which broke down, not men. In the sense of men's ability to survive disaster and emerge from difficult situation, that is true, but in the sense that leaders of American business and finance failed to realize the folly of inordinate greed, it is not. To begin with, there was not much of a system to break down. Our great industrial and commercial institutions enjoyed practically complete freedom in the management of their affairs. They could create paper values and they did, could overproduce, water capital and expand credit out of all reason. It was a case of economic anarchy, guided by the philosophy of greed. Common sense if not conscience was kicked under the table by our best minds. Like gamblers with a streak of winning luck, they imagined that prosperity had been made a permanent feature of American life. u u NO one needed to worry about the future any more, to let them tell it. Our national destiny was to find expression in such exalted objectives as getting two cars in every garage, a French phone in every bedroom and enough traveling expenses for salesmen or a sucient number of conventions to support all the new hotels. If a bank president or depositor could make money faster by putting his roll in Wall Street why should he bother about the diversion of credit from legitimate business, especially in small towns? You can call the show a system, to be sure, but it doesn't look much like one as revealed by four years of havoc. It looks as though many of our outstanding leaders merely had proved their incapacity to make the wisest use of privilege and power. We are driven to institute a more rigid system of regulation and control for the simple reason that many of our outstanding leaders have demonstrated the need of it. have convinced the great majority of people that they can not be trusted with unrestrained liberty. a a a THE system is not being instituted to relieve men of their responsibilities, but to remind them of their duty and to see that they oo it even if they lack the inclination. If men had not failed in the fulfillment of their social obligations, had not revealed a false sense of value, had not shown an astounding absence of foresight, had not succumbed so completely to the craze for wealth, regardless of how it was accumulated or of the effect on general conditions, nothing like the new deal would be required. The restoration of social consciousness has become imperative, we are confronted with the task of rebuilding that spirit of consideration for other people, without which no community and no nation can be safe. just, or prosperous. It is not President Roosevelt's idea to provide a scheme that will work automatically, but one that will reconvert wealth, power, organization and energy to service for the common i.goocL

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to S:>o words or lessJ By Forrest Rogers. Whatever tactics Dr. Oxnam adopts to make the R. O. T. C. unpopular at De Pauw r university cer- | tainly is commendable to those who I still believe in American democracy. The speech of the Hon. Rose A. Collins of Mississippi, on Jan. 10, 1930 while he was a member of the subcommittee on appropriations handling the war department appropriations bill certainly will be inter- ! esting to the average American citizen. Let me give a few quotations. “The w>ar department has published an official manual of citizenship training <T. M. No. 2.000-25) for the use of officers teaching young men in the citizens military training camps, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, etc. Here is a typical paragraph from this manual: “The attempt to undermine the nation from within is more serious than the threat of armed force without. An impractical and destructive internationalism is being propagated by certain foreign agitators and is being echoed and reechoed by many of the nation’s intellectuals. Its efforts are to destroy that spirit of nationalism without which no people can long endure. Again he quotes from the manual: “Democracy—a government of the masses. Authority derived through mass, meeting or any effort of “direct expression, “result in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is com-munistic-negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, w’hether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice. and impulse. wi:hout restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogic, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.” Is this the sort of “stuff” the w r ar department w’ants to teach the American youth, as citizenship? Can the war department explain this?

MORE than 700 cases of encephalitis of the new’ type have ! developed in the St. Louis epidemic. About 20 per cent of those who are Infected die.' i This adds anew type to a dis- ! ease of which, as yet, but little is understood. There has been much confusion between the African sleeping sickness, caused by the tsetse fly, and the condition called epidemic lethargica encephalitis, a disease apparently caused by a filtrable virus of some sort, but of which, as yet, the exact cause and means of transmission are not known. The condition occurring in St. j Louis seems to be a modification of I the second named disease, namely, encephalitis or inflammation of the i brain. But it differs from the usual ! lethargic type in that it affects the ' higher portions of the brain rather than the lower portions. There have been much less disI turbances of the eyes, such as paralysis of the eyelids, which j causes them to drop, the squint, and the double vision, w’hich are frequently seen in lethargic encepha-

A GOOD man who had long been 111 died the other day. Before 'he sank into unconsciousness he spoke to his wife, who sat by his side and who had been his faithful i friend and sweetheart for many years. "You will be sad when I am gone,” he said. "But promise me that you will carry your cross. Don't I drag it.” Our crosses are many and heavy, I but from experience this man knew | that the only way to bear them is ! to shoulder them courageously. I Grief, disappointments, discourage- . ments. all sorts of tribulations may be overcome if we have the valor to j hold them proudly like fine trophies j of life ratrpr than as burdens im- ' posed- by unkind- fate*

To Keep the Home Fires Burning!

: : The Message Center : : s I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend io the death your right to say It.—Voltaire

Cause of Sleeping Sickness Is Puzzle

Perhaps So By One of Them. In all the disscussions concern- | ing married women working, people seem to lose sight of the fact that financial obligations usually ; determine the necessity for W'orkj ing outside the home; the general i opinion is that all women w’ork because they hate housework and ! want to dress expensively, attend night-clubs and drive the latest model cars. None of the above fit my case. I am proud of my home and am helping pay for it. We assumed a contract to the bungalow’ we now live in. in 1925, and ask any one who purchased property at that time what it ould be sold for now’. At a forced sale, I doubt if we could secure half of w'hat w T e have put into it. We have been paying on our contract eight years, have never missed a payment; paid off S4OO Barrett assessment, paid ever-increasing taxes, improved the property by painting, fencing and weather stripping, but still pay 7% interest as we are unable to obtain a loan to finance the balance and reduce our interest. If we were renting, could move into cheaper property, but our contracted payments remain the same, and are about double what we could secure as rent for the property at present. There is no mortgage. If the NRA could see that men receive salaries (not the minimum of $14.50) which will take care of a decent living and enable people to own homes, many a married w’oman now’ working gladly W'ould relinquish her job. Br a Subscriber As we read that electric rates over the country will be regulated by the rates in the Tennessee river galley, w r e hope for the time to come soon when they will use a “yardstick” on the Indiana Bell Telephone Company, literally and figuratively. If rates of smaller telephone companies are any criterion, surely, this most necessary utility can be obtained without undue sacrifice by j the subscribers. There hardly is anything one can

Editor Journal of the Ameriean Medical Association and of Hvjreia. the Health Magazine. litis. There is much more of sudden infection of the upper portion of the brain with high fever, lasting three to five or eight days. Most oi these patients do not sleep as profoundly as those with lethargic encephalitis. but they are mentally and physically sluggish and sometimes delirious. The doctor makes his diagnosis by the symptoms and by changes that take place In the spinal fluid, which he examines early in the condition, and also changes which take place in the blood. The condition resembles, in Its spread and in its manner of attack, much more that form of inflammation called poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis than it does the epidemic encephalitis. Infantile paralysis, as will be remembered, is limited in its attack usually to the lower portion of the spinal column, but does not affect the upper and lower por- | tions of the brain in most instances. j The investigators in St. Louis

A Woman’s Viewpoint BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON 1

l In many places now, and most I often, I am sorry to say, in comfortable homes, the whinings of women I feeling sorry for themselves make l up a lugubrious chorus of woe. ! Thousands of wives who have suffered only a slight decrease of ease and luxury are occupied in crying about their lot. a a a IN my opinion the home woman, the one who is still blessed with a reasonable amount of security, is not measuring up to the standards set by the business and professional j type, the feminine worker in office, and factory and shop. In short, the girl is proving more admirable ; in strength, cheerfulness and courtage than the older woman who

think of which has caused more inconvenience and even hardship, in many cases, than the unbending policy of the telephone company during this depression period. Thousands of phones have been discontinued because of the high rates. Whole in rural districts are without a single telephone. It is needless to elaborate on the sacrifice this entails, not only to these former subscribers, but to their trading centers. What has the company done? It has adhered strictly to the "hardboiled” policy. Phone directories have decreased in size, service has been worse and w’orse, for they refuse to have enough operators to handle the work adequately, and complaints receive the same old "buck-passing” replies. The present subscribers only have half or less than half of the phones to call, pay just the same old rate, and have inadequate service. Are we, in Indiana, to look to Governor Paul V. McNutt, w’ho made great campaign pledges for regulating public utilities to help us? Apparently not. from results to date. We hope the federal government, which has a real program and nerve to carry it out, soon will get around to this important problem.

So They Say

So-called practical men believe that they run the W’orld, but they are mistaken. The ideas which animate them always come out of books.—Henry L. Mencken. Today a peaceful transition Is making a victorious onslaught against the forces of selfish interests to the end that a land of plenty shall provide a plentiful return for every man or woman who is willing to work.—Postmaster-General James A. Farley. No greater attribute can be that of a political leader than that* he can be believed.—Maurice Maschke, Republican national committeeman from Ohio.

represent not only the private practitioners, but also the United States ; public health service and United States army medical corps. They j have been able to some extent to re- i produce the condition in animals, j | through injecting portions of the j brains of those affected by the j disease and who have died, into the ! animals. The public health authorities have ! j not learned, however, just how the disease is spread. There have been : the usual attempts to incriminate ; food, milk, mosquitoes, flies and all ' other commonly known means for | the spread of the disease. But none of these has been established as the tfue route of infection. It is quite possible that the chief j method of infection is by people who j have been affected slightly and be- | | come well, and who then go about j distributing the disease to others. Such people are called carriers of infection. It is well recognized by epidemiologists, who specialize in studying j the spread of disease, that it is customary for such conditions to dis- \ | appear with the coming of cold j i weather.

drags her cross with her wherever she goes. A man who came to my door the other day, selling something, expressed it very well, I think—the thing that is wrong with the housewife in the new economic setup. "If I could only get them to talk to me,” he said. "If they would only look at what I have to sell. After all, I'm not a social pariah. I'm only a man trying to earn my bread bv honest means! Does that j mean ostracism in this country. I ! see them riding around in their cars going places, but they won t | see me. They won t come as far as their own front doors to listen !to me. And what can I do against j such a situation. The£ just don’t i car/. What's the matter wittrithose i wctfnen?” £ wish £ really knffw*

SEPT. 22, 1933

It Seems to Me -BY HF.YWOOn BROUN^

NEW YORK, Sept. 22—1 have observed with Interest a dispatch from Moscow which reads, “Russia has turned to love as a I theme for poetry and literature.’’ I Thp report goes on to say that j the chance is drastic, since hitherto tractors, factories and the fi\°-year i plan served as the inevitable material for all proletarian writers. It seems to me that the reporter in Russia has overstated his case a little bit. I have read books by Soviet authors in which the theme of love figured extensively. Indeed, a few years ago thpre was quite a j rush of novels built upon a plot ! which once animated practically all i our own civil war plays. The Russian writers, however, gave It anew ! twist. Thp American form of the storv went something like this. A union officer is serving as a spy in Richmond. He falls in love with a | southern girl. Eventually he has to choose between the cause he serves and the girl he loves. He chooses ! the girl. The play ends happily. They do things differently in Russia. A proletarian girl loves n member of the aristocracy. She must choose between the man she loves and the cause she serves. She chooses the cause. The plav ends happily. And I must say that I prefer the Soviet formula. Strike Up the Rand BUT though romance never was banned wholly by those in authority in Moscow, there seems to be little doubt that literature and fife as well were somewhat touched by an ascetic preoccupation. Until recently dancing was discouraged, and the fox trot in particular was frowned upon and attacked by high officials in language not unlike that which might be used by a conference of Methodist ministers. Now’ all this seems to be passing. I have been reading anew book on Russia which soon is to be published and the author makes quite a point, j of the fact that public dance halls I are being planned and that even the fox trot has been brought back out of exile. Indeed, there Is evidence that i Soviet leaders are beginning to realize that even enthusiastic cooperators can reach a point where they can digest no further propaganda. Or, at any rate, they do not want, it served with no semblance at all of salad dressing. It. seems to me that Russian propaganda has been exceedingly effective in Russia and rather surprisingly ineffective in America. But there is a difficulty even about effective propaganda. It, works. It wins converts, and presently the w’holly convinced individual meets the fresh batch of leaflets with a slight, shade of irritation. His attitude is, “You're telling me!” I have a feeling that Communist propaganda in America has mostly been aimed at people w'ho already believe in Communism. a tt it In Darkest Africa PEOPLE engaged in foreign missions often tend to become I more dogmatic than the home office. Taking the fox trot as a symbol, I I am inclined to believe that it will ! be danced more extensively In Moscow than in Union Square. I hate to see my radical friends cover too much territory in their | stern attitude toward myths and i symbols. For instance. I am disi tressed to find that Michael Gold has declared war upon Cinderella in the name of the proletariat. That is decidedly unfair. If anybody was ever an authentic member of the working class in good standing, that girl was Cinderella. I will grant that Mr. Gold took upon himspif one of the toughest of assignments. He recently has begun to serve as columnist for the Daily Worker, and there is a certain kinship between all Communists, class-angle as they may. Each one of us yearns to take an occasional fling at giving advice to the lovelorn. Michael Gold w’as tempted, and he fell. “Julia M„" a working girl, wrote to him to say that, w’hile she was interested in the revolution, she must confess she had a secret hankering to be like Marine Dietrich. With patient tenderness Mr. Gold has answered that Hollywood is the creation of the bosses and the Marlene Dietrich symbol must be regarded by all workers as evil. But then, getting into the swing of the thing, he proceeds to pitch into poor Cinderella, who up to this time had not figured in the argument. “Julia,” he writes, “you have been corrupted by bourgeois America. . . The Hollywood films mostly are based upon the Cinderella theme. It is a lie, and it makes girls despise their own working class brothers and sweethearts.” a tt tt In Defense of Cinderella rHOLD that Cinderella fits very neatly into Marxian ideology. Michael Gold is too literal. He is against the poor girl because she had the misfortune to marry a capitalist and live happily ever after. But Prince Charming himself is only a symbol. Let me give Mr. Gold the proper party attitude on the story. Cinderella's stepmother is capitalism; the two wicked sisters are the Republican and Democratic parties. Prince Charming Is the Union of Soviet Republics. The glass slipper is the Yevolution. It fits Cinderella perfectly. She puts it on and escapes from drudgery and ashes. What could be plainer? Cinderella has always been fl symbol of escape from oppression. I denounce Michael Gold as being guilty of a right wing deviation. Summer Song BY CHRISTIE RUDOLPH There is no voice more eloquently fair Than the song of summer, Soft laughter in the lanquid air. There are no hills Burnished with rippling sun shadows. As reticent as these Remote and singing rills. I climb far heights Touch the throat of dawn. Recapture the shimmering breast of spring. And speak with many a dark eyed faun. There is no wind stir on this flower bed, No vision more rending Than rose petals shattered, Their fragile hearts dead.