Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 124, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 October 1933 — Page 12
PAGE 12
The Indianapolis Times 1 A BCBIPPS.HOWARD NEWSPAPER | ROT W. HOWARD ......... Fmldcit TALCOTT POWELL Editor XARL D. BAKER B-islnesg Mintfer Phone—Riley MR
■' • , . ‘i ia— On'* tA'jht and (A* People Will Pint Their Own Wat
Mmber of CniteA Pre*, Bcrlpps - Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Association. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulation*. Owned and published daily texeept Sundayl by The Indianapolis Tlmea Cnbliahlng Cos.. 214-220 West Maryland street, Indianapolis. Ind. l’rice in Marlon county. 1 eents a copy; elsewhere. 8 rents—delivered by carrier. 12 rents a V7cek. Mail snbsrrlptlon rates in Indiana, f.'i a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month.
TUESDAY. OCT 3. 1833. FLOOD CONTROL AND UTILITIES TNDIANA suffers an annual loss of more ■*- than $2,000,000 from rivers on the rampage. Just how much more it is losing each year at the hands of rapacious public utilities is in* calculable Regulation has been a monumental failure. Levee systems on the rivers have been inadequate. So have attempts to control the dreadful piracy of the utilities. There is a way right now, if the people choo.se, to bring both rivers and utilities under permanent control. Erect a series of dams at the headwaters of the Wabash and White rivers. Use one or two of these dans as the basis for state-owned and operated hydroelectric plants. The dams would check the flood waters at their source, before they had a chance to roll into the lowlands carrying destruction with them. It is a perfectly feasible scheme. Dayton did it after the disastrous 1912 flood and that community needs no new levees. Once the dams are built, there is nothing complicated about hitching hydro-electric plants to them. These sources of power could be made entirely self-supporting and might even turn in a profit to the state. But, above all, such plants would furnish the one type of regulation utility companies understand—competition. Cleveland has a small municipal lighting plant. It can serve comparatively few consumers at its low rate. Yet its very presence in the city changed the privately owned utility from a blood-thirsty lion Into a woolly lamb with fleece as white as snow. Indiana can do the same thing if it chooses. The objection that the flood control dams would be too expensive has no force if the state acts now. Mrs. Virginia A. Jenckes, Sixth district congressman, has been fighting for $18,000,000 from the federal government for flood prevention as part of the President’s public works program. All that awaits the issuing of these funds to Indiana is the signature of Secretary Harold Ickes. He should make this money immediately available. Then the people of the state will be able to control their floods and their electric light companies at one shrewd stroke.
PRESIDENT AND LEGION PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S “friends" were reported to have warned him against addressing the American Legion convention in Chicago. That was political advice. The President Ignored it. He went to Chicago yesterday and talked to the veterans. He left politics with his "friends" at home. He had something to talk about which politics always seems to soil, namely, the government’s obligation to the men who fight its wars. Politicians generally are unable to divorce patriotism and moral obligations from their own personal aspirations President Roosevelt yesterday lifted this subject from the morass into which politics had dragged it, and discussed it in terms of simple justice. Os the veteran as a class, he said: "The fact of wearing a uniform does not mean that he can demand and receive from his government a benefit which no other citizen receives.” * * He then presented, in three simple principles, his policy toward the former soldiers. They are: Government care for those disabled or incapacitated in the war; no special class of beneficiaries over and above all other citizens; federal aid for non-connected sendee disability, but only when all other agencies, such as state or municipal, fail. Service in defense of one's country, he said. Is a basic obligation of citizenship. So long as governments settle their disputes by physical combat this can not be denied. It being a basic obligation, the President said, then no special consideration is due the soldier who returns from the combat unharmed in any wav. The President asked for the support of the legion in continuing the economies which he has instituted in the government. At the same time he admitted that serious mistakes have been made in administering veterans’ affairs during the last fifteen years, and to this he added with welcome candor: "I personally know w'hat mistakes in individual cases and inequalities affecting various groups occurred in the last six months;” Many of these have been rectified, he said, and all will be as soon as passible. But. said the President, the government can not go on if the attempt is made to meet irresponsible demands for ever greater benefits. There was in this speech no maudlin bid for votes, no political maneuvering. Such a healthy attitude toward the veteran is not sufficiently common among men in public office. It should be encouraged, particularly by the American Legion. Let the “friends" back honffc worry about the political consequences of honest thinking, honestly expressed. GET RID OF JAILS A TIMELY contribution to the current drive against crime now is available in the report of the National Crime Commission on "Propagating Crime Through Jails and Other Institutions for Short-Term Offenders.” The material was gathered by a subcommittee of which the Honorable Frank O. Lowden was chairman and Dr. Louis N. Robinson the gecretary. The question of whether prisons should be retained still is open to debate, though the trend of expert opinion is toward their abandonment in favor of specialized institutions Banned by experts and of a wider use of
probation. But there Is little. If any, argument In favor of retaining the county Jail, which Is as ill-adapted to current needs as the ox-cart, sickle or flail. Any concerted attack upon the crime problem must take into account the treatment of the convicted criminal. Mr. Wickersham once observed truly that the criminal s depredations upon society do not match the cruelty visited upon the criminal by society. Society must present a better record for humanity and sense than the criminal before it can tackle the criminal with very good grace. Mast protests which have been made against the inhumane and unscientific treatment of convicted criminals have been directed against our state prisons. But the worst situation does not exist there. In the first place, many more are sent to local jails and workhouses. In the second place, these latter institutions usually a*? far worse than the prisons and state reformatories. There are only 102 federal and state prisons and reformatories, while there are some 3,571 local jails, workhouses and houses of correction. On the average, only about 13 per cent of convicted persons are sent to federal and state institutions and 87 per cent to local Institutions. In a recent year it is estimated that 37,585 were sent to federal and state institutions and 319,908 to local institutions. Therefore, the personal destiny of many more persons is involved in the character and administration of local institutions. The best definition of a jail has been proposed by Joseph F. Fishman, now of the New York City department of corrections and formerly federal inspector of prisons. He says: “A jail is an unbelievably filthy institution in which are confined men and women serving sentence for misdemeanors and crimes, and men and women not under sentence who are simply awaiting trial. With few exceptions, having no segregation of the uncOnvicted from the convicted, the well from the diseased, the youngest and most Impressionable from the most degraded and hardened. "It usually Is swarming with bedbugs, roaches, lice, and other vermin; has an odor of disinfectant and filth which is appalling; supports in complete idleness countless thousands of able-bodied men and women, and generally affords ample time and opportunity to assure inmates a complete course in every kind of viciousness and crime. A melting pot in which the worst elements of the raw material in the criminal world are brought forth, blended and turned out in absolute perfection.” Lest one might think this an exaggeration, Mr. Fishman, who knows more about the subject than any other living man, says that this description will apply to fully 85 per cent of the Jails of the country. The effect which such an institution has on a young first offender has been admirably summarized by a public prosecutor: "We take a boy just past 16 and sentence him to thirty or sixty days in the county jail for stealing a bicycle. The purpose of the sentence is to impress upon his mind that he must be virtuous, that he must have respect for the government under which he exists. So for sixty days he gets no exercise, no pure air, no mental exercise, no good reading matter, no valuable sermon or lectures; he sees no worthy deeds or acts of charity or kindness performed. The only thing he hears is the vilest of stories; he is taught how to engage in the drug traffic, how to avoid officers in the transportation, sale and manufacture of liquor, how to commit burglary; he is introduced into a ring of automobile thieves. “After he has been attending a school of crime with past masters as teachers we release him with the admonition to ‘be good’.” One of the main necessities in the anticrime drive is to eliminate the breeding places of crime. There is no more prolific spawning ground than the jails. More than three hundred thousand men, women and children are transformed by them into crooks or worse crooks.
RADICAL CASE VS. LIBERALS QOAKING the liberals seems to be leading all the fall sports of the radicals. The latter may, perhaps, have been lashed into special fury because liberalism seems to be bearing some practical and desirable fruit in the form of the New’ Deal. The charges mads by the various knights of the radical cavalcade may be summarized as follows: The liberals really are old-fashioned folk whose intellectual perspective is that of the period from 1750 to 1850. They are mere temporizers who fail to recognize the vital defects in our present social and economic system. Hence, they never go far enough in their recommendations and are mainly content to concentrate upon preserving certain quaint civil liberties which date from the Bill of Rights and the ratification of the first ten amendments to our Constitution. Through their lack of insight, their halfhearted measures and their incredible optimism over trivial reforms, the liberals help to make an intolerable system seem passable and workable. Therefore, the liberal is really a much more dangerous obstacle to real progress than the conservative who does his best, albeit unconsciously, to make the present system seem as repugnant as possible. There is some ground for this radical complaint. It certainly is true that there are very prominent so-called "liberals” who try to sanctify and purify what are actually intolerable elements and figures in our present order. This must be admitted whether we can say that the system as a whole is impossible and unworthy of salvation. The radical charge that such writers are “kept men” of financial capitalism is essentially true and deserved. It may be said in answer, however, that these men may not fairly be regarded as liberals, even though they work under this label. Formal labels mean little. One can remind the radicals that John Spargo. Gustavus Myers and W. J. Ghent still call themselves “Socialists.” though Spargo is. perhaps, the most outspoken apologist for the private electrical utilities and Myers recently has implied in his book on "The History of American Idealism" that the American system which culminated under Andrew Mellon leaves little to be desired as an earthly paradise. Ghent has for years been sniping at reforms and reformers. Indeed, perhaps the first and most important thing to be noted in analyzing this radical rampage against the liberals is that the labels and terms used are unsatisfactory
And are often meaningless and misleading. A liberal tent which covers Nicholas Murray Butler, Walter Lippman, A1 Smith, Clarence Darrow, Stuart Chase, Bruce Bliven, George Soule and Amos Pinchot is obviously too expansive for any single-track assault on the occupants. Similarly, with the radical label, when we see Mary Van Kleek put arm in arm with Benjamin Stolberg, Norman Thomas lined up with W. Z. Foster, and Roger Baldwin paired ■with V. F. Calverton, we may be pardoned for some confusion as to what really constitutes a radical. There Is nothing out of which the radical gets more pleasure than charging that the liberals are feeding upon ideas which were germinated between the age of Cromwell and that of Victoria. But no allegation could be more misleading or more easily turned into a boomerang to be used against the radicals themselves. It is true that the civil liberties prized by the liberals were systematized in eighteenth century England. It also is true that liberalism was first prominently identified with the great mid-nineteenth century individualists like Cobden, Bright and Spencer. But it also must be remembered that socialism is as old as Plato, Sir Thomas More and Robert Owen. Nothing would make an up-to-date Communist more furious than to be told that he is 100 years out of date because Owen was founding communistic communities a century ago. Even more cogent is the fact that the arch prophet of contemporary radicalism was Karl Marx, who WTOte his "Communist Manifesto” at exactly the period in which Cobden and Bright were leading their crusade against the English corn laws. PATIENCE TOWARD CUBA npHE accidental killing of an American and the bombing of the American-owned National hotel in Havana should not, and doubtless will not, affect the state department’s policy of patience toward Cuba and her revolution, These were in no way unfriendly acts toward the United States and are not so being Interpreted by Secretary Hull. A stray bullet killed Mr. Lotspiech. The hotel was bombed by government troops to evacuate rebel officers. Too much praise can not be given the Roosevelt administration for refusing to be stampeded into intervention. The landing of marines on Cuban soil would open a pandora’s box of calamities. It would destroy the fine structure of inter-American understanding that our recent policies have created. It would wreck the December Pan-American congress at Montevideo and set back pending negotiations for mutual trade agreements. It might draw us into a long and costly war, such as followed our intervention in Nicaragua. It would not only turn back the clock in our foreign policy but would jeopardize the Roosevelt domestic program. Whatever help America can render unhappy Cuba by way of debt relief, sugar stabilization, the feeding of the hungry or other aid should be tendered. In the meantime, President Roosevelt’s good neighbor policy calls #or hands-off in Cuba. Bronx (N. Y.) residents reported a gold strike in their owm back yards, but not enough to entice the gold diggers from Broadway. A million copies of Hitler’s book, “My Fight,” have been published. What a bonfire they would make! Denmark’s citizens are going to have gas masks to prepare themselves against chemical warfare— aAd the talk coming from Europe's statesmen. Man in Chicago was buried alive for sixty days. And men in this city go about dead, but not buried for longer than that. It seems President Roosevelt still can see nothing but hot air in all that inflation talk.
M.E.TracySays:
THE most significant point about this epidemic of strikes is that NRA is able to bring about a quick settlement in so many cases. Since he took office, Grover A. Whalen, local chairman for New York City, successfully has arbitrated four walkouts involving a total of 116.000 workers. * Similarly encouraging results are reported from all parts of the country. Without minimizing the difficulties still to be met, it is fair to say that the new order has worked well thus far. No plan or project should be judged by the obstacles confronting it, the all-important question is whether it can overcome them. a ' u a THOSE who imagined that such sweeping readjustments as NRA implied could be brought about without misunderstandings merely conjured up a fanciful' stage for their own disappointment. There was bound to be politics, chiseling and stubbornness. The opportunity for racketeers and radicals was too inviting to be missed, while some of the changes imposed were too drastic for conservative employers to indorse except with lip music. Frequent use of the wwd “revolution” has scared some people and excited others. Asa matter of common sense, NRA merely codifies certain principles which have dominated our industrial system for a generation. The right of collective bargaining has been denied but not disputed, the anti-trust laws have been ignored though theoretically in force, and outside of the lunatic fringe of cut-throat competition, manufacturers have been able to fix and hold the price of many commodities. Speculation has raised cain with stocks and agricultural products, but not with steel or aluminum. Steel and aluminum showed what could be done through a highly developed organization. So did such unions as that of the printers and plumbers. NR.A is not an original scheme, but built around certain ideas which have been tested by experience and which the government borrowed from private enterprise. man That is characteristic of statecraft. There were private schools before there were pub-lic-schools. and roads paid for with tolls before people got the idea of paying for them with taxes. All constructive phases of government are socialistic. The only question that should bother us in connection with that aspect of the situation is whether an activity has become too vast to be left in private hands or sufficiently essential to warrant public control. Trusts and trade unions had reached a point in this country where they could not be handled by methods designed for individual business and individual bargaining. At the same time, they stood for principles of production, distribution and economic relations which were manifestly sound. NRA simply is an adaptation of those principles In a general wag.
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 850 words or less.) By Forrest Rogers. Abraham Lincoln once said of an opponent that "he had the faculty of entangling a subject so that neither himself nor any other man could find head nor tail of it.” Now E. F. Maddox presents us with a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing. In discussing the controversy of military training at De Pauw he alleges that a fight is being waged secretly against our established institutions. It is no secret that many of our banks and other institutions were wrecked by our "big patriots.” Bad securities unloaded on an unsuspecting public wrecked ambitions and homes and savings for old age. Could an invading enemy be more ruthless? How many of these men have received punishment equal to that given some workman who steals bread to satisfy hunger? In England where the Socialist led Labor party has been powerful these things do not happen. The people here could not have been led to believe that they were living in a country where diamonds were lying around in their back yards, while 4 per cent of the people schemed to get 90 per cent of wealth, had they listened to the Socialists. Those who love their country should love it with their hearts, and not with their lips. Socialists have been tortured to death in Italy and Germany, fighting for democracy and against Fascism, which is capitalism gone nudist. They have been jailed in Russia and threaten resistance in Austria against a dictatorship. They insist on democracy in this country, but warn that we only will achieve political democracy when we achieve industrial democracy. This can not be attained until the oligarchy of the money powers is broken. As to the subject of military training in schools, the waning popularity of the R. O. T. C. may be due to the reading of realistic war books now current which de-
THE blood-is the most vital substance in the human body. By its circulation it brings nutrition to the cells in various parts of the body and takes away waste matter. New methods of measurement and standardization demand new studies as to what constitutes the normal for blood in the human body in order that variations from the normal may be detected and controlled. For this reason, Dr. M. M. Wintrobe of Johns Hopkins university recently reinvestigated the blood of eighty-six male medical students and 101 nurses and compared their blood with that of forty-two other persons taken at random from the community. His studies indicated that the blood of man contains from 4.900.000 red blood cells up to 6.050,000, whereas women have from 4,440.000 red cells up to 5,350,000. The body of the woman is smaller and obviously demands less in the way of red cells in the circulation than does that of the male.
* I jI OWNEO - __ l^t SjiuT t *'!!: A
: : The Message Center : : I wholly disapprove of what yon say and will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire
New Blood Study Methods Started
: : A Woman’s Viewpoint : : ■ — BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON
SOME idea of the magnitude of our recovery job is hinted by news that hundreds of boys, weary of reforestation work, now are being demobilized at various United States army camps and will soon be seen again on our city streets. It’s something more than putting men back to work that faces Americans. We’ve also got to put back into ourselves some of the character we have lost. The truth is obvious. City life has bred into our bones a desire for the easy life, for quick money, for haphazard existence. Responsibility for this can rest upon no individual. None of us welcomes the thought of grubbing for our living. And it entirely is possible lor us to achieve a i
Let’s Do It Now!
We'll See By J. F. Morgan. It is estimated that of our 130,000,000 population, that 20,000,000 adults will consume one-half pint of alcohol in whisky or some other beverage a day, a total of over 456,000,000 gallons a year. It Is reasonable to assume that the prices of grains will rise accordingly and thus help the farmers and give us all a lift out of the depression.
scribe what actual military service is like. If the students were put through the hard grind to make them really effective for war, the course never would be popular. Both during and after the war, commissions from the National Education Association and the states of New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey arrived at the conclusion that military drill is inferior education and has no place in the school system. General Robert E. Lee, a great soldier, refused to institute military training in Washington and Lee university while he presided over it, on the ground that he did not propose to train men for the army but for civil life, and that in view the discipline fitted to make soldiers was not best suited to qualify young men for the actual duties of the citizen. Theodore Roasevelt, in 1904, advised his son, Teddy Jr., against a military or naval career on practically the same grounds. Herbert Hoover, when President, stated that 72 per cent of the federal funds were going for past wars and future wars. This should interest the harassed taxpayer. It should interest those unemployed who do not receive adequate relief. Who can say that military expenditures have decreased in this administration? Is the army and its 2,000 polo ponies more important than the schools whose efficiency is threatened because of lack of funds? Congressman Ross A. Collins stated that the appropriation for
BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygela, the Health Magazine.
Similarly the red coloring matter or hemoglobin in the blood of man varies from 13.9 grams for every 100 cubic centimeters of blood to 18.7, whereas that of women varies from 12 to 16.6 grams per 100 cubic centimeters. This very accurate measurement of hemoglobin or red coloring matter is important, since it is the hemoglobin that is responsible for carrying oxygen in the blood. From these examinations averages were calculated which give man an average of 5,400,000 red cells and women 4,850,000, and man 16 grams of hemoglobin as contrasted with 13.9 for women. The old-time standard for measuring hemoglobin used to calculate it in percentages of 100. It now may be taken that 16.§2 grams of hemoglobin per 100 cubic centimeters of blood constitute 100 per cent.
state in which no one would have to do that. We have plenty of everything to make such a dream come true—everything except that character, that grit, that backbone whose lack now retards us. BBS THE disturbing fact about these young civilians lies in the statement made by many of them; that loneliness defeated them. Although they lived in camps with several thousand other boys of the same age, they couldn’t endure life away from the shows, the lights, the movement of city streets. In short, they were not able to live with themselves. Focusing as we must the impa-
the army provided military training for 800.000 men yearly. (Taxpayers please note.) Does the army of the great American democracy still use the official Manual on Citizenship Training (T. M. No. 2000-25), which states that democracy results in mobocracy and that the attitude of democracy toward property is Communistic? If so, is this not undermining American democracy? By G. Fink. Shall such utter lack of intelligence as exhibited by E. F. Maddox in his letter to the Message Center on Sept, 27 go unpunished? Unfortunately, it must. The only alternative is shame, and in such extreme cases its effect is doubtful. Asininity of that order can only be the product of a narrow, blurred and prejudiced mind that fails to see beyond the w r alls and limitations set up by a powerful educational system entirely void of understanding. Or, mayhap. Mr. Maddox is one of those "self-satisfied, then all’s well” people admitting perfection of the present system and has chosen to erroneously vent his dislike for an economic and political system, namely, Socialism, whose simplicity he fails to understand. Since when, Mr. Maddox, has Socialism been un-American? Since when have the teachings of Jesus Christ and lesser pacifists been synonymous with disloyalty to true American ideals, ideals themselves fostered T>y Jesus Christ? I believe you fail to understand the true significance of American ideals, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, et cetera. I know you do. You would bar freedom of thought among school teachers and have every one in his thoughts as alike as peas in a pod. Please remember • that patriotism consists not in waving a flag and shouting for blood, nor even in being a “yes” man. But perhaps you are not responsible. Your article with its fantastic and unbalanced assumption that Norman Thomas’ aspirations are toward a dictatorship in the state, and that by means of revolution will bear me out in this.
There does not appear from these studies to be any geographical variation in the normal blood, nor are there any significant variations with age after a human is once growm up. There are, of course, many other facts concerning the blood which are measured and determined in relationship to the occurrence of disease. These factors include the white blood cells, the blood platelets, the fluid matter of the blood and its content in sugar and various salts. Included also is the ability of the blood to attack germs of various types and to destroy them when they get into the circulation. Innumerable reactions are studied in relationship to blood to determine the presence of various specific diseases. So important is this circulating medium that there is today developing in medicine a group of specialists who are concerned only with the blood in relationship to health and disease.
tience of youth and its ardent, everliving, desire for excitement, we are confronted with the tragedy in our situation. The fault lies not altogether with the young. There are entirely too many adult Americans who can’t stand to spend a day with themselves. They are so bored with their own company that they will flee from their thoughts to any shallow refuge. It’s nothing to laugh over, but I suppose we may as well laugh as cry. Anyway, it’s rather amusing to realize that even though we can’t enjoy ourselves for an hour, we're always perfectly sure we are delightful and entertaining companions for other people.
OCT. 8, 1988
It Seems j to Me -~Bl' HEYWOOD BROUNh=
NEW YORK, Oct. 3.—Earl Carroll, writing as one producer to another, makes certain comments about the function of the dramatic critic under NRA. Some years ago I was myself one of the sad and savage young men, and, even so. I must admit that there is merit in Mr. Carroll's complaint. I do not subscribe wholly to his brief, but I will let him state his cas* and then crowd in whatever scant rebuttal space allows: Earl Carroll writes: BOM To a Fellow Producer “'T'HE blue eagle is screaming out A the new deal. and. with all industries in the process of readjustment, I hope your co-operative commonwealth is on its way. The theater, too. has its code. Anew season has started with a strong bid of being one of the best in years except for one thing—the sinister shadow of a Man with a Typewriter. I refer to what is known in dramatic criticism as the follow-up system. And I think that this method of commenting on plays and musical shows is sabotage and vul-ture-swooping in the fullest sense of those ugly words. "You used to be a theatrical producer yourself, Mr. Broun. Let us stage this from its beginning. A man decides to produce a show. We’ll make it a musical show—that’s right, up your alley. He goes through weeks of selecting girls, principals, music and material. Rehearsals start. (This argument is to be produced without benefit of emotion, as we will not attempt to describe the weeks of heartbreak and hard work.) The show goes out of town for a tryout. Changes are made, and the producer decides it is ready for Broadway. B • B Comes the Opening Night “'T'HEN the opening night in New A York. The critics, as representatives of their employers, the newspapers, are invited to the show by the producer, for the purpose of submitting to the public an honest report of what they felt about it. I shall pass tip entirely the case against the critics, their right to judge what a public shall have, their particular mood or condition the night they pass judgment. I am concerned with them only as a perplexing economic problem in a gasping industry. "Let us get back to the day after the opening night. The papers print the reviews of the show as written by the critics? This, again, I am not concerned about. I am a veteran receiver of bad notices. I also hold the modern championship for longrun shows. But what I think is rotten to the very core is the malicious practice of critics who, when they personally dislike a show, deliberately damn it in their papers week after week. Who are these men who take it upon themselves to attempt to damage property? Why are they permitted to fling odious phrases at a business, if you will, that employs several hundred men and women whase livelihood is dependent upon its continuance? "Can one man sit down before a typewriter and, for lack of something to write about, deliberately pick out a show he happened to dislike the opening night and arrogantly snipe at it from a wellcamouflaged position of safety? In what other industry does such a condition exist? Would I be allowed to run an advertisement mentioning the name of a critic and stating that he was a doddering old fool with a bad liver? I think not!” B B B A Few Words in Reply EARL CARROLL is saying in effect that a critic should have only one bite at a show. He objects to the "follow-up system.” But obviously no producer will complain if this follow-up system is a process of continuing to heap laurels on shows already cited for merit. If a critic is privileged to say more than once that in his opinion a show is good it stands to reason that he should also be permitted a second or a third small slam. But I feel that a second notice suggests a second visit. Particularly in the musical field, the show which was not so much on a Monday may suddenly find itself on the following evening. Sinfte Earl Carroll has somehow been reminded of "Murder at the Vanities,” I might myself be specific and say that Joe Cook’s "Hold Your Horses,” which opened in rather sluggish fashion, took on life and gayety as soon as the critics had departed. Young John Shubert’s enterprise is now a. lively entertainment. I think the rule should read, as far as critics are concerned, "No second bite without a second look.” I am not wholly dispassionate about this. There was a show called "Shoot the Works.” It never was a whirlwind, but by my hope of heaven, I swear that never did It seem such a sorry thing as at its first night. And yet after the days and weeks went by some Sunday commentators continued to write about the show wholly in terms of its one worst manifestation. I think that even least likely show should have the right to take an appeal from any Judgment founded wholly on the jittery evidence of a Broadway first night.
Storm
BY HARRIETT SCOTT OLINICK Outside the storm plays havoc with the earth. Trees bend their long green length in frenzied pain. Lightning rips the sky, and gives sharp birth To noisy thunders raucous wax and wane. Streets are winding rivers of pala grey; Dank grass lies beaten to th ground. A, strange green-yellow light pervades the day. Thunder with faint, last sounds. Now children, barefoot, haunt the gutters. Peace and dim dusk envelop all. Up in the sky a rain-moon mutters. in the twilight black birds call.
