Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 204, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 January 1934 — Page 14

PAGE 14

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THURSDAY. JAN. 4. 193* THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE A GAIN the President has stirred congress ** *- and the country to greater effort for recoven'. His message confirms the faith and renews the hope of the people in his Readership. The message reports the state of the nation and lays down the administration’s future policy along broad lines. Following his precedent of last spring, the President leaves specific and detailed recommendations for legislation to a series of later messages on separate subjects. By far the most significant part of this message is its repeated affirmation that the President will not turn back. There is to be not less but more of the new deal. Ten months of experiment have confirmed the President in the belief that the old economic and financial system has destroyed itself beyond repair—even if he wanted to salvage it. which he does not. And the experience of these months has increased his confidence that the new way is not only more just but more practicable and profitable for all classes. The issue is whether the recovery program shall take the form of temporary tinkering to be scrapped when we are lucky enough to pull part way out of the depression, or whether it shall be a basic and permanent reform. Enemies of the new deal dare not fight it openly, but they are trying to limit it to emergency measures which can be wiped out the moment the sun shines and thoughtless persons forget the last storm and the next. From this message it is clear that the President understands this issue and that he is determined to fight it out on this ground of permanent change versus temporary expedient. Thus he says of NIRA and the related program: “Though the machinery, hurriedly devised, may need readjustment from time to time, nevertheless I think you will agree with me that we have created a permanent feature of our modernized industrial structure and that it will continue under the supervision but not the arbitrary dictation of government itself.” In discussing the Tennessee Valley power and light development, he talks in terms of a vast and growing national plan, immediately helpful but coming to full fruition only after a generation of continuing government initiative. In the banking field, he knows that a return to the old racketeering would mean destruction of the nation. He classes unethical business practices alongside crimes of organized banditry, shooting, lynching and kidnaping, as violations calling for suppression and prevention by the government. “I am speaking.” he says, “of those individuals who have evaded the spirit and purpose of our tax laws, of those high officials of banks and corporations who have grown rich at the expense of their stockholders or the public, of those reckless speculators with their own or other people’s money whose operations have injured the values of the farmers’ crops and the savings of the poor.” Politicians are mystified by the increased popularity of Mr. Roosevelt throughout the country—probably the strongest public support ever accorded a peace-time American President after a year in office. But there is no mystery. The President, as in this message, voices the people’s own distrust of the old system and their own determination to build a better, safer, fairer America. Os course the people are with him. And the people will continue to follow him as long as he fights their battle. CUTTLEFISH UTILITIES SOME public utilities, like the cuttlefish, surround themselves with a cloud of ink to conceal their activities. They throw off so many confusing terms and figures that the consumer finds difficulty in understanding how his rates are made. This, of course, is all to the advantage of the utility. The rate problem really is simple. The public grants a light company a monopoly. In return for this the company agrees to set a rate which will yield a fair return on its Investment. The public service commission is supposed to make sure that this “fair return really is fair —usually not more than 6 or 7 per cent. There are several ways in which a utility may evade regulation and thus collect more in rates from the public that it should. One is by inflating the value of its investment. The Indianapolis Power and Light Company says it is worth $59,000,000. Sherman Minton, public counsellor, who is trying to knock down light rates, says the concern is worth $35,000,000. If Mr. Minton’s figure is correct, the consumers are being charged for $24,000,000 worth of nonexistent value. Still another trick of utilities is the paddng of expenses. Tire “fair return' which they are allowed is after all necessary expenses have been deducted. One such expense is depreciation, which is a fund set aside every year to replace property and equipment as it wears out. The Indianapolis Power and Light Company in 1932 charged the consumers $1,432,000 for depreciation. Mr. Minton says SBOO,OOO would have been correct. If the public counsellor is right then last year the power and light company took $600,000 more than it was entitled to from the consumers’ pockets. This is a tidy sum in a depression year. No doubt the company has been put to additional expense by the NR A and by increased taxation. Yet, despite these new costs, Mr. Minton apparently has found that last July the downward trend of the utility’s earnings was reversed and, despite economic conditions, its earnings took an upward turn. The Indian-

apolis Power and Light Company evidently has been more fortunate than other businesses. When the public service commission begins its hearings on Feb. 1, the light company is going to have a lot of explaining to do. The records of its merger in 1927 were missing from the commission's files when The Times’ representative sought them on several occasions. This was the merger which the public. through its constituted authorities, permitted because the company said it could give better service anfi lower rates. Where were these missing records? Why is the valuation of the company so high? Why are depreciation charges so heavy? These are questions which will have to be answered at the public hearings. Governor McNutt in his pre-election campaign promised to do all in his power to reduce utility rates. Through his public service commission and Mr. Minton he is making every effort to fulfill his promise. He is entitled to every bit of support the public can give his administration in this battle. Light and power rates must come down if Indianapolis is to progress. “DECENCY?” MR. YORK “T IQUOR forces already have revealed their real intentions of ignoring all laws and all decency.” That was the first blast of 1934 of L. E. York, superintendent of Indiana’s AntiSaloon League, in declaring that the state’s drvs will open a battle for local option. It is perfectly all right for Mr. York and his Anti-Saloon League to fight for local option. If there are any dry sections of Indiana which want to stay dry, and if the legislature wants to listen, they are entitled to whatever protection they want against liquor. And for Indiana to rise up and roar that the Anti-Saloon League has no right to demand local option would be doing just what the AntiSaloon League did for years whenever the topic of repeal was suggested. For Mr. York to use the phrase “ignoring all decency” against the liquor interests is somewhat odd. Mr. York and his Anti-Saloon Leaguers were guilty themselves of “ignoring all decency” during the prohibition era. If anything brought repeal it was the bigoted, intolerant attitude of the drys, that same “ignoring of decency" which Mr. York today is charging to the liquor interests. But the shoe is on the other foot. And Mr. York doesn't like it. And the Anti-Saloon League yet may come to the point where it may win its fight for local option. It yet may dry up Indiana again. It happened once and it can happen again if we are not careful. Repeal is here and we've started out by laughing at all regulatory laws. It’s not smart and it’s not safe. The liquor interests should remember that when they cry about too much government regulation. The liquor interests should remember that they themselves, helped bring prohibition with their brewery-owned and distillery-owned saloons. They should welcome government regulation—strict government regulation because any kind of good regulation is better than the iron hand of the An?l~Saloon League, an Anti-Saloon League in the saddle. There probably is some truth in what Mr. York says. But for him to break out with that “ignoring of decency” remark about the wets strikes us as awfully, awfully funny. Perhaps it’s because we remember. CURE GANGSTERISM TT is a long distance-from a big city under- ■*- world gang to one of the forest camps of the CCC. But a nation that is plagued by gangs and wonders what on earth it ever is going to do about them could do w r orse than study the connection between the two. The other day a United States army officer, Captain Thomas E. May, finished a six-month tour of duty with the CCC and told of his experiences in that outfit with certain budding gangsters from New York. Captain May’s camp had more than its share of tough young mugs from the New York east side. Sometimes, the captain admits, he felt that the New York welfare organizations that enrolled some of his young foresters “must have sent us most of their problem cases.” Some of the lads even tried to organize a racket in the camp itself, forcing companions to pay them for “protection”; one youngster wrote proudly to his mother, telling about it. But eventually the captain got the boys straightened out. He separated the young racketeers and sent the individuals to other camps, where they could escape from association with their own kind; and he was amazed to see how quickly these hard-boiled young street bullies turned into honest, decent, hardworking and ambitious specimens of healthy young manhood. "They never have had much of a chance,” he says “They hardly knew anything about civilized living. But I never saw a group more eager to do the right thing or more walling to follow a right example.” Now there is enough moral in this little story to fill a book. Nothing could show more clearly how the modern underworld gang is a product of society as a whole. The lads who go into the gang are forced in by environment. Change the environment, give them & chance to earn an honest living in decent surroundings, put them in an atmosphere where that kind of endeavor is appreciated —and, presto! they abruptly cease to be the kind of material gangs are made of. If it taught us no more than that, the forest army project would be worth every dime it cost. We simply do not need to have gangs. The lads who grow up to be hired killers are not irredeemably vicious. Society can make useful Americans of them if it cares to make the effort and spend the money. Reformers and sociologists have been saying that for years, and we have scoffed and said that was impractical theorizing. Well—it works. If we have half the sense we think we have, we shall go ahead and make it work some more. ONE KIND OF HONOR’ npHE United States government is trying to collect $9.375,0Q0 from twenty New York banks in connection with the collapse of the Harriman National Bank and Trust Company. The Harriman bank began staggering a year ago. It was allowed to remain open be-

cause twenty banks, as members of the clearing house association, promised that they would not let it fail and agreed to assume its deposit liabilities if it was unable to weather the storm. Last March the bank closed its doors. And now the twenty banks say they will not pay. Their guarantees, they protest, were given “in a crisis and without extended consideration of the technical formalities involved." Having had plenty of time to examine those formalities, they now conclude that they can not pay the money they promised to pay. Some of tlpese bankers, doubtless, were men who protested bitterly that the government’s departure from the gold standard was a violalation of a solemn promise! THE HOUSE OF HUEY UNITED STATES SENATOR HUEY P. LONG recently penned a rather purple account of himself and his own exploits in an autobiography called “Every Man a King.” Recent events are waiting a dismal epilogue proving that Louisiana's one-time No. 1 citizen ■ is not even a kingftsh. In the Sixth Congressional district the senator had hand-picked a candidate to succeed his late friend, Representative Bolivar Kemp, Said candidate, the Widow Kemp, polled only 5,000 votes for the good and sufficient reasons that the election was held under ban of a court order plus a popular boycott. In an unofficial election staged by the people, J. Y. Sanders polled 17,000 votes. Further evidences of warning Long influence are seen in a New Orleans municipal election, in which the Long faction was running third, and in Shreveport, where citizens were circulating petitions asking President Roosevelt to oust both Long and his satellite, Senator John H. Overton. The fall of the “House of Huey” will be wept by few sincere and disinterested Americans. THE RIGHT VIEW IT w r ould be a good thing if successful candidates for public office everywhere could adopt the attitude with which Fiorello H. La Guardia assumed his duties as mayor of New York. Mr. La Guardia announced bluntly that he was not going to try to be “a good fellow.” “An elected public official under our form of government must be ungrateful,” he said. “I have many friends who worked hard for my election. I can not appoint them to office, because they don’t happen to be fitted to hold it. You can’t be a good fellow and a good mayor.” Here is most excellent common sense. If more mayors had the same idea, our municipal governments generally would be run with a great deal more efficiency and a great deal less expense. A London scientist says we are taller in the morning than at night —and, may add, we’re shorter on Thursday than on Monday. Henry Ford insists he isn’t interested in making money. He just wants to make cars that make money for him.

Liberal Viewpoint Rv DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES THE installation of the reform government of Mayor La Guardia in New York City should do much to stimulate the teaching of honest and realistic civics in the schools of the metropolis of the nation. The main reason why we do not have good government is that we do not have good citizens. We do not have good citizens because we fail to teach them the facts of government. It is an everyday occurrence for mothers to teach their children not to short change them when sent to the corner grocery on an errand. But we fear lest we might disillusion our children and make juvenile cyntes of them if we ever let them know that public officials continually short change their country, state, or city. Therefore, there is a lamentable tendency to limit the teaching of civil government to flag salutes, catechisms on the Constitution, indicating its superiority to all other documents of its kind; details as useless as they are harmless on the qualifications, terms of office, and salaries of leading federal and state officials; and the dangerous character of reformers and radicals. The national self-government committee of New York City protests the continuance of this* waste of a great educational opportunity and presents a prospectus of “Civics As It Should Be Taught.” u tt u IT puts the case for realistic civics in the following pungent paragraphs: “What use all this flag saluting and teaching government as it is supposed to work, but never telling just how it does work, and how to break the bosses’ stranglehold? “When a city pays four times the assessed value for everv school site acquired in the last ten years, should civics teaching sidestep such a fact? . “When the commissioner of weights and measures puts his O. K. on 1,384 false scales and nothing is done about it, should not civics classes sit up and take notice? “When a sheriff of New York county on a salary of about SIO,OOO deposits $360,000 in six years and can not tell how he got it, storm signals should be hoisted in every civics class. “When a magistrate is shown to have had too close contact with shady characters, when five other magistrates quit under fire, ‘Stop, Look and Listen’ should be on the blackboard of every civics class. “These are just a few instances brought out in the Seabury investigation of New York City.” U tt LYMAN BEACHER STOWE, a popular lecturer, was invited to address one of our high schools and chose for his subject the Seabury investigation. He was later informed that this subject could not be discussed. This excellent pamphlet makes many specific recommendations as to how civics teaching might help the cause of better government. It emphasizes the value of the merit system, honestly applied. Under such conditions we j never would have a man in charge of all the public records of Kings county at a salary of $7,500 a year and yet be unable either to read or to write. The merit system, fairly applied in New York City, would save at least $25,000,000 a year. Proportional representation would make for democracy ad representative government in municipal affairs. In the last board of aidermen there were sixty-four Democrats and one Republican. If proportional representation had been in operation the distribution would have been: forty-two Democrats, seventeen Republicans, and six Socialists. Proportional representation not only would make for greater fairness. It would also help to create a sizable opposition to the dominating party, thus encouraging alert exposure of graft and inefficiency. The pamphlet closes with a commendable emphasis upon the importance of teaching current events, practical politics, and the intelligent reading of the newspapers, if we wish to train youngsters to become alert and informed citizens. Teachers and reformers in other cities will find this pamphlet as useful elsewhere as it might be In New York City itselA, i

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can hare a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less.) By An Outsider. I w r ant to congratulate you on your editorial entitled “Traffic, Violations.” Asa resident of another state, I would like to give my opinion of the traffic system in Indiana. I’ll start with the driver’s license law. Practically every person or official I have broached the subject to -will admit readily that it is not only a legal holdup but a law without any truth. Have you ever heard of any one answering the questionnaire truthfully? I haven’t. Indianapolis seems to be a place where a. man can park his car in the middle of the street and get away with it. Only the other day I saw a motorman leave his street car in the middle of the street while he went in a hot dog joint. Imagine! And they call Indianapolis a city. Tins is the only place I’ve ever been where they make no effort to clean broken glass from the pavement after an accident. It seems to me that both the citizens and officials of Indianapolis lack civic pride. Why can’t the police cars carry brooms? It seems to me that the officers of the police department, or rather the “beef trust,” might work off some of their excessive corpulency by cleaning up a corner after an accident. This applies especially at such intersections as Sixteenth and Meridian streets. Speaking of slippery streets, there was much talk in the papers about salt and sand being thrown on the ice at main intersections. I personally saw r two such places this week. They were the only ones a man with two eyes would dare venture on. I’ve heard a lot about your fair city but I had to make a trip here to find out just why it commonly is referred to throughout the nation as a “town in the middle of a cornfield.” This letter is not intended to be sarcastic, but constructive. If the citizens would travel outside their own borders, they could learn a lot. Bv E. F. Maddas. I have been challenged to debate, through the Message Center, by H. H. Kimmerling on the following topic: “Resolved, that with the purport of the Declaration of Independence and the fulfillment of the Constitution of the United States we can have scientific socialism without changing a word in either one.” Now, Mr. Kimmerling, you ought to know that I can see through your “scientific Socialism” without 1 any trouble at all. You know very w'ell that the kind of Socialism | which I oppose and which I repeat, j and challenge you and the rest of | your unpatriotic and dangerous j “comrades’’ to deny, is un-American : and unconstitutional—is Marxian Srcialism. You Socialists would like to make j somebody believe that Socialism can be carried out under the Constitution of the United States, but you know, if you would tell the truth, that the destruction of our beloved Constitution is one of your greatest aims and desires. Listen to Jack London's description of Socialist activity: “Night and day, tireless and unrelenting, they labor at their self-imposed task, of undermining society.” And to' give you a better idea of the aims and ambitions of Socialism, here is the description from Jack London’s book: “To capture the political, machinery of society and by thati machinery to destroy present day society.” Rather hard on democracy, eh! Now, Mr. Kimmerling, I hope by this time that you can comprehend the kind of Socialism which I

LET’S LOOK BEHIND THAT CURTAIN!

The Message Center

The Other Side By A Times Reader. I notice a letter in the paper Dec. 29. of course, you have no way of knowing if the person who wrote is telling the facts when he writes. I am one of the many workers in the Monroe county forest CWA work. Mr. Murphy did not order us out. He asked us how many wanted to put in the time. Most of the men wanted a chance to make the day. Mr. Murphy said we could stay in the busses or work. He did not care which. I suppose the man who wrote this letter is one of these who sat in the busses and shot craps all day and is mad because he lost some of his money and sets up a howl about losing the day. I made the day and got my pay and did not get soaked either like this man claims the man who was sick for two days was sick when he came down Tuesday morning and went to the hospital doctor. The reason the busses did not leave was when one leaves all have to start at the same time. They are on a contract and we worked till 3:30 p. m. that day. oppose. As for “scientific Socialism” there is none in existence but I do not deny that socialism has in its ranks many so-called scientists. The kind of Socialism which produced the French revolution and the present Russian revolution is contrary to the spirit and letter of our Constitution, and every teacher of our schools and every officer of our government, state and national, who are in any way obligated to obey the Socialist party are, to say the least, dangerous to our peace and safety. The preamble of the Constitution which states the purpose and spirit of that noble document reads thus: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Socialism, by its continual agita-

A Woman’s Viewpoint =t —r By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

T DARESAY the one bit of advice most often expressed to women could be compassed by four words —“Mind your own business.” Curiosity and inquisitiveness, according to many worthy parsons, are the most reprehensible of feminine faults. Yet I should like to remind them that these very traits contribute shining values to a dark and often miserable world. There is no denying that women sometimes are Meddlesome Matties. We like sticking our fingers into the other fellow’s pie and poking our noses into affairs that are no concern of ours. We get our biggest thrills, speaking figuratively, from peeping into the neighbor’s windows. In short, we are curious and we admit it. And a precious good thing for everybody, if you ask me. Because if we minded only our own business, a long list of excellent and charitable deeds would be undone. a a a TANARUS) ELATTVES, you remember, always are being warned about the folly of mixing into family matters, and so long as everything gpes

[/ wholly disapprove of what you say" and trill defend to the death your right to say it — Voltaire.

tion and propaganda, endeavors to disorganize the unity of the states. It seeks to impede the process of justice. It continually is trying to destroy our domestic tranquility. It agitates continually against our defense system. It intends to reduce everybody to a state of slavery to the government and destroy every last vestige of liberty, including freedom of speech and of the press, freedom of religious worship and the right to own a home or acquire property of any kind, all of which are direct violations of the Constitution of this nation and renders all Socialists, “scientific” or otherwise, as unfit to be called true citizens of this republic. Russia is “building Socialism,” as her spokesmen proclaim, and we can’t reconcile her methods to our Constitution. Resolved, That Marxian Socialism (your kind, Mr. Kimmerling), is a violation of the Constitution when practiced in this country. Would you like to debate on that subject? Again I defy any man to prove that Socialism is constitutional. By U. D. Vincent. Like George Stephens’ letter. Merle Nichols’ communication in your Message Center is just another epistle of generalities and hot-cha—-no facts. Facts are wanted, so let us get down to brass tacks. One of the questions on the table and to be explained is McNutt’s “terror gang." Universities dictionary says “terror” (a) extreme fear. Who is implicating “extreme fear” or who has “extreme fear?” Your Mr. Nichols, George Stephens, others and myself? I do not think so! (b) Terror—“fright.” Who puts i fright into you or others? Are you, 1 George, and myself, being “frignt- l ened?” Personally I didn’t notice \ it. (c) “Terror: Intimidation.” Are ! you, George, and others, “intimidated?” If so, when, where and how? Os course there are some proses- j sional politicians mostly on the I other side of the fence—who have j and show extreme fear, fright and ! similar symptons, but that is only natural. Now then, explain where and what is “McNutt’s terror gang,” so-called by George Stephens. There are still the other items

smoothly the advice is excellent. But when bad times come, when sickness and poverty and sorrow and death make their appearance, the relatives who mind their own business are a sorry' lot. In such an event we much prefer the other kind, those w'ho show a decent interest in our misfortunes. If women pry into their neighbors’ concerns, at least by doing so they promote a fellowship without which our lives would be less happy than they are. They keep alive a vital friendliness during an age when everybody is too much engrossed with seif. All community charities, all kind deeds, all movements that have for their cause a desire to help the poor, the oppressed and the miserable are incited, in the first instance, by the vice of curiosity, and are begun by those who realize that living would be a sad experience for us all if each attended strictly to his own business. This unholy maxim originated in the mind of sdmebody who didn’t care what happened to his neighbor across the street, or across the country, or across the world—and a pretty poor maxim it is.

JAN. '4, 1934

lof GH to be explained. “What j thing are daily happening in ; Indiana?” “What kind of ‘crimj inal fortress’ is being built?” And j the important, “Where Is the political graft?” We—that means about a dozen neighbors of mine and myself—we want to know, being just the ordinary mine-run Indiana voters, if you or GH has an inside information on above mentioned accusations. We ought to know the facts and not just generalities. On the subject “Indiana is the laughing stock of the nation” I am going to do a little research work and will answer you more fully in the near future, hoping the Message Center editor will be gracious enough to give me some space. Durj ing some of the preceding administrations you will have noticed some laughing at Indiana; the fact is right now, whenever you mention a certain former senator and his gang, you not only get a good laugh but you get a real old fashioned belly laugh, chuckle and guffaw. Politically, I might be blind, deaf and comfortably dumb and also asleep; therefore, I ask you and George Stephens to wake me up; get the needle—give the facts. By Ralph Crowley In looking over your paper. I see where in Shelbyville, the home of the Democrats, 247 out of nearly 400 persons applied for old age pensions. There surely must be favorites in Shelby county, one of the Democratic strongholds. Perhaps one man's vote is not as good as another. It is a grand thing that the poor man's vote counts one, the same as the rich, or what would the political grafters do in Marion county, the home of the grafters? My opinion of the Democrats at the present | time is “stick to your party platform.” One man’s vote is just as good as ; another, rich or poor. If the Democrats are going to rid the state cf the poor house, or rather infirmaries, they had better stick to their party platfrom. or else hand the county and state over to the radicals and grafters. The writer is a Democrat of forty-nine years standing and never asked a favor, which is the reason why I never had the pull. So, beware, you veterans. If you apply for the pension and get turned down, tear the tickets of Democratic and Republican candidates and throw them in the gutter. They probably will get their wisdom teeth cut then. By A Times Reader. My husband and brother put in their applications in November on the made work products and never have received a card to go to work. They need the work and there are a number of men working at the fairground, and some of them put in their application one day and got their card the next day. My husband is a painter and decorator and there are a lot of painters working there in the fairground. My brother is a laborer and we are good old Hoosiers.

Inspirational

BY ALICE E. DYSON They tower o’er the world’s confusion and din Transcendent —as beauty eclipses sin. From God’s earthly temples, to azure skies. His pledge of redemption—gold crosses rise; To him who, faint with hunger, looks up With passionate eyes to the lifegiving cup, So he who yearns, as did Percivale Is fed by this vision—as from the Grail.