Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 209, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 January 1934 — Page 14

PAGE 14

The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS.HOWARD NEWSPAPER) ROT W. HOWARD President TAI.COTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Business Manager Phone— RHey 5531

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Ch Light an't th Pfoplt Will find Their Oicrl Wag

WEDNESDAY. JAN. 10. 1934.

THE NEW DEAL STANDS r 1 "HE supreme court will not destroy the new deal. That Is the general interpretation of the court’s decision upholding as constitutional the Minnesota mortgage moratorium lew. Perhaps that interpretation is premature In view of the closeness of the 5-to-4 decision. Nevertheless, no one will deny the vast importance of this first test case and of the issue raised. This was stressed even by the court minority. In the minority dissent. Mr. Justice Sutherland said: “Few questions of greater moment than that just decided have been submitted for judicial inquiry during this generation.” The specific issue was the relation of the state law to the contract clause of the United States Constitution. The larger question was the supremacy of the general social interest in en emergency over contractual property rights. The court majority sustained the state law on the ground that the purpose of the latter was “the protection of a basic interest of society.” To the layman and to administration lawyers it appears that this same reason is sufficient legal justification and proof of the constitutionality of the federal laws enacted to save the nation in an emergency. Citizens and experts may disagree over the assumed powers—or, as many believe, the usurped powers—of the supreme court to make and unmake laws through the method of reviewing constitutionality. But it is agreed fairly well that the court either can wreck Itself or the Constitution or both in exercising such legislative powers, unless it interprets the dead letter of the Constitution in the light of living, facts. A growing nation, meeting ever-new problems and emergencies, simply can not be confined in a legalistic straitjacket. If the Constitution is a prison, our nation must escape from it or die. And, of course, the chief reason our ancient Constitution has not been overthrown long ago precisely is because the court —however belatedly—has interpreted it to fit existing necessity. Chief Justice Marshall, the great conservative, who largely was responsible, by usurpation or otherwise, for making the court all-powerful over the people and their elected government, was wise enough to foresee this. In our judgment the most significant part of Chief Justice Hughes’ majority decision in the Minnesota mortgage moratorium case is that which states with such clarity that the Constitution is not confined to the views of its dead authors. Mr. Justice Hughes, supported by Justices Brandeis, Stone, Roberts and Cardozo, said: “It is no answer to say that this public need was not apprehended a century ago, or to insist that what the provision of the Constitution meant to the vision of that day it must mean to the vision of our time. If by the statement that what the Constitution meant at the time of its adoption, it means today, it is intended to say that the great clauses of the Constitution must be confined to the interpretation which the framers, with conditions and outlooks of their time, would have placed upon them, the statement carries Its own refutation. “It was to guard against such a narrow conception that Chief Justice Marshall uttered the memorable warning—‘We must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding. ... A Constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.' ” WAR THAT PAYS A NATION that is going ten billion dollars into debt in one year certainly is going somewhere at a prodigious rate. Some of the people at Washington think we are heading straight for recovery, and others think that we are plunging down a steep place into the sea. Before the rest of us give way either to encouragement or to fright, it would pay us to stop and figure just what the implications of this titanic spending may be. The first thing one thinks of is the World war. We spent at a greater rate than this during the war. and we kept it up longer, and we came out of it without cracking under the strain. Furthermore, there is not the slightest doubt that, if we were at war today, sums of this size would be voted without any misgivings at all. That being so. why not compare our present situation to a war-time crisis? The comparison is a perfectly proper one What is at stake in a war? National existence itself may be at stake—though that was not the case with us in the World war, nor in the war with Spain. Money, national honor, national influence, certain intangible considerations that bulk large or small, depending on how you look at them—these were the things that went into the balance when we got into our last war. What is at stake now? Well—a lot of things; our faith in our form of government and our social structure, our belief in ourselves, our dream of democracy and our vision of destiny, the happiness and comfort of many millions of people; a total far greater than anything we risked by going to war with the German empire. If it was proper to spend at an unheard-of rate to beat the kaiser, is it not infinitely more proper to spend at an equal rate today to save the things which all Americans hold most dear? There Is still another angle to It. The money we spent in 191 T and 1918 was

spent for purposes of destruction. When we got through, we had nothing to show for It. A shell that has exploded, a ship that has gone to the bottom, a man who has been turned into corpse—those are not, .in any economy, dividend-producing items. They are what our billions bought in the World war. Today we are spending to build things. We are building highways and bridges and dams and towns and homes, we are spending to strengthen banks and railroads and farms and factories, we are spending to make men and women and children strong and healthy amd courageous. We shall have all these things after the spending is over. Can any American doubt that these possessions will make simpler the task of paying back what we are borrowing? CALL BROWN AND FARLEY TF former Postmaster-General Walter E. -*■ Brown destroyed the official files on the ship and,airplane subsidy contracts, as alleged, he may find he has destroyed the subsidy system iStself. He deserves to be heard, however, and the sooner ithe better. Alreasdy the senate investigating committee has piled up sufficient evidence, relating to questionable practices of earlier administrations injhanding out contracts, to discredit this subsidy business. In addition to calling Mr. Brown to answer the serious charges, the senate committee should also ask Postmaster-General James Farley land his chief assistants how they could remain in office ten months wTthout discover - ering and reporting the apparently illegal destruction of government documents affecting not only past, but present contracts. MORE CALIFORNIA JUSTICE /CALIFORNIA, land of milk and honey, has iis afflictions, like other states. Among these are floods, fruit pests and strange ideas of justice. California has been keeping Warren Billings and Tom Mooney in prison on a charge that has been disproved to the satisfaction of the whole country, including California. The reason for this, voiced unofficially by California, is that they are bad characters, whether or not they were guilty of the crime for which they were sentenced. Jurists elsewhere could not conceive of reasonable state authorities echoing this view. But the Governor’s parole board has done just that. Seventeen years of false imprisonment having broken his resistance, Billings applied for a parole. The parole board denied the petition—cn the ground of Billings’ bad record prior to his present false conviction. His bad record consisted cf having been imprisoned previously for some other offense. His record, in other words, was that of legal expiation of the earlier transgression. The sentence he had served, under any theory of law save apparently that of California, had wiped the slate clean. California mobs can not be expected to observe the letter and spirit of .legal justice. Is the same true of California parole boards?

A BUDGET TO READ /t FEW years ago when the country became concerned with cutting expenditures. a young member of congress intrusted with this duty came face to face with the fact that convenient and adequate figures on federal finance were not available anywhere. Today that same young man is director of the budget and he has remedied the condition that was so irksome. Lewis Douglas has just sent to congress the most comprehensive and intelligible budget in the history of federal budget making. It compares ’expenditures for last year, this year and next by departments, by organizational units, by functions, and by character and objects of expenditure. In other words, if you wish to find out quickly the total spent during a year for printing, for electric lights, or for any other purpose, the figure is ready for you. Mysteries of “unexpended balances,” trust funds, transfers and sinking funds all are clarified. A record is presented of all government obligations outstanding. Detail of all emergency expenditures is told and retold. At last it is possible to talk of federal finance understandingly. Mr. Douglas has effected what should be a permanent reform.

NONSENSE COURSES IMPETUS has been added to the effort of Governor Paul V. McNutt to end the “nonsense course” in educational technique in the state-supported schools by the appointment of Floyd I. McMurray as superintendent of public instruction. Mr. McMurray has placed himself squarely behind the plan to begin at once a survey of all educational courses. This likely is to result in weeding out the useless and in changing the state board viewpoint on requirements. Nineteen hours’ credit in teaching teachers to teach has been termed a ridiculous waste of time by nearly all professors of science and cultural courses in the state of Indiana. In a round robin petition to the state board they ask that this teaching requirement be reduced to twelve hours and the embryo teacher be required to know more about the subject matter to be taught. Having served as Boone county superintendent of schools. Mr. McMurray has had first-hand contact with what happens when teachers know all about methods and little about matter. His practical leadership may result in reformation whereby culture will replace cult in educational requirements. OUR ‘STATESMAN* T TOOSIERS scattered over the world must have hung their heads in shame as they read in the newspapers the remarks of Senator Arthur Robinson on the floor of the senate that President Roosevelt was “deceiving the nation.” Pressed by Democrats for concrete statements against the President, our great Indiana “statesman’’ tells the world he is against the civilian conservation corps. The wisest and best thing Indiana Republicans can do for the nation is to nominate and elect a man who is anxious to serve his country and who Is not intent only on finding means of keeping a good SIO,OOO a year job.

THAT DOLLAR SIGN 'T'HE dollar sign on the divorce decree means considerable more today, to a large number of Eve's mercenary- granddaughters, than the cupids on the marriage license. A bridegroom merely promises to love and cherish. But an ex-husband promises to pay! Because a woman ofee stood by a man’s side in front of a minister or somebody else who said marrying words, and answered yes in the right places, she has a right to demand that she share in the man's financial fortune, though she drop her name from his calling cards. But she forsakes the privilege of collaborating in his adversities. He is supposed to stay rich! If he can’t, it is his hard luck, she seems to argue. Just to show him, she will send him to jail. And she does. The alimony jails of New York state, where the nonpaying husbands assemble to talk about the women they used to love and wonder how they never could have women entries. And yet, occasionally, it is the woman who has been blessed with the Midas touch, and the man who convinces a judge that the love he gave her was such that she should make perennial payments. Yet if the woman comes into a lean season when she can’t pay, she never goes to jail. The man understands that when a woman can’t, she can’t! The latent streak of chivalry—and it is quite dormant, we grant, in a man who will take alimony from a woman—functions sufficiently for him to refuse to confine her to prison. But when it is the ex-husband who has a book of worthless checks, with fiendish glee the woman makes him give his pound of flesh. Her psychology is difficult to understand. If it is merely money she wants, she is on the wrong road. Imprisoned men don’t have incomes. In fact, she admits openly tiat it is a perverted self-satisfaction because she can make the man uncomfortable that prompts her action. When a woman has lived with a man, toiled for him and loved him, until she is too old for further marriage or training for self-sup-port, certainly she has a right to alimony—if he can pay. But when he can’t the issue changes. It is odd, too, that so often the women who ask the law to look after their husbands are the ones who are managing fairly well. Those who are counting the fractions of every cent are likely to understar and that an empty pocketbook has possibilities and wait quietly for better days. Marriage is supposed to be founded on love. Divorce is caused by the lack of it. Just where the heart-stirring emotion goes mercenary no one knows. But romance puts in a bill for past embraces when summer ends and love drifts out to sea. It isn’t any wonder that a large number of ex-husbands wish that women who brag of their modern independence would stretch it a point and add financial independence to the list of desirable qualities. The original manuscript of “The StarSpangled Banner” was sold for $24,000, but when it comes to singing it, we’ll bet the buyer won’t know the words, anyway. We knew it. No sooner do we recognize Russia than President Roosevelt gets the idea of a twenty-five to fifty-year plan for public works. Ohio State university threatened to expel ten students for objecting to compulsory military training. The university is quite liberal, though, teaching its students to use their own minds after they get out of school, not before.

Liberal Viewpoint

.By DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES;

FINDING it very difficult to meet the arguments of sane inflationists with either fact or logic, the anti-inflationists have had recourse to the “big, bad wolf’’ in the form of historical bogeys. They have called attention to every classic example of currency debasement by medieval kings, emperors and churchman. They have pointed a warning finger at every case of wild inflation in modern times—the South Sea Bubble, the John Law Scheme, the assignats of the French Revolution, our Continental currency, the paper money of the Southern Confederacy, inflation in early Bolshevik Russia, and the debauch of Germany in 1922-23. We are led to infer that President Roosevelt is about to pitch us into just such a maelstrom as that in which Germany found herself during 1923. Senator Thomas is represented as a contemporary John Law. Once we examine the historic record, in the effort to learn the truth rather than to support a thesis, we easily can see that it presents overwhelming evidence that such anti-inflation propagandists are either downright dishonest or abismally ignorant. a a a AS compared to the German inflation, for example, Mr. Roosevelt's policies to date are like a shower bath as set off against the Johnstown flood. Mr. Roosevelt thus far has been unwilling even to depreciate the gold dollar by 50 per cent, to print any of the $3,000,000,000 of paper money which he was authorized by the Thomas bill to bring forth, or to remonetize silver. Mr. Roosevelt’s monetary policies must be discredited, if at all, on the basis of their own defect, and not by the grossest abuse of false historical analogies. The inflation of the French Revolution and of the American Resolution was the product of a rudimentary economy and of an age in which no real economy or monetary science existed. It was a primitive effort in both cases and was carried on in the face of desperate military extremities. The German inflation was as much a military defense as a fiscal policy. It was prompted by military invasion and rendered necessary because Germany had to use printing presses rather than machine guns to defend herself. nan NOTHING short of ignorance or a determined and deliberate effort to deceive :ould explain the charge that the Roosevelt inflationary policies bear any resemblance .to those ancient fiascoes or to the frantic German episode. The administration program aims at nothing more than the raising of prices to what they were in a very recent and normal year. Even if considerable paper money were printed, the result would not be comparable to these historic examples of inflation. There is. indeed, a sufficient excess gold reserve legally to back up twice as much paper money as any recognized inflationist asks to have printed today. What the Roosevelt administration has in mind is much nearer to what England has been doing since she went off the gold standard than it is to any of the historic cases of inflation. There the government and the Bank of England deliberately reduced the value of the pound by use of an “equalization rfund," and arbitrarily fixed the price of gold from day to day. Yet, many of our fierce banker opponents of inflation in the United States have praised England for her monetary policies since 1931. Even Professor Sprague, who resigned in protest against Roosevelt's policies, was an adviser to the British government during this very period.

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 250 words or less.) POSTAL WORKERS LOSE MUCH IN SALARIES By Ernest C. McCoy. The loss in wage of postoffice clerks for the last six months of 1933 was approximately 20 to 25 per cent, according to grade, instead of the usually quoted 15 per cent reduction of the economy act, according to the January issue of The Union Postal Clerk, official organ of the National Federation of Post Office Clerks. Another striking fact is that the loss bore heaviest upon the lowest salaried. For regular clerks in the $1,700 per annum group, the percentage of deductions amounted to 25.86 per cent, while for the highest grade of veteran and expert “special” clerks the loss was 18.98 per cent. In money, the $1,700 clerk lost approximately s2ll in the last six months of 1933 and $320 in the preceding twelve months. The largest actual money loss was by clerks in the junior “special” grade who, through payless furloughs, the 15 per cent wage cut, the estimated loss in reduction of night work differential pay and discontinuation of promotions, found his income less by $628.88 in the eighteen months’ period. These sums do not include the regular deductions for retirement funds which amount to 3 Vz per cent. Heavy as these losses appear, they are, according to The Union Postal Clerk, small compared to those suffered by the some 20,000 substitute postal employes. These employes are dependent in ordinary times upon extra work of one kind or another. The door to regular appointments, which is their goal, was definitely barred by the suspension of appointments under the economy act. At the same time, their earnings were cut to the bone by curtailment of their use as supplementary to the regular clerks during emergency periods. Earnings of less than 60 cents for a two weeks’ period have been reported. Relief agencies or emergency employment plans refuse to assist them on the ground that they are employed. In some case§ at least, they have been refused employment under the C. W. A. program on the ground that they already had a government position. A FRIEND OF DILLINGER WRITES By Willard Kelley. I can’t help from w_ iting this after reading your article on John Dillinger. My stamps are limited and hard to get but if you dare publish this I know the stamp is well spent. What I have to say should set the minds of Mooresville citizens right, and ease the mind of his father. I know Dil well. I worked at his side for six months in the shirt shop. He was not a tough prisoner. I never knew him to get in trouble. His packet is on record at Pendleton and it will prove any day what his record was. Dillinger played second base on the baseball team. He was a model prisoner in every way. He was not transferred from Pendleton to Michigan City because he was too tough. A. J. Warner, an officer with thirty-two years service in the reformatory, will tell you Dil was transferred to Michigan City because they needed ball players. At the time of his transfer they sent a fellow by the name of Taylor, a catcher, and a fellow by the name of Ellis, a pitcher, with Dillinger. Don’t you think that this bit of information might bring a ray of comfort to his father? The police and public are quick to hang everything serious on Dil's shoulders. I’m not trying to class myself as a judge, but don’t you think there are enough bum ramps on the guy. Don’t you think that these things I write about should be straightened out?

. . .

The Message Center

‘THUMBS DOWN’

One Day With a Tory

By Tom Berlins. Let us go around the clock with a typical tory. After a night of sound sleep on a good bed under silken covers, he greets the hour of rousing with a cheerful shout, bounds into a well-heated bathroom, and plunging into his prepared bath, meets with gusto the shock it gives and rejoices in the exhilaration thereof. By this time the cook has his breakfast on the table and with a pleasant smile he greets the family, if any, and peruses the morning paper while sipping his coffee. After which he paces up and down the drive, breathing deeply, while the chauffeur warms the engine of his sixteen-cylinder car. Then being ready to greet his work at the office as something to put forth his surplus energy upon, he rolls quietly off, reading the paper in the back seat. But he needs a shave and a manicure if the good looking blond is there this morning. Having received the shave and smiles from the manicurist he proceeds to the office. True, it is close to 10 a. m. by this time, but that makes it better as the clerical force will have started something which he can criticise and change. Also there will be a couple of early bird salesmen waiting. He will dismiss them in short order. Although constantly trying to sell

HERE’S A CHALLENGE FOR MR. OUTSIDER By A Reader Here s to the resident of another state who, in his letter to Message Center, appended the name of “Outsider.” When Mr. Outsider called our driver s licence law a fleece, j quite agreed with him. When he called our Indianapolis police force a corpulent “beef trust” I put down my pipe and laughed. When he told about an Indianapolis motorman who stopped his street car in the middle of the block in order to g§t a hot dog, I wondered who it was made hot dogs that good. When he said we didn’t clean up our corners after accidents, that our squad cars should carry brooms. I thought it was so funny that I read it aloud for all of my family to hear. But toward the end of his letter Mr. Outsider got serious and wrote that Indianapolis lacked civic pride. He said that our city was known the country over as “the town in the cornfield.” A bit of

A Woman’s Viewpoint - - By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

THE year 1934 opens with several good omens. The one I liked best was the Literary Digest's poll of radio entertainers’ popularity. Would you believe it? Jazz, crooners, cheap advertising, stale jokes and smart aleck comedians didn't run worth a cent. Whether the public is becoming more intellectual or only more bored with these curses might be the subject for endless debates. But a fact to be remembered is that the Literary Digest has a record nearly 100 per cent perfect on its polls. The last one showed thumbs down on nonsense and tripe. Crooners proved extremely unpopular, with the hill billies winning over them by an imposing majority. I hate to disclose this, but the poor female announcers didn’t get a single vote. Only two people enjoyed bridge lectures, while an interesting feminine reaction was disclosed by the fact that cooking talks won over beauty hints in a regular walk-away.

[1 wholly disapprove of what you say and ivill *1 defend to the death your right to say it — Voltaire. J

his own product he can not understand why any one should try to sell him anything. Pressing a button he calls his secretary who reminds him of a few things he should remember really himself, not being quite petrified above the neck. Then he takes the noon-day meal at the club with his cronies, leisurely and gaily. Although this man normally is good hatured there will be at least one loudmouthed protector of the treasury present at dinner who will so far forget himself as to develop a case of bicarbonate of soda indigestion over the rascality and laziness of the present-day workman. Our man will make a mental note of the speech and rcsolve to use it in the near future. Then back to the office for a couple of hours work if he must. Then, he’s off to horse, or golf, or rod, or gun. Then comes the evening meal, with all traces of toil removed and clean clothes. Sharing the best things market and purse will afford, served in such a way as to prolong the opportunity for the interchange of wit and banter, intelligent discussion and compliments for the ladies. He spends the evening in quiet reading or entertainment and retires to bed wondering why all this discussion is in the papers. Where is the emergency, crisis or fire? And to sleep.

travel beyond the periphery of our cornfield, he inferred, would teach us much about state and citv management. This, together with the rest of his letter, prompts me to make him a proposition: Show me, Mr. Outsider, a better city or state for all things concerned, in the United States and I’ll show you a thou-sand-legged humming bird. SOCIALISM SEEKS TO BETTER THIS WORLD By Harry Bobbe I was very much interested when reading the article to Mr. Kimmerling about Socialism. You, I am sorry to say, have the wrong conception of Socialism as being unconstitutional Socialism is to render your service to and for the government for the welfare and well-being of all the people under the Constitution. Sure enough, without any selfishness, Jack London’s description was right. To capture the political machinery of society, and by that machinery to destroy present day so-

JUST what this all means I can’t pretend to say. It looks as if there might be a decided trend back to the crossroads and plain horse sense. The urban influence may be diminishing, since the wisecrackers and jazz didn’t do so well. To be sure, only a very small part of radio listeners voted at all. But that part is numerous enough to be given some favorable attention by program directors. Certainly a great deal of air entertainment possibly could not hold the attention of an intelligent adult for long. Most of it is too trivial and shoddy to merit any consideration and must be the poorest kind of advertising medium, while at least 90 per cent seems devised to make the average listener even more stupid than he already is. Yet every indivdual recognizes in the radio a very powerful force for education. It is too bad that such a force is utilized so frequently for the dissemination of subjects that are not worth talking about, much less listening to.

JAN. 10. 1934

’ciety. That doesn't say to capture the present day Constitution but the system that exists which has and still does create present-day condij tions. This is the political machin- ! ery of present day society. And our beloved Constitution was ! well meant, but the same was made years and years ago in a period where it was fitted to the time and conditions. That doesn’t mean that our Constitution can’t be improved. This has been proved already and the future will compel it to review it now and then. Our President has proved that Socialism means a great factor to the Constitution and civilization. It only was never worked out to its perfect form. Socialism fights system, rotten system created through and by society and is by no means continual agitation, but firm striving for the betterment of all the people throughout the entire world. GIVE UNEMPLOYED BRIDGE JOBS, PLEA By H. M. Whlteford. I have been a reader of your valuable paper for a good many years and find that you are reasonable and in sympathy with the laboring people. Now there are still a number of unemployed who are not able to get on the CWA jobs. Why not have the state highway commission stop contracting and put some of these men on this bridge work. There are several bridge extensions to be built in southern Indiana in United States Roads 31 and 50, and instead of giving the contractor the usual 25 per cent takeoff, give at least a part of that to the poor laborers who have been out of work so long. Now please take this up with the highway commission and stop this contracting and graft. MORE ABOUT CWA, RAIN AND DICE By A Times Reader. I am just another one of the many CWA workers in Monroe county. I noticed a letter in your Message Center Jan. 4 written by a man who worked in the rain one day. I didn’t work in it and I didn’t shoot craps all day as he says. We didn't want to get off the busses at work time that morning on account of rain, but Mr. Murphy said to wait a couple hours to see if it cleared up. We waited until 10 a. m. when it was raining harder than ever and Mr. Murphy told us we either could go to work or stay on the busses until 3:30. Our regular quitting time was 2:30 and our foreman got fired for telling us that if we wanted to work in the rain to start down the road and he would follow us. But he wouldn't lead us for he wasn't going to be the cause of any man being sick. We make $3 a day down there and a doctor charges me that every time he comes to my house. And as for the busses being on contract and couldn’t leave before quitting time, why the very next week we quit Saturday noon and the busses brought us in at the time. The bus contract calls for a round trip five days a week, that’s all.

Sunset

BY HARRIETT SCOTT OLIXICK The golden winter sunset holds a flame That for one fleeting hour burns the west; And filters through black agony of trees Etched sharply clear against the earth's white breast. The sky is faintly coral; then is dull. A steel blue light enfolds the day like smoke, And night descends with vague, uncertain steps To gather all the world into his cloak.