Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 233, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 February 1934 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times ! ICBIPM HOWARD JUtWHPArKB) HOT W. HOWARD Pr*lcJ*iil TALCOTT POWELL . . I Editor X \RI. D RAKER Amlnest Manager Pbooa —Riley #551

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Oft* Lijht in't itit People Will rin4 Thrir Own Won

WEDNESDAY FEB 7 1934 REAL FACTS TNDIANAPOLIS citizens are paying 8 per cent less today for their light and power than they were Monday. The public utility has made a '•voluntary" reduction to its subscribers following an editorial campaign by this newspaper and vigorous action by the public service commission. Yet our wortny neighbor, the Indianapolis News, seems a bit peevish about this saving to hard-pressed consumers What is more, the News, in its editorials both on the front page and on the editorial page, shows rather a confused state of mind. Every one gets mixed up once in a while arid perhaps now is as good a time as any to give our estimable competitor a bit of assistance. A cold squirt of lacts may cool its fevered brow. Here is the story: Back in 1927 the News fought a courageous—though unsuccessful—battle to prevent the light, company merger. It ably predicted the dangers of the move and prophesied that most of the things that have happened would happen. From time to time thereafter the News made mention of the local utility situation. This was all very laudable, but rates stayed up. The Times got into the lists first in 1932. It made a brief, but vigorous, attack on rates# The News joined, as did the South Side Civic Association. The result was a slight rate reduction amounting to $50,000 a year. In 1933 The Times employed certified public accountants who spent months combing the reports of the Indianapolis Power and Light Company. It turned its audit over to Sherman Minton, public counsellor, and the public service commission brought a “show cause” proceeding. This is what our neighbor, the News, called “a show cause order bluff.” It was quite a bluff It resulted in a rate slash of over 8 per cent and a saving of more than $500,000 a year to the consumers! Then the News on Monday added: “The ratepayer will applaud neither the statements of political aspirants, supported by propagandists currying statehouse favor and receiving advance news from the commission, nor the back-slapping of the commissioncompany mutual admiration society.” We are very, very much afraid that our neighbor is making a veiled reference to us. Since The Times always prefers direct attack to innuendo let us analyze that sentence. The only “advance news” we received from the commission was news which we ourselves had furnished the commission as the result of our audit months ago. The obscure remark about “political aspirants” undoubtedly means Sherman Minton. He has been discussed as a candidate for the United States senate. This newspaper is not backing him or any one else at this time for that job, but we might point out that if every candidate for public office saved the citizens a half million dollars what a fine, pretty world this would be. No. we fear that the News is in a pet over who is to get the credit fqy the largest voluntary rate reduction in the history of Indiana. We do hope its little tantrum is temporary. There is credit enough for all. but while this stampede for the laurel wreath is under way the public should remember that those who really got the rates down were the public service commission and Mr. Minton. Newspapers can take a hand in these matters, as The Times did. but it takes honest and courageous public officials to bring about the actual consummation. THE CRY-BABY AGE PERIODICALLY we go on an emotional debauch of indignation over revelations of past governmental scandals, and then promptly forget all about it—until the next time. As a nation we are long on weeping and wailing, but very short on preventive action. At one time we got all bothered about a Teapot Dome steal. But a few months later we voted back into office the national political machine winch had been in power during those scandals. The same was true of t veteran administration, income tax and other scandals. Some months ago when banks were crashing all around us. we got religion on the subject of bank reform, but now apparently nothing is going to be done in the way of fundamental unification and change in our banking structure. An exception to this rule was the truth-m-securities act which we did manage to enact before our indignation over crookedness petered out: now. however, we blithely are considering amending that law to death. Our latest gnashing of teeth is over profiteering in connection with national defense. On a national defense theory we subsidized private ship and air lines with mail contracts, and now a senate committee stumbles on the fact that this business was shot through and through with favoritism, and huge profits. On top of that it is recalled that the private corporations which build our warships and sell us munitions make fabulous profits. At the same time another congressional committee discloses that one aircraft corporation made 21 per cent on a contract for naval planes, and another pocketed 50 per cent. Just why these revelations are so startling to the public and to congress is hard to understand. There have been so many scandals of this type tn the past in this country, it should be taken for granted by this time that profiteering is the price of private armament trusts. Perhaps some day we shall grow out of the cry-baby age. and instead of making so much futile noise about these scandals actually do something Then we shall take the profits out of preparedness by producing all munitions I

in government arsenals, all fighting planes in government plants, and all war vessels In government navy yards. LOCAL TAX LEAKS SO many emergency problems have demanded attention in the past year that little progress has been made toward one permanent reform which is needed in almost every state in the Union. This is consolidation of local governments to eliminate overlapping and conflicting Jurisdictions. to avoid the costly waste that arises from too many county tax assessors when this work could be done better through large units, too many county peace officers who can't afford equipment necessary to catch major criminals, too many county health officers when health problems have no concern with local government boundaries. The United States Chamber of Commerce is doing a service in telling the country that it is time to clean house in this field and provide permanent relief for local taxpayers along with more efficient service. At the same time, the chamber reminds us, there should be general insistence on better qualified officials—which means more faithful and widespread adherence to civil service. There should be improvement in budgetry procedure and in accounting controls. Local taxes take two-thirds of the nation’s annual tax bill. There is always more talk and trouble over federal taxes, but it is states, counties, townships and cities that eat up most of the money and it is in this field that most unnecessary and wasteful spending occurs. Half a dozen states have taken steps toward consolidation of local governments—a reform, incidentally, long preached by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other states can earn the gratitude of their tax-paying citizens by doing likewise. MODERN FAIRY TALE 'T'HERE is something oddly anachronistic about that little news dispatch from Switzerland, telling how the Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia just has bought anew three-motored Swiss airplane and is having a throne installed in it. The emperor, it seems, wants to make some plane flights. But he sees no reason why a king who goes up in the air should leave the trappings of royalty behind him on the ground. So he will have a flying throne —the first monarch in all history to carry his throne into the clouds. Now the airplane is the very incarnation of up-to-date modernism, and the throne is a vestigial survival of an outworn day. The queer way in which the bustling present and the distant past dovetail nowadays never was illustrated better than in this queer business of the Emperor Selassie’s aerial throne. ONE CODE MISSING TN one day’s newspaper is the following news: The senate banking committee reveals that a big Detroit bank, now collapsed, made loans to forty-three judges totaling $639,000 and listed them under the suggestive category of “Policy loans.” Another senate committee, investigating ship and air mail contracts, discloses that while the public was holding United Aircraft and Transport stock valued on the market at $168,000,000 the National City Company made a profit of $5,895,000 on a cash investment of $14,800, and was issuing stock to a preferred list of friends at S3O a share while the stock was selling on exchange at $37. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes warns contractors of profiteering, collusive bidding, skimping, secret understandings, cheating of workers under the kick-back racket and other immoral practices of a minority of contractors on federal public works. President Green of the A. F. of L. prepares to lay before General Johnson charges of wholesale violations of industrial codes. Attorney General Cummings is investigating an alleged conspiracy by a distillers' trust, controlling 90 per cent of all liquor in the United States, to spread propaganda of a liquor shortage and peg prices at an unreasonably high level. What’s wrong with‘America? Nearly 200 codes have been adopted, but too many citizens hßve failed to adopt and conform to th it code for which there is no substitute —a moral code. FOR SIMPLER JUSTICE r T''HE trial of the Touhy gang for the Factor kidnaping in Chicago brought one innovation in legal practice which well might be copied widely. Under anew Illinois court practice act, the judge’s instructions to the jury, after both sides had made their final pleas, were devoid of the complicated legal verbiage which ordinarily make such instructions more or less mysterious to the layman. They were couched in plain, straightforward English, and instead of being read to the jury by the judge, they were printed and given to the jury to study at its leisure. Any step in the direction of making legal processes simpler and more direct is pretty apt to be a good one. and that is especially true of this one. A jury usually has a hard enough time In assessing the plain facts, in a long trial of this kind: its work can be lightened materially by simplifying the judge’s charge and making it, not a speech that soon is forgotten. but a text that can be referred to for guidance as the deliberations are in progress. THE LINDBERGH CASE npHE fact that one of the things about which -*• federal authorities wanted to question Verne Sankev. notorious outlaw who was captured recently, was the Lindbergh kidnaping reminds us that solution of that dreadful crime still is the major item on the law enforcement agencies’ record of unfinished business. Whether Sankey actually knows anything about this kidnaping is, of course a matter yet to be disclosed But it at least is encouraging to see that the authorities have not forgotten about it. In some ways this was the most shocking crime in all American history No matter how long it takes or how difficult the job may be. it eventually must oe cleaned up and tne men responsible must oe orcught to justice. Until this has oeen done, the offensive against gangsterism will be incomplete.

OGDEN’S OFFERING 'T'HE editors of the country seem to be in accord In the opinion that Ogden Mills, with greedy eyes upon the Republican nomination for the presidency, has sounded a keynote for his party. Mr. Mills tells the world that the Roosevelt policies and powers are ravishing the United States Constitution. Save the Constitution! Os course, any keynote is better than none; but, until there is decidedly more of clarity as to in what way Roosevelt*policy and power are going to eventuate, Mr. Mills’ keynote will sound as if he had struck both A-natural and E-flat, which is not productive of melody or inspiring for more of the same tune. Moreover, during the last thirteen years the folks have been engaged geneially in nullifying the Constitution and, at date, are much more concerned about what they are getting under the Constitution than about the wording of that blessed document, which, in fact, has been so amended, nullified in spots and failed to meet serious exigencies as to warrant a national convention to consider the framing of anew Constitution. As song to accompany his keynote, Mr. Mills suggests tariff reform. To be sure, Mr. Mills has spent much of his lifetime indorsing all the outrages perpetrated in behalf of the high tariff hogs. But, this flop of his in behalf of party expediency doesn’t matter much. In American politics a man may repudiate his past record, even lie outright about it, without much hurt and, after all, the present is period in which what a man is, not what he has been, is given highest consideration. If you want to feel good, you might know that a SIOO bond nqw is worth 170 of the new 60-cent dollars. What? You’d still prefer the old-time dollar and the SIOO bond. How ungrateful!

Liberal Viewpoint Bv DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES =

WHAT has happened to the epoch-making and eagerly awaited report on the teaching of the social science in the schools which was prepared by a distinguished commission of social scientists and educators and was due Dec. 31, 1933? Has this report been suppressed because of its alleged radical nature, as rumor has it? The teachers and citizens of the nation are entitled to know. We can hardly pass over in silence the disappearance of the most revolutionary and significant document in American education since the days of Horace Mann. This commission, though organized under the auspices of the American Historical Association, included persons representing history, geography, economics, political science, sociology and education. Its members were Charles A. Beard. Isaiah Bowman, Frank W. Ballou, Ada Comstock, George S. Counts, Avery O. Craven, Edmund E. Day. Guy Stanton Ford, Carlton J. H. Hayes, Ernest Horn, Henry Johnson, A. C. Krey, Leon C. Marshall, Charles E. Merriam, Jesse H. Newlon and Jesse F. Steiner. The commission received large appropriations from the Carnegie Corporation over a five-year period. It is known to have conducted numerous investigations, some of which have been published, and to have appointed a special committee last spring to bring all of its findings together and to formulate conclusions and recommendations. According to a well authenticated report from the campus of a great middle western university, this report was prepared and submitted to the entire membership of the commission at a meeting in Chicago last Ocotber. At this meeting the report was discussed at length and in detail, was approved in general outline, and was handed back to the drafting committee for revision and final submission to the commission in December in time for publication on the first of the year. But in the meantime it seems that powerful opposition to the report appeared in certain quarters. Before the December meeting of the commission, which was eventually held in Princeton, statements were widely circulated that the document would never be printed. At the Princeton meeting itself, if unofficial accounts are to be trusted, the commission was split wide open, several members reversed themselves, and the publication of the report was indefinitely postponed.

tt tt ts MANY rumors are current on at least one university campus, where the report was | freely passed from hand to hand, regarding the cause of the opposition. Some say that it was too critical of American life and institutions; \ others that it attacked the apostles of rugged individualism: others that it tended to indorse the Roosevelt administration; others that it i dealt harshly with education and teacher-train- ! ing practices; others that it damned objective j tests and scales and yet others that it was unsympathetic toward certain prevailing and highly respectable tendencies in the field of the social science. If these accusations are all true, it would not be surprising if the report should never see the light of day. Teachers, even distinguished university professors, are timid by tradition and fearful of attracting the mildest criticism or unfavorable notice. Asa rule, they can be counted upon for safety and sanity, but not for that daring and invention which may be the only safety in the long run. It is to be hoped, however, that this report will not be suppressed, that it will be published at the earliest possible moment, as a minority if not as a majority report. The times are calling for the radical reconstruction of social science teaching in the schools. In view of the type of opposition aroused, it may well be that this report would supply precisely the kind of stimulus and guidance needed. At any rate, the American people should be permitted to act as judge in the case. They would doubtless like to have a few questions answered. Precisely whence did the opposition come? Did it come from within the commission, or from the outside? Could it have come from powerful financial interests feared by foundations and universities? Or could it have come fiom political enemies of the present national administration? ' W hat chance is there for a government bv experts if the professors themselves have not even caught up to the government in vision devotion and courage? Mr. Roosevelt has had the fortitude to oppose knowledge to tradition. It is about time the professors caught up with the procession. The suspended warden of the New York City prison that was run by gangsters now wants to retire on a pension. At least he’s sure to retire. Yale again follows its old tradition and selects one of its alumni as football coach. The rest of the country can go radical, but not Yale. Congressman Britten doesn’t want American diplomats abroad to talk like the British. He’s right. How can he understand them if they do? Walter Damrosch says crooners are net singers and should be boiled in oil. Now, there’s an idea for the relief of the oil industry. A Toledo detective caught a couple of crooks when they thought he was drunk and tried to pick his pockets. Their exci.se was they didn't know he was unloaded.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

tt a s> NO FRIEND HERE OF COMMUNIST RUSSIA Bt a Praying Mother. Last night I read an article in The Times and in The News regarding an uprising over auctioning off a farm, also a favorable impression left on one's mind regarding sever 1 Communistic agitators among them, saying also that secretary So-and-So (name I’ve forgotten), of a Communistic party, who had their headquarters in a certain city, would be present at the trial to aid his "workers,” who were placed under arrest. This took place in Warsaw, Ind., Saturday. Are we, as American citizens, who believe in God in heaven, His Son, our Savior, who promotes Christian teachings, who believe in the divine right to voice our opinions in our government, to sit back and see our country invaded by the most deadly and poisonous government existing? That which Russia has now? Just because the United States government recognized Russia should we be lenient about the riots, lynchings, murders, thefts, and kidnapings which are very likely worked up and promoted by these Communistic agitators here in our country which is so dear and precious to our hearts. God forbid! Our children must be protected from this terrible menace. BBS A DIRTY DEAL. HE SAYS, FROM ROOSEVELT. By a Veteran. Why has the American Legion membership increased 65,000 during the past year? Because we have been so unfarily dealt with by our new President at the White House that we must get together so that

‘THEY WON’T FIND ANY EVIDENCE ON ME’.

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The Message Center

(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 p* lets.) a tt tt “WHAT ... IF A MAN LOSETH HIS SOUL?” By a Times Reader. If a little child is told several times that something is the truth, he believes it, because he does not have the ability to analyze or think. Mr. Maddox is very much like this little child, judging from his writing. He seems to think that the Socialists claim credit because the President is feeding a few of the men in the bread line and recognized Russia. The Socialists do not claim credit because these men are being fed, and neither do they claim credit for putting these men in the bread line. That is credited to capitalism. The recognition of Russia can also be credited to capitalism, which openly announces that it expects to profit by it. Can the charge that “Socialism will destroy home life” be serious? Under capitalism we see married women working because the husband’s wages are cut to the point of starvation, children slaving because their fathers are underpaid, daughters driven into prostitution and crime because of low wages and lack of education. Can anything destroy home life more than this? Can we seriously consider the charge that “Socialism will destroy religion and separate man from man”? Under the capitalistic system the sole aim is to rule with gold and not by the golden rule. Can a profit system that creates greed, envy and jealousy be beneficial to mankind? Under our present system we only follow God’s laws until they condemn our laws which permit man to exploit his fellow-man. Crime will never be abolished until we abolish the conditions which breed criminals. Much more could be said, but I doubt if even this will be published.

Is Farley Really Shanty Irish?

Bv William Green. You, nor your allied papers, have neither the courage nor the “guts” to tell the truth about the mal-administration both local, state and national. You are so petty, so small in your vision, that you can only see as far as your nose. Your motto about vision is all bunk. As far as the truth of the

when the proper time arrives we can do something. I often wonder how he would like to fight, be scared half to death for months, then wounded, come home with his job gone, finding nothing like it was when he went across, then have a bunch of money-grab-bers in Washington decrease his pension to almost nothing, at the same time authorizing the expenditure of millions for utterly worthless projects? Even you people who had nothing to lose in that terrible, terrible war should start your head working with a bit of sympathy for us and actually consider yourselves In our place THEN and NOW. You can’t realize what an awful war that was. Many reprimanded President Hoover because he refused us ‘the remaining half of our bonus. (He had been good enough to voluntarily pay us the first half when it wasn’t due for years yet), then we gathered about the White House lawn like a bunch of idiots or rats, asking for more and voted against him, thinking Roosavelt would treat us like he inferred in his pre-election campaign. We now find that we voted merely for a smile, a promise and pleasant voice, but that on the inside there is not even "sympathy” for we who withstood that awful siege of war. We have not only gotten our pensions cut, but have heard nothing of the bonus we were at "Hoover’s” doorstep for. It seems that it is up to us to unite and fight once more; this time in the American Legion. Come on boys! get into it NOW, and really learn the details of this dirty deal we’ve gotten. tt a tt HE WANTS OPINIONS FROM CONSUMERS By a Consumer. In reference to your editorial of Jan. 31, I would remind you that when the merger question was before the commission in 1926-27, Clarke and his associates promised j a great reduction in operating ex- | penses. Instead, these expenses, as i you have stated, have increased j more rapidly than revenue. Is it not true that by collusion i

A Woman’s Viewpoint

By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

WOMEN who never would think of breaking one of Mrs. Post’s rules of conduct about nonessentials discuss their husbands with the utmost vulgarity. They do not hesitate to disclose the deepest secrets of their marriage, not alone to intimate friends, but to any chance acquaintance. It often seems to me that our attitude toward married love is childish, even reprehensible, since it is generally considered very poor taste to display affection toward the individual one is supposed to love. It has become a cult to enthuse over husbands in general and to disparage husbands in particular. So many an excellent dame will sit up and blandly hold forth for hours about what she is obliged to endure, apparently never having been struck by the idea that her poor husband may also be suffering severe disillusionment. She may be willing to die for him, if need be, but she will never, never praise him.

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

matter is, your papers are filled with the most mis-statements of any on earth. Nothing in them has the least foundation of truth—if you can prevent the truth. Exaggerations, mis-statements, distortions of truth—that’s what you print. Throw out shanty Irish Farley. (Editor’s Note: My! My!)

between the holding company and some of its subsidiaries, including the local company, the operating expenses of the local company have been padded by approximately $1,500,000 a year since the merger and that the value of the property of the local company has been padded to the extent of about $24,000,000? The object of all those tricks was, of course, to maintain high rates at the expense of the patrons of the company*. Discussing this matter at lunch today with three repuable, well-known attorneys, they stated that the actions above referred to were fraudulent, and the guilty parties should be prosecuted in the courts. A few weeks ago the local company prosecuted a consumer for “stealing” current, and the poor fellow had to go to prison for a month. If a company, through its officials, puts over a gigantic fraud, or attempts to do so, is it to go free of punishment? Now, fellow consumer, let me have your opinions on this matter. We may get together and stop such things for many years to come. tt a tt PUTS DILLINGER, BANKERS IN SAME BOAT By Times Reader. The capture of John Dillinger, called public enemy No. 1, has •caused me to do some thinking. His offense is bank banditry, plus possible murder. I reasoned with myself: What is the difference between one who robs a bank with a machine gun and a bank official who accepts deposits when they know their institutions are unsound? We all know how many of the last named the country has seen the last four years. Second: If John Dillinger killed a policeman with a gun, how many people were killed the last four years by despondency, a slower and more cruel death? Third: Should prison officials have any more right to torture a bank bandit by third degree to wring confessions from them, than they would a bank president who

THE difference between the two is that almost any man would have his tongue cut out before he would criticise his wife in public, or even to his best friend, whereas women appear to derive their greatest social pleasure in tearing their husbands apart and showing everybody just how "the wheels go round." In any group of wives, once they get on to the subject, you can discover a definite martyr complex or tw ! o. Whether this is caused by a hangover from an earlier tradition, or whether it is merely one way we have of feeding our vanity and impressing the neighbors, I can not say. But I do believe we need a course in "How to be polite about husbands.” After all, there are still a good many of us who love our legal mates. Why should we be ashamed of that? On this subject, at least I am modern. It seems to me the way in which we hold married love up to ridicule marks us as complete vulgarians. j

.FEB. 7, 1934

accepted our money in good faith when he knew his bank was on the rocks? I do not uphold bank banditry, but the “still small voice’’ asks one more question, namely: When the Almighty speaks in the final judgment, who will be public enemy No. 1. John Dillinger or some of our refined money changers, for instance, Samuel Insull? non FAR FROM SPORTING, HIS ASSERTION By a Street Car Patron. I have never contributed anything to your page, even though I am a daiiy reader of it. I feel that the following incident will be interesting to the people of Indianapolis. The other night at about 7:19, the trolley wire at Ohio and Fulton streets broke as a street car passed under it. The operator, wishing to safeguard all persons who might get near the wire, went across the street to the Fleischmanfc; Yeast Company, to call the repair linemen. He was coldly refused and was forced to walk several squares to a drug store. There were two employes in the plant at the time. Is that the proper attitude for a New York Corporation to treat a public servant when it is 2 below zero? an o A POINT OF INFORMATION IS DESIRED By One Seeking Knowledge. We would greatly appreciate it if you will kindly explain in The Times why the city’s light company always puts on the suburban bills a demand charge of 63 cents, over and above the amount used in figuring the bill. Now, you always have this to pay extra, no matter when the bill is paid. You would have to pay 38 cents if overdue, but the 63 cents mentioned above you have to pay extra, always. Why? We have been told people living in the city, owning a frigidaire get a reduction, is this true, and, if so, why do they make none for suburban people? We trust you will explain these things. nan INTERESTING—EVEN IF SOMEWHAT COMPLICATED By G. A. W. I was interested in your Jan. 31 editorial about "That Freak Hand.’’ Reading between the lines it seems to say that since the suit was hearts it must have been a fair deal. Frequently we read in papers where someone has drawn a perfect bridge hand, and almost. This variably the suit is spades. This causes some of us who are mathematically inclined to wonder just a bit. Your bridge playing readers would probably be interested in some figures from Time, the weekly newsmagazine, and statement “that the cliance of an honestly dealt hand’s consisting of an entire suit are 1 to 158,753,000,000. This means that if each of the 10,000,000 United States bridge players played fifteen hands every day, year in and year out, a solid-suit hand would occur under the law of averages only once every three years.’’ The above covers a perfect hand in either of the four suits. It is obvious that thirteen spades should fall in one hand just one-fourth as often. Chance Meeting BY FRANCESCA You stood before me, smiling, So tall and debonair; I read in every action For me you’d never care. We talked of things so trivial For just a little space,— And you were so indifferent • To my eyes and upturned face. You said goodby and turned from me. Oh you were quite discreet; And I cried very softly, dear, For blocks way down the street.