Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 240, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 February 1934 — Page 12

PAGE 12

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THURSDAY FEB 15. IM4. JAIL, SAYS THE SENATE ■m/TESSRS MACCRACKEN and Brittm have ■*“ been sentenced to spend ten days in the District of Columbia jail. This penalty they pay for resistance to an interference with the effort of the United States senate to discover how the people s money has been used by the subsidized air mail lines. Nobody will take pleasure in the misfortune of Messrs MacCracken and Brittin. But every citizen may very well take satisfaction In this demonstration of the present administration’s purpose to eliminate special privilege from this important field of government activities. MacCracken and Brittin represent certain financial interests that have had special privileges too long American commercial aviation has come to be one such special privilege of these interests, thanks to the Brown regime in the postoffire department. It wasn't strange, therefore, that MacCracken and Brittin should get erroneous ideas in other matters; the idea, for example, that they could withhold information desired bv the United States senate or destroy needed evidence and not suffer for so doing. Special privilege begets these ideas. What Is happening to these two men is not important. What is happening to business, industry and finance at the hands of the government is important. The President has proclaimed his purpose to put an end to special privilege. The senate, in its handling of the present incident, properly punctuates the President's declaration. THE TAX GAG THE house of representatives is in the midst of sixteen hours of general debate on the tax bill, about which it can do nothing but talk unless the ways and means committee gives special sanction to amendments. By accepting this gag by the Democratic machine, the house again has muffed the opportunity for a genuine revision of the income tax system to make the so-called middle classes pay their share. Classes whose net income ranges up to $30,000 a year have, indeed, had their taxes lightened by the ways and means committee bill. And thus when the United States treasury is facing its greatest deficit, when the need for emergency expenditures is growing. "I, myself, belong to the middle class and wish only to belong to it." Representative Lewis (Dem.. Md.) told the house. “Ts I understand the class. I wish to say that it will not thank its representatives in the government for such favors in taxation if they are to be secured by putting the government in peril for its life. Instead they would repel us with disgust as unfaithful public servants. They know that this is a world of duties as well as of rights, and that their first duty is to maintain even with their lives the great government in which we are partners." The house leadership paid no heed to this appeal. It took the treasury's suggestions for easing up on income taxes on the middle classes. The job of genuine revision hence becomes one for the senate. Unless it is done, unless the American rates are increased, made more like those of Great Britain, for instance, dangers lie ahead. Heavy taxes on multimillionaires alone are not returning enough revenue. Large increases should be levied on all incomes from SIO,OOO on up. If the senate wants to do its utmost to prevent currency inflation; if It actually wants to preserve our type of government, it will so revise the revenue bill as to vield to the treasury the money it needs, and by means of levies upon incomes that now escape reasonable taxation. MORE THAN HALF NONSENSE OSWALD SPENGLER. the German philsopher of the doom of western civilization, naturally has a very low opinion of the American experiment in democracy. Democracy, he feels, is merely the half-way house to Communist ruin, and liberalism is the world's undoing. Ail this is set forth in rather lurid language in his new book. "The Hour of Decision.” Mr Knopf, the publisher, says: "I think this is a great book. It may be compounded half of nonsense—l don't know—but it is written in so grand a manner that reading it is an experience not easily forgotten." We think Mr. Knopf underestimates the Spengienan compound is nearer nine-tenths nonsense. Spengler may be pardoned his notorious ignorance regarding the facts of American, English or Russian conditions. But he ought to know something about Germany. Whether he does or not is hard to say, because he rants so much and runs off at so many tangents that no clear picture is left of his impression of the German scene. That Is a pity. For Americans have just read Hitler’s semi-literate ravings In vain to get a clear idea of Nazism. And now Spengler the intellectual prophet of German reaction, is not much more enlightening. Spengler. however, is much more honest than Hitler. He does not pretend that the German reaction favors the masses. Indeed he is scornful of Hitler's demagogic appeal to the people. As the mouthpiece of world aristocracy in general and Prussian junkerism in particular. Spengler wants no sops thrown to the working classes. He sees history, present and future, as a clasa war between commoner and aristocrat, but one which is being turned into a racial revolution between white and colored. In brief: The world-economic crisis of this year and a good many next years is not, as the whole world supposes, the temporary consequence of war, revolution, inflation and payment oh

debts. It has been willed. In all essentials it is the product of the deliberate work of the leaders of the proletariat . . . But here ‘white’ Bolshevism is rapidly on the wane . . . This pressure consists in the activity of the colored, racial revolution, which is already using the white revolution of the class war as its tool.” STOCK MANIPULATION SUPPOSE that you are a business man and that you run a little garage just around the corner off Main street. You happen to need money to build an addition to your garage, or to install new equipment; so you go to your bank and ask for a loan. Your business is going well enough and your reputation is good, and as far as your own condition goes there's no reason why you shouldn't get your money. Now suppose that down in New York certain clever gentlemen have banded together to conduct a raid on the stock market. They have formed a pool, hired a specialist to act for them, end by the various devices available have set to work to rig the market and make a killing. It's part of their game, let us say. to beat down the price of a certain stock. They have plenty of money and they know the ropes, so they succeed. The stock slides off some 15 or 20 points. The other stocks dip more or less in sympathy. Your banker, meditating on his outstanding loans, which rest on collateral, which in turn is affected by the day's trading, decides —sensibly enough—that he must tighten up. So you don't get your loan, and the money which you would have put into the channels of trade goes unspent, and the improvements you had planned for your business don’t get made. And that is how you have a direct interest in what happens in the stock market, even though you never bought a dime’s worth of securities in your life. Which, in turn, is why the proposed federal regulation of stock exchanges is not merely a thing which affects brokers, investors and speculators. A capitalistic society can not function without some sort of securities market where there can be a free flow of available capital. But the forces set in motion by the operation of such market are so complex and reach so far that it is essential to society as a whole that flow of capital be truly free. Men who pervert the exchange into a gambling hall, and manipulate stock levels arbitarily for their own enrichment, are not simply spearing suckers; they are affecting the daily business of people who have no direct connection with the stock market at all. They are standing between industry and that free flow of capital essential to industry’s w r ell-being. THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA r T'HE commerce department's new survey of the national income shows that in 1932 we paid out $5,506,000,000 in interest—about 3 per cent less than we paid in 1929. Salaries in this period fell about 4C per cent, wages about 60 per cent, dividends about 56 per cent, rents and royalties 56 per cent. Now w r e are making a brave effort to win through increasing our income via the recovery program. But, like Sinbad. we have an Old Man of the Sea on our backs; a swollen, increasingly heavier burden that we have been unable so far to shake off. It was easy to pay five billions in 1929: it is two or three times as hard, in many cases impossible, to pay that now. Fifteen hundred cities, towns and other political subdivisions are reported in default on debts of about $2,000,000,000. Many persons have sour foreign bonds: railroad receiverships are double those of a year ago. So on down the line. Now the administration has moved to reduce the Old Man. The President thinks that lower interest rates should be part of the new deal for both debtors and creditors. It will help to save the principal of the debt for the creditor; life, home and happiness of the debtor are involved. A generally lower interest rate, if attained, will mean a saner and less speculative life. The Wilcox bill passed by the house last June and pending oefore the senate subcommittee, providing for adjustments of debt payments by bankrupt municipalities, expresses an immediate need in this situation. The Old Man has been on our backs too long.

BETTER REGULATION’ ’IIIT'HEN the senate passed the Johnson bill, ** designed to prevent utility companies from using federal courts to delay or block rate decisions, it did more to advance the cause of utility regulation than any single thing since state commissions were created. Regulation never has really been tried in this country. Early in the game utility companies found they could render state commissions impotent in two ways—first, by the holding company system of transferring utility assets out of the jurisdiction of state bodies, and second, by taking commission rate decisions to the federal courts where it was not necessary to review the record made before the commission or to consider its findings at all in granting an injunction. Years of impotent effort on the part of the state commissions have led many persons to believe that regulation never can succeed and that public ownership of utilities is the only method by which the people may protect their interest in this essential service. Yet there may be another alternative and congress seems to be seeking It. It would be instructive and useful in working out wise policies for the future really to try regulation before we abandon it. The step toward this end proposed in the Johnson bill is not a drastic or alarming one. It does no violence to the principle of judicial review for protection of private property. It leaves state courts in full possession of their power to review the findings of utility commissions. It leaves the United States supreme court in full possession of its power to review the findings of state courts. But it would make it impossible for a great utility corporation, by claiming that its citizenship really lies in another state, to take a rate case into a federal court where expense, delays and the possibility of disregarding all evidence on which the commission’s decision has been based, load the dice against regulation. If the administration supports the Johnson

bill It will pass the housq* of representatives. If it helps the Johnson bill become law and follows with decisive action against holding companies, the administration will give the country the first opportunity to compare real regulation and public ownership and choose between them for the future. POLITICS IN JAPAN ■pOLITICS in Japan is not what it is elsewhere. A strange aura of formalism and tradition hangs over it. and the man who disregards this must pay a heavy penalty—even though, by western standards, he has done nothing at all to deserve punishment. The other day, for instance, Baron Kumakichi Nakajima had to resign from the cabinet because he had condoned a case of treason .which happened six centuries ago. • The treason w'as that of the Shogun Takuji Ashikaga, who dethroned the Emperor Godaigo in 1337 A. D., and who has been one of Japan’s national villains ever since. All Baron Nakajima did was to compare the shogun to England’s Oliver Cromwell. But it ended his political career. He was accused of condoning treachery to the throne. And though he apologized to both houses of parliament, and said that his ideas had changed since he made the comparison, the stain on his name was too great. He had to give up his office. A PEACE-TIME REPORT r I 'HE report on the civilian conservation corps’ first nine months of labor will reassure those who took Assistant War Secretary Woodring’s militaristic interpretation of the forest army's functions as a fact. These 550,000 young woodsmen, it seems, are busy planting trees, not dragon teeth. They are fighting insect and rodent pests, erosion and forest fire, not a hypothetical foreign or domestic foe. Throughout the report of Dilector Fechner you hear no distant roll of cannon, no whine of bombing plane. The report reveals the CCC for what it is, a splendid civilian project in the conservation of human and natural resources, happily conceived and ably executed. In view’ of CCC achievements it would seem that Mr. Woodring deserved his citation to the presidential woodshed and the spanking he got there. An officer of the S. S. Mauretania reports a monster sixty-five feet long in the Caribbean sea. That’s a long reach for the Loch Ness serpent. With the discovery that sulphur exists on the sun, science says gold is one of the few minerals not found there, but this is not the only place where gold can not, be found,

Liberal Viewpoint =8? DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES =

TOHN STRACHEY is well-known for his book V on "The Coming Struggle of Power,” which is perhaps the mast powerful attack upon the capitalistic system published since the war. He has now written a book on Fascism (The MenS3 ° f “„ By . Joh " strache r- Covici, * .x’ He Vlews Fascism as the final enort of capitalism to maintain itself. To do so. Mr. Strachey contends that it is willing to sacrifice democracy. In his opinion however. Fascism can have no.permanent success, since it is an effort to apply by force an unworkable social and economic svstem Moreover it is almost Inevitably bound to bring on another world war which it will be well nigh impossible for capitalism to survive. He warns progressives against any compromise with Fascism and urges that they unite behind Socialism: "We are driven, therefore, to the conclusion that the only possible way out for the progressive movements is to end the private ownership of the means of production.” While Mr. Strachey believes that Fascism has a good prospect for success in both Britain and the United States, he does not believe that Fascism is inevitable in either of these countries. The main safeguard against it is for liberals and progressives to be on the lookout and to withhold their support from Fascist programs and parties, even though this may involve the loss of certain temporary material advantages. Not only radicals, but also many liberals are apprehensive with respect to the future of democracy. Professor Calender has prepared an unusually useful symposium on the present crisis in democratic government and institutions (The Crisis of Democracy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. $2-2.50). Thg contributors are drawn from leading experts in the field of government, economics, sociology and ethics.

nnHE great majority recognize that the old A style democracy and party government have failed to meet the responsibilities imposed by our advanced urban and industrial civilization. But they have not given up hope and most of them feel that rigorous reforms will still suffice to make democracy workable. I have not read any other publication which provides so much illuminating and diversified information on the critical problems involved in modern democracy. Thase who have any hope of preserving democratic institutions will do well to study this volume with care and thoughtfulness. In many parts of Europe, political parties have subsided in the face of the growing strength of Fascism which offers no place for vigorous party conflicts. The Irish free state, however, has of late developed a vigorous party life in spite of the most violent emotions and'hatreds. Perhaps nowhere else in the western world is party government as vital and animated. Dr. Moss has analyzed contemporary Irish party government in terms of the latest conceptions of party government prevailing among social scientists (Political Parties in the Irish Free State. By Warner Moss. Columbia University Press. S3). The conditions described represent a vivid contrast to the situation in Germany today. Ireland may turn out to be the last stand of vital party government in Europe.

WHILE the students who are politically minded look to Fascism or Socialism for the solution of the present social crisis, the biologists frequently contend that the only way out lies in the adoption of a eugenics program which will breed a race of super men capable of coping with the increasingly difficult problems of our era. Usually, however, discussions of eugenics are unsatisfactory. The biologists tend to be uncritically optimistic, while social reformers are prone to dismiss eugenics as of no practical import. Dr. Holmes gives us the sensible type of discussion which we are in the habit of expecting from his pen (The Eugenic Predicament. By S. J. Holmes. Harcourt, Brace & Cos. $2). He shows that the burdens of human society today have been greatly increased as the result of the vast number of biologically defective types which exist and swell, the ranks of the maladjusted. He believes that if a sweeping eugenics program could be adopted, it would enormously benefit mankind. At the same time, he honestly states the extensive biological and cultural difficulties which stand in the way of a successful adoption of eugenics. He believes that the first step is to develop a wide popular interest in race betterment, and his last chapter is devoted to a very illuminating discussion of how this result can test be brought about.

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 SSO words or lees.) nun OTHER ALLEGATIONS AGAINST POOR FARM REVEALED By Inmates of the Home. There has been so much said about the Marion County Home that I do not know if you will pay any attention to this letter, but we think that there ought to be something done to this place. We have no doctor, no superintendent, no assistant superintendent. The place is run by the cook and an attendant and the inmates. The attendant is in the drug room and puts out the medicine (libel deleted). I have been here four years and it is worse than it ever has been. I am not writing this myself, but there are plenty of us old men with me in this; and if we signed our names to this letter, they would make it hard for us the rest of our lives. So, you see, there could be more said about this place. Now, Mr. Editor, we don’t want too big a letter and take up your time, but what we say is nothing but the truth, and if they would make an investigation—which they have done, but they didn't go to the right ones—and if someone would only come out here as an inmate for a week or two, they sure would find out how the conditions are. We would appreciate it very much if we will read something of this in your paper, which we read every day, and it might help us old men to have it better in our last days. This no longer is an old man’s home.

INDIANA NATIONAL BANK OFFICERS ARE LAUDED By Tom Berliner. Congratulations are in order lor the Indiana National bank for starting the building at this time. Personally I think it a fine expression of civic pride and confidence in the future of Indianapolis, plus a goodly amount of business acumen. It is of particular importance and interest and especially fitting that they are not only exercising their business ability but deserve commendation for encouraging and helping the entire building industry. We men of the building trades enjoy working for straight-shooting men who make up their minds to do a thing and do it. I also wish to. compliment them upon the fact that they made no effort to reduce wages by using their contemplated work as a bait.

SUGGESTS NEW LINE OF REASONING By G. C. L. Anent Mr. Buckler's attack on the constitutionality of the recovery program. After reading his two letters I seriously am trying to figure out this gentleman. Thank God men of his ilk are in the minority and not guiding our ship of state right now. And thanks, too, for men who do not quibble over inane questions of constitutionality when babies are cold and hungry, children laying aside the inherent right of childhood to slave for filthy dollars, young men committing suicide because they can not get a start in life, homes torn asunder and men forced to crime by idleness, bare tables and sacrificed pride. All of which may sound trite to you prehaps Mr- Buckler, but try and eat the Constitution or burn it for firewood, in other words, be a fool if you wish to be. a a a SUGGESTS LESS BRICKBATS AND MORE REAL WORK By Jimmy Cafonros. Evidently many citizens, both responsible and otherwise, seem to glean a satisfaction in kock-

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The Message Center

ACCEPTANCE? NO-SPOTLIGHT!

Protests Work Distribution

By Earl Beeson. I am one of the unemployed in our little town of North Salem. It seems that those who really needed jobs got none. I have tried to get work as I am a widow with one boy going to high school. It seems to be no trouble for the single men and the farmers to get work on the CWA. One farmer has a small dairy. He went to work on the streets in North Salem when the work begun. After his day’s work is done, he goes home and loads up his milk and brings it to town and delivers it. Another farmer has a rented farm. When

ing, crabbing and more or less depressing the ego of other citizens just as responsible, just as honorable and every whit as intelligent. It would give me a great jolt if some of the “Times Readers,” “Truth Hunters,” “Consumers,” “Patriotic Ballyhoos,” etc., etc., suddenly would realize that this world is not a Utopia—never was and, in all probability, never will be. It often appears wonderful to me how the world does manage to progress. It is self-evident that the acts of constructive individuals peremptorily are battered down and canceled by destructive individuals. Yes, it’s a wonder that the world does progress. It does though; and that is a sign of great vitality. So if some of these well appellated individuals either would get on our side of the fence and quit throwing brickbats at individuals who, in the troes of a great strife, are are straining every ligament to serve a somewhat sensible but far more foolish public it greatly would alleviate and mitigate the conditions. a a tt CHARGES MADE AGAINST POOR FARM OPERATION. By a Taxpayer. I am a citizen of Marion county and have been for a number of years, and I have handled thousands of dollars of Marion county’s money. Therefore, I know of what I speak. We, as taxpayers, have been hearing of the management of the Marion county farm. We have taken the time to investigate this institution, having spent several days at the farm looking into reports of alleged mismanagement of this institution. We charge that the superin-

A Woman’s Viewpoint ---■tt. By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON —,i==

THE happiness of women depends upon the understanding of men. Apropos of which, I shall tell you a true story with a happy ending. Fairy tales take place about us every day, only somehow we so seldom recognize their quality. The story goes like this: A rarely gifted woman who had begun to make a career for herself fell in love and married. After several years spent in study and travel in America and Europe in the pursuit of personal ambition, she settled down with her nusband in an eastern manufacturing city. Two sons completed what was for a long time a happy family circle. Then the serpent entered, and the serpent does not always appear in human form. He may be as intangible as an idea, as elusive as an obsession. At any rate, the day came when the wife grew weary of a life which entirely suppressed her talents. The years stretched before her, interminable in their monotony. She imagined she had become a nonentity—& being leveled down from individualism to the

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

the CWA work begun he hired men to crib his corn, and he went to work. One man who lives in town has a bank account and no children. He was one of the first. I know a man with six in his family. He has no job. He has two small children, and these little children had no Christmas because the father had no job and no money. He goes to the trustee every week for their food. Can you think of $2.50 worth of groceries for six in the family? Do you think God’s children should be ift want, when our President put this money out for relief?

tendent is only there from one to three hours a day, and is drawing a salary of sll6 a month. We allege that it his duty to be on the farm at all times. We also charge that the woman that is supposed to be the matron of this institution is there only once a week, and is paid $45 a month. We understand that a matron is supposed to be here on duty at all times. (Libel deleted). We, as taxpayers, are tired of this kind of business, and don’t propose to tolerate it longer. a a a FORGET THE NAMES AND GET TO WORK By J. Conger. People who never have read the platform and principles of any political party today are very busy flinging the names of these organizations about. They seem to imagine they have solved the whole bag of horrors with which they think we are about to oe deluged when they cry: "Socialist.” “Anarchist,” “Communist,” “Fascist,” or what-not. In other words, one would judge that these names, pure and simple, are the cause of all our troubles—economic, religious, social and others. This, of course, is the human being’s way of side-stepping personal and group responsibilities. It is childish, it is inane, it is inadequate,: and is the direct cause of all the terror and suffering the world has known since the beginning of history. Russia is under a dictatorship—that is not Communism. But i regardless of names, Russian people are where they are, and what j

low’ plane of a mere wife and mother. Hour by hour her discontent grew, her unhappiness increased, a a a BUT her husband was one of the modem wise men. He saw beyond the outward aspect of things, and understood that the heart is a strange, delicate mechanism, subject to many moods. So he told his wife she must go away for a while. Although money was not too plentiful, he sent her to Europe. He urged her to return to the beloved scenes of other days and to study again the art which had once engrossed her. Result? That which any sensible person might expect. The woman was not able to recapture the glamour of school days abroad. Nothing was as it had once been. And the time soon came when she wanted only to run back home. She realized, at last, it was there her treasure lay. Now ail of them are happy again. But only because the man in the story possessed an understanding heart and a very wise head.

FEB. 15, 1931

they are, because of themselves. They can't rise above their own brand of thinking—or not thinking. The same rule applies to us. And if we imagine we are going to settle our problems by calling names and blaming the other fellow instead of considei'ing principles we are lost—-with ourselves to blame. The radicals of the world didn't put us where we are today.' If we find ourselves jumping into the lap of their policies it is because we haven't provided a better place to jump after having been kicked about all over the place for 10, these many years. Let’s quit calling names and get down to the business of taking care of ourselves.

EVEN SHERIFFS MAKE MISTAKES, WRITER SAYS By William Kregg. Another public enemy just escaped our jails. I wonder what they are going to do to satisfy tne public, start another probe to see whether they will lay it to politics or just credit it to the intelligence of .the gangster? In all accounts I have read in the newspapers of the freedom gained by gangsters always were followed by an explanation and the explanation was no more than an excuse to slander one of tne two political parties. I don't say this is the case with this escape. That’s why 1 am writing this. Because I don't understand it, for it seems anew angle is being used by bringing in a CWA man, and a country boy at that. I would like to read an item some time sort of apologizing for a sheriff for letting his man get away, either because he trusted him too much or because he liked a good game of cards so well he forgot he was a sheriff once in a while, with something added about the sheriff working overtime to get-his-man. That would sound more real, and I believe the public would understand better, as we all know the sheriff is human, too, and we are all subject to mistakes.

MORE COMMENTS ABOUT THE LIGHT COMPANY Hr a Rparlpr nf The Time*. This Indianapolis Power & Light Company. I want to say, is just about as big a (libel deleted! as you will find anywhere in the state of Indiana. If a customer happens to swipe a little juice, they never know when to quit howling about it. But, on the other hand, they don’t want you to say anything about their unreasonable price they are charging you. (libel deleted! is the right name for them! (libel deleted;. The Times is the only paper that will tell the truth.

Lizards

BY CHRISTIE RUDOLPH In the liquid sun where, the lizards bask And their faces reveal a gargoyle mask. Their eyes are wild with delirium, And their sensitive ways are strange and dumb. Their bodies are green with keen intent, Their stride is sure and excellent, And sharp feet scratch on the warm bright stone, They shirk an interloper, more content alone. They wriggle and squirm where the black frogs play. And vary their mood until close of day, While their intricate bodies like shimmering forks, Ripple in the wan moonlight as & silver corpse.