Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 249, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 February 1934 — Page 10
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The Indianapolis Times iA SCRIPTS now AKD NEWSPAPER) ROT W. HOWARD .......... PmldtDt TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Business Manager i’hona—Hlley 6MI
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•• re > aoir.se Give Light and the People Will rind Their Own Wav
MONDAY FEB 20. 1934 SAFETY FIRST in* FFORTS to make political capital out of the unfortunate deaths of army air mail fliers are malicious. A fantastic propaganda myth is in the making. It is that an arbitrary administration in Washington without sufficient cause canceled the commercial air mail contracts and then grimly sent army fliers to their death. This is a distortion of the facts. The administration ended the commercial contracts only after much evidence tending to show that most of the contracts had been entered into illegally and as a result of alleged favoritism and collusion. Under the circumstances this administration could not continue the contracts in force without itself being liable for connivance. That the commercial pilots, ground men, engineers and others who have given such heroic service in developing American aviation were innocent victims of this situation was not the fault of the government, but of those financial interests who saw' in aviation and mail contracts a money-making game. During the emergency period the President was then left with the alternative of using the army to fly the mail or to postpone air mail service. After consultation with army chiefs, he did the former. Contrary to the first wild reports, the army chiefs at once instituted a “safety first’’ rule. Every effort has been made to restrain young fliers with the mistaken idea that the mail must go through at any and all cost. The unprecedented storms are doubtless the chief cause of the accidents. Tire fact that a large commercial plane has crashed in the Rockies, killing eight, indicates that army fliers are not the only ones in trouble. It is true, however, that the training and experience of army and commercial fliers are so different and that their equipment is so different, the hazard of flying is increased when either tries to do the work of the other. Therefore, early last week the government announced that many of the commercial fliers would be taken over for the mail routes. This can not be done until funds are provided by a bill which has passed the house and which is expected to pass the senate this week. There remains the important matter of instruments, especially radio and blind-flj ing instruments. Apparently it is not possible to equip army planes for mail flying adequately on short notice. If this is true, the government may well consider reducing the mail routes to fit its safe equipment for a few weeks until a permanent policy for the air mail is determined. Meanwhile, the public is not apt to swallow' whole the propaganda stories inspired by selfish political and commercial sources. BETTER THAN BEGGING \ HUNDRED or so aged and shabby men and w'omen presented themselves before a committee of the West Virginia legislature asking for a state old-age pension system. “I’ve passed my three score and ten.” said penniless Jesse Robinson, and I need help. For God’s sake don’t send me and the others like me begging into the streets or to the poorhouse.” The cry of this old West Virginian should be heard in Washington The Dill-Connery bill for federal aid to pension states awaits only some sign from the administration to insure its passage at the present session of congress. The better-to-do states, twenty-seven of them, have enacted old-age pension laws. Some of these measures are adequate, some are not: but all of them are cheaper and better than the old poorhouse systems they supplanted. West Virginia. Mississippi and Washington through their legislatures have petitionea congress for the Dill-Connery measure. This would help states up to ore-third of the cost of pensions, standardize state plans at a decent level and insure a nation-wide old-age pension system. It w’ould cost the government only 510,000,000 or $12,000,000 for the next few years, and ultimately not more than $44,000,000 a year. For Jesse Robinson and a half million other aged poor, it would mean a secure and honorable old age instead of the hard prospects of begging or disgrace in a county poor farm. THE NEW DEAL THE finest expression we have yet seen of the spirit of the new deal is the following from Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace: “Enduring social transformation such as our new deal seeks is impossible of realization without changed human hearts. The classical economists, most orthodox scientists, and the majority of practical business men question whether human nature can be changed. I think it can be changed, because it has been changed many times in the past. “It is a belief often expressed nowadays that men are born greedy, with a strong selfseeking strain of meanness inherent in their make-up: and that you can’t change human nature. I can not believe it. It sounds to me like a sheltering modem rationalization built from the despised and all but forgotten Puritan concept that only man is vile. •The real need now is not to change human nature but to give it anew chance. And in trying to simplify to myself the change of ways by which we may all. as a people, come in time to personal freedom, personal security and to the sort of self-respect which makes life worth living. I keep coming back to the question of fear. “If we could rid the general mass of our people of that paralyzing fear which breeds
and grows at a bare sustenance level of wages and prices, and which spreads in time to infect the whole of business and society, it is conceivable that we could proceed in time from an economy of denied plenty, with heaping surpluses next door to bitter hunger, to an economy of potential abundance developed to the uttermost and ungrudgingly shared. “It is mean and niggardly in a land so wide and rich as this one, and many others, to stem the currents of production, and to deflect the things all men desire into channels so limited, for a privileged few. It is bad management. Perhaps we can evolve in this country an economy that deals in potentialities instead of in denial. Perhaps in time we shall be able safely to unleash the productive capacities of all our industries, including agriculture, and turn out for the widest distribution imaginable the kind of goods which Americans, and people throughout the world in general, so achingly desire. “I do not find that men, in general, whether you talk and work with them out in the country, or in great cities, are naturally mean. They want to amount to something on the face of this earth, naturally; but this impulse, unless distorted, does not naturally express itself in piling up excessive stocks of goods and money. “That an enforced meanness has throughout modem society become a real menace, no one can deny. The breadlines testify to this reality: a million forced sales of farms in this country tell another part of the wretched story; and then you have only begun to take count of all the millions the world over who live in constant and degrading fear that the same thing may happen to them tomorrow. “Unless, not with words, but in better wages and prices, we can remove that fear from the minds and hearts of those great masses of people who farm or work for wages, our new deal will be a thing of words alone. We must implant security, and a full confidence in continued security, throughout the base of our new structure; if we want it to stand up better than the one that fell down on us after 1929.” GOVERNMENT COAL MINES 'TWVO earnest demands for government operation of coal mines have been made in the last week. One came from W. Jett Lauck, president of the bureau of applied economics. In an address at a conference on America’s public ownership program, Mr. Lauck said that true conservation of natural resources is possible only with government ownership, that such a policy is essential to proper co-ordination of all our power and fuel industries, and that distribution costs can not be -educed to proper levels until competition is abolished. Even more sweeping are recommendations made by Miss Mary Van Kleeck, director of the Russell Sage Foundation’s department of industrial studies. The Russell Sage Foundation is no radical agency, a fact which lends weight to the report it has just made public. "Scientific management must be given freedom to operate over the coal industry as a whole, but scientific management is possible in or.s industry only as part of a total planned economy, and this is impossible for capitalism.” says Miss Van Kleeck. “It requires social ownership and administration as the logical and inevitable next step in the evolution of the economic system.” Coal operators, steel manufacturers whe operate captive coal mines, and financiers who control both, should ponder these utterances. For months they resisted the minimum of regulation imposed by NRA codes. Given an opportunity under these codes to work together to solve the deep-seated problems of the coal industry they have made little progress toward this end. Yet it is obvious that unless progress is made somehow, demands like the two just quoted will increase in number and in fervor. There are too many coal mines. What can be done about it? How can coal be furnished to consumers at prices they can afford to pay and at prices which will offer some induceent against oil. gas, electricity and other fuels? How can coal workers be given jobs and living wages? The answers must be found or the chorus for government ownership may drown out everything the coal men and the steel men have to say on the subject.
SERVING TWO MASTERS 'P' VERY bar association recognized th*e ethical principle that a lawyer can not at the same time serve two clients whose interests conflict. The halls of congress abound with lawyers. The same is true of all state legislatures. As lawmakers, their clients are the people. Yet, down through the years, our national legislature and our state legislatures have been packed with attorneys who apparently have felt no compunction in accepting fees and retainers from persons and corporations whose interests often conflict with the interests of the people. Private employment of lawyer-legislators has been, since the beginning of the republic, a favorite instrument for perpetuating invisible government. If offered a cash bribe most lawyer-legisla-tors would become indignant. Offer the same lawyer-legislator a fee for a legal service and you appeal both to his vanity and to hia pocketbook. Then if. a month later, you speak to him about legislation in which you happen to be interested, will what you have to say have somewhat more weight with him than the words of an ordinary citizen? At last there is an attempt to do something about this insidious practice in the national legislature. The judiciary committee has voted favorably on Senator Borah's eleven-year-old bill forbidding members of congress from serving as attorneys in cases where the United States is a party, or for clients engaged in interstate commerce subject to the regulatory powers of congress. These reputed kidnapers are smart. They beat the rap every time, even if they have to commit suicide in jail. Scientists in Washington are weighing the earth again, having found it wanting these last few years. The reason why the nations are so slow disarming is that the talk is less convincing than the arms. Even the Germans believe Schmeling is through as a fighter. The best he can do now la become a good Nasi.
KEEPING CONGRESS CLEAN SENATOR BORAH is renewing the efforts which he has been making for the last eleven years to get through congress a law which would prohibit any member of congress from accepting employment as an attorney for any one engaged either in litigation against the government or in interstate commerce to which the regulative powers of congress might extend. About the only thing that is surprising about this bill is the fact that it wasn’t passed long ago. The man in the street will find it pretty hard to think of any respectable arguments against it. Many members of congress remain active in law firms which draw rich fees and retainers from large corporations. Now, while a congressman’s salary of $8,500 a year is not a princely sum, it is at least enough to provide a very comfortable living, and a man who wants to be a congressman ought to be prepared to make it do. There may not, in many cases, be anything wrong with a lawyer-congressman taking fees from outside interests; but it’s a good thing for a public servant to avoid even the appearance of evil. WAR BUSINESS RISES! QTRANGE, how the rumors of coming war can be felt in far-off places and in the most peaceful of pursuits! Steamship traffic through the Panama canal is heavy, these days—and the imminence of war is largely responsible. During the first three weeks of February, for instance, twelve steamers passed through the canal bound for Europe with Chilean nitrates—nitrates, from w'hich high explosives are made. At the same time, many ships are going through the canal in the other direction, bound from the east coast of the United States for Japan with scrap iron, lead, and cottoncommodities w'hich also are destined to be transformed into the munitions of war. Rusty steamers, deeply laden, busy on the most peaceful of errards . . . but grimly foreshadowing the fear of war W'hich grips the world!
Liberal Viewpoint =By DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES=
AS the new deal progresses, whether it is successful or not, someone will have to pay the fiddler. Therefore, the question of taxation is bound to loom large in public discussion. Some advanced liberals, such as the people’s lobby, hold that tax reform must be one of the cardinal items in any program of special reconstruction. It is very doubtful if prosperity can be restored under the capitalistic system unless a vast amount of additional money is spent in public works projects which will have to be paid for to a large degree out of increased taxation. Therefore, relevant literature on taxation is highly timeful and useful. Dr. Untereiner has brought out a brief and clear survey of the present tax burden in the United States, along with suggestions for tax reform (The Tax Racket: What We Pay to Be Governed. By Ray E. Untereiner. Lippincott. sl.) He is sensible enough to recognize that the increased tax burden has not been wholly due to the greed of grafting politicians. It has been caused in part by the carelessness and indifference of the American population. Like most commentators, how'ever, he fails to Indicate that the World war was primarily responsible for the vast increase in federal taxation. In his suggestions for tax reform. Dr. Untereiner suggests greater centralization and more uniformity. He emphasizes the fact that the time to eliminate abuses is in a period of depression w’hen the people feel the pinch of added taxes. In periods of prosperity, people accept heavy taxes with relative complacency. Mr. Knight gives us a great deal of concrete detail in one specific phase of tax abuses, namely, the devises used by the very wealthy to evade their income taxes (Where Are Our Large Fellows? By Albert R. Knight. Business Methods Publishing Company. $2.) He tells us how' this was managed by the Gulf Oil Corporation, which is controlled by the Mellon family. The book is an excellent supplement to Harvey O’Connor’s volume on “Mellon’s Millions.” tt tt tt PROFESSORS Respy and Studenski have rendered a real service to economic science and statesmanship by editing and preparing for publication the comprehensive symposium on public finance presented at the national conference on the relation of law’ and business at New York university (Current Problems in Public Finance; National Conference on the Relation of Law' and Business. Commerce Clearing House. $3.25). Not only are the major problems of public finance covered in comprehensive fashion, but we get every conceivable point of view thereupon, ranging from the attitude of Colonel McCormick of the Chicago Tribune to that of the late Morris Hillquit of the New York bar. The book also includes an excellent chapter on the need for and justification of additional taxation in order that the government may assume properly directed control over industry and social relief. While the volume does not possess the unity and coherence of a systematic textbook on public finance by a single author, it covers a wider field and represents the pooling of a large amount of official and diversified knowledge. In Judge Green’s volume one finds a more systematic treatment of the problem of taxation (The Theory and Practice of Modern Taxation. By William Raymond Green. Commerce Clearing House. $2.75). It is particularly gratifying to have this volume from a man of wide practical experience in the problems of taxation. u tt a IN marked contrast to men like James M. Beck, Judge Green fully realizes and lays stress upon the primary importance of the World war in creating the staggering burdens of taxations which exist today. As he does well to point out: “The public debt of the United States was less than $65,000,000 in 1860; in 1916 it was $971,563,000. and in 1919 it was $25,234,496,000.” Judge Green’s volume is highly suitable as an introductory textbook on taxation, and it is to be heartily recommended to American citizens who wish a clear introduction to the whole problem of contemporary taxation. Mr. Harding has produced a ringing rebuke to those writers like James M. Beck who are always complaining about the growth of an extensive federal bureaucracy and increasing taxes (TNT: These National Taxeaters. By T. Sw'an Harding. Long & Smith. $3). He shows that the vast majority of our expenditures go to paying for wars, for which men like Beck and other bellicose politicians have been mainly responsible. He further proves that the government make far better use of its funds than do the plutocrats who w’ould have retained the money for federal taxation. As an actual matter of fact, the government is lamentably short of funds for really constructive purposes. A New Yorker who bathed in the ocean daily, through winter and summer, died at the age of 78. The cold got him, at last. Napoleon wouldn’t have rated much In Biblical history, says a professor of the Bible. But we can’t say he wouldn’t have tried.
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
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 SSO words or less.) ana READERS GIVE SEVERAL ANSWERS TO MR. HURD By O. TT. H. This is in answer to H. Hurd, who came back at the boy who walked the streets looking for work. The boy is right; he hasn’t a chance. It might be he doesn’t live in Indianapolis long enough to vote when he has a job, so that his boss could tell him how. And, if he did take a man’s job at $1 a day, as your boy did, he wouldn’t want to give half of it to buy cigars for the boss for a year. You and your boys go ahead and work for a year at $1 a day. You are old enough to know better. You said you were a carpenter. I presume when carpenters were making $1 an hour you worked for 40 cents. That is all right for a man that can live on a bowl of soup and do a day’s work. You look out for the boss, and we always shall have such times as we have now. We have some men like you on the CWA projects. They give $1 to join the Old Hickory Club, and to buy cigars for the boss. They get to stay on the job and think it is because they are good men and smarter than those who get laid off. You will make a big mark in the world at $1 a day while living expenses are as high as they are now. The public was interested to learn that your birthday came on the same day as the President’s. Generally, the old men on the CWA work are laid off first with the idea that they obtain work in factories. They should know that a man more than 40 can’t get a job any place, while the young man can get work if there is any. We can’t all be bosses over a chicken ranch, or carrying out ashes for the man who pays a dollar a day, as a good citizen like you and your boys. You are just like some of the people who advertise for a. girl to do housework who needs a home more than wages. I am a reader of The Times. tt ts tt By C. W. Fear. I see in your Message Center some scribe has broken into print in answer to an earlier article signed W. H. H. I would like for someone to explain what Mr. Hurd is talking about. This worthy man of 56 years says in part, “I suppose you arrived in this world with a long gray beard.” Mr. Hurd goes on to state: ‘‘l never have seen the poor forsaken or the righteous begging bread.” Pray tell me, when have the poor even been anything else but forsaken? Does the gentleman mean to say the thousands of people who are compelled to exist on charity are not righteous? Are the thousands of unemployed men and women human leeches, grafters and would-be criminals? Mr. Hurd would have you believe so. This carpenter goes on to tell W. H. H. “Quit walking the streets. Get busy and support yourself.” At what, may I ask? Will someone please inform me the means by which a persons goes about to earn the necessary coin of the realm to buy one’s daily bread and butter? It isn’t by visiting employment bureaus. It isn't by calling at offices where they might need a bookkeeper or a clerk. You don't go to factories or shops and ask the employment manager for a Job. That would be expecting someone to give you something. In fact, you don’t walk the streets in search of a livelihood. As a matter of fact, your shoe leather doesn’t
HE SHOULD BE GROUNDED
Defends Unemployed Son
By Mrs. G. H. In answer to H. Hurd’s message in this column, as W. H. H.’s mother, I want to write him a few things about my son. He was graduated from Warren Central high school in June, 1933, end has tried ever since to get work. He is not w'hat you call a Communist. His family are Godfearing people, and he is a Sunday school teacher, and is one of the finest boys in his sommunity. When he has W'alked the streets of Indianapolis for w r ork he also has walked in to Indianapolis to look for work. It is a distance of nine miles. As for being a street cleaner, he W'ould be glad to do it. It w'ould be work, and that is what he wants. You talk of your stepson taking
come in contact with the pavement at all. In some mysterious manner the necessities of life materialize for the poor and righteous. Perhaps it is accomplished through matrimony. A prosperous farmer’s daughter for instance. I confess I do not know the answer. H. Hurd from his years of knowledge and wisdom will have to enlighten you. tt tt it READER WANTS MR. HURD TO APOLOGIZE NOW. By An Observer If what I am about to say seems rude or insulting, I offer my apologies to the Message Center. Please try and include this article, because it seems there is someone who needs an eye-opener to the condition of modem times! If these words fail to make him see clearly why I shall consider him very much blind! Friday evening there appeared the “Answer to a Young Man Out of Work,” by H. Hurd. I’m not that young man, but I am one of the hundreds just like him! Mr. Hurd’s “answer” was an insult to the young man, to me and many other fellows! May I suggest that Mr. Hurd refrain from submitting articles to this column until he can learn that this is the year of 1934—and not the gay nineties. He suggested that the
A Woman’s Viewpoint By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON ■
A YOUNG Princeton freshman writes to his mother: “None of the boys on my floor is smoking now. They think it’s just too sissy.’’ Which, when you come to think of it, is exactly the way morals are made. It should not surprise us to find boys shying away, more and more, from all the erstwhile masculine vices since the girls have adopted them so wholeheartedly. Man’s chief horror always has been that he will become like woman. And modem woman’s chief ambition, it seems, is to be as much like a man as possible, so there’s nothing left for the boys except to turn their backs on the vices, and hence make virtue popular once more. It’s pretty tough going for them these days. They have to keep on the hop." skip and jump to find anything the girls do not immediately imitate. So it may be possible—indeed, I consider it probable—that our small lads may, in time, revert to strict puritanical behavior in sheer self-defense. It's just about the only thing they can dr to establish that distinct maleness on which they so pride themselves.
I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it — Voltaire. _
a chance of getting work and getting the job he did. That's fine, Mr. Hurd, but my boy hasn’t even had a chance. We live in a rural community, and he can’t even get farm work. Mr. Hurd, you say you are a carpenter by trade. Didn’t you have to look for that to get started. or did you have a pull? We all have to learn our trades. In closing, I want to say that I don’t think my boy has to apologize for his letter, and I think he will continue walking the streets of the city, if he wants to find work. It won’t come to him. If your birthday comes on the same day as the President's, why can’t you be a broad-minded man like he is?
young man apologize—for what? Because he was judged by the way times were fifty years ago? This fellow stated plain facts that he learned from experience with present conditions not concerning things that happened before his time. Mr. Hurd used his son as an example’ in his absurd statements. It seems he worked for $1 a day. What fellow wouldn’t accept that kind of job now? If his son didn’t look for the jobs he obtained at different times, why he must have had help of some sort. Show me the man who stays at home waiting for someone to come and offer him a job. People call that kind of man laty. Produce an employer who will visit the parks and homes to offer fellows a job. He said that a man shouldn’t walk the streets to find a job and that he should get busy and support himself. Now, will Mr. Hurd be so kind as to tell all the young men how to support themselves and at the same time not look for a job? Mr. Hurd, you have not felt the weight of hardship and have not had to experience actual contact with present conditions, or your words would be different. You may be older than the President, but it easily can be seen why he is .President and you are not. If he did not have any more foresight, judgment or knowledge of present conditions than you have,
PERHAPS total abstinence and crochet, which the prince of Wales is taking up, we hear, and violet perfume will distinguish the big strong he-man in the future from his weak, smoking, ginguzzling, sissified brother. The idea is intriguing at least. Because as everything stands the modem man is a pitiable object, literally drowning in an ocean of femininity. All occupat:ons, all pleasures which were once sacred to his sex, are now the property of every female. His whisky, his cigaret, his golf, his big game hunting, everything he has ever done or tried to do, has been taken over by experimenting, meddlesome girls. And the sad thing is they can outdo him. They smoke more, drink more, cut their hair as often, shoot as straight and succeed as consistently as he does. Therefore, unless man wants to be exactly like his women—and therefore- a regular sissy—he’ll have to become straight-laced. A teetotaler, a disciple of physical chastity, a non-smoker—in short a completely virtuous being—thus only can he establish anew masculinity and, it may be, change the morals of a world. /
.FEB. 26, 1934
why he'd never even been considered a Democrat. It seems to me that if an apology is in order, it should come from you, Mr. Hurd. a tt t> CARDS OF LIFE ARE “STACKED.” HE ASSERTS By Jerry Richardson I have been a Hoosier for twelve years, disabled in army in 1918, and have been out of a job since May 24, 1930. I have a wife and five children who depend upon me for support, i did get $lB a month from a pension until Feb. 28. 1933, but was cut off completely. At the date my claim was cut off I was under physician’s care. I registered Jan. 5. 1934, for CWA work and have made several calls at the CWA office, but never got one minute of time on any pay roll. I have a little roof for my family, but I don't like to start eating wood and bricks. I try to vote progressive. If that is a crime I ask to be forgiven, but why should the children suffer for the sin. Let me cut the deck for another deal. The cards were stacked for lots of us. tt tt a APPEALS FOR GIRL ATOP MONUMENT By An Gid Citizen I have read with great interest the letters in your Message Corner for several months in regard to the troubles of the poor since 1929. It’s sad and true that the depression has taken the joy out of life. No more can we ride around in a Ford, smoke cigarets, and feel like a millionaire on a pint of bootleg corn made in the barn. Maybe prohibition meant prosperity for many! It seems so, as 1934 whisky is very weak! To give a helping hand to a little girl, one who has lived in Indianapolis all her life and faced the ice, the wind, the snow in winter, and the hot summer heat for many years with only one dress, it seems like it would be only fair to raise a collection for anew Easter set of clothes to make the lady on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument happy. She is there on the job and doing her part without expense to any one. She never asks for anew fur coat or a pair of shoes! Gentlemen, give the girl a big hand and donate to make her Easter happy.
In Clover BY TOLLY LOIS NORTON White clover blooms bring back to me The days, my childhood friend, When, barefoot in the blossoming fields, We plucked the flower the clover yields For hours upon end. Remember how at last we’d come Sweet-laden from the lea And in some shady breeze-swept spot Decked out with rose, for-get-me-not, / We’d leave our jewelry? Many the crown and veil we wove. Many the ring with perishable pearl; Os sweet perfume we spun just so The handsomest of bride's trousseau That ever decked a girl. Long years have passed since those brave days, Since many the wedding day, And all the knights and ladies fair Have vanished into empty air. And the clovers faded away. Yet faintest smell of clover bloom Borne by on zephyrs wing Titillates the nostrils so And makes one always long to go .With you. friend, clovering.