Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 254, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 March 1934 — Page 4

PAGE 4

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SATURDAY, MARCH 3. 1934 THE FIRST YEAR A YEAR ago we had prohibition, a general bank holiday, wholesale business failures and farm foreclosures, sweap shops and child labor, and one man in every four out of work. Today we are climbing out of the depression. And most citizens, regardless of party, pay tribute to President Roosevelt for his courageous leadership. Probably no other President at the end of his first year has been so popular as Mr. Roosevelt. This is not an accident. It can not be explained on grounds of propaganda or of partisan political cleverness. The President has the faith of the nation because he has earned it. The curious thing about this is that nothing the President has done is beyond criticism. Take any of his major policies and you will find that it has failed to produce expected results. For instance, the most publicized of all the NRA: General Johnson himself has just indicted the operation of the NRA on twelve serious counts which go to very heart of its usefulness. The AAA has had to reverse its policy on marketing agreements and its switching from voluntary conmpulsory crop control. PWA was so slow in producing results that CWA had to be improvised, and it in turn now is being abolished for something else. After many months of backing and forthing on inflation, the administration this w r eek informed congress that it is not yet sure that its latest monetary policy will work and that more sudden changes are possible. In the foreign field the administration began with a tariff reduction and an international co-operation program, which at the London conference was revoked without warning in favor of economic nationalism, and that policy in turn now *s being discarded for the earlier program of lower reciprocal tariffs, stimulation of foreign business with special trade banks and general co-operation aoroad. The list of false starts and half-failures could be extended through most of the administration’s activities. Why Is it. then, that the President is so popular today and the country so much better off despite all of these changes and coun-ter-changes of policy? It is not despite these changes but because of them. A year ago the economic system had broken dow'n. The old ways had failed The '‘President was not a witch doctor: he had no cure-alls and no short-cuts. He had to experiment. That is what he did. Os course he made mistakes. He still is making mistakes. But each month he brings order out of chaos. Or, to use his own favorite figure, he is like the captain of a football team who must change his plays in the uncertain and zigzag course dow'n the field to the distant goal. Thus President Roosevelts great contribution to the nation has been a political method, the method of planned experiment. His goal is not only recovery, but basic reform. He does not believe the nation can return to the old system and survive Either we go back to misery and chaos or forward to a planned and just economic order. The President is heading forward, unafraid. And that is why the people are following him. The next year will be harder. Brreaucracy will grow and the President will have difficulty in keeping close to the people Reactionary business and political forces will gather more power. And among the rank and file much of the excitement and giorv cf the new deal will wear thin. A little temporary recovery' may go to our heads and make us forget the basic reforms still waiting. The second years even more than the first will be the test of the President’s leanership and of the character of the American people.

A PHILIPPINE COMPROMISE THERE is nothing clean-cut about the solution to the Philippine tangle offered by President Roosevelt in his special message to congress yesterday. But that is not his fault. Congress, partly under the influence of a selfish American lobby and of a Filipino minority, amended the Hawes-Cutting measure until it offered the islands more of beggary than independence. When the Philippine legislature last fall rejected so-called independence on those unjust terms, congress was angry. President Roosevelt, who might have taken the initiative in a compromise settlement. was too busy with our domestic crisis. The senate committee last month completed the havoc by voting to force the Filipinos to take independence on the Hawes-Cutting terms or renounce their desire for freedom. Filipino leaders properly denounced this as tyranny. Finally the President found time to bring together Mr. Quezon, the Philippme leader, and the congressional leaders. An agreement was reached under which the lapsed HawesCutting law would be revived for Philippine acceptance before next October, on the promise of the President and congressional leaders that they would later negotiate with the Filipinos and correct inequalities in the law. The only modification now will be anew provision in the bill reliquishing American miltary bases on the date of independence. But the dispute over continuance of American naval bases and the larger dispute over economic and trade injustices are to be left entirely to future negotiation. Obviously this is a very risky method and one which can breed much future trouble unless both parties act in perfect good faith. In asking congress to revive the unjust law but to postpone correction of it, the President in his message said: "Where imperfections or inequalities exist,

I am confident that they can be corrected after proper hearing and in fairness to both peoples.” That is a pledge upon American honor; it must be carried out. WOMEN LIFE SAVERS AFTER all, there should be limits, even to this career business! To know that women are turning life savers is a little too much. Still, we boast of our freedom of the seas so it wouldn't be fair to make it a man’s ocean, I suppose. Anyway, if a girl knows her strokes there isn't anything, any more, to keep her out of deep water. Somehow the brawny life savers who patroled the beaches in the days when women feigned helplessness caused more than one timid lass to get into the swim. There was something romantic, mysterious, altogether fascinating in the manner that a long, strong arm could save you from another mouthful of salt water. Then, too, chivalry sat along the beaches in dark blue life guards’ suits. It yearned to show whom it could save. But now— Women are doing the rescue act. They know their strokes as well as any man ever knew his. They are quite as able to perform gallant service. But the romance is gone. What woman wants to be saved by another woman? Still—if it is a question of life or death maybe one doesn't care who does the saving. Women, however, shrink intuitively from venturing into deep water when it is another woman who must aid them if their own breast strokes or backhand strokes give out. For so long we have been taught that men surpass at feats of physical prowess that we can’t help being disappointed to know that the sea belongs to women as well as to men. This is the feminine angle, of course. Men are rejoicing because someone as fair as Juno, with features resembling those of the queen who launched the Trojan navy, likely is to swim to their defense. Risking their lives is a pleasant matter for the gentlemen. Oh, w’ell. women may have their innings as nurses in hospitals. There is that glorious minute when the scion of a wealthy family gazes into the eyes of a ministering angel and confuses love with gratitude. Only—the nurses will tell you that it doesn’t happen that way. That their work is long and hard and romance waits until after they leave their corridors. The stenographic field has been Actionized, too. Most employers are married, and the eager-eyed girl who takes dictation is much more likely to marry the filing clerk than the junior partner. No, the only place where a woman could rely on a brief, ecstatic glimpse of unalloyed chivalry was the damp moment when she submerged and arose to be rescued. Instead of searching for her boss’s letters or her husband’s collar buttons she could rest on a masculine shoulder or be towed in by a masculine hand. Still, if a few gallant women are passing the examinations for official life saving jobs m ybe it will spur the rest of us on to learn how to swim. We might as well. There isn’t any point in getting into deep water any more. All we do is get wet. After all, those who are using feminine substitutes for this task may know what they are doing. Guards will save their time. The summer girls who pretended to learn aquatic victories every season may remember how to stay on the level from one year’s end to the next. Only, won’t it look queer, when summer comes again, to see long, strong brown men learning to float while slim mermaids hold their hands on their stomachs so they won’t go under? Life w r as rather nice last summer. And the summer before that. But reversals usually come some time or other.

THE SELLER MUST BUY T "t 7E are beginning to learn that those who * buy also must sell so they may have the money with which to pay. We are, in other words, learning the essentials of reciprocal tariff agreements. Other nations—Britain, for instance—have long worked at this trade. We should start; for us it may mean the way out of our dilemma. Equally important with its effects upon our industries and agriculture is the influence such a course in international trade will have upon the peace of the world. Henry Wallace, secretarv of agriculture, understands this. In his recent pamphlet “America Must Choose.” he says: “It comes to this: If we insist upon selling without buying we have to lend our surplus to foreign countries, and never take it back. It stays abroad. But we think we still own it. and that makes us figure out ways and means of keeping the investment safe. We must have security that transcends the good faith of the borrower. There is no surer path to war. "The method of reciprocal trade, on the other hand, leads to peace. It makes no sales without providing opportunities for the buyers to pay the bill. Since the bill does not remain outstanding indefinitely, and does not have to be collected at the point of a gun, it makes new business easy to get and profitable.” HULL AND MUNITIONS QTATE SECRETARY CORDELL HULL welcomes the senate proposal to investigate the munitions trust. This is. of course, in line with his long record as an advocate of peace. The secretarv- has indicated he will talk with President Roosevelt about the matter. Mr. Roosevelt will, undoubtedly, upon his record as a peace advocate, support Mr. Hull's stand. Thus, the investigation seems to be practically assured. Launched, it promises to reveal what the arms and munitions manufacturers of this country have been doing at home and abroad; their connection, if any, with war scares; their influence upon American expenditures for arms and armament. In a tense world, such an investigation promises to help clear the atmosphere. The Greeks, it has been discovered, enjoyed wrestling 2,500 years ago. They still are welcome to it. Primo Camera's championship title has netted him just about $340, or as much as a pair of his shoes cost him,

A COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT has recommended an intelligent course to congress in framing legislation affecting communications companies. Instead of rushing headlong into the great mergers that have been suggested, even vigorously pushed, in some quarters, the President wants anew federal agency created to study the whole field of communications—wire, wireless and cables—and later report what, if any, further steps should be taken. This new commission also would co-ordin-ate the present laws regulating communications, a power now lodged in the Interstate commerce commission and the radio commission. Such legislation could, and should, be passed quickly by congress. It involves no fundamental controversies. It’s final importance will depend, of course, upon the President’s selection of persons to man- the new agency. THE PHILHARMONIC r T' v HERE are three ways to finance radio programs: By advertising, by a tax on receiving sets, or by voluntary contributions. Not all radio advertising is objectionable; some of it is not unpleasant and even interesting. But anything except the barest announcement of sponsorship is out of place when great music is presented. Therefore, the two-hour concert by the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York, on Sunday afternoons, which is given to radio by that society without advertising sponsorship, is especially enjoyed by music lovers. It must be paid for. The society needs funds. Those who enjoy these concerts and want them to continue should send a check, small or large, to the Philharmonic Symphony Society, Campaign Headquarters. Hotel Waldorf Astoria, New York.

Liberal Viewpoint DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

ONE of the most disastrous episodes in American diplomacy was our Mexican policy from 1913 until the sending of Dwight Morrow to Mexico nearly fifteen years later. Barrels of blood and millions of dollars were expended needlessly because we refused to permit the Mexican people to work out their own political and economic destiny. It is highly desirable that we should not repeal these mistakes in our Cuban policy. In an article on “American Diplomacy in Cuba,” in the Nation, the svell-known authority, Carleton Beals, points out that the activities of Mr. Welles in Havana were as ill-ad-vised and detrimental as the operations of American emissaries in Mexico after 1913. Mr. Beales charges that Mr. Welles first wished to put into the presidency Machad’s fellow-assassin, General Herrera. Failing in this, he set up a puppet government under De Cespedes, which was so weak that it collapsed immediately. Thereupon, the Cubans themselves put Into office Ramon Grau San Martin. While his government was by no means a strong one, and failed to elicit any enthusiasm from Mr. Beals, it did have the merit of being the first government in the history of Cuba which was of Cuban origin and represented the will of the majority of the Cuban people. tt tt tt FROM the beginning, Mr. Welles did his best to undermine the Grau government. After having himself tried to set up governments which in no way represented the desires of the majority of the Cuban people, he had the audacity to demand that the Cubans adopt a coalition government, bringing together the most impossible mixtures. As Mr. Beals points out, what Welles asked of the Cubans was comparable to demanding in the United States that “Roosevelt and Farley abdicate, and that A1 Smith be appointed President with a cabinet including such names as Hoover, Mellon, O’Brien, Jimmy Walker, ‘Sunny Jim’ Rolpn and John Dewey.” Actually it seems that Welles was opposed chieflly to the Grau government because it threatened to assert an independent attitude toward American bankers and public utilities in Cuba. His very last discussion with Grau was given over to a protest against the new electric light rate which had reduced by nearly onehalf the highest rate charged anywhere in the civilized world. Mr. Welles left before Grau was ousted, but he had done enough damage so that the Grau government, lacking American recognition, had to give way. The result was the choice of a government under a reactionary, Colonel Carlos Mendieta.

THOUGH this Mendieta government was less representative of Cuban opinion than the Grau government, it was quickly recognized by the United States. Mendieta gave evidence of a more kindly attitude toward the American bankers and utilities. It is well to recall that Machado was denounced mainly as a tool of American bankers and utility interests and that Ambassador Guggenheim was charged with being a representative of those very American interests. This is certainly no policy for a “new deal diplomacy” to be continuing. It Is high time that we should modify this policy before we have done irreparable damage to our position in Cuba and to the cause of Cuban self-government. As Mr. Beals well points out: Unwittingly, Welles has been preparing the ground for a great, unorganized social upheaval in Cuba. His meddling has been very similar in character and purpose to that of Heniy Lane Wilson during the Madero administration in Mexico after the revolution against Diaz. Wilson contributed greatly to the downfall of Madero and hence his subsequent assassination, and he helped spill a river of blood across Mexico for a decade or more. “The Cubans will not soon forgive Welles for his meddling and his partisanship; he has sowed and reaped a fresh crop of hatred for the United States.” There is much to be said for the declaration of an editor of the Nation that a minimum Cuban policy, compatible with the new deal, would involve the following three points: 1. “Our abandonment of the Platt amendment without reservations. 2. “Negotiation of anew reciprocal agreement which will give Cuba a certain preferential arrangement in the matter of sugar quotas and duties. M 3. Actne and disinterested co-operation of the United States with the Cuban government in relieving distress and in bringing about economic reconstruction.”

Vassar girls, for the first time in history, are permitted to smoke in the dormitories.' Now, the girls probably won’t enjoy it. In Monte Carlo a man, carried to the bottom of the bay in a taxicab, got out, swam ashore, and took another cab. Any one else might have called it a day. Pu Yi, new emperor of Mancliuokuo, has ascended three thrones in his twenty-nine years. As an emperor he may be a pushover, but he deserves something for his persistence. Mayor La Guardia of New York 13 having a bust made of himself. Former Mayor O'Brien didn’t need one— he was % bust himself.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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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 or less.) o tt tt PROTESTS FAILURE ON OLD-AGE PENSIONS By Raymond McCauley What is the matter with that oldage pension payment w-hich I thought was to be made Jan. 1? Here it is Feb. 18, and not one word from the county commissioners as to the payment. It is not much, but the old saying is, a half a loaf is better than none at all. Let me know through the columns of your paper when these persons can expect a pay on it. Note —The law was effective Jan. 1. Payments should be started in the next ninety days. tt u a TIMES THANKED FOR CITY UTILITY ACTION By J. D. B. I can not refrain from admiring the intelligence of The Times in its recently successful fight to obtain $525,000 in electric utility rate reductions for the people of Indianapolis. Your editor is to be congratulated for his sincere, honest and business-like method in this undertaking. First he employed an independent accountant and got the facts. He then showed his regard for the constituted legal authority in charge of such matters by turning these facts over to Sherman Minton, the public counsellor, for verification. The result was summary action against the Indianapolis Power and Light Company, a confession by the utility of its guilt in charging excessive rates, and as every customer of the company now knows, an immediate cut in monthly light bills. No other newspaper in Indiana has demonstrated such enterprise in the last decade, or more. It shows w-hat can be done with facts, once you get them and evidently The Times and Mr. Minton had the goods on this utility. It was an excellent job, done in short time, and has won for your paper the confidence of several thousand citizens of Indiana. More than that, The Times soundly supported action by a fair-mided public service commission, which resulted in a minimum of expense and a sizable proportion of results for Indianapolis taxpayers. As one of many grateful citizens, I wish to thank you.

OBJECTS TO PRITCHARD’S PARTY “SAVING” NATION bt a s. g. I see where Walter Pritchard has assumed the role of prophet, and predicts the G. O. P. is to “save the nation” as the great “emergency party.” From just what the grand old party is to save us from Brother Pritchard doesn’t state specifically. Nor does he mention anything about the last twelve years of G. O. P. “saving,” in which the country was plunged to the nadir of despair. If that’s the kind of “saving” he thinks ought to be repeated nobody wants any of it. He moans about taxes and “mounting indebtedness,” but he fails to say anything about the haunting misery, destitution, bankruptcies—the utter hopelessness of the jobless, and the vanishing of homes and savings of literally millions of people under the benign and “saving” power of twelve years of the “great emergency party” administrations. What are “taxes” and “mounting indebtedness” compared to a complete breakdown of government brought about by a hopeless, jobless people? Os course, there’s a reason for Brother Pritchard's argument: he’s a Republican candidate for mayor. And such is “bouxgeoise” politics.

THE SAPS BEGIN TO RUN

Light Company ‘Not So Bad ’

By a Times Reader. I have been reading all the exaggerated complaints written by some of The Indianapolis Times readers. They are a bunch of poor sports. Just because they are down they envy one coippany that is getting along. The Indianapolis Power and Light Company is not as bad as the people say it is. I am the son of a man who has been in the employment of the light company twenty-four years. In this time he has not had one layoff. His salary was cut once, but he and all of the employes had their former salary restored to them. Some of you will remember the flu epidemic. During that time four members of our family were stricken. A representative of the company was sent out by Norman

BELIEVES PRESIDENT ACTS PROPERLY ON AIR MAIL By CWA Gunner’s Mate. A guy named Smith pulled a boner w’hen he popped off about our grand and glorious President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and so consigned himself to the Fulton Fish Market, as far as a lot of good old Democratic votes are concerned. Then, along comes one of our national heroes, Mr. Lindbergh, and the Lord knows the man has proved himself a hero, and he tries to put our hopes on the spot for his stand on this aviation scandal. Well, we have a lot of heroes just as great as the lone eagle, only they are doing theirs with a w'heel barrow and a shovel on CWA work. Their service bars so burden their war medals that you can’t see the color of the ribbon. They are very thankful to our present commander-in-chief for making it possible for them to make enough money by the fruits of honest labor to feed their wives and babies. From the monetary point of view j of hero has cashed in as well as any national hero that our country has been able to boast. We are proud of him—no doubt. But we also are proud of our other unsung, unheard heroes who make this hero business a matter of national contribution for freedom and democracy, instead of dollars and cents.

A Woman’s Viewpoint

By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

'T'HINK of the fun a man gets by making his own fortune or career! How strange it seems, then, that so many of them are determined to prevent their children from having such pleasure. Too bad more fathers do. not heed the example of the famous Mayo brothers, who are leaving their money to medical science instead of to their families. The decision, made public some time ago, marks a movement forward in the right direction. It is an encouraging sign of economic sanity and may indicate that we shall be led out of the wilderness by those who love men more than they love money. If we ever lose our desire to pile up vast fortunes for those who come after us most of the economic distress from which we now suffer will disappear. Anew vision of life may be given us and we can then understand better the reason for our brief existence upon the earth. Consider, if you please, how many enormous trust funds have reposed—and no doubt many still repose—in the vaults of a hundred thousand banks in the land.

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

Perry, who is one of the finest and best men on earth. They had sent out to offer help in the form of a loan without interest. What man with a backbone would want charity, if he could prevent it? A few r years later my brother was operated on just at a time w'hen my parents were buying a home. Another loan was necessary, and it was acquired just as easily. I believe most of these stories are exaggerated. The one about the meter was very funny. Is it the light company's fault if you have poor wiring in your house? If the company suffered the loss of all of their customers who said that their meter ran when the lights were all off, it would be refunding every day. I am writing this because I appreciate the one company which has had the fewest layoffs.

In demanding this investigation of aeronautical affairs our President has done what he'thinks is right, by bringing to the surface any illegitimate contracts that were made. I don’t know just the powers that be which prompt this political move on the part of our one and only national' hero, but will predict a fish market demise or worse for him. • This is going to the press first, but Mr. Roosevelt probably will never hear about it anyhow. Charles A. and his cohorts are all right, the world’s wrong. tt u n THE POLLYANNA BOYS ARE OUT, lIE CLAIMS By W. H. Richards. The Pollyanna ’round-the-corner boys are at it again; the CWA workers are being dropped into the bread lines. Who cares about the boys who produced what wealth there is? It’s the title to the goods that counts! Twenty times in a century have the American people gone through the spasm of production paralysis. Nothing has been learned yet from all these experiences. We must be dead from the neck up. What a grand mess our social order has turned out to be, under this cannibalistic method of production, by individual feudalistic determination of how and what we will create for society.

ALL this sum of accumulated wealth dragged from the earth and the people should have in active circulation, yet it remained underground, useless, powerless to lighten the burden of poverty which was bound upon the backs of so many citizens. Surely we were given the breath of life for something more noble than the accumulation of money; for some greater purpose than the hoarding of gold. Men who boast of being selfmade are usually the ones who are filled with a consuming desire to have children w r ho are not self-made. Their chief ambition is to relieve their sons and daughters of any necessity to exercise their abilities, talents or brains. For the piling up of money fosters its own peculiar self-conceit. And the father who leaves millions fancies he has done well by his children. Unhappily, the rest of us agree with him and when enough people are sold on the idea, you know what happens. There is an orgy of grabbing and greed; general prosperity disappears; multitudes suffer, and the economic structure of a country totters. After all is said, the man who helps humanity has left the beet heritage to his children.

MARCH 3, 1934

How did we ever drop toll roads, create public libraries, public schools, parks, santary plants, bridges, postal services, fire protection, and a hundred other government public services? We must have had a mental lapse to omit the profit motive in all these or did we turn Socialist in this unconsciously? Our would-be generals have the legal power to control when we shall work; how much of the created product shall be ours and what standard of living our lords of creation will permit us to develop. These royal majesties buy and sell labor under protection of law and get homage from the real creators of wealth. And if any danger exists as to the power to continue the royal game of exploitation, the Austrian episode tells the tale of procedure. Can we break the chains of ou stupidity, or must we beg for work and the privilege of creating our necessities in abundance? The monster of despair is attempting to prolong the agony by force. As feudalism and divine rights of kings have gone, so will the divine right of individuals to exploit others go. It’s only a matter of time. tt tt a THIS DEFENDS WORKER IN JUVENILE COURT Bv Mrs. L. 11. I want to say this is my second time to write in regard to Mrs. G'a tale of hardship which appeared in the Message Center and in which she mentioned Mrs. Shelby of the juvenile court. I think she misrepresented Mrs. Shelby. I have asked many favors of Mrs. Shelby and always got immediate relief. I have been in her office many times and she always was sweet and pleasant to every one as could be. I often have remarked she was a wonderful woman for the position she had. I also have heard a number of other people say the same. Mrs. Shelby is so kind and pleasant that I would just as soon go to her for favors and advice as I would to my own mother. a a a HE’D SUGGEST A NEW ADVISOR FOR PRESIDENT By R. P. C. OWEN D. YOUNG We believe in Franklin Roosevelt, We believe in the NRA, George M. Cohan has nothing on us When it’s love for the U. S. A. But we do get downhearted, Lose hope—get all unstrung, Each time we hear that Franklin D. Is listening again to Young. Darb BY HARRIET SCOTT OLINICK Her life has ever held a color warm and clear. Hers has been forever dull, unvaried gray; The pale whitness of a fading Winer’s day, Mouse-like and tearless, cold and drear; With never a crimson hour to cheer. Nor a saffron moment with a golden moon for pay; Never a shining challenge in an exquisite spray, But only colors drab and pale and sere. This be my prayer, with the white death clutching at her throat With fingers swift and insidious and tight; That before she takes the trembling step across death’s moat Into the eternity of everlasting night. She be given a scarlet joy to assuage her last breath; Then to glide happily into th waiting arms of Death.