Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 256, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 March 1934 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times (A IfRIPPR-HOWABD NEWSPAPER) Hot \r. Howard Prr^idpnt TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER BuiiLOM Manager Phone —Riley SMI

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Give Light end iht Peopit Will Find Their Oven Way

TUESDAY. MARCH fi 1934 THE PRESIDENT ON NRA T>RESrDENT ROOSEVELT diagnosed accurately the ills which threaten NRA in his address to code authority officials assembled in Washington yesterday. ‘The aim of this whole effort is to restore our rich domestic market by raising ’ts vast consuming capacity,” he said. Mentioning “justified” complaints that consuming capacity has been lost sight of by industry, he added: “No one is opposed to sensible and reasonable profits, but the morality of the case is that a great segment of our people are in actual distress and that as between profits first and humanity afterward and humanity first and profits afterward we have no room for hesitation.” Then the prescription: “The purchasing power of the people can be increased and sustained only by striving for the lowest schedule of prices on which higher wages and increasing employment can be maintained. ... It is the immediate task of industry to re-employ more people at purchasing wages, and to do it now.” In further defense *>f the wage-earning portion of the new industrial partnership he warned that the sections of the recovery act guaranteeing collective bargaining by representatives of labor's own choosing ‘mean just what they say.” We can not tolerate actions which are clearly monojxjlistic, which wink at unfair trade practices, which fail to give labor free choice of representatives or which are otherwise hostile to the public interest,” said the President. “Never again will we permit the social conditions which allowed the vast sections of our population to exist in an un-Ameri-can way, w'hich allowed a maldistribution of wealth and power.” That should be clear enough for any one to understand. Chiseling is not going to continue. It employers chisel on wages and hours and collective agreements, if they keep on raising prices far above ine amounts necessary to meet wage increases—as the consumers’ advisory board says at least fourteen industries have done—the President will take action against them under the law. The high spirit of endeavor in which the industrial recovery program was launched has not been forgotten. The administration's new' pledge, it is fair to hope, marks the rebirth of that spirit in NRA. TARIFF, LOCAL POLITICS r T° background for the pioposal that tariff rate-making be put in the hands of the President, it is necessary to go back a full half century in American history, to the day when a presidential candidate remarked contemptuously that the tariff was “a local issue.” That, on the face of it, was an exceedingly silly remark. But the years of tariff wrangling since it was uttered have gone far to prove that it was pretty largely correct. A tariff bill, in theory, ought to be framed on broad lines of national interest. In actual practice, it never is. Whether it be a bill to raise the tariff or one to lower it. it inevitably degenerates into a great trading game in congress—with a welter of local interests ultimately deciding the issues. However regrettable this may be. it is only natural. The individual congressman Is put under terrific pressure: he is, furthermore, actuated by a laudable desire to do what he can for his own constituents. The result is an endless series of trades. Out of it comes a tariff bill that seldom is either logical or national, but that represents the blending of innumerable forces, a composite of a vast number of local issues. The new proposal would remove this, very largely, from the hands of congress. The President would be empowered to negotiate tariff agreements with individual nations, and to raise or lower tariff rates by as much as 50 per cent in the course of such negotiations. He could not take an article off the free list or put one on it, and his power would be limited to a three-year term. This, clearly, is a bill of far-reaching proportions. It would alter completely our trai ditional method of setting tariff rates, taking this most important function of government out of the hands of congress and vesting it in one man. The question to decide now is whether the advantages would outweigh the defects. It would give us a chance to get something resembling a scientific tariff and it would end one of Washington’s greatest log-rolling games. On the other hand, it would give the President enormous new powers and—to all intents and purposes—take from the representatives of the people one of their most important functions. We are called upon to do a nice bit of weighing of comparative advantages. THE AIR MAIL THE party organs and politicians in congress in attempting to make political capital over the deaths of army aviators carrying the mails may be throwing boomerangs that will return and crack their noses. If the army planes now carrying the mails are of low quality and the army pilots thereof are too inexperienced, where does the blame for this condition rest? Not with the Roosevelt administration but with over a decade of Republican party administration. And there ,is testimony already on record to the effect that favoritism toward big corporations contributing to Republican campaign funds has

contributed to the assertedly sorry condition of the army air force. The hullabaloo about Roosevelt's sending army pilots to their death is groundless and merely a weak attempt to “hang'' something on the Roosevelt administration to impair his popularity before the coming of the next national political conventions. Simply the army pilots went to carrying the mails under about the worst weather conditions, as is demonstrated by that Wasatch mountain horror. There will be more of such political attempts. At this writing, it looks as if the opposition were destined to go into national convention merely as a party “viewing with alarm” Roosevelt’s putative mistakes. A tough prospect for the politicians now endeavoring to make party capital out of the opposition of particular elements to Roosevelt's stand on such matters as veterans’ bonus, control of crooked fianciering and rescue from the clutches of conspiring contractors, particularly those of the aviation breed. A BETTER NRA ENERAL JOHNSON seems to have started something when he invited all critics of the NRA to step up on the platform and start swinging. Whatever else may be said about it, he at least can’t complain that they didn’t take him at his word. And out of the resulting melee should develop a great deal of benefit for the country as a whole. For several months there have been creakings and crackings in the NRA framework. Hardly any one has been entirely satisfied with it; some people have been very deeply dissatisfied. Until now, however, there was no channel through which this current of criticism could find an outlet. Such a channel at last has been thrown open—wide open, to judge by the number of complaints presented at the opening sessions. Before the smoke dies down, both General Johnson and the nation at large ought to have a pretty clear idea of just how and where the NRA setup needs to be rejiggered. And, in studying this mass of complaints, it is well to keep one or two fundamental facts firmly in mind. To begin with, there is nothing sacred about the NRA. Those mystic letters simply stand for a program by which the country set out to accomplish certain things. It is the goal, and not the method of reaching it, that counts. And what is that goal? To restore industry, to re-employ workers, to stimulate the movements of trade and to boast consumer purchasing power. National sentiment is united on just one point—that it is going to reach this goal somehow, in spite of all obstacles. Unless it can be shown that the NRA is the handiest and most practical method of reaching it. it can’t be expected to unite in support of the blue eagle. Which brings us to the other fundamental, that the NRA—whatever its defects, however much patching the current clinic may show to be necessary—remains, so far, the one concrete program that has been offered. In sheer self-interest, we must make it work smoothly. We want to find out all that we can about its defects, not because we are looking for an excuse to toss it out the window, but because we want it to be of the utmost possible service. THE TARIFF BILL ONE of the chief remaining jobs of the administration is tariff reduction. There has been long delay. For months the administration flirted with the idea that recovery might return to this country alone, isolated from the rest of the world by trade barriers. Now the President has given up the discredited notion of self-sufficient nationalism and turned to the Wallace-Hull policy of international trade. If we do not buy we can not sell our large surpluses of farms and of industrial mass production. In theory the tariff barriers should be lowered by congress which erected them. Actually that is not possible. If the tariff rates are thrown into the congressional arena it will mean weeks and perhaps months of log-rolling during an emergency in which the nation can not afford the luxury of selfish partisanship. The issue is complicated by the need for reciprocal tariff agreements. Other nations having followed our bad high tariff example, and no general international agreement now being in sight, we must bargain with individual governments. For this purpose the President Friday asked congress to grant him sweeping powers. He wants authority to negotiate \rade agreements, without senate review, which can run for three years after signature or indefinitely, subject to six months’ notice of termination by either party. Without changing the free list he would be allowed to raise or lower existing rates within a 50 per cent range. In our judgment the present emergency justifies this unusually broad transfer of power from congress to the President —but only if the administration bill is amended to limit the proposed permanent power to a brief period of two or three years. In addition we believe that congress, in 'temporarily transferring its power, should instruct the President also to seek an international agreement for joint flat tariff reduction. A STEP TOWARD PEACE PASSAGE by the senate of the bill which would give the President power to declare an embargo on the shipment of arms from the United States to warring nations leads one to wonder just what world history might have been like if such law had been in force back in 1914. It goes without saying that the story of . the World war would have been vastly different if no munitions of war had been shipped overseas by American manufacturers. One is justified in feeling that the United States even might have been able to keep out of the conflict altogether. And that gives a notion of the potential value of this law. The way to stay out of a war, evidently, is to have nothing whatever to do with it. From being involved commercially to being involved with fleets and armies is not a very long step. This embargo bill, if used wisely, ought to be a long step toward maintenance of peace. Mussolini has picked the 400 new members of Italy's last chamber of deputies, and the people will be permitted to vote against them—if they dare! Vilma Banky, screen star, is suing a Los Angeles bank—no relation.

THE OLD AND THE NEW THOSE elaborate coronation ceremonies which made Mr. Henry Pu Yi the Emperor Kang Teh seem to have been an odd mixture of the very old and the up-to-date. All the time-honored formulae of the incredibly ancient oriental dynasty were used; there were sacrifices at the altar, ceremonial robes like those worn by Genghis Khan, and so on. But there also were smart Japanese in ul-tra-modern military display; there were foreign correspondents wearing the evening dress of the west; and when the ceremonies ended, the new emperor got into an up-to-date bul-let-proof auto to go back to his palace. All this is more or less symbolic of the anachronistic empire of Manchukuo itself. It, too, is an odd mixture of the old and the new. Whatever else one may think of It, it is hard to see in it the vitality, the responsiveness to a pressing need, that can make it truly enduring. ABSORBING THE CWA A DISPATCH from San Francisco reports that approximately 500 men are leaving CWA jobs each week to take positions in commerce and industry. If this trend is borne out throughout the country as a whole, the ticklish experiment of cutting off the CWA project in the middle of this spring may work out well, after all. The CWA was designed as a stop-gap, and its entire theory has been that reviving trade would open new jobs so that the CWA workers need not be kept on permanently. If prosperity fails to return fast enough, and the closing of the CWA leaves hundreds of thousands of men jobless in a land where there are no jobs to be had, then we shall be no better off than we were before. But if this trend reported at San Francisco becomes general all across the country, suspension of the CWA will pass without difficulty. One hopes that this indeed will prove to be the case.

Liberal Viewpoint DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES=

SEVERAL of our liberally-minded and urbane columnists have been “kidding” Mark Sullivan for his worries lest Mr. Roosevelt should translate us painlessly into a Russian system of life. In spite of all this joshing, however, Mr. Sullivan seems to get more panicky by the minute. In one of his latest syndicated articles, he calls upon his countrymen to awaken before it is too late to save the American system and avert revolution: “By the American system of industry I mean the competitive system and the right to make profits and keep them, including the right of private ownership of land and other forms of property. “By the American system of society, I mean the familiar system which puts maximum emphasis on the freedom of the individual to go his own way. “And by the American form of government I mean, of course, the form we have, especially three features of it the law-making power vested in a congress based on geographical representation, the device of check and balance which divides government into three separate parts, legislative, executive and judicial and the independence of the judiciary. “These three features of the American form of government are particularly endangered—if they should go, the whole form of government would go. “And all three—our American form of government, social system and industrial systemare just being undermined so rapidly that, unless there is a successful resistance it would be overstatement to say that within a few years they will have ceased to exist. tt n n “'T'HE process of revolution is under way. The J- first stage is here. Unless we stop at this point, the succeeding stages will follow inevitably. It is the nature of revolution—well understood by those who bring revolution about—that one step makes the next step indispensable. “The public at the time sees only the first step; experts foresee that the first step makes the second inevitable—and also the third and fourth and so on until the revolution is complete.” If Mr. Sullivan were not a lay historian of some pretensions, we could excuse such sentiments on his part. But a man who pretends to be a specialist on American history since 1890 must be expected to maintain at least some remote contact with reality. He should know that the "American system of industry” came to be a combination of piracy, lottery and famine which collapsed utterly in 1929. It was not the Australian, the Polish or even the Russian system of industry that brought on the depression in the United States Where the American system, which Mr. Sullivan dotes upon, brought us, he himself knows all too well. Similarly, with the American system of rugged individualism, he can not be unaware that this freedom meant, in practice, the privilege of robbing investors, wrecking productive industry and starving the American masses. We have had quite enough of this brand of freedom of the racketeer.

n a u THE American form of government, with its paralyzing division into three theoretically equal departments, was the product of antique ignorance and inexperience in a simple agricultural society. Specifically, it was an importation from abroad based upon Baron Montesquiou’s mistaken notion of the British government. It only apparently was made in Philadelphia. It was, actually, in large part a creature of a Frenchman's misinformed brain. It has never worked well, save when one branch has assumed definite leadership. We had a good example of its inadequacy under Mr. Sullivan's friend. Mr. Hoover, with the President and congress at loggerheafls and the supreme court nullifying legislation that might have helped to save us from disaster. So far as our being in the midst of a revolution is concerned, it is probable that the new deal, as at present drawn up. would not save us, even if carried out 100 per cent. • But it is actually being resisted and sabotaged all along the line by the reactionaries. There is no need for Mr. Sullivan to call upon the country to resist the new deal. The great danger is that it will be too well resisted. It is high time that Mr. Sullivan should prod himself and awaken to a few realities. If the things he abhors in the Roosevelt administration are not put through, we shall, indeed, have revolution and an end of the American system of industry, society and government. Every time Mr. Sullivan pushes his pen in opposition to the new deal he is helping on Fascism and Communism in the United States. From many of the ideas presented at the NRA “kick” meeting, General Johnson should be rewarded for just listening. There’s a movement afoot for the legal approval of lotteries, to help drag bankrupt cities out of the red. If the stock manipulators got your money, why not the local politicians? Liquor finally has become legal in Washington. But that won't stop the drinking, much.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make l/our letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less.J tt tt tt SEEKS PROBE OF PHONE COMPANY RATES By J. A. DeLancy. You should be commended for your efforts and final success in what you have accomplished from such a powerful organization as the Indianapolis Power and Light Company, and I know of no better phraseology to use to encourage you to continue this investigation, than you expressed in your editorial of Jan. 31, wherein you quote: (How guilty? If crowded into a corner at last, this desperate corporation admits a 5 per cent guilt, is it not possible that it has been culpable by two or three times as much as it admits.) It is my opinion and I am sure from the daily contacts I make, the opinion of 90 per cent of the business, professional and private citizens of Marion county that you have done a wonderful job, and the hope prevails you will not relinquish your efforts until justice to the public is complete. Then why stop at the Indianapolis Power and Light Company? There is another large and most powerful organization within the state of Indiana which is just as guilty, if not more so, than the power company, the Indiana Bell Telephone Company, or in other words, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. An investigation of interest loading charges should be made on the circulation of borrowed money between the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Western Electric Company and Bell Telephone Company. It would be intersting to hear the result of this probe. There have been many things

said in the last year in connection with the investigation of this huge corporation, but very little action. The federal interdepartmental communication committee voiced the general popular complaint that the rates of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and its subsidiaries, of which the Indiana Bell Telephone Company is one, are excessive, but nothing has been done to reduce this excess. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent annually by this corporation through the lobbyists at Washington, and personnel departments scattered throughout the country. The minute a question arises in connection with reduction of rates, the diplomats are on the scene, and for all this, the public is paying. (Editor’s Note: Please. Mr. De Lancy, we can only do one thing at a time. We have looked briefly into the phone company and find no similarity between it and the light company.) s a a SANITARY CONDITIONS IN EATING HOUSES SCORED By Ernest Green well. This is a copy of a letter to Dr. Harvey, state public health director. The sanitary conditions of the public eating houses, consisting of hotels, restaurants and hamburger stands, in Indianapolis are in a deplorable condition. I have been employed in a number of them. The conditions that exist are not sanitary. The dishwashing process that many of- the establishments maintain do not comply with the laws. A large portion of the places are overrun by rats and roaches. Most of them serve broken or cracked dishes. Only a few use disinfectant in the dishwater; and, as a whole, the kitchens are far from being sanitary. The health certificate that employes are supposed to obtain is not

BIGGER THAN THE LAW?

“The Life of Our Lord”

By Mrs. M. H. Newby Congratulations and deserving praise goes to The Indianapolis Times for publication of Dickens’ “The Life of Our Lord.” Those of us who get so bored with current events on the front pages of the press will appreciate what The Times has done in purchasing the works of Dickens for the benefit of the public. I hope the story is kept on the front page, for these are days when this story as it goes into print will give thase of us a renewed lease on life. To those of us who are discouraged and

carried out, only by a few of the houses. The Cooks, Waiters and Bartenders’ Union, which I represent, have requested me to investigate the possibilities of relieving this condition. Our organization maintains that the public that patronizes these places has a right to demand sanitary conditions in eating houses. Almost half the population of Indianapolis eats in these places, and, if we can by our efforts help these conditions we will feel that we have done our duty to the people upon whom we depend for our livelihood. Any member of our local will vouch for the conditions that exist. a a tt PROTESTS PENSIONS PAID TO BIG SHOTS By J. A. Perkins I wish in a small way to correct a misinformed public pertaining to benefits or pensions paid to .war veterans. Such benefits are not paid by local taxpayers. They never have been, nor shall be paid in this manner. The money used for this purpose is set aside from duties on imports and high income tax from the more than 6,000 millionaires made during the World war. Be not deceived by the national economy league. It only states half truths. The national economy league does not come into court with clean hands in urging reductions in veterans assistance since its leaders, themselves, receive government pensions. Admiral Richard E. Bird, head of the national economy league, draws $4,500 annually. General James G. Sarbord, $6,000; Admiral William F. Sims, $6,000; Alfred E. Smith, $6,500 from the state of New York. What for? Service-connected disabilities? No! For being a good governor. General John J. Pershing gets $21,500. I am a war veteran and I pay S6O taxes annually. I believe in economy, and I practice it. My small pension was wiped off the slate to appease the whims of the national Chamber of Commerce big business, and Wall Street, “the income tax dodgers’ association.” a an LOTTERY SUGGESTED AS MONEY CIRCULATOR By a Times Reader Martin Sommers, of New York, says in last week's Collier's, “A recent survey shows that official lotteries are held today in thirty foreign countries, and that citizens of the United States spend an average of $575,000 a week on tickets for them.” No wonder we are short on cash. v People always gambled, and always will, so what is the reason why the good old United States can’t have a lottery and keep that money at home, and add some of it to the treasury? Another scheme which would be beneficial to many would be to start a Householder’s Pool here in Indianapolis. Issue 25.000 tickets at 25 cents each. Have 10.000 prizes of SI,OOO each, and, after commission is paid to sellers and col-

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

distressed may we be benefited through the gracious efforts of The Indianapolis Times to publish something, a secret dear to the heart of a man as was Dickens, for his story, I’m sure, will be good news. Let every one wish for the success of The Indianapolis Times’ prosperity, and to its editors the same wish, and may the sale of the editions mount to millions. P. S.—ls this is worth space in your editorial column, I’m sure readers will agree this is a wonderful venture for Indiana’s leading newspaper, The Indianapolis Times.

1 lectors, put the balance in charity fund to aid the unemployed. It wcifid give several unemployed men and women work, and cut down the township trustee’s expenses for coal and food to the unemployed. , And who would miss a paltry sum of 25 cents each week? The ten prizes would put money in circulation and help all along the line. True, there is a law prohibiting gambling, but it is violated every day in smaller ways, so why not violate it big and for a good cause? No doubt, it would stop the sale of outside tickets and keep the money at home, where it belongs. a a a AID YOUR OWN CHILDREN IN WORK B. T. M. Squawky The child labor cartoon was wonderful. Like a good show, one could see it over again. It should be on the front page. I’d like to tell you a story about a child who was employed by her mother at the age of 3 to dress herself. She was paid weekly. Some mothers dress their children until they are 10. This child of 3 learned many things from her employment. She learned about the week, the names of the days, the number of day in the week, and something of money. Would you believe that on her own decision she bought stockings ; to match her most beautiful dress, j For a pale green silk dress she I bought pale green silk stockings that matched to a shade. She looked like a doll in them when she went places suitable for her to wear them. e a a HERE’S AN NRA COMPLAINT FOR JOHNSON By C. S. I wish someone would explain the NRA to me. I have a brother who has a small business and before ; he could get the blue eagle he had to employ one or more persons. He did this. Now, I have been in drug stores j and numerous other stores where \ they display the blue eagle, and they have no extra help outside of a member of the family. They do all their own work, and still they say, “We do our part.” Then, others are making their employes do twice as much work and tell them to step on it or they will lose their jobs. No, I suppose you will not print this, but two-thirds of Indianapolis is going this and getting by. Then, I suppose when the public sees this eagle they are to believe they are doing their part, which I say they are not. I have been a reader of 4 The Times for more than twenty years , and proud of it. a a a APPARENTLY GREENWOOD IS BAD PLACE FOR DOGS By a Times Reader. I wonder if your paper will have the courage to print this statement? The weekly news in this town is hogtied, and afraid to print anything

.MARCH" 6, 1934

to offend a few wealthy people who; run the town, but will you investi- > gate and print something on the most horrible thing and about the rawest deal a few men can pull off in a village where the people are too dumb to fight for their rights. I mean the wholesale killing of some thirty-five dogs in this town in crowded streets, people's yards, everywhere children and women were walking. The brave marshal let bullets fly. I have lived here all my life, but it’s the worst yet. Os course, they will have their tracks well-rov.ered by now, but I am telling you it smells. a tt tt SUGGESTS ANOTHER TAX TO AID UNEMPLOYED By It. H. 4 Scientists have made statements that labor saving machinery has, made no idle hands. As for myv self, I can’t see it that way. Perhaps some of the readers of your column could help me by criticism. At present we have plenty of taxes, but why not add another and put a tax on all labor saving machinery from tractors to multiple drill presses, and so on down. Taxes should be figured according to the human hands it would have required to do the same work in 1916. This tax would go to the CWA fund, and, in the future, give people work inscead of charity. I really think this would help the unemployed without hindering science in any way. I am not old fashioned, and believe in machiery as much as anybody, but I would not object to a just tax on same, if it was used in the right way. I am a Times reader. tt a tt ROOSEVELT IS GREATEST MAN, lIE BELIEVES By Ray Adams Well, folks, I don’t know much about McNutt and his affairs. The city and state already were in a mess. I am not well enough educated to figure it all out, but I’ll say this: If you had raised as much hell with the Republican administration we would be better off today. I do know that our Democratic President is doing all he can to help us, so let’s all get behind him and give him a great big hand. I give Lindbergh credit for crossing the ocean, but many of us would have tried as much had we had time and money as he did. But now, I’ve changed by mind after reading his telegram to Roosevelt whom I regard as the greatest man since Abraham Lincoln.

Does It Matter

BY FRANCESCA Four walls and a window—a bed and a chair, A desk, a bookcase, a light; Four walls and a window, it all seems so bare, When I climb up the stairway at night. A laugh with a heartache, some tears with a smile, And trouble I keep in my heart; I suppose i'll get used to this life afterwhile. When I’m better at playing the part. Two disappointments to every weei j°y, • ' Few wishes they never come true. Why can’t ± sleep till the world passes by, When there’s no one to care if I do?