Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 272, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 March 1934 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times (▲ SC Rll* TS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) BOY W. HOWARD Prwrident TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Bulncs Manager Phone— Ellsy 5531 Members of United Prew, EScrippa • Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Company, 214-220 West Maryland street, Indianapolis. Ind. Price in Marion county, 2 cents a copy; elsewhere. 3 cents—delivered by carrier, 11 cents a week. Mail subscription rates in Indiana. $3 a Give Light ana th year; outside of Indiana, 85 People WiU Find eent * * month. Their Own Way

SATURDAY. MARCH 24. 1934.

THE WORLD COURT MYSTERY 'T'HE senate hearings on the world court resolution prove that advocates are not limited to peace organizations, but extend to many large conservative organizations which round out public opinion. These conservative groups include the American Bar Association, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the federal Council of Churches and the National Grange. In view of this wide public support and the fact that both political parties are on record in favor of the court, the everlasting delay in ratification must be as inexplicable to Americans as It is to foreign nations. Os course, there is a senate minority opposition. But with the administration in control of the foreign relations committee and of the senate, it has a good fighting chance to force a vote on the issue. Hence the question: Why has the administration failed to put the world court on Its legislative program? The answer seems to be that the administration fears a filibuster, which would endanger the more pressing recovery legislation in this very crowded session. This Is a reasonable fear. Neither the world court nor anything else should be allowed to block essential emergency legislation. The lobby against the Stock Exchange and labor board bills and the munitions probe doubtless would like to see a world court filibuster. It is quite possible, however, that public sentiment is so strong at this time in favor of the court and against any filibuster methods during the national emergency that final action could be speeded by the administration. After all these years of debate on the subject, and after all the foreign members of the court have accepted the Root protocol covering the senate reservations, there is no excuse for prolonged speeches. Without any illusions as to the power of the worid court to bring the millenium, we nevertheless think that American nonmembership is a disgrace which the President should try to remove by pressing for prompt senate ratification. If the President runs into a filibuster which the administration and public opinion can not break, he can then sidetrack the court fight before it sidetracks the recovery legislation. Any kind of quick showdown would be better than letting the minority opposition win indefinite delay merely by bluff and default. need for protection /k NEW Y ORK judge the other day called attention to a glaring flaw in the legal machinery which is supposed to protect citizens from financial loss as the result of automobile accidents. His warning was issued after a New Yorker had struck a man and his wife with his auto. The couple sued him and w r on a judgment of $6,500. The motorist promptly filed a petition in bankruptcy, citing the judgment against him as his only liability and his assets as nothing. Asa result, the motorist got off scot free, and the people he had injured were unable to collect n red cent. To the judge, this case stood as a warning of the need for a compulsory liability insurance law; and the judge’s viewpoint looks very sound. No man should be permitted to drive a car unless it is certain that any one he may injure will be able to get financial redress from him. TARIFF AND POPULATION CAMUEL CROWTHER and others opposing the President’s plans to revive foreign trade through reciprocal agreements should ponder a report by experts of the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems. This reveals America entering a period of static population. Last year departures exceeded arrivals by 41.000 persons. On Jan. 1 our population totaled 126,144.000, a gain of only 797.000 for 1933. This Is the smallest gain, with two exceptions. since 1870. If the population growth continues to diminish at the rate of the last decade we may look for a fixed population of 130.000.000 in 1940. In that case what would happen to our industrial system without world trade outlets? Our production capacity is forty times greater than it was a century ago. Must this greatest wealth-producing mechanism of all history work only for 130.000.000 home folks? Or should It also work for the world? The latter, surely, unless we are prepared to scrap the machine. Outside of these tariff walls of ours there are 2,000.000,000 people. 80 per cent of whom are living below the poverty line. There is our potential market. But If we will not buy. we can not sell. American capitalism has done many wicked things; but nothing more stupid than strait-jacketing industry with high tariffs. From a business viewpoint America selfcontained also Is America self-condemned. POLITICS MUST REFORM IF present tendencies continue, the whole face of American politics likely is to be changed almost beyond recognition. ■nils change is not simply a matter of a new alignment of the two national parties. It will be concerned, rather, with the mechanics of government, especially of local government. Our conception of the duty which an officeholder owes to the public, as contrasted with his duty to his party, may at last be brought up to date. You can get an understanding of what the change may be like bjr oormideriyg a

proposal recently advanced for a series of state factories in North Dakota. This scheme has been propounded by Senator Lynn Frazier, Republican, and A. C. Townley, organizer of the Nonpartisan League. Under It, the North Dakota industrial commission has asked the PWA for a loan of $4,000,000 to finance a chain of state factories —seventy-five of them, in all—to make woolen cloth, clothing, shoes, linseed oil, flour and so on. The idea is that these factories would provide work for the state's unemployed, help supplement the income of farmers, and turn the state's raw materials into manufactured articles. . Leave aside, for the moment, the question of whether such an experiment in Socialism is wise, and consider what pressure the scheme would put on the traditional, politics-ridden government of the average American state. It is reported at Washington, for instance, that PWA officials will not consider making the loan unless they are convinced that there will be efficient and rigidly honest administration within the state. And it also is recalled that officials of the CWA recently ousted Governor William Langer of North Dakota as state CWA administrator because of alleged political collections CWA workers. A stunt of this kind, in other words, simply would not work at all unless the state government were run with far more sense of public responsibility, and far less thought for political advantage, than we find nowadays in the ordinary state government. And if such proposals are to become part of our scheme of things—as, according to present indications, they may—it becomes vitally necessary for us to make our system of politics ready for them, DOLLARS AND HEALTH CO-OPERATIVE marketing came in quite sometime ago. Whole communities discovered that by purchasing a carload of potatoes or twenty-seven bushels of lima beans they could reduce the price of their food, and yet not let their vegetable plates lack any one of the well-known varieties. Women have co-operated, too, in the distribution of a maid or a gardener’s time. Oh, yes, we are getting organized. By a co-operative helpfulness we are seeing that our wants are taken care of. That is—unless those wants apply to our anatomical structures. And then, your stomach is still your own and nobody has much inteiest in the fate of your tonsils. The recent economic disintegration through which we have passed has made limp pocketbooks the universal thing. Luxuries had to be abandoned. Too often necessities did, too. One of the first items checked from the list was always medical service. It is quite time that something be done in the way of medical co-operation. Mary Ross, writing in the current number of Today, makes an interesting observation. She says that Detroit has adopted the policy of paying private doctors for doing in their own offices sc-vices ordinarily performed by health department physicians working under salaries. Immunization against diphtheria has been the most outstanding task. If parents have any money the doctor is handed three $1 bills. If not the city gives the medical man $1.50. It is all right, of course. Physicians should be paid and paid well. Only—a well-organized health department, Miss Ross points out, can immunize children for less than 35 cents apiece! If our medical system were organized properly, drawing our conclusions from this statement, every one would have access to the finest medical service at prices within the reach of all of us. No one has a right to place health and human life on a bartering plane. Any physician knows that he is accepting a divine trust when he pledges himself to the alleviation of human suffering. Whether or not he makes money should have nothing at all to do with his profession. If it does—then he should be digging ditches, shoveling coal or raising turnips! Women know, far better than men, the need of medical attention in a home. Women have more ailments than men. There are more times when they balance their accounts and wonder and wonder if they can afford to ask a doctor to prescribe for the pain in their backs, the catch in their shoulders. Too often they decide that they can’t. But if medical service were a co-operative affair within the reach of any one, health would show' a rising scale. A LIMITED LATIN AMERICA r T'HE attitude of people in the United States A toward Latin America is apt to be very sentimental,-if not altogether false. We either romanticize our colorful Latin neighbors, or look upon them as a market on which we can dump our surplus goods and thus not only fatten our own purse but modernize a backward civilization. In either case we rarely see Latin America from its own point of view, its own achievements and its own needs. Dr. Frank Tannenbaum is able to do just that. His latest book, “Whither Latin America?” tCrowell) is a realistic study by an expert. He concludes that Latin America has no future as an industrial civilization. It lacks the necessary natural resources. That in turn definitely will restrict its role in international affairs. Dr. James T. Shotwell, who writes a foreword to the book, points out that, if the Tannebaum thesis is correct, Latin America is apt to develop a less war-like attitude than if it were capable of producing the implements and munitions essential to large scale war. Tannenbaum has much to say about the agricultural organization which he describes as the basic concern of the people, and "the major political issue.” Tilling the soil is the chief business of the masses of all those countries; even in the mining nations of Peru. Bolivia and Mexico, 80 per cent of the population are dependent on agriculture. Hence the major importance of the land problem, and the tiller’s right to the soil. “Latin America in a greater degree in the future than ever in the past, because of a prospective decline in the rate of industrial growth dependent upon exports abroad,” Tannenbaum writes, "must learn to live within its own resources.” Baseball is becoming popular in Russia and golf has been made the national sport of Germany. Those countries might adopt ex sports, but not our politics.

MOVIES AND MORALS WE will not have to worry about bootleg movies this year. The house interstate and foreign commerce committee sensibly refuses to interest itself in Representative Wright Patman’s movie censorship bill. If the bill had become law we might have looked forward to speakeasy picture houses in each block, for the measure attempted to bar any film which “in treatment or subject matter harmfully portrays the life, manners or customs of this or any other nation or which holds up to ridicule, disparagement or contempt any race, nationality or religion, or which fosters ill-will among or to- , ward the people of this or any other nation, or tends to debase or corrupt morals or to incite to crime, or to disrespect for law or religion, or which promotes or encourages war against the peace of the world, or which is harmful to the public or any portion thereof in any respect.” It is hard to imagine any kind of film against which that sweeping ban could not have been made to operate. Os course a picture should not be harmful to the public or encourage war or to do most any of the things Patman mentions. But who is to say when it does? The decision can not be forced by law or reached by a censor. If there is one lesson the American people should know backward and fonvard, after its bout with prohibition, it is that morals can not be legislated into people. People will drink what they want to, they will read what they please and they will look at the kind of movies they like. This does not mean, of course, that the public will be at the mercy of producers and distributors of obscene books or pictures. The criminal law applies there, and experience has shown that juries make pretty fair judges of what is and what is not offensive to public morals. New York brewers recently chose the finest goat in America. How could they do that, when those participating in the contest didn’t include the thousands of depositors of defunct banks?

Liberal Viewpoint =By DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

IN our current drive for economy in state and nation, one very obvious and desirable avenue of saving apparently has been overlooked. We very safely could make a far wider use of parole in dealing with our criminal population. The possibility of saving very extensively through a sane use of the parole system has been set forth in an able statement by Warden E. Lawes of Sing Sing: “All agencies show that our steadily mounting penal costs are exorbitant in comparison to results obtained. Since 1920, the general population of our state'-has increased only 18 per cent while our penal population has increased over 144 per cent. “This tremendous increase is mainly due to the fact that the average sentence imposed in our state is more than double the average sentence imposed by all other states and the federal government combined. “It must be remembered that more than P 0 per cent of all those sent to prison eventually return to your midst. Although released from prison, they are placed under strict parole supervision during the transition period when the prisoner leaves the abnormal life of a penal community to the time when he has demonstrated his rehabilitation. “It costs an average of $435.19 per year to keep a felon in prison but only $46.81 to supervise him on parole. The last report shows that of 8.600 cases, over 93 per cent either completed or were continued on parole. “Unless we extend our present parole system we are faced with the imperative necessity of spending many more millions of dollars for new prison construction and maintenance. It is evident that our parole eligibility laws should be made more flexible. Such a program does not result in wholesale release of prisoners because careful selection of paroles is the basis of a successful parole system. tt u tt “•pvURING my thirty years’ experience in prison work, I have seen in operation many methods for the diminution of crime. Aside from purely preventive measures, extension of the parole system has been proved the most economically sound and socially beneficent deterrent to further criminality.” Such an extension of the parole system as Warden Lawes recommends would not only directly advance the cause of economy. It also would promote the reformation of the criminal and thus greatly reduce our scandalous crime bill. Parole permits reformational work in the environment to which the ex-convict must adjust himself if he is to go straight. A parole officer can do much more effective work than a prison official who must operate in the artificial atmosphere of a penal institution. Those who think such a proposition is a novel and dangerous suggestion may be referred to an article by J. S. May, published in 1847 in the Fourth Annual Report of the Prison Association of New York: “You ask me for how long a time he should be sentenced to such confinement? Obviously, it seems to me, until the evil disposition is removed from his heart; until his disqualification to go at large rib longer exists; that is, until he is a reformed man. How long this may be, no human sagacity certainly can predetermine. a a a “T HAVE, therefore, for many years been of 1 the opinion that no discretion should be conferred on our judges in regard to the length of a convict’s confinement; that no term of time should be affixed to any sentence of the court. The offender should be adjudged to undergo the duress and the discipline of the prison-house, not for weeks, months or years, but until that end for which alone he should be put there is accomplished; that is, until reformation has evidently been effected. “All attempts by our legislators and ministers of criminal jurisprudence to decide upon the degree of criminality in different offenders must be abortive, because only Omniscience is competent to do this. Even if human wisdom can ascertain the different quantities of evil flowing through society from the commission of different crimes, surely no legislators or judges can be wise enough to determine the comparative wickedness of those who have committed these crimes. “The man who has been convicted only of a petty larceny may be found, when subjected to prison discipline, a much more incorrigible offender than another who committed a highway robbery, burglary or arson. . . , One of the greatest improvements in the administration of our penal code would be to withhold from the judges all discretion as to the time for which convicts shall be confined. ...” It is # nearly a century since these words were uttered. It is high time that we should take their import more seriously. Postmaster Farley says politicians are more honest and truthful than any other group. But they’re such inveteiate jokers, don’t you know! „ Birds, says a scientist at University of California, can sing two notes at one time—the double crossers! There are eleven kinds of money in the United States, but most of us would be glad to get our hands on just on®.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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(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.) a a a HOLDS HOPE THAT WAR SHALL BE AVERTFIJ By E. I. E. Your correspondent in his article entitled “The Horrors of the Next War” predicts terrible scenes in the near future, with death and destruction following. The picture may not be overdrawn, but we shudder at the thought of it. It may be mere conjecture, but we hope sincerely that it may be averted. But no sane person can laugh it off. In this land of ours we have enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, but we w r onder if we have a right to expect it always. Other nations have been torn asunder, while we have sat at ease. Would-be prophets have endeavored to keep us in a state oiecstasy, and we have tried vainly to console ourselves with the belief that after all there may be some truth in their prophecies. But we have come to the conclusion that it does not lie within the range of man’s mind to cope with the situation. There is only One to whose government and peace there shall be no end. The day is not far off, according to divine record, when na>tions shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more. It was ever intended by God that his creatures should be sons of the soil, and not beat down their felllows in cold blood. a a a ARGUES CHRISTIANS FOLLOW TEACHINGS OF GOD By A. S. W. We find many Ideas given by leaders of our nation to remove the awful conditions of the present. Some say the Republicans are responsible. Others say it is the result of Wilson’s administration. But I do not believe any of these theories. I believe our worthy leaders have served in all good faith. But the people of the world have reached the climax. All the affliction we have to bear we have brought on ourselves. We have come on a level with ancient Israel. No history can show so much sin in this world as at the present time. There is only one way to eliminate this, and that is for this nation to repent, set an hour for prayer and every soul turn to God and ask Him for deliverance, and the victory is sure. God has not forsaken us, but we have forsaken him. We never saw the U. S. A. as wicked as at the present time. If we received what we deserve in our unwortniness, I fear we would endure more hard times than we do. But it is God’s mercy, not for our worthiness, but because He promised Father Noah to send rain on the unjust as well as the just. And now, to come to the point: When church members become Christians, cease their drinking parties, card parties, shows, festivals in the Lord’s house, cease to make the Lord's house a house of merchandise, and clean up, so we can tell them from saloon bums and bootleggers, I’m sure God will give us victory, in the name of His dear Son. a a a LIBERTY LOANS FOR NEEDY SUGGESTED BY READER By Charles Burton. Our federal government has been notorious for its charity toward foreigners. It has appropriated billions at dollars to sustain their industries. it has poured billions ai

THE WORLD AS IT LOOKS

Postal Cuts Are Scored

By A Substitute Postal Employe It seems a poor time for the government to lay off its employes and cut wages, when President Roosevelt is asking private industries to raise wages and cut hours. The postoffice department in Chicago has laid off more than 500 substitute employes. What little work is left for the sub employes of our local postoffice will net an average income of about $5 a week. Where is the NRA? The department has authorized one-trip service in residential territory and three trips in business.

dollars into the armies and navies of Europe. It will grant unquestionable doles to the god of war. It will bestow gifts of loans to the god of the Bank of England. It will hasten to the rescue of the starving Armenians, and the suffering Belgians. It even will descend so low as to appropriate money for pigs and cattle in the drought-stricken areas of the country. But it will throw up its hands in horror if it is asked in the face of an emergency to assist in feeding the citizens of the United States, who have been dispossessed of jobs and homes. And, to escape performing this duty, it will hide behind a false and stupid definition of a dole. But, at the same time, the government will extend real doles to banks and railroads and for the next human butcher shop. Back in 1916 and 1917, during the course of the war, hundreds of socalled minute men were responsible for the sale of thirty billions of dollars of Liberty bonds, for the purpose of buying bullets to destroy life, but, in 1934, these same financial geniuses are afraid to venture upon the sale of $30,000,000,000 worth of emergency bonds for the purpose of preserving life. a it WORK OF DR. GOUTHEY, MR. CADLE LAUDED. By Mrs. Vallie RJdpath As I am a daily reader of The Times and a faithful attendant at Cadle tabernacle, I have been hearing the way Dr. Gouthey has been praising your paper for the wonderful work you have been doing by publishing the great writings of Dickens. I think it would pay you to have a reporter right by his side and put some of his good sermons in there by Dickens’ writings. The people of Indianapolis do not know how newspapers feel about a thing like this. I think it would pay us all to get lined up with Dr. Gouthey and Brother Cadle and help to bring America back to Christ. tt a a REDUCTION IN STATE LICENSE FEE!? ASKED By R. H. W. Some of the large oil companies of this country are shedding a lot of crocodile tears over the fact that the motorist is paying a lot of money in gasoline taxes and some of it is being diverted to other uses than it was originally intendedbetter roads. I am a firm believer in tax reduction, but it is my opinion that if the tax on gasoline was done away with entirely, in a very short time we would be paying the same amount a gallon we now are paying, and may be more, and the money that is now going to the state and federal governments would be going into the coffers of the oil barons. Before the federal government reduced the tax one-half cent a gallon, the oil companies spread a lot of ballyhoo, especially on the radio, that on Jan. 1 the cost of gasoMnft would be one-half oeofc less •

The postoffice department always has been run to give public service. Postage rates are higher, but service is poorer. There is plenty of work for the substitute carriers if the department -would do the public right by giving them the service that they expect and pay for. It’s a mighty poor time for the postoffice department to enforce an unjust economy on the lowliest of its employes, the substitute employe. People have a right to two-trip service and four-trip business service and should demand it.

and the motorist would be that much better off financially. Within a very few weeks’ time after this announcement the oil companies raised the price of gasoline from 1 to 3 cents a gallon and once more the motorist dug a little deeper. Let’s keep our state and federal gas taxes and reduce the annual license and registration fee to just enough to cover administrative expense. This would mean a real saving to the motorist. Some of this money could be diverted to the state general fund and give a larger exemption to the man with a family on his state income tax. u u a WHICH OF THESE DEFEATS NATURE? By Hiram Lackey In last Tuesday’s issue of The Times we learned that scientific experiments in London give “promise” of future success in predetermining the sex of babies. What would be the influence of such powerful knowledge if it were used merely to gratify the whims of parents who have a preference for sex? In this matter can we not best trust to the wisdom of Mother Nature backed by her aeons of experience? ■With scientific birth control knowledge, these foreign experiments remind us of how much quicker scientific men supply us with power than are religious leaders able to convince us of its proper use. Religious leaders helpfully could pioneer the march of science if they would but apply to their efforts the urge which makes for the scientist’s success. His power is derived from his uncompromising love for and loyalty to the truth. Whereaver truth leads, he follows. But the clergy contends Chat stubborn scientific facts and stern truths inflict torture upon the sacred things. Os course justice demands the admission of many shining exceptions. However, many members of the clergy have found it easier to fight science than to accept and apply the righteousness of its findings. The fanaticism of the clergy defeats its own purpose by arousing opposing influences equally extravagant. Consider! Which group will have the most for which to answer: The fanatics who are largely responsible for the evils of delayed marriages, or those who are responsible for the evils of our low birth rate? Which class has most tragically defeated nature? DEMANDS OFFICIALS BE PUNISHED FOR FRAUD By a Citizen Your interesting “Message Center” contains daily letters of much universal appeal, which indicate the “pulse of popular thought, of both latent and active opposition to the methods of unfair “capitalism.” Thomas McGee and Barne Wade had recent letters much to the point. And when Wade touches upon "Judges and Attorneys”—he centers attention on a “hot spot” that has been too greatly obscured and *en jrefc little comprehended.

JIARCH 24, 1934

From bankers Wiggins and Mitchell of New York, down to local illustrations (libel deleted) why is it that we so infrequently hear (and hence realize) that at the elbow of men responsible for all the greedy skullduggery that has meant the loss of millions and consequent poverty to thousands of small, honest uninformed investors through the land, that, at the heart of all infamous planning: and later, in defense thereof, sits the crafty, and too often unscrupulous corporation lawyer, who always, regardless, gets his pound of flesh,” for cleverly prostituting the very spirit of law and justice. And yet with all their chicanery and oily and evasive way of “beating the devil around the stump,” the unprincipled lawyers were unable to protect capital from the consequences of their grasping selfishness. Behind nearly all the unscrupulous thieving and consequent loss of millions that has so nearly wrecked the faith of the plain, honest hard-working people of this country, lies the adroit aid of high priced lawyers, yet their responsibility seldom is voiced. A list is being compiled, for later publication, of a thousand outstanding frauds that have occurred over this country during the past four years (and containing ten local citations). It is amazing to see the class of lawyers, and frequently judges, who have been on the inside of such frauds. Is not it high time that we get the public finger of scorn pointed correctly at the venial greedy and unprincipled corporation lawyers connected with such wholesale ship wrecking. “Spiritual wickedness in high places,” is the name of the disease. Let us by careful investigation withdraw the veil of secrecy—here and elsewhere—and bring out the names of these lawyers connected with all financial pirating and shipwrecking. a a a WHAT ARE THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS? By State Republican, National Democrat Will someone please point out one thing that the state Democratic party has done for the working man, or any one else, for that matter? Also, what are the real reasons for paying a state income tax, especially that part making it necessary to go to the trouble of filing four times a year, and why should beer cost double in this state as against what it costs in neighboring states? DAILY THOUGHT And again, whom should I serve? should I not serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father’s presence, so will I be in thy presence.—ll Samuel 16:19. YOU know that love will creep in service where it can not go— Shakespeare. Reincarnation BY HAROLD FRENCH Two blasphemous notes have framed a splendor; A sodden leaf and hazy wood smoke. A doubt has left the landscape in terror, While myriad sun-streaks linger, hesitant. I am picking poppies and flinging them to death In fcrlom drifts—the world is unsteady, And if I will pick two poppies more Or one, is uncertain. I have picked Them before, but I can’t recall how many. My hands are tinged with a scarlet shame, I'm wondering if the poppies Z picked Before, and thece an the seme.