Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 275, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 March 1934 — Page 12

PAGE 12

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I*•■AP j o *AD Give Light and the People Will Find Their Oicn Way

WEDNESDAY. MARCH 28. 1934.

THE TRUCKING STRIKE 'T'HERE are three parties to the Kibler Trucking Company strike: The employes. the corporation and the public. Unfortunately the public seems to have been forgotten while the other two have been making the streets of Indianapolis a hattlefleld for the settlement of their differences. The strikers, who have gained considerable public support, will lose the sympathy of neutrals by indulging in violence. They have a good case and the heaving of bricks and splitting of heads adds nothing to it. The company, whose attitude has indicated that it believes labor troubles should be settled as they were back in 1390. has asked the city to deputize private detectives as guards for their trucks. Such a proceeding can not and will not be tolerated. Indianapolis wants no mercenary pluguglies riding the city streets under the delegated authority of the community. The regular police are competent to maintain order. If the evidence presented to the United States labor board is correct, the Kibler Company has conducted itself in such a manner as to provoke bitterness and violence. Last December a number of drivers were discharged because they exercised their right under the law to join the Chauffeurs and Teamsters Union, the strikers say. The regional labor board then stepped in and the men were re-instated, according to the story, and discharged for “other causes" a short time later. If this is true the company was guilty of an act of extreme violence. What could be more brutal in these days than depriving men and their families of their livelihood simply because the drivers availed themselves of their privileges under Section 7A of the national industrial recovery act? For weeks the Kibler company stubbornly defied the government’s efforts to bring about a settlement. The strikers were at all times ready to meet the employers under the auspices of the regional labor board, which was being backed to the hilt by the national board in Washington. Now at last, after street fighting and fifteen arrests, the concern is negotiating with its men. It is to be hoped that a prompt settlement will be reached. The Kibler company should realize that it is doing business in an organized society which is trying to pull out of the worst economic crisis in the world’s history under the leadership of President Roosevelt. It must be a good neighbor and get in step. Stiff-necked and recalcitrant corporations are likely to find business increasingly hard to get. People are tiring of the companies that are anxious to go back to the disastrous days of the nineteen-twenties when corporate interests were permitted to plunder their employes and the public without hindrance. Those who balk at going along in the recovery program will discover that they have only two alternatives: March or die. THE AIR MAIL POLICY yw ETURN of the air mail to private companies under temporary bids is part of a realistic policy of untangling the situation created by the Feb. 9 cancellation. Apart from the issues of guilt or innocence that brought it on, cancellation has proved that the army is not capable either through training or equipment to do the job. The record of private companies—still apart from issues of guilt or innocence—showed them to be capable of doing the job. Therefore, as things now stand, if the mail is to be carried by air at all, equipment and training of private companies should be utilized. The temporary bid policy will, accordingly, make possible for the government to pursue its investigation into past charges of fraud and collusion. It should do this to the last scintilla of pertinent evidence, punishing the guilty and absolving the innocent; and at the same time getting the air mail carrying job done without further endangering army fliers who do not know the routes and whose planes are not yet fitted to such work. Under a measure already passed congress has provided adequate means and appropriations to train and equip the army to carry air mail. This is a vitally important corollary to the temporary bid policy. Through it the government is creating a weapon by which future exploitation through private subsidies can be curbed and controlled successfully, as the Roosevelt power policy provides a yardstick for private power companies. It is important also as a matter of justice that, in following through on the charges which brought forth cancellation, the government should present full opportunity for hearing to all private companies claiming innocence of collusion or wrongdoing. In the final analysis it is more vital to society that every moral aspect of this whole controversy be cleared up and settled finally than it is that people shall be able to get their mail delivered by air. FOOLISH TALK A NOTHER bewildered Tory has crept out of his cyclone cellar and expressed his peevishness because a great economic tornado has changed the appearance of the landscape. He is one Stuart Wells Utley, president of the Detroit Steel Casting Company, who spoke yesterday at the annual luncheon of the Indianapolis branch of the National Metal Trades Association. When a man is frightened badly he is prone to foolish talk. Mr. Utley is obviously in the midst of an attack of the jitters about President Roosevelt and the new deal. Also, if the gentleman is an established authority on political economy the fact certainly h&s *

escaped us. So what he said is of no particular consequence except as a symptom of the methods of reactionary critics. Here are a few gems gleaned from his lengthy phillipic, which he called “The Road to Moscow:” “The basic laws affecting the lives and conduct of a people are as fixed as the laws of gravitation or physics.” Come, come, Mr. Utley, when you started out in 1902 as a clerk with the American Radiator Company how much was known of the law of physics governing the atoms which compose a steel casting? What was the law of the fatigue of metals? Had the speed of light been charted accurately? Were not the scientists in the American Radiator Company convinced of the truth of Newton’s law? Had they ever heard of, or even suspected, Einstein's law of relativity? No, you know the laws of physics change as the human mind adds to itself knowledge and experience. tt tt tt “It (the President’s philosophy) is . . . the philosophy of Karl Marx and of Soviet Russia,” this steel-master continued. “I know of nothing more tragic than the spectacle of a great nation committing suicide. Stop this vicious thing while there still is time, lest you force your sons and daughters to go through a bloody revolution to regain the liberty fast slipping through your hands.” This is the sort of balderdash that may be expected for several months from hysterical exponents of the “old deal,” which, while it brought exorbitant profits to a few, carried suffering and starvation to 12,000,000 substantial Americans. We are going to hear the President’s policies characterized as “bolshevistic,” “red,” “anarchistic,” “communistic,” “radical,” and a thousand and one other adjectives by reactionaries who put their minds in the ice-box when they clipped their first bond coupon. As the verbal deluge begins it might be well to define accurately some of these terms which are being tossed carelessly around by old ladies of both sexes. Let us turn to that conservative volume “Webster's New International Dictionary” for 1933: “BOLSHEVIK—From the Russian “bolshe” meaning the larger or majority. In Russian politics a member of the radical wing of the Social Democratic party—any radical socialist who believes in the overthrow of private property BY FORCE and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Since when has the national administration advocated force? Or suggested the dictatorship of any particular class in America? tt tt a “ANARCHISM —The political and social theory that ALL government is an evil.” Has the President ever suggested the abolition of all government? “COMMUNISM —A system of social organization in which goods are held in common.” When has Mr. Roosevelt ever suggested such a thing? “SOCIALISM —A political and economic theory of social reorganization, the essential feature of which is governmental CONTROL of economic activities to the end that competition shall give way to co-operation and the opportunities of life and th.e rewards of labor shall be equitably apportioned.” Is the President seeking to control economic activities or merely to bring them under decent regulation? “RADICAL —In politics, one who advocates radical and sweeping changes in laws and methods of government with the least possible delay, especially changes deemed to tend to equalize, Or to remedying evils arising from social conditions.” Perhaps the administration might answer this description more nearly than any of the otherj, but what of ft? What is so terrifying about a radical? “LIBERAL—Not bound by authority, orthodox tenets, or established forms in political or religious philosophy: friendly to suggestions, or experiments, of reform in the Constitution or administration of government.” This, we think, is the category into which Mr. Roosevelt fits. All that he is trying to do is to apply the scientific method to economic and social institutions. The Wirts, the Utleys and the Ogden Millses controlled society in the middle ages. They were a privileged class and at that time their great fear was scientific knowledge. Their privileges were based upon the ignorance of the ordinary people. Therefore they burned and persecuted those who believed the world was round ot that the earth revolved about the sun. Fortunately the smallness of their numbers today and the spread of universal education make a return to the rack and the thumbscrew impossible. Luckily the Tories in these times have to vent their prejudices in talk which may be annoying but which is as harmless as a tin whistle. Mr. Utley, we believe, should devote himself exclusively in the future to the manufacture of steel castings. GIBERSON—A. W. O. L. IN the hysteria that has followed the escape of John Dillinger from the Crown Point jail, it appears that Indiana has overlooked something. Would it be too pointed to call to the attention of law enforcement agencies that Dillinger may not be the only prisoner at large? Think back, you officers of the law. to an afternoon a few weeks before Dillinger strolled away from jail. Do you remember, by any chance, that the newspapers carried a story that Ernest (Red) Giberson. suspect in the Indianapolis slaying of Police Sergeant Lester Jones, had left for parts unknown? Do you remember that Giberson said a hasty good-by? Perhaps, since Dillinger seems to have the situation well in hand, the state's law enforcement agencies might turn back the pages to Giberson and see what can be done about bringing him to justice. How about it? Baltimore specialists have an anesthetic that works in twenty seconds and produces no ill after-effects. Congress would like to know about it, before passing the next tax law. Tammany Leader Curry refuses to quit. He shouldn't. He helped elect a reform administration in New York, and he'll do it again so long* as he’s leader. Wisconsin has 290,000 more cattle than people, but most other states find it more profitable to milk the people.

THE VETERANS’ VETO AGAIN the ’country is presented with the spectacle of the house of representatives overriding a presidential veto on more money , for veterans. The government already is giving the veterans upward of two-thirds of a billion dollars a year. The government is facing a $32,000,000,000 debt on the backs of the taxpayers, and must get billions more for the recovery program on which the whole nation depends. And yet the house runs wild, willing to wreck that recovery program. Os course, it is a campaign year, and many of the representtaives are afraid of the veterans’ lobby at the polls. But that can not be the entire answer. There seems to be a sense of irresponsibility. The same thing which allows the house to accept an absolute gag-rule without whimper one minute, seems to drive it to the opposite extreme the next minute. But whatever the house has done, and whatever the senate may do, we believe the country is behind the President on this issue. If this turns out to he the first major issue in congress on which the President is defeated, it is not the President, but congress that will suffer in public confidence. For this debate in one form or another has been going on so many years the public mind at this late date can not be befogged by propaganda. Apart from the all-important recovery program, the issue is whether additional expensive special benefits shall be given to veterans who were not disabled in'the war. The war disabled veterans should be and are being cared for; where any doubt exists there is fair and sympathetic opportunity for appeal. And to make doubly certain that this just relief shall be accorded, the President has added $117,000,000 to the initial $486,000,000 a year. WHat of the veterans who arq not in that class? If they are in need, under the general recovery and relief program they should be helped not as a special favored class, but as citizens of equal rights with other citizens in distress. That is the just way. That is the honorable way. And we believe with the President it is the way most veterans would choose.

Liberal Viewpoint DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES' •=* IN the formative period of the new deal much was said jpy its sponsors about building an economic future which w r ould be devoted primarily to the interests of consumers. The new age was to be an era of consumers’ capitalism. In spite of this, the overwhelming majority of the activities and energies of the new administration have been devoted to the promotion and control of production. Yet, production, however wisely directed and administered, will mean only factories covered with moss and cobwebs, rusty machinery and glutted inventories, if sufficient purchasing power for the mass of Americans is not assured. Therefore, the articles by Henry Kittredge Norton running in Today, are extremely timely and helpful, and it is to be hoped that influential people in the administration are reading them with due thoroughness and solemnity. Mr. Norton differentiates clearly between producers’ and consumers’ goods: “Every dollar that any one of us spends goes to buy one or the other of two kinds of things: It is spent either for something we want because we c-in enjoy it—a meal, a suit, a taxi ride, a seat r' the theater, or a marcel wave—or it is spent .r something we think we can make money with—a farm, a factory, a machine, an engineer’s plan or a lawyer’s services in organizing a corporation. “When we ‘invest’ in stock or bonds or mortgages, we are simply buying/ somebody else’s interest in some of these money-making things. “Ail goods and services which depend for their value upon their earning power are ‘producers’ goods.’ All goods and services which are purchased for enjoyment, satisfaction or need, are ‘consumers’ goods'.” tt tt tt IT is obvious that a scientific and proper balance must be maintained between our expenditures for producers’ and consumers’ goods. Thus far, we have put far too much in producers’ goods and been too scanty in our allotment for consumers’ goods. Hence, we are today far better equipped to produce goods than we are to provide consumers with adequate purchasing power to buy them. When we put too much money into producers' goods we throw the whole capitalistic economy out of balance and reduce all values. Our national wealth is not any mystical entity which has a permanent and fixed value irrespective of economic conditions. Its value has a very definite relationship to the volume of consumption and the resulting business activity. If, for example, we take away 10 per cent of the funds needed for adequate consuming power and put it into unnecessary producers’ goods, we cut about six times this amount from the active and practical value of our national wealth. The rich, who supply most of the money for producers’ goods, often think they are extremely shrewd in saving at the expense of consumers’ purchasing power! They can see no particular reason why they should turn their billions to the services of consumers. Why not save for further investment in capital plant or personal enjoyment? But the joke is on them, nevertheless. Every time the rich capitalists try to save at the expense of the consuming public they lose much more than they think they are savihg. tt u tt ‘TJE can't hang on to it. He must lose it beJrt fore business revives. He always has. It is taken away from him in various ways—inventories are depreciated, security values fall, ; bonds and mortgages defaulted, moratoria ' are declared, businesses fail and leave their creditors unpaid, savings accounts are drawn upon to pay for necessary purchases, foreign loans are defaulted.” * If we use the approximate figures for the 1929 situation as to national wealth and consumers’ needs, it cost the wealthy producers about $48,000,000,000 to save $8,000,000,000 at the expense of consumers. In the meantime American business is thoroughly disrupted in the bargain. How much more sensible it would be if the producers could save the $40,000,000,000 they i have lost through their short-sighted folly and, | at the same time, keep business in a healthy condition. To assure us a real consumers’ capitalism, we must bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth. This will solve the problem in all of its aspects. Far and away the greater part of consumption is carried on by the mass of people with small income.'. If they get a fair break in the distribution of the total, there will be less left for investment in unneeded producers’ goods and the resulting disruption of our economic order. A drfver in Bridgeport, Conn., was fined w’hen his automobile threw mud on a pedestrian. Mud-slinging is reserved for politicians. A scientist is being sought in New York as the leader of a gang of international spies. He might be located with a spy glass. A man in Michigan, who kept a tiger in his home for two years, is going to get married. Trained lor the worst.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

■' -•-'*':*••• •’•*.?r ■■■'■•’ ' - o ** o \ ,Vf\ / / . x \\ I _<v N

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 259 words or less.) tt tt tt PARTY SLATES FOR VOTERS CONDEMNED By Robert F. Shepherd. During the last several sessions of the legislature the people have been denied their day in court, not many will deny. That the professional politicians and the highly paid lobbyist for special and selfish interests have been able to get theirs, practically all will agree. Now with this fact established, or should be, what is the cause and what is the remedy? If the people really are sincere in their desire for a legislature or any other public group which' will be truly representative of their interests, then it is up to them to exercise with discretion that power which is placed solely in their hands. Mr. and Mrs. General Public have in the past been far too apathetic toward their government and those they have selected to run it. There has been far too much partyism and not enough thought to policy and honesty of purpose of the aspirants to this and other offices. This situation can be changed, but in order to do so I believe the following fundamental rules must be strictly adhere to: 1. Quit permitting the professional party politicians to pick your candidates for support. That is just what you do when you vote party slates. 2. Make your own slates, after careful investigation and study of the various candidates, to determine their politics and their honesty to carry out their convictions after election. 3. Quit voting for just a mere party emblem. Make that secondary to the other qualifications. After these dominant faults have been corrected, then and only then will the people ever be able to elect a general assembly, or any public official who will be responsive to their will. tt tt tt HE HAS NO ADMIRATION FOR PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1 By Colonrl C. E. Woods. The successful escape from prisons after numerous crimes of bank robbery and murder by Dillinger seems to have won the "admiration” of many (?) people who are watching the progress of the scoundrel’s evasion of the sleuth hounds of the law on his track. I can not understand how anybody can "admire” such a notorious robber and murderer, a potential menace to the lives and property of law abiding, but defenseless, victims of his dementia for crimes of the most dreadful nature. He is a constant terror across the entire nation. How anybody can express or feel “admiration” for this fiend I can not understand. I’d be glad to have you broaden bj* mental comprehension of the meaning of “admiration.” Robin Hood, the fabled English outlaw, lived by his depredations among the aristocracy of England—but he never shed blood to rob his victims. His physical strength and speed of foot and crafty ensnarement of his well-to-do victims gave him a place in history as a master marauder with a benevolent side to his nature that made of him a worshipful type of hero for children. Jesse James, Frank James, and their gang of robbers operated in my state of Kentucky sixty years ago, and were not unlike Dillinger in their bloody methods of killing and bank robbing. There was a glamour about their heads—after their deaths—that I fear polluted the springs of life that begot such imitators as Dillinger, Capone, and their ilk. g

PUT ON NEW TIRES

The Combat Soldier s View

By H. E. Thixton. To my two buddies (the legionnaire and veteran) I emphatically wish to say that I have no apologies to offer and positively refuse to hang my head in shame. My statements are based upon my own observations and are not representative of any veterans’ organization. As to your membership figures, buddie, I am not convinced, but in the event that the economy act really had such a stimulating influence, then you should hail it as a savior of your order. At the then existing rate of decline you soon would have had to borrow members to form a firing squad. As to the political side of the question, I will refuse a discussion because I am interested ...olely in the veterans’ cause. Now as to the legionnaire’s statement that many of the legion are doing everything within reason to assist the unfortunate veteran, I will agree partly, but they are handicapped for lack of influence. Those who possess the power of influence evidently are those of the white shirt brigade who never have heard a gun fired in battle and are absolutely ignorant of the inhuman sacrifices required of the combat soldier. With thanks to the editor of The Times, I am able to quote the comparative figures relative to the average rate of compensation paid to the home service veteran and the combat soldier. Quote, “The Times more than a year ago forcefully pointed out the grave injustices suffered by men actually hurt in battle. It showed that the average monthly compensation for disability received in battle was $39.09, while disability received in the United States paid an average of $48.57.” How can any reasoning person explain those figures in line with good, common sense? From the days of Cantigny and ChateauThierry to the signing of the armistice our casualties were 100,000, more or less, killed and wounded. I also believe that records will' show that it was the men oldest in point of service who did the so-called fire eating. Where were the feather beds for the combat soldier? No, his was the life of a groundhog, sleeping amid painful abuse of the lice

I think that a person who truly “admires” Dillinger without mental reservation needs watching, particularly if he or she be an adolescent. “Admiration,” according to my own definition, is a sort of spiritual quality that sprouts from the heart as well as the intellect, and should debar a juryman from service more than if he had read and formed his conclusion of a defendant’s guilt or innocence in advance of the testimony adduced at the trial. How can the spiritual quality of the heart, “admiration,” be set in motion, and the tongue moved to express for such a brute aught but supreme hatred, scorn, denunciation and death at sight. Webster’s definition of “admiration” is this: “Wonder mingled with approval, excited by beauty or excellence. To regard with delighted approval,” etc. If you know any one who reacts thus to Dillinger’s escapades, I’d like to interview him and broaden my own capacity to thrill with delight whenever I read that another bank has been robbed, another prison's bar lowered by stolen money of dead and living victims of this arch fiend, who I would shoot dead at sight and pull the noose around the lawyer who defended him.

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

and trench rats which rated more service stripes than the Prussian guards. Where is the physician who can tell the world that any man could survive that tortuous hell, subject to high explosives and poison gases, and return in good health? In comparison, let us consider the life of ease which was accorded the home service soldier. No veteran truthfully can say that Uncle Sam was not a good provider when the mess call sounded in camps over here. Only the choicest, wholesome food was placed at your disposal. Excellent hospitals with the best of the medical profession in charge were located within the sound of your voice. Actual days of enlistments of the home service soldier in most cases did not exceed a year’s total. Sanitary conditions of camps never have been disputed. Today a great demand exists for organized efforts to sustain our cause, but results never can be achieved through organizations whose leaders sell out every year. One year they want the bonus and the next year they do not. Well, Mr. Legionnaire, I am at a loss to understand what you were doing so long in that hospital that you were able to observe so many fire-eaters doing all kinds of menial tasks to keep from going back to the front. Did it ever appear to you that had you entered the hospital on account of wounds that you also might have enjoyed a little overtime there? There are too many today w’ho offer only abuse for the combat soldier. He has been neglected and denied a well-earned recognition, not only by the less interested but by many of his former comrades in arms. The ex-combat soldier harbors no ill feelings toward the home service veteran, but I personally will tell the w'orld that they are not equals in what the nation owes them. No policy, political or otherwise, can make them so. If there is justice in placing the higher rating on the man who remained back of the lines, then I certainly must be suffering from shell shock. If a pension rating is justified for simply wearing a uniform, we may all profit by another war.

STATE PREVENTS HIM FROM EARNING LIVING By B. 8. N. [ I have been out of employment, ; similar to many others, during this j “temporary economic readjustment.” After many starving weeks, I have ; an opportunity of selling a certain j insurance policy that I am positive ! will make me a living. I have a young daughter to support. However, I that the state will not allow you to work until you pay your poll tax of $3 and a license of $3, even though you may qualify in every other respect. This may be justified, in what we call normal times, but in an emergency exceptions should be made, upon swearing out an affidavit as to an individuals condition. Six dollars may seem an insigni- ! Scant sum in this land of plenty, which is skidding along “half boom and half broke,” but to me it is a mountain and I can’t move it. Many other states, like North Dakota, for illustration, are recognizing this condition in many ways for the benefit of the people in their states. I soon will have to go on some kind of relief or reside in Hooverville. I would like to be a “r jgged

3LARCH 28,1934

individualist” but I am licensed as “out of work” by our beloved Hoosier state because I am not a capitalist to the extent of $6. I am not writing this to bring out my own situation but in the hope it might aid others. EAST SIDE CITIZENS WANT NEW STREETS By East End Citizens. Well, what are you going to do, sit around and wait until the Pennsylvania railroad gets that old roundhouse down and their new coach yard in? We east end folks have been trying for years to get one or two streets cut through between State avenue and Rural street. Now is the chance before the Pennsylvania railroad starts on the new coach yard. All that the city would have to do would be to buy one of the auto junk yards and order the Pennsylvania railroad to elevate. Come on now, get on the job. or must we turn this job over to the News? Members of the works board say it will be impossible to get the streets cut through at this time because it would necessitate a track elevation project, an improvement that the South Side Civic League has been trying to obtain for several years. The city has exceeded its bonded indebtedness and has no money for a track elevation project. SUGGESTS LINDBERGH FOLLOW AVIATION By a Progressive After reading Walter Lippman’s verdict on Lindbergh I feel more resentment than ever against the flier. He acted like a spoiled child. He must have the swell head. The administration was wholly in the right when it slapped his ears down for his first message. He is an aviator, not an adviser to tell our government what it should do. It looks like he wanted to get his name in the paper. He says he is not a lawyer, still he wants to give the administration advice, then when he was offered a place to help out of it he pouted a nasty refusal. I say let the administration handle these matters and keep the political mud slingers out of it. F.di'or’s Note—ls “Just a Helper” will supply The Times with the accurate address or will come to this office and supp’y additional J inforrraion, his identity will be kept confidential.

So They Say

I think the Americans are so strange. They like to do what they will; they do not like to be told no. So strange, they are. but so nice, too. — Gregor Piatigorski, Russian cellist. Personally, I no longer trust what Hitler says, but would love to see him put his love of peace into prac-tice.—Vice-Chancellor Emil Fey of Austria. President Roosevelt has really accomplished the ideal. I believe.— Mme. Lotte Lehmann, Viennese soprano.

Neon

BY POLLY LOIS NORTON I know jewels not from Ophir, or Samarkand, Jewels not of times origin But made by man's own hand. Like men who brave a battle They stand, nor flick an eye. Nor are they owned by kings and queens, But by every passerby.