Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 285, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 April 1934 — Page 4

PAGE 4

The Indianapolis Times (A ICKirPS-HOffAED NEWSPAPER) ROT W. HOWARD Preldent TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Business Manager Phone —Riley K.'l

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Oiv Light and the People Wl rind Their Own TToy

MONDAY. APRIL 0. 1934. PAGE PR. WIRT TJ'OR fear Dr. Wirt and the Bulwinkle committee tomorrow will overlook some of the really dangerous influences in Washington we propose a thoroughgoing probe into the brain trusters, not only of this but of past new deal , administrations. The patrioteers will find less to shock them in the modest reformers of the Roosevelt regime than in the subversive utterances of American revolutionists that have slipped into history books and even now are being read by our youth in schools and libraries. For instance: “Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much higher consideration.”—-Lincoln. ‘ None shall ride but the humble, and none but toil shall have.”—Webster. “Thunder on! Stride on democracy! Strike with vengeful stroke.”—Whitman. “Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital.”—Webster. “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!”—Patrick Henry. “They are slaves who fear to speak for the fallen and the weak.”—Lowell. “Little rebellion now and then is a good thing. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”—Jefferson. SLUM CLEARANCE of the ways in which we are going to try to prime the industrial pump, apparently, is through a large-scale housing program. Before it begins, it's worth while to have a look at the dollars-and-cents value which such a program might have. Federal housing authorities have just finished a survey in the city of Cleveland, studying one particular “blighted area” to see how the present costs of the slums which this area bears would compare with the cost of replacing them. Its figures are illuminating. This area houses 2.5 per cent of the city's population. Over a ten-year period it has had 21 per cent of the city's murders, 2% per cent of its houses of ill-fame, 7 per cent of its juvenile delinquents, and 10 per cent of its cases of illegitimacy. Twelve per cent of the city’s cases of tuberculosis occurred in thus area, and 8 per cent of its relief families live there. In 1932 taxes totaling $225,000 were collected from this area. In that same year the city, the county and the board of education spent $1,357,000 in the area. On top of that, charitable and social service agencies supported by the Community Fund spent $615,000 there in that one year. Figures like these speak for themselves, and it is impossible to misunderstand them. Clearly, the existence of this slum is a tremendous drain—speaking solely in terms of finances —on the city as a whole. It does not even come close to paying for its cost. Every year of its existence it literally takes dollars from the pockets of citizens in more prosperous parts of the city. What would be the cheaper—to let this slum area go on as it has in the past, or to spend the money that would transform it into an asset instead of a liability? This case, of course, is only a sample. Every American city of every size has comparable situations. Every American city is paying, and paying through the nose, for the luxury of its slums. A large-scale housing program would not only help stimulate the capital goods industries; it would prove the best kind of investment that the American people could make. LACKING LEADERS IT is not a wholesome spectacle that house Democratic leaders are making of themselves on the tax bill. They demonstrated a deplorable lack of leadership when the house. 3 to 1 Democratic, voted 5 to 1 to override President Roosevelt's veto of the independent offices appropriations bill, which loaded new burdens on the federal treasury by increasing veterans' benefits. They now seem to be mindful that this is election year, and reluctant to break the news to the taxpayers that the bill will have to be paid. The taxpayers will not be deceived. The test will come in the vote on the proposed Couzens amendment increasing income rates 10 per cent. A better plan for getting more revenue from income taxes was Senator La Follette’s proposal of a graduated increase, which was voted down by the senate. Senator Couzens' horizontal increase is at least an alternative that will raise some revenue. And more money, raised by taxation instead of by borrowing, is what the treasury needs to insure success of the recovery program. Still more important, in regard both to revenue and social reform, is Senator La Follette's higher estate tax schedule, which the senate is expected to approve. On this amendment also there should be a record vote in the house, where it probably will receive just as enthusiastic support. If there is a roll-call in both houses it will be impossible for the conferees of the two houses to drop the amendment from the bill. Otherwise it may occur. Stranger things have happened behind the closed doors of a congressional conference room. WORSE THAN WAR THE people of England are beginning to grow alarmed about automobile traffic fatalities. Last year autos killed 7,202 people and Injured 216,329 more in the United Kingdom; and someone has discovered that this is a casualty list definitely greater than that

rolled up in any single year of the Boer war —which was, as wars go, a pretty bloody and expensive affair. Figures like that show how alarming the traffic toll really is under modern condition. Like the United States, England has been complacent under a drain on life and health that would cause an overwhelming outcry if it were due to anything on earth but the automobile. England's situation parallels our own. In both cases, it is becoming inescapably clear that some drastic new method of handling automobile traffic must be evolved. COMMUNISTS OBJECT! IF you're worried about the so-called “Communistic” policies of the national administration, it might comfort you to read what the real Communists of the United States have to say about them. The eighth national convention of the Communist party in the United States w T as held the other day. And the assembled Reds devoted a good share of their time to denouncing the new deal and all its works in no uncertain terms. Party members were called on to fight against the rise of Fascism, “as exemplified by the national recovery administration,” and were warned that the NRA is under the real control of the big industrialists. If there are government officials at Washington who want to make this a Communist nation, the Communists themselves don’t seem to have heard about them yet. THE NEXT STEP JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN, former Unit- ** ed States minister to China, returns from a trip to the far east with the Comment that the only important friction between Japan and America comes from our immigration policy that excludes the Japanese as racial inferiors. ’We doubt that this is the only point of friction, but certainly it is a major one. In a Paris speech Mr. Schurman urged that this friction be removed by putting orientals under a quota. “From, the diplomatic viewpoint,” he said, “whatever our oriental relations in the future they will not grow out of our position and territories there, but out of our trade and social relations in Eastern Asia.” This is true. Our prospective withdrawal from the Philippines under the Tydings independence law is conclusive evidence that we have no territorial imperialistic designs in the far east. There remain for us the far more civilizing relationships of commerce, travel and general international intercourse. It is trite to say that this relationship must be founded on good manners and mutual respect. Our present exclusion policy is neither good diplomacy nor good manners. The quota alternative does not mean an influx of alien cheap labor. It means just the opposite. Under a quota only 185 Japanese and 105 Chinese would enter annually, and none of these would be laborers. In a survey of the Japanese situation in California recently Professor Edward K. Strong Jr. of Stanford university, found that 3.4 times the quota allotment of Japanese have come into continental ports each year since the 1924 exclusion act was passed. The average between 1925 and 1932 was 632 a year. There is no doubt that the troublesome problem of smuggled orientals would tend to solve itself if the spirit of the gentleman’s agreement were w r ritten into law. Japanese officials would co-operate. The quota act has operated satisfactorily in restricting immigration from Europe. It can operate the same way in the Pacific. In improving our relations with Japan an intelligent immigration policy is the next step. “HOME RULE!” MAYOR LA GUARDIA Os New York picks up his mangled economy measure with characteristic cheerfulness as “the best that could be obtained out of a bad legislative jam,” and prepares to make the most he can of it when it becomes law. At the same time he points to other efty bills still pending at Albany, among them bills the city must V ave a levy emergency taxes and to finance carrying charges on its municipal subway investment, and says: I discussed all those bills with the Democratic leaders when I was in Albany, and I found that they are regarded with the same degree of enthusiasm and public spirit and interest in the public welfare that was accorded the economy bill. This is a bad outlook for a great community that overthrew a Tammany dynasty and elected a Fusion administration to rehabilitate its finances and improve its government. Despite its successful effort at home must New York still find a step after step of its progress hampered, if not actually barred, by the ruthless obstruction of its own Democratic representatives in the state legislature? Must its mayor go hat in hand to Albany, time after time, to beg New York city legislators to grant him some small part of the legislation he needs? Must he be humbly thankful to get a tenth of what he asks, even though he asks only what the city, from any but a machine politician's point of view, urgently requires? There is something wrong in a situation which permits Tammany, though defeated in Greater New York, to retain its grip on the city from Albany. The present legislative session is registering sharp reminders of the hollowness of home rule that is not home rule where many vital city matters are in the balance. The power of the legislature may, under certain circumstances, mitigate the consequences of misrule in New York City. But we are having sorry demonstrations of how that same power of the legislature can be used to handicap a good city government. Charter revision should go deep into this problem. Evanston, 111., cradle of the W. C. T. U., voted 3 to 1 against the sale of liquor, so the good old bootleg days of prohibition will soon be back.

HOLD THE GAINS ■pRACTICALLY all of the NRA codes of fair practices forbid the hiring of children under 16. The proposed simple fifty-three-word child labor amendment would permit congress only to “limit,” regulate and prohibit the labor under 18.” In view of the fact that industrial selfreform in this case has outstripped legal regulation, it seems incredible that eminent lawyers find it necessary to defend a proposal so logical and humane as this. Yet a reply to legalistic opponents is necessary. So in a statement urging ratification by the New York legislature, a lawyers' committee, headed by Charles C. Burlingame, former head of the New York Bar Association,' carefully answers arguments such as have been raised against almost every federal reform since the birth of the republic. To the well-worn states rights argument the committee replies: “Just as slavery, although primarily a social and economic problem, became a national question requiring national action, so the control of child labor has become a national question. It is Impractical to have child labor permitted in some states and prohibited in others.” The states are realizing this. They see that the amendment offers them freedom from a ' disgraceful interstate competition in which the states hiring children’s cheap labor will win. So far, twenty states have ratified, and next winter and spring, when forty-four legislatures meet, the required sixteen additional doubtless will follow. “The real question is this,” says the committee, “Are we willing to give congress the power to make permanent the child labor standards now incorporated in the NRA codes, or do we wish to permit the states to return to child exploitation and the consequent lowering of adult wage levels when the codes expire?”

Liberal Viewpoint l=By DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

Editor’s Note—This is the second of two articles by Harry Elmer Barnes. Ph. 8., based on H. G. Wells’ famous novel, “Tono-Bunjcay.” It becomes of interest in the lif;ht of the current debate over the pure food and drug's bill. Proponents of that measure make it clear that the bill is not aimed at legitimate proprietary remedies, but is intended to restrain quackery. n a tt SATURDAY, I called attention to the relevance of H. G. Wells’ great novel, “TonoBungay,” in the current battle to protect the American public against bogus preparations, sold under the pretense of being some great elixir capable of curing the most diverse human disorders. Today. I shall give certain excerpts portraying the -way in which this fake remedy conquered England: “We really worked infernally hard, and, I recall, we worked with a very decided enthusiasm, not simply on my uncle’s part but mine. It was a game, an absurd but absurdly interesting game, and the points were scored in cases of bottles. “My special and distinctive duty was to give Tono-Bungay substance and an outward and visible bottle, to translate my uncle’s great imaginings into the creation of case after case of labeled bottles of nonsense, and the punctual discharge of them by railway, road and steamer towards their ultimate goal in the great stomach of the people. “By all modem standards the business was, as my uncle would say, ‘absolutely bona fide.’ We sold our stuff and got the money, and spent the money honestly in lies and clamor to sell more stuff, “My uncle had in his inner office a big map of England, and as we took up fresh sections of the local press and our consignments invaded news areas, flags for advertisements and pink underlines for orders showed our progress. “ ‘The romance of modem commerce, George ’ my uncle would say, rubbing his hands together and drawing in air through his teeth. ‘The romance of modern commerce, eh? Conquest. Province by province. Like sogers.’ n tt tt “ITTE subjugated England and Wales* we W rolled over the Cheviots with a special adaptation containing 11 per cent of absolute alcohol; ‘Tono-Bungay Thistle Brand.’ We also had the Fog poster adapted to a kilted Briton in a misty Highland scene. “Under the shadow of our great leading line we were presently taking subsidiary specialties into action; ‘Tono-Bungay Hair Stimulant’ was our first supplement. “We broached the subject, I remember, in a little catechism beginning: ‘Why does the hair fall out? Because the follicles are fagged. What are the follicles? . . .’ So it went on to the climax that the hair stimulant contained all ‘the essential principles of that most reviving tonic, Tono-Bungay, together with an emollient and nutritious oil derived from crude neat’s foot oil by a process of refinement, separation and deodorization. ... It will be manifest to any one of scientific attainments that in neat's foot oil derived from the hoofs and horns of beasts, we must necessarily have a natural skin and hair lubricant.’ tt tt tt “ A ND we also did admirable things with our A. next subsidiaries, ‘Tono-Bungay lozenges,’ and ‘Tono-Bungay chocolate/ These were urged upon the public for their extraordinary nutritive and recuperative value in cases of fatigue and strain. We gave them posters and illustrated advertisements showing climbers, hanging from marvelously vertical cliffs, cyclist champions upon the track, mounted messengers engaged in Aix-to-Ghent rides, soldiers lying out in action under a hot sun. ‘You can GO for twen-ty-four hours,’ we declared, ‘on Tono-Bungay chocolate/ We didn't say whether you could return on the same commodity. “We also showed a dreadfully barristerish barrister, with side whiskers, teeth, a horribly lifelike portrait of all existing barristers, talking at a table, and beneath, this legend: ‘A four hours’ speech on Tono-Bungay lozenges, and as fresh as when he began/ That brought in regiments of school teachers, revivalist ministers, politicians and the like. “My uncle’s last addition to the Tono-Bun-gay group was the Tono-Bungay mouth wash. The reader has probably read a hundred times that inspiring inquiry of his, ‘You are young yet, but are you sure nothing has aged your gums?’ ” Mr. Wells’ book, “Tono-Bungay,” now is available in an excellent edition sold by the modern library for 95 cents. Friends of the new deal will be overlooking a good bet if they fail to get behind it and circulate it by the hundreds of thousands. It has as much punch today as it did more than a quarter of a century ago when it established Wells’ reputation as the foremost social novelist of contemporary England. The government, someone has discovered, has been spending much less than President Roosevelt thought it would. But now that the politicians know about it, look out! Senator Fess says he never has asked any one to vote for him, and never will. And never has he asked any one so loudly as before election. Richard Joshua Reynolds, tobacco heir, takes over a $25,000,000 trust estate on his twenty-eighth birthday. What we can’t understand is how he kept from starving until now,

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

ifi . mil - J 'S '; ! . .. ft ’

The Message Center

/Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them, to SSO words or less.) tt tt tt POLITICAL SUCCESS SECRETS LISTED By Charles B. Carson. Let us consider the proper way to be elected to public office. First get the personal and financial support of some wealthy person who has an ax to griad. Then pick out the party most likely to win at the next election and buy yourself a place on the ticket of the strongest faction in it. If you are not a good speaker or do not take a good picture the safest course is to retire from the public eye until the election is over. If you find that your face looks good on every telephone pole take an active part in the campaign. Be sure that your speeches contain nothing about yourself or your plans. Speak only about the bad points of your opponent. If he hasn’t any bad points hint at some you think he might have if elected. Make any promises that you think will get votes. Above all be “one of the boys,” even if it means kissing all the voters’ babies. Then after you have been elected you can take an extended vacation and let the faction you bought into run the job as it wants to. o a THEY’LL BE LUCKY IF THEY LIVE By Law-Biding Citizen. Roger Touhy and his two companions of Chicago (mixed up in the kidnaping of Jake Factor) looked healthy when the jury brought ‘n a verdict of ninety-nine years for each. Figuring it up, they will be free men on Feb. 23. 2033. How many good citizens alive today will be on-earth when the kidnapers are turned out of Joliet to w’alk the streets of Chicago when w ? e are dead and forgotten. Those three seem to be lucky! >* tt SUPPORT OF PRESIDENT URGED BY READER By H. Hurd, What is the Constitution? This question is answered in the preamble: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquality, provide for common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Then the Constitution was established for the purpose of seeming justice, liberty and freedom for the people. Then they provided a legislative branch to legislate from time to time as the people’s needs required. Then they established an executive branch to execute the will of the people, as expressed through their legislators. Then they had an arrangement for the people to have a revolution every four years and overthrow both the legislative and executive branches of their government and to establish another set of legislators and executives to function. Now% whab did these fellows know about airplanes and airplane contracts in 1787? It seems to me any man with a little horse sense would understand they meant that new problems would arise which would have to be solved. That is why we overthrew our government in Wall Street and moved '* to Washington a year ago. Our President seems to know the difference between the interests of the majority and the minority. We all love Lindbergh. He well cao handle the controls of u ? ir-

WELCOME APRIL SHOWERS

Challenge to Knox

By C. S. G. Wouldn’t it be just dandy if Colonel Frank Knox could make that speech he delivered at the Columbia Club the other night to the thousands of basket men in Indianapolis and Indiana or to the coal miners in southwestern Indiana or to the miners across the river in Ohio or in Harlan county, Kentucky? Wouldn’t those half starved birds fairly wallow in that speech, especially that part where he said the nation had turned toward “strange remedies”? In other w’ords, wouldn’t the basket men, the ragged, the jobless. the destitute lick their chops as the Chicago colonel monkeyed with the political buzz saw? Or would they? Wonder who the colonel thought hfc was kidding? Nobody but the twenty-two-steer crowd at the dinner, mostly office seekers, and politicians who are out of office wanting in. The colonel (here’s a laugh) talked about Indiana and what a

plane but we think President Roosevelt can and is handling the government just as w’ell as Lindebrgh handles an airplane. And, for my part, I want Mr. Roosevelt to continue at the controls for four more years after this present term. By that time he will be able to guide us across the ocean of our difficulties and land us safely on the other side of special interests and monoplies, wffiere w’e can be free people as our Constitution intended. So, let us stand by our President. n u u LANDLORD TURNS OFF GAS EVERY NIGHT. By a Times Reader. , I live in a large rooming house. All the rooms are rented and paying, yet our landlord doesn’t have very good heat, and every night about 8 p. m. he disconnects the gas so the roomers won't bum it for heat. Now what if someone w’as sick in the night and needed hot water, or what if someone would happen to leave a jet open on his stove at night and then be asleep at 5 a. m, the next morning when the landlord turns on the gas. I would like to know if there is a law against turning the gas off. Please answer. I have taken The Times for years and have read all stories since “Chickie.” I would like to have another story soon. More power to Westbrook Pegler. I think he is grand. And good luck to the Message Center. a a a BLUE EAGLES HAVE BEEN OUSTED HERE By the Main Street Observer. I live in Edinburg, an apathetic country town, located midway between Franklin and Columbus. Our town had grass in Main street long before Hoover made his famous die-hard utterance. We have no bank, no sewage system, exorbitant light rates and really no civic-minded people with enough “push” to get us out of the rut. We stood by last summer while Morgan worked employes as high as eighteen hours a day, and sometimes day and night in direct violation of the spirit and the letter of the NRA, and we did nothing. Now we have kicked the blue eagle clear out of towru Our business is mostly conncitrated on Main cross street in about one and one-half blocks. If you really desired to support Mr. Roosevelt and his recovery program, you w r ould boycott twenty-eight stores u yon

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

pristine state it is and how it can deliver the political goods, but he didn’t say anything about the notorious McCray administration; or the Ed Jackson administration which helped to make the horse famous and discredit the elephant. But the thousands of workless and destitute people in Indiana can take heart. Even as the Chicago colonel gave the Roosevelt administration hell the dinner guests must have felt the kick of prosperity as they devoured porterhouse steaks from twentytwo count ’em choice steers. Incidentally, wouldn't this whoopee dinner have intrigued the pinto-beans-and-stale-bread gang? Sizzling steaks and sizzling argument from the Chicago colonel, laved and washed by a tiny alcoholic tide! What a dinner! Let the G. O. P. bring the colonel back again—so he can address the basketeers.

passed by. because there are only five concerns with blue eagles in their windows. Incidentally, three of the five are chain stores. The blue eagle is reputed to be a proud, well-posied bird, even rather militant at times in his efforts to help this country recover from the depression. Down here he isn’t even seen in the postoffice, although I have been told by early risers, who have seen him peering around corners rather cautiously, that he is a droopy-looking bird that walks with an indolent slouch. Possibly, if General Johnson were to come to town some day the postoffice would order anew supply of blue eagles in advance because —we have kicked the blue eagle clear out of town. tt a CITY PEOPLE LOSE JOBS TO OUTSIDERS Bv L. L In reading The Times recently I see there is one man with me. I can’t see why people living out in the country and in small towns such as Martinsville, Plainfield, Greenwood, Greenfield, Zionsville and towns east of us as far as Pendleton, drive in to Indianapolis and work in shops, offices and stores. That keeps men and girls who live, vote and spend their money in the city, out of work. I think that we should be given first choice by keeping outsiders out of the city limits. Then we all could have more chance for employment, as there are enough men and girls out of jobs in town to do all of the work here. Friends, let’s go to the city council and see if they won’t help us. a a ANOTHER READER GIVES DILLINGER THE EDGE. Br Reader of Time*. If John Dillinger, Harry Pierpont, Makley and Clark had been bankers and stolen money from the people, causing many to commit suicide, the law would uphold them. They just took from the bankers what the bankers stole from someone else. These bankers are not as good as these men you call “terror gangsters.” The bankers pre end to be our friends, take our deposits and close the doors as we go oat. If any one should be tried for murder and robbery it should be them. John Dillinger ntrusted a man irt this town with J 15,000. This man was a friend of Ids until he thought Dillinger wanted his money, then he turned traitor and our police protected him. He knew the money had been stolen. Is he any tetter thea Dil linger l There is a

APRIL 9, 1934

law against any one receiving stolen goods, yet the law protected him. Matt Leach is just trying to get a lot of publicity so he can run for office. We imagine he ■will be disappointed when he does. ana PRICE FIXING UNDER NRA BRINGS QUERY By Herbert C. Klffart. Is price fixing under NRA to eftable the larger manufacturer to make even larger profits? Submitting a hypothetical case: The small manufacturer, A. operating under a code, produces toothpaste in competition with B. a larga man .facturer. Both sell their product . • 5 cents a tube, making a fair profit. The consumer pays 25 cents for the product. Now B introduces new labor-sav-ing machinery which enables him, still under code regulations, to double his output, thereby doubling profits, since the consumer continues to pay a retail price of 25 cents. Does not such an arrangement permit the large combines to make tremendous profits at the expense of the consumer? If the code in this case were designed to protect all concerned, why not say to the manufacturers: “A fair profit on this type of product is 50 per cent, determined by a federal board, and no one in this industry will be permitted to make more than this fair profit.” Under such a code of regulations, when the improved machinery was introduced, B. knowing that his profit was fixed, would be forced to divide the excess with labor (shorter hours and higher pay) and the consumer. Under such a code. A, of course, would be forced to become progressive to meet the lowered price charged to the consumer. Under the new twelve-point program of General Johnson I can find nothing that gives the consumer more than the lip service he seems to always receive. My questions are sincere and if someone will answer them It will help a number of us ex-service men to change their present attitude in believing that the NRA is nothing more than a paradise for the mighty manufacturer at the expense of both consumer and laborer, since labor can not expect employers to be generous when they have that minimum wage at which to shoot. All we seem to be able to find is, “shall not sell for • less.”

| Daily Thought

And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.— Exodus, 32:33. A MAN can not practice sin and be a good citizen. Burke says very truly: “Whatever disunites man from God disunites man from man.’’ —Chapin.

Waiting

BY HARRIET SCOTT OLLNICH Today I have no tears for anything. No little sorrows move me to despair. No little heartaches stir my sufferings. No torments pierce the armour that I wear. I am not stirred by love or beauty’! ache; I have no heart for any lovely thing. My heart is froaen as the wtcief ground That waits with stout aaka ttoa braath of spring.