Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 288, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 April 1934 — Page 14

PAGE 14

The Indianapolis Times (A fCRirPS-HOWABD NEWSFArF.It) ROT W. HOWARD President TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Basinets Manager Phon—Riley 5531

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Pa - R - *- i L sgHpL sf*' 0* J * O** Ai# Giw Light and th§ People Will f{rut Their Ovn Wat

THURSDAY. APRIL IS. 193*. COSTLY NEGLECT TNDIANAPOLIS apparently is functioning under the theory that lives must be lost before any efforts are made to prevent such tragedies as occurred at Eugene street and the canal Tuesday night. Four women, strangers in Indianapolis, were hurled into the canal when their car was driven over a railroad track and switch at the end of the street. Believing they were driving on a through street a block south of the scene of the accident, these four women, all from Lebanon, found no warning sign or barrier to herald their mistake. Three of the women were rescued but another was drowmed. There is no excuse for failure to have this dead-end street marked properly. There is no alibi for the fact that an automobile must run over railroad tracks before the driver is aware that the thoroughfare has ended. Investigation by The Times at dusk last night revealed that a blurred sign is visible several yards from the canal bank. The sign can not be read at a distance which would enable a motorist to stop his car in sufficient time to avoid crashing over the tracks and possibly diving into the canal. The sign is an old one. Apparently it was placed there several years ago when the Hoosier Motor Club voluntarily marked many dangerous traffic intersections and dead-end streets. The paint has faded on this sign. Even the skull and cross bones barely are visible within a few feet of the canal bank. Several months ago when an automobile hurtled the bank of Fall creek at Talbot street and two persons-drowned, the city rushed into a series of precautionary measures. Much of this work still is to be done. There is no additional reason for delay on the part of the parties responsible for protecting such places. The excuse that there is no money available for such work is a complete failure. Proper equipment for protecting lives is cheap at any cost. POLITICS OUT OF AVIATION TT is a tradition that the chief political leader of a party shall become postmaster-general when that party goes into power. For example, Walter Brown, Republican; Jim Farley, Democrat. Into the hands of those two men falls the task of handling such a highly technical problem as air mail. Now, skill in one line doesn’t by any means make a man skillful in another. The best surgeon in the world couldn't run the twentieth century limited. Backing away from the whole mess and getting a perspective, we believe the situation in which commercial aviation finds itself today is due to the fact that skilled politicians were put in charge of the operation and development of something in which they were not skilled. The policies of the Republican, Walter Brown, were challenged and upset by the Democrat, Jim Farley, Apart from all the issues involved, the charges and counter-charges, one conclusion is obvious; neither was equipped by training or experience to make final decisions about so complicated a matter as aviation and air mail. Looking, therefore, to the future of what is certain to be—when the whole tangle is straightened out—a great and growing industry. a sensible course seems clear. Take this highly technical task out of its political environment and turn it over to men whose business it shall be to run it as the interstate commerce commission runs the railroads. That course is provided in several measures that already have been proposed. It should be included in any final measure by which the future of commercial aviation shall be guided. COSTLY SQUALOR A'* HEAP housing, as rich America knows it, 1 is a city’s most expensive indulgence. Witness the results of a survey just made of a typical slum area of Cleveland by Howard Whipple Green, consultant for public works administration housing division. The record reveals this slum area costing the taxpayers more than twice as much in fire, police, health and other services as the average metropolitan area of similar size. In this blighted region, where dwell 2.47 per cent of Cleveland's population, fire protection takes 14.4 per cent, police 6.5 per cent of the taxes. This region absorbs $1,177,000 more tax money than the $785,000 required by the average area of equal population. These burdens, of course, do not include the longrange tolls in sickness, delinquency, crime and premature death that every slum exacts from society. Cleveland is no worse than most cities, and better than some. States and cities now striving to put their fiscal houses in order should amend their laws and ordinances to enable them to finance low-cost rehousing projects. Squalid tenements are economic as well as social millstones. Progressive communities will refuse to carry them. AN AMERICAN SOCIALIST r)R a man who had to fight hard through the years and who achieved few, if any, of his goals, Morris Hillquit lived an unusually happy life. His newly published autobiography, “Loose Leaves From a Busy Man" (Macmillan) , seems to prove the old copybook maxim that joy is in the struggle rather than in success. No movement has failed more completely, at least on the curface, than the Socialist party of which Hillquit was a national and International leader. In this country today*it

WHEN a clear-cut Issue arises honest folks must stand up and be counted. The strike at the Real Silk hosiery mills is, we think, such an issue. It is a head-on collision between the labor policies of the Roosevelt administration and those of the “rugged individualists,’’ whose mistaken and archaic beliefs caused a great economic collapse. The President has made it plain that employes have a right to bargain with employers through representatives of their OWN choosing. The management of Real Silk wishes its workers to seek representation through the Employes Mutual Benefit Association, a company union. This, several hundred skilled workers have refused to do. They are asking the management to deal through the Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor. Who are the parties to this serious dispute? On the one hand there is the Real Silk management. In 1923 the social justice commission of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the department of research of the Federal Council of Churches had a joint investigation of labor conditions in Real Silk. These conservative churchmen, after painstaking research, reported that while the company union functioned well on minor matters, such as health benefits, it was of little consequence on such questions as wages and hours. “It appears that when the company determines upon a general reduction of pay the board (of the company union) may not be seriously taken into account,” says the report of the rabbis and clergymen citing a wage slash among the “seamless fixers.” “Mr. Goodman (head of the plant) called a meeting of the ‘fixers’ and announced to them that their wages would be cut and that any one who did not agree was free to quit. The matter was submitted to the executive board (a joint body made up of members from ihe management and the company union) one week after Mr. Goodman’s announcement to the ‘fixers.’ The board after a week’s consideration approved the new plan of payment.” That certainly does not sound like true collective bargaining. The report of the clergy says later: “The revolt In the full fashioned department was suppressed only at the cost of installing ‘individual contracts’ (by which employes agreed not to join outside unions) together with the espionage, suspicion and discontent which still obtain in this department.” The striking employes charge that these conditions, found by the religious organizations in 1928, are still pretty generally true today under the new r deal. The other party to the conflict is the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery _ Workers. This union is, in many respects, unique among labor organizations. Fortune,

lacks the strength it had in the days of Debs. In England under MacDonald it largely was enchained by the Tories, while in Italy, Austria and Germany it was easily swept aside by Fascist dictators. Only in Russia has Socialism been victorious—and that in the forum of Communism which Hillquit and the other orthodox Socialists hated almost as much as they hated capitalism. And yet Hillquit, shortly before he died, closed his life book with these words: “Having chosen and followed the unpopular course of a Socialist propagandist, lam entirely at peace with myself. I have nothing to regret, nothing to apologize for. If, forty years ago, I could have foreseen all phases of the tortuous course of the Socialist movement in this country and in the world, I would have done exactly as I did. If I had forty more years of life in me I would continue spending them in the Socialist movement, without regard to its ‘practical’ prospects or immediate accomplishments. To me the Socialist movement with its enthusiasm and idealism, its comradeship and struggles, its hopes and disappointments, its victories and defeats, has been the best that life has had to offer.” He was consoled by the fact, also, that many social reforms first advocated by his party were later forced on the other parties by the pressure of events, and so became law. It was vicarious achievement.

A NEW PROBLEM TT is still a great deal too early to get a fair slant on all the effects of repeal of the eighteenth amendment. Enough time has passed, however, to make at least one thing pretty clear. Repeal unquestionably has added to the difficulties of an already tangled automobile traffic situation. The traffic commissioner of a representative metropolitan police department, pointing to the fact that this year's traffic fatalities are substantially higher than last year's, asserts bluntly that “the most significant single factor is the novelty of legal drinking,” and goes on to add that alcohol has figured in a larger percentage of fatal and less serious traffic accidents during the first three months of 1934 than in the first three months of 1933. It is not only the fact that drunken drivers get out on the road that complicates matters—although this, of course, is the worst part of it. Drunken pedestrians reel out into the street and get hit. Furthermore, financial difficulties having caused most cities to reduce the scope of police activities, there are fewer “beat” patrolmen on the scene to collar such men and lug them off to the police station to sober up than there used to be. And there is still another angle to it. There is more night life now in the average city. More people are on the streets after midnight than used to be the case—and not all of them are cold sober. Empty roads on the edge of town are more dangerous now, along about 2 in the morning, than they used to be: exhilarated revelers, homeward bound, zip along such boulevards at breakneck speed and all too often reap the literal reward of such speed—broken necks. All in all, the evidence is pretty strong to show that repeal has introduced an ominous new factor into the traffic problem. What needs to be done in the face of this new factor is not at all clear. That there is hardly a city in America which has enough traffic policemen goes almost without saying. That the police and the courts need to

Out of Step A Statement .

a conservative magazine for business men, described it in January, 1932, as “a hard-boiled labor union which does its own wage cutting, which has entered into an offensive iind defensive alliance with its manufacturers, and which is the white hope of stabilization in a chaotic industry.” The fundamental theory of the Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers is that if employes are to make higher wages, the employer must be aided to greater profits. It employs experts to study management problems. It foresaw the depression before the employers. In August, 1929, before the Wall Street crash, this union made its members accept a 15 per cent w’age cut! This was to prepare the union shops for the depression which was coming. “In August, 1930, in the face of pronouncements from bankers, business leaders, and the president of the American Federation himself that prosperity could be recaptured only by keeping up wages to 1928 levels, the union cut its members’ wage rates 12 to 40 per cent more,” says Fortune. “It has taken most of America a year to realize the union was right.” The Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers regards itself as tne partner of management. It uses direct mail and radio advertising to promote sales of union shop products. It does not parrot “more money for less work,” as do a great many other unions. It enters seriously into the problem of management and tries to give its employers sympathetic co-operation. Its membership is made up overwhelmingly of highly skilled, Ameri-can-born whites. It has been a heavy contributor to flood sufferers and victims of other disasters. It never has held to communistic doctrines and its officials say they know of not a single Communist fen its membership. In view of the union’3 remarkable policies and record it is regrettable that a few of its members in Indianapolis have indulged in acts of violence. Heaving bricks convinces nobody. The property of Real Silk and its employes must be protected, and those guilty of disorder should be prosecuted. The depredations of a corporal’s guard of irresponsible persons should not be permitted to cloud the main issue—the right of any group of workers to bargain with management through ANY representative they choose. This does not mean a closed shop at Real Silk. It does not mean forcing unwilling employes into a union. It does not necessitate the abolition of the Employes Mutual Benefit Association. It does mean adherence to the plain and unequivocal labor policies laid down by the President of the United States, whose administration was so overwhelmingly indorsed by the voters of Illinois yesterday. Real Silk management is out of step with the recovery program.

adopt a much more hard-boiled attitude toward traffic law violators is equally clear. Most of all, however, we need anew sense of individual responsibility. The man who is driving a car actually is handling a weapon as dangerous as a loaded revolver. It's perfectly safe if he handles it carefully. It's a nasty menace to public safety if he doesn't. And it's high time that every auto driver tfas forced to realize the fact. A Philadelphia man, without a job, finds himself legally married to two women, when his first divorce was annulled. Now he has a job he didn't look for.

Liberal Viewpoint =By DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES =

IT has been asserted that our school text books on economics should be rewritten to take into account the new deal and its implications. Few, however, went so far as to hope that the leading economic adviser of President Roosevelt would prepare a systematic w r ork on economics for use in our high schools. But here is a book written by Professor Tugwell, in co-operation ■with Professor Hill of the University of Chicago (“Our Economic Society and Its Problems.” By.Rexford Guy Tugwell and Howard C. Hill. Harcourt,. Brace. $2.50). The work is a fresh, original and extremely illuminating description and analysis of contemporary American economic life, all written with the aim of answering the question of “how can we raise our levels of living?” Those who have feared that Professor Tugwell lacks breadth or background will have any such ideas fully dissipated by reading this book. If every American pupil of high school age could oe compelled to read and study it carefully, we would have anew deal within another generation, whatever happens to the present Roosevelt experiment. Professor Atkins recently edited an excellent textbook in college economics. He now has prepared an original and stimulating volume for high school students (“Our Economic World.” By Willard Atkins and Arthur Wubnig. Harpers. $1.68). While the book is not as revolutionary as that by Professors Tugwell and Hill, it is certainly vastly superior to the majority of books in the field and should do much to create civilized, intelligent and competent American citizens. bum PROFESSOR BYE of the University of Pennsylvania has brought out anew edition of his excellent book on applied economics, written in conjunction with Professor Rewett of the University of Cincinnati (“Applied Economics,” by Raymond Bye and William Hewett. Crofts, $3.50). Much new material has been added to cover such contemporary problems as inflation, Fascism. Communism and economic planning. It is intended for college use and ought to help immensely in introducing some realism into the economic perspective of college students. The long and profound depression in which we still flounder has stimulated interest in the study of the business cycle. But most works on this subject have adopted a soii of fatalistic attitude and have implied that nothing could be done about? it. Professor Clark takes a different point of View (“Strategic Factors in Business Cycles,” by John Maurice Clark, National Bureau of Economic Research. $1.50). While accepting the reality of the business cycle, he contends that certain factors in our business life can be controlled in such a fashion as to help stabilize business and lessen the disastrous results which accompany the periodic oscillations of prosperity and misery. Dr. Bums has prepared a highly scientific production in the United States since the Civil and accurate study of the growth of economic war ("Production Trends in the United States Since 1870,” by Arthur F. Bums. National Bureau of Economic Research. $2). He comes to the conclusion that there has been no evident decline in the rate of growth in the total physical production of this country since 1870. Individualistic capitalism thus has kept up production, but it has made no comparable effort to insure a parallel growth in the purchasing power of consumers. Without thin, our productive record has only led rm into the aby&Si

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES -

(Time* readers are invited to express their views in'these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to SSO word* or less.) bub MAN. POTENTIAL CRIMINAL, FOLLOWS EXAMPLES DAILY By Physician The reaction of the public to the case of John Dillinger should be looked at with a clear perspective, because it clearly illustrates some of the important fundamentals in the psychological life of man. Every individual is a potential criminal. I can say this with conviction because I am familiar with the human acquisitive and sexual instincts. These instincts constantly are making demands upon the individual for gratification, and it has been for the express purpose of curbing these demands and the keeping of them within consistent bound* that a social organization has been created. The social organization has been largely successful in this achievement, but it must be remembered that co-ercion has been the method' employed and that the instincts have by no mean3 been destroyed. The diametrically opposed, forbidden tendencies of the individual and the tendencies of society make of the former a potential criminal.' If at any time the expression of the instincts exceeds the limits imposed by society, the law r has been violated and punishment is imposed to discourage emulation. This conflict is perhaps most violent during the periods of puberty and adolescence, for the agencies of civilization have at this time their greatest responsibility. The expressions of youth are difficult to curb. Thus we have had the experience of hearing a number of pupils of high school age state that an accused murderer should be allowed to go free. When we witness the spectacle of an individual forcibly exacting from society the things that he wants in defiance to all the rules which we have been forced to accede to, I have the strong suspicion that we are working off some of the tendencies on our own part through a sneaking admiration of him. Who among us has not murdered an enemy or appropriated his worldly goods in phantasy? The desire is there but its actual expression has been frustrated by certain factors in our own personalities which are the outgrowth of our relationship with society. If we can concede the truth of the principles briefly outlined above and recognize man for what he actually is, then we readily can see why it must be so essential that our laws should be made intelligently and enforced vigorously. To do otherwise is to encourage certain of the less socialized members of the group, and the psychiatrist knows that there are many of them, to follow the examples that have been so conspicuously set for them, nun TREE PLANTING PROGRAM NEARS CONCLUSION B j Indianapolis Council of Garden Clnba Due to rapidly advancing spring weather the “city of trees” planting program being sponsored by the Indianapolis Council of Garden Clubs and the park board will be concluded Saturday. Hundreds of fine young trees have been purchased by property owners in all parts of the city through the council and have been planted by the park board free of charge. Os special Interest has been the replanting at man/ tribs a North Delaware

/oiilg. \ / OH f o \ & "S (ro Sr U- J \ ti& V,.. - R.O.36RCT *

The Message Center

WE WERE EXPECTING SOMETHING

By a Reader. During the last three or four years of the depression where could a needy person borrow S2OO or $300? In Indianapolis there are several loan companies which have been more than glad to help the poor fellow with a loan. After the expenses of conducting this business—paying the employes, paying interest to stockholders and small investors, there is not much profit in the business as some people believe. It is necessary to charge the present rate of interest in order to get necessary capital into the business so they always will have enough money to take care of those who wish to obtain a loan. However, the main purpose of most loan companies is to help the poor devil who is in need. Also, it is necessary for a loan company to get a good interest on a loan because of their losses, which is estimated at one-half of 1 per cent, according to their figures. During the last two or three years people of good reputation and standing, such as bank employes, school teachers and city employes, have found it necessary to turn to these benevolent institutions. If it were not for these loan companies, I dread to think what would happen to these poor devils. Do these people who are causing all this discussion and argument realize the part the small loan company is playing in restoring prosperity to the country? Every one know’s that to bring back prosperity we will have to buy what we produce. The loan companies are loaning money to worthy people who, in turn, pay their bills, buy a few necessities and start production. This increased production helps every one and the man who borrowed now is making money and can pay back his loan. The loan companies try to help the bor-

street, south of Sixteenth street, where the trees were sacrificed recntly for street widening. Orders for trees will be taken until Saturday afternoon, at the office of the Council of Garden Clubs, on the main floor of the Architects and Builders’ building, Vermont and North Pennsylvania streets, and all trees will be planted carefully by the park board. All purchasers of trees are urged to water these young trees thoroughly during any (fry spell. Many trees fail to grow because of the negle<n in watering. The first year of planting requires the most care. All information in regard to the tree planting program may be obtained by calling the council office, Riley 3633. a a a' PERHAPS YOU’D BETTER ASK O’MAHONEY By D. C. Nolan The writer sees by The Times, that there are two men, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, running for the state senate from Marion county. One is Joseph P. o'Mahony and the other is Joseph F. O'Mahoney. Now I don't know either of these gentlemen, but I was bom in Dublin, Ireland, and my mother’s name was O'Mahony (no "e” in the name). I know Irish genealogy well and am a graduate of Trinity college, class of 1920. (There la no such name as OMa-

Supports Loan Companies

honey in Ireland. Can The Times explain how it got into Indiana? a a a DEMOBILIZATION OF CWA IS UNDER FIRE By R. Vi'. Gibson William H. Book, state CWA director, has said that no discrimination was being exercised against certain workers and that most of those w r ho lost their jobs were single men. He also should have added that no discretion was being exercised. I will qualify that statement by saying that my foreman was informed that he and his crew of men were off the pay roll. There were fifteen men in our gang. Nothing was said about single men, because we didn’t have any. Thirteen men have a total of fifty-seven children, all of school age or younger. The foreman and truck driver have no children but they do have World war service records. Both were overseas ‘two years or more. Our truck driver was in the Rainbow division and his outfit was not a division held back behind the lines in support of reserve. He was in the front lines for twenty months. Our foreman was one of the finest fellows you ever met. He formerly owned a retail business in this city, back when Andy Mellon was President and Hoover, with his bunch of “just around the corner*” boys

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

rower to live within his income, and many times help him work out a budget. This promotes friendship with the borrower and often is the stepping stone to success for the borrower. He knows that the company Is trying to help him and are willing to help him at any time. Many of the employes of these loan companies live very modestly in the northern section of the city. They are expected to live within their income. Os course, the employes are free to borrow. And now something about the interest charges. A friend borrowed S3OO from a loan company about sixteen months ago. He had accumulated bills approximating this amount. After he returned to work, he decided that he would borrow enough to pay off his debts. This loan company paid off his bills and he began, repaying in monthly payments. After he had paid regularly each month for ten payments, he again was thrown out of work. This time he was without work for almost six months and could not meet his payments. The loan company did not worry him about it and was exceedingly patient with him. Once more he has a job and has not created but a few small debts. All he owes is his loan from the load company. Ido not know how the interest is figured on a S3OO loan. My friend says he owes the loan company $310.10, but I believe this is a mistake inasmuch as he paid back for ten monthly payments and the $3lO is more than he borrowed to start with. Those who are in charge of studying these interest rates surely do not want to help ruin a business organized to help the needy people of this city and state. Recently I read about a loan company failing because they could not make profits above their expenses. Judging from this, it seems that the loan companies rates are not too excessive.

.APRIL' 12,1934

was on the pay roll. He lost every dollar he had, and he took it on the chin like a man. Another fellow in our gang who was overseas for two years, and was with Pershing on the Mexican border before the World war started, and his feet shot so full of holes that he hardly can walk, and he has spven small children. Do you call that laying off single men first? Consistency, thou a jewel!. Every man in our gang, includjng, v the foreman, was on township re- v lief before the CWA was started. We have been returned to that relief. Not a man in our gang has any income from any source unless he has a job. We are not crying, and we are not calamity howlers, but we do feel that the wishes of President Roosevelt, the greatest President since Lincoln, are not being carried out in this program of demobilization—Mr. Book’s statement notwithstanding. We knew it was bound to come sooner or later, as the CWA is to be demobilized by May 1. We didn’t expect to w r ork to the last day. Neither did we expect to be let out the first week. I know single men who are working. It seems to me the good purpose for which the CWA was intended has been defeated. o b a PLEASE WRITE COMPLETE DETAILS TO THE TIMES Bv D. C. Smith In our community a number of farmers have secured employment in the factory, leaving a nurr.oer'of shop men occupying the side hncs. Would It be possible to apply the process tax and pass it back to the shop man? Would Secretary Wallace be the proper man to handle this matter?

So They Say

I have never done any miracie3 and I always distrust miracle workers.—Gaston Doumergue, premier of France. American women are charming, but are all so alike as to be indistinguishable. the one from the other. —Emil Ludwig, author. The fates have struck some hard blows at Europe.—Stanley Baldwin, British statesman. There is no remedy that ever will Replace or make obsolete the way to fellowship.—Prince of Wales.

Poem by a Girl

BY HAROLD FRENCH Tr.ere were enough forewarning clouds Where lilies grow in Hemmon's lane. And just enough of sheltering elm And just enough of rain. Was just enough of quick surprise As two young strangers met. For there was room for two blonde heads To keep from getting wet. Was just enough of romanc: he And rain the shade of pearl. There was enough of boyhood there And just enough of girl. A morning woods and dripping tree* And wet leaves on the ground, And just enough of breath to kiss With just enough of souocL