Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 24, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 June 1934 — Page 22

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The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPHS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) RQI W. HOWARD President TALCOTT POWELL. Editor KARL D. BAKER Business Manager Phone RI ley 5551

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FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1934.

CURIOUS OMISSIONS TIyTUCH has been said about what the platform adopted by the Republican state convention DID say. Nothing has been said about the things it FAILED to say. The omissions, we think, in that platform were far more interesting than the matters it actually discussed. Granted that Indiana Repqblicanism petitioned itself into bankruptcy by the unanimous renomination of Senator Arthur Robinson—yet was that any reason why the party should have completely ignored the banking problem? Surely, stupid as the G. O. P. leaders have been, they must realize that thousands of people lost their life savings in bank closings in Indiana since the last state convention. Do they not regard such a catastrophe as of enough importance to merit some mention in the party platform? It is to that platform which the voters must turn for guidance. What does the Republican party of Indiana propose to do about banking anyhow? One searches in vain for an answer. Then there is the little matter of public utility regulation. The people have a right to expect some formal declaration from a major political party on such a subject. For more than two decades the utilities have had the rate payers of this state under their heels. They have influenced legislatures and public service commissions to gain their ends. They have owned the Republican party —lock, stock and barrel. These matters are common knowledge to every Hoosier over the age of 10. The result has been that the Indiana electric consumer has paid the highest average kilowatt hour rate in the United States. Recently some definite progress has been made toward giving relief from this intolerable condition. Real rate reductions have been made. Read the Republican platform carefully and you will find not even a hint of what the party's policies on utility regulation are. No one need be surprised that the whole conduct of the convention amply demonstrated that Indiana Republicanism has gotten completely out of touch with the people. Even its keynoter, Major Imrie, failed to do more than launch a few violently partisan, vest-busting periods. The major has an enviable war record—in the British army—became an American citizen only comparatively recently and resides much of the time outside Indiana, so it is not surprising that he showed considerable ignorance of the real feelings of Hoosiers. But certainly the leaders of the party, most of whom were raised in the state, might have done a better job at the convention. Apparently all they could offer the voters was a return to the good old days before the depression. Evidently they are blissfully unaware that people have starved, that business has been prostrate, that representative government has been seriously challenged in the past four years. What they seem to have is an attack of homesickness for the days and principles of McKinley. But the world does move on and if it leaves Indiana Republicanism behind, why, that is the party’s own fault. Meanwhile every one with common sense will be wondering just why that platform omitted all mention of banking and' utilities. STEEL STRIKE AND CONGRESS CONGRESS is doing a very dangerous thing in idling around with the Wagner labor disputes bill. During the last two weeks the nation has been drifting rapidly toward a general steel strike. And the total of congressional effort to avert that and similar calamities is exactly zero. About the only hopeful aspect of this threat from the beginning has been that it was not sprung as a surprise. There has been plenty of time to meet it. Yet nothing effective has been done. The fault rests with the federal government. It is all very well to offer the easy excuse that each side in the controversy is stiffnecked and uncompromising. Os course. This is almost always the case in a major dispute ahd this attitude of the disputants is the heart of the problem. It is because they are incapable of settling their own differences that the intervention of the third party, the public representative, is necessary to avert the clash. So to sit back and blame both sides for being unreasonable is futile. The public interest is at stake. It is definitely the government’s duty to step in. The government has gone into the controversy—that is, the executive branch of the government. Federal labor conciliators, Administrator Johnson and Counsel Richberg of the NRA, Labor Secretary Perkins and Chairman Wagner of the temporary labor board, have been in the dispute up to their necks. But there have been no results. That is where congress comes in, or rather where it should come in and hasn’t. Months ago, Senator Wagner, on the basis of his experience as chairman of the inadequate temporary labor board, informed the President and congress that existing government machinery was too weak, that anew labor disputes law, including a stronger board, was necessary to prevent widespread strikes. Since then Senator Wagner’s point has been proved by the repeated failure of existing machinery and by the lower court decision against the government in the Weirton steel case. The President has known all about this from the start. Indeed it was his ability to see ahead that led him early last fall to go as, far u he could toward creating the labor board which congress had failed to provide in the original legislation. And in his successive executive orders on this subject he

has stated repeatedly with clarity and force the need for a strong labor board to handle strikes. So his vision and his practical experience in office explain his co-operation with Senator Wagner to get action from congress. But neither the President nor Senator Wagner, nor the unsafe industrial situation, has so far been able to move congress. In the sehate a filibuster on the tariff reciprocity bill and now long-winded nothings about the silver bill continue to delay consideration of the labor disputes bill. The house has not even reported a bill out of committee. Meanwhile strikes and strike threats are not waiting on congress. We believe it is imperative that congress at once set aside other legislation until it has enacted an effective industrial dispute and labor board law. Otherwise if there is a general steel strike next week, congress will share the blame. CHARGES FOR THE AIR BOARD ■pvOUBTLESS the special board of inquiry, headed by Newton D. Baker, which tmder the War Department auspices is investigating the competency and equipment of the army air corps, will sift carefully the charges reported in this newspaper in a series of articles by George Daws. Persons interviewed iflcluded high army officers and congressional and civilian experts on military aviation. They are men who have been in a position to know and appraise the facts. But that does not necessarily mean that their charges and opinions should be taken at face value. A majority of the members of the Baker board are disinterested, public-spirited civilians, who can be depended upon to maintain an objective viewpoint. The others are army officers who, though not nonpartisan, have valuable knowledge of the facts and of the problems. Appointment of the Baker board was timely, coming as it did on the heels of the army’s air mail performance which dramatically centered public attention on the seeming inability of the army to fly in an emergency and under adverse conditions. Critical’ military and civilian experts have charged that the corps is deficient both in training and equipment, that it is not organized on a war-preparedness basis, and that in event of a major aerial attack by an enemy, it coulst not repel the ’ invaders. They have charged that too few of the army planes are fighting craft, and that the bulk of these are obsolete; that army pilots do not receive enough instruction in blind flying, and that the corps’ radio facilities have not kept pace with new inventions. Out of the Baker board's inquiry should come the whole truth and a satisfactory program. FORE! TT'S too hot to sermonize, but if anybody feels the call he’ll find a text in a report that 2,500.000 Americans now are active golf players and 500,000 more play the game off and on. The statistician adds that, next to firearms, sporting goods stores sell more golf equipment than anything else. A sociologist will see in these figures a millennial trend. The sport of kings and John D. Sr. now has become the folk play of shoe clerks and jobless carpenters. The wall of caste is being battered down with a mashie. The nature cultist will hail the passing era of bleacher athletes. Instead of developing only their lungs and peanut-eating muscles, on stadium seats more Americans now are out watering the greens and the rough with honest sweat and exercising their arms and legs and vocabularies by and for themselves. The therapeutic psychologist will rejoice in the golf courses’ call to the suppressed combative and adventurous instincts of men. As William James said, it doesn’t matter what stirs men to enthusiasm as long as they’re stirred deeply. The less didactic of us will go right on dubbing our shots and cursing and blessing by turns the unknown Scot who invented the most fascinating, infuriating, alluring and baffling game that ever kindled the scul of man. COSTLY CARELESSNESS WE are careless, we Americans, about our use of public property. Especially our streets. Ask yourself, right now, sir, how often you tear the cellophane from a package of cigarets and toss the crumpled ball into the street. Ask yourself, madam, what you did with the wrapper of that package of gum you opened downtown yesterday. Both of you, complying with ancient American custom, were just helping to make the downtown streets the messy, disorderly and dirty litter that they almost always are. New York has just found that it was able to cut the cost of removing street litter by 25 per cent by placing 10,000 uniform light wire baskets on busy corners for those cigaret packages and gum wrappers. People actually used them. Which shows that a little co-operation between park department officials and the people themselves can work wonders in keeping the downtown streets decently clean at lower cost. DEMOCRACY IN THE LEGION \ LITTLE more than a year ago there was a mild flurry when New York’s Willard Straight post of the American Legion adopted a resolution opposing immediate payment of the soldiers’ adjusted compensation certificates. The legion as a whole was for it, and had adopted an order prohibiting any post from making public contrary opinions. When the Straight post did so, it was suspended by the national organization. It went to court. Now the appellate division of New York’s supreme court has upheld the Straight post, directing the national legion to restore it to good standing. Justice Albert Cohn, in his decision, said in part that the legion’s action had been “contrary to law, unsound in principle, and out of harmony with the noble ideals for which this fine organization was founded.” It is likely that most legionnaires, now that the smoke has cleared away, will agree with Justice Cohn, and welcome back the Willard Straight post with open arms. The bond between men who bore arms together is stronger than any small disagreement over a national policy.

‘RESPECTED BY ALL* “. . . with purity and holiness will I pass my life and practice my art . . . into whatever houses I enter I will go for the advantage of the sick and I will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption. . . . While I continue to keep this oath inviolate, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of my art, respected always by all men . , .” u a a TT is not likely that Dr. A. R. Dafoe thought -*• of those words from the ancient Hippocratic oath of his profession when he turned iiis little car through the dim dawning, from his neat warm brick home at Callander to the shabby house at Corbeil where a prodigy awaited him: Quintuplet baby sisters! It is not likely that he has thought of them often at all since the day, many years ago at Toronto, when he took the oath to minister unselfishly to the sick and the suffering. “Respected always by all men . . .” They say, up there in the backwoods Ontario neighborhood where Dr. Dafoe has practiced medicine for twenty-eight years, that he has earned fifty times over every jjenny he has been able to collect. His patients are poor, most of them, never calling the doctor until the last minute, or at all if they think they have a chance to ride through without him. Yet Dr. Dafoe’s pockets are stuffed with letters from medical men of the cities wanting to know details of the one-in-a-million case of the Dionne quintuplets. Note how this stocky, bluff, and hearty man almost forced his attendance on father Dionne when he saw it was needed. Note the gruff warning to Dionne that “he’d better get a hired girl or start making arrangements for anew wife.” Note the 4 a. m. trip of Dr. Dafoe to the Dionne home, the calm way in which he relieved the trembling midwife when a third baby had been born and two more were yet to come. Note the untroubled way in which, this country doctor regarded the whole thing as just another case in his long succession of 1.500 childbirths, how with a kindly dictatorship over the household and its visitors he kept life in the five infants by old-fashioned methods and homespun facilities. And how he proposed to charge Dionne $3 a child—sls for the most famous medical case in years, his usual fee for delivery of one child. It is good indeed to look upon Dr. 'Dafoe,, a medico of the old school, who saw his duty and did it, and who would only snort at the suggestion that there was anything extraordinary about that. Worthy successor to a long line of worthy physicians, “respected always by all men.” A man in Georgia tried six times to commit suicide and was unsuccessful. What can you expect of one who hasn’t made a success of his life in the first place? Maybe England might consider paying her war debt if we promised never again to run up such a sum for her by helping her in the next war. A Hollywood song writer was divorced when • his wife testified he moved twenty-two times in twenty-two months. Why, she had no chance to do her spring housecleaning!

Capital Caper? BY GEORGE ABELL

STRAWBERRIES with rich, Devonshire cream were the piece de resistance the other afternoon at the garden party given by the British ambassador, Sir Ronald Lindsay, in honor of the birthday anniversary of his Britannic majesty. Clouds cleared and rain stopped just in time to prevent disaster to afternoon frocks and white waistcoats. The outstanding sartorial hit of the afternoon was sleek, white-mustached Paul May, the Belgian ambassador, who wore a top hat of gray felt—for all the world as if he were going to Aspot. “Look at that, my dear!” whispered dowagers, as Monsieur May passed in all magnificence through the doors. However, his Belgian excellency failed to wear the famous gray morning coat which he appeared in last season. He contented himself with an ordinary morning coat and a waistcoat that resembled a marron frappe. ana \ ALL the Chiefs of Mission, incidentally, swaggered in with high silk hats over their ears. All glanced jealously at the superior headdress of Envoy May, who preened himself delightedly. Speaker Rainey, despite the formality of the occasion, still adhered to the Bohemian simplicity of his artistic Windsor tie. He sampled the punch and the strawberries and bowed genially to many friends. Senator James J. Davis <of Welsh ancestry) looked surprisingly like an older edition of the prince of Wales as he strolled across the lawn toward the brilliantly striped marquees. The health of his majesty, George V, was drained in champagne, Scotch and a punch which might have been stronger. “Thank God,” exclaimed one Englishman meeting a guest, “the rain is already over.” “Do you think God would allow rain to fall on a garden party for his majesty?” inquired the other, with a wisp of a smile. 0 0 THE verbal battle between Senator Huey Long and Enrique Finot, minister of Bolivia, was resumed yesterday when Finot accused Long of being a ‘paid propaganda agent.” Recently the Bolivian minister wrote to Huey, after the latter had attacked Bolivia on the floor of the senate. He demanded the “Kingfish” explain his charge that the Bolivian government is "under the heels of the Standard Oil Company.” In return. Long called Finot “a hireling of the Standard Oil Company” and hinted that his letter was written in the Standard Oil Company’s office. “I made a mistake in addressing myself to Long as a statesman and a gentleman,” admitted Finot. “But I'm not sorry I wrote. The more light on this subject, the better.” In a formal statement he added: “The insults of Mr. Long do not interest me. I am awaiting the action he proposes to take in the senate to demonstrate to him again that he does not tell the truth and that he is wrong in mixing up his senatorial duties with those of a paid propaganda agent.” 000 MONSIEUR FLORESCU, dapper and wealthy individual, well known to Bucharest society, is arriving here next week to assume the duties of counselor of the Rumanian legation. He has been stationed in Berlin. At the same time, Monsieur Charles Davila, the Rumanian minister, is leaving Washington to spend the season at European watering places. Florescu arrives on June 11. * Davila leaves on June 15. Polished, ultra-refined and debonair Minister Davila is (a fact which strains the imagination!) a big figure in the National Peasants party of Rumania. He is also a poet and friends claim that the combined jobs of writing a book of poems and managing the P-umanian peasantry will keep him busy most of the summer.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

(Times reader* are invited to express their views in these columns. Hake your letters short, so all car, have a chance. Limit them to SSO words or less.) n u u BELIEVES RESPECT FOR FLAG IS WANING By a Veteran's Wife. While marching down the streets of our city on Memorial day, I was surprised to see the little interest shown by the public. Not more than one-third of thf men on the sidewalks removed their hats as “Old Glory” passed by. Is there patriotism or reverence for the flag only in the hearts of the men who have worn the uniform and marched under its starry folds? Isn’t the younger generation being taught the tradition of our glorious republic? Who will carry our colors in the next conflict? These marching comrades will be physically unfit. Will their sons be willing to shoulder a gun seeing the suffering of their fathers and knowing the abuse being heaped upon them in the name of economy and the like to save money—blood money if you like? Does not the sale of buddy poppies so nobly met by our citizens, show that they at least realize the need of our boys? And does it not speak in sentiment for the payment in full of the adjusted service certificates so badly needed? Only those who know, or take the trouble to find out, and see the need and suffering of these veterans and their dependents know how much it would mean to them. After all, the public eventually will decide, and not the politicians. Patriotism—what is the meaning of the word? Teach it to the children. 000 DRAWS PICTURE OF DIRE NEED By a Hoosier. Now that the silk mill strike and races are over, let us start on a new old subject—the unemployed and some almost as bad. What about the C. W. A. workers —some are back, but how? You get $6 a week and are very forcibly told you ought to be glad to get it at all. Either you walk three to five miles to work or take transportation out of your $6 and $1.50 for a little shanty. Every week you need fuel to cook with, if you have anything to cook. Groceries are sky high. Do you get government supplies? You do not, unless you have seven or more in your family and kick for it. When the shoes are off your feet and your overalls off your body, what will they do? Give you a burlap sack or barrel? Where is our buying power? The CWA made men feel like they were human once more, even those who didn’t know which end of the pick to use, soon thought it a badge of honor. But what now? Poverty, half hungry —nothing to look forward to, and still I believe God is in His heaven. Well, the primary election went over big, but I am afraid there will be a lot of has-beens this fall if they don’t feed us good first. I was born and raised in Indiana. o^o. PRAISES SERVICE TO NEEDY BY LUDLOW By Sylvester Eisenman. The papers have carried a notice that Louis Ludlow is a candidate for United States senator. Through a friend of his I was introduced to Mr. Ludlow about a year ago. To Mr. Ludlow last summer I described the condition of abject poy-

fTVI TV /T ✓~ > l j " 1 wholly disapprove of what you say and will 1 JL lie V>tJliLGr defend to the death your right to say it — Voltaire. J

‘I BUILD MY HOUSE OF STRAW’

Approves Criticism of Dr. Oxnam

By C. Earle Smith. Asa former De organizer and first editor of the old De Pauw Weekly, from which sprang the present De Pauw Daily, and as a former member of the Alumni Athletic Association in Indianapolis, I have followed with interest the career of Dr. Oxnam as president of De Pauw university. I never have seen him, nor entered in any way into the controversies, but at this time I feel impelled to indorse The Times’ attitude. It seems to me that Dr. Oxnam has been the storm center of a mess ever since he arrived at De Pauw. Undoubtedly he is what you say—a man of strong personality. He seems to thrive as the center of a fuss. If the trustees feel that they want a man who exceeds any of his predecessors in obtaining personal publicity and keeping the university in the fight limelight, they picked a good candidate. Where there is so much smoke there certainly is some fire, and those who complain about Dr. Oxnam must have good cause. erty and even starvation of thousands of Indian people in South Dakota. Mr. Ludlow investigated the matter and took an active and practical interest in these Indian people. It was through him that relief work in this section was speeded up. He did not stand for any stalling on the part of those in power. Mr. Ludlow could not have done more for these Indians, even had they been living in his home district. I feel obligated to express, in the name of these Indian people, an appreciation of Mr. Ludlow’s work for them. The congressman is not at all aware of this action on my part, and has made no suggestions of any kind, directly or indirectly, to enlist my support in his campaign for election to the senate. But I do wish him every success. We need more men of the unselfish kind, like Mr. Ludlow, in high positions in this country. I formerly was a Hoosier myself, having spent my first twenty-five years in Indiana. i 000 NO MEAN CITYJUST MISCHIEVOUS By Bob C. K. I have often read about Indianapolis as a “no mean city.” I am an ex-small town dude and an exforeman of mills at Kokomo. The mill closed and I came to Indianapolis. I painted my big Graham Paige as a taxi for the city’s aristocratic service. I didn’t get on the streets until I learned that the police force’s sole duty was to disregard the criminals, but to get the small and safe traffic violators for anything and everything. The light company knows its stuff, too. I paid $3.50 a month for a light to go to bed with. That year I also paid more than SIOO in fees and licenses. I refinanced my car and after driving a year without an accident, fell into, the colls of the law, which was putting on a “no use for taxies” crusade. I took a ride in their brasshandled black taxi. An officer slated me as unfit for a driver’s license. I needed a lawyer and was touched for ten bucks before he could walk with me to the court room. All the evidence that was pre-

If there is any housecleaning to be done the trustees might reasonably decide that Dr. Oxnam has spoiled his own chance to be of greatest service. Surely a vigorous man capable of handling the responsibility of his office without constant flareups and public crticism could be found. . The writer was a student under one iron-jawed president, now a bishop, who certainly handled the most trying situations without unfavorable criticism and harmful publicity such as has been the lot of the university under the present administration. If retention of Dr. Oxnam is more sacred to the trustees than the welfare of the university—well. That report of the two professors can’t be laughed or howled down. The public knows well enough that there is some decided justification for it. It seems to me that Dr. Oxnam is in really hot water, despite his vociferous reply, and that the longer he is in office the further ‘ he drags the urhversity into the ‘ boil with him. De Pauw needs a rest from Oxnamism. sented was that I was a terrible taxi driver. The attorney got into a personal argument, mentioned on the front page of The Times about May 13, 1932, and I was fined $33. Then I took up “jowl and beans.” Whew! We will not go into that. The lawyer and the $lO walked out, but I wasn’t with them any more. A finance company took my car. Did Indianapolis take me —and how? All nice and legal, too. No mean city—just a little mischievous. 000 DISGUST KNOWS NO POLITICS By a Distrusted Republican. So you condemn your state militia, “Disgusted Democrat.” Did you know that the Indiana militia boasts of the highest type of personnel in the United States? Why don’t you try and find out what you are talking about? Those boys in uniforms were not in the service of the state of Indiana at the Speedway, but were each and every one deputy marshals of Speedway City. We had to have some sort of uniform to wear, as most of us had not worked. The adjutant-general permitted us to use our guard uinforms. This job at the Speedway is all that has kept me in clothes for four years. Now you are among those trying to take that away. As for the guards searching drunks, I think you are handling the truth rather carelessly. 000 ABSOLVES COMMUNISTS OF “BOOING” CHARGE B; Constant Reader. In your editorial, “Poor Psychology/” it is alleged that a Civil war veteran in the Memorial day parade in Cleveland was booed by “a little group of Communists.’” You state that “ men so abysmally ignorant of American psychology can never convert many Americans.” To use your own language, an editorial writer so abysmally ignorant of communism should never write about it, or so it seems to me. Any one who knows anything about communism, any one who has ever read Marx, knows that such an incident just couldn’t happen; that the little group could have been Communists. Communists, as evidenced by Com-

JUNE 8, 1934

munist literature, are all quite proud of Marx’s activity during the Civil war, and they are continually quoting his statement that “labor in a white skin can never free itself as long as labor in a black skin is enslaved.” That was just another good anticommunist story, except tha* it just couldn’t happen. 000 URGES SANITARY SWIMMING POOLS By a Reader. I commend your editorial on stream pollution and hope that you will start early to insist on clean, sanitary swimming places in outdoor pools. Ask some of your doctor friends to tell you frankly what they think of the conditions existing at outdor pools where most of our young folk swim. 000 YOUTH FETISH BRANDED STUPID By Forty-Three. Here's another thing that something ought to be done about—it’s the youth feiish, one of the numerous adventures in stupidity to which America is addicted. Even the most rabid youth worshiper, including employers, surely will concede that a baby must crawl before it can walk. Yet the most callow youth can step in and get a job where a man of 40 or 45, regardless of ability, experience and physical condition would be turned down. It is a good thing that the youth fetish has not won a complete victory. Otherwise, Paderewski probably would be displaced by some piano thumper from a jazz orchestra and Giovanni Martinelll would lose his job in the Metropolitan opera so some high school or college crooner could have a place. 000 CHARGES FAVORITISM BASED ON RELIGION By a Reader. The Democratic voters of Marion county should open their eyes to the situation that confronts Protestant voters. All the good positions dished out are given to those of the Catholic religion, not because they are vote getters, but because the majority of elective officers are held by those of the same religious affiliations. They seem to forget that other religious factions vote, also. In the Marion county jail, all Catholics are employed but one. Recently two Protestants were fired because two so-called deserving Catholics wanted better positions. I am not a Ku-Klux Klan member and I hold a job and I am not seeking public office. Put I do think the office holders, regardless of religion, should give one religion as much consideration as another. You candidates should think this over. Divide the jobs fairly, regardless of religion. Anew Democratic party is in sight unless you respect all factions. Memorials BY ARCHER SHIRLEY Each man for himself a memorial builds And he carves it with hand of his own; A monument made of his life and his blood Not a cold thing of marble or stone. For each life is a monument, what we have been Is erected for all men to see; May we build then, oh, God, so in us others find A monument worthy of Thee.