Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 35, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 June 1934 — Page 16

PAGE 16

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- dOWAAI

Give Liyht and the People Will Find Their Own Wuy

THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1934. ' LOUIS HAMILTON T JNDER a ruling of the Indiana supreme court yesterday, Louis Hamilton, convicted of the murder of Lafayette A. Jackson, Standard Giocery Company proprietor, must die in the electric chair. Aug. 3. He and Charles Vernon Witt, who already has paid with his life, were tried for shooting Mr. Jackson in the Standard company’s main store on East Washington street, but a short distance from police headquarters. Both men apparently had fair breaks in their brushes with the law. Both men were tried and convicted outside Marion county, without the cast of local prejudice overshadowing them. It is to be regretted that, in this day and age, the state must demand a life for a life. Apparently, though, it appears that this is one manner of setting examples to other criminals and it also is the written letter of the law. With this case almost off the records of the state of Indiana, it now is time for prosecution officials to turn to unfinished business. There are numerous cases in Marion county and Indiana still awaiting clearance. Dillinger, of course, is one. The slaying of Police Sergeant Lester Jones has to be cleared. Commendation on one case, however, does not excuse law enforcement agents from carrying on their work until Indiana stands clear of its present criminal blot. A REMARKABLE CASE MEDICAL science in Indianapolis will find itself thrust suddenly into the niche of fame if the predictions of physicians that mohth-old Caroline Ruby Mercer will live to be a normal child come true. Little Caroline Mercer was born with a series of broken bones. Although she and her mother apparently are well supplied with calcium, there is a faulty bone structure somewhere which cost the baby first-month agonies which she probably w r ould not have been able to endure hacl she been several months, or a few years, older. The case might have gone unnoticed in this city and nation had it not been for the efforts of a friend to aid the family. This friend wanted to see the child given more than an equal break. Consequently he called his closest source of aid—an Indianapolis newspaper. Immediately the newspaper went to work to aid, this child. However, in the interim, a physician and other interested persons had taken over the case. They were making most sincere efforts. Every attempt at remedying the condition was being placed into service. No one is more interested in this child than her parents, the physicians who have attended her, and the staff of The Indianapolis 'Times. Every mother and woman in the city since has added her interest to this amazing case. Let us all hope that little Caroline Ruby Mercer turns the tables against her fate. ABOVE THE LAW npHE other day the editor of The Indianapolis Times went up to Gary to arrange for covering that sector of the impending steel strike. It was his business as a newspaper man to do this, but the United States Steel Corporation did not think so. Therefore, as he stood that evening making notes in front of the great mills, but on the city side of a deadline that separates company property from the rest of the United States, he was seized by three company bluecoats and hustled into the plant’s private police station. There his notes were taken and preparations made to lock him up for the night. Eventually, on orders of an unknown higher-up, he was released with a reprimand and a warning. The incident is of more than local significance. For it reveals a strange anachronism in the midst of a modern, democratic state, a remnant of feudalism. The barons of steel should be reminded that they are living in 1934 A. D., and that Gary, Ind.—including that grimy, embattled community they have fenced off as their own—is a part of the land of law we call the United States. THE LABOR FRONT FIESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S appointment . of his labor secretary to represent him in the steel dispute negotiations may move America a step nearer the goal of labor peace. Secretary Perkins is capable, expert, and tactful, and will have the confidence of the workers as well as employers. Aimed as she is with the power to create mediation boards and hold elections for collective bargaining under the new labor settlement act she may be able to guide both disputants to the amicable agreement they both now seem eager to reach. Their failure to reach such an agreement could mean a national calamity. Passage of the rail labor act on congress' last day is another step toward industrial amity. This measure is quite as far-reaching and definite as the original Wagner labordisputes bill in spelling out the workers’ rights, preventing "interference, influence and coercion" and setting up a modern mediation and adjustment mechanism. There is scant doubt that its passage will forestall trouble brewing among some of the railroad workers this summer. One might well wish for all of the nation’s 30,000,000 wageearners such an arrangement as congress has provided for the 1,100,000 rail workers. If the President continues the national labor board, and mans it with a nonpartisan membership and a strong chairman to succeed the retiring Senator Wagner, we believe he will have effective labgr peace machinery, <|

even under the compromise measure passed in the closing days of congress. There remain plenty of irritants and danger spots. Among the former must be recorded General Johnson’s ouster of John Donovan, president of the NRA Employes’ Union. When the administrator avowed his sympathy with the NRA union and then hot-headedly fired Its president, he did not help his reputation in the field of labor relations. * T DOCTOR ROOSEVELT "PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT today is Dr. Roosevelt of Vale. We should like to congratulate him, but it’s too early. This is only his seventh honorary degree, whereas Hoover of Stanford quit four years of presldenting with twenty-six degrees, three of them from foreign lands. Dr. Roosevelt, however, is a young man, just starting his second year in the White House, and probably has a great future as a degree collector. In the old days degrees, like other things, came harder. Andrew Johnson, who signed the bill creating the office of education, got no honorarium, nor did Jackson or Lincoln. Jefferson, “father ot the common school system," received one. Today it’s different., The freshmen who sing “it’s no easy matter to get a degree” are Wrong. It’s as easy as becoming a Kentucky colonel. All of which doesn’t detract from the occasion. President Roosevelt has done well by his people and by education, both high and low, and in any case the ceremony at New Haven yesterday gave him an opportunity once more to promote the use of brains in government. WHO’S WHO ABRIDGED TF it be true that the New York City police -*■ are building a campaign against the Reds on the basis of a book published by an obscure Illinois woman, it is clear that Mayor La Guardia retains his rare sense of humor. The mayor himself is listed in the book of revolutionaries, along with Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretaries Wallace and Ickes, Senators Norris and Borah, Rabbi Wise, Father John A. Ryan, et al., et al. The list even includes—of all persons™H. L. Mencken, who has become the common scold of the New Deal. Like such brain baiters as Ham Fish and Dr. Wirt, the Illinois woman employed the one sure-fire trick of crashing the front pages. Red hunting is America’s favorite indoor sport. But, perhaps, the author of this new list of radicals has unknowingly done a public service. Who’s Who is a bulky volume and there is need for a pocket edition containing the names of persons who have been caught in the act of thinking. CORRECT THIS VERA HELLMAN is a woman without a country. ' Unlike the “Man Without a Country,” of Edward Everett Hale’s famous tale, Vera Heilman Is in no way responsible for her plight. She is one of 405 unoffending aliens whose cases are on record in the department of labor. They have done nothing out of the way, nothing illegal, but they face deportation, separation from their families and friends, and in some cases loss of their means of livelihood because of our tangled immigration laws. Miss Heilman lives in New York. She is unable to leave the United States, although, under the law, she can not remain here. Born in Russia, she and her parents went to Berlin to escape the revolution. In 1932 she came to the United States, using a League of Nations passport. Since she is Jewish, she can not return to Germany, and there is no other country to which she can go. She has made every effort to obey the law by leaving the United States, but she can not leave and she can not stay legally, although her sister, a naturalized citizen, has given her a home. In every large community in the country there are cases which are similar—husbands and wives separated, children banished to countries they have never seen and where they know not a living soul, because of legal complications. The Ellis Island committee and labor department workers have investigated the 405 unoffending aliens. At the same time they have unearthed records in New York and Chicago showing 235 criminal aliens who are not deportable because of loopholes in the law. On the basis of information they collected, five bills have been drawn and presented to congress by Labor Secretary Frances E. Perkins and Colonel Daniel W. Mac Cormack, commissioner of immigration and naturalization, calling for changes in existing immigration statutes. One of the remedies proposed in these bills is the giving of limited discretion to authorities to avert deportation of certain aliens of good character who have not been convicted of crime and who are not engaged in subversive political agitation. If the discretionary powers bill is passed, Vera Heilman need no longer be & woman without a country. Scores of home-loving, law-abiding men and women, cruelly separated from their loved ones, can look forward to reunion with their families and return to their homes. The most casual study of the immigration situation shows how crying is the need for this new legislation. WALKER’S WAISTLINE nT'HERE were a lot of things about former Mayor Jimmy Walker that you couldn’t admire. His retirement from public life was met with sighs of relief in a great many quarters. v But there was one thing which many a man envied the debonair Jimmy. That was the trim, athletic waistline to which he clung ’way past the time when the average man begins to show signs of thickness a!>out the midsection. All idols fall in time, and now Walker’s former valet is back from a visit to Walker in England, telling how genial Jimmy is getting larger around the waist. His shirts pinch him at the neck. Too bad! Oh, Jimmy, they took away your job, your prestige, your wisecracks—must that trim, dapper figure also be taken from you? If you ever come home again, New York may not isyen-know you, ypur last claim to distaken by the toll of time. 1 *

LO, THE POOR INDIAN! IT is 300 years and more since the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and met the Wampanoags, native Indians of .the Martha’s Vineyard region. No better reminder of their complete submergence under the tide of white invasion could be had than the news that the Rev. Leroy Perry of Gay Head, Mass., is teaching to the few surviving Wampanoags their own tribal language. Forgotten by the tribesmen themselves, it has been preserved in white men’s collected lore of the Indians, and now a few straggling braves are to learn from a white teacher the language of their fathers. That “artificial pacemaker” which Dr. Hymans of New York has invented to start heart action again may be all right, but will it set the pace we so joyfully followed back in 1929? the G. O. P. could get somewhere with its new policies, if the party waited until the President ran out of embarrassing ideas. A Cleveland piano mover fell three stories in his sleep and got away with only a few slight bruises. But he can’t guarantee the same for any pianos he moves.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES TN a careful survey of “America’s Capacity to Produce,” the Brookings Institution at Washington finds that the United States could turn out twice as many goods as we are manufacturing at present. We are, indeed, equipped to produce at least 20 per cent more than we did at the time of the pre-crash prosperity. This estimate is made on the basis of present mechanical equipment and labor power. It does not in any way imply the scrapping of relatively obsolete equipment and the substitution of more efficient machinery. There is nothing particularly new in such information. The report of the American engineers on “Waste in Industry,” sponsored by Herbert Hoover nearly sixteen years ago came to almost identical conclusions. It contended that about half of American productive energy and capacity is wasted as a result of the inefficient methods which characterize our competitive system. Stuart Chase gave us further clinical material, attractively presented, in his “The Tragedy of Waste," which appeared about a decade ago. But all such information is trivial compared to what the Technocrats told us a couple of years back about our productive possibilities if we were to introduce the best mechanical inventions now known to engineers. AVERY sane engineer, Walter Polekov, estimates that 2,500,000 men operating the most up-to-date known machinery could produce ail the goods needed in the United States. Nor is such information about greater productive possibilities immediately relevant in the United States today. Such wastes would be very serious indeed if they took place in Russia where all the goods produced can be consumed by the people. Under the capitalistic and profit system, however, greater production is desirable only If accompanied by comparable increase in purchasing power. Otherwise, a greater volume of production only clogs and gorges the market and bogs down our distributive system. It would be a splendid thing if the American people could have more shirts, shoes and houses. But before they can have them they must have the money with which to buy them. Merely to turn out goods while potential consumers only can stand on the outside and look longingly at them will get us nowhere. 8 tt HENCE, no little interest and importance attches to an article in The Nation on the status of American purchasing power after a year of the New Deal. It tells the same old story of the unwillingness of American industrialists to permit such a distribution of the national income as will insure adequate purchasing power and healthy stimulation of business. Basing its conclusions upon the figures furnished by The Monthly Survey of Business, the article points out that the average weekly wages of American industrial workers increased by 9.7 per cent from March, 1933, to March, 1934. But this gain was all but eaten up through the fact that the cost of living rose 9.3 per cent. Another stern fact to be faced is that approximately 11,000,000 adult workers were unemployed in March, 1934. Moreover, at the end of February, 1934, there were more families receiving relief than in February, 1933. Though business steadily improved from October, 1933, to March, 1934, the number of unemployed increased during this period by 780,000. It. might be countered that industry simply did not possess the resources to pay higher wages or to put more men to work.

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

WITH congress done and diplomats leaving town every day, Washington society is beginning to feel the effects of the summer exodus. Nearly every one in official and diplomatic circles seems to be making plarii to go somewhere.. Here are a few notes on the hegira northwards, culled at random: Senator Robert Wagner of New York is planning a trip through the national parks this summer, following a policy of “See America First.” ' As chairman of the public lands committee, Senator Wagner feels he should study the topography of American parks. “I've seen a lot of Europe,” he remarked, “and I think I should start seeing my own country.” Wagner is known as the "New York cowboy.” 0 0 n Representative Chester Bolston is going to his estate near Cleveland to look over the question of live stock. Mr. Bolton (who recently bought a string of prize-winning Percherons) received word the other day that one of his famous horses had died suddenly. Veterinary surgeons attributed the demise to the recent “dust storm” which swept that section of Ohio. “I must look into this," said Mr. Bolton. a u Senator Simeon D. Fess is off for Yellow Springs, O He used to teach college there, but now he plans a rest before starting a strenuous campaign. And friends conceded it really will be strenuous! 000 MINISTER MARC PETER of Switzerland is off for Switzerland next month. In the meantime, he sips his native Kirsch (“It is cooling,” he declares) and gives little dinners and garden parties. 0 0 0 Signor Fererro of the Italian Embassy once tenned himself “the younger brother of Carnera,” is somewhat depressed since the fall of the Man Mountain. He plans to recuperate quietly in Washington. Summer resorts are too gay. 0 0 0 BULGARIA —in the person of Charge d’Affairea Petriff Tchomakoff—is passing the summer at Sugar Hill, N. H. The minister has his camera with him (he’s a noted photographer) and will spend much of his spare time snapping New England scenic effects. 0 0 The Chief Justice and Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes are week-ending in various places. Just now, are at Waite Sulphur Springs. Mr. Hughes was spied by reporters sipping te&in the | music room of the Greenbrier.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Idmit them to 250 words or less.) 0 0 0 PETERS-FOR-SENATOR BOOSTER WRITES By Central Indiana Taxpayer. I want to say, the fiasco or Democratic convention was not just as I wanted it either. I was for R. Earl Peters, and he would do for the people, just as he has done for the party, his very best for the benefit of us all. But, bear in mind what my good friend, Mr. Minton, has done for us by the utility route. He has cut off our utility hogs’ heads. He will keep on cutting, steamroller rolled by McNutt or not. If by McNutt, I glory in it also for it is time some one had the wheel who can drive Indiana back into a decent state, financially, religiously, and politically, and Paul v., will have it just about complete by the end of his term as Governor. In fact, we won’t have but very little taxes on real and personal property, but funds will be derived from our income and sales taxes, then the more our income, or sales, the less our personal and real tax, and along with it all, Indiana is going to keep her schools open and educating children. Our own happiness ought not, of course, to be our main object. So let’s forget self-happiness and try to share, and by the help of each other and the help of God we all will be happy. PROPOSES 50-CENT* CITY DOG TAX By Doggie. This drive against unlicensed dogs is just another city farce. The drive is not to prevent persons from being bitten by dogs, but a gesture to force citizens to pay an exorbitant dog tax. If the city would make a reasonable license fee—so cents a year—the income for the city would be far greater than by charging $1 for a 2-cent tag, and $1 for registration, a total of $2. A $2 city dog tax is about as comical and outrageous as the county tax which goes in a fund to pay farmers for sheep killed by dogs. How many sheep has your dog killed? 000 DEPLORES STATE OF NONUNION WORKERS Bq C. 3. What a sweet time the major oil companies are having in Indianapolies under the much boasted nonunion conditions. I have just returned from an enforced trip to the Atlantic states. Everywhere east of Indiana filling station attendants for major oil companies receive, after one year’s service, one week’s vacation with pay and after two years, two weeks with pay. Here in our no mean city, we service station operators day dream of a vacation with pay like an old fnaid dreams of a happy home. When wiil Indianapolis wake up? #OO DRINKING PLACES FOR DOGS ADVOCATED By H. M. L. What happened to all the drinking places for horses and dogs? Why doesn’t the city bring them back? Then there wouldn’t be so many mad dogs. We never heard of the like years ago. I wonder if persons know that “hydro” “water” and “phobia” means “fear.” Look it up

NOW WHAT ARE THEY COOKING UP?

The Message Center

Brands Communism By E. F. Maddox. Paul Wysong errs when he says that this nation is bereft of its God. I am glad that Mr. Wysong has made a religious issue of the Communist fight agains l -, our established institutions. I thank God that there still are many millions of patriotic Americans who have not bowed the knee to either Marx, Lenin, or any other infidel. The reason I oppose Communism is because its main purpose is the destruction of Christianity. Asa follower of Jesus Christ I intend to do all in my power to expose the vile doctrines of Communism. Marx said: “Religion is opium for the people.” Lenin said: “It doesn’t matter if two-thirds of the people are

in the dictionary to get the straight of it. There would not be so much hydrophobia if the humane society and the police force and others who complain would get busy and provide some drinking places for the animals. I agree with M. G. W. about muzzling children. When they want water they cry. I suppose if you didn’t give it to them they also would go mad. There are lots of mothers who let their children run the streets worse than dogs. I have a family of my own and am a lover of dogs and children. I teach my children to be good to dogs and not to tease them, and so far they have not been bitten. If mothers would teach their children more kindness there would not be so many mad dogs. 000 FULL DISCUSSION OF “ISMS” PROPOSED By G. T. B. During the past six months there has been a good deal of feeling manifested by various editorial writers because it was believed that there was an attempt on the part of the NRA to muzzle the press. It has been suggested that the muzzling would extend to the radio. I wish to raise the question, hasn’t the press and radio of our nation always been muzzled? If the press and radio were democratic and free, why are they not permitted to publish or broadcast both sides of any subject that it is the duty of the general public to thoroughly understand. For example, much is being said about the constitution. For any one to express a doubt as to its omnipotence, even in the light of the circumstances under which it was written and adopted, is sufficient to brand the speaker or writer with a lack of patriotism. The people should know these circumstances; should know that it was worked out for a nation of 4,000,000 people, chiefly agriculturists; that it was regarded by many in the convention which adopted it, as of doubtful value, and at most only a temporary measure; that it finally was adopted by a bare majority of the delegates. The greatness of America resulted to a large extent from the almost limitless natural resources available and to the superiority of our immigrants, and only to a much lesser degree of our basic constitution. Again much is said in favor of our democratic form of government. Likewise all other forms of government are condemned as being “foreign,” “un-American” or being “isms.” Which of our great dailies, or journals welcomes a free discussion pf the good and -bad in pur

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

as Christianity’s Foe destroyed just so the remainder are Communists.” Jesus said: “Beware of wolves who come to you in sheep’s clothing.” Communists belong in this class. Communism is on the march and is leaving a trail of lies, hatred, murder, atheism, civil war and death in its wake. When will the American people awake to their danger? The red star of Communism may have appeared in the east and it may have a brilliant luster for unbelievers, but the flaming cross of Christ beckons to all Christians and cheers them on to the battle with this motto, “In hoc i signa vinas!”

present system, of the good and bad points of capitalism? Which of them welcomes a free and open discussion of the good and bad points of Socialism, Communism, Fascism and the many other “isms”? Why does not some great newspaper system like the Scripps-How-ard inaugurate a public discussion of these subjects of vital interest and at the conclusion take a nationwide straw vote to learn the sentiment of the people? Why should we in America be asked to continue rendering verdicts on one-sided testimony? We are entitled to all of the evidence. Why should such organizations as the American Legion, and the Daughters of the American Revolution be satisfied in giving a decision against Socialism, Fascism and Communism, without all the facts, except that they have been impressed with the idea that the consideration of the merits of anything pertaining to government developed outside the United States is treason. I believe that a free discussion from the platform, the radio, and the press, of any and all forms of government, as long as they do not necessarily advocate bloodshed and destruction, would enable America to adopt a compromise system that would combine the good points of all systems. 0 0 0 URGES CLOSE STUDY OF SOCIALISM By W. H. Richards. The rapidly spreading doctrine of Socialism is viewed with alarm by some and for others it, is a cause for rejoicing. This is according to the viewpoint, and the knowledge the individual has of what would be the result of a change from the system of individual capitalist ownership to a socialization of industry, with mines, railroads, factories and stores owned by the government and operated solely for the purpose of supplying the needs of the people at cost, without profit to any individual or corporation. Os one thing we all are certain, and that is that Socialism is either a good or bad thing. Every citizen is interested, for all will be affected by such a change. Any radical change of such magnitude is not to be undertaken rashly without careful study and weighing all the ifs and ands to determine if it is right or wrong. It is therefore the duty of every loyal American to investigate thoroughly this subject, to form an intelligent opinion of its merits or faults. An intelligent opinion can not be formed by hearing only one side of any subject, especially when it is the side of those whose interest*is

JUNE 21,1934

served by creating prejudice against the proposition. To broadcoast information or misinformation costs money, and the Socialist party, being the party of the poor and middle class, has not the means of reaching the public as have the plutocrats who control press, radio and motion pictures. But there are hundreds of books, pamphlets and leaflets published by the Socialists that give full information to those who want to hear both sides. I am not asking any one to become a Socialist, but I do say that it is a duty that you owe to your country, to your family and to yourself, to honestly inquire so that you may cast an intelligent vote either for the continuation of the system that has. made you almost, if not quite, a pauper, or for anew system that will forever end depressions and poverty, with their natural offspring, disease and crime. 000 MUZZLES FOR DOGS, NOT CHILDREN By An Ex-police Officer. This is an answer to the letter of M. g. W. in regard to muzzling children instead of dogs. This person M. G. W. certainly has no respect for our children and lots of love for a cur dog. If the police force under our brave mayor, as M. G. W. states, would enforce the law against persons harboring a vicious dog and convict a few of them, there would not be so many bitten by dogs. Does M. G. W. know more adults are bitten than children and has he experienced the horrible death of a child of rabies? If he has, I am sure he would not have such great love for our mongrel dogs. Keep muzzles on dogs, not children. 000 PREFERS COLORED TO NEGRO, IN NEWS STORIES By a Witness. Is it ever possible for you to call a man colored if he happens to be a Negro, and can your paper eve? print things as they happen? I am writing concerning a man by the name of Alva V who entered a home. You stated tnat the Rev. Raymond Noel h:lped Claude Castleman capture Wood, which was untrue. I,' \ Castleman happened to be at work, and Raymond isn’t even the minister’s name. Why can’t your paper use the word '•'’"red instead of Negro so I am a Negro and I will ask every man of my rade to stop taking your paper until you can at least print the truth about things that happen to us.

POET’S LIFE

BY POLLY LOIS NORTON A poet’s life must be a Joseph's coat Each tiny happening a glowing dye Enriching with its hue the sombre cloth That forms the usual garment. Further like, he we*rs it on the outside, So all may see and revel in its glory; That they who weave but plainly may enjoy Each brilliant clear-hued color. These make the woof, But what then of the warp, The golden thread the weaving’s done upon? Words are the warp upon which the poet Weaves forth his life, His multi-tinted mantle.