Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 46, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 July 1934 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times (A ,*f Rirp-HO %Rl >E PAPFH ROT W. HOWARD rrMid>nt TAI.OOTT POWELL Editor EARf. D. BAKER Bninea Manager

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!••'> •<( Ci' Lti/ht nml the People B ill riel Thi'e Own H>y

WEDNESDAY. JULY 4. 1334

JULY FOURTH GOES ON TJ EPEAT any ceremony often enough, and eventually it will be almost meaningless —unless you take especial trouble to stop and Remember just what it's all about. That's especially true of birthday celebrations—even Uncle Sam s. There have been a lot of Independence days, since an old bell in a Philadelphia steeple rang out the announcement of the first one. A lot of flags have been run up. a lot of bands have tooted their lips tired, a lot of explosives and rockets have been set off, and a lot of speakers have shouted themselves hoarse; sometimes it seems as if all these observances had got a bit stale, so that no one any loncer bothers to think of what's bark of them. And yet, even if this Fourth of July symbol has been used over and over again, the reality which stands bark of it is just as murh alive now as it ever was—and just as much worth talking about. Those men of 1776 didn t go to war just because they disliked the king of England, or brcau.se they were feeling their oats and needed a good, brisk fight. War meant hunger and mutilation and death then, just as it does now; and the colonists went into it for perfectly definite and .substantial reasons. They fought, in brief, because they had discovered what a precious thing freedom was; because they felt that the common mans right to live his own life and work out his own destiny was a right worth suffering and dying for; because they believed that with the strange new instrument called democracy men could carve out a happier and freer world for themselves. Freedom and democracy weren't popular words in those days. They aren't popular today. When the first Independence day was celebrated. most of Europe looked on democracy as an impractical dream that could never conceivably work properly. Most of Europe, judging from the prevalence of dictatorships, feels the same way about it today. In the years following the American revolution, the people of the United States showed that democracy could be made to work and that freedom was something in which the humblest man might share. In the years ahead just ahead of us. we have a chance to prove the same thing all over again. Thp ideals for which men risked their necks on the first Independence day are beme imperiled anew. Their security is largely up to us. Our Fourth of July celebration will take on anew significance if we can just remember that the day marks our acquisition of the greatest heritage any people ever had. That heritage still is great—and still in danger. It still is up to us to defend it. WHY DISCRIMINATE? A N ordinance is pending before the city council which seeks to close Indianapolis beer-dispensing places at 1 a. m. The idea is a good one and will, no doubt, reduce the amount of drunkenness and drunken driving which has been prevalent in Indianapolis since the return of beer. However, there always will be some of the city's drinkers who will find that at 1 in the mornme they still have a thirst to be satisfied and naturally they will seek the places where the law is not observed so closely. One of the quickest routes to later hours will be out in Marion county where the lawcan have no power and where dancing, slot machines and hard liquor will add to the pleasures of the deterpuned drinkers. Unless this law can be enforced in Marion county as well as in the city limits, it will be worthless. The men and women who are the targets of the proposed ordinance are the same people who will not stop if there is any opportunity to buy another dnnk within ten miles. It would be well if the law enforcement agents of the city talked the situation over with Sheriff Sumner first in an attempt to make the late drinking ban uniform rather than one of classification which will release the worst offenders to additional deeds of misconduct and send the respectable citizens home to bed. TO PROVE TWAIN'S ERROR all the proposals for government madework projects, none captures the imag- . ination quite as much as the suggestion of Charles L. Pack, president of the American Tree Association. He would have the government plant a belt of trees 100 miles wide and 1 300 miles lone, stretching from the northern border of the Dakotas through Nebraska. Kansas. Oklahoma and into the Texas panhandle. It would provide cash employment for distressed farmers in the drought area, launch the civilian conservation corps on a gigantic ten-year program, take millions of acres of subir.argmal land out of production C; Mark Twain once said that man talks S much about the weather but never does anvthing about it. He was wrong, according to Mr. Pack. The turning plow and the harrow, at work for decades on the once verdant ranges of the west, have so changed the climate that the land where the buffalo roamed is now a land of drifting sand hills. Man changed nature s plans, and nature is getting her revenge. Mr. Pack proposes that man ' make amends to nature and. by creating a ' broad nbbon of green trees* across the sunparched wastes, make the weather behave as it mice did. It is. at least, a magnificent dream. NEEDED—A REAL JUDGE CLARENCE R. MARTIN, former judge of the Indiana supreme court, will be unable to serve as special criminal court judge in*

the trials of former officers of the MeyerKiser bank, who are scheduled to start Monday. That Mr. Martin can not aerve in this capacity is to be regretted. Indianapolis is waiting for the first of these open court hearings on the banking situation and with Mr. Martin on the bench there would be no doubt but that both the state and defense would have had fair opportunities to tell their stories. When the Myer-Kiser bank trial is staged, it probably will be the first of a series of such prosecutions that Marion county may expect m the next several months. If Indianapolis and county residents do not witness several of these trials in the next few months, it will be because the evidence to indict is lacking or because the prosecuting authorities of Marion county have failed in their posts. Let it be hoped that Judge Frank P. Baker is able to present the state and defense counsels in the Meyer-Kiser case with the names of three attorney* as outstanding and as competent as Mr. Martin and that the final selection finds a man worthy of passing judgment m a case of such importance. PRIMARY SKULLDUGGERY IN an address before the Rotary Club of Indianapolis yesterday. James A. Collins, former judge of the Marion criminal court, urged abolition of the present primary or at least a revision of the spring voting law which would guarantee an honest count of ballots. Mr. Collins, we understand, spent many years on the criminal and municipal court benches in this city, but actually did not realize the danger of the present primary system until he attempted to seek renomination this spring. Although he has not committed himself, one would gather from that inference that Mr. Collins probably is convinced he was the victim of one of the many deals which were perpetrated during the last primary on the Republican ticket. The Marion county grand jury has admitted, in its report to criminal court, that there were various sleight of hand performances staged last May. The grand jury recommends the same remedy that Mr. Collins has proposed, but not in as resounding terms as the former judge used. Despite the failure of the grand jury to act. it would be well to give counsel to Mr. Collins' word and then perhaps the voters of this city and county will step into the next legislative picture and see that some of these unpleasantries are ironed out. HOPES DEVELOP TRAGEDY A 20-YEAR-OLD Ohio girl, who “never had a steady boy friend.” is being held in a Pennsylvania jail charged with murder. The youngster, according to her mother, always had wanted a home of her own. The chances that she would get one didn’t look very good. She put in most of her time working in a factory; for some reason, nobody seemed in a hurry to come around and ask her to set up housekeeping. So she finally wrote to one of these matrimonial bureaus, through which she met a prospective suitor—who happened to be 61. It didn't take the girl long to decide that no home at all was better than a home with this chap, but he was pretty persistent. They quarreled; he remained persistent; finally she shot him. I didn't go to kill him.” the girl explained, afterward. "I just meant for him to leave me alone.” In the superabundant crop of homicides which the United States manages to produce each year, this is surely one of the least noteworthy cases. And yet, for some reason, it sticks in a reader's mind; for back of it, all too clearly, can be seen that long, dreary shadow of loneliness that falls quietly across so many humble and obscure lives. There are persons like this girl in every city and village in the land; hard-working folk who have one humble little wish —and who never quite manage to get it gratified. A girl wants a home of her own—surely one of the oldest and most natural wishes in the history of the race; and somehow, through the queer ways in which human affairs work themselves out. she finds that she might just as well have wished for the moon. She tries to get it, makes a foolish mis-take,-gets into an intolerable jam—and then, presently, there is tragedy, and in her lonely groping she has pulled the world down about her head. Pitiful enough, unsensational enough, surely—why should we think twice about it? Well, our education is incomplete until we learn the hard lesson that life is sometimes more cruel and disappointing than any one deserves. That casual remark. “Never had a steady boy friend.” can stand for as much suffering as a cancer. All about us there are persons who, as someone has said, lead lives of quiet desperation. If we can understand what some of them are up against, we can understand the wrong and mistaken thines they sometimes do. WASTE IN UNEMPLOYMENT 'TWO THOUSAND college students met in Newark. N. J.. the other day to hear men eminently successful in the various professions give them advice on the choice of their life work. The importance of making a wise choice was emphasized by one speaker with these words: “The man or woman in a misfit job is as marked an economic waste as the eightcylinder engine that fires on only three cylinders. And when this waste of brains and energy and productiveness is figured in terms of 120.000.000 people, it becomes a national problem.” True enough, in all conscience. But if the man in a misfit job is a great waste, what about the energetic and ambitious man who can get into no job at all? The economic waste involved in a mass of eight or ten million jobless men is one of the most appalling things of modern times. A Texan has combined ten garden tools in one. but it still isn't perfect as lorg as you have to go out and operate it. We may have streamlined automobiles and streamlined trains, but there's the same wreckage after a crossing crash, anyway. The annual crime bill of the United States is computed at sl3 000,000,000. Crime may not pay, but we do. %

Liberal Viewpoint —BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

Editor'* Not*—This i* the fourth of five articlea b Hires Timer Barn**. Ph. D., on the achievements and outlook of the * Deal after a year of operation. n n • ALL his critics to the contrary notwithstanding, President Roosevelt deserves credit for having sa ed the American capitalistic system from immediate collapse Had the Hoover policies continued for another two years, either the capitalistic order would have been in a state of thorough dissolution or its maintenance would have been depending upon military and dictatorial support, set up in sheer desperation. The United States was in no way threatened with a radical overturn, so Mr. Roosevelt has not saved us from any immediate Communism. But he certainly has thus far saved us from collapse, Fascism or both. He obviously has put tit? American capitalistic system in better potential shape than it has been at any time in the twentieth century. With a little sane and sensible collaboration on the part of American financial and industrial leaders, it probably could be rendered passibly workable for another generation or two. If the New Deal does prove a flop, the blame can be attributed primarily to sabotaging financiers and industrialists rather than to Mr. Roosevelt. He surely has given American business every chance to save itself for the time being. nun IF we can not criticise Mr. Roosevelt justly for not having gone Fascist already, it is likewise unfair to denounce him because the New Deal has not proved socialistic in character. There is much in the New Deal, particularly in its trends during enforcement which must be bitterly disappointing to a Socialist, but Mr. Roosevelt did not run on the Socialist ticket nor was he committed to the construction of a cooperative commonwealth. Particularly does Mr. Roosevelt’s record stand out brilliantly when compared to that of other American Presidents. Indeed, when we view his actions from the standpoint of bold experimentation and farreaching reformations, it hardly seems an exageration to say that Mr. Roosevelt has more to his credit in this regard than all our Presidents before his day combined. Unfortunately, however, the capitalistic system had been abused so sorely by the time of Mr. Roosevelt’s inauguration that it was not enough for him merely to be far more daring and resourceful than any other of our chief executives. His ultimate place in history will depend upon whether he proves masterly enough for the unique emergency and not upon whether he far outmatched his illustrious senior ccusin as incumbent of the White House. nun IT is not enough for him to be better than the rest; he must be good enough to save the capitalistic and democratic order, a greater task than ever fell to any of his predecessors. Their defects sowed the wind of the acute crisis of capitalism and democracy, but it was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fortune to reap the whirlwind of the crisis itself. Almost anybody can make headway with a high grade motor car in perfect shape, freshly lubricated and filled with high test gas at the garage. Such was our economy when nature and inventive genius handed it over to our economic and political leaders in the generation after the Civil war. But it requires a genius to do much with an old wreck without decent tires, with most of the bearings burnt out. with a couple of split pistons and with the steering gear out of mesh. Such was our economic order after the financial pirates and Republican vampires had looted it, with the Democrats adding their bit by throwing us into the most needless and expensive war of our history. To admit Mr. Roosevelt’s uniquely difficult task, to indicate our sympathy with his humaneness and our admiration for his relative boldness of vision and action, is one thing. What most people want to know is w'hether or not there is much prospect that he will come through victorious.

Capita! Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

HARRY HOPKINS, federal emergency relief administrator, emerged from a White House conference last week looking very serious. Newsmen pounced upon him, alert for some big story. He was bombarded with a volley of questions. “Did you see the President, Mr. Hopkins?” “Was any new 7 step decided on at the conference?” “Why are you leaving so early ” Hopkins shook a bushy head of hair, pointed to long fringes of sideburns below 7 each ear, w'hich give him the appearance of a Spanish matador. “I haven’t seen the President yet,” he said, “but I saw 7 General Johnson and Frank Walker. They told me for God’s sake to go out and get a haircut.” Note—As this is written, long-haired Mr. Hopkins—too busy with federal relief w 7 ork to bother about help for himself —still resembles a Spanish matador. non URBANE Mr. Tom Heflin, former senator from the sovereign state of Alabama, is still w 7 addling about town telling funny stories and quietly nosing about for any available government job. In his white cotton suit, hat, tie, shirt and even shoes, Tom meanders from office to office, looking like an Indian's dream of “the great White Father.” He calls regularly at the White House, but so far has seen only Marvin McIntyre. “What's the matter, senator?” someone asked him. as he came out of the White House. “Are you trying to get a federal appointment?” A cherubic smile inundated Tom’s face. “Now 7 that reminds me,” he began, “of a story . . .” In his inimitable way. he told about a southern senator whom President Cleveland wired, asking if he would accept the post of commissioner of Indian affairs. The senator wired back: “You remind me of a time when I w r as at my grandfather's as a boy. a neighbor called on grandfather and when he got up to leave, grandfather asked if he w 7 ould accept a ham. The neighbor answered: “Just give me a chance.’ ” nun Morning-coated and silk-hatted, his excellency Mehmet Munir Bey, new ambassador of Turkey, presented his credentials to President Roosevelt. At first there was some question as to whether the new envoy should wear the formal Turkish coat prescribed for ultra-formal affairs. This is a frock coat with white tie and black Munir Bey. however, determined to abide r by American protocol, which decrees a morning coat. Picture a short, well-groomed gentleman, with pince-nez. jet black mustachios. an exceedingly high, bulging forehead, who speaks excellent English and French. Concluding the customary lyrical rhapsody to President Roosevelt, he exclaimed: “Allow me, Mr. President. tc express to you in conclusion my most sincere wishes for your personal happiness and the prosperity of the ncble American nation.” Emerging from the White House, he observed with fervor: "The President is altogether charming!” Note—Distinguished Munir Bev was long minister to Berne, more recently ambassador to Paris and to London. He quitted the last post to come to Washington. A musical critic objects to paying opera singers “enormous salaries.” He's right—theif time for the big money should come when they enter the movies.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

j

X \ 1 wholl v disapprove of what you say and will X lit-/ jLVX clef end to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire. _

(Timet readers are invited to express their views in these column*. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Timit them to £SO words or lessJ nun PROPOSES FINANCIERS PUT BRAINS TO WORK B.v a Reader. To the chief editorial writer; Your editorial page is absorbingly interesting. Your own sensible editorials, plus the educational features written by Harry Barnes always are stimulating. Everyone knows that there still is plenty to “squaw 7 k” about in the remolding process of our institutions. The critics of social reorganization, however, are more concerned with “viewing with alarm,” than w 7 ith suggesting better ways of arriving at a solution of the problems we face. If the debt problem is so disconcerting, w 7 hy are the “rugged individualists” so anxious to get up to Uncle Sam's lunch counter. If the brains are here for expanding industry, why don't our financiers start projects to absorb the ten million unemployed, rather than let the public rescue both the financier and laborer through loans and relief doles? Our financiers, sitting on the lid, are nikers if they can not show the stuff they are made of w 7 hen things are dow 7 n. Let us see their brains in action. Blarney is no substitute. n n n UNEMPLOYMENT COULD BE BLESSING By a Realist. Technological unemployment is more likely to increase the number ; of unemployed rather than decrease the number. It w r ould be a fine thing if the 75 per cent of those still employed could be released, w r ho are working at jobs that do not add any value to our social order. Twenty-five per cent of all those still employed could do all that the combined number now do. if the work were properly organized. Instead of starving because we do not find work. w 7 e could live in luxury and culture if we released ourselves from useless drudgery. If we merely want work, we could play soldier. Our financiers insist on competition, so that only a few can have plenty. Rationalizing of our industrial system, would permit new high standards of living: and unemployment would become a blessing leading to culture rather than the curse we make it. nun PRAISES CITY'S NEW STREET CAR SYSTEM By Harry A. Kobe!. Your paper deserves special credit for the editorial of congratulations to Indianapolis Railways, Inc., and its president, Charles W. Chase. Believe me, when I say, regardless of what the Indianapolis News prints and the pictures it uses on the front page, there are persons who are extremely grateful to Mr. Chase and his organization, and I am one of them. Before the advent of Indianapolis Railways, there was a bunch of chronic kickers, of which the Indianapolis News was one, complaining about the poor transportation system. Now that Mr. Chase, through his reorganization of the system, has given and is continuing to give better service, the same bunch with the News at its head as the biggest kicker, has done an about face and is kicking harder than ever about the new system. Then is the other type of

‘YOU’RE ASKIN’ ME?’

Replies to Attack on Legion of Decency

By A. Dailey. Who does Gretta Palmer think she is, predicting failure for the legion of decency and otherwise criticising this grand work? She has been “jogging along with the impression that church and state are separated,” and insinuates that the church is now meddling in state affairs. You are so well informed. Miss Palmer, surely you read our President's address before the Federal Council of Churches on Dec. 6 last. He said: “The church and the government, while wholly separate in their functions, can work hand in hand, and state and church are rightly united in a common aim.” Do you know, Miss Palmer, that

I kicker, the kind that drives fifteen- j dollar junkers around over the | streets on the west side, kicking about i holes in the streets, although the I big trucks driven by local and out- j of-town companies are as much to j blame, if not more so, than Indianapolis Railways. Furthermore, the fare for a town or city the size of Indianapolis, which'the News is kicking about, is no higher than other cities the size of this one; for instance, South Bend has a 7-cent fare and it is not nearly as big as this city. Milwaukee has a straight 10-cent fare, as has other large cities, so why all the howling about fares and holes in the streets? nan GROWER COMPLAINS • OF LOW PRICES By One Farmer For AII. Now that we have NR A prices on most everyth.ng, I would like to know why is it that we farmers and truck gardeners don’t get any on our vegetables? I brought several loads of cabbage, red beets, onions, letttuce and several other items to a commission house. But when I received the check. I surely had a surprise. Cabbage was a 25 cents a bushel, onions 15 cents a dozen bunches, lettuce 25 cents a bushel and red beets 12 cents a dozen bunched. You city folks go to the groceries, pay 80 cents a bushel for cabbage or three pounds for a dime; red beets.; three bunches for a dime, and onions, two bunches for a nickel. Who makes the money and who' does the work? Why do you city folk have to pay such an enor- j mous price and we growers don't get even our expenses? an n URGES SUPPORT OF M’FADDEN BILL By Mary Wright. “H. R. 4747. a bill to establish economic liberty in the United States of America and for other purposes,” has been introduced by: Congressman Louis T. McFadden. the biggest man in Washington. The j old leadership is gone. Write to your congressman and j senators for a copy of this bill and ask them how they stand on it. When you get the bill, study it [carefully and demand that your repi resentative support it. Get all ! your friends to write. Hold mass j meetings and send petitions by the j bale to the banking and currency {committee of the house of representatives for immediate consideration and hearing on this bill. Your letters are necessary to combat the power of the racketeers. The crooked credit svstem must be abolished forever. *

social morality figures greatly in that aim? That the idea of Christianity nowadays to the Roman Catholic church is exactly the same as it was when instituted —to save the souls of all mankind? That the stupidity of the churches’ method is not the same as forbidding children to put beans in their noses and thereby giving them the idea? That the children in this case have long had the idea, but if their holy mother, the church, lovingly though firmly says no, they will as always, obey her? Stick to your other Vassar subjects Gretta, you will do better. HE DOESN’T LIKE “CAPITAL CAPERS” By V. D. V. Without doubt your paper is one of the outstanding newspapers in Indiana, both in policies and makeup. As much as I enjoy The Times I feel an urge to voice objection to your column, “Capital Capers.” Who in blankety blank cares to read that “Miss Duchy Jones greeted the second secretary to the third attache of the Vulgarian embassy with a gracious smile,” or that “Senator Hotfoot prefers Bicardi to Sparkling Burgundy,” or that “Congressman Hittenstop wears canary colored spats.” Some persons might enjoy this inane news, but I for one am sure that in these days of turbulence this valuable space in your paper should be used for constructive items. Thousands of us will have to change our mode of living in the very near future and being an ardent believer in the “back to the land” or subsisting homestead ; movement, I suggest you start a column on this vital subject, endeavoring to find out the sentiment of the persons most interested—the industrial and other workers. I know and can prove that a man with one or two acres of ground and ! with two or three days of work a week in the city does not need the township trustee's aid. n n n ADVOCATES INCREASE OF OLD AGE PENSIONS By D. R. T. I see that the subject of old age pension is appearing quite often in the papers now. To me that is the greatest piece of legislation ever enacted by an Indiana assembly. The man or woman running for the legislature this fall will get my vote when he or she pledges a program of increasing the benefits to the aged and infirm. non “WHERE ARE THESE JOBS?” HE ASKS By Daily Reader. Dear Big Shots: I read a lot about unemployment getting less. Where? I am a mar- ■ ried man, 31, and healthy, but do i you think I can find a job? No, I can not, and it is not because I hav* not looked. I get the same old story everyhere: “Sorry, but we have men laid off now, or we are cutting our force down.” Then where are these jobs? • Some of you good-hearted big boys write in and give me a job. and I can give you some very good references. Until then, let some of these factories cut out putting in

.’JULY 4, 1934

machinery and use manual labor instead. For every man it takes to build some of these machines the finished machine cuts out thirty or forty men. The Indianapolis Street Railway blows about how it is improving our big city. But how? By cutting men off and using one-man cars and that is progress, putting people out of work.

So They Say

Our education has been an education for a static, relatively fixed social order.—Professor John Dewey of Columbia University. It is pretty clear that the credit situation is now the chief thing standing in the way of continued i •’covery— Professor Raymond Moley. There is an excess of a least 85,000 feeble churches (in the United States) which are unable to support the full-time services of either a trained or an untrained minister.—■ Report of Institute of Social and Religious Research of New York. If I may be guilty of a paradox, one of our troubles in this country has been that the conservatives have not been conservative. —Joseph B. Eastman, federal co-ordinator of transportation. The American people have frequently made it unmistakably plain that they are either averse to thinking or that they are unable to think. —Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia university. I sometimes think that one of our weaknesses is a craze for novel and radical ideas in government.—Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. I have faith in brains, despite attacks on the brain trust and ribald mirth at the idea that brains should have a part in governing the country.—Dean Virginia Gildersleeve of Barnard college. Nothing is a greater disgrace to a country than ingratitude.—The Rev. Francis W. Walsh, wartime chaplain. Ireland is prepared to take the full consequences of being an independent nation.—President Eamonn de Valera.

Daily Thought

Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy worth.—Psalms, 90-11. Anger is one of the sinews of the soul. —Fuller.

I Can’t Forget

BY LAWRENCE E. SCOTT My dear. I can’t forget you When I have gone away, For every hour in nature's bower, O'er my heart shall hold sway. The roses are your crimson cheeks, The goldenrod, your hair, The violets, your dancing eyes, So mirthful, free of care. The linnets echo your sweet voice A In song or laughter, dear, Uu see, I really can't forget, •V) brush away your tear.