Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 51, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 July 1934 — Page 12

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TUESDAY. JULY 10. 1334. THE MACCRACKEN CASE TT would be unfortunate should the departof justice fail to carry the MacCracken contempt case to the highest court. Here is a case of a lawyer in the employ of subsidized air transport lines who failed to produce documents subpenaed by a senate committee. Since the investigation of air mail subsidy facts was preliminary' and necessary to enactment of air mail reforms, it is obvious that the senate was obstructed in its legislative work by the failure of the lawyer to obey the subpena. It is not important whether Mr. MacCracken. as an individual, goes to jail. No particular good came from the ten days behind the bars served by Colonel Brittin, Mr. MacCracken's co-defendant, who neither had the money nor th° inclination to continue to challenge the senate's authority. But it is important that the power of congressional committees to do their work should not be impaired. Committee investigations have become essential to the functioning of congress. Without access to the facts, intelligent action is impossible. In the last decade there has b°en little important national legislation not preceded by a congressional investigation. Yesterday’s 3-to-2 decision by the district court of appeals, holding that the senate had no authority to punish MacCracken, if sustained, would weaken this indispensable power of inquiry’. STREAM POLLUTION 'T'HE alarming conditions prevailing in Indiana's lakes, creeks and rivers will be placed before the public again this year in the series of stories on water source pollution which starts today in The Times. Indiana has had an inclination to pass by this terrible danger that lurks on every hand. Some Indiana manufacturers openly have defied recommendations and orders to improve their sewage disposal systems in order to save lives. The series in The Times this year will be far more comprehensive than last. This summer The Times will carry comparisons of conditions existing today in places where pollution was found last year. And, as regrettable as it is. The Times will tell the truth in more than one instance in which the conditions have become worse, rather than having been improved. As the stories are published, many people in the state will be faced with the accusation that they are responsible for the polluted conditions of water sources in their communities. Many of these persons will resent the charges. Among these persons will be politicians who probably have been involved in the practices which have brought about the situation. For those people The Times has no sympathy. It intends to place the charges on the thresholds of those to blame and expects these offenders to remedy the conditions, not next year, but immediately. There is no defense to the charge that any one or any group deliberately is failing to aid in the protection of our residents.

THREE CHALLENGES SEVERAL days ago The times urged trimming of a hedge at the corner of Twentyseventh and Pennsylvania streets. The request for action came after a man and his two small children narrowly escaped serious injury or death when the father was unable to see an automobile approaching from the east. Since then the list of obstructed vision points has increased. The mail yesterday brought two more. Readers of The Times included the following comment: ‘Thirty-ninth street and Capitol avenue. Something should be done.” ‘ State Road 31 and state Road 256. This corner is the worst you ever will see. Action now undoubtedly will save lives.” There are three challenges to the persons who own these properties and to the officials in charge of enforcing such regulations. Will they go unheeded? BANKING IMPROVEMENT RECORDS of the Indianapolis Clearing House Association reveal that in the last few months bank deposits in the city have increased approximately $25,000,000. Practically every city in the country has felt this upturn in banking business since the passage of the federal bank deposit insurance law. Indianapolis is to be proud that it did not lag behind in voting confidence in the new financial setup of a nation which has fought its way through the doldrums of depression. Evans Woollen, president of the Fletcher Trust Company, has stated the position of the banking interests of the city and country’ when he expressed confidence in the administration's stand in combating fiat money. Mr. Woollen cited many instances of renewed national confidence, but he also scored the terrific public debt tha#has mounted in the last five years. It is astounding to what extent figures can grow over a period of a few years, but. on the other hand, it is outRtanding to what extent a public debt may be necessary in pulling a nation from the mire. Let it be hoped that opinions such as Mr. Woollen's, and improved banking figures continue to find their way to the newspapers and homes of Indianapolis residents. Statistics and statements of these types are not breeder* of flaring prosperity, but the record of an improvement that must come and must, in time, benefit each of us.

Members of United l’re*. firripp* - Howard Newspaper Alllanre. Newspaper Enterprle Association. \>wsparv*r I’-formatlon Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. Owned and published dally • except Sunday! hr The Indlan*Toli Time* Publishing Company. 214-2CO West Marr!*nd street. Indianapolis. Incl Prteu in Halloa county. 2 eenta a copy: elsewhere. 3 rent*—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subseripHn rats in Indiana. It a year: outside of Indiana. Ki cent* a month.

OUR DAILY BREAD AMERICA'S billion-dollar baking industry finally has raised the Blue Eagle banner and begun working under an NRA code. The new code doubtless will help the industry's 25 000 bakeries and their workers. The National Bakers’ Council, which is the code authority, will set up market areas to protect existing wage scales and employment standards. There will be a forty-hour week for large and a forty-eight-hour week for small nandlcraft establishments. The wage minimum will be 40 cents an hour, with a 5-cent differential in the south. What will the new code do for or to the consumers? Last month, according to studies made by the AAA consumers' counsel. Dr. Fred Hfwe, bread prices in fifty-one cities were averaging 8.1 cents a pound loaf of white bread. A year ago the average retail price was 6.6 cents, so that the price has risen 23 per cent in a year. During this time the average price of all foods rose 11 per cent. The increase of about 1.5 cents in the price of bread can not be accounted for by the processing tax or other rises benefiting the farmers. According to Dr. Howe there is a margin of about a half cent between the rise in the cost of materials in a loaf of bread and the retail price rise. This half cent, It would seem, should absorb the increased labor costs under the new code. General Hugh Johnson thinks there will be no bread profiteering. Says he: “Competition is so keen and the number of establishments so great that little likelihood exists of the development of a price structure detrimental to the consumer or of Inordinate profits to the industry.” Asa “further safeguard’’ he has named Karl Hauck of the NRA consumers’ advisory board to be a full-time adviser to the administration member of the code authority and to study costs and prices in the various market areas. It is the government’s business to see that stabilization of this industry is not paid for in unduly high bread prices.

BY-THE-DRINK FANATICISM “ r T"'HE trouble with the drys,’’ screamed the wets in the not-so-distant past, “is that they’re such fanatics. They’re just plain rabid. Fanatics, that’s what they are!” The day of the dry fanatic passed. Now we have the wet fanatic. And the latter is infinitely more dangerous because it now appears that he has lost his sense of balance. A storm of protest has swept Indiana—once upon a time it was BONE DRY INDIANA —because Governor Paul V. McNutt rightly refused to declare by-the-drink sales of whisky legal. Leading the battle for the wide-open interpretation of the laws are: 1. Hotel owners, who are fighting on a financial basis. 2. Wet fanatics who, as we’ve said before, have no sense of balance and who are shrieking for the ‘‘good old days”—the days of the saloon, the days which led to the scandalous era of prohibition, and 3. A dozen or so newspapers in Indiana, newspapers which stuck stanchly to the sinking ship Prohibition to the last desperate days. What their motive is. nobody know’s. It’s far too subtle for the layman to understand. This newspaper was wet back in the days when Indiana lived under the Wright bone dry law. This newspaper was pleading for modification and repeal long before it became fashionable to campaign against prohibition. Repeal, we believed, would do away with all the rottenness of bootlegging, the hypocrisy, the lies, and all the rest of the sordid events which took place under the rule of the drys. It has to a good extent. Prohibition may have made America a hard-drinking nation. We don’t know. But we do know that the wet fanatic is the most dangerous person in American life today. Are we to have another era of a saloon on every corner, the gutters strewn with drunkards, and, eventually, another regime of prohibition? God forbid! Indiana's wet fanatics who today are screaming for by-the-drink sales of whisky were proclaiming temperance their goal back in the days when it seemed that prohibition was in the Constitution to stay. Now they’ve forgotten what the word temperate means. Governor McNutt is right. By-the-drink sales of whisky are illegal under the law’. The state administration can not enforce the ban on sales-by-the-drink whisky. It is odd that the very communities which now are protesting the loudest about not having adequate facilities for enforcing the law did have the facilities back in the days when it meant $25 for the prosecutor every time a bootlegger was convicted. How’ times do change! It really is high time that Indiana came to her senses.

TO BE EXPECTED LONG ago, when the French revolution had brought forth its reign of terror, and revolutionary leaders themselves began going to the scaffold, someone remarked that revolution always devours its own children. A survey of the recent bloody events in Germany simply confirms this dictum. Seizing power by violence almost invariably breeds still more violence. Disagreements among men who govern a country are inevitable under any kind of regime; and where these disagreements can not be decided at the polls, in a peaceful manner, they eventually must get settled in a violent manner —with the firing squad or the guillotine for the losers. The German Fascist revolution is simply following the formula. A resident of Lancaster, Pa., stabbed in the heart, is alive after a doctor stitched up the wound. You'll still have to depend on time, however, if you're in love. A bird dog belonging to a Tennessee doctor gave birth to twelve pups and didn't even get a nibble at a world's fair contract. A Chicago banker calls President Roosevelt a greater Socialist than Lenin. Perhaps America IS planning a bigger statue to F. D. R. than the Soviets put up for Lenin. Hogs on American farms have increased more than $185,000,000 in value since a month ago. And that's only the hogs on the farms.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

YESTERDAY. I called attention to the striking article bv Mr. Quigley in Current History, which rudely challenges the widely accepted view that, in spite of notable inroads upon human freedom, the Fascist regime in Italy has been a huge success when viewed from the material standpoint. I cited the more significant of Mr. Quigley’s figures which indicated a startling decline of Italian economic prosperity, only a part of which can be explained satisfactorily by the impact of the depression upon Italian economic life. Today, I shall consider some of the items in the social and cultural balance sheet of Fascism. Another disillusionment Is to be found in the widespread conviction that Mussolini has done a great deal for the mass of Italians in the way of better housing conditions and the like. Mr. Quigley denies this categorically. He says that, “in this respect Fascist history is one of unrelieved indifference and brutality.” The heavy expenditures on public works have been chiefly for roads, docks, harbors, railroads, public buildings and the like. With respect to workers’ homes, hospitals, sanatoria, schools and the like, the architectural record of Fascist Italy is worse than that of any other European country in the same political category. There have been millions for stadia, statues, memorials and other enterprises devoted to Fascist exhibitionism, but hardly a cent for structures needed for popular comfort and wellbeing. a a a IT hardly needs to be pointed out that under Italian Fascism democratic political institutions have disappeared. But democracy is everywhere under fire, and the so-called Italian “corporate state” may be an important novel contribution to representative government and political control. Much more serious is the complete destruction of the basic civil liberties of mankind, such as freedom of speech, press, assembly, education and the like. It would require great material prosperity to compensate for the loss of these hard won rights of man, and this material prosperity does not seem to have been forthcoming. Much has been said about the Fascist contribution to art. When Mussolini came into power in 1921, the influence of Croce had been been such as to promise a varitable artistic renaissance in Italy. All this has been frustrated, and Mr. Quigley contends that Italian art today is “a poor and pale reflection of the art movements which have held so much promise ten years earlier.” He continues: “Italy in thirteen years has thrown up no artist, no philosopher, no poet, no novelist of more than purely local significance.” a a a IN the field of architecture and sculpture we find the greatest artistic achievements of the Fascist regime. Elaborate railway stations, innumerable postoffices, big auditoriums and the like have been built, some of which are very creditable architectural performanes. Remarkable new’ university buildings have been constructed at Rome, Milan and elsewhere, but the education which goes on within is lacking in freedom and integrity. Most Fascist sculpture, while suggesting strength and vigor, has been crude and verging on the vulgar. Mr. Quigley comes to the following basic conclusions as to the final assessment of I\|ussolini’s achievements in their thirteenth year: 1. “Italy has gained, on balance, nothing in the cultural, economic and political spheres during the period October 1922-March, 1934, which can justify the Fascist experiment. It has lost, on the contrary, twelve years. 2. “Industrially and socially, Italy has lost ground. It is only necessary to winder up the valley of the Oglio and visit manufacturing centers in the vicinity of Milan, Turin and Venice to discover how paralyzed industrial equipment has become. 3. “Deflation has so undermined the structure of state finance and banking that only further desperate measures of restriction can keep it intact. Its collapse, under the present regime, is only a matter of time. 4. “In art and culture, Italy has reached the state of development of 1921, but the population is poorer, less effectively educated and less capable of supporting any cultural movement! that lacks state aid.” <lt is quite apparent that the experiment of il duce offers little w’hich should intrigue Americans in their search for a better day.

Capital Capers , BY GEORGE ABELL

MR. PEDRO GUEVARA resident commissioner of the Philippine Islands in Washington, has departed for Manila on the first vacation he' has taken in twelve years. Approximately 100 Filipinos and many Americans were at the station to bid Pedro faiewell. Now, a goodly number of these well-wishers have received post cards from Seattle, containing greetings from their friend. Only—Pedro is so excited at the prospect of again seeing his native land that he has become a trifle absent minded. The post cards bore onecent stamps, instead of the required two-cent postage. Filipino and American friends here have written to Pedro, wishing him bon voyage but reminding him to put sufficient postage on any cartons of cigarets and cigars he may send from Manila. tt tt tt SENATOR CARL HAYDEN of Arizona, one of the four senators appointed to investigate conditions in the Philippines, is a felloyv passenger of Guevara aboard the Empress of Japan. Both men had intended to sail aboard the President Jackson but w’ere delayed an entire week at Seattle on account of the longshoremen’s strike. They finally determined to take another steamer. Hayden is a sort of advance guard for his three colleagues. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, Senator Kenneth MeKellar of Tennessee and Senator Daniel Hastings of Delaware. Four representatives—McDuffie of Alabama, Lozier of Missouri, Smith of West Virginia, and Beedv of Maine—also are bound for the islands to look things over, but they are postponing their trip until after the November elections. Incidentally, while Guevara and Hayden are en route to the Philippines and the congressional group prepares for the trip, the widely known Filipino political leader, Manuel Quezon, is coming here. Quezon is bound for Paris to undergo a minor operation, but he is expected to take time off while in Washington to do what he can to secure better sugar quotas for the islands. tt tt tt THE Washington police and diplomatic motorists are tactfully avoiding the run-ins they used to have in the old days when the grievances of both sides found utterance in letters to the secretary of state. Monsieur Jules Henry’, the very amiable but occasionally hot-blooded counselor of the French embassy, drove his car around nupont Circle yesterday, ignoring a red light. Immediately, a motorcycle policeman was on him. ‘‘Hey, what the”— Then he glimpsed Jules’ diplomatic license. A little fatherly advice about careful driving followed, with Jules patiently listening. One w,ho observed the almost friendly tete-a-tete was forcibly reminded of that distant day when the same Jules Henry’ engaged in heated altercation with a Dupont Circle cop and finally wound up bv pulling the vizor of the officer’s cap down over his eyes. Diplomats and police seem to have improved. When Hitler visited Mussolini recently, one of the first things II Duce did was to have his guest inspect the Italian army—Just as a friendly gesture, you know. Producers plan to change the title of “It Ain’t No Sin,” but a. Mae West film by any other name is still no rose.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so ill can have a chance. I imit them to 856 words or less.) tt tt tt MAKES REPLY TO RELIGION CRITIC By a Girl Evangelist. In answer to Frank Cummings: Asa young evangelist of today, I feel I must take my stand for God. I presume, Mr. Cummings, you are a, student of science, and, perhaps, you have been in Egypt and found the ruins of the ancient Egyptians with their official marks designating just who they were. You probably neglected to visit Jerusalem and see the tomb where our Lord lay, or Golgotha's hill, where he was crucified. Would you have to see all your ancestors to know they lived? If the Bible is the handiwork of common men the world never has produced such common men since the good book was written. Scientists know the world is in a crisis, but they are unable to tell the outcome, but we read the Bible and learn we are in the final days of tribulation. Yes, Marx said religion is opium, but he forgets that opium properly administered, is an anodyne, soothing bodily pain and giving the sufferer that measure of surcease and hope which enables him to carry on and to live. This nation was not founded on human reason—it w ? as based on religion. Our civilization is not the product of science, but it came from those who walked with God, and worshipped Him according to the dictates of their own conscience. If the American people reject the Bible and Jesus. w r e will become a nation devoid of pow’er and virtue. We will be as Russia, India, China and all those torn, starving, bleeding countries. May the Lord help you and all others believing as you do to learn the error of your ways before it is too late. tt u u FILLING STATIONWORKER COMPLAINS By a Station Manacer. Do the people of Indianapolis believe in a square deal? What is fair about these conditions? As manager of one of the major oil company stations. I order 1,000 gallons of gasoline from the bulk plant. The plant sends 997 gallons, and expansion due to hauling and heat brings the gasoline to 1,000 gallons at the station. The company charges me for three gallons that it never sent. Furthermore, the gasoline goes into an underground tank at the station and cools and shrinks. When I sell it, there ae only 993 gallons of condensed gasoline to sell. Three gallons I pay for that never left the plant and three I pay for that nature disposed of. In the eastern states the major oil companies recognize the condition apd only charge managers with gasoline recorded at the pumps. Should I be penalized for working in Indianapolis instead of somewhere else? a tt a SUGGESTS CHANGE INSERIAL STORY Bv Mr*. Ora Munson. We live in the country and can't get the stocks or final editions of The Times. It seems to me, that the story, “Bom to be Kissed,” also should be in the home edition. We like good stories, too. We enjoy every part of The ■nines, and we have taken the paper for a number of years. ~ - ■

IF I'r WEREN’T FOR OUR INHIBITIONS

Declares Coffin Still Rules G. O. P.

Bv E. Lemon. For anybody to assume that the old Coffin organization is not controlling the Republican party in the county and city is very foolish. Anybody with enough brains to grease a gimlet knows the candidates are Coffin controlled. Serving as a member of one of our city precinct election boards, I know for an absolute fact that most Republican voters came in armed with a Coffin slate, and voted the slate, assuring Coffin the present control of the various precinct committeemen and w’ard chairmen. Yet, they will have the nerve in their coming campaign to tell 221.000 registered voters the can-

PREDICTS FAILURE OF FEDERAL AID By Charles Burton. The farmers and small wage earners have bestowed their labor upon the lands that have yielded the food to feed the people, while at the same time financial giants, void of conscience and moved by greed, have grown rich by manipulating the price of foodstuffs and by unrighteous dealing in the fruits upon w’hich they have bestow’ed no labor. They have gained possession of most of the money of the farms and the houses, secured by mortgages on which they collect exorbitant interest; and the result is that the farmers and most home owners are in great distress because they are being stripped of their life’s earnings and their property is being taken aw’ay by foreclosure of mortgages. Because of this alarming and deplorable condition, the government is adopting experimental plans in an effort to save the farmers and the home owners. Such efforts are certain to fail. tt a tt WANTS RETURN OF PLAYGROUND PAGE By the Kids. Last year The Times ran a playground page each week that meant a lot to most of us who enjoy not only playing at our own ground, but reading about what’s going on at the others. This year we notice you only use two columns a week. How about putting the page back? We think it would be worth while. tt tt tt DECLARES EMPLOYES OF STATE OVERWORKED By a Keen Observer. I have been noting in the papers that Governor McNutt has expressed a desire to have a model prison law in Indiana. Good. But when it is drawn up, it is to be hoped it will not omit laws governing the officers of the institutions. I wonder if our Governor realizes that in this state men are working eighty-four hours a week, and night work at that, ar.d drawing the same salary that day men draw who work on the average of forty-two days less a year. Nearly all corporations and private concerns extend night men some privileges with additional pay. Night work is unnatural and requires almost an entire separation from a family and renders a man dead to all social activities of his community. There are in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty men employed at the Indiana reformatory, of which about twenty work every night in the year. Why can’t this be divided so that one man will have to work about one month of nights, out of seven? The practice of treating the em--7

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

didates are not controlled by any clique or faction, or never w'as affiliated with the Ku-Klux Klan, and probably “Li’,l Arthur” will inform our rural districts that he never knew’ such an organization ever existed. By sending our senior senator back to Washington w r e are only furthering the depression, but by retiring him, w T e not only will help the President fight the depression, but help our own stomachs and pocketbooks. Providing you haven’t had enough of fat jowl and beans, and wish for more, vote for Senato* Robinson, but if you have had your quota and think enough is plenty, vote for Sherman Minton.

ployes worse than the inmates is disgusting. Why can’t we have anew deal. The first reason for this change is, it is right and just. The other reason is that it greatly will increase the efficiency of all the officers and make them fit to handle emergencies. * tt tt tt SMOKE ABATEMENT WORK PRAISED By Eleanore Stevason. To the southsider complaining of smoke nuisance at Shelby street shops: Yours is a most rightful indignation, but you must remember smoke abatement is not a one-man job. Perhaps you. too, are among the offenders. Why Indianapolis can not wake up and see the value of the Smoke Abatement League is an eighth wonder. We brag of Indianapolis, the city of many beautiful homes, but we can hardly say that we are proud of the proved fact that we are living in the fifth dirtiest city in the United States. The Smoke Abatement League should be praised for the work it has accomplished with railroads, industrial plants and apartment houses. The smoke nuisance has reduced, but this organization can not stand on the merits of its work alone. It needs co-operation, not of a few but of many. As I understand it, there is a man employed for each type of smoke nuisance. The men give the entire time throughout the day to their work. Does Mr. Southsider think they should be on duty twenty-four hours every day? I am sure if he would take his complaint to the manager of the league, the matter would be given every possible attention. A complaint I made was handled in a most courteous .manner. Meanwhile, Mr. Southsider, don’t be a knocker, but boost the smoke abatement movement in our “no mean city” to the limit and be sure to watch the flue of your own home when winter comes, for home owners are among the serious offenders. tt a tt POLLUTED SITES SHOULD HAVE WARNING SIGNS By D. W. I am one of the thousands of persons in Indianapolis and Indiana who are delighted to see The Times again present its series on stream pollution. I have a family of three. We would like to go swimming here and there at places we pass on a weekend trip or a night’s drive. Many times we have seen children swimming in places which surely must be dangerous. For that reason I will not, nor permit my family to. swim in every spot they see looks jy

.JULY 10, 1934

inviting and which is being patronized by persons living in the immediate vicinity. No doubt some of these places are safe, but the appearance of the water’s condition is forbidding. I suppose that the state and city governments will co-operate with The Times in cleaning up these polluted spots as soon as possible. I think it would be a good idea if the state would post each and every place in the state where there is any danger of pollution. We have warning signs at automobile and railroad crossings. That is done to preserve life. I can’t see why polluted waters should not carry similar warnings. Surely there is no difference in death by disease and accident—both are unpleasant to think about and both are a public duty to prevent. We’ll read The Times series with interest. We hope you never pull your punch on anything so important and deserving. tt tt a THINKS TRAFFIC CARTOON TAUGHT A LESSON By R. C. Permit me to compliment you on the cartoon in last Friday’s paper. It was the one which portrayed a •hedge at a street intersection as one of the causes of traffic deaths. Some people apparently can’t do a serious job of reading and absorbing that which they read, but they surely could not have missed the moral in that cartoon. tt o tt SUBMITS PROGRAM FOR BETTER CITY Bv Cleon Leonard. I find The Times Message Center very interesting. I would like to state my views. I would make a change In the Chamber of Commerce. The working class of ppople want work. Store modern machinery. Competition—that is what makes the world go around. We must have it and plenty, for the good of the poor people. Old people have to live. I think it ought to be up to the moneyed people to take care of them. What would we do without the luxury of telephones and electricity. We are living in a wonderful day if people could only see. Indianapolis could be one of the leading cities if we had push enough.

FOG

pY VIRGINIA Fog over the Plaza. Slowly . . . slowly Thoughts steal over me. Vague memories. Lonely. I remember The glow of your cigaret in the darkness. The smell of earth, Stardust—and the feeling of smallness in a Great vastness Two small things You and I. You asked, “What is love?” “Love is two souls blended together as one, Two souls, each dependent on the other for life.” I touched the marble where we sat and talked. So much to tell. Cold . . . Numbness in my fingertips and in my heart. You, at the end of the earth, Can you be remembering Fog over the Plaza?