Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 78, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 August 1934 — Page 18
PAGE 18
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FRIDAY. AVO 10. 1934 NO ROOSEVELT RETREAT r T''HE President’s notable address at Green "*• Bay, Wr., was not his first statement that there .5 to b no re’reat from the New Deal. It was especially significant, however. It went farther than earlier statements and was made on the eve of the national congressional campaign. Moreover, the President acted on his New Deal pledge by helping Senator La Follette, the moat effective leader of the New Deal forces in congress before, as well as since, the President took office. A reactionary Democratic Wisconsin machine, with the reported approval of National Chairman Farley, has been trying to defeat La Follette for re-elec-tion. If actions sp> ak louder than words, the President's support of Senator La Follette is a further commitment to a progressive political and economic program. As for the President's method at Green Bay in answering critics of the administration policy. It seemed to us most effective. He told of two typical letters begging him to say something to restore national confidence. He replied by asking, “What would you like to have me say?” One could not answer. The other said honestly that he wanted the President to cease all government supervision of business. Yes, that is precisely what most critics of the New Deal want, even though not all of them are frank enough to admit it to themselves or others. What would such a retreat mean? Certainly not confidence and prosperity, but chaos. It would mean, as the President was careful to specify: “That a utility could henceforth charge any rate, reasonable or otherwise; that the railroads could go back to rebates and other secret agreements; that the processors of foodstuffs could disregard all rules of health and of good faith; that the unregulated wildcat banking of a century ago could be restored; iulcnt securities and watered stock could be palmed off on the public; that stock manipulation which caused panics and enriched ln-iders could go unchecked. In fact, if we were to listen to him. the old law of the tooth ar.d the claw would reign once more.” Then the President made a declaration hich is much more important than what Mr. Roosevelt thinks about this issue or is going to do about it. He pointed to a fact which the conservative critics never seem to take into their calculation: “The people of ‘the United States will not restore that ancient order.” THE MAGIC METAL WE can not begrudge the stiver advocates their jov over nationalization of the white metal. As usual, they think the government has not gone tar enough, but, also as usual, they say this newest monetary move will speed us along toward better times. v At each inflationary whirl, they have said the same. And each time we have waited not too patiently for our problems to disappear and prosperity to return. Senator Elmer Thomas says this latest move is "the beginning of anew world monetary system.” Uninspired by the money dogma, we confess we are more doubtful than Senator Thomas. We hope he is right, lor we agree it would be' a fine thing to hasten an international monetary agreement. Indeed. a world compact seems to us to offer the surest road to stability. It may bo that the action of our government in taking silver off the market and giving it a fixed value in terms of American dollars will tend to stabilize the price of silver elsewhere, and thereby give to the nations that have no gold a metal of more or less stable value. And it may pave the way to a w orld a ret menu. But that prospect is veryhazy. At le.>st. and maybe at niojt. the nationalization of domestic silver, by taking it out of tne hands of the speculators, should help our government to earn out the purposes of the silver purchase act in an orderly manner. But failure to nationalize imports may create new difficulties— nobody knows. Thus far there is nothing to indicate that the administration intends to try. by political alchemy, to transmute silver into money of greater value than the forces of world economics will permit. HOPE TERNS WEST warn ETHER that glittering vision of a milVV lion and a quarter Americans migrating from impoverished farm lands in the east and middle west and settling on reclaimed land in the Grand Coulee region ever comes true or not. it at least revives the age-old American habit of looking to the west. The picture is a little confusing, at first glance. It involves more of an effort to assert human control ever natural lorces than has ever been made in this country before. Pulling enough people to populate a fairsized state off to wornout lands where they have struggled to establish themselves, turning a desert a thousand miles away into fertile farm land and then transplanting these people to it en masse—here is a spectacle and ambitious program indeed. It is so ambitious, indeed, that it may prove impractical. But it does furnish an emcnonal lift of a kind that is badly needed in thee* days. Tha optimism ar.d drive of the American spirit owed much to the existence of the open irest. The west always was the American’s ace in the hole; the chance to drop everything. head toward the setting sun and start things over in a new land was the one card
he could always use when everything else went bad. But ‘he west filled up. Its rich natural resources were all Upped, its homesteads were all pre-empted, ar.d its horizon lost its allure. One reason why the recent depression was more up n tting than any of its predecessors was the fact that this western escape was no longer open. Now, out of a clear sky, comes a revival of the western promise—new land, new homes, and anew start. It is like a rebirth of pioneer days; and it has an emotional importance that does not depend on the workability of th*' particular scheme involved. It reminds us that our task of utilizing this great comment we inhabit only has begun. The job of building America Is not ended after all; i* simply has passed through its first phase. There is still much work to be done, there is still an abundance of opportunity, there is still a cl.allonge to an energetic and restless rare 0 f people—in the west, in the east, everywhere. Wi may do a good deal of fumbling around before we find the best way to tackle this job. But the job is there, and its possibilities are immense. The President's dream of what may be done in the Grand Coulee region simply calls our attent.on to It. “THE TRAGEDY” 'T'O.M MOONEY celebrated his eighteenth ”*■ year in *a California prison for a crime seme one else committed. On the same day the United States circuit court denied him the right to appeal from the federal district court. The latter had refused him a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that his constitutional rights to due process of law were ignored by the state courts. “The tragedy of the situation is that the petitioner < Mooney) was not informed of the alleged perjured testimony and alleged misconduct of the prosecuting attorney until it was too late to avail himself of the remedy set urrd to him,” Judge Sawtclle said in denying the appeal. By this ho meant that Mooney did not know that Frank Oxman, the chief state witness against him, was outside of San Francisco at the time he said he saw Mooney plant the bomb. Nor did Mooney know that the proseeutor had knowledge of Oxman’s perjury. The exposure came about eight months after Mooney was convicted. Mooney's “right” to apply for anew trial expired six months after conviction. The California law has no provision for new trials based on evidence discovered later. Here is, indeed, tragedy. Mooney's lawyers are asking California’s new Governor Merriam for a pardon, and are appealing for their writ directly to the United States supreme court. If California courts have no remedies the Governor or the federal courts should have. A GAY DEBUNKER /COLONEL JOHN PHILIP HILL, pioneer in the movement to end prohibition by ridicule. is bidding for a seat in the United States senate. The Maryland cavalier has pined to return to public life since he fell victim of the political circumstance that the Democrats were the free state's wet party the year of prohibition's doom. It was John Philip who declared his Baltimore city re#.donee to be a “farm,” claiming thereby the legal right to make hard cider. In his back yard, before the eyes of an invited multitude, he plucked apples that he had tied by strings to shade trees and crushed them in a cider press. Then, to prove that prohibition had not repealed the law of fermentation, he announced publicly each day the reading on the cider gauge that measured the rise of alcoholic content. When fermentation had ceased, John Philip again invited the multitude to come and partake. A gay debunker is John Philip. While he probably. will not repeal the law of averages, which foretell election of a Democratic senator in Maryland this year, he is certain to make the campaign entertaining.
ALL OUT OF STEP BUT WIRT YI7HAT Dr. Wirt called “communism,” * ’ Henry I. Harriman, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, now describes as “the most fundamental and farreaching movement under way today.” Which goes to prove that there is a difference between blind and enlightened conservatism. Both were speaking of the subsistence homesteads sponsored by the Roosevelt administration. Both had in mind particularly the original project at Reedsville, W. Va., where 200 families of stranded coal miners are being aided by the government to get comfortable homes and earn a living. Both men want to preserve the present economic system. Dr. Wirt would do it, apparently, by letting potential enemies of the system starve. Mr. Harriman would do it by converting potential enemies into friends, making it possible for them to become selfsupporting ar.d self-respecting members of society. “Social security has got to be given the people of this country.” says Mr. Harriman. "The subsistence homestead projects will show us the way to the necessary decentralization of industry; the relief of mass congestion in the cities; provision for workers to own their own homes and contribute to their own support.” Today the vaunted "American standard of living” is a ghastly myth as any candid person may observe by looking out the window of a railroad train at the miserable shacks of tenant farmers and the grimy tenement houses along the right-of-way. We can make no honest boast of living standards until all American families are secure in comfortable homes protected from recourse to breadlines. THE MOON’S MUSIC on the wastes of the Atlantic, chal-A-f i e ngmg the westerly trade winds and the Sargasso sea. bobs the ten-foot sailboat of young Alfred Lastinger. seaman, heading from Florida for Spain. He is staking his life on the sporting venture of retracing the route of Columbus, who left Spain about tins time of year. He is heading northwest as this seasons Caribbean hurricanes threaten to send him down into one of the world's deepest ocean pits. Another daring fellow, Will Beebe, is preparing at Bermuda to drop a half-mile down in that same sea, in a great steel ball on a steel cable. Quartz glass windows, three inches H
thick, will enable him to see, and his partner to photograph, the unknowable denizens of the lower depths. It is a fine thing for us stay-at-homes that these adventurers continue to gamble their lives on new frontiers, be it for sport or science. Most of us have to be content with merely clinging to life. The adventurers’ tribe is the most poignant of this earth's races. Jamds Branch Cabell once wrote an allegory on the universal quest of mankind for what he called “The Music From Behind the Moon”—the meaning of this existence of ours. The lone travelers to the strange places of the earth seem to have a deeper urge than most of us to explore themselves as well as the terrestial globe. May they find the moon's music, peace, and a clew to some of the riddle of life. Good luck to you, Alfred and Will! A LESSON FOR AMERICA T)ARISIAN motorists drive fast, when A t hey head out for the open country. On the way they pass through the suburb of Cachan—and, like motorists everywhere, they are a little forgetful about slowing down. In the last six months the little town has had twenty-eight motor traffic fatalities. So the other day the people of Cachan decided things had gone far enough. They turned out en masse and blocked the ■whole highway, shouting: “We do not want any more of our children killed. We do not pay taxes to provide a pasture for automobiless.” Eventually the authorities got the road open, of course. But they did assign a police squad to see that traffic through Cachan proceeds at a safe pace. And it seems to us that the people of Cachan had a good idea. They refused to accept the traffic toll placidly, as an inescapable misfortune; instead they got up on their hind legs and did something about it—and, as a result, they got some of the protection they needed. It could be done elsewhere. Another group of convicts fled Indiana state prison after making dummies and putting them in their beds. But why did they go to all the trouble when plenty of guards were available for that purpose. Wonder how Alfalfa Bill Murray plans to pass away the time after he leaves office, with no militia to call out.
Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT expressed splendid sentiments and commendable economies in his speech at the Coulee dam in Washington. There is no more promising way of enabling the mass of Americans to benefit by modern scientific discoveries and inventions than to make it possible for them to use electric light and power at prices which are fair and just to all concerned. President Roosevelt's statement on this subject left little to be desired as a summary of the conditions which should exist. "We are going to see, I believe, with our own eyes, electricity and power made so cheap that they will become a standard article of use, not only for agriculture and manufacturing, but also for every home within reach of an electric light line. "The experiences of those sections of the world that have cheap power proves very conclusively that the cheaper the power the more of it is used—the more of it is used in home and small businesses.” All this is very commendable, but it is an extremely sizable commitment which ought not to be taken too light heartedly. Its implications should be considered carefully by the President. If he has no intention of making any serious effort to carry out such an alluring premise, it would be better to leave it unsaid. If he does hope to bring about its realization, it will be well for him to recognize that a much more desperate battle lies ahead than the one he had to fight to bring about even limited regulation of the New 7 York Stock Exchange. n n a THAT such a prospect as Mr. Roosevelt holds out need in no sense be mere day dreaming is amply proved by the example of Canada. There the state-owned and controlled Ontario hydro electric authority does supply electric current to the population at rates which make its use practicable in every avenue w 7 hich thus far has been opened up to electricity by invention. Power is generated for the people and not for profit or loss. In this country it is a bird of a different color. In any effort to provide electric current for the mass of Americans at a just and decent figure, Mr. Roosevelt will run headlong into the same coterie of financial moguls who have blocked him all along the way. This power pronouncement illustrates a very grave danger which faces the Roosevelt administration in the not distant future. The President and his advisers are to be praised highly for their vision and for their inventiveness in putting into words the tasks which must be fulfilled if we are to have any return of economic well-being. The phrases, slogans and promises have been almost unique for cogency and allurement. They have admirably described what needs to be done. ana BUT this very facility carries with it responsibility which can not be taken lightly. The administration is in danger of piling up altogether too many inspiring commitments to the American people which it can not or never will fulfill. For example, we have been told that the money changers would be driven from the temple; that the New Deal w 7 as to usher in a capitalistic system devoted to the interest of the consumers rather than the producers; that unemployment would be cut and wages raised; that we would have a planned economy designed to share the bounties of our resources and productive efficiency with the mass of the people: and that the right of collective bargaining would be absolutely guaranteed in order to help the era of consumers' capitalism. Moreover, just before congress disbanded Mr. Roosevelt made perhaps the most expansive of ail his promises, namely, that he and his party would guarantee to every normal Americana home, a job, and the advfntages of social insurance. Not a major promise of the administration has been carried out with real success. The closest approximation has been in the case of the planned economy, but both the NRA and the AAA are committed to the economy of scarcity which Mr. Roosevelt once repudiated. About the only planning which the American industrialists seem likely to accept in connection with the NRA is that which will enable them more effectively to exploit the consumers. a an IN every case the most effective opposition to the realization of Mr. Roosevelt's commendable aims has centered in the very 7 moneychangers whom he has left in the temple. And these are the same men who now throttle American utillies through their vampire holding companies and prevent even private ownership from achieving a maximum of economy and service. It is this crowd which Mr. Roosevelt will have to overcome if he is to progress at all in making good his Coulee dam commitments to the American public. Unless he has some new ruse up his sleeve or proposes to use brass knuckles hitherto concealed, it is dubious strategy for him to make additional promises which involve a test of strength with the group that has thus far defeated or stalled him in every phase ol the struggle to create an actual New Deal*
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can hare a chance. TAmit them to SSO words or less.) ecu MR. ADLER DEFENDS HIS NRA CLAIMS By Jos. B. Adler. I note in the Message Center that J. Pierce Cummings states the Fraternal Order of Eagles suggested a federal commission be established for the stabilization of employment, and the resolution was urged on June 12, 1930. This is merely a suggestion that the government should do something to stabilize employment, but without a definite plan or method of accomplishing it, nor even the inception of a move to acquire the desired purpose. If this had been done it would have required an indefinite length of time to appoint a commission, prepare all the details and many other things essential to furthering the intended purpose. What was imperative at the time Mr. Roosevelt took office was immediate and definite action to get us out of the mire as soon as feasible. We had been sinking deeper and deeper for four long years at that time, and the condition was becoming desperate. While I do NOT contend that I actually suggested the NRA, in fact, I do state emphatically that I gave Mr. Roosevelt a definite plan to start back on the road to prosperity, and as a consequence the NRA was a natural step in order to execute the plan. After that the Blue Eagle fallowed as the next step in that direction. Neither do I think there was anything remarkable in my suggestion, for it was merely founded on ordinary horse sense. The only feature I am astonished about is that someone else did not offer my suggestion among the thousands who made suggestions. This is more especially true relative to the business men. Offering a plan to accomplish something which would take months or longer to inaugurate while people were hungry and some possibly on the brink of starvation was not a fitting time to take such action. After that it is well to establish a general plan to prevent the occurrence, if possible. That is the predicament the people were in that time, and it was the propitious moment in which judicious and speedy action had to be taken. Therefore, while the resolution offered by the Eagles might have been fine in the future, we had to rescue those who were in the position of the drowning man. nan LIKED EDITORIAL ON WAR TOPIC By Hiram Lackey. I wish to thank you for your editorial on “Staying Out of War,” in The Times of Aug. 6. You found and printed that brand of truth which really gives your readers an insight into one of their major problems. Now will you please write new editorials on the need of new parties and technocracy in which you use that same Christian influence. Today you stated these important problems, threw up a smoke screen and deserted us. Not long ago you received Fosdick's explanation on why we delayed solving these problems. He gives us an insight into these matters. If you believe that his theory on prejudice and sacredness be false, will yqn kindly write an edi-
THE PRESIDENT SEEMS SUCCESSFUL!
*'
The Message Center
Thinks Semi-Socialistic Schemes Doomed
By a Reader. Man’s initiative in developing the “Arts and Sciences” has solved the problem of production and transportation. Plenty of everything exists. Progress and change—the elimination of the obsoltete —has been man's endeavor. Our capital economy has not changed since Shylock’s time. Capital demands income from the mere lapse of time (Interest). Many times a surplus of factory or farm products can not be sold for costs, including interest. Defaults occur, foreclosures and liquidations are demanded, the depression is on, and we-have what we have—the drift toward Socialism, Communism, Regimentation, and NRA, all of which are beautiful in theory, but where is the man or group of men big enough to direct the energy of 120 million people? Investment banking is in bad repute, but it is a logical and necessary development if periodical depressions and liquidations are to be avoided. Capital must take its in-
torial in which you give a better explanation? Since you are determined to write on these progressive subjects, if his explanation be sound, why do you not print it? If it be false, we wish to know the truth. We plead for that earnestness and clear thinking of which we know you are capable. After having read your best, we are not satisfied with anything less sincere and constructive. nan SEES NO DIFFERENCE UNDER NEW DEAL By a Times Reader. About a year ago the first of next month we went to work on the CWA at sls a week. We could buy hour for as low as 47 cents for twenty-four pounds; butter, 16 cents pound; sugar, ten pounds for 43 cents; bread, 5 cents a pound, and in some places, three pound loaves for a dime; potatoes, 12 ! a cents to 15 cents peck; eggs, 10 cents dozen; bacon, 11 cents pound; steak, 12 J 2 cents; pork chops, 12’i cents, and you know how it was then. Now they pay only sl2 a week and flour 80 cents to $1.25; butter, 27 to 32 cents; sugar, ten pounds. 56 cents; bread, “4 pound loaf for 6 and 7 cents; potatoes, 25 to 35 cents peck: eggs, 19 to 23 cents; bacon, 19 to 28 cents; steak, 19 to 25 cents; pork chops, about 21 or 23 cents. I could name more, but that's enough. It sure is a grand and glorious New Deal and the President wants to know if we're better off now than a year ago. We’ve had the same thing every year since I can remember, so what's the difference between the New Deal and the old shuffle? People suffered cold and hunger while produce was burned up and destroyed. Now Mr. Wallace says if this drought continues much longer, we'll have to start a producing program. Who was it said, ■What fools these mortals be?” In another month school will open. Where will our books, clothing. shoes and all other extras for four, five or more children come from? Maybe our traveling Governor will help us get them. He has been so much help to us poor people, anyway. Or maybe Sherman Minton will get us another cut in our light bills. Mine fell from $1.06 last year to $1.07 this year. That all helps. Even “Li’l Arthur” Robinson, with
[I wholly disapprove of what you say and will j defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire. J
come on a participating basis. No business should be liquidated except for obsolescence of plant or product. It is cheaper to liquidate a bad manager than to liquidate a business. Existing banks should become depositories for safekeeping and dealers in domestic and foreign exchange, charging for their services. Capital is entitled to a profit, but not at the cast of periodical depressions and breakdowns. Capital must take its profits on a participating basis. If capital will co-operate with producers, the drift toward socialism will be checked. All that is good in our present economic system will be preserved, capital will earn income, and the initiative of the individual will be preserved. How to reconcile the existing relations between creditors and debtors is another story, but it is becoming more and more apparent that semi-socialistic schemes to preserve the status quo of capitalism are doomed to failure.
his SIO,OOO per year, is so poor he had to go to a government hospital and let the taxpayers fix him up for his campaign. How can we stand any more? n n n RESENTS APPOINTMENT OF BILL BOOK By B. E. R. Governor McNutt certainly made a big mistake when he appointed Bill Book head of his commission on unemployment, because Mr. Book in turn, appointed a Republican to every key position in the whole lineup. He has men appointed now who have lived on the city as far back as the Shank administration. It it an insult to the Democratic | party and to President Roosevelt. I hope Mr. Book takes his old college chum with him over to the ! chamber of commerce. I mean the j celebrated Dr. Keyes. He jumps ! from the automobile business to ; the hotel business, running a hotel : for transients. His wife is secre- ! tary to Mr. Book. That is what I call “hot stuff.” I just wonder how long the voters of Indianapolis are ; going to stand for this kind of work. The best thing that could ever happen to Indiana would be for R. Earl Peters to take over Mr. Hoke's position, because it at least wouid heal up some of the wounds in the ! party. ts tt n BLAMES PAPERS FOR DILI.INGER MYTH By W. C. Waldron. The Times laments the fact some of the correspondents to the Message Center are shallow thinkers, especially in regard to the Dillinger j case. Is The Times “deep” in this 1 respect? Two types of criminals are preying on financial institutions in this country, the inside bandits and the outside bandits. The inside bandits are comparatively safe. If and when caught, light sentences are given. Luke Lea's case is the latest example. Outside bandits are always ( in danger. If and when caught, j which is always sooner or later for bank banditry or auto banditry, j there are heavy sentences, ambuscade or murder. During the history 7 of the United States, the damage done and the misery inflicted by the outside bandits doesn't figure one-tanth of one per cent of the damage done and the misery inflicted by the inside bandits. So long as conditions
.AUG. 10, 1934
remain this way, the American public will choose the lesser of two evils and give moral support to the outside bandits. I agree that two wrongs never make a right, but you miss the point. As for your editorial, “Sleep, Little Man,” there is nothing puzzling about the DUlinger myth. It was born of newspapers and built up by newspapers, The Times being very conspicuous in this work. Compared to our Insulls, Mitchells, Harrimans and others, he was a piker. Why did The Times play him up so big, and practically ignore the big shot bandits? ' Among the thousands who serve time in our penal institutions, a handful, and they are above the average, can come out and stand up and take it like a man. Dillinger was only average. Crime Is not the easiest road. It is the toughest. Sarber can't be put on Dillinger's list. O’Malley? Maybe. It never has been proved.
So They Say
America’s problem is to bring economic security to the common man and still cherish the weapons of democracy.—William Allen White, famous editor. I believe in assisting our foreign trade, but I also believe in making sure that we get paid for it.—George N. Peek, NRA'foreign trade adviser. We can make more bags, but it takes a long time to build three guys like them.—J. T. Cooper, balloon expert, referirng to the three stratosphere flyers. In the old days, when wife beating was a contest of skill and daring, there was nothing like an Irish cop to restore peace and tranquility to the neighborhood—County Judge Martin of New York.
LAMENT
BY ALYS WACHSTETTER The hungers of my heart I weave into a song, But the one for whom my songs are made Somewhere lies unconcerned in deepest sleep. And I. alone at night from distant hills Sing, so the wind may carry him The sad, dim echoes of my threnody. . Awake from sleep . . . And through your open window Listen to the melancholy chantings of my voice. “O my love, without you, the whole world is an empty path I walk. Crooning to my heart in pain. Forever, until the last long breath Flows from my troubled body I shall love you. O lover, partner t! my ecstasies, Come back to aching arms Where first you slept a lover's sleep. Give back to me the deep past joys I knew; My pride, in dust face downward at your feet Sings in monotone." Dawn and I have walked and sang another lonely night away. How long, O God. until the time that I shall sing no more . . , Till I lie dead on some high hill. Away from sorrow and the agonies of love . . . Heedless of the one who broke his trust?