Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 103, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 September 1934 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indiananolis Times <A nrKII'I’I.HOH 4RD NEWSPAPER) ROT W. Howard Freoident TAI.COTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER Butlne** Manager •’bon* KUy Mfil

Muit>er ot United Free* •crti'i * • Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enter prle Annotation, .ewnpaper Information Service and An lit Bureau of Orcolatlooe Owned and pui>linti**<i daili •earwpt Xiadifl by The In ! innpoila l ime* Pnhlihlnu I’ompanv, 214-220 West Mar? md atret. Indlanapolin Ind Prlr-e ;n Marlon eotinty 2 'm’l a copy; elewhre. s nrn—delivered he .arrter !2 -enta a week Mail nnhnrrip • n ratea 1n Indiana N n year; outnide nt Indiana V*nt n month

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SATURDAY SEPT *. 1934

IN 1)1 AX A POMS’ ST RIKE TNDIANAPOLIS is one of the battlefronts * in America's giant textile strike. Amid varying claims, impartial observers say that per cent of the Indianapolis Bleaching Com•ny* employes are out on strike. But this is not to draw word pictures ol troubles and ominous results that both les in the bitter strike fear, fndianapolls' part of the strike has been 1 aceful. thanks to an attitude of commonore on the part of both the plant manager and the strike leaders. Charles A. Young, manager of the plant, s conducted his dealings with the strikers a dignified plane. He has not attempted iu threaten, cajole or intimidate them, according to the reports that have emerged from the scene of the strike. And the strikers, on their side, have conducted themselves likewise with dignity and restraint. They have been picketing the Indianapolis plant the way picketing should be conducted. If they have added more workers to their lines, as they appear to have done, they have done it without violence, without stone throwing, without siuggmgs and beatings. The Indianapolis Times sees the local strike situation as a friendly dispute between the employer and the employe. We hope sincerely that both parties reach an early agreement, that the Indianapolis Bleaching Company, when it does resume unlimited operation, will take back the leaders in the strike with no animosity; and that all future disputes can be settled in the same friendly maimer in which the first days of the strike have been conducted. Even better, the peaceful method of this strike may very well branch out into what eventually may become a round-table conference for both parties, making strikes unnecessary. i HALF-THAWED CREDIT IfOW the New Deal’s freedom to survive was built up on the old order's freedom to perish is told graphically in Mr. Richberg’s fourth report to the President. In his review of steps taken to relieve financial pressures, Mr. Richbcrg tells how home owners have been saved from foreclosures and railroads from receiverships, how bank deposits have been made secure and the frozen assets of financial institutions partially thawed out and made available for productive use. Up to Aug. 3, the Home Owners Loan Corporation lifted the threat of foreclosure from 432,000 homes, lending 51.20C.445.000 to that many distressed owners who could not obtain credit relief elsewhere. Mr. Richbcrg predicted that the same aid will be extended to 400.000 additional home owners in the next eighteen months, and that the HOLC will be liquidated without loss to the taxpayers at the end of eighteen years. If the HOLC had not been created, it is probable that many of these home owners would have been turned out into the streets, and the banks, insurance companies and other mortgagors would have been saddled helplessly with deflated real estate. In the ten years ending in December, 1932, there were 11.000 bank failures. The New Deal was ushered in amid a general bank panic. But approximately 50.000.000 bank deposits are now insured—97 per cent to the full amountthrough the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. which has attuned insurance liability in excess of $12.00.000.000. Only five insured banks have closed this year and the FDIC is paying off the depositors. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, disbursing $5,853,000,000 out of a total of nearly $8,000,000,000 authorized, has given relief to railroads, banks, insurance companies and all tjpes of financial institutions. It has provided funds for self-liquidating projects, helped to liquidate the assets of nearly 800 closed banks and strengthened the capital structures of hundreds of operating banks. Recently the RFC started making direct loans to industries which have been unable to borrow from the rejuvenated financial institutions. This Is only pan of the picture. Government credit has also been pumped into the deflated private financial structure through the Federal Home Loan Bank system, the Federal Savings and Lean Insurance Corporation. Farm Credit Adnunistration. Commodity Credit Corporation and Federal Housing Administration. RECORD OF A RACKET IN the loui days it has listened to witnesses and examined corresoonrience. the senate munitions investigation committee has made wha. may be described mildly as a few startling revelations: The record, at the close of testimony last night, showed in part: That Sir Basil Zaharoff, European munitions magnate, is a stockholder in one American submarine firm, which paid him more than 52.00j.000 in “commissions" and whose officers gave him free advice on how to avoid payment of United States income taxes; and that Sir Basil counseled the American company on the technique of lobbying successfully with the United States navy department and, prevailed upon it to use its influence to ' get the United States state department to help it peddle submarines to Spaux That the same company has had a cartel agreement with Vickers, Ltd., of England, whereby the two firms, in concord with lesser manufacturers in other lands, divided the markets of the world and shared patent secrets and profits; that American submarine patent secrets passed freely into the hands of the British government, which is closely tied up with Vickers, and passed on into the hands of Germany to be used m the German U-boats

that preyed on American vessels during the war. That at the time of the Tacna-Arica dispute the American firm negotiated for the sale of submarines to Peru, at the same time coaching Vickers on how to obtain submarine business from Chile, Peru s enemy; and that an officer of the American firm lamented bitterly in a letter to a Vickers officer when the United States forced resumption of diplomatic relations between Peru and Chile, saying: “It is too bad that the pernicious activities of our state department have put the brake on armament orders.” That when Peru and Colombia were at the brink of war in the Letiticia dispute, United States naval officers worked out war plans for both countries, thereby aiding one American company's efforts to sell its goods to Peru and another American company's dealings with Colombia. That the w%r department turned over its ecret plans for anti-aircraft guns to this second American firm so that it could make the .;uns and sell them to Poland; and the navy department sent a cruiser to Constantinople to demonstrate this same company's anti-air-craft guns to the Turkish navy. That a submarine firm's Washington lobbyist boasted to his boss of his successful campaign in 1928 to place to supposedly friendly Republican congressmen on the powerful house rules committee, and of his success in lobbying through a $2,000,000 claim against the government. That alleged bribery Is a practice of certain munitions companies and their salesmen. This record speaks for itself. OUR ‘HUMAN’ RACE ONCE in a while, people do things so incredibly brutal and callous that one is almost moved to despair of the human race. Doug Davis, speed flier, crashed and was killed during a race at the national air races recently. In a few minutes, some 3,500 people had formed a mob about the wreckage of his plane. They tore the plane to bits for souvenirs. One woman jerked a button from the dead flier s body and sold it for $5. The mob was so dense that an ambulance was unable to reach the scene. When police and race officials tried to force the mob back, they were cursed and asked, "Why should you have all the fun?” It is impossible to find words to express the disgust which decent people must feel at behavior of that kind. The spectacle is enough to make a profound pessimist out of every one who observed it. THE LAUGH IS ON US JESSE L. LIVERMORE, speculator who holds the title of “the boy plunger of Wall Street,” went into bankruptcy early this summer. Now he has paid off his $2,000,000 debts and has a comfortable fortune for himself. Honest toil and careful frugality have rescued many a man from financial disaster. In this case, however, it was a combination of the drought and the Chicago wheat pit that did the trick. Mr. Livermore played the market in wheat, and rode up with the rising prices. The result was a very tidy profit indeed. The ordinary citizen is occasionally a bit puzzled as to the exact nature of the social service which is performed by the speculator in commodities. This feat of Mr. Livermore's, however gratifying it may be to that gentleman and to his creditors, will do little to clear up such confusion. WHICH WAY, SENATOR? QENATOR ARTHUR ROBINSON is disturbed about New Deal policies. He is particularly upset concerning the NRA and the AAA. Again and again in recent weeks he has shuddered in public horror because he believed that these two measures unquestionably were leading us on the "road to Moscow 7 .” Careful scrutiny of the senator's record at the last session of congress reveals an interesting fact. "Li'l Arthur” voted FOR both of these measures! Usually extremely vocal he registered not one word of protest either on the floor of the senate or elsewhere. Were you honest and sincere, senator, when you cast your vote in favor of the NRA and the AAA? If these recovery measures really are leading us into Communism why did you vote for them? Are you honest and sincere now, senator, in your attacks on these laws? The senator, of course, will make no answer to these questions any more than he repled when we asked him frankly what his relations had been with the Ku-Klux Klan and what, i! anything. D. C. Stephenson, had to do with his original appointment to the senate. Voters, however, will have no trouble in guessing the answer. The senator either must have tailed to study these two laws when he voted for them or he must have acted against his own convictions. Otherwise how’ can he now 7 consistently declare that the NRA and the AAA are leading us into Communism? THE STATE FAIR TNDIANA'S eighty-second annual state fair came to a close last night. It was a successful fair. Few have been more successful. Hoosierdom's greatest yearly show started with a great spurt and had it not been tor bad weather conditions the latter part of the week the exposition would have cracked every all-time attendance mark. The state fair, then, virtually passed the 1929 boom day mark. Exlubitors were unanimous in declaring that the fair presaged the return of business normalcy. The state fair was a great show. To the state officials who managed it belong praise. But the state fair was more than just a show. It seemed, to most, to be a harbinger of a better day. BACK TO WORK TF there are to be strikes to enforce the collective bargaining law the now settled strike against the Mellon-controlled Aluminum Company of America at least is an example of the better sort. The company did not try to operate its plants with strike-breakers, and there was little or no violence. The strikers’ pickets were well disciplined and did nothing to prevent idle machinery being kept in order. The National Labor Relations Board acted promptly and its department conciliator, Fred Keightly, did effective work. What the 8,700 strikers won is another

story. They asked for the check-off system, a universal wage scale, recognition for collective bargaining of their two-year-old union. They lost the first two demands. They won partial recognition of their union, but no formal union contract. The net result is that the employes have made progress in collective bargaining and peaceful settlement of disputes. There is perhaps a degree of unintentional humor in the company's recognition of the right of employes or their representatives to carry disputes to the National Labor Relations Board “to the extent provided by law.” Although the law is the law anyway, it is not i without value to have the Aluminum Company “recognize” the law. FOR ALL MOTORISTS THE warning of President Henry of the American Automobile Association is for I all motorists. In the next few days, he points out, 23,500.000 children will go back to school, multiplying the need for more cautious driving. About 4,000,000 of these children will be going to ! school the first time, risking the terrible hazards of modern traffic. While there has been an alarming increase in number of automobile casualties in the last year, the number of school children killed and injured has declined. But this apparently is due, not so much to more careful motoring as to the protective measures taken by the schools and the children. Safety instruction classes and schoolboy traffic patrols have kept more children out of the maw- of traffic. Motorists must do their share. To anyone who will work it, says a noted i manufacturer, the soil offers a real living. But how can farmers in the drought area work it when they can’t even catch it, with winds carrying their farms into the next county? New York college president sails to Europe as a common seaman. But what of it? College presidents aren't the only ones who are at sea today. # _________ ___ Speaking of giving America back to the Indians, maybe we could give Louisiana back to the French, if they’d agree to take Huey Long with it. Croon, says Webster, means “to make a hollow 7 sound, as in pain; to bellow.” A good definition, but not complete. The audience also usually bellows with pain. While they're getting this new Liberty League on its feet, they might get Dizzy Dean for one of their pitchers. He’s made a couple of breaks for liberty this season and know 7 s how to go about it.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

Nicholas Murray butler doubtless regards himself as a stalwart liberal. Indeed, from time to time he has uttered observations which must have given no little pain to irreconcilable Bourbons. But he certainly got away to a bad start in his talk at Southampton, L. 1., in which he branded as "sheer invention” the allegation that there is a maldistribution of wealth and income in the United States or any excessive amount of unemployment today. To support his contention. Dr. Butler cited savings bank deposits of $25,000,000,000 owned by 45,000,000 individuals; $100,000,000,000 of outstanding life insurance distributed among 115.000,000 policies; and radios in 40 per cent of our homes. Dr. Butler did not analyze the degree of concentration of wealth which is represented by either the savings banks deposit or the life insurance deposits. Had he done so, he w 7 ould have found that much of these impressive sums represented extensive deposits by a few wealthy men and large life insurance policies held by a relatively small number of men. The average savings bank deposit is small, as is the usual life insurance policy held by the common man. And he does not tell us the average cost of a radio or how many were second-hand machines or radios no longer in running order. Nor did he examine into how many w 7 ere not running because the owners could not afford new tubes, batteries or electric current. tt tt BUT we will waive these embarrassing considerations and get down to fundamentals. Let us not take post-depression years, but the boom period. In 1929. 14,701 individuals reported net incomes of over SIOO,OOO, and the top onefifth of federal income taxpayers received threefifths of the total increase of income reported from 1921-1929. The proportion of the total national income wealth going to those with incomes less than $5,000 a year, namely, 98.8 per cent of the population, was less in 1929 than in 1921. In 1928, perhaps our most prosperous year in history, the average income of all wage earners gainfully employed was $1,205; that of unskilled laborers less than SI,OOO, and that of agricultural laborers some $525. Yet the United States government estimated that a health and decency budget for a family of five must run to about $1,900. Nor is the poverty of our farmers “sheer invention.” Long before the drought their condition was desperate. The value of lands dropped from $54,800,000,000 in 1920 to $34,900,000,000 in 1930. The share of the farm income in our national incomes fell from 18 per cent in 1919 to 9 per cent in 1929. Over 40 per cent of all farms are mortgaged and the farmers owe about $4,000,000,000 in short time debts. One representative set of figure tells the whole story of how the distribution of income in the United States is so unfair and highly concentrated even in boom years as to capitalism and the profit system. tt n tt IN 1928 there were about 119,000,000 persons with incomes of less than $5,000. Their total monetary income was about $65,000,000,000. On any reasonable budgetary allotment the most they could spend for manufactured goods was $38,000,000,000. Yet in that year we manufactured consumers goods, irrespecive of those exported. to the value of about $55,000,000,000. There remained about 1,000.000 individuals with incomes of over $5,000. They could not begin to buy up the surplus $17,000,000,000 worth of goods out of the reach of those with incomes of less than $5,000 a year. Glutted inventories in factories and stores, closed factories and the depression were the answer. Or. te take another example, the value of manufactured goods in this country increased by $10,000,000,000 from 1923 to 1929. Wages to workers, however, increased by only $60,000,000, while our farmers actually were getting less in 1929 than in 1923. How could we expect to sell an excess of $10,000,000,000 worth of goods on a net increase of income to the masses of less than half a billion dollars? Another point overlooked by President Butler is that beyond our maldistribution of wealth and income as evidence of widespread poverty, we must reckon with a long and short term private and public debt of some $240,000,000,000 about equal to our whole national wealth. The strategy of the liberal is to point relentlessly to maldistribution of wealth and income and to demand a readjustment which will produce sufficient mass purchasing power to permit capitalism and the profit system to operate. To refuse to face the facts is to make inevitable that very radicalism which Dr. Butler denounces.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

(Timet readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make pour letters short, so o't can have a chance, himit them to tSO words or lest.) ana OLD GUARD MOANS OVER BUSINESS AID By a Private. The moaning at the bar of the old conservative business guard 1 must be intensified by the continuation of government loans to banks, insurance companies, railroads and manufacturers. Perhaps the moaners are bemoaning too small doses of the restorative, doled out to the competitive system in its dotage. The moaners seek sympathetic moans from the farmers who also are under the oxygen tent, receiving processing doles, mortgage moratorium, relief food, fuel and clothing, and other alphabet soup relief. The choristers want the relief workers to howl in this chorus, so they may again join in the bread line song of 1932. The beaters of the tom-tom do not seem to know that the reason for all this relief is the dry cleaning administered to the consumers and workers by this Liberty League crowd. The natural forces of recoveryhave not filled the empty purses of the victims of the old guard who would like to make another haul some day. This regimentation scarecrow and constitutional bogey doesn’t talk half as loud as the experience the victims have had as a result of a grand old pilfering party. The relief doles in the form of loans went to the crowd of regimenters long before the soupliners had a look in. Will the regimenters get their regiment back into line? a tt a CHIDES CRITICS OF ROOSEVELT REGIME By Raymond E. Wisehart. I have observed recently that the Roosevelt administration is the subject of severe criticism. It seems that most of the criticism is launched at the President, because he is said not to have kept strictly to the Constitution. One reason why so much criticism is made possibly is due to the fact that the Republicans do not like President Roosevelt’s noble character, and his decisive way of dealing with a crisis. Therefore, as they do not like him in this respect, and because of the influence they might cast upon the coming election, they very readily criticise him. It is very discouraging when the public fails to recognize the good the President is doing. I wonder why those, who allege he has not kept to the Constitution, do not stop to think that the Constitution was written more than one hundred years ago, and even though it was supposed to govern us in all storms of life, it has not and does not fit the present era. We are a queer people if we bind ourselves foolishly to a document written more than 100 years ago, and religiously worship it, when it fails to give us light during the “darkest night.” I can not see where Mr. Roosevelt has steered away from the Constitution unless it was when in the case of dire necessity, he acted in order to move on through the modem channels of life. No patriot, be he Jefferson. Washington or Lincoln, ever possessed the power to d r aw up a document for all time. la that we would have

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DROP HIM!

Rationalism Offered to Displace Babble

By A Critic. At present we have a plague of politicians who vehemently denounce any form of government which endangers the principles of the Constitution and who, make unfounded predictions of disaster if refutation or modification of this document is affected. A survey of the colleges however, indicates that the oncoming generation is not swayed by a flow of oratorial babble, for in this critical age every assertion must have a proof. The fossils brand those who disagree with them as red radicals. The rational person realizes that it is illogical to suppose that social and economic progress can function normally under the limitations of a document which was w’ritten in a bygone era by men totally ignorant of national evolution. Evidently, we have as a unit progressed industrially since its origin, also we have retrogessed in ethical standards in that legal enactments permit ultra rich, unemployed, criminalities and con-

perfection, and perfection is not known on this earth. It is foolish to even think of such a thing. The Constitution, a glorious document, has inspired us, and kept us in many a hard storm, but today we live in an era unparalleled in the history of the world. Let us be liberal enough to admit this fact. We have reached a place, where conditions justify a slight deviation from the document. There is nothing wrong with this, because it is done for the sake of suffering humanity. If changing the Constitution, would put bread in the mouths of hungry children, and clothe the naked, why should there be any objections? n n tt DECRIES COMPLAINING BY MONEYED CLASS By Sherman Lone. Since the beginning of the depression there has been considerable misunderstanding between those whose disintegration has been practically inevitable, and the allies in the financial stratum just above them. It seems to me that the latter have failed to understand or sympathize with the financial plight of the less fortunate one. There is one class of persons who boast they are valuable and prominent taxpaying citizens. This, to be sure, is worthy of consideration, but remember the old philosophy. “When thou dost an aim sound not a trumpet.” They have ignored this bit of advice and have engaged in general gossip. They toot their trumpet to the tune of “We are paying exorbitant sums in taxes for degenerate bums.” It is their desire that the relief workers approach them with fear and trembling, falling prostrate at the seat of mercy, merely because the generous philanthropy of the financial barons has prompted them to allow a few members of the producing class to work for a meager wage, so as to enable them to acquire a limited amount of necessities of which the same class had just previously produced by their labor power. Then the squawking moguls shriek and bemoan their fate because they are feeding and caring for the unemployed. This reminds the writer of a musician’s wife who sold a rare old violin which belonged to her

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

ventionalities which raise class distinction and breed animosity. Soviet Russia's Communistic government is criticised both from prejudiced and envious viewpoints for that country in contrast to all other countries has really progressed in the last five years. Prominent physicists have shown conclusively that one-time immutable laws of science, though of practical application, for many years failed to meet the requirements of modern science and w 7 ere erroneous. Modern economists have rightfully shown that only by using strategy so as to induce anew system of economics can we hope to gain permanent recovery. It is the primary aim of we progressives, that those meetings presided over by politicians who have selfish motives and who heretofore have raved frantically in their delirium will be resolved into rational lectures where intellect and common sense have dominion.

husband for a price extravagantly below its value in order to obtain money with which to buy a worthless birthday present for the same husband. Then in the presence of his friends she would embarrass him by constantly reminding him of the present she bought for him. Squawkers, the average relief worker doesn’t feel belittled. On the contrary, he feels dignified, being aware of the fact that he is a pioneer blazing the trail for anew era of gigantic social construction. nan HOSIERY MILLS STRIKE AFTERMATH DESCRIBED By a Reader. I am one of the many interested in the strike that took place at hosiery mills here. I have overheard conversations concerning treatment of employes. The way I understood the contract that was printed in your papier is this—that each employe would be taken back except those who committed violence and work would be divided equally. It seems that isn’t being done or anything like it in the seaming and boarding departments. Why? The ones who stayed in never did get full time and why should they now? For the last two years none of them has averaged more than thirty hours a week. I have friends who work there and know. Why must two girls run the seaming and boarding departments? Both departments only are allowed to work every other week and if the girls who stayed in were not such penny grabbers they would be willing to divide the work as was done before the strike, which might help to avoid another one. If the strikers had not voted to go back as they came out with the understanding that they would work as before, would these girls be working now? Probably not.

Daily Thought

And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and jour heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.—St. John, 16:22. HAPPINESS is no other than soundness and perfection of muid.-TAntoninus,

SEPT. 8. 1934

PRAISES ARTICLE BY HERBERT HOOVER By S. O. S. I have just finished reading former President Herbert Hoover’s article entitled “A Challenge to Liberty.” This is indeed a patriotic utterance of a great man who nas been smeared and slandered to a greater degree than any national hero in our history. When I read this splendid article I thought of the boy reared on an lowa farm, who, by industry, thrift and ability, became the greatest engineer in the world. I thought of the man who fed the people of Belgium, the man Woodrow Wilson appointed food administrator in 1917 and the man who became President, only to have world-wide depression to face when he had set up as his ideal—the abolishment of poverty. Today he rises from the dignified silence which he has maintained since his retirement to fight for the preservation of American liberty. The Constitution which he upholds places emphasis on human rights. Under the New Deal, monopolies and big businesses have been favored, W'hile the small business man and the common man have suffered. Millionaires can buy security. The common man has security only because he is protected by the Constitution.

So They Say

Land sakes! Cal and me never kissed and we were married nigh on to sixty years! Ain’t it a sight the things folks think up nowadays —kissin’ and huggin’ like that—Mrs. Nancy Mary Ann West Tramnel, nearly 100, of Athens, Tenn. America is a thrill, a lesson, a model every moment.—Josef DeLille, Belgian publisher. Greta Garbo has had more to do than any one else with the horrible females you see everywhere. That lack-luster expression, that lack of color—they all try to be like her.— Hayden Hayden, poster artist. No one in Europe wants war, but the idea of war is floating in the air.—Benito Mussolini. The cold facts are that since the Civil war and development of the country west of the Alleghenies there never has been a surplus o* raw materials in the United States. —W. L. Harding, ex-Governor of lowa.

Call Nocturnal

BY ALYS WACHSTETTER The finale to summer's nocturne Lured us from a slumberless bed; We found a faint footpath, Nor cared where it led. Each gentle slim grass Sheathed in platinum dew Tenderly fondled our ankles, Above whirring insects hummed and flew; Countless glimmering apparitions Os a nebulae silenced our voices. Swollen fields of pre-harvest Told us nature bears and rejoices; Carrying pungent fragrance of fennel The wind romped our hair; In earth and sky we found tranquillity . . . Like a plummet our hearts • dropped care.