Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 117, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 September 1934 — Page 14

PAGE 14

The Indianapolis Times (A HCRim.HOffilßn REHDPArrR) ROY W, HOWARD Pmt4i>Bi TALOOTT POWELL Editor CARL D. BAKER BoiScmi iliciftt Phoo* Kller MSI

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TUESDAY. SEPT. 35.1334 CHIME AND POLITICS "POLICE work is not to be trifled with by politicians nor frustrated by lawyers who have contact with the criminal element,” At-torney-General Homer Cummings told the International Association of Police Chiefs in Washington. The general put his finger on one of the law’s sore spots. Federal efficiency in crime detection, now making it so unhealthy for the big interstate crooks, needs to be applied by the localities. This is blocked too often by political bosses who control police personnel. August Volimer of California, former police chief of Berkrley and Los Angeles and a fine example of the brainy policeman, told the Wicktrsham commission that the average official life of a ponce chief in ten American cities of more than 500.000 population was less than two and a half vears. There are exceptions. Milwaukee, with one of the lowest crime records. had only two police chiefs in forty-six years. Politics also is largely responsible for the low standard of police privates in American cities. The Wickersham report charged that more than 75 per cent of American policemen “are not mentally endowed to perform the duties assigned to them.” Crime these days is well organized and well financed. Criminals are smarter and scientifically equipped. Crime has become a big business. It takes well-trained, keen-brained, fearless policemen, not boss-ridden incompetents. to win the war against crime.

A BARGAIN FOR BOTH 'T'HE future of the Pacific probably is more pacific because of Russia's sale of her interest in the Chinese Eastern Railway to Manchoukuo. This removes one dangerous international irritant without, of course, eliminating the fundamental clash of economic interests between Japan and Russia. Credit for this peace coup belongs chiefly to Russia. By patience in face of repeated provocations, Russia has proved the sincerity of her many declarations in behalf of world peace. It is evident that nothing short of actual invasion of her territory will cause her to take up arms. Doubtless the growing friendliness of France toward Russia, the latter s entry into the League of Nations, and other western developments, strengthened the hands of the more conciliatory group in Japan against the militarists who opposed a settlement. At any rate the world will rejoice that the long negotiations over the sale, that began more than a year ago in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion, today are concluded. By making war in the Pacific less probable the transaction is a bargain for both sides. OVER THE TOP ’I7'ALHALLA, peopled with heroes of the V “thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice,” will echo to the tale told in Moscow of the first one-season passage of a ship across the top of the world. A valorous little craft, the Russian icebreaker Litke. has finished shouldering her way through 10.000 miles of ice and treacherous water from Vladivostok to Murmansk. Vladivostok is on the Pacific at the southeastern tip of Siberia. Murmansk is at the upper tip of the Scandinavian peninsula in European Russia. This Homeric voyage was not just a stunt or thriller. During the eighty-three days of passage the Litke rescued three Russian steamers frozen in the ice during the long Arctic winter and freed from the rocks a British steamer near Dixon island. The Russians think the Litke has proved the practicability of a regular far-northern route for specially-built craft. Since scientists say the earth s ice-cap is receding maybe some day freighters will pass regularly over the top as well as around the globe. Whether it has practical value or not the feat of the Litke reminds us that unconquered seas beckon to ships that sail as well as to those that navigate the air. TO RELIEVE OUR NERVES 1I T HEX the street railway experts of the ▼ country hold their annual convention late this month, one of the items to be put on display will be anew noiseless street car; and a long-suffering public can only hope that this promising device will speedily be adopted by traction lines throughout the country. Life in a city is made pretty trying by noise. We seem to have been more apt in discovering new ways to make a racket than in any other line; and if there is anything on earth that can make a more unholy clamor than a fiat-wheeled street car, trundling over cross-tracks and screeching around curves, the ordinary mortal would have a hard time thinking what it may be. If someone has invented a noiseless street car. let s have it—by all means. Then, if noiseless trucks and buses can only be invented. city life may begin to be worth living. THE PUBLIC IS FIRST IT is almost impossible to lay down any one general rule to cover all strikes. But in general it is true that the interest of the public ought to be paramount to the interests of both employers and workers; and once in a while a case comes up in which this is made exceedingly clear. The electric power concern which supplies Des Moines and adjacent towns with light was shut down by a strike recently. For one night no lights were on. Hospitals had to care for patients by candle light. And so Governor Clyde L. Herring got busy. Galling representatives of strikers and employers before him, he announced bluntly that

the public was not going to put up with another night like that one. -We're going to have electric sendee tonight if we have to take over the plant and run it ourselves.” he said. “We can do it. and we will.” Result? Twenty minutes later the strike was settled. A MORAL VICTORY MOST Americans undoubtedly feel that the best news .of the fall is the news that a has finally come in the Lindbergh kidnaping. This is the one crime above all others which the American people want to see avenged. The combination of its singular brutality and its tragic effect on the nation's most popular hero has had an emotional effect on the nation as a whole unlike that of any other case in modern times. • And yet the emotional satisfaction we get out of the solution is, after all, the least important part of it. Far more weighty is the fact that it restores to us a measure of our national self-r*pect. Considered from all angles, the Lindbergh kidnaping was about the severest indictment of modem American civilization ever made. Here was a young man of tremendous personal popularity; a man whom every one in the country knew and and wished well, a man of wealth and position, who had founded a family and taken a home in the country to get a little of that privacy and happiness that every man wants. Out of a clear sky, then, this man was struck by the most despicable of all crimes—the one crime that can be common only tfhen society is helpless in the face of lawlessness. The crime was committed and it went unpunished. The best-loved man in the nation had found that this was not a safe country in which to rear a child. Our grief and anger were impotent. The thing could not have happened in England, or France, or Germany; it was typically, terribly, American. Now, at last, comes retribution; and the fact is of tremendous importance, aside from the way it satisfies our desire to see a foul wrong avenged. It shows that we have, after all, the kind of social organization which can do the hardest kind of protective work—getting on a cold trail, following a hundred worthless leads, keeping eternally vigilant, never forgetting or going to sleep, striking finally and effectively after a lapse of years. In other words, we are not quite as disorganized as we were a few years ago. The Lindbergh case was our national low-water mark. Since then we have somehow managed to take a brace. We are not, any longer, the country in which the worst of all crimes can be committed with impunity.

BENEDICT OR BACHELOR? TJENEDICT or bachelor? Such is the battle line drawn in Tennessee by ex-Governor Dan Hooper, challenging Kenneth McKellar’s right to return to the United States senate. Senator McKellar at 66 is unwed. Fusionist Republican Hooper is married and sings lyrical praises to double blessedness. "By the way, girls,” he poses as he stumps the hog-and-hominy state, “can a man really represent the people who has not personally tested the poetic philosophy of Robert Burns, wherein he says: “ 'To build a happy fireside clime for weans and wife, “ ‘That is the true pattern and sublime of human life?’ ” Hooper says nothing of labor’s charges that he was unfair when he headed the Harding rail labor board. Textile strike, TVA, farm relief, inflation, taxes, the other little political and economic questions can wait. There is only one real issue. A New Deal for blushing spinsters and merry widows, it Is, and he’ll fight it out on this line if it takes all autumn. Yet in spite of Hooper, Cupid and Bobby Burns the folks of Tennessee probably will reelect their bachelor senator. BACK TO CONGRESS TF the higher courts uphold the federal judge in Baltimore who ruled the Frazier-Lemke farm mortgage moratorium act unconstitutional, the coming congress is apt to feel a sharp repercussion from the farm belt. Whatever may be said about either the wisdom or the workability of this act, it was a measure passed in response- to insistent demands from the farm belt—demands arising from the terrific pressure which deflationary processes had put upon farm debtors. The act itself may be knocked out by the court ruling—but the pressure of the debt load remains, ana if it can not be eased in this way, some other way will have to be found. And you may depend upon it that the farm belt will let congress know about it in no uncertain terms.

Before Ambassador Bullitt learns to speak Russian, so he can enjoy the stage and screen plays there, he ought to have a few of the jokes interpreted. He may change his mind. "Over the hill to the poor house” will be out of date, now that the CCC boys are digging away the hill so we can get there more quickly. Secretary Ickes' brother is asking Chicago for back salary on a job he quit a few years ago. We knew farmers getting paid for not raising hogs would start something. Greta Garbo spent her twenty-eighth birthday in a most unusual manner—she meditated. Ear muffs ought to become popular*in Washington now that Senator-elect Theodore Biibo of Mississippi promises to make more noise than Huey Long. A wolf has been seen in Pittsfield. Mass., for the first time since 1904. What, has the depression just hit Pittsfield? Now will the Royal Canadian Mounted kindly hand over their medals to Uncle Sam’s department of justice agents? The world is expected to be surprised when it's told of an "X-current'’ which keeps on flowing after it has been shut off. just as though any housewife hadn't been seeing the same marvel whenever she shut off the water faucet. The New Deal seems to have more than one joker in the pack.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

CHAPLAIN RAYMOND KNOX of Columbia considers the deficiencies of contemporary religion in advancing the American dream of prosperity and well-being for everybody. (Religion and the American Dream. By Raymond C. Knox, Columbia University Press. $1.75.) He concludes that contemporary religion has fallen down badly as an impulse to social justice. He brings together some sound abstractions relative to what religion has not been in the past and what it should be in the future if it is to realize more perfectly its formal ideals. But there is a most notable disinclination to condemn any of the interests or the methods of the American economic leaders which notoriously defy. Christian principles. There is little in the book with which one can quarrel and equally little which would guide one in applying gious ideals to the eminently practical economic and social problems which face us. At the other extreme stands the challenging wark of Dr. Chaffee, who never has been content to induce in pious generalities. (The Protestant Churches and the Industrial Crisis. By Edmund B. Chaffee. Macmillan. $2.50.) As director of the Labor Temple in New York City, he has done as much as any one in the metropolis to make religion a dynamic force in social reconstruction. n n a HE does not run away from the pressing practical issues, but frankly faces the defects of capitalism in the past, its present disintegration, and the place of the church in helping to guide humanity into better social order. He does not even dodge the responsibility of dealing with the relationship between social Christianity and Socialism. He ends by a challenge to the church to wake up before the crumbling plutocracy lands us either in Fascism or Communism. v Whatever one's personal opinion of the Salvation Army, it is certainly one of the major popular religious developments of the nineteenth century. While critics have accused it of being used at a buffer to quell popular discontent among the oppressed classes, it has certainly made a more direct contact with miserable human beings than any other large contingent of the Christian religion. General Bramwell Booth probably w r as the most conspicuous and colorful character in the history of the Salvation Army, with the sole exception of his father, William Booth, who founded the movement about the time of the American Civil war. Bramwell Booth’s daughter, Catherine, has written a full and affectionate biography of her father which contains a large number of revelant documents and letters. (Bramw : ell Booth. By Catherine Bramwell Booth. Sears Publishing Company.) The book is an important contribution both to religious history and to the social evolution of England in the last fifty years. nun ON the borderland of religion has alw-ays been the shady realm of the occult. This has always exerted a tremendous grip on the mind of man. Only recently the strange books of Charles Fort had a considerable vogue because of their vast collection of alleged esoteric happenings. Dr. Cannon’s work is on a higher level, for he is a trained psychiatrist, having, however, a rather robust will-to-believe. (The Invisible Influence. By Alexander Cannon. Dutton. $1.50.) He presents a very interesting analysis of the impressive achievements of Tibetan magicians and other masters of the occult, frankly admitting his inability to explain their achievements in terms of conventional psychology'. At any rate, this book will entertain the reader without insulting his intelligenre. Many sentiments and experiences formally attributed to religious experiences and influences are now interpreted as the result of definite physiological factors. Particularly is this true of human vitality. Dr. Sokoloff analyzes the general problem of vitality in terms of modern physiological chemistry, including an interesting chapter on the illness of Napoleon and his growing lethargy toward the end cf his military career. (Vitality. By Boris Sokoloff. Dutton, Inc. $2.)

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

CONGRESSIONAL circles regard with some skepticism the forthcoming arrival of Mississippi's new junior senator, former Governor Theodore G. Bilbo. Nobody wants to be quoted, but the general impression is decidedly anti-Bilbo, with a few senators expressing mild amusement at the antics which may distinguish Theodore’s career in the capital. ' For the benefit of those who don’t knowmuch about Bilbo, here are a few facts: The new senator is 5 feet 4 inches tall, with black hair that is growing thin, and a tiny bald spot in the center of his head. He is careless about his clothes and habitually wears baggy trousers. At the agriculture department, where he held a job clipping newspaper reports about agriculture and the AAA, Bilbo’s official title was “collector of information.” Colloquially, he was referred to as “the paper clipper.” For this important service Bilbo was paid a yearly salary of $6,000. a n BILBO'S salary- as Governor of Mississippi was $7,500, so his paper-clipping position represented a comedown. His senatorial job, however, will bring him to the top again with a salary of SIO,OOO. It is not generally known that Bilbo’s pet hobby is phrenology. He will brood for hours over the shape of a person’s head. Once he announced: “I can tell by the bumps on a man’s head whether he is a Republican or a Democrat.” A favorite scheme of Bilbo’s is to reduce the cotton surplus. This he thinks he can do by persuading women to wear cotton stockings and underwear. On the subject of cotton his enthusiasm reaches the same heights as that of ex-Senator Tom Heflin of Alabama, who even adopted the wearing of cotton shoes, and Senator Ed Smith of South Carolina, who has won his sobriquet, “Cotton Ed.” through his intense interest in the cotton industry. Some of Bilbo's propositions include redistribution of the nation’s wealth, unemployment insurance, shorter working hours with higher pay and reforms in the federal reserve banking system. He is strong for immediate payment of the soldiers’ bonus. MME. DE LIMA E SILVA, titian-haired and exotic wife of the former Brazilian ambassador to the United States, is enormously fond of dogs. She keeps five of them in plush-lined baskets. Particularly does she cherish a certain Chihuahua, acquired in Mexico. The animal was run over by an auto and nearly killed. Mme. de Lima e Silva hastened to a widely known veterinarian here, Dr Irving M. Cashell. "Please save my pet.” she begged. Dr Cashell thought the case hopeless. But he exerted every- effort. The dog gradually grew better. Its mistress was very grateful. Yesterday, from Brussels where the de Lima e Silvas are now stationed. Dr Cashell received a letter of thanks and acknowledgment. The Chihuahua, writes Mme. de Lima e Silva, is in excellent health. “How that dog recovered.” said Dr. Cashell, “is a miracle! It was so nearly dead I gave it up for lost.” After all, A1 Capone has little right to kick on being sent to California. No real estate salesman will try to sell him a womout orange Hitler should not feel too puffed up about that 9 to 1 lead he has rolled up. There's always that ninth inning rally to be considered. Makers of anew dictionary announce that it cost $1,300,000 to produce. But to all that expense when we have General Johnson around to spring all the new words?

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

i I, A^|| if

The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to empress their views in these columns. Hake your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or lessJ nun CONCERNING CITATION OF REFERENCES By Sherman Long:. I have heard much discussion concerning review or research work. Some say that one should never use any phrase in either writing or discussion without making known its origin and mentioning the author's name, if possible. Though I seldom take advantage, of proverbs, yet I believe it to be permissible. For example, I wouldn't think it essential for one to say the old blue-back spelling book says that c-a-t spells cat. Just write it down without reference to the speller. For instance, I might want to say to my employer: “Give me a sufficient and comfortable living wage or else discharge me.” It hardly would seem necessary to go into all the details of William Penn's statement, which almost was parallel. I do not believe that one should accept an honor for an accomplishment in which he had no part. After all, every achievement has been made rather collectively instead of individually, so it would seem improper for any individual to assume all the credit or responsibility for the existence of any technical or educational development. I have listened to many competent orators and I seldom hear one state the origin of any part of his subject, although reference could be used in order to substantiate the authenticity of the assertion. If the statement has not been drastically changed, its identity can be detected easily. Usually, when reading, if I find reference to certain passages of another book, I think of it as advertising. So, if I wish to read a story or an article written on any vital point, I surely wouldn’t want to be interrupted by advertisements.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND THE BREAD LINE Bv Refloctor. Those who are raising the howl about the constitutional rights being violated by the New Deal, of course insinuate that they have been deprived of property rights. Not a single case has been cited where any property has been confiscated or due process of law has been applied. Personal rights to do with property as one may choose, regardless of the social consequences, have had some checks placed on them. However, the New Deal is a very late comer in this procedure. Perhaps this is the same crowd, or descendants of the outfit that declared abolition of property rights in slaves, as an interference with personal rights under the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the property right ought to be as sacred to those who have been deprived of the property of their labor, by the subterfuge of contract, as well as to those who have taken and now hold the property, created by those whose labor produced it. The real noise about the constitutional rights to property ought to be made by the crowd standing in the relief lines. If those in the relief lines have been deprived of sufficient property to make them helpless. they to be considered wards of the state, and restoration of the alienated property be made. It seems that the victims of the property gag have had both personal > and property rights violated. Restore it now.

COMPETITION!

Pictures G. 0. P. as Critics’ Target

Bv a Republican Voter. I have been reading this column for about three months and all I have been able to find in it has been rocks and gravel thrown at the Republicans. I am wondering if every one who reads your paper and contributes to the column have these ideas or if, since The Times is well known as a Democratic paper, these are the only letters printed. I am wondering what an alien thinks when he reads of our President. It certainly should impress bn his mind the great patriotic spirit felt in this country.

DEEDS, NOT TALK, SUGGESTED Bv Critic. The directors of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States attacked the recovery expenditures by the government—as a factor in retarding re-employment and recovery. The directors stated that a program to decrease expenditures and effecting a balanced budget would provide a basis for a decided upturn in business and employment. These seem to ignore the factors which are forcing the government to spend beyond its income. If there were any safe way for the government to drop its expenditures to its income, that would be a simple problem. Will these critics now assume the responsibility which the government is carrying? Government relief was made necessary because the inductrial machine over which these men pretend control is failing to function. Would they expect to stay within reach, if the 23,000,000 recipients of relief were thrown upon charity of local institutions? The government budget can be balanced rapidly if the government will make a capital levy. That would be a much safer way of balancing the budget than pullling the props out from under 23,000,000 outcasts of our social order. When these men demonstrate their capacity to relieve the government of its burden, by absorbing these producers of wealth into production lines, then there will be no need of advising or urging the government to cut its expenditures. Let deeds do the talking. Talk is cheap.

ECONOMIC VIEW OF CRIME’S COST Bv Futurist. We hear so much talk about doing away with crime, but do you capitalistically minded persons realize what you are advocating? You all agree, I suppose, that the capitalistic society in which we are living is suffering from insufficient purchasing power. The national income is now less than $50,000,000, 000 a year. Our crime bill, according to The Times, amounts to $13,000, 000,000 or more than twice the amount which the government spends for relief. At least $10,000,000,000 out of the $13,000,000,000 represents money taken from wealthy persons and institutions, money which otherwise would have been kept out of circulation. Now, suppose we were able to stamp out crime, what would be the result? The present purchasing power would be reduced by 20 per cent. This would be a blow which capitalism would not be able to survive. Here is one more reason for doing our best to stamp out crime. a a a AGED PENSIONED; TAXES REDUCED By Otufrvet. When county tax adjustment boards complete their work in Indiana. it is highly probable that more counties will have reduced taxes i

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

I wish most of the people who criticise Hoover could have had the chance to carry on in the times which he did. I am certain we would find the country in lots worse condition than it is now. Hoover, in time to come, will be classed as one of our greatest Presidents. As evidence, who was it who said, “A man is never great who was not thoroughly hated.” I want to ask the loyal Democrats how they can explain the Governor’s action in placing a huge sum of money in an Illinois bank so recently in a personal account.

than at any time in recent years. This will be good news to old-age pension advocates who have faced strong criticism that pensioning the aged would cause a heavy tax burden. Not only does it appear probable that most counties will be taxed less next year, but old-age pension appropriations have been increased in many instances. Thus the way is cleared of one obstacle in the campaign of old-age pension advocates wno snould go before the 1935 Indiana legislature and obtain a more liberal law. One point which should be kept constantly in sight is that old-age pensions should not be set with poor relief as a measuring stick. Pensions constitute rewards for past services. Pensions are not a form of charity. Only recently the federal government has given its sanction to a pension system for railroad workers. That is a fine thing. But we can’t all get jobs on railroads. We workers in other fields who spend our lives toiling for the enrichment of a few are entitled also to a fate better than the poorhouse when old age overtakes us. non “IF THIS BE TREASON” By Another Kradrr. Writing in this column, A Reader states: “If the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and press to every treasonable organization in this country, we will be living under the red flag of Socialism in less than ten years.” Such it the philosophy of the patrioteer. He is quite ready to wave the flag and uphold the Constitution when such action suits his ends, but never willing to accord the privilege of free speech to others. What does he mean by “treasonable organizations?” The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence were a treasonable group in the minds of English Tories. What is accepted generally as pariotism usually is a combination of ignorance and selfishness. The employing, owning class mouths patriotic pap to keep the toiling millions in subjection. The worker who dares ask for the rights of a human being is branded a red. It might be well for the patnoteers to remember that this nation was bom in revolution; it survived a revolution, and probably will survive another. And it emerged from each conflict with progress toward being a better nation.

Daily Thought

Keep the commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.— Proverbs, 7:2. FAITH is a higher faculty than reason.— Bailey.

_SEPT. 25, 1934

WOODEN NICKELS FOR [WOODEN HEAD SYSTEM j By I. O. Facing facts is much safer than fostering delusions. The business volume index during August reached the low level of April, 1933. Pollyanna psychology and whistling to keep up courage, will not put purchasing power back into the hands of those who would consume every article which could be produced, if they had the money. They are not permitted to create money. They could create goods they need, if permitted to do so, by the owners of the means of production. But the owners do not want goods to be created for the use of those who need goods. Since our economy is based on credit currency, the victims of it ought to be permitted to issue their own I. O. U.s to circulate the same as bank I. O. U.s. Since we have wooden head economics, we might permit the use of wooden nickels to keep the goods moving. If our toll gate keepers will devise a way to create money, in a quantity equal to the value of new goods produced and permit the consumer to beg, borrow or purloin the necessary credits to exchange for the goods, then there will be no surplus of any kind. The I. O. U.s for the building of one and a half million new homes which the nation is in need of, must be provided by government credit, at low interest rates.

Sc They Say

My deduction from my talk with Minister of Economics Schacht is that things in Germany will be worse before they get better—Frank Arthur Vandcrlip, financier. ana It is quite clear tfait in my case the treasury is not so much interested in the collection of revenue as in attempting to discredit me.—Andrew Mellon, former secretary of the treasury. a a a The recovery is not following the program; the program is following the recover/.—Frank R. Kent, political writer. nan Just saying that little word “yes" to a simple question has completely changed my world.—Princess Marina of Greece, engaged to Prince George of England. an a When a sympathetic strike occurs the issues primarily responsible for the strike become subordinated and anew conflict arises between those engaged in the strike and governmental authorities—William Green, president American Federation of Labor. nan I must admit that I never thought the time would come when they'd be shouting to roust me out the ball park. But it's all in the game.— Walter Johnson, manager of Cleveland Indians.

EVENING MOMENT

BY RUTH PERKINS Softly step the shadows on* the wall. Pink roses nod above a silver vase. Summer's sunset clamors in the sky. My heart aches sharply twinging in my throat, Blue dusk filters through the open door And finds me staring into gray filled space.