Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 146, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 October 1934 — Page 10

PAGE 10

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MONDAY. OCT. 29. 1934 COAL LIKES NR A r I’ , HE convalescing bituminous coal industry petitions the federal government for at least two more years of restorative NRA medicine. But the coal men want the prescription changed slightly, to get more relief from anti-trust laws and gain a freer hand in fixing prices. No other American industry was quite as sick on the day the Blue Eagle first lifted its wings. For more than a decade conditions in the soft coal fields had gone from bad to worse. The industry, by itself, had failed utterly in even approaching a solution to its problems. The National Coal Association displays foresight in asking for continuance of orderly mining and marketing of coal, which has made possible a measure of balance between production and consumption and a certain regularity of profits and employment. But the government should not: 1. Relax Its check on waste of natural resources, or permit such practice as stripping and abandoning uneconomic mines. 2. Surrender to the industry price-fixing powers which might lead to gouging of helpless consumers or block an indicated general downward price trend. 3. Forego its experiments in the development of water power, as suggested in the coal association's selfish condemnation of the Tennessee Valley Authority. 4. Lift anti-trust laws and grant monopolistic advantages, without a counterbalance of more rigid government control to insure fair wages and practices. It has not been proved yet that effective national planning in the coal industry is possible under a system of private ownership. A FEDERAL CRIME UNLESS the federal government acts, the Alabama-Florida lynching probably will go unpunished like virtually all other lj nchings. Because of the mob s removal of the victim from one state to another, this was an interstate crime. It is significant that those leading in the appeal for government action are southerners. The messages to President Roosevelt from the commission on interracial co-operation and to Attorney-General Cummings from the Associatfon of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching are further proof that the real spirit of the south abhors these frequent outbreaks of barbarism. Lynchings are almost impossible without the connivance, open or tacit, of the local officers of the law with mobs. Tiie long, sad, shameful record of racial mob savagery proves beyond argument that this tfcrrible type of crime never will be controlled until the federal government intervenes to preserve American legal processes and to protect the lives of its citizens. Enactment of the Costigan-Wagner antilyncning bill, necessary to give the federal government power in all such cases, is one of the major charges upon the next congress. But that law can not oe passed without the active support of President Roosevelt, in whose administration there already have been fortyfive lynchings. FEAR OF POLICEMEN A BROOKLYN man was having a hot argument with two other men on a street corner the other day. A policeman came up and prepared to act the part of peacemaker. The Brooklyn man took fright, turned and v ran. The policeman called to him to stop, got suspicious when the man doubled his speed, and finally drew his revolver and fired at him. wounding him severely. Then it turned out that the man had done nothing wTong. He was al law-abiding citizen with nothing on his conscience. He simply got panicky at the sight of a cop and couldn't control his impulse to cut and run. It would almost be worth while to know whether this man, as a child, was ordered to be good on the theory that the policeman would get him if he misbehaved. Certainly, that kind of treatment must leave many an adult with a subconscious but strong fear of the man in uniform. PLEASANT OUTLOOK A GREAT deal has been said, here and elsewhere, about what the electric power and distribution schemes of the Tennessee Valley Authority are going to do for the consumer. Less has been said about the effect on the . private producers of electricity, and it usually is taken for granted that these people are tearing their beards and beating their breasts whenever they even think about it. But there is an article in the current issue of the magazine Public Utilities Fortnightly, which gives an interesting new slant on things. This magazine might be called the official . mouthpiece of the power industry. The article in question was written by Leon H. Curtice, former chief statistician of the General Electric Company and secretary of the national electric manufacturers' committee. Mr. Curtice bluntly suggests that the whole TVA project eventually will be a most excellent thing for the power industry and for the makers of electrical appliances. He recites how the began \>y forcing reductions on power companies, and how it followed that by ‘'persuading’* makers of electrical appliances—stoves, refrigerators, heaters, and the like—to lower prices on their products. Coming, as they did, at a time when the business of both parties steadily was dwindling, these steps looked like very hard lines indeed. But Mr. Curtice looks at It differently. * “To have the TVA —government organize-*

Member of Cnltod Preo*. Hrripp* - Howard .Newspaper Alilancw. New*pap*r Enterprise Association. Newspaper Information Servlc# and Audit Buroan of t’ircnlation*. Owned and published dallr Sunday! uy The Ind anapolla Time* I*ubl!*hln-iv-miany. 2H-220 West Maryland street, !nd‘anapoll*. Ind Price In Marlon county 2 oenta a copy; elsewhere. 3 eents—deiircred be carrier. 12 eent a week. Mall subscription rate* in Indiana IS a eear; outside of Indiana. 6 cent* a month.

tion—co-operate with power companies and the manufacturers to promote the sale of appliances is a distinct asset to the electrical manufacturing Industry,” he says. “To find rates so lowered that prospective customers are not frightened at the possible cost of cooking electrically, heating electrically, or refrigerating electrically is an attractive prospect.” Now what, asks Mr. Curtice, will be the result of all this? Power companies will be bringing their rates down to a point where it will be absolutely necessary for them to get additional appliances on the line to justify the lowered rates. This will mean much new business for the manufacturer; that, in turn, will open a great new sales field to the power industry. In other words, this dreadful specter of the government in tne power business is quite likely to bring anew prosperity to all branches of the electrical industry. WHAT DEPRESSION IS JOHN T. FLYNN'S recent analysis of the things that happened following the 1929 stock market crash have contained a great deal of sound sense. One of the best hits was his definition of a depression, carried in the series in The Times. “A man out of work,” says Mr. Flynn, ‘‘is a depression. A factory closed down is a depression. An industry working at a loss and without business is a still bigger depression.” Elementary, of course. But Mr. Flynn points out that even in the prosperous years before 1929 we had many “individual depressions of that kind. They formed, as he pointed out, focal points of infection. When a real check to national prosperity came, they helped spread the infection everywhere. All of which is just another reminder that ultimately we all stand or fall together. Unless all are getting a share of prosperity, none of us is really safe. SECURITY—WHICH ROAD? FOR their gingerly groping with the problems of social insurance, advisers to President Roosevelt are criticised vigorously. On the question of unemployment insurance, alone, for example, business remonstrates that industry should not be overburdened, and labor dissents to proposals that substantial contributions to the insurance fund be taken from pay envelopes. Meanwhile large taxpayers grumble that the government should not carry the load. No one expects two specialists like Abraham Epstein and Dr. I. M. Rubinow to have the same solution as an industrialist like Owen D. Young or a professional labor leader like William Green. Epstein and Rubinow are among America’s foremost social security crusaders. Neither has an ax to grind. And it seems not illogical for laymen to hope that at least they can agree upon a common plan of action. Do they? Last winter, Epstein’s treatise, “Insecurity: A Challenge to America,” was the leading textbook of social insurance reformers. Now, from the Henry Holt press comes Rubinow’s new book, “The Quest for Security.” Starting with the same set of facts and with somewhat the same premise, those two scholarly authors have worked toward different conclusions. Reviewing Rubinow’s book, Epstein commends its philosophy and literary style, but disagrees sharply with many of his colleague’s opinions. It is nonsense, argues Epstein, for Rubinow to attempt to segregate government relief problems from the problems of social insurance and to speak of the stigma attaching to government pensions. Nor does Epstein see much merit in Rubinow’s willingness to compromise with an unemployment insurance worked out through industrial codes. Such a plan, contends Epstein, as a strong advocate of aggressive government participation, is on all fours with the Wisconsin plan of individual company reserves. Accident, illness, old age and loss of job, says Rubinow, are the four horsemen of destruction that ride hard through the lives of America’s wage-earning population. He condemns as woefully inadequate the state workmen’s compensation laws that have been erected to reimburse workers for the annual 3,000,000 industrial accidents. He upbraids the medical profession for blindly keeping medical costs prohibitive to the vast majority of the lower and middle classes. He finds little to commend in the old-age pittance doled out in state pensions to the superannuated who have no other possible means of support. TREBIZOND TV/fEN in airplanes flashed over the Near East in their race from England to Australia. They passed near the sleepy port of Trebizond on the Black Sea. Trebizond lives only as a romantic touch for poets—“from here the caravans start for Persia.” But in the past Trebizond held the combination of culture and transportation, yie commerce lanes to civilization. The Greeks called the great Byzantinewalled city Trapezus. It was a lot more than a trading point, Professor Alexander A. Vasiliev of the University of Wisconsin found in his recent researches. It may have been the long-sought link between eastern and western civilizations. Vasiliev has found it had a distinctive culture, which it may have disseminated over the whole known world of 2.800 years ago. Interesting to those of us who never found Trebizond in our school histories is the fact that after a long colonial period—some 2,000 years—an empire was established around Trebizond in 1204 A. D. Its emperors patronized art and learning. Their women were sought as brides by Mohammedan princes and the Byzantine emperors. Its rulers paid tribute to some nations and warred with others. The poignant fact, however, is that after more than 250 years—a good deal longer than the United States has existed—the proud empire fell and dissolved into dust. “So completely were people and culture absorbed that nothing of the old regime remained.” Only a few camel-trains still take the road to Persia through Erzerum and Van from the slumbering city of 60,000 and its silted harbor. NEW CONQUESTS IN AIR TPVER since Lindbergh flew to Paris, Americans have been expecting regular, commerical transoceanic flights to be established. The seeming ease with which Lindbergh made his trip blinded us to the difficulties of**he

feat; not until other fliers had sacrificed their lives did we realize how far away such commercial service really was. Now, however, it appears that transoceanic flights on a regular schedule are fairly near to realization. Officials of Pan-American Airways say that it is only “a matter of months” before they begin operations across the Pacific with a fleet of giant nlanes of the Clipper type. And Dr. Hugo Eckener sails for America to discuss anew his plans for beginning regular dirigible service between the United States and Europe. That both oceans eventually will be spanned by commercial air lines seems certain; and it begins to look as if the dream will be realized in the comparatively near future. LIVE TODAY TF popular literature reflects the current of the national mind properly, Americans are doing a great deal of wishful thinking about the vanished past these days. During the last two years the publishers have brought out a surprisingly large number of books which mirror the past as a time of high charm and contentment. Some of them are novels and some of them are books of reminiscence; some of them look back to the time before the Civil war, and some of them go back only to the nineties; but through book after book there runs the melancholy sentiment that things used to be ever so much happier and more secure than they are now. This contrast is not drawn with reference to the depression. It is as if the depression to these authors, simply climaxed a progression that had been going on for a long time; a progression away from the old simplicities, the old virtues, the old contentments. A great deal of this sentiment is undeniably justified. Life did move in a more even tempo, in the old days. Men’s ideas were less open to question. The one unquestionable fact is that we have moved into a time of profound change, and it is as confusing and generally unhappy a period as any in modern history. Yet, however, much this looking back at the past may salve our wounded feelings and meet our wistful desire to re-create a time when the world was younger and less perplexing, in the long, run it will do us precious little good. For the past, after all, is—the past. It can’t be brought back. For better or worse, we have moved on, and we shan’t find salvation by looking over our shoulders at the shady places beneath the trees. We may not like the present era. It may be inferior to grandfather’s day in any of a dozen ways. But it is the era we have to live in; and only by facing it resolutely and bravely can we pave the way for a future that will be an improvement on it. Once in a great while the stream of human history makes an abrupt, right-angled turn, away from everything that people are familiar with, on toward the unknown. We seem to be living in just such a moment today. Our preoccupation with the past is natural, but it is also bad for us. It’s time we started looking ahead, not backward. Lawyers in Italy have had their fees cut 13 per cent by Mussolini. He’d better be careful. One of them’s likely to sue him. Customers at the Century of Progress ate 2,000,000 hot dogs this summer. Wonder how many that is—by the pound?

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

KEEN-WITTED Commander Stephen KingHall, R. N., head of the research division of the Raleigh institute of international affairs, is in Washington for a few days during his radio broadcasting tour of this country. Clad in brown flannels, looking typically British, Commander King-Hall gave Labor Secretary Frances Perkins a few pointers which he believes should be considered in solving the present economic problems here. “I’ll be brief,” snapped Commander KingHall in his crisp tones. Hie’s been lecturing about the economic situation in Great Britain.) “Here are four points to be considered: “First, the problem in the United States is ethical rather than economical. “Second, the unemployment question is one of maldistributcd leisure. "Third, as a man out west remarked to me, you can’t eat the Constitution. “Fourth, there has been a period of economic drunkenness, but that dots not necessarily mean it should be cured by economic prohibition. Why not economic temperance?” Secretary Perkins seemed much impressed, asked Commander King-Hall to tell her more—but he politely made an exit. a a a WHITE-BEARDED, active George Foster Peabody of Georgia, financier, builder of railroads, educator, and director of the Warm Springs Foundation, paused briefly in Washington en route to New York, and called on President Roosevelt. The President warmlyi greeted octogenarian Peabody (who looks scarcely fore than 60, although he is 83). They enjoyed a chat together, and Mr. Peabody urged Mr. Roosevelt to come to Warm Springs and stay as long as possible. He reported that the President seems in excellent health and spirits and does not seem fatigued. Mr. Roosevelt will go to Warm Springs the middle of November, and will probably remain there two weeks. Mr. Peabody is hoping he may persuade him to rest for an extra week. a a a SHORT, dark Dr. Charles Ottolenghi, Argentine specialist in traumatology, arrived in town with a pigskin case stuffed with important papers. He's here to do a lot of research work. Much charmed with the beauties of Washington, Dr. Ottolenghi is even more enthusiastic about the United States. He stands enraptured on the curb outside one-arm lunchrooms, marveling at the tempo of American life. “Superb! Amazing!” he exclaims, upon seeing a business woman enter an automat and hastily eat a ham sandwich. In New York he gazed at the skyscrapers so long his neck ached. He plans to go to football games, climb the Washington monument, swallow a chocolate soda at a corner drugstore, visit Harlem, and listen to advertisements over the radio. The American theater and movis palaces fascinate him. “How magnificent!” he informs his countrymen at the Argentine embassy. “I love everything up here in the United States. It is perfect.” Sophisticated diplomats smile at his enthusiasm, thinking of the past depression, the complex problems of politics and government—but Ottolenghi remains unperturbed. NOTE—Dr. Ottolenghi, among other things, is specialist to the police force of Buenos Aires. He is a noted writer on orthopedia and traumatology. The Argentine government has sent him to study labor clinics; the Buenos Aires Chief of Police wants his to study police force hospitals, and he is officially delegated by the medical faculty of La Plata to pursue studies in orthopedia and traumatology. It’s a busy life.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

: V|

The Message Center

(Tunes readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make pour letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or lessJ a a a ATTACKS INVESTIGATION OF BANK SITUATION By Daniel B. Luten. In your issue of Oct. 24, John T. Flynn’s “Wall Street and the Depression” deals with the “exposure of Charles Mitchell, president of the National City bank of New York” and says that Pecora drove him from the headship of the bank. I quote further from Flynn: “But after Pecora’s sensational exposure of Mitchell and the National City Bank and later of the Morgans and their escape from income taxes for three years, suppression was impossible.” Mitchell was indicted for transferring stock to his wife to reduce his income tax, the effect of which would have been to transfer the payment to a subsequent year. The law did not forbid it; he was acquitted. If any one was chargeable with laxity therefore it must have been the legislators who passed the law, the very body that was placing the blame on the bankers by its methods of investigation. Tb£ Morgans did not pay income taxes because they had no income for the three years in question. How, then, was there any escape from income taxes? If this represents the nature of the investigation by the senate committee, is it any wonder that we had a banking crisis, created not by the bankers but by the committee? Add to the above the broadcast of charges by a Detroit cleric for financial advantage, that bankers were crooks because they believed in a gold standard that was imposed on the country by bribery of our legislators a half century ago. Governmental investigators may well be viewed with suspicion. a a a UPHOLDS TEACHERS IN TAN INDORSEMENT By Glenn B. Ralston. A certain taxpayer assails the school teachers’ organization for indorsing unanimously the tax laws of our Democratic state administration which enabled Indiana to be one of the out standing three or four states out of forty-eight in maintaining | full school terms with pay for the teachers. The complainant states there was nothing nonpartisan about the indorsement. Does the complainant wish that it were wholly partisan, and that these school teachers should prostitute their vocations and the schooling of the children solely on a partisan basis? As I understand, there were some 15,000 teachers represented here and all power to them for being above politics and true to the general public. No doubt there are thousands of citizens and parents* who are neither Republicans nor Democrats who respect these teachers for being true to themselves and the public and not worrying about the complaining Republican taxpayer and myself, a Democratic officeholder. But I accuse complaining Republican taxpayer of presenting himself with unclean hands. He proudly or emphatically asserts that a long time ago, as far back as Benjamin Harrison, state support of schools was fostered. And then following that, he inquires: “Where were the Republican members of the teachers’ association when the resolution was adopted?

A CHANGE OF PETS!

McNutt’s Accomplishments Listed

By George W. Osborn, Sheridan, Ipd. The Indianapolis Times is the only newspaper in Indianapolis which attempts to give the news, especially the political news. Talk about freedom of the press, we have no freedom of the press and have not had it for years. It has been denied, not by the government, but by the subsidized press itself. The people should thank The Times that it is free from this. The person who signed himself “Taxpayer” in The Message Center Oct. 22, takes Governor McNutt to task for something he thinks the Governor has done which is terrible, but an analysis of what “Taxpayer” says will show that it is merely an echo of what Li’l Arthur has been saying and if you will look through what Li’l Arthur has been saying about the Governor you will see that it merely is what the senator thinks he has done and not what has been done. Why don't the senator point with pride to something he has done for the state of Indiana or for the nation. What has the Governor really done to merit criticism from a Republican press and Republican party? For one thing, he has carried out his campaign pledges. He has given us anew public service commission whose members do not fraternize with utility lawyers and do not look upon those who complain about high rates for electricity and the products of other utilities as if they have no business before them and no right to complain. He has also given us a public official to represent us before the commission and placed the power of the state of Indiana in his hands to see that the rates for the

Where were those nonpartisan slogan groups of all parties who cry “Keep politics out of the schools," when the resolution was adopted? Let any school teacher or parent tell Mr. Complaining (Republican) taxpayer to reconcile the last two sentences of his paragraph just quoted. He can only be howling at himself. a b a MISSED SECOND VOTE ON NEW DEAL By Thomas H. Connor. Apropos vote on the Roosevelt New Deal policy by the Literary Digest: Discussions in your paper cause me to state that I am also one of the forgotten, havjng voted in favor of the New Deal in April, but had no knowledge of the September vote until I saw the article in the press about the “terrible setback" the New Deal re.ceived from its former friends. SUB UNION MEMBER WILL VOTE FOR MINTON By D. B. MeWhirter. Mervin McNew, who says he is a furloughed railroader, recently made an attack in one of the local newspapers on Sherman Minton which was about as false as a lot of other letters that have been attempted to assail his record as a friend of labor and of the veteran. Mr. McNew charged that “Minton repeatedly had authorized the establishment of truck and bus lines along railroads and that he had granted abandonment of railroads so as to cripple service and to put honest men out of employment.” What nonsense! I to doubt

I" l wholly disapprove of what you say and ivill I defend to the death your r'ujht to say it. — Voltaire.

products of public utility corporations are more equitable and just. This man was Sherman Minton, who is destined to replace Li'l Arthur and we will be proud of him and so will the United States senate. What more has the Governor done? He has redistributed the tax load on real estate and made those in the small retail business who have been making more on a $2,000 investment and paying no taxes, than a farmer could make •on eighty acres of land with an SB,OOO investment and paying all the taxes, pay their part of the taxes by the enactment of the gross income tax law. Let us compare the achievements of the present administration with the last four Republican administrations in Indiana. When we think of Goodrich we think of the high taxes the farmers had to pay when their land was assessed at its “true cash value,” and the high rates all citizens had to pay to the public utilities who paid taxes on a low appraisal and had a public service commission which made rates on a higher appraisal of their property. When we think of McCray our hearts are filled with sympathy for the man with no accomplishments. And when we think of the late and lamented statutes of limitations Ed Jackson we hang our heads in shame and when we think of Harry Leslie we remem-* ber that he was a wonderful football player at Purdue university, a good horseshoe pitcher and hunter. What a comparison! Governor McNutt has done more for the people in sixteen months than the last four Republican Governors accomplished in sixteen years.

that Mr. McNew ever rode on a railroad, much less worked for one, as he doesn’t know that the public counsellor under the new law in Indiana has no judicial authority of any kind. He couldn’t grant permits to authorize abandonment of anything. Just as Mr. Minton was, he is the lawyer for the people when they come in to get their utility rates reduced and it is a proud record that Mr. Minton made when the got better than $3,000,000 a year cut off the water, gas, light and telephone bills. Did Mr. McNew's friend, Arthur Robinson, ever do that much for all the people of Indiana? No! He humbugged labor and passed the hat among the veterans and if he is any friend of theirs at all he is only their fair weather friend. If Mr. McNew and some of his furloughed railroad friends want Mr. Robinson they can have him. Personally, I am a strong labor organization man and I stand behind the indorsement that President William Green of the American Federation of Labor and Al Whitney, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen gives to President Roosevelt’s labor policies. I am voting for Mr. Minton because he will support the humanitarian program of the great President. which will include other laws like the railroad retirement act and will take me off the furloughed list and put me on the railroads again. a a a BELIEVES NEW DEAL GETTING RESULTS Br H. V. Allison. Mr. Hughes’ letter in The Message Center of Oct. 23 refers to the housing program and the 152 years of G. O. P. service to the United States. He feels they should have 1

OCT. 29, 1934

another chance, but gives no cause why they went out of business. The New Deal may have made mistakes. Does anyone want to see times like they were during the other administration? Any thinking person can see we are on our way out. Getting back to normal is sure to be expensive. No worthy person is allowed to suffer from cold or hunger. The calamity howler is finding fault with everything being done and sees no chance for the people unless the G. O. P. returns. Some of the old standpatters may get back but it will be under an assumed name. The evidence that times are better can be seen in many ways. There are more good cars on the streets and highways than ever before. People are better dressed. Most important of all is the increased attendance in churches and Bible classes. a a a SOUR ON REPUBLICANS FOR RELIGIOUS ATTACK By a Times Reader. The cartoon in Wednesday's Times certainly describes the Hoosier Republican party to perfection. As long as it sponsors clowns and mental midgets like Arthur Robinson, it can count on driving voters to the opposition. My first vote was cast for Calvin Coolidge. a Republican. At that time, the Republican party hadn't degenerated to such a low mark as it has now. However, I switched parties when the Republicans put on that putrid, narrow-minded religious campaign against A1 Smith. That was enough for me. Today we see much the same method of reasoning among the Republicans as theh. In the present campaign, one almost would think Paul V. McNutt was running for office. All Republicans do is knock McNutt. To all Republicans I would say this: Let the Democrats remain in office for sixteen years before you even begin to compare the record. In conclusion, I would like to state that I firmly believe we get our punishment for wrong deeds here on earth. To my way of thinking, the sad remnants of a one time party is today paying for the sins of a dirty campaign conducted in 1928.

FIRST FROST

BY ARCHER SHIRLEY The leaves fell in showers of scarlet and gold And danced with the wind at their backs Far over the meadows and down frosty lanes To brown fields where hay lay in stacics. The vines in their rows were black and forlorn, Drooped down till they touched the cold earth; The fruits in the fields were shriveled and dead; The birds sang no longer with mirth. The grasses were faded, green blades turned to brown; Insects in the woods were all dumb, • For over the world lay a blanket of white— The first frost of autumn had come.