Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 152, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 November 1934 — Page 11
It Seems to Me HHwl BROUN
ELMER RICE, the playwright, is minded to pick up his mask and chest protector and go home. It U hi* announced intention to write no more dramas because of the indignities heaped upon him by the critics. If I understand his proclamation correctly Mr. Rice feels that the newspaper lads have formed a hollow square which stands between him and his public. In this controversy I must admit that my sympathies are divided. I have been an actor more recently than I have been a critic and from the far side of the footlights I must admit that the men who write the notices seem over-harsh, hardboiled and poisonous. And yet the case of Elmer Rice is not entirely a logical one. His recent creations have been animated by a fiery proletarian inspiration. Now my quarrel does not lie against those who write what he called “propaganda plays.” Asa matter of fact it
is my opinion that the drama which fails to convey a moral or to preach a sermon is generally a feeble thing. Men and women write out of convictions and passionate prejudices. No neutral has much place in any of the creative arts. This is peculiarly true of the theater. mam Many Hurdles Ahead OFF hand, I can remember no great play which was written around the formula, “There is much to be said on both sides.” George Bernard Shaw might seem to fall under this condemnation because in
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Heywood Broun
mo*t of his plays he provides an argument which runs nip and tuck between the contenders. It is Mr. Shaw's excellent idea that nobody ever won a championship by demolishing set-ups. And so he contrives to give the adversaries of his philosophy all the rope they need to bring about their own extinction. He is quite right in feeling that an audience is more ready for conversion after it has seen the rhampions of all classes engaged in bitter conflict. Mr. Shaw is not a neutral. He is rather a good matchmaker and that exalts him into the role of the greatest living propagandist. I have not seen the two plays of Elmer Rice which are current. Last year I attended his “We. the People" and came away gravely disappointed. By no manner of means was I estranged by the doctrine which he had preached, but I felt that it might well have bitten deeper if he had been sufficiently imaginative to use flesh and blood folk instead of scarecrows as his villains. I trust that with a short lapse of time Elmer Rice may recover from his pique and once again assume a place among the gruntled. He ought to bear in mind the fact that the true playwright for the proletariat should be prepared to leap many hurdles. Obviously the press is not essentially disposed toward revolutionists and the radical for several years to come, must seek his audience without much benefit of pats upon the back from those who wholly abhor his objectives. a a a Controversy Is Deep AND I have the feeling that the controversy cuts even a little deeper. Gilbert Gabriel of the American has expressed it well by saying. “After all, playrights are merely a lot of disappointed critics.” The average theater goer is of the opinion that anybody who sets one little word after another and manages to procure a patron becomes upon that instance a creative artist. But I am not, ready to admit that the function of the dramatist is inevitably more important than the function of the critic. To be specific. I think of George Jean Nathan as haring a more important stake in the development of the American drama than that which lies within the hands of Owen Davis. It is my recollection that Mr. Nathan has written not a single play for purposes of production while Owen Davis has hammered out at least a hundred. And yet in the days to come George Jean Nathan ought to be exalted as the more creative person. It is well to remember that criticism at its best is not a species of news reporting or columnar activity. It is an art which may be wholly self-con-tained. First comes the man who frames the structure and substance of a dramatic presentation. And close upon his heels there walks the interpreter. In very many cases the man who undertakes to explain the playwright is a person with a far closer grasp of the theme involved than that achieved by the original author. Some of the greatest figures in music, literature, and the drama have been men who undertook to describe the point and purpose of the work done by their contemporaries. •Copyright. 1934. by Th Times!
Your Health BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN
ABOUT 3 per cent of the red blood cells in your body are destroyed and replaced every day. The production plant for new blood cells in the bone marrow. Ordinarily, if for a short time there is an increased destruction of blood cells, the production plant speeds up and is able to take care of the loss. If. however, the loss becomes too great, production cant keep up with it and you soon become anemic. Anemia is caused in one of three ways—direct loss of blood by hemorrhage, destruction of blood inside the body bv disease, and failure of the blood to restore itself after a loss occurs due to any cause. m m m THE red blood cell contains a substance called hemoglobin, which is able to take up oxygen and later to give it off again. In anemia the number of led blood cells and the amount of hemoglobin are greatly reduced. That is one of the reasons why persons who are anemic feel cold. weak, and seem to lack energy. When the body lacks suitable amounts of oxygen, there is short, rapid breathing. Usually, whenever there is hemorrhage, the tissues of the body that are concerned with developing blood promptly develop enough new blood to take care of the loss that has occurred. The time required even after a fairly large hemorrhage is onlv a few weeks. In case of very large hemorrhages, however, it is customary to give a blood transfusion and thus to restore the blood volume promptly. m m m IN cases of diseases which destroy the blood, such as cancer or leukemia or serious infections, it is customary to discover the cause and to remove that cause. Measures directed at the blood will not be successful. There are. however, certain kinds of anemia in which the blood simply fails to develop new blood cells to take the place of those that are worn out. Fortunately, it has been discovered tliat there are certain substances which will stimulate the blood-forming organs, when they are failing to keep up their work, and overcome the anemic condition. In some cases the trouble seems to lie in the fact that the stomach has lost the ability to secrete the acid needed for suitable digestion. When the stomach juices act on certain foods, particularly on meat products, such as lean meat and liver, a substance is developed which stimulates the formation of red blood cells. It also serves to liberate iron in a form which can be used by the blood to build hemoglobin. Iron can be given directly in the form of a medicine which mill help to overcome some forms of anemia. In others, liver extract can be given by mouth or by injection.
Questions and Answers
Q— Has Mary Pickford any children? A—She has adopted her rtiece, daughter of her sister Lottie, but has no children of her own. Q —Technically does a son-in-law hold that relation to the parents of his wife, after her death? A—The relation by affinity is terminated by death. Q —Who played the role of John Pelham in "Operator 13”? Is he a southerner and how old is he? A—Henry Wadsworth, who played the role, was bom in Maysviile, Ky., in 1907.
Full Lotsod Wir# Service or the United Preea Association
CRIME, POLITICS—HAND IN HAND
Close Link Is Bared in U. S. Probe of Union Station Massacre
Thia ta iha Aral of three artielea outlining the real atory of the Kanaaa City maaaarre and tracing evidence of a liaiaon between politieiana and gangatera aa ferreted oot by federal agenta. By SKA Service Kansas city, mo., nov. 5. When “Pretty Boy" Floyd staggered under the impact of a hail of bullets and dropped his two stolen army automatic pistols in an Ohio cornfield, that was not the end. That was just the beginning. Or so federal operatives here believe. For they hope the death of Floyd was only the prelude to an investigation into interstate gang murder which will show the public more clearly than ever before how these killers operate, dodging from city to city and finding haven, if not active help, from their kind in every locality. Behind the closed door of room 405 of the Federal building here, twenty-one men are listening to testimony of a long string of witnesses, federal agents, police, gangsters’ wives, inhabitants of the shadowy world between legitimate business and politics and gang warfare. Witnesses who never before have been brought in by local authorities have been making their first appearance in a federal court of law. It is a federal grand jury under solemn instructions of Federal Judge Albert I. Reeves to probe deeply into the Union station massacre of June 17, 1933. in which five men were cut down by thugs’ bullets and the title of most gang-ridden city passed (temporarily, at least) from Chicago to Kansas City. nun A LREADY eig&t indictments have proceeded from the closed jury room. The eight are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. More true bills are expected to follow. Gradually a picture is developing of the real workings of the interstate underworld and its ties with the sinister figures who lurk in the shadows between legitimate politics and racketeering in every big city. What had “Pretty Boy” Floyd, the Oklahoma desperado, to do with all this? Plenty. Floyd, federal agents now are convinced, was one of the machine gunners who murdered four peace officers and convict Frank Nash at Union station here in an effort to free Nash from custody. And it was Floyd’s death and the capture of his Dal, Adam Richetti, that gave the final impetus to the federal investigation of the Union station massacre. Richetti, accused of having been in the murder car, is the last left alive of the ganster crew. Hence the anxiety of federal officers to get him back to Missouri from Ohio, where he was captured.
THE NATIONAL ROUNDUP • a a a a a By Ruth Finney
WASHINGTON, Nov. s.—The New Deal is going ahead with yardstick electric power projects no matter how many obstacles private utilities put in its path. It served notice to this effect today by announcing that Greenwood county, South Carolina, has the blessing of the federal government in proceeding with a 20,00>-horse power project which the Duke Power Company has, for months, been trying to block. The announcement took on added significance coming as it does in the midst of TVA's
legal difficulties. The public works administration agreed some time ago to loan and grant Greenwood county a total of $2,767,000 for its plant. The Duke Power Company protested and carried its case on to the federal power commission. The commission now has granted the county a license to build. The* fact that the commission acted the day after President Roosevelt took steps to co-ordinate politics of all different departments of the government made the connection with TVA even more evident. Greenwood county proposes to serve three South Carolina towns and a considerable rural area with power. It says the Duke Power Company has not built its lines into this district, but the company has a power dam just nine miles below the site selected by the county. m m m FARMERS buying the new public power will pay rates identical with those established by TVA for domestic consumers—sl.so for fifty-kilowatt hours. When the county first announced its plans, the Duke Power Company was charging $2.98 for kilowatt hours in nearby territory. Since then it has reduced its rate to $2.70. PWA found that the country’s rate is large enough to cover production and sale costs and to provide for amortization of its loan. The county itself is sure it can pay the money back in twelve years instead of the twenty allowed it. So far there has been no indication that the company would try to head off the new project by agreeing to meet the county’s rates. PWA Administrator Ickes announced recently that before loans will be given an opportunity to put into effect rates as low as those at which the public project would be self liquidating. The Duke company told PWA that the competition would hamper, and perhaps cripple, the philanthropies carried on by the Duke endowment. This objection Greenwood county officials denounced as absurd, unsound and without economic justification. m m m TVA'S way out of its difficulties also may lie in construction of a competing system by means
The Indianapolis Times
FP
BUT again, what of it? Simply this. Floyd was apparently no friend of the convict Nash. No personal ties bound him to help liberate this man. Floyd, happening to be in Kansas City, was apparently told off for the job, on account of his reputation. By whom, and why? That is what the federal grand jury here is determined to find out. United States District Attorney Maurice M. Milligan believes he has enough evidence to solve every “on the spot” murder that has taken place here in the last three years. Mr. Milligan believes that he can show definite connections between the union station massacre and local politicians. Kansas City politics is dominated by a Democratic machine scarcely less notorious than New York’s Tammany. In the most recent election, two men were murdered and dozens beaten and intimidated by plug-uglies at the polls. The machine of Tom Pen-
of funds secured from the public works administration. Some months ago it entered into an agreement with the Electric Bond and Share Company to buy the Knoxville properties of its subsidiary, Tennessee Public Service Company. Suit now has been instituted by small stockholder which threatens to delay the sale until a final
SIDE GLANCES
toiliw
“How can you make a mistake in buying a diamond studded, platinum watch for .two dollars and a Quarter?^
INDIANAPOLIS, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1934
dergast again proved him to be “boss” of Kansas City. Pendergast had a lieutenant, John Lazia, a quiet, easy-going Italian with law training, who kept in line 12,000 or more Democratic votes of the north side. You must say he had a lieutenant, for Lazia is no more. He was murdered last summer by men who poured eight bullets into him as # he stepped from an auto at the Park Central hotel. But Lazia, the state contends, was the man who brought together the thugs, before that unknown to one another, who planned the union station massacre. Verne Miller, “Pretty Boy” Floyd and Adam Richetti were the gangmen, the authorities say. Lazia, having been silenced, has nothing to say. But one of his rivals for domination in Little Italy, James La Capra, has said a great deal. La Capra, soon after Lazia’s death, was shot at twice.
verdict is secured from the United States supreme court. However Knoxville already has moved to build its own competing system, buy power from TVA and sell it to consumers at rates far below those now being charged by the company. The threat of yardstick competition already has caused private power companies to reduce rates in five southern states, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia sufficiently to save purchasers between four and five million dollars a year. DAMAGE ACTION FILED City Doctor Named Defendant in SIO,OOO Accident Suit. Dr. William E. Kennedy, 3920 Winthrop avenue, is the defendant in suits filed in superior court today asking SIO,OOO each for alleged damages received by Mrs. Marie Miller, Annaheim, Cal., and her 5-year-old daughter, Shirley Jean, in an automobile accident on U. S. Road 41, near Indianapolis, Sept. 9.
By George Clark
SO he decided he was safer in jail, and since being arrested (he refuses bond and is closely guarded) has talked twenty-five typewritten pages’ worth. La Capra not only charges that Miller met Floyd and Richetti through Lazia before the massacre, but that Lazia henchmen helped conceal them and aided in the escape. What was Nash, the convict whose freedom was so desperately sought, to Lazia, a local politician? It is at this point that the government builds a web of underworld connections stretching in a belt halfway across the United States, and shows the ease with which gang forces are able to concentrate quickly in any given spot. Here again, Nash probably was nothing to Lazia personally. If, as the government charges, Lazia went to Nash’s assistance, it was because of inter-city connections
■The ■
DAILY WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
WASHINGTON, Nov. s.—Secretary Cordell Hull’s reciprocity treaties are getting nowhere fast. Negotiations with a long string of countries—about half of them Central American coffee republics—are in progress. But the longer negotiations continue the more it looks as if tariff reduction would be a commercial dud. There are three main reasons for this. The first is the principle of most-favored-nation treatment. This means that when Colombia, Brazil or any other country reduces tarrif rates on American textiles, Japan or any other country having a most-
favored nation treaty with Colombia, Brazil, etc., gets the same benefit. Thus American goods get no preference. Second, is the fact that some commodities, such as coffee and tea, which we import in tremendous quantities, are on the free list. And it is difficult to drive a bargain with a country when the tariff rate on its chief export already is zero. Third, is the fact that the state department is steering clear of commodities manufactured by ‘predatory” American interests. They are too well intrenched, can make too loud a squawk. So the state department gives them a wide berth. mum According to Mrs. Homer Cummings, scintillating wife of the attorney-general: “Irvin Cobb's quip about ‘as much priacy as a gold fish,’ ought to be changed to ‘as much privacy as a cabinet officer.’ “A gold fish at least gets a little privacy in the evening.” u n a THERE returned to his regiment the other day an officer who, during six months of unspectacular, but outstanding, work with the NRA, lived up to the highest traditions of the military service. During this period, Colonel George A. Lynch, as administrative officer of the Blue Eagle, met steadfastly and unflinchingly one of the severest tests that can be put to an executive —duty versus personal friendship. The army man was brought to the NRA at the request of General Hugh Johnson. The two men had been West Point comrades, served together as young officers. Yet, when during the last summer fierce dissension and internal turmoil wracked and battered the NRA. Lynch quietly, but doggedly, hewed straight to the line of duty. When occasion arose to challenge a decision of Johnson's, administrative officer Lynch did so without equivocation. The tall, gray-haired Indianstraight army officer was not popular about the NRA, Aloof by nature, he did not mix with the staff. With newsmen he was forbiddingly taciturn. *Jut with the small group of
Involved in the grand jury investigation that is attempting to show the real meaning of the Kansas City Union Station massacre, Mrs. Herbert Farmer and Mrs. Frank Nash (upper left), are charged with helping form the plot to free Nash. John Lazia (lower left), Kansas Cty political power, was murdered as in the top sketch before being summoned to testify before the grand jury. Louis Stacci, Chicago night club proprietor, shown being “frisked” before entering the courtroom, is also charged with aiding the plot to free Nash which resulted in the station massacre of five men. —in short, crime revealed not as the work of isolated desperadoes, but of such desperadoes aided by local organizations. Mr. Milligan, the district attorney, is a Democrat, but he belongs to a different faction than that of Pendergast and Lazia. So he’s not pulling any punches so far as showing possible connections between gang warfare and city politics. a a a FURTHER, Milligan is almostcertainly working under direct orders from Washington. Attor-ney-General Homer Cummings and Chief Investigator Edgar Hoover of the department of justice are known to have insisted that Kansas City be cleaned up. And of course the D. J. never let up on the union station massacre, because Raymond Caffrey, one of its star agents, was murdered there, and R. E. Vetterli, another agent, wounded. Vetterli is a witness in the present investigation. So while scores of witnesses crowd the federal building corridors, waiting their turn to enter the closed grand jury room and tell their stories, Kansas City residents wait to see what may be revealed about big-time professional murder, and the kind of city in which they live. NEXT—How a professional thief and murderer, Frank Nash, escaped from Ft. Leavenworth in 1930 and started the trail that now appears to be nearing an end after four years of blood and lead.
executives —Leon Henderson, head of the economic division; Blackwell Smith, chief of the legal section and several others—who stood in the breach with him during the long crisis, Lynch's true ability and stature were known and enthusiastically admired. When Johnson, last ■spring, announced Lynch’s appointment to his staff, he acclaimed him as “one of the most advanced thinkers in the army.” The other day as Lynch’s colleagues among the NRA executives bade him good-by, they added—“and a true officer and gentleman.” (Copyright, 1934. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.j MUSIC EDUCATORS TO MEET MARCH 17 TO 22 Arrangements Are Made at Session of Executive Committee. Plans for a meeting of the north central conference of music educators in Indianapolis, March 17 to 22, have been made at a conference of the executive committee of the organization in the Lincoln. Fowler Smith, Detroit, Mich., is president of the conference. One hundred and fifty members of the conference attended the meeting Saturday held jointly with the representatives of music clubs of the state. GOV. M’NUTT TO VOTE FOR ALL DEMOCRATS Executive Not to Follow Lead of Roosevelt and Split Ticket. Governor Paul V. McNutt announced today that he intends to vote the straight Democratic ticket, although it was pointed out to him that President Roosevelt indicated that he might split his vote. “The situation so exists in this state that I feel it my duty to vote the straight Democratic ticket,” the Governor said*
Second Section
Entered a Second-Cl** Matter at Postofflce, Indianapolis, Ind.
Fair Enough LOS ANGELES, Cal., Nov. 5 —The pioneers of the soft frontier, who are having such a hard time feeling sorry for themselves, do not seem to have much in common with the people who made it the hard way in the covered wagons. Os course Las Angeles, for all the tall buildings, gigolos and spotty sophistication of the place, is still a frontier city. It is a jumbled mixture of prospectors of one kind and another who followed the realtor and the lure of ease. Only in anew and
jumbled population would you find such a large proportion of religious nuts, ready to hop up aid holler “glory” under the spell of any corn salve preacher who sets up a pitch and begins to whoop. The population certainly is not composed of the hardiest types of Americans. On the contrary it largely is made up of people who couldn't or wouldn’t take it in the hard winters back home. Life is not hard in Los Angeles. A livable bungalow may be had for $lO a month and many of the people who live in such houses are outlanders who receive their rent
from the taxpayers through the county treasury. They came here to take the sun and divide up their nothing and their troubles with more fortunate people who have moved in long before and worked to develop a town and accumulate something for themselves. a a a Even Dogs Are Cheap A DIME will buy four dozen oranges on some of the stands along the highway. Carrots and beets are so cheap that the retailers prefer not to sell them by the single bunch if they can induce the buyer to take four bunches for ten cents. Potatoes are 1 cent a pound in lots of a dime’s worth. Onions are 2 cents a pound. A dime will buy four pounds of grapes or apples. A nickel buys four stalks of celery. Grapefruit are little over 2 cents each in lots of half a dozen. At one open air market there is an offering of puppies of miscellaneous breed at 75 cents each. An immigrant woman, in from lowa and now approaching 60, is talking confidently with never an “if” or “maybe” of a happy day soon to come when Upton Sinclair, that blessed mahatma, will pay her S2OO a month for the splendid achievement of having lived three score years. Her only regret in the world, now that her own future seems to her to be seemed marvelously, is the fact that her old friend, Sam, the gardener and handy man, who also came in from the outside, did not live to enjoy his pension of S2OO a month. Sam died a few months ago. The old lady is a bit confused in her politics, but hardly is to blame for that. She thinks it was Mahatma Sinclair who promised her S2OO a month for having lived sixty years. The mahatma changes his EPIC plan so casually that even an alert politician with an adult mind hardly could be expected to keep up with his promises from day to day. The truth is that not the mahatma, but an old physician, also an imported Californian, and rising sixty years himself thought up the plan whereby the taxpayers of California would be required to pay S2OO a month to every person more than sixty who might care to move in and become a resident. The mahatma is one who can nod and shake his head in one and the same motion. Sometimes he has favored the pension plan and at other times he has favored it with variations. a a a He'll Teach to G. O. P. A MAN who lives in a bungalow renting at, say, S2O a month, finds himself in a fix. He, too, may be out of a job or down in the bottom of the barrel but the fact that he lives in a S2O house identifies him as a sort of lower class aristocrat. The county can not support aristocrats. Let him move into a $lO bunglow if he wants the taxpayers to support him. Or, failing that, he still has a remedy of his own whereby the taxpayer has to pay his rent. He can just tell his landlord to try and get it. This has been tried with good results. The poverty of the country is apparent everywhere. The country is overloaded badly. Its population is far beyond the present capacity of the community to support life and particularly the sort of life which these pioneers expected to lead on the soft frontier. There are Communist scraps in the suburbs and in the Los Angeles branch of the State university. Undoubtedly the soft pioneers prefer to work for their living and are desperately eager for jobs and losing morale day by day. But the fact still remains that they would be much worse off if they were unemployed back home and are much less to be pitied than people in the same circumstances who will have to front the blizzards and sleet. The mahatma will draw his vote from the ranks of the people who attached themselves to California and declared themselves in for rations, quarters, heat and light. If elected he would smash up the state completely. He can perform his greatest sendee to California in defeat because he has thrown the fear of revolution into the complacent Republicans who rode the taxpayers’ and working men's backs for generations. They now realize that they had better be good—or else. (Copyright. 1934. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)
Today's Science BY DAVID DIETZ
THE United States, largest producer and consumer of minerals in the world, nevertheless is not completely self-sufficient from the mineral point of view. To understand America’s world position, it is necessary to understand the source of its weaknesses as well as its strength. The United States owns, produces and consumes about 40 per cent of the world’s minerals. It has one-half of the world’s coal reserves. It produces almost 70 per cent of the world’s oil, 37 per cent of its iron ore, 47 per cent of its copper, and 33 per cent of its lead. This is the picture of American strength in the mineral world. Now let us see where the United States is short. Professor C. K. Leith of the University of Wisconsin, lists the minerals of which we are short as antimony, chromite, manganese, nickel, tin, asbestos, bauxite, nitrates, platinum, potash and vanadium. an m IT will be of interest to note where these four minerals are to be found and who controls them. Africa, William P. Rawles, secretary of Mineral Inquiry, says, was the center of chromite production with British capital controlling t 8 per cent of the world’s production. American capital controlled 18 per cent of the world’s production. Russia produced one-third of the world’s manganese ore in 1929. Other important production centers were India, the gold coast and Brazil. Ninety per cent of the world's supply of nickel comes from Canada, most of the remainder from New Caledonia. British, Canadian and American interests own the Canadian production. o<r 'pHE United States produces some vanadium, A about 17 per cent of the world supply, but most of it, 60 per cent of the world’s total comes from Peru. American capital controls most of the Peru* vian output. It will be noted, therefore, that in the case of the key minerals not found in the United States, American interests nevertheless own substantial amounts of the world's supplies. Regarding this subject. Professor Leith says, "It is natural that a mineral industry as large and thriving as that of the United States should undertake mineral exploitation in other parts of the world. Political or national considerations so prominent in this effort in other countries, particularly Great Britain, are secondary influences with the American mining industry. It is primarily a question of commercial demand and profit.”
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Westbrook Pegler