Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 186, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 December 1934 — Page 30

PAGE 30

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FRIDAY. DECEMBER 14 1934 |> —■ THE LEAGUE’S ARMY TN the story of the Saar plebiscite, history may be v, ri’mg the prologue to a world adventure in sanity. On Jan. 13 the election will be policed by an international lorce *of British, Italian, • Swedish, Dutch and Belgian troops under command of the League of Nations. France and Germany, as partisans, will send no soldiers. The army is to be a small one, only 3300 men. But it is an important one, because it in the Lrague of Nations’ international army Perhaps, the league grows up, it will command an adequate international police force charged by member nations w’ith keeping pcr.ce and order in the world. Meanwhile the United States can apply this same ideal to its relations with other American republics. President Roosevelt, former State Secretary Stimson and others have urged that any interventkn necessary in this hemisphere be carried on by a co-operative effort of American nations. JUDGE PRESTON BELIEVE it or not, Justice John W. Preston of the California Supreme Court is said to be under consideration for appointment to the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is reported to have the support of Senator McAdoo. This is the judge who acted as “prosecutor” In the 1930 “retrial” of Warren K. Billings before the California high court. In that strange pardon hearing Justice Preston’s unjudicial conduct stamped him unfit for the Federal bench. One of the state s chief witnesses in the 1916 Mooney-Billings murder trials was John MacDonald. In 1930 he confessed he had perjured himself in those trials and had been coached in his testimony by the then district attorney and a police official. He went from Baltimore to California to tell Gov. Young and the Supreme Court why he had lied and that he was sorry. Justice Preston tried to discredit the pentitent perjurer and minimize the iniquities of the 1916 prosecution. One reporter said it seemed Justice Preston's intention “to prove MacDonald a sound witness when, inspired by hope of reward, he tried to convict the two men; and a perjurer when, inspired by remorse, he seeks to free them.” Another compared this judge’s tactics to those in a Salem witchcraft trial. The present important Federal judicial post is vacant because the Senate committee blocked confirmation of Judge Norcross of Nevada on his receivership record. The President is not likely .to risk another defeat in the Senate by nominating Justice Prestcn.

REFINANCE THE SCHOOLS A QUARTER MILLION teachers get wages below the NRA blanket code minimum for factory hands. Some receive only $35 a month. One-fourth of American cities have closed their night schools and part-time classes for adults and youths. Hundreds of needed school buildings have been abandoned before completion and left to deteriorate in ruins' because of insufficient funds. Tens of thousands of pupils are housed in temporary’ and dangerous shacks. With one million more pupils to teach, the states are spending less on their elementary and secondary schools than in 1926. These random facts proclaim a serious de*fect in the Republic s prime industry. What is it? Faulty financing, answers Dr. John K. Norton or Columbia University. Writing in The Nation, he finds the country trying to support its schools with tax methods “as obsolete as the ox cart." The property tax. that finances most of the educational budget, was adopted in the post-Jackson era when land was about the only form of wealth in many communities. Today land is over-burdened while other wealth escapes its proportionate tax for education. A thorough revamping of school financing is necessary. Dr. Norton says that the hundreds of thousands of duplicating and completing tax units should be consolidated into larger units. These units should keep local control, but the states should finance their schools. Income, inheritance. business and similar taxe§, he says, should*help to pay the oiils. Here is something for the state legislatures to consider at the coming sessions. They may cry for Federal aid, but that is only a temporary life line. ATTACKING DRUDGERY THE idea of an extensive program of rural electrification is gaining advocates in the Admmist ration. First attempted by the Tennessee Valley Authority in northern Mississippi, the report of the Mississippi Valley Committee contained a revelation of the vast field for this work. That committee found that while more than half of farmers in the area surveyed owned automobiles, only 5 per cent of them had electricity. Impressed with this figure and the possibility of opening a great market for power and electrical appliances. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes found that building rural electric lines would put men to work more quickly than some other public works project*. The secretary is known to be ready to make j PWA loans and grant* to rural power cooperatives, and to speed approval of their applications. Just what such a project means in benefits to humans is best expressed by a farm wife in

a letter to a Washington newspaper. Under the light of a kerosene lamp, she wrote: "Five million farm women, doing exactly aa was done 100 years ago. suddenly faced with an ice box. stove, fan. iron, vacuum cleaner, washer, toaster and coffee pot, would be something to think about .... If the Government could release 5.000.000-horse power in several sections of the United States, for help with farm chores, there would be cause for great rejoicing among farm families. Getting up at 3 a. n. to milk would not be half so difficult with electric lights and a percolator of coffee to start off with. Washing and ironing would lose half its work if the turn of a switch would start things moving.” The rural electrification proposal Is worth attention. Any loans made should be to consumers, leaving them in a position to contract with power companies for wholesale power or to take advantage of Government yardstick power wherever it is available. POLITICS IN CRIME ■pvIRECTOR HOOVER of the Justice Department’s Division of Investigation told the Federal Crime Conference that law enforcement officers should get their jobs on merit, and not be “forced to seek office from some political ward heeler.” “In too many communities, the requisites are an ability to vote for the right man, and the pandering instinct necessary to hold a position which can be plucked away , . . upon the displeasure of a political boss. “Time after time, officers see criminals walk free because that criminal know's some other equally criminal person who controls enough votes to sw'ing an election. ... No greater forward step could be taken than utter divorcement of politics*from the apprehension, the punishment and detention of criminals.” The Wickersham Commission a few years ago reported that the average police chief in large cities holds office two and a half years, and that 75 per cent of American policemen “are not mentally endowed” to perform their duties. Last month, former Police Commissioner Roche of Buffalo said: “I’ve heard a good deal of talk about the causes of crime. First, it w'as the war; then* it was prohibition and lately it’s poverty. It’s not these things. Politics is the foundation of all crime. There are too many corrupt politicians.”

RITTER NATIONS A SK any informed man what is the chief cause of the present unrest in Europe and and he will tell you that it is the injustice and the stupidity of the post-war treaties. Ask him why, this being so, the treaties can’t be revised, and he will remind you that the mutual suspicions and resentments bred by the war make it impossible. These two questions, then, will bring you down to one of the most peculiar and dangerous factors in modern life—the change that has come over the way in which nations wage war nowadays, and the price that has to be paid for it. The World War differed from its predecessors not only in the fact that more countries and more soldiers were involved, but also in the fact that it was waged in a different spirit. The old restrictions on the desire to hurt ones enemy fell away. It speedily developed into a fight in which, as they say of a barroom brawl, anything went. No longer was the man in arms the sole target. Defenseless cities were bombed, over and over again, by both sides. Women, children, old men and invalids were slain, as well as soldiers. Merchant ships were sunk without warning. Blockades were adopted, so rigorously that they condemned thousands upon thousands of noncombatants to malnutrition, disease, and death. Not since the world began to call itself civilized had there been so vicious a kind of fighting as was adopted between 1914 and 1918. There were no fouls. Everything w’as permissible. Things that would have horriffled the whole world if they had been done in earlier wars were taken as a matter of course. It was only natural that that kind of war should leave people with a greater heritage of bitterness and suspicion than previous wars bequeathed them. When the bitter experiences of four years teach you to look on your enemy as a fiend incarnate, you don’t forget about it overnight. For years to come he remains the man w’ho bombed hospitals and starved children and carried the war into your backyard. And if you beat him, and the peace treaties make him suffer—well, you're not inclined to be very soft-hearted about it. This unquestionably explains much of the reluctance ot the victorious nations to consider a revision of the treaties. And this psychological twist is worth remembering. Military men everywhere are taking it for granted that the next war will be fought as the last one was—without rules. We should not forget that that kind of fighting calls for a heavy price to be paid after the actual conflict has ended. NATURE’S WAYS IMPRESSIVE ALLAN R. DAFOE, the Ontario doctor who brought the famous Dionne quintuplet* into the world, seems to have had an excellent time on his vacation trip to New York, but the marvels of the nation’s greatest city do not seem to have impressed him overmuch. Newspaper reporters discovered that, while he was duly shown all the great sights, he found it ever so much more exciting to talk about the five little girl* who have been hi* especial care for the last few months. The miracle* of Manhattan, in fact, seem to have left him more or less cold; he has a miracle of his own to talk about, infinitely more impressive. And this, after all, is quite natural. Wealth and invention may combine to rear some surprising wonders—but the miracles of Mother Nature can r thieve, vhen she set* her mind to it, make the. o , look small. What is an Empire State building or a skyscraper sky-line compared with five babies who all arrived at once? The Oklahoma prisoner who was permitted to go hunting over the Thanksgiving holiday* returned all the more willing to stay in jalL

Wartime Profits

By Scrippt-H'.icari Setctpaptr Alliance WASHINGTON, Dec. 14.—The Capital was puzzled today by President Roosevelt’s sudden crusade for abolition of wartime profits and by the wounded plaints of Senators Nye and Vandenberg that the President was snubbing their munitions inquiry. Many explanations were suggested for the President’s surprise announcement, which came while he was m tne midst of numerous crucial decisions on issues that appeared more urgent than profits from a hypothetical war. Among the opinions voiced in various quarters—none of which professed to speak on authority—were these: 1. That the President, sensing the w’ide public response to the Senate exposures, decided to take over the leadership from the two Republicans who sponsored the munitions inquisition. In his connection, recurrent mention of Senator Vandenberg <R„ Mich.) as Presidential timber was recalled. 2. That the President wad prevailed upon by Secretaries Dern and Swanson to make an effort to forestall the Senate committee’s threatened denunciatioin of the War and Navy departments for co-operation with munitions makers. Mr. Dern has recently been putting off a promised appearance before the committee. 3. That the President believes nationalization of the munitions industry, advocated by a majority of the Senate committee, is too socialistic, and he desires to head off such a move by sponsoring a more moderate proposal. 4. That he is motivated entirely by concern for an improved national defense, possibly because of recent unfortunate trends in international politics. 5. That he was simply “sold” on the idea during a recent visit Bernard M. Baruch, with whom the wartime drafting of all industry has long been an aspiration. nun MR. BARUCH, who with some justice like to think of himself as an American Disraeli, probably knows better than any other man the need for effective restraint on wartime profits, ror as champion of Woodrow Wilson’s War Industries Board, he was close to the hot breath of profiteering greed. But this silver-haired Wall Street multimillionaire is no friend of Government operation in peace time of such industries as ship building and powder making. Mr. Baruch and his then associate in business, Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, were two of the principal witnesses before the War Policies Commission which, under the chairmanship of Patrick J. Hurley, recommended in 1932 a broad program to end war profits. Testifying before the commission, Mr. Baruch proposed a law making it illegal in wartime to buy or sell anything, including labor, at a higher price than that prevailing before a date to be specified by the President. The President, under the Baruch plan, would have power later t,o adjust any such price up or down. He would also have power to license all kinds of business under conditions to be specified by him. The financier favored, as well, a high excess-profits tax in wartime. It was assumed here today that the Presioent had in mind something along the line of these recommendations. n u THP. ITATED Senators pointed out that the resoX lution creating the Nye Munitions Committee instructed it to review the findings of the War Policies Commission and recommend legislation. The President, they said, was usurping their proper function. Senator Nye himself sponsored in the last session of Congress a wartime tax of 98 per cent on all incomes above SIO,OOO. He plans to reintroduce the bills ; n January. The fact that the President called in not only Mr. Baruch but Gen. Johnson as well, while consulting with none of the Senate committee, was salt in the wounds of Messrs. Nye and Vandenberg. Senator Nye was one of the Senate’s most vigorous critics of the General’s administration Ox NRA. Others of the White House consultants on war profits have also been frequent targets in the Senate chamber —notably Rexford G. Tugwell and Maj. Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur. Mr. Baruch was named chairman of the group. The resentment of Nye, Vandenberg and other Senators, already warm, will probably burn even hotter in the Senate next month when the munitions committee makes its plea for more funds with which to continue the inquiry.

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

HOW keen President Roosevelt’s sense of humor is, may be gleaned from the fact that he is responsible for a scene satirizing the Government, in Eddie Dowling’s new show, “Thumbs Up,” which had its premiere in Philadelphia. When Eddie was in Washington, he told the President about his play and the latter, assisted by Louis Howe, suggested a scene. Eddie outlined President Roosevelt’s suggestion—and a humorous skit resulted. The scene in question depicts Secretary Wallace and Under-Secretary Rex Tugwell trying to give away four pigs and a cow in Times Square, New York-. There are no customers, however, and finally in despair Wallace calls up Mr. Roosevelt by long distance phone and says: “Mr. President, I don’t know w r hat to do. No one will take our four pigs and our cow.” Mr. Roosevelt, shown in his office at the other end of the wire, exclaims: "What on earth will the Government do with the 18,000,000 head of livestock which it wants to dispose of?” The scene was greeted with amused laughter by a number of first-nighters from the capital who journeyed up to Philadelphia to see the opening. a a a TWO bankers were discussing financial problems in the cocktail lounge of the Mayflower Hotel. The Government’s fiscal policy was being subjected to severe criticism. As they talked and gl'iuly shook their heads above the Martinis, a thi’d man, who knows Washington, joined hem. "Why, there’s a weman standing in the lobby who knows more about the Government’s financial policies than either of you,” he scoffed. ' “No woman knows anything about finance,” said one of the bankers. “I’ll bet you $lO this woman knows more about it than you do,” retorted the other. "All right. I’ll take you up on that. Where is this paragon of knowledge?” They strolled into the lobby, saw an energetic, flve-foot-four woman with handsome features, wearing a black velvet gown, surrounded by friends. It was Miss Josephine Roche, Colorado’s crusading coal operator, who, 46 and charming, recently was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury by President Roosevelt. “You win," said the banker, and he paid the $lO. a a a ' I 'HE German Embassy is exerting every es--1 fort to resume the place (which it held, curiously enough, just after the World War) as the foremost foreign mission, from a diplomatic and social angle, in Washington. Headed by Herr Doktor Han* Luther, exReichsbank president and present ambassador, the embassy staff is mingling in all possible circles. Word has gone forth that the German embassy must again become a social power—and. at the same time, a diplomatic one. Since the war, the embassy h?s been pretty much on the down grade—socially anc. diplomatically speaking. Recently, however, a great combined effort is being made to restore its pristine sparkle. Herr Doktor Meyer, Counselor Rudolf Leitner, Envoy Luther, in fact, the entire staff, are to be seen at political, press, social and diplomatic parties. There are rumors of bigger and broader and better entertainment* to be given at the embassy. A determined drive is to be launched to put the embassy on its old footing.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

WHO SAID TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE!

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The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns Make your Irtters short, so all can have a chance. I,imit them to 250 words or less.J a a a REAL SOCIALISM BEING FOUNDED BY SOVIETS By XV. M. Knox. ’ Somewhat paraphrasing the Message Center slogan, I defend your right to say what you did in the editorial “Bloody Violence,” yet I wholly disapprove of the implications contained therein when you lump together all existing dictatorships as if they were all one and the same. Such is not at all matter of fact. Russia, or properly now the Soviet Union, has a basic difference in practice and purpose as compared with other dictatorships now existing such as Germany and Italy. In Russia, a revolution transferred ruling power from the capitalists to the workers. The capitalists enjoyed democracy for themselves previously. Now, the workers, mainly through their labor unions, enjoy thousands of times more democracy and balloting privileges than ever before. The crushed capitalists, or former capitalists, however, still try to edge back in, and if they were not ruthlessly crushed they would gleefully overthrow the workers’ dictatorship and follow up with a bloody violence of reprisals thousands of times more bloody than the execution of 66 capitalists or capitalist politicians, trying to plot their way back in. As proof of this, let me cite the example of the overthrow of the Paris Commune and the presentday executions going on in Spain, Austria, etc. When plotting counter-revolu-tionaries cease to plot against the workers’ fatherland, executions of them will cease. They surely count the risk involved in their nefarious work and I wouldn’t, Mr. Editor, cry at all about them. You might, however, do a greater amount of crying about the executions going on in the capitalist United States of workers, strikers and poor people who naturally dare to protest against hunger and starvation. Now, the purpose of the Soviet Union is to build up real Socialism and they are doing It. That is different from the purpose of Germany, Italy and the rest, which is to retain the existing institution of capitalist monopoly. n u a SENATOR-ELECT MINTON IS MAKING PROGRESS By W. D. Hamer. It is indeed news to see in your paper of Wednesday Senator-elect Sherman Minton has learned the true cost of electric current at the switchboard. That is progress and we hope he will carry on researching and discover more and pertinent facts that are commonly known to electrical and hydro engineers. First he should know the cost a kilowatt at consumers’ meters and this should include the normal transmission loss and the average theft loss from by-passed and tampered meters. Next he should be sure of the first cost of a hydro and steam generating plant. But here’s a tough one: To learn the amount of inch rainfall to the square mile the Lord will send in one year. Engineers do not know this, so to assure that you and I have a continuous supply of power every minute, they add design for steam generating auxiliary to hydro. These are only a few of the wonderful truths that the new senator, and you, and all citizens should know. Also noted your articles on "Great. Stuff” and I imagined the great; men before President Roosevelt who

Steady Upturn Needed

By D. L. B. Why all this hub-bub about relief? With the thousands who are on relief rolls in this city and county, it is my opinion that the government is doing an excellent job in handling the situation. Os course, no matter now many people you have in a group, whether it be three or three million, there always are those who can not be satisfied. Truthfully, it is well that there are critics in these groups. Without them the world might move along with no one to call a halt. But, all in all, from what I have heard, the relief directors of this state are breaking their backs to take care of every one on a fair basis. To some of these recipients," S2OO a month would not be satisfactory. The people of this nation and state surely must realize the time, thought and money that has gene into every project which relates to caring for those who, due to no fault of their own, have been un-

said the same. Here are some of them: Benjamin Franklin when he caught electricity by kite. Thomas Edison when the first incandescent lamp glowed. Samuel Insull when the 208,000kilowatt generator turned. Lord Rothmere when he saw the first American “ring” and copied it in England. Add: Westinghouse, Thompson, Houston, Steinmetz, Langmuir and many others and w f e are sure you will find that great men, great citizens and great Americans, made this “great stuff.” Picayunish politicians and government capital did not have a single thing to do with it. Oh, yes! Who are we? Just a poor electrical manufacturer who has lost money for four years, who makes maintenance tools to repair energized transmission lines. Backed to the wall by customers’ fear of the Government. Fighting in the firm faith that truth through eye and ear will replace vacuum. a a a OBJECTS TO CRITICISM ON LETTER WRITING By Stan. It seems to me that some people do not realize that the working class of people have sufficient education to read and understand the English language. I read the article- signed by “Reader” complaining that Jimmy j Cafouros used the English language j too freely and I do not think the writer used such simple words him-, self. Being of the working class, I am able to read and understand easily ! the articles by Jimmy Cafouros. Why should the working people be put in a lower class than the white collar class? We all have the same chance. a a a DARK FUTURE FACES THE COMING GENERATION By Ira Field*. Dr. Dennis, president of Earlham College, in a recent address, stressed the need of a return to the pioneer life of our forefathers. President j Roosevelt also sanctions the same thing. I would like to add that we will be compelled to return to the pioneer environment of our forefathers, if we are ever to experience peace and contentment. Modernism has proved to be a ghastly failure. The multitude of divorce cases proves/this. The ma- j jority of American homes are har- , boring a tragedy within their walls.

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

able to make a satisfactory living. Another great question before this state today is the problem of taking care of the aged and infirm. Surely the day of the poorhouse is past. The Fraternal Order of Eagles are to be cojnmended for their diligent efforts in trying to clean up this situation and to provide hundreds with the opportunity of spending their last years in peace and without the constant fear of starvation. It appears to me th&t the depression will bring great changes in our social lives. Surely there is no basis for believing that prosperity will return within days or months, but there is great reason to believe that those of us who survive these hard times will be better in the long run. Let’s hope there is no sudden wave of prosperity, but a general upward trend that will give every man his right to support his family and live as he desires. That will be a great day, and it may not be so far in the offing.

Theodore Roosevelt said the homes j of America are of our nation. j If that is true, our nation is resting very insecurely. The home life of our nation and the church of the living God can not function properly in a modernistic atmos- ! phere. Asa nation, we are losing God instead of coming in closer contact with Him. Manifestations of the presence of the Almighty God are fading away rapidly. Sixty per cent of the motherhood of America are in a deplorable condition with their cigarets, profanity and loose morals. No spiritual, sterling, character-forming guidance ever emanates from them. And yet we wonder why so many youths of today are involved in crime. I think it is safe to say that millions of children are suffering the disgrace of being divorce orphans, with both parents living and yet their love and guidance missing. This is a very sad and disgraceful state of affairs. Unless Divine Providence intervenes, we are facing a very dark future. a a a ANOTHER COMPLAINT IS FILED ON RELIEF WORK Bt a Discouraged Widow. Why can some folk go to the trustee, ask for work, be certified and in ten days be working for the government, when others go day after day, week after week, and aren’t even even shown any consideration? I think, as do many of my friends, that there is too much partiality shown in this relief work. Give the widow a chance. a a a STATE DEPARTMENTS SHOULD AID DEPRESSION FIGHT. Bt An Employe. Many were glad to see in the Message Center an article of protest on working hours and rules of the Indiana University Hospital dietary department and hope that such article* reach the hearts of the ones responsible because the Daily Thought All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me. but all things edify not.—l Corinthians x, 23. WE should never create by lawi what can be a"con'r<iished by, morality.—Montesquieu.

DEC. 14, 1934

i men or women are unable to defend I themselves. In almost every instance their* families’ welfare depends on theii| small salaries, regardless how manj£ hours the wife and mother must work in order to make it. No person can say a word in protest without fear of losing a job. If all the people are asked to co-t operate with all their means to end | the depression why should not thq ; state institutions start among thd first ones and really set an example? So They’ Say The suggestion that the bureau-* crats of Washington have saved us from revolution belittles the common sense of the American people Colonel Henry Breckenridge, candidate for United States Senate from New York. I understand all the extra money they (the Democratic National Committee) have is going to buy ujj Herbert Hoover’s book. It would , make more votes for the Democrats than mine.—lnterior Secretary Har* old Ickes. It was a nightmare we shall never forget.—Lajos Molnor, striking Hungarian miner. * We like to be comfortable.—R. Bi | Abbot, host to International Nudist Conference near Akron, 0., when forced by cold to wear clothing. It has begun to look as though j labor is about to swallow ths church.—The Rev. John H. Thompson of Montgomery, N. Y. , Real security is in terms of op 4 portunities and not in terms of guarantees.—Federal Emergency Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins. ’ Put the ordinary man up against a real, live squirming baby and h$ never would get it dressed.—J. H, Wade, Washington’s champion baby dresser. December Day BY MARY R. WHITE A study in gray. A December day Gray earth, gray sky, all gray. White and bare are the sycamore trees; Bare and cold in the rain-laden breeze. Long, bare arms lifted toward the skyStill is the little brook, asleep near by. All nature hushed, still, oh. so still,, Silence reigns oer woodland and hill. liut for the hoarse caw—of one lone crow, Cattle stand dejected, with head* drooping low. An empty cornfield—on the earth just a fringe. A dilapidated gate hanging by only one hinge. The heavy mist, the rain-filled air— A picture in gray for an artist to dare. The sun hasn't shone his face at all. Slowly sinks in the west a great, fiery ball; Sinking, slowly sinking, behind pur-ple-hued clouds. From the mist with opalescent coloring endowed. The earth an eerie picture in the waning light— The sun slowly sinking—now out of sight. Gray, all gray, a dull somber gray— And that us the end of a December day.