Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 196, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 December 1934 — Page 10

PAGE 10

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WEDNESDAY. DECEMBER 2 1534 MUNITIONS AND PEACE NEXT month the Senate Munitions Committee will resume its hearings. During this recess period, while Christendom celebrates “peace on earth,” it is appropriate to review the committee’s six months of revelations. The record shows that: British and American firms divided the world markets for submarines and war exJJlbsives. shared profits, exchanged secret inventions and processes. American patents helped German U-boats prey more effectively on our merchant marine during the World War; an American process for manufacturing powder was sold to Japan at a time when American-Japanese relations were strained over the Manchurian incident; American bullets were fired from both Bolivian and Paraguayan guns while American diplomacy worked for peace in the Chaco. American makers of war materials, like their friendly competitors abroad, apparently see nothing wrong in placing new tools of death in the hands of potential enemies; they not only sold their own private inventions abroad, but wheedled the Army out of its secrets; they enlisted the active aid of the Navy in peddling their wares abroad; their efforts to sell war supplies to Peru and Colombia were aided by United States Navy officers who prepared plans for the two countries to fight each other; they equipped insurrections in friendly countries; they used bribery; they promoted war scares. Munitions spokesmen lamented as “insidious” the State Department's “fomenting of peace” among prospective customers in Latin America; they thought it their right to wreck disarmament conferences and arms-control treaties and other diplomatic efforts that threatened profits. These things the committee has disclosed, confirming what Henry Ford said he learned on his futile peace ship venture in 1915—that “war is a profit-making business, and that there are men in the world who stir up W’ars for profit.” In January’ the committee will reconvene and attempt to learn: To what extent is international banking linked with the munitions business? How much have shipbuilders and the manufacturers of steel and chemicals .contributed to war-mongering? Should the Government take over the munitions business, or is it possible to curb the dividends to munitions shareholders in the interests of peace? How far should the Government go in controlling all industries to take the profits out of war, and how far should it go in co-oper-ating with other powers to make wars probable and end international anarchy in industries that fatten off of wars? The committee will have to complete its diagnosis before it places a surgeon’s knife in the hands of Congress.

MORE YARDSTICKS THE Tennessee Valley Authority has reported to the President's emergency council the immediate achievements of the project. Ten thousand men have been given employment. There have been 200 miles of rural transmission lines built. Production of fertilizer is beginning. The value of terracing to prevent soil erosion nas been demonstrated. ALso there is a list of purely local benefits. Perhaps modesty prevents the TV A directcis from listing the national benefits their project has brought about. The Federal Power Commission estfmates that 538.000.000 to $40,000.000 known rate reductions have been maae throughout the nation since the TVA was established. Hundreds of communities have cheap electric home and farm authority electrical appliances. A consulting engineer, writing the President. recently told him: “Your TVA project is being felt in every’ community in every’ state in the nation.” The President has two fine reports before him pointing to river valleys where equally valuable yardstick projects can be undertaken. There should be no let-up, nor any compromise. CIVIL SERVICE IN DISTRESS SENATOR GEORGE W. NORRIS is unlimbering his guns for an attack on the spoils system in the Federal Government. He complains that fewer than 70 per cent of the employes in the executive branches are under civil service today; and since the percentage was above 80 when Mr. Roosevelt was inaugurated. Mr. Norris quite naturally thinks that the decline ought to be a matter of deep concern to the Administration. The more things our Federal Government finds to do—and there is every indication that it is going to be progressively more active in years to come —the more important it is that its servants be chosen purely for merit and not for political reasons. Senator Norris is calling for an exceedingly vital reform. All who admire good government will hope that he pushes it with typical Korns energy and success. NEW PROBLEM IN EDUCATION /~vUR school system will be one of the first institutions to feel the effect of our declining birth rate, according to Dr. Ellen C. Potter of the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies. Dr. Potter told the Pennsylvania Emergency Child Health Committee the other day that in 1940 there will be 1.000,000 fewer children in American schools than there are now. As early as next fall the decline will be felt, she predicted, in fewer first-grade, registrations. This will bring our schools a brand-new

problem, different from any they have faced before. The average school board has had to meet a steadily expanding population. It has had the specter of over-crowding always on its horizon. If, in the future, it must adjust its policies to a slow, steady decline in numbers, it will fiind that its whole program may need overhauling. THE SAME WAR FORMULA ' I 'HAT bloody little war between Bolivia and Paraguay continues to provide a first-rate laboratory model of war between major powers. Thus we find President Luis Tejada Sorzano of Bolivia announcing that Bolivia will “send its entire male population” to the Gran Chaco to fight, if necessary. The nation, he says, has refused no honorable chance to end the war; meanwhile, the war proceeds—“and we must do our duty.” Now this is a perfect reflection of the traditional attitude of the head of a war-making state. We must fight to the last man, we must make every sacrifice, we must make no peace unless honor is satisfied . . . those phrases are made familiar by many generations of war and its attendant proclamations. Meanwhile—again as usual—the man who utters them is not the one whose blood is to be spilled, and no one thinks to ask the soldiers themselves what their conception of the national honor may be. ATTRACTIVE FARMS T'XAVID E. LILIENTHAL, power director of TV A, believes that the “big city jitters,” which drew men and wealth from nation’s farms to the cities for so many years, has about run its course; and he suggests that one of the best ways of killing it for good is to go ahead with a broad-gauge program for electrification of farms. Even today, he points out, fewer than 10 per cent of American farms have electricity. A tremendous field awaits development, and he is probably quite right in asserting that an electrification program could be of the highest social value. The long period in which huge numbers of people flocked to the cities from the farms did the nation very little good. It deprived the rural regions of brains and energy they needed, and made crowded cities more crowded than ever. It can be checked permanently only by making rural life easier and pleasanter; and an electrification program should do much to accomplish that result. LOWER BEER TAXES r T''REASURY officials who want less bootlegA ging and more revenue should consider the proposal of Rep. Mead of New York to reduce beer taxes. Mr. Mead says that many brewers are In financial difficulties largely because of taxes. At the toll gates between the grain in the field and the stein on the table are collected Federal and state gallonage taxes, Federal and state and local license fees, and Federal processing taxes. An industry which pays to the Federal Government in gallonage taxes alone about $200,000,000 a year surely deserves fair treatment. Perhaps, as Mr. Mead contends, a tax of $4 a barrel would yield as much revenue as the present tax of $5 a barrel, which is more than three times the preprohibition tax and almost, twice the gallonage tax on light wines. It is reasonable to believe that the return of something like the old nickel schooner would promote the drinking of beer and diminish the drinking of hard liquors, an end desired for reasons of temperance and revenue —for revenue because much of the hard liquor now being consumed is untaxed bootleg.

A FINANCIAL RECORD TT7HEN the Public Works Administration ” ™ started lending money to state and local governments, many cynics said the loans were merely disguised gifts. They freely predicted that the Federal Government would be left holding a bag full of worthless state and local bonds. Today the PWA holds $272,000,000 in state, county and city securities, of which less than S4OOO is in default. It is doubtful whether any bank or insurance company in the country can show a higher investment average. Yet many, probably most, of these loans were not at the time obtainable through private channels. Private investors apparently also think well of the securities in 'he PWA portfolios. At least, they have purchased, at a premium, more than $50,000,000 worth. This record speaks well for the care with which PWA officials have handled Federal funds and for the financial integrity of our state and local governments. BREWING TROUBLE TJ'EDERAL authorities are moving with commendable vigor to prevent return of brewery domination of the retail beverage business. One of the worst of the pre-prohibition evils was the system by which breweries financed saloons, tied them up with exclusive contracts and then brought pressure to force sales. Retailers who tried to remain independent were driven out of business. Saloon keepers became, in effect, managers of chain stores with sales quotas. This system led to such abuses as sales to minors and known drunkards and violation of closing hours. These abuses brought on national prohibition. To guard against return of this high pressure system, brewers, shortly after repeal, signed a code of fair competition. It outlawed all subisidies and guaranteed the independence of beverage retailers. The Government charges that some brewers. unable to resist the temptation to take unfair competitive advantages, again have started furnishing bars and other equipment to retailers as virtual bribes for exclusive contracts. In the interest of fairness and of temperance, and for the good of the brewing industry, such practices can not be tolerated. DOG-IN-THE-MANGER TT is with strange inconsistency that Atty. -*• Gen. U. S. Webb of California opposes Tom Mooney's plea for a hearing before the United States Supreme Court. When in 1917 California learned that the state's No. 1 witness, known as Honest Cattleman Oxman, had lied on the stand and was not in San Francisco on the day he “identified” Mooney and Billings in the act of planting a

bomb, Atty. Gen. Webb asked the State Supreme Court to grant Mooney anew trial. He was prompted in this request by Mooney's trial judge, Franklin Griffin, a pioneer in the moves to free the labor leaders. Now, with Oxman’s perjury supplemented by confessions cf all other major state's witnesses this same attorney general opposes Federal intervention. Mooney, he says, has not been deprived of due process of law. Is California satisfied with a due process of law that allows the state to hold two citizens in prison for 18 years on the word of deliberate or self-confessed perjurers? Mr. Webb holds that the only avenues of relief for Mooney and Billings are through new state laws or executive clemency. California has had 18 years to provide legal redress, and has not done so. Five governors have refused so far to pardon them. Now California officially seeks to block the only means of redress open to them, the United States Supreme Court. California's own courts, Legislature and governors have failed to right a great legal wrong. Why should she now oppose efforts to obtain belated justice under the United States Constitution?

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELI

HIS HIGHNESS, Prince de Ligne, Counselor of the Belgian Embassy, is turning out to be the premier sportsman of the diplomatic corps. In fact, His Highness has been decorated for his prowess with a solid and very shiny brass button. The way and the reason the button was awarded is as follow’s: Prince de Ligne is an extremely modest man and seldom goes anywhere. So the other day his friends combined and took him to shoot clay pigeons. They thought the fresh air and the excitement would do him good. But the Prince surprised them. He raised his gun like an experienced marksman. “Whir-r-rr!” went the first pigeon. “Crack” went the Prince’s gun. The pigeon was shattered in a hundred pieces. To make a long story short, His Highness popped 20 clay pigeons in succession. That’s almost a record here. His friends thereupon tore a button off the dress coat of a naval attache and presented it to him. “You are a prince of a sportsman,” they declared. Anyhow, they have made a sportsman of a prince. tt u MAYOR Fiorello (Little Flower) La Guardia of New York paced up and down the station platform on his arrival here from Manhattan. “Ah, Mayor La Guardia,” began another traveler, as he shook La Guardia’s hand, and he began talking politics. “Yes . . . yes,” vaguely responded Fiorello. “Er—come ride to my hotel with me.” Then, he suddenly looked up at the face oi the conversationalist. “Why, Taussig ... I though you were a red cap.” NOTE: It was Charles Taussig, rum tester and brain-truster, who stopped in the Capital en route from Miami to Manhattan. tt tt tt ALEXANDER WEDDELL, the American Minister to Argentina, who is here in town on leave of absence, seems to be a man without a home. Friends called him at the Carlton Hotel. “He isn’t in,” replied Mrs. Weddell, “but you may find him at the State Department. He has a desk there.” , It developed that Envoy Weddell had a desk there. But try to find him. “Oh, yes, he nas a desk here,” stated one official, “but he seldom comes in.” Insistent reporters tracked the elusive Alexander to a reception. He arrived late and left early. He wasn’t at the White House, the State Department or his hotel. Does any one know where Mr. Weddell may be found? u tt tt FEDERAL Reserve Banks are famed for their discretion. Officials and employes seldom breathe a word of anythir '.’esembling news. This fact was amusingly illustrated here when a reporter telephoned via long distance to the Kansas City Reserve Bank and inquired concerning a forthcoming bank election: “Who is going to be your next president?” “I’m sorry,” replied an official, “but we can’t tell you that.” “But you are going to elect anew president, aren't you?” “Yes.” “Well, what happened to your last president?” A whisper came over the telephone: “Er—he—he died!”

A Congressman protests the use of President Roosevelt's picture in a liquor ad thanking the President for repeal. Os course, don’t they know it was Congress that passed the repeal law? What industry wants to know is, how can President Roosevelt save capitalism by spending capital? The race between Communism and Fascism in Europe seems to depend on the number of unfortunates each can stand up before a firing squad. Hitler, seeking harmony in Germany, finds discord with—of all people—his musicians. Prisoners who snore, at Joliet, are segregated from the others, because the Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishment.” Niagara Falls is falling apart so fast, young couples will have to get married in a hurry to make the tie binding. A college graduate started the new gold rush in California, although what it was in his education that led him to the precious metal is hard to tell. The fight over reorganization of the Republican party should have been made more than two years ago. Gertrude Stein, says a medical journal, has palilogia, verbal perserveration, echolalia or verbigeration—which you can well realize, if you understand Gertrude. French police have rid the Riviera of gamblers and other criminals “to make it as respectable as a church”—although not quite so solemn. Well, repeal didn’t bring in as much revenue as its proponents thought it would, but it made a pretty good showing against the bootleggers at that. Mustapba Kemal, ruler of Turkey, has set up a brewery on his farm, but he’d have to change his name to make beer as popular in his country as the cigaret. House of David baseball team offers Babe Ruth $35,000, and he needn’t grow a beard. He’d have to grow one quick, however, if he fell down on his batting. President Roosevelt is reported as healthy as though he were the defeated candidate.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less.) u ft tt NEW DRIVE ON S3IOKE SUGGESTED BY READER By G. E. M. Outstanding in the program of Mayor-elect John W. Kern should be some action toward abatement of the Indianapolis smoke nuisance. Admitting that it is not advisable, in the circumstances, to prevent the use of bituminous coal, it is possible to diminish the nuisance through proper boiler firing. Competent heating engineers and firemen will admit that excessive black smoke is an indication of but one thing—inefficient combustion. Waste would be prevented and health conditions improved by a well-advised municipal campaign against both industrial and homeowning offenders. a tt tt WORK IS SUGGESTED FOR RELIEF LABORER By a Watchman. I would like to answer the “hot air” written in Saturday’s Times by a relief worker. I am a watchman at this same packing plant and I cover practically the entire plant in my rounds. I find that the ones who do the most squawking are the ones who are not willing to do an honest day’s work for any one anywhere. The only relief they are looking for is relief from work. I happen to be personally acquainted with the bosses he is speaking of, and they are not the type of men who nag at a person when he is trying to do his or her part. I have stood in. the rest room of the plant several times and have seen these same bosses come in looking for the men who have slipped away from their work and hid for an hour or so. Yet if the bosses say a word to them about going back to work, they’re rats and everything but gentlemen. They expect to be petted and begged to do a little work now and then. They know the bosses can’t fire them and so they take advantage of this and make life as miserable as they can for them. I heard a certain man make the remark that he would go on a basket if they didn’t lay him off. If he is the one who wrote the piece for Message Center, and it sounds like some of his raving, he had better try doing a little work now and then and maybe the bosses who “nag” him won’t have to look for him to nag—he’ll be on the job—maybe! tt tt tt TRAVEL BY HORSE TO IDEAL VACATION By Marjorie Hathaway, Helmsburg. In your editorial recently entitled “This Topsy-Turvy World” mention is made of an American world traveler who kills himself because the automobile is displacing the horse from the world's highways. This seems strange to me, having just returned from a 500-mile trip through southern Indiana and Kentucky on my horse, Miss Gratitude. On Nov. 20 this year “Dick Ryan, 25, cavalryman, was sojourning in Lexington, after a 400-mile horseback ride from Michigan, en route to San Angelo, Tex. . . . Ryan told friends he left Detroit two weeks ago and that he had been traveli ing leisurely, stopping en route i South and keeping a complete record of mileage.” It is gratifying to know that in these times there are those who love horses to the extent that they take the initiative to blaze a route, even on the highways, for those who

BEGINNING TO SEE A LIGHT

Miners' Aid Is Urged

By E. H. I have been reading with interest the contributions to your Message Center, and would like to contribute a few facts as to the causes and cure of the present depression as I see it from this neck of the woods, i. e., the coal mining district. The unemployment existing here is, I believe, the largest of any one industry in the state, and the cause, labor-saving machinery. The coal operators are using a loading machine in the mines which with three men can load 500 tons a day. This machine has replaced at least 40 men, who, under the present scale of wages, would earn $6.87 each a day by the hand loading method. The three men operating this machine are paid $6.75 each. If my figures are correct, we have $274.80 received in wages by hand loading methods and $20.25 by machine, making a difference of $254.55, which is net profit or spent for more machines to replace more men. The code price, or wholesale price of coal, was made large

prefer horses to automobiles, in our era of fast traffic ■ and machines. This is indeed a present-day pioneer journey. But it can be done. I started with less than $4 to do historical research in southern Indiana. My horse became-known as the “research horse,” and we were received with kindly interest and hospitality all along the way. I obtained positions in Kentucky. At Shakertown Inn I worked two weeks as assistant to the manager in my white riding breeches (having taken no dresses, in my outfit, consisting of two of my son’s Boy Scout bags and a pack on the back of the saddle). Later I went to Lexington and reluctantly bought a dress and accessories. This fact may help those seeking self-excuse for not obtaining a position. Have American people lost their pioneer initiative? There are positions for those who seek them, also friends along the way to aid them. “We are met by the traits we show.” I was gone 18 months. In many neighborhoods I was asked to visit several days at a time. I remained a year at one place, “Gratty,” my horse, receiving the best of care. In this way I got into the heart and soul of the neighborhoods. Made talks on my trip before church audiences, farm bureaus and a class in one of the oldest colleges in Lexington. What can one see as he dashes along the highway in a car? There are lovely people along life’s highway if one but takes time to live. My 18 months’ vacation on horseback proved much more inspirational, educational and delightful than any I ever had in a car. tt tt a POLAR ICE CO. EMPLOYE IS LAUDED FOR DEED By Appreciative. Please bear with me while I tell you of a little episode which concerns an employe of the Polar Ice : and Fuel Cos. A little after noon on Monday, Dec. 10, as my mothei and I were coming out of Ayres’ on the Washington street side a young man, evidently in a hurry, rushed through the revolving door and knocked my mother down. He offeree no assistance in helping her up off the wet and muddy sidewalk, said he didn’t do it, said someone pushed him. Well a woman who was trying to help her

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

enough to insure profits at mines where hand loading is the custom, yet the mechanical mines go right on buying machines and cutting labor. Investigators sent into the mining field usually report “too many mines and too many miners.” The real fact is that there are too many labor-saving machines I took up the question of unemployment of old age miners with an officer of the state and asked if it were possible for the state to use 100 tons a day at the code price. This tonnage would give eight men five days work each week, compared to one day for the loading machine. Well, I received his sympathy and have been living on that ever since. The state and national governments use thousands of tons of coal'in Indiana, and as I see it, buying coal from the “mechanical rhines” is contributing to the increase of unemployment. It seems to me a few dollars spent to employ men would be better than thousands spent for relief.

up certainly read him a lecture and he left the scene immediately. A rather tall young man, slender, in a white uniform with Polar Ice lettering, bounded across and said “Are you hurt?” and immediately took out his blue bandanna handerchief and wiped off her coat and hat and packages. So different from the other man (not man but cad) who was afraid to soil his gloves by helping her up. Now, we are poor, but I would like to remember this man by something more than the commonplace “thank you," which I gave him. My mother was so dazed by the sudden fall that she failed to thank him. * She was not injured badly, but lame and bruised and had a cut on the knee. This man is a fine type, thoughtful and kind. In the hurry and scurry w’e are fast losing all thought of chivalry but he did not forget to be kind. Merry Christmas and prosperity to all.. B U tt BROUN CRITICISED FOR SANTA CLAUS COLUMN By Exception. As one reader w’ho has never run a noticeable temperature over the WTiting of Mr. Heywood Broun, may I take exception to the column he had the other day on the fact that he thinks there is no Santa Claus. Os course, he is allowed to take a courageous stand in the matter and to have his own idea about it. A man of Mr. Broun's intellect should, by now, have some opinion about it. If he chooses to believe there is no Santa Claus, a man who once ran for Congress certainly might very well e allowed his belief. Personally, I don’t believe in Santa Claus, either. But I see in that column more evidence that Mr. Broun is prepared

Daily Thought

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest : for thou ehalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways—St. Luke, 1:76. HONOR and shame from no condition lies; act well your part, there all the honor lies.—Pope.

DEC. 26, 193-1

to climb on the band wagon and make it his, so long as he can bring to himself some publicity. He has done it time after time, and some times a good deal more adroitly. Mr. Broun must find copy comes hard to have to resort to a column about the fact there is no Santa Claus, appropriately enough written on the verge of Christmas. I can hardly wait for the Easter Bunny column. tt tt a CONCERNING VETERANS WHO LOST PENSIONS By a Veteran. In your paper of Dec. 20, I note you say that the 384,438 men who were dropped from the pension rolls on June 30, 1933, and were classed as non-service connected claims, were men who enlisted after the Armistice was signed. This statement is incorrect, as every one of these World War veterans who were receiving non-serv-ice connected compensations had at least 90 days wartime service, and most of them saw actual service at the front and really have a service connected disability, but have w’aited so long that it is hard to prove.

So They Say

Government is almost of necessity bureaucratic, legalistic and formal. Therefore it can not begin to do many of the public services which need to be done one-half as well as can intelligent, co-operative free effort by citizens themselves.— Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president, Columbia University. Evidence indicates conclusively the unbridled manufacture, sale ar.d distribution of war materials by private interests encourages heavy arming and definitely jeopardizes the cause of peace.—Senator W. Warren Barbour, New Jersey. The United States is the only country in the world in which it has been assumed that four years of post-secondary non - vocational training—in a word, a college edu-cation-should be the rule instead of the rare exception for its young men 'and women.—Dr. Frederick P. Keppel, president, Carnegie Corporation. I realize that I make mistakes—but I never at any time said that baseball writers were trying to manage my ball club. They have a right to their own opinions.—Bill Terry, manager, New York Giants.

Day After Day

BY ALYS WACHSTETTER Day after day, my path lies Between high and incessant rows Os buildings, that shut out the skies; Where never a fresh wind blows The squalor and soil from the city. Harassed by the selfsame skills That scream an endless ditty, I long for the cool green hills, And an air that will cleanse me and heal. But today . . . tomorrow . . . and tomorrow . . •. I am manacled here, where the deal Is only noise, and rack, and sorrow, Where at night my room faces a wall of brick That re-echoes the grind of the cars . , . God ... of the city I am sick, I weary f<#r sleep under stars.