Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 217, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 January 1935 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indianapolis Times (A PCRirPS-HOWAHD KEWSPArKB) BOY W. HOWARD Preuldent TALCOTT POWELL Editor KARL D. BAKER . Baglneu Mar.ajer Phono Riley •’WSI

Q4v Light and IM Peopl* Will Finn Thtir Own Way

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SATURDAY. JANUARY 19. 1935.

DRAWING TOGETHER 'T'HE semi-official council of state govemments timed its meeting in Washington happily. The tide is high in the affairs of states, and it should be taken at the flood. These officials are meeting to help bring their states into closer harmony with each other and with the Federal Government. With 44 Legislatures now or soon to be in session, and with practically all reconstruction projects depending on state-Federal partnership, never was a drawing together of the governments more necessary. Next week Congress will begin hearings on the Administration's security bill. Every feature of this historic measure depends for its success upon close and eager co-operation between the state capitals and Washington. President Roosevelt said of the security plan, “Federal action is necessary to and conditioned upon the actions of the states.” The converse is equally true. For the most part the Government in Washington acts only as bellwether for the states. They will be foolish indeed, if they delay in passing unemployment insurance and old-age pension laws geared to the Federal program, or fail to avail themselves of the guidance and aid Washington now offers. In the Administration of the four billion dollar work relief program, now pending, as well as in the temporary direct-relief grants, the states should keep in close touch with the Federal Government to avoid waste and avert suffering among the people. The states are vitally interested in plans to rewrite NIRA, in the control of utilities and holding corporations, in liquor and other taxes and tariffs, in rehousing and slum abatement, in land-planning and conservation, in all pending Federal projects to increase and distribute more efficiently and fairly the national income. The Governors should, we believe, organize and maintain a permanent council of their responsible representatives in Washington. This body could keep in touch with state capitols and Federal agencies, become a clearing house of information, aid in the co-ordination of state laws and effect closer working partnership between Uncle Sam aud his 48 nieces. We believe such an organization or some other form of liaison would hasten national recovery and unity of the country in sound reform. BEER ARITHMETIC ' I 'HE 50 per cent cut in import duties on beer, ordered by the tariff commission and approved by the President, should not cause American brewers to lie awake nights worrying about foreign competition. The tariff will still be $15.50 a barrel or about 50 cents a gallon. American breweries, the commission estimates, can produce draught beer, pay the Federal domestic tax of 16 cents a gallon, and place it on the market for about 33 cents a gallon. Since foreign beers will not have to pay the Federal domestic tax, the margin of piotection for American beer will be 50 cents minus 16 cents, or 34 cents a gallon. That is a little more than 100 per cent protection. American bottled beer, the commission estimates, is produced at an average cost of 65 cents a gallon, including the tax. That is about 6 cents a bottle, including 1.6 cents Federal tax. Foreign beer will pay a tariff of about 4.8 cents a bottle. American beer at its best does not need even this protection. It can hold its own in any market alongside the best brews of Munich or Prague. So if Germany and Czechoslovakia will reciprocate, as reported, and buy more American hogs and lard, American farmers will gain a market while no American interest will lose. WAY OF ALL FLESH y JNTIL now our Vice President has adhered to the Andrew Jackson school of Democracy. Not for him the biled shirt and white tie, the silk topper and foppish tails of swankdom. When state dinners beckoned him to the White Mouse the usual reply was, “The Vice President and Mrs. Gamer regret ” When he did go it was afoot or in a taxi. But something has happened. The other night he and the Second Lady rolled up to the Vice President’s dinner in a sleek streamlined limousine garnished with the seal of his office. Out stepped a Mr. Throttlebottom as Biade-over as a Cinderella. His array was daz*ling. his shirt-front as white as his overhanging brows, his hat a glossy tower. And he was smiling. “Is it true, Mr. Vice President, that you enjoy dining in state?” asked a bewildered reporter. “Temporarily, yes,” replied the nan once known as Cactus Jack. Temporarily? Will the shirt-sleeved simplicity, the home-spun ways and the trout pools of Ulvade ever quite satisfy him again? CHANGE WITHOUT VIOLENCE IN his biography of C. P. Scott, the great liberal editor of the Manchester Guardian, J. L. Hammond speaks of the great changes that came about in British political and economic life in the Nineteenth Century. ”... A time arrived when men who were strongly opposed to a particular change decided that it was more dangerous to resist that change than to attempt by settlement to limit the mischief it might cause,” he says. “On this view disorder admitted as a method of political warfare was worse than a bad measure. This conviction had important results. Continental observers used to contrast our peaceful evolution with the disturbed history of other countries. The franchise had been

widely distributed, the Com Laws had been repealed, the whole burden of taxation had been shifted (In 1830 the first Sir Robert Peel’s estate of nine million pounds paid In estate duties less than 3 per cent) and yet there had been no violence. ... The classes had conceded this and that, the masses had waited for this and that, without any protest that upset the convention on which parliamentary government rested.” This process of peaceful change has been continued in the main in the Twentieth Century. I. A. R. Wylie, in a recent article, points out that the Russian Communists could not understand a country in which a Labor member of parliament acted as the king’s representative at the Edinburgh palace and a nobleman became a member of the Socialist party. There is nothing we need to learn in America so much as this lesson of peaceful progress. George Fort Milton, in "The Eye of Conflict," speaks of the Civil V/ar as “needless.” So it was; and what radicals call “the coming struggle for power” also need not be a violent one. Let both conservatives and radicals grasp the fact that violence Is equally disastrous to both. Violent change, or revolution, sweeps away all that the conservative is trying to save; it also brings changes that the radicals can not foresee and do not want. Therefore, It is wise that the “haves” concede more than they think they should and that the “havenots” wait longer than they think they ought for such concessions. LUMBERMEN REPLY A RECENT editorial in The Times said: 1 “Prices (lumber) are too high and should be reduced, whether by competition or by agreement.” At the time that editorial was published the lumber code contained a provision, adopted in accordance with original NRA policy, which authorized “minimum cost-protection prices.” These prices, although originally below average cost, were further reduced by the lumber code authority in co-operation with NRA ; last June, by approximately 10 per cent. Later, in October, hardwood prices were reduced by another cut of about the same size. The code authority of the retail lumber dealers also reduced their cost-protection prices. On Dec. 22, NRA suspended the cost-piotection prices of the lumber code on the petition of a large number of manufacturers. Cost-protection prices were so low that even the chiselers were not able to cut under them very much, although their operations worked to bring about the suspension of those protective prices. We have now absolutely free and unrestricted price competition among lumber manufacturers, and yet there has been no general decline in prices, and we have hope that the industry is now so fortified that it will not again cut prices 50 per cent below the cost of production, as it did in 1932, If it does we shall see a return of the days of 1932, when 400,000 men were out of work in this industry and thousands worked 12 hours a day for 10 cents an hour, and were glad of the opportunity to do so—yet made only losses for their employers. We hear much about 1926 prices as ideal. The lumber entering into a typical five-room bungalow can now be purchased at retail for about 50 per cent less than it could be in 1926. Moreover, only 30 per cent of the cost of such a house is included in lumber. We wonder whether erection and transportation cost 50 per cent less than in 1926. YOUR HEALTH! TN his annual accounting to Congress the Surgeon General posts the cheerful news that the depression so far has left the nation’s health unimpaired. The general death rate for the calendar year 1933 was 10.5 per 1000 population, lowest so far recorded in the United States. The next lowest was in 1932. But while average health conditions remained “comparatively good” for the first half of 1934, death rates in many localities were higher than for the preceding year. Here is a warning against relaxed vigilance or a letting down of relief standards. Credit for the good snowing thus far goes, first, to the vast work of the relief agencies and, next, to unremitting fight of state and Federal health agencies against epidemics. There is little doubt that many submerged families have had better and more regular food under the depression than under so-called prosperity. It is the families in former comfortable circumstances, now hit by unemployment, that the report finds suffering the higher sickness rates. The public health crusades, financed by CWA, against malaria and insanitary conditions in 22 states affected the statistics favorably. Fortunately, this country has escaped the usual epidemic scourges that go with wars and depressions. Tuberculosis deaths continue to decrease. The typhoid death rate in 1933 was the lowest yet recorded; also diphtheria. It is a tribute to the health service that ’“no quarantinable disease gained entrance into the United States or its dependencies.” Health workers will not be lulled into inaction by this report. They know that the depression will collect its heaviest and delayed tolls in the years to come. They should urge Congress to support the disease-fighting measures to be embodied in the President's forthcoming social security program. OUR ESTHER HER name is Esther Hamilton. The “typical New Yorker”—born in Bee Creek Junction. Mo., or White Cloud, Kas.—would call her “a girl from the sticks.” She never had been to New York.,She had been doing a good job as a reporter for The Youngstown Telegram and, as a reward, her editor sent her to the big city on an office expense account. She soon had enough of Times Square and decided that she would like to attend the. Hauptmann trial. But how to get in? Thousands had tried but hadn’t succeeded. “Now, let me see ” mused Miss Esther. “A lot of attorneys must have passes to the courtroom.” She turned to the classified phone directory and began calling attorneys. Finally she located one who was willing to swap his pass for a meal ticket, times being what they are. 8o “the girl from the sticks” is sitting in on the Hauptmann trial while a lot of city slickers are cooling their shins on the outside.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

I POINTED out in a recent column the almost incredible passage of a sedition act in Great Britain which threatens the very foundations of British liberty and quite literally makes any possessor of the New Testament liable to a fine of SIOOO and two years in prison. A drive is now being launched in .he United States to put the same kind of an act on our statute books. Reactionary forces are concentrating their efforts to get such an act recommended by the congressional committee investigating un-American activities. The American Civil Liberties Union is alert to the dangerous possibilities inhering in this proposal and have addressed the following letter of Congressman John W. McCormick of the congressional committee: “We desire to enter with you our unqualified opposition to the proposals made to your committee investigating un-American activities to use the power of the Federal Government to suppress any kind of propaganda. “These proposals which we have examined are aimed primarily against Communists, on the theory that they advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. One of our representatives was present at your hearing the other day and failed to discover a single witness who seemed at all familiar with the fact that it is not the Communists but the reactionaries who not only advocate but practice violence. Testimony before your committee in regard to the Silver Shirts, the Friends of New Germany and various other Fascist and semi-Fascist organizations clearly indicates not only their philososphy of violence but their practice of it. n u n “TTTE are opposed, however, to suppressing W Communist or any other propaganda. Suppression has long been tried in many countries. It always has failed. Where Communist movements have been legally outlawed, they have always managed to survive either as underground conspiracies, more dangerous for that reason, or as legal movements obscured by other names. “Specifically, we record ourselves as opposed: 1. To the proposal to bar from the mail all publications of Communist origin. The Postoffice Department has sufficient authority now to bar all seditious matter under Title XII of the Espionage Act of 1919, which is still in full force and effect. 2. To the proposal to stiffen our already severe immigration and deportatn’' laws. At the present time a person who believes in the overthrow of government by force or violence, or disbelief in all organized government, may both be barred from the country and deported if found here. Such laws are a violation of our tradition of freedom of speech and political asylum and are certainly already far more severe than those in effect in most countries. 3. To the proposal to enact a Federal sedition statute under which mere opinions, beliefs or utterances could be penalized. At the present time the law punishes conspiracies to do any overt act against the Government, even in the absence of such an act. The only thing not punishable by law today is the expression of individual opinion. To make utterances criminal would be a plain violation of the constitutional provision of free speech. It is wholly unnecessary, because individual utterances are in themselves harmless. Acts or attempted acts are already covered by law, “In framing your report, we trust that your committee will ignore these proposals made by those whose prejudice and fear blind them to the American tradition of freedom of speech and of press. Their proposals are as thoroughly unAmerican as the movements your committee was created to examine, an n “\TO emergency whatever justifies the 1 i slightest consideration for such unAmerican proposals. Those who advocate them are false to American ideals and traditions. They might appropriately be the objects of inquiry by your committee. The philosophy and intolerant attitude of these spokesmen of military and professional patriotic associations are squarely in conflict with the professed policies of New Deal legislation. “We have had a long experience with combating the forces which seek to repress labor, radical and unpopular movements in this country. Such information as is in our possession is at your disposal” It if high time for friends of liberty in the United States to wake up before they find something like the British act slapped on the United States. Here is also something for champions of freedom of the press to bite into. Nothing which ever was imagined in the wildest moments about- the NRA matches for a minute the menace which resides in an American sedition act. Yet we find several of the leading newspaper publishers of the country just at present trying to whip up the mob so that they will demand just such atrocities against civilization as a sedition act.

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

PERSIAN MINISTER GHAFFAR KHAN DJALAL is spending the week-end in New York as guest of honor at Persian archeological banquets, accompanied by his gloriously blond wife, Ziva. Diplomats here are still retailing to each other with guests of mirth the incident which befell Envoy Djalal recently at the diplomatic reception in the White House. Magnificent in a blue, gold and purple uniform, wearing a jeweled sword with dazzling hilt, and various twinkling orders enhanced by a likeness of His Imperial Majesty, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Persian Minister was the Persian dream of an Arabian knight. After walking about the VTiite House for some time, Djalal grew tired and prepared to go home. As he stepped out of the White House door, departing diplomats wore startled by a sudden cry. They looked just in time to see bejeweled Minister Djalal trip over a small green bush and fall like a bright gold comet on the floor. “Tinkle! Tinkle! went the Shah of Persia’s medals. “Crash!” went the beautiful sword. “Smash!” went Djalal’s eye glasses. “Ha! Ha!” wont Mme. Djalal. “* * ! ! ! & &” went Djalal. X Anyhow, it was a Persian word). a a a THE Hon. Mr. Hugh Wilson, American Minister to Switzerland, who amazes the honest Swiss by reading funny papers amid the Alos, caused somewhat of a sensation on Capitol Hill. Hugh—during his long residence abroad—has developed rather a British accent. When he appeared before a House of Representatives committee, the good Hugh faced a group of Southerners whose ears are accustomed to the drawl of Dixie Land. Much amazed were the assembled gentry to hear the American Minister to Switzerland intone in the King’s English replying to a question: “Awfully jolly of you to send for me!” Note: After this brief spectacular appearance on Capital Hill, Hugh departed for Chicago, locale of his shirt and collar domain (Wilson shirts) to recount Jungfrau fables to an admirj ing family. a a a Brazilian ambassador aranha and his Counselor, Mr. Frietas-Valle (an excellent judge of cigars) have made a little bet. Valle has bet Aranha that the pending treaty between the United States and Brazil will not be finished before the new chancery of the Brazilian Embassy. The treaty is to be ratified (perhaps) by the Brazilian Congress, which is still holding sessions in Rio.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

T\/ToCCd rfCk Pnnfpr X lit/ XVx

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all car, have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less.) a a a OBJECTIONS ARE CITED TO VOORHEES LETTER By Glohi. Mr. Voorhees’ letter of a few days ago reminds me that there are two ways of keeping one’s opinion to oneself. One way, of course, is not expressing it. The other is to tell it as he did. After seeing English “as she is spoke,” I’ve decided to take my French more seriously. If Einstein, to whom he refers, uses the same brand of language, it is little wonder he travels so much. Even the most appreciative audience couldn’t endure a second oration. However, Mr. Voorhees does prove the old adage, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” The stoutest warrior would be flabbergasted if he attempted to analyze his letter; while, should one try to orate it to the warrior, it would take a sailor to untie the knots of his tongue. a a a PROPOSED GUN LAW DECLARED WRONG By a Times Reader. The proposed law to make mere possession of a pistol without a permit punishable by imprisonment up to five years, and raising of the permit fee from $1 to $lO, seems extremely foolish, and the -work of a visionary crank, unacquainted with actual conditions. If this were England, with its highly efficient police force, there might be some excuse for such a law, but the fact remains that here we have gangs of holdup men and thugs who do not hesitate at robbing and killing, even when they face the certainty of long imprisonment or death if captured. This law would be merely playing into their hands, and depriving lawabiding merchants, filling station operators and farmers of their only means of defense against frequent holdups. The occasional shooting of some thug by his intended victim does more to discourage holdups than all the laws we can pass. Far from prohibiting the mere possession of firearms, we should allow law-abid-ing citizens who are in danger of holdups this form of protection, subject, of course, to proper restriction and regulation. The inconsistency of either prohibiting or taxing outrageously some filling station operator for taking means to protect himself and his business, when the police are unable to aid him, should be apparent to any one. a a a BRANDS SOME VETERANS AS BONUS WHINERS By Junior. I am 30 years old and was too young by four years to have served in the World War, although I gladly would have gone had I been of age. I am neither a pacifist nor any kind of a radical; in fact, I am a member of the reserves and would be immediately eligible for duty in time of national emergency. I work hard for what little money I am able to make and I, for one, am getting mighty sick of the everlasting whining of a small percentage of the veterans who served in the World War. A good many million of us young taxpayers have come of age since 1918 and I am getting tired of paying the living expenses of some of these aging and noisy frauds. It is about time that we younger people

‘C’M UP’N SEE ME S’MTIME!’

Comments on ‘Other People's Money 9

By Taylor E. Groninger. Having read “Other People’s Money,” the lolloving brief statement may interest many of your readers who do not have access to the book; “Other People’s Money” is a series of articles, in book form, written 20'years ago by Justice Louis D. Brandeis. The purpose of these articles was to show a money trust existed in America; to demonstrate mathematically the extent and ramifications of its power, to point out its evils and to suggest remedies. This book is full of interesting facts and suggestions for those who are thinking along economic lines today. It has an appeal to those who believe America seeks “the gi latest good for the greatest number”; to those who believe in industrial freedom as against the domination of any class, and to those who oppose “substituting the pull of privilege for the push of manhood.” In has an appeal to those who believe with “Honest Abe” Lincoln that ours is a Government, in part at least, “for the people.” I like to think of Lincoln and Brandeis as two of a kind. Lincoln believed in the equality of human rights and equality of privileges; Brandeis believes likewise. Lincoln believed in a free America; Brandeis believes the same. Lincoln believed this is a Government of, by and for the people; Brandeis’ conception of our Government is this also. The following are but a few of the many matters discussed in “Other People’s Money”: The function of a bank is to receive and to lend money. All banks in the United States should be treated as public utility institutions, where they receive public deposits. Investment bankers are not

got together and organized for the abolition of the professional veteran. I am heartily in favor of paying as much or even more than we now pay to those who actually were injured in the service or to the dependents of the dead. But the everlasting screaming of a handful of ex-soldiers for bonuses and fancy pensions of all sorts is sickening. Didn't the American Legion promise President Coolidge that if he permitted the loans on bonus certificates that would be the end of bonus agitation for good and all? Has the Legion kept its promise? Don’t make me laugh! One William T. Booker said in a letter to The Times that “there hasn’t been a President since the World War who has done one thing for us.” Well, Mr. Booker, I don’t know what you call an increase of a half billion dollars a year between the Harding Administration and the Roosevelt Administration, but that looks to me as though somebody had done something for the veteran. I don't see either where the bonus advocates get this stuff about the Government owing them money. If we had not stepped in and won the war when we did, we would probably be a people in the same condition as Germany is now. How would you like that, Mr. Booker? When I was a kid of 14.1 was under the impression that fellows went away to war to save this country

f 1 wholly disapprove of what ydu say and ivilll defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire. J

content merely to deal in securities; they become promoters. They enjoy the privilege of taking the golden eggs laid by somebody else’s goose. Three large banking firms in New York, through the directors of their controlled trust companies, held 341 directorships in 112 corporations having aggregate resources or capitalizations of $22,245.000,000. The Steel Trust, a holding company, controlled 228 companies in all, located in 127 cities and towns scattered over 18 states. The financing of each of these 228 corporations was had through or with the consent of J. P. Morgan & Cos. The people who do the work in production, managers, skilled and day laborers, should receive all that is earned above a reasonable ieturn on invested capital. If laborers were paid throughout the year, as the officers of a corporation are paid, business would keep running. The state’s power to regulate should extend to every regulation of any business reasonably required and appropriate, for the public protection. Nothing is gained by exchanging the tyranny of capital for the tyranny of labor. Prohibit the practice of interlocking directorates and stock ownership in other corporations; apply this to all corporations. Decentralize Big Business. Compel the big bankers, when issuing securities, to make public their profits or commissions and to earmark their securities. In selling securities, “Caveat emptor”—“Let the purchaser beware” affords no protection to confiding buyers. These are but a few of the points developed in “Other People’s Money,” by Justice Brandeis, a real American of brains and conscience.

from a shameful defeat, and to keep the civilized world from falling into the hands of a little clique of selfish monarchists. Now you fellows have changed your mind. You weren’t heroes after all, but merely mercenaries fighting for dough. Why should you regard yourself as a privileged class? Personally, I stand with our splendid President and not with the bunch of good time Charlies and tiresome blowhards, who control the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Thank God, that out of the four million men who served in the American Army and Navy during the World War, three million have had sense enough to stay out Os these veteran organizations. It is only a very small percentage of the ex-soldiers who are really making all this noise about the bonus. Editor’s Note: We do not recall such a promise to President Coolidge by the American Legion. tt an HOGS IN MARTINSVILLE SOLVE FOOD PROBLEM By a MartinaviUe Reader. I recently read a piece in the Message Center from Martinsville, where a reader was terribly disgusted over having cows and hogs in town. Well, I don’t know our new Mayor’s opinion about this, but our

JAN. 19, 1935

last one was certainly in favor of the poor people having hogs. Os course, the rich don’t need them. I am sure any one seeing little children eat three meals a day who could not do so unless the parents raised hogs for their meat, could hold their noSe when they passed the hog pens and thank their Father above for the hogs with which to feed the hungry children. Here’s hoping our new Mayor will favor keeping the hogs in the city.

So They Say

Under the German government organization all that is needed is the decision of a handful of men to launch an attack without notice. —Winston Churchill. It is a false doctrine that the king can not even love someone who is helpful and devoted to him.—Juliu Maniu, leader of the Rumanian Peasant party, referring to King Carol's devotion to Magda Lupesco. The police have no more right to violate traffic regulations than any one else.—Police Commissioner Valentine of New York. The year 1935 will show whether we can make the League (of Nations) effective. I myself am an optimist. —Capt. Anthony Eden, Lord Privy Seal of England.

Daily Thought

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.—Deuteronomy, xxxii, 7. THAT man is wise to some purpose who gains his wisdom at the expense and from the experience of another.—Plautus.

A FRIEND

BY MARY R. WHITE It takes so little—to lose a friend, A thoughtless word—may mean the' end: Os a beautiful friendship welded by fears— And the hopes and joys of other years, Choose well your words, don’t let them offend, For It takes so little to lose a friend, A word ill-spoken may leave a sting, Why shouldn’t we try to happiness bring? That word unspoken you’d still have your friend. For the faith that was broken dme may not mend. Where is the glory in the sorrow you bring For it takes so little to leave a sting. Why not try always to make some one glad? Speak not the word that might make someone sad. Your heart will feel lighter as you go along— If instead of a tear, there might be a song— You’ll find that the happiest feeling you’ve had. That by your kindness there’s one heart that’s glad.