Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 219, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 January 1935 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times iA SCRIPP*-HOWARD SIBSPAI’HI HOT W. HOWARD President TALCOTT POWELL Editor KAKL D. BAKER . Business Manager Phone Riley VBI

Otre bight and ftie People Will Finn Their Oven Way

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TUESDAY. JANUARY 22. 1935. HEED THE SUPREME COURT 'T'HE magnitude of unemployment justifies ■*- the size of the four billion dollar work relief bill. Even this sum may prove insufficient to accomplish the President’s announced objective of providing jobs for all employables. A vast majority of the American people have implicit confidence in Mr. Roosevelt. They applaud the purposes of his program and follow his vigorous leadership. But the Supreme Court decision in the recent hot oil case points a warning and shows the unwisdom of attempting the broad grant of power to the President proposed in this bill. The bill amounts to a blank check for the President with no congressional directions. We believe that, in the interest of speed, the greatest possible flexibility consistent with safety should be allowed, and that the tedious and costly pork-barreling should be eliminated. But this can be done and Congress still specify the definite policies and rules as to how the money is to be spent. A gag rule to save a few days of debate and shut off amendments in the House may prove very costly if it prevents correction of possible mistakes in the bill which may later be attacked successfully m the courts. If Congress puts a reasonable limit on how this money is to be spent, and provides for adequate audits, it will protect not only itself, but also the President. HOPE FOR MOONEY TN its decision yesterday the United States Supreme Court did not unlock San Quentin's door to Tom Mooney. But it virtually instructed the California courts to act. The high court denied Mooney’s motion to file an original habeas corpus w-rit. But it rebuked California's Attorney General. It stated that, if Mooney was convicted 18 years ago by the use of known perjury', the Attorney General was wrong in saying no Federal Constitution question was involved. “Such a contrivance by a state to procure the conviction and imprisonment of a defendant is as inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of justice,” said Chief Justice Hughes, “as is the obtaining of a like result by intimidarion.” He added that California courts had never been appealed to in this case under the due process clause. If perjury, whether known by the state before or after the trial, sent Tom Mooney to jail then he was denied due process under the Constitution. The state courts should determine this fact and then act. “Upon the state court, equally with the courts of the Union, rests the obligation to guard and enforce every right secured by the Constitution,” said the chief justice. Here, it would seem, is a mandate from the highest court of the land to California courts to give belated justice to this wronged man. COMPARE THE COSTS 'T'HE United States Treasury Department announces that it cost the United States just a little more than $41,000,000,000 to fight in the World War. This includes everything—direct war expenditures, payments to veterans, Interest on war debt obligations, and settlement of assorted war claims. That makes a pretty tidy little sum, any way you look at it. The joy of contemplating it may be lessened slightly by the reflection that we didn’t get our money's worth out of it; but anyhow, there it is, 41 billions in hard cash as the price of our overseas venture. It didn't break us. We've been paying it off steadily. Our credit never cracked uncier the strain. And since that is true shouldn’t we be able to pay the seven or eight billions required tc find a way out of the depression? If the war was worth 41 billions, isn't recovery worth a sixth of that sum? FATE OF REVOLUTIONS TT is not so many years since Leo Kamenefl and Oregon,- Zinoviefl were among the greatest names in Soviet Russia. Today these are just two of a score of men who have pleaded guilty to complicity in a revolutionary plot against the Soviet regime. Thus, once again, time fulfills the truth of *he saying bom during the French revolution—that the revolution always devours its own children. It must do so; any revolution must. Revolution follows its own course. It gets out of human control. Before it is over, some of the men who brought it into being must Inevitably be crushed before its juggernaut progress. Arid if that happens to men, it also happens to ideals. The goals which revolution was aimed at get lost in the shuffle just as the men do. The thing is incalculable, uncontrolabi?, unpredictable. W’hich is a point to be remembered by those wishful thinkers who see in revolution a cure for our ills. MAN’S WISDOM HARVARD S President James B. Conant tells a convocation at Amherst College that one of the great threats to human society today is a revival of “the ever-recurring suspicion of man's creative intelligence.” The scholar, says President Conant, has faith in the human mind—faith in its ability to solve any problem which human association can present. Because of this faith, the scholar favors the freest kind of research into social problems and the fullest kind of discussion of them—believing, as he does, that human intelligence is capable of finding the way out if it is just given the chance. But today a distrust of this capability is growing. Some people are rising to protest against this kind of free inquiry. They call

for closed minds, as if some questions were so dangerous that even to examine them from an unbiased viewpoint were to court grave danger. “The universities and colleges, as focal points of speculation and research,” says President Conant, “are the subject of hostile criticism, and in at least one country have suffered a devastating prosecution. Man's restless spirit of inquiry has always been disconcerting to those who demand a final and unchanging picture of the universe.” Now ail this may seem rather remote and academic, to those of us whose daily routine is conducted far from the campus. But it is worth remembering that it is precisely this faith in man’s creative intelligence—this faith which animates every college and university worthy of the name—which is the foundation stone of the democratic theory. In other words, we live under a democracy for exactly the same reason that men like President Conant devote their lives to scholarly research: Because we believe that the race has the brains to find a way out of its troubles and the collective good will to follow such a way once it has found it. This viewpoint is not popular in the world today. In nation after nation, men have abandoned this faith and have asked to be led by some autocratic power which will make all decisions for them. Some of them have even proclaimed jubilantly that democracy is an out-of-date concept, and that only the authoritarian state can survive In the modern world. For ourselves we still believe in freedom —freedom in government, in academic research, and in all other forms of social activity. We hold that belief because we still have confidence in the power of human intelligence. SUCCESS AND HOPES TY EP. JOHN S. M’GROARTY of California, preparing to do legislative battle for the Townsend old-age pension plan, is warned by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt that this plan is raising false hopes. To which he replies, somewhat caustically, that the whole New Deal program “has raised a hell of a lot of false hopes.” In this one sentence the gentleman seems to have put his finger on the distinguishing feature of the present era—the thing which makes it both a more encouraging and a more potentially dangerous time than any in recent years. It is an era of hope; of high hopes, some of them, held by people in all classes of society. The course that our society will take in the next generation may easily depend very largely on the extent to which these hopes can be satisfied. It is no disparagement to Mr. Hoover to say that the final year of his Administration was a time of discouragement. That happened because of the inexorable march of events. Everything seemed to be sliding down hill. We actually got so that we took a kind of morbid delight in pessimistic forecasts. No one dared look to the future with true confidence. Then, for one reason or another, our mental attitude changed. The greatest gain made in the last two years has been based on that change. We became hopeful again. We stopped expecting everything to go to pieces day after tomorrow, and started to comfort ourselves with fine dreams in the old American tradition—dreams about the great things that were about to be done in our country. But if this has been a great gain, it has also carried with it the seeds of great risk. When many hopes are aroused, it is inevitable that some of them must be false ones. Not everything can be set right overnight. Not all the schemes for self-betterment can be sound. Someone has to be disappointed. And in this inevitable disillusionment lies danger. The greatest responsibility that lies upon the Administration today is to see that there is as little disillusionment as possible; to fulfill, wholly or in part, as many of the new hopes as may be humanly attainable. Which is just another way of saying that the Govemmert, now as never before, must be responsive to the desires of the people. Its success or failure will be judged, eventually, by the percentage of these hopes that it has ueen able to satisfy. GAME —A BIG BUSINESS IT is a bit difficult to translate into the dollars and eents standards of -business life the value of our wild game. The National Resources Board has attempted to do it. Almost lost among larger figures, the Land Planning Committee inserted a chapter on the need for conservation of our rapidly dwindling stock of wild life. The board recommends reservation of 38,000,000 acres of land as game refuges to increase and maintain wild life—which has an additional value in destroying rodents and insects. The speed of the disappearance of wild game is emphasized by the Nauonal Audubon Society which has just appealed for a national closed season on ducks during 1935-36. Hunting and fishing is already more than a half-billion-dollar business. It can become even bigger. The National Resources Board has done well to consider and provide for this in its 30-year land use program. Congress again may turn down the revised food and drug bill, unless someone tells the Representatives that it isn’t the kind of bill they have to pay. The League of Nations stopped a revolt of the losers in the Saar, before Hitler could lay his hands on them. Huey Long’s publication of his song isn't so much to be dreaded as the he’s building a radio station over which he can croon it. Jimmy Doolittle is one man who doesn't live up to his name. He's done everything but little for aviation. A bank opened in Coulee Dam. Wash., and was christened with a bottle of ink, although it will still need plenty of money to grease the ways. Last year’s drought, the Weather Bureau decides, was caused by excessively hot and dry weather. That’s a hot report, and dry, too.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

of the most deplorable and ominous developments in the country today is the current attack upon teachers which is being conducted by certain patrioteers and heresyhunting newspaper publishers. Teachers are naturally docile enough, even when not scared out of their boots. They are mainly to be criticised for their conservatism and failure to take a position of social leadership. Therefore, anything which further intimidates them is doubly disastrous to the public interest. Teachers who are alert enough can, however, not infrequently make the reactionary assaults upon them a boomerang against their instigators. This was recently done by Prof. George S. Counts of Columbia University when he trapped a couple of Hearst reporters bent upon playing him for a sucker. A similar feat has been achieved with respect to the Ives loyalty bill by Prof. Carl Becker of Cornell University in an article in The Nation. He was asked to sign the following statement: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge, according to the best of my ability, the duties of the position to which I am now assigned.” Prof. Becker tells us that he signed it willingly because he said he could not see that it deprived him of any rights or imposed upon him any new duties. What, then, does the Ives law mean? So far as I can see, nothing except this; That teachers in New York State are obliged to acknowledge in writing that they are obligated by the obligations imposed upon them by the duties they have assumed, and by the obligations imposed upon all citizens by the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York. a a u PROCEEDING further with this analysis, Prof. Becker shows how the Ives bill is nothing more than an impertinent bit of nonsense, as completely useless as it is absurd: “The New York Legislature is a subordinate authority, its jurisdiction being defined by provisions in both Constitutions. It has no authority to modify either Constitution, nor can it create any rights or duties not explicitly or implicity authorized by. one or the other of the two Constitutions. I can make nothing of the Ives law as a legal document except that it is a redundancy, unless it be also an impertinence: by enacting it, the New York Legislature presumes to reimpose obligations already imposed by the supreme law of the land.” Moreover, Prof. Becker shows that a law of this sort may be actually dangerous to the reactionaries themselves by directing the attention of teachers and public officials to both the state and Federal Constitutions which guarantee the right to criticise all laws and institutions: “Both Constitutions, unless I am mistaken, contain provisions which guarantee citizens against any infringement, by statute or otherwise, of that right. n tt n BOTH Constitutions rest upon the principle that laws should be enacted by representatives freely chosen by the citizens, and that is not only the right but the duty of citizens to express, either orally or in print, their approval or disapproval of the conduct of their representatives, and of the laws enacted by them. Both Constitutions, unless I am mistaken, contain provisic , which guarantee citizens against any infr by statute or otherwise, of that rP .t.” "" -e Ives (aw is directed particularly against .eachers of history and the social sciences As one of the most distinguished teachers of history in the whole world, Prof. Becker indicates how an honest historian might react to this law, to the confusion and embarrassment, of its makers: “I am a teacher of history. The auty of a teacher of history, as I understand it, is to learn, and encourage his pupils to learn, what has actually happened in some period of human history, and to discuss with the utmost freedom before his pupils any opinion, judgment, or theory that may be formed about the cause or the effect or the importance of what has happened. "The Ives law is something that has happened, and so far as that is concerned I can ‘discharge the duties of the position to which 1 have been assigned’ only by declaring that it would have been better, in my opinion, if the Governor and Assembly of New York had prevented it from happening. I have now discharged that duty in writing, and I intend, whenever occasion seems fitting, to discharge it orally.”

Capital Capers

THE Dean of diplomats, His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador, Sir Ronalr. Lindsay (quite a mouthful) is now reaping the reward of his sudden series of gay parties this winter, in addition to what he gains by his prestige as premier envoy from overseas. In other words. Sir Ronald is being feted himself, after having feted others. Ambassadors are hastening to do him honor. The other night it was Ambassador Augusto Rosso of Italy, who gave a party for him, with delicious Chianti and French wines, pastries, artichokes and a salad created by an Italian chef w;th a sense of genius. The next evening little Ambassador Saito of Japan and Mme. Saito prepared an occidental menu for His Britannic Majesty’s ambassador. This week, two more foreign envoys fall in line. The entire program is delightful and holds just that faint tinge of irony which is the cream of diplomatic life here. That is, that in the first place—Sir Ronald is horribly bored by the series of dinners he has to go to. He’d get out of them if he could, but he can’t. In the second place, about 90 per cent of the envoys who are giving the dinners hate to give them. It’s expensive, it's tedious and many envoys either secretly resent the English or find that Sir Ronald’s wit and accent elude them. Such are the penalties of diplomatic life in the gay, gay capital! tt tt tt COUNT VAN DER STATEN PCNTKOZ, the new Belgian ambassador, seems to the unprejudiced eye an indication of good t ; mes ahead for the Belgian-French bloc in Washington. He appeared here from New Yo’k in a delightful mood, smoked cigarets with news photographers, inspected his rather antique embassy with complete good humor (former Ambassador Baron de Cartier rie Machienne would have turned somersaults) and asked hundreds of questions. Observers noted he is dapper, well dressed, witty, fond of Camembert, has a charming smile, wears pearl pins, and is ready for any one or anything. “It’s cold here,” he shivered on arrival. “I must admit I don’t like too much cold weather.'’ Again he chirped: “The highway from New York to Wasnington fascinated me. Tell me, are there any mountains nearby? I should like to motor in the mountains." He peered acfoss the street from his embassy at the palatial apartment house, 1785 Massa-chusetts-av, where Andrew Mellon has an apartment. ”Mr. Mellon lives there,” he was told. “Ah,” observed Count van der Straten Ponthoz, looking over, "a very elegant little flat Mr. Mellon has.” Congress may be more liberal than the President, with his program for social legislation, provided the people will remember this in 1936, If Lloyd George wants a New Deal for England, we’d be glad to let him have some of our college professors. / -

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

STILL AFTER THOSE TWO CHICKENS IN EVERY POT!

The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make pour letters short, so all cat . have a chance. Limit them to 210 words or less.) a a CJTY HOSPITAL PRAISED FOR AID TO FAMILY By D. E. S. and Family. Having heard many complaints about the City Hospital and the treatment of patients, we want to come to the hospital’s defense. We have had sickness in our home over a period of several months, were unable to have a private physician so we called a visiting doctor from the City Hospital. He came time after time and did all any doctor could do, was very courteous and kind and did not receive 1 cent in payment. We want to express deep gratitude and sincere appreciation to the hospital for the kindness and consideration to us in our time of need. tt tt tt BONUS PAYMENT SEEN AS BUSINESS AID By a Reader. Times are hard and all that and the President is doing his duty, I suppose, but at the same time the World War veteran seems to get it on all sides. It seems to me that every time anything comes up that would benefit the veteran, it is torn down. Instead of pulling him out of the hole, they push him. Why not have a little sympathy for the man who risked his life in war to save his nation and the people therein who got rich while he fought in the muddy trenches and exposed himself in all kinds of weather to do a duty for us who never went. I suggest that all veterans get pensions who are in need and are now living off the county. If they get their pensions back they will be taken off the relief roll and the money that they have used on the relief can go to someone else. This would be a saving to the government if every ’ soldier would get his pension, and there are plenty of them on the relief rolls now. Look at the savings if all these were taken off the relief roll. The pension would do them and every one else more good. It would be put in circulation. This would be one great economy act and would help che soldier who really is in need and also be no burden on the government relief fund. tt a u SIX-HOTTR DAY, FIVE-DAY WEEK SUGGESTED By a Relief Worker. I am a man past 50 and until last fall I have beenable to avoid asking lov relief, but now I am working ou the FERA. I am allowed to make $27 a month. Our food will average S2O a month; utilities, $4; coal, $6, and rent, $lO, which alone amounts to sl3 more than I can make. I am raying nothing of carfare co my work, or clothing for my family. I would like for those who have charge of these things to tell me how I am going to keep up and pay three months back rent and two months utility bills? • A year ago the CWA let us make sl2 and sls a week. We could live on that, but today, owing to the NRA and sales tax, food and clothing prices have gone up and the FERA has cut our earnings to about one-half. Now are we better off than we were a year ago? I should say not. We do not want charity and we do not want to live on the basket, but we do want to work more hoursthat we may at least be able to have enough to eat and to pay our i rent. Let us have every man work six hours a day, five days a week. We can easily produce enough for all and as Jo the so-called overproduction we never had such a thing. The trouble was we never

Veteran Justice Demanded

By James E. Van Zandt. In a recent press dispatch from Washington, published in The Times, President Roosevelt made public his opposition to immediate cash payment of adjusted service certificates. In listing his reasons, the President emphasized the following statement: “The adjusted service certificates are a form of paid-up endowment insurance of which dependents would be deprived in cash if paid now.” In fairness to the readers of The Times and the World War veterans in your community, The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States presents the following facts in refutation of this argument. When Congress created the adjusted service certificate in 1924, these certificates represented an average value of SIOOO, payable in 1945. At that time, the purpose back of these certificates was to give each veteran a paid-up endowment policy that would mature 20 years lat^r. Two years after date of issuance, each certificate carried a loan value. Veterans in need of funds were forced to borrow on these certificates, paying compound interest on the loan. When unemployment conditions became acute in recent years, Congress in 1932 enacted a law making it possible for the holder of one of these certificates to borrow 50 per cent of the face value. Today there are approximately three and one-half million adjusted service certificates outstanding. Government statistics, quoted by Mr. Roosevelt, show that more than three million veterans have borrowed the full 50 per cent of the face value of their certificates. These loans are being made by the Federal Government, at the expense of the veteran, for the compound interest charges are being deducted from the balance that remains. Unless these certificates are

received enough wages to bpy the things we really needed, to say nothing of the things we would like to have had. tt tt tt BARNES ARTICLE,ON RUSSIA IS PRAISED. Br H. L. With gripping interest I read and re-read Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes’ explanation of the recent executions in Russia. Long have I waited to see The Times cast its powerful shafts of light into the gloom of those American misunderstandings of Russia. Find a Times of Jan. 15, turn to the editorial page and read the ‘‘Liberal Viewpoint.” Study this brand of truth for which Jesus and Lincoln died. Dr. Barnes points us to that justice which the enlightened conscience of the world will forever praise and its great Creator must forever bless! “As for the truth, it endureth and is forever strong; it liveth and conquereth forevermore.” a a tt MIDDLE CLASS SOON WILL BE FORGOTTEN a Salesman. We salesmen have an axiom that to ridicule a competitor’s product is the quickest way to go out the front door without an order. What I want to say is that your Westbrook Pegler is taking a short cut to not selling his line of gau when he ridicules Dr. Townsend. Perhaps the old doc can deliver the goods. The big sales manager in Washington, President Roosevelt, has put out some hot bulletins to pump the pep into the boys, but I know, and so do you, that if I lose my job to-

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

paid immediately, they will be valueless to the veteran until Jan. 1, 1942, when he will be able to borrow $30.04. One year later, he will be able to obtain $38.25. On Jan. 1, 1944, he will be eligible to an additional loan of $39.79. On Jan. 1, 1945, when these certificates fully mature, the average veteran will receive the miserable sum of $68.50. all that will be left as a result of compound interest charge deductions. In other words, through mere driblets and interest charges, the value of the certificate will be destroyed. Neither the veteran, nor his widow and children, will possess any protection in the form of an endowment policy or financial benefits. Back in 1925, when these certificates were first issued, the theory of insurance protection for the dependents of veterans was perfectly sound. But now that the principal is being destroyed through the issuance of loans, and the deduction of interest charges, it is obvious that the original plan is no longer practical. The socalled insurance protection which Mr. Roosevelt anxiously seeks to preserve will be dissipated long before 1945. As national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, I speak for the overseas veterans of this country when I invite every patriotic citizen to support this demand for veteran justice. We are convinced that our proposal offers the only practical and constructive method of administering nation-wide relief, stimulating industrial recovery and simultaneously reducing the national debt. It will force the sum of approximately $2,200,000,000 into the channels of trade and industry, with resultant benefits for the nation as a whole, and America’s World War veterans will receive the benefits which Congress intended they should nave when this obligation was recognized in 1924.

morrow the only recourse I have is to live up every last cent I have and not until then will the big chief give me a relief job at $lO a week. The way things are going now in a few years there will be only three classes of people, and the big middle class, iii which I now belong, will be no more. On top will be the big money stock and bond owners; the President is one of them, don’t kid yourself. His family’s money is inherited from generation to generation and their children enjoy unlimited opportunities. Then next under, but quite a way down, will be the political job holders and hangers-on, who will, in a way, supplant the great American middle class of yesterday. Then, down at the bottom, will be the paupers and reliefers, *ho were formerly the middle and working classes. Figure this out for yourself. tt a a SUGGESTS TRAFFIC AID FOR WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL Br a Reader. I don’t understand why we Washington High School pupils do not have a better way of crossing Washington-st. We have to dodge four or five cars, as a rule, and then street cars, too. There are too

Daily Thought

All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. —Ecclesiastes, iii:xx. WHEREVER I look thep Is nothing but the image of death.—Ovid.

_JAN. 22, 1935

many of us taking chances of our young lives. We might get hit and be crippled the rest of our lives, or even lose some lives, just by trying to get across Washington-st. The grade school pupils have an officer to watch them across the street, but as this would be impossible at a high school, there is no reason whatsoever why we couldn’t have a stop light in front of the school. Most pupils have their arms full of books, and if one would ever happen to stumble, crossing the street, it would be good-by. What a pity!

So They Say

Democracy, which seemed so triumphant in 1920, has disappeared, except in a few favored lands.— Marquess of Lothian. My father has enough troubles without being bothered by mine. —Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., after paying a fine on a speeding charge. Another war would mean the end of civilization. Prime Minister Pierre Laval of France. The longer you give ’em to bicker, the longer they’ll bicker.—Manager Billy Evans of the Cleveland Indians. If you don’t think the present type of road transportation is old-fash-ioned, wait until you see what happens to it in the next few years.— William B. Stout, automotive and airplane engineer. You can not have peace unless it is put behind a rule of life, a principle. —Sir Norman Angell, Nobel peace prize winner. Pro football is sure to increase terrifically in popularity, and it’s helping, rather than hurting, the college game.—Chick Meehan. German unity must look back upon a long tradition before we can dare to build in this new Germany political constructions of any sort.—Robert Ley, chief of the German Labor Front. The really simple and yet vitally important things are the details. The rest is a matter of combination. —Henry Ford. Dollar chasing is deplorable, but it is of minor importance compared to the winning of war.— Irenee du Pont. I would back my bonnet against some of these postage stamp hats.— Evangeline Booth, Salvation Army commander-in-chief.

IF—

BY HARRIETT SCOTT OLINICK If you should ever fail me I would stain The waiting night with laughter dark with pain. All through the night my laughter’s • silver edge Would burn the shadowed hours; form a wedge, And from the cursed crying slowly drain The lilt of red blood running through the vein. If you should ever fail me I would break The tenets of my reason for your sake; Reel down the darkened hours crying loud My blackened laughter to the hostile crowd. And at the peak of madness would I slake My thirst for you, In death, no mor* to wakel