Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 230, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 February 1935 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indianapolis Times (A RCRIPf**-HOWARD NEW SPAPER) ROT W. HOWARD I’rwldfiit TALCOTT PO'VKI.L Editor EARL D BAKER Rasin'-** M*n*s-r Phone Riley 5551

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MONDAY. FEBRUARY 4, 1935 ___ CHILD LABOR MUST GO Twenty-two states have ratified the Child Labor Amendment to the Federal Coastitution. At 11:30 tomorrow morning, the House of Representatives of the Indiana Legislature begins consideration of the ratification resolution. Indiana must ratify that amendment. For the last 10 years, greedy and venal business interests have thrown off all disguise in their efforts to block ratification of the amendment. No weapon has been too contemptible for these interests to stoop for; no argument has been too paltry for them to use. For 10 years, these mercenary groups have villified and distorted the intent of the amendment. The Child Labor Amendment is synonymous *ith progressive industrial legislation and the sooner the United States outlaws, once and for all, the exploitation of children by rapacious employers and the resultant breaking down on wage scales throughout the community, the better. Indiana already has waited too long. The amendment should have been ratified years ago and it must be approved before the citizens of this state can again hold up their heads in decent company. The American Bar Association in its blind and shallow battle against the amendment constantly pleads against the “abandonment” of American children “to the mercy of Congress and Federal bureaucrats" and yet more than half of Congress is composed of lawyers, most of them members of that same American Bar Association. Every fact in connection with the amendment has been twisted and perverted by opponents of the measure. In one widely quoted pamphlet reprinting an address before the Sons of the Revolution by a St. Louis attorney last year, it was charged that the amendment was written by the late Mrs. Florence Kelley Wischenewetzky, Anne Louise Strong, and others the speaker sought to paint as radicals and foes of democracy. Records, however, disclose the true story. The amendment was cradled under the most conservative auspices. It was framed by a group of constitutional lawyers including former Senator George Wharton Peppier (R., Pa.), the late Senator Thomas Walsh (D., Mont.), former Senator Samuel Shortridge <R., Cal.), who introduced the amendment in the Senate, and Rep. I. M. Foster of Ohio, who fathered It in the House. Pepper, Walsh, Shortridge, Foster—radicals? When opponents of the measure are driven to such charlatanism, to such outright fabrication, there must be none but greedy motives behind their opposition. In the name of decency and honor, Indiana s Legislature must pass the Child Labor Amendment. Not to do so would be the most supine surrender to inhuman principles in the history of this state. There can be no choice between decency and barbarity.

THE BRAZILIAN TREATY ZOOMING almost two years after the Democrats entered office with a mandate to perform a surgical operation on our high tariffs, the Brazilian trade treaty taken alone seems meager reward for our patience. Yet, it is doubly welcome: First, because it encourages hope that the Administration has not yet succumbed to the isolationists, despite its defeat on the World Court issue and its provocative withdrawal from the Russian debttrade negotiations. Second, because this treaty is considered a pattern for many other treaties to follow. •‘Having once started on the road away from the medieval mercantilism, progress should now be more rapid and the movement gam momentum,'* State Secretary Cordell Hull says. Under the treaty, we agree to cut in half our tariffs on manganese, Brazil nuts, castor beans, balsam, ipecac and mate, and also contract to keep on the free list coffee and 11 minor Brazilian products. Brazil agrees to reduce tariffs from 20 to 60 per cent on 28 items of American export, including automobiles and parts, radio apparatus, paints, varnishes, batteries. steel furniture and cement. Brazil also agrees not to place tariffs on 13 items, including agricultural implements and fresh fruit, now on Brazil's free list. Our tariff concessions affect 2.4 per cent of the current volume of Brazil's expons to the United States. Brazil's tariff reductions affect 23 8 per cent of our sales to Brazil. On us face, the treaty seems a good bargain. Yet American manganese interests are furious. According to the State Department, American mines produce about 20 per cent of the manganese ore used by our big steel industry, despite a protective tariff of more than 100 per cent, and employ in the best times not more than 200 men. Our manganese interests say they will have to close their mines if this unreasonable tariff is reduced. The only answer to their admission of inefficiency is: "What of it?” Cheaper manganese prices should enable our steel industry, which employs 400.000. to add more men to its pay rolls than are thrown out of work if all American manganese mines are closed. The same can be said of a great number of other uneconomic American interests that now enjoy prohibitive tariff protection at the expense of our general population. A FAMOUS VICTORY AS dawn looked over the run of Grand Canyon six workmen turned the waters of the Rio Colorado into a great reservoir bohind Boulder Dam, starting the lake which

will soon become eleven times larger than any so far created by man. For the first time in the three million years it has been digging into cavernous canyons this wildest of all rivers was halted. Soon It will be hitched and put to work. Water that used to hurl itself down in muddy floods every spring, threatening to destroy Imperial Valley’s rich fruit, vegetable and cotton farms, henceforth will be held in a placid lake behind the world's biggest dam. Tnen it will be let down in orderly fashion, turning millions of arid acres into fecund farms, providing drinking water for a score of cities, furnishing cheap electricity for homes and factories in the growing Southwest. Workers, toiling in the heat and cold of this region for four years, have won a major battle in man’s long war against nature. None of them was cited for bravery in action. There was no waving of flags, no blare of martial music, no prayers of thankfulness for deliverance from the enemy. But, much more than the battle of Blenheim as sung by Southey, “ ’Twas a famous victory.”

EVILS OF WAR TUST in case any one hadn't realized it, the United States Senate seems to have served new notice on the world at large that there is still a large, vocal, and influential portion of the American public which will have nothing to do with anything resembling a European entanglement. The lineage of this group is easily traced. It stems directly back to the League of Nations fight in 1920, and although that ancestry is fairly ancient, as political blocs go, it is pretty obvious, now, that its blood is not getting thin. It would be very easy to point out that much of the opposition to this World Court resolution was based on a mistaken assumption—to wit, that getting into the court would automatically put us in the league. It would be equally easy to point out that, in the present condition of the world, some form of international co-operation, some blunting of the keen edge of national sovereignty, is a price that must be paid if nations are to live in peace. But there is no point now in repeating old arguments. What we might more profitably do is take this action by the Senate as anew occasion for striking a profit-and-loss balance on the World War. For that is what it comes down to, in the end. The disillusionment left by the war was the great underlying reason for our refusal to approve the court. The war was hideously costly in many ways, but this disillusionment is perhaps the most costly way of them all. We went into the war at a high pitch of idealism—perhaps the highest pitch to which any nation ever nerved itself. We were fighting for intangibles—or so we thought. There was absolutely nothing for us to gain in any material sense. We went into the greatest war in history simply because we were sold on the idea that we could, in that way, make the world a cleaner and better place. It didn’t take us long to get our eyes open. The democracy which the war was to have saved seems, instead, to have received its death blow in many parts of the world. The injustices which the war was to end have been replaced by new injustices. The peace which it was to bring is simply an armed truce between conflicts. And the allies with whom we struck hands in 1917 have been calling us harsh names ever since. In the realization of these things lies the bitterest price we have paid for the war. It has frosted our idealism and confirmed our suspicions. We may think we have got over it—until something like the World Court resolution comes along, and then we find out that we have not.

FIXING THE FIXERS "TMXING” seems to be a major industry in the national capital. The “fixers” are the camp followers of government. They live by their wits and on their influence, real or imaginary. They are mentioned in almost every congressional or grand jury inquiry into governmental affairs. Some fixers draw regular retainers from corporations doing business with the government. Many of these have been exposed in the current Senate munitions investigation. Into the record have gone their boastful letters to employers, telling how they wangled appropriations from Congress and favors from Army, Navy and diplomatic executives. Other fixers operate on a more precarious fee basis, offering to serve clients who will hire them. One of these, apparently, was the unnamed man who has been represented to the Senate committee as offering to swing from 10 to 15 million dollars in destroyer contracts to a Florida shipbuilding company. He is alleged to have asked a “fee” of $250,000. The Senate committee should and probably will learn whether this man had any strings on the Navy Department. A strange characteristic of the fixing business is that the success of an individual fixer in wheedling money out of gullible business men does not depend upon his actual ability to deliver. He usually collects his fee in advance. Then, by optimistic reports, he keeps his client in suspended animation. If the deal goes through and his client gets the government contract, the fixer claims credit, even though he may have done nothing to earn it. If the deal fails and the contract is awarded to a competitor, the fixer has an alibi: “Mr. So-and-So, the key government official, didn't stay fixed.” And what can the disappointed client do about it? Nothing. He can not expose the fixer without confessing his own guilt. The business men on these Washington sucker lists seem to be legion. FIGURED OUT HOW does a 59.06-cent dollar make a dollar debt under a “gold clause" equal to $1.69? Here is the mathematics of it. An ounce of gold formerly had a fixed value of $20.67. By Presidential proclamation the dollar was devaluated in terms of gold, the dollar being made equal at 59.06 cents of its former value and an ounce of gold being fixed at $35. Divide $20.67 into $35. Answer: $1.69. Or stated algebraically: 59.09 is to 100 as $1 is to x. That equation worked out gives $1.69 as the value of x.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

THE delays, disappointments and compromises associated with the New Deal have encouraged the assumption by others of the Messianic .ole that was once monopolized by Mr. Roosevelt. The new Messiahs offer the same definite and rapid realization of Utopia which was implied in Mr. Roosevelt’s speeches early in his Administration. I do not refer at the present time to any of the communistic or conventional types of extreme radicalism, which do not seem as yet to have captured the popular imagination to any marked degree. I have reference to the leaders and programs which do not directly represent orthodox socialism. To such the people seem now quite ready to listen in large numbers. The big four among the heretical prophets in the United States today are Huey Long, Father Charles E. Coughlin, Dr. F. E. Townsend and Upton Sinclair. Senator Long is campaigning for national support on a general “soak the rich” program, revolving around the proposal to confiscate all fortunes of more than a million dollars. Huey has cashed in heavily on the failure of his party chief to deliver the goods and live up to his early promises. The flop of the New Deal has given him critical ammunition which he has by no means overlooked. Few have slammed into the Administration as did Huey in his national broadcast a short time ago. # HIS opponents seek to laugh him off the map, but his feats in Louisiana indicate that he can not be taken as a joke in any society where showmanship and personal determination count. He has a far more impressive record than Hitler had, say at the close of 1931, and, compared with the Nazi chieftain, he is a veritable Colossus of intelligence and culture. A little of Father Coughlin’s show has been stolen of late by Dr. Townsend, but the Royal Oak priest still has a wider hearing than any other Catholic in human history. Not even the magnificent Innocent 111 at the opening of the thirteenth century was listened to with rapt attention by anything like the same number who tune in on Father Coughlin every Sunday afternoon. Apparently sensing the fact that he may slip in his hold as time goes on, simply because the people seek something new, the father seemingly anticipates this slump and attempts to forestall it by bearing down in more dramatic and forceful fashion upon the major moguls of predatory finance. Not even the most acid spokesman of the old populism was ever so fearless and colorful a critic of our financial overlords—at least before anything like such an audience as that of Father Coughlin’s. Whatever his exaggerations in overemphasizing monetary issues, his philosophy of money is certainly not more wide of the facts than those of his opponents. And he is certainly dead right in putting his finger upon the major weakness of the capitalistic system, namely, the dominion of finance capitalism. His Union for Social Justice may yet turn out to be something with which the country will have to reckon seriously.

THE Townsend plan for old-age pensions jpn an almost fabulous scale has, for the time being at least, seized the spotlight in the interest of the discontented masses of the country, particularly those over 30 years of age and those nearing that magic line. Our grotesque irresponsibility. in dealing with the problem of old age in this country has made it possible for the doctor to galvanize puolic attention to an almost incredible extent. It is doubtful if this movement can now be stopped, short of some reasonably adequate program for old-age pensions. Upton Sinclair’s EPIC plan has had the edge taken off it slightly as the result of his recent defeat, but he and his followers have retired in good order and claim to be consolidating their forces for another and more effective attack. He certainly called attention to the absurd disuse of available capital plant while people are languishing in unemployment or being demoralized by public doles. If by some strange ireak of fortune or generalship, these four men should link up their forces, it would be uard to stop them. If Huey should make a drive for the presidency, promising Father Coughlin the secretaryship of the treasury, Sinclair that of the interior and Townsend that of labor, let us say, this would indeed be a challenge to the New Deal compared to which the Republican threat is a gentle gust of wind. And it is no idle guess that, if Mr. Roosevelt does not buckle down and take steps which remove the causes of discontent, he may in 1936 or later have to reckon with some such coalition as this, which for better or worse might very well sweep the country.

Capital Capers BY: GEORGE ABELL

SPANISH diplomacy is sometimes like the fable of the man with the bowl of porridge. It blows both hot and cold His excellency, Ambassador Calderon of Spain, appeared last week at the State Department to begin negotiations for a trade treaty between the United Stats and his country. The State Department had announced last September that negotiations were to begin. To a friend, Envoy Calderon confided: “You know, these people have kept us waiting more than five months!” At the same time that Ambassador Calderon complains of slow treatment, the Peruvian embassy here is fretting over a somewhat similar instance of slow treatment at the hands of'the Spanish government. In New York, Mme. Concha Espina, noted Spanish novelist, sits in her apartment in a small midtown hotel, planning shortly to take a boat trip to Lima, Peru, to attend the third centenary celebration of the founding of that city. She was specially appointed by the Spanish government as a delegate to the Lima fiesta and her daughter (listed as a “cultural attache”) and son-in-law (listed as “artistic attache”) are also going on the junket with funds supplied by Madrid. The irony lies in the fact that Lima's celebration was celebrated on Jan. 18. So the poor Peruvians are wondering just how Mme. Espina hopes to reach their capital by that date—unless, indeed, the Spanish government is planning to have her arrive on Jan. 18, 1936! a a a MRS. CAROLINE O'DAY, new Representa-tive-at-large from New York, has either a keen sense of humor or a keen sense of observation. Friends are trying to determine which. Chattery Mrs. O'Day was asked to give her impression of Congress. “Oh,” gushed she. “You know, the men are so handsome here!” a a a Ambassador felipe espil of Argentira —noting that envoys from the Scandinavian countries were boasting of their skating, skis and outdoor sports during the cold wave—has gone them one better. Yesterday, the debonair Felipe walked four miles around the Speedway, plodding around in a pair of new and fashionable arctics. ‘‘l expect to keep up this exercise,” said Envoy Espil, “no matter whether it snows, rains or hails." Japan has ordered the members of its Rone embassy to take up golf. Thinking of putting through some big deal with Mussolini. Russia now is making 57 varieties of sausage, but it is sticking to only one line of boloney. If you don’t think much of all this newspaper space on the Hauptmann case, news of progress in the matter against Martin Insull recently got only three fines.

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 tcords or less.) a a a AGED NEEDY AND UNEMPLOYED SEEK AID By William Rupert. How to give more work to the many unemployed and relief to the aged needy at once is the problem of the times. This problem is being talked about by both nation and states, and sometime an agreement will be reached to help both the unemployed and those not able to work. Before the election they said no one shall go hungry nor cold, but how can an aged couple over 70 years old live on sl3 a month pension? They can not live decently nor honestly nor even comfortably on that amount, especially during these winter months. “The intent of the sls maximum a month has been miserably abused,” so says Gov. McNutt in a personal letter to me, “and it is hoped the present old-age pension law will be improved on soon.” But why put suffering humanity off any longer? Present legislatures are making new laws; raising some salaries of those whose salaries are now sufficient; creating and enlarging departments, buying more poor land; appropriating money to build more buildings not for necessity, but for convenience, but when it comes to helping suffering humanity they say— “Where can we get money for that?” My answer is get it from the State Treasury, where money is gotten for others and other expenses. It is partially agreed that the pension shall be sls to $25 a month and be made a state affair as other similar laws are. Why not make it so and do it at once and give relief to some now in need? Do this and naturally other things will follow, for this is the divine plan to which the Almighty has promised to add. a a a RESIDENTIAL DISTRICTS ARE HARMED BY TAVERNS By a Sufferer. Taverns now being operated in residential sections, with their noise, music and traffic confusion, are making homes almost unliveable, and are destroying the value of property of persons living nearby. In neighborhoods where only a few residents patronize a tavern, such places should not be permitted to be operated. Recently I noticed the Beer Retailers of Indiana, Inc., have sent to Gov. McNutt recommendations for liquor legislation. Property owners and residents in districts affected should also send their requests to their legislators. They should ask that a clause be included in the liquor bill whereby persons with homes near a tavern may be allowed to decide as to the licensing or renewal of a license for a tavern in a residential district. a a a LEGISLATURE SHOULD REMOVE STATE DEATH THREATS Bt Othniel Hitch. May I commend the editorial “A Legislative Program”? It is such work as this that brings credit to you and your paper and makes possible future awards. I called at youi office the other day. after the tragic death of two women who were killed after coming to a dead stop and letting a train go by. then, with the bell still ringing or flash signal still going, to drive to their death. Gates would have saved them. When our President is “gravely concerned” over the terrible toll from auto fatalities and injuries, the present Legislature should Our warning

DISFIGURATION!

Praises “Other People’s Money”

By Frank F. Manly. The Times is rendering a public service in encouraging and stimulating keener thinking or. matters of such great concern. Too many, who should know better, are charging men like Justice Brandeis with dangerous communistic tendencies. A careful reading of his writings would enable his critics to see where the real danger lurks. Justice Brandeis makes one see more clearly, think more soundly, and experience a strengthening of the spiritual and moral fibre, needed vastly more now than 20 years ago when he wrote “Other People’s Money.” The juggling of other people’s money is still a favorite indoor and outdoor sport, indulged in by men without knowledge, judgment or character. Every investor would profit by keeping in mind Justice Brandeis’ ■words: “The fundamental laws of human limitations: First, that no man can serve two masters. Second, that a man can not at the same time do many things well. There is great strength in serving with a singleness of purpose. There is great strength in having time to give to a business the at-

signals today are the same as 30 years ago. Should not 25 per cent of all funds from gasoline, oils, license fees, etc., be used to establish overheads, underpasses, gates, lights, signals, etc., together with removal of obstructions, shrubbery, etc., for the next two years not only on state highways, but all highways? By spending 5 million dollars a year some real results in life would show and after all that would be a real economic saving to Indiana. The present law fixes SIO,OOO as the value of a life in Indiana, but if it is your family that is small recompense. What is your answer? a a a TAX INCREASE MOVE IS CHARGED TO FARMERS By C. A. Watkins. I understand the farmers want a 15-cent-a-pound tax placed on oleomargarine. It is well-known that a large portion of the oleomargarine is consumed by the farmers, and through their practice of shopping at cut rate food markets, they encourage lower prices. Therefore no increase in taxes should be levied in favor of the farmer at the cost of others. a a a OBJECTS TO PROPOSAL TO TAX OLEOMARGARINE Bv a Reader. A tax on oleomargarine is just another tax for the poor man to pay. Oleomargarine is the poor man's spread. Butter we can not buy; they have raised ; price of milk and meats of all kinds, bread and flour. I suppose potatoes will be next. With no work to be had and a family to support it sure looks bad for thi forgotten man. But they must have their dividends no matter where or how they come. a a a TRUTH SHOULD NOT BE BETRAYED FOR SILVER By L. A. Jackson. In a recent article by Robert Quillen is this sentence. “A professor in a denominational college teaches something that offends his employers and critics, called liberals, praise him for his independence.’* Then Mr. Quillen goes on to condemn the professor. One can hardly escape the infer-

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

tention which its difficult problems demand.” He gives a straight blow at the dummy director: “A director is one who directs; one who guides, superintends, governs and manages. Real efficiency in any business must ultimately depend, in large measuie, upon the correctness of the judgment exercised almost from day to day, on the important problems as they arise. And how can the bankers, necessarily engrossed in the problems of their own private business, get time to know and to correlate the facts concerning other complex businesses? Besides, they start ignorant of the particular business they are supposed to direct.” As Justice of the United States Supreme Court, anything coming from his pen is entitled to the reader’s attention at this time. But Justice Brandeis is more than a great jurist. He is one of the truly great statesmen, thinkers and prophets of this age. Norman Hapgood’s illuminating foreword brings “Other People's Money” up to date. The two taken together make a timely contribution along the line of The Times’ slogan: “Give light and the people will find their own way.”

ence that Mr. Quillen doesn’t have any too high regard for truth. Os course, if a professor has agreed not to teach anything that would offend his employers, he should find out just what would offend, and then live up to his agreement. However, no one except a Judas will betray truth for a few pieces of silver. a a a DOUBTS MOTIVES OF GAS INVESTIGATIONS By X. Hjerno. About this gas company deal. Why in the world is the city of Indianapolis even thinking of buying a gas company? Why not the water company or the electric company? Why shoulder the poor taxpayer with an antiquated utility which will be an extinct as the dodo in 10 years? Buying the gas company now would be like buying bicycles to chase bandits. Electricity is the thing now and will be even more so in the future with the TVA and kindred projects. This SIOO,OOO graft scare of Jake Weiss’ is just a smoke screen to run the gas company purchase under our noses. One wonders if somebody is getting a cut or whether some of the big boys are stockholders in the Citizens Gas Cos., and want to get out from under. a a a TIME HAS COME TO “WAKE UP” Bt Mrs. Grace Bowsber. If we are ever to wake up now is the time. There is a plan, a design for living, just as there is a pattern for a cake, a home or what have you. We can not fail to gain new aspirations as we recognize the purely mental basis of astronomical developments and that of the radio

Daily Thought

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. —II Timothy, 2:4. WAR is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. —Erasmus.

FEB. 3, 1935

spanning space, bringing men and things into closer contact, any further advance must be made by obedience to higher laws of mind as man realizes the underlying mental basis connects him with infinite potential energy awaiting utilization. He will achieve complete control of life instead of bringing death and discord through outliving an inevitable bodily disintegration. a a a TIMES LAUDED FOR PUBLISHING “BOTH SIDES” By a Reader. I want to commend you for maintaining a real forum in your paper. You publish articles on both sides of the question. It seems to me if a paper refuses to publish contributions on one side of a question, it should refuse to give the other side a hearing.

So They Say

I am worried about our young folk because they have such dam fool parents.—Dr. Thurman B. Rice of Indiana University Medical School. I know from the date of my birth I must be an old man, but I don’t feel like an old man and I don't think of myself as such—Senator Carter Glass. Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace.—Premeir Benito Mussolini. Most people don't even know how to walk—Ruth St. Denis, famous dancer. I gave the fight game the greatest boost it has received since Dempsey’s time when I knocked out Levinsky in Chicago—Max Baer, heavyweight champion. When I think of a streamlined taxicab in New York traffic, I think that you might just as well streamline a clothes wringer or a flatiron. —Charles F. Kettering, automotive engineer. Once mutual isochronism of time can be proved between two synchronous bodies, the self-isochron ism of time can be proved in relation to either one throughout the whole of existence.—Dr. George de Bothezat, Russian scientist.

Strange Dream

By HARRIETT SCOTT OLINICK This do I know that in a dream We walked together to a hill. Your arm was shaped for holding me. We felt our love leap and be still. You spoke bright colorings of sound That made no words but cleft the air, To spin about me loveliness Os gossamer that would, not tear. A path led steeply into sky. You mounted it with restless tread. “I can not climb so steep a hill.’’ “You must, my dear, you must,” you said. I tried to climb; I tried to climb, But I could find no foothold there. You left me then; you tore the veil. I had a heartbreak’s mask to wear. This do I know that in a dream We walked together to a hill. I have this knife-blade in my heart. I wonder—are you climbing stilll