Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 242, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 February 1935 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indianapolis Times U BCBIPPB-HO ABU NEWSPAPER) ItOY W. HOWARD ............ pr*l<l<>nt TALCOTT row ELL ....'. Editor EAKL D. BAKER Basinets Manager , Phone Riley 5551

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MONDAY. FEBRUARY 11. 1935. THE PRESIDENT’S PROGRAM "VT EARLY six weeks ago. President Roosevelt stood before Congress. “The Federal government," he said, “must and shall quit this business of relief." He asked Congress to co-operate in "the task of putting people to work." He outlined a bread and vigorous program for re-empioyment. His message rang through the land, and stirred anew the hopes and confidence of the people who in November had given the Administration a mandate to go forward. A lew days later, the President asked Congress to appropriate nearly five billion dollars and empower him to carry out his ulief-em-ployment program. A month later this bill—after being rushed through the House and pondered over and rewritten by the Senate Appropriations Committee —is now out on the Senate floor. A bitter senatorial debate has started. It may stretch into an interminable filibuster, with Senator after Senator offering amendments to appease special groups. •• • • MEANWHILE, millions of jobless, still remembering the President’s promise, shuffie through the streets and wait for action that *> ill place the tools of labor in their hands. Organized labor has marshalled its aweinspiring lobby. For what? To secure an amendment providing that those hired out of the government fund are paid “prevailing wrages.” And what is the “prevailing wage"? To the man out of work it is only a hypothetical standard. To give work to as many jobless on the basis of this largely non-existent wage scale would require an additional two billion dollars, and defeat the President’s plan to transfer the jobless as rapidly as possible from the government pay roll to permanent private employment. To wreck this plan for the sake of a paper wage scale would injure the real interests of American workers. Certain private contracting interests also poise their ladles to skim off the cream. They want to tie the government's hands and take profits from the money which the President intends to use for work wages. The purpose of the President’s program is to re-emi loy the jobless, bolster up purchasing power and thereby balance consumption with production. The law he proposes would give him a dipper to use in priming the pump of private industry. Yet, there are those who would refuse the President a dipper and use instead their own little eye-droppers. It would be better to save the water than let it dribble away and leave the pump unprimed. • • • 'T'HE President’s program is extensive. He describes it as follows: “This work will cover a wide field including clearance of slums, which for adequate reasons can not be undertaken by private capital; in rural housing of several kinds, where, again, private capital is unable to ft •'•tion; in rural electrification; in the re fore. on of the great water-sheds of the nation an intensified program to prevent soil ei tt and to reclaim blighted areas; in improv. existing road systems and in constructing ational highways designed to handle modem riffle; In the elimination of grade crossings; _a the extension and enlargement of the successful work of the civilian conservation coips; in r.on-Federal work, mostly self-liquidating and highly useful to local divisions of government; and on many others which the nation needs and can not afford to neglect." Speedy action is vital to the President’s program. if it is to achieve the mass effect at which it is aimed. We can not afford delay and red tape. It is time for our Senators to recall the President's warning: “Let him who, for speculative profit or partisan purpose. . . . take heed before he assumes responsibility for any act which Siows our onward steps.” HONOR WHERE DUE THE Charles E. Emmerich Manual Training High School today is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its founding. Famed sons of this famous Indianapolis institution have sent messages of congratulation, still others have corre “back home” to take part in the celebration, and educators are paying tribute to a great old school for 40 years of magnificent service. Old Manual is more thar just a high school to its thousands of sons anj daughters. Manual leaves a lasting imprint on its scholars, a tie so strorg that hundreds of graduates visit those familiar halls each year to chat with teachers, to take a peek at old classrooms. Manual richly deserves the honors that are being heaped upon it. Honor belongs where honor is due and the South Side institution of learning takes high place among those schools that turn out upright men and women each year. The Indianapolis Times strikes a personal note in adding its congratulations to the thousands of messages pouring in on Manual. Rov W. Howard, chairman of the board of the Scripps-Howard newspapers and president of The Times, is a “Manual man.” So are a score of long-time employes of this newspaper. Every one of those employes has the traits so marked in Manual's products—loyalty, honesty. a high sense of duty and ability. What school can boast of more? UNIFORM RATES OUTSTANDING in the new deal which the Indiana Public Service Commission has given utility patrons is the consistent movement toward establishing uniform electric rates throughout the state. Since the middle

FOR generations Indiana government has been bedeviled by a horde of petty tyrants in the lorm of minor office holders. During pioneer days, when transportation and communication were primitive, it was necessary that authority be strongly localized. A community with a flood, fire jr riot could not depend upon an official miles distant from the scene. Today the whole tissue of government in our state swarms with useless politicians who feel that they have a vested right in their Jobs, which are largely hangovers from the covered wagon days. It costs money to maintain 92 separate county governments when half as many would serve the purpose. It is expensive to support a tremendous system of sheriffs, township trustees, etc., and their assistants when tneir work could be done ny far fewer persons. But both major parties have clung to this archaic multiplication of public pay rolls because of the patronage involved. The result of this jealous insistence on petty privilege has been that people in this state are too prone to think _s lXmocrats or Republicans instead of as Americans. Every time a state administration changes, the public service falls into utterly inexperienced hands. Gov. McNutt’s committee on government economy has recommended that 3000 state employes, which would mclude the state police, penal institution officials and guards, be placed under a strict merit system which would be administered by a personnel division of the state government Thus, regardless of the administration in power, there would always be a nucleus of persons who knew their ousiness to run the affairs of the state. Every swaggering barnyard and curbstone politician will fight such a measure. Yet it is one of the most important suggestions that has been made at the present session. There Is no good reason why the people of Indiana should continue to support a myriad of useless drones. The merit system is a step in the right direction. The covered wagon days have been gone for ; good while. Let us aim for efficiency instead of privilege in govvernment. a a a "VTRS. ROBERTA WEST NICHOLSON’S ■*•*•*■ bill for eliminating sex lacketeering from Indiana is now before the Senate. She is asking the abolition of breach of promise suits from our courts. Any sophisticated person knows that decent voraen do not sue for breach of premise. We are all familiar with the type of female who sets a monetary value on her body. The price makes no difference. Neither does the means of collection. Ten states have written bills based on Mrs. Nicholson's. Her proposal has been publicized all over the United States. Comment has been invariably favorable. Yet it is reported that some opposition to the bill is developing among the state Senators. Os course, this opposition is coming only from the jackleg lawyer who fears he may be forced out of fees for collecting legal blackmail. Decent attorneys do not accept suits of that type and most of them favor the Nicholson bill. It will be interesting to see whether the Senate will go along with a handful of shyster lawyers or whether it will decide in favor of a splendid moral reform. a a a COME misguided patriots have formulated a piece of legislation which would place in the hands of the Board of Elections the sole power of barring or admitting parties to a place on the ballot. This bill, now in the Senate, was obviously aimed at Communists. It would not allow my party to be on the

of last year many of the discriminatory and unwieldy rates based on local units have been replaced by the system method. By these steps Indiana already has moved to correct in this state the glaring rate discrepancies brought to light in the recent national survey conducted by the Federal Power Commission, when it was found that the spread between high and low charges is as much as 343 per cent. Much of the wide variance by the survey can be traced to the failure of state regulatory bodies to meet changed conditions in the electric power industry by clinging to the obsolete theory that only the “used and useful” property of a utility that lies within the corporate limits of a city or town should be considered in fixing rate valuations. With the interconnected power system which senes Indiana, bringing electrical energy from generating stations many miles away, it is manifestly impractical to use only the company’s property within the city limits as the valuation for determining rates. Furthermore, any attempt to establish rates on such an unwieldy basis necessarily must result in discrimination between various cities and towns served by the system. In years past, each city and town was served by a small plant located within its boundaries and the entire output of that plant was consumed by residents in the community. It was only fair, under such conditions, that the rates should be based on the valuation of that plant alone. Now each community is only one customer of a large system, and the cost of the system operation must be borne equally by all customers, just as any merchant establishes his selling price. Further commendation can be given the Indiana Public Sendee Commission in that each change-over to the system rate was accompanied by a substantial reduction in distomers’ bills without the costly rate hearings and litigation which always resulted in the past when the case of each community required a lengthy separate hearing. The fact that the last three orders handed down by the commission, establishing system rates and reducing customers’ bills more than half a million dollars annually, were sought on voluntary petitions by the companies also gives rise to the hope that Indiana utilities have seen the light and are attempting to conform with the inevitable new deal promise of cheaper electricity. Only 32.000.000 people can be accommodated in Heaven, estimates an evangelist, and all along we didn't think there were that many evangelists. Great Britain soon is to have television broadcasting. The United States isn’t ready yet to be disillusioned.

A Merit System BY TALCOTT POWELL

ballot when such party recommended the overthrow' of government by force. It makes the Board of Elections the judge of whether any political group are advocates ot violence. Such legislation, we think, defeats its own purpose. Ballots instead of bullets have axways been the American way of bringing about changes. If you bar any group of citizens from even an opportunity for political self-expres-sion you merely tempt violence. Incidentally, the extraordinary powers which this bill would give to the Board 0.. Elections would enable the two major political parties to perpetuate themselves forever. All they have to do is decide that a party has violent tendencies and its members can not vote the ticket of their choice. In its present foim this legislation is merely a waste of time Decause its provisions are obviously unconstitutional. The danger is that before the courts have a chance to pass on it radicals of all sorts will be using it as a document to gain converts. The Communist charges that we are Tving under a tyrannical government in which the worker has no voice. Do the state Senators wish to prove such a charge by passing this bill? a a a TTSTHEN the President es the United States * " rebukes any organization or • individual, that is news. If the object of his criticism is a newspaper there is no reason why such a newspaper should be shielded any more, for instance, than a public utility. v It is unfortunate that the Indianapolis News placed itself in such a position in the State-NRA controversy .hat Mr. Roosevelt felt it necessary to say that he had been the victim of ‘‘extraordinary misrepresentation.” Such incidents are detrimental to the whole newspaper profession. The News correspondent was accused by the White House of two serious breaches of journalistic ethics: First, that he misinterpreted the President’s attitude on a stateNRA; second, that he violated an agreement of months’ standing that the President was not to be quoted on pending legislation. There is no question involved of the News’ right to oppose this proposed law. The Times has not favored it in its present form although we believe that the answer lies in co-opera-tion between the government and the business men rather than in silly rowing. Newspapers are the only businesses singled out in the Constitution for special mention. They are granted freedom of the press. With the grant goes a responsibility not to abuse that freedom. In its news columns a newspaper should hold up an accurate mirror to contemporary affairs. It should print the facts without twisting or coloring them. The place for comment is the editorial rage and the special signed column. A NEWS paper must make every human effort to keep its NEWS free from the taint of the whims of its owner or its advertisers. No man should undertake to operate a newspaper who is unwilling to accept this obligation, even though at times he may have to do violence to his pocket book, his prejudices, his family or his friends. Every experienced newspaper man knows and accepts this as a part of the game. After all, the sovereign people give the press its freedom because the newspaper is expected to print the facts which people need to know if they are to govern themselves. If the newspapers as a whole ever begin to distort facts to make them fit personal or party prejudice then the people will abolish freedom of the press. That is why we believe the rebuke of Mr. Roosevelt to the News is an extremely regrettable incident.

Capital Capers —BY GEORGE ABELL

FORMER Postmaster General Walter Brown once testified before a House committee that he had bought anew limousine, because the old one wasn’t roomy enough for his top hat. ( Incidentally, a good many people feel this was a legitimate complaint.) But a good many top hats now perched high on the heads of the President’s Cabinet may have their crowns lowered shortly. Members of the House Appropriations Committee have disclosed they have put a $2500 limit on the purchase price of cars bought for department heads. The State Department asked for S4OOO to buy Secretary Hull anew car. The Labor Departmenl; wanted to spent $3500 to buy anew machine for Secretary Frances Perkins. Her old car was demolished in an accident four months ago. Secretary Roper was to have had a car costing $3500. Now all these ambitions have been nipped by the committee's action, and it looks as if precedence in official circles will have to be confined to dining rooms and drawing rooms. On the broad highways, Secretary bull’s car may look no different than that of Secretary Swanson. Philosophically, Assistant Secretary Wilbur J. Carr, observed: “I know that Secretary Hull would not want to appear to be trying to outclass his own fellow Cabinet officers.” a a a AS the waves of the ocean inspired Ulysses, the turbulent Atlantic in mid-winter has inspired Minister Charalambos Simopoulos of Greece to poetic heights. Envoy Simopoulos. whose flowing mustachlos and excellent bridge-playing once charmed Washington dowagers, has just arrived in London to assume his position as Minister to the Court of St. .tames. From the steamer he has sent back a letter describing a purple, gold and green sunset over the Atlantic. Asa matter of fact, the ocean was not turbulent at all. The passage, writes His Greek Excellency, was delightfully smooth. As the ripples broke at the prow of the giant liner, Rex, Envoy Simopoulos paced the deck and viewed the sunset. Impulsively, he sat down in a steamer chair and started to write. Result: A magnificent ode to the sun, slipping beyond the horizon in a maze of glory. At the conclusion of his Greek masterpiece, Charalambos added a graphic line: ‘ But Washington is more beautiful than any sunset, and—ah, how I regret it!” a a a YOUTHFUL R**p. Charles A. Halleck, new Republican congressman from Indiana, is a quick worker. Mr. Halleck arrived from the Second District —a traditional Republican stronghold which presented to Congress the late Will Wood. The new member took the oath of office, and five minutes later had voted three times with the Republican minority—a voice vote, a rising vote and a roll call vote. First man to die under Esthonia’s new execution law chose hanging to drinking the poison cup. He probably had had experience with a cocktail mixed by an amateur.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. Make yout letters short, so oil can have a chance. Limit them to ZSO words or less. Your letter must he signed, hut names will be withheld at request oj the letter writer.J a a a WASTE BASKET DIDN’T GET THIS ONE By Robert Kissling. H. L., who are you to answer my letter written months ago when I asked why they wouldn’t print my letters, not of this type particularly? Neither was I condemning this paper or the editor except one time I asked if this shining sun with the two-way beacon light was not the one and the same paper which promised the boys in 1917 that when they returned the world would be ours and which now fights us veterans so bitterly. But by the motto of this column by Voltaire, I did state some ugly truths about this paper’s pet political party and the very fact that the editor, “can’t take it” is proof to me that it wasn’t crooked thinking, but pure, undeniable facts; ugly truths. I have not written to any other paper—don’t know as to how well they personally take to this kind of fan mail, but I have failed to find any other paper that advertises its fairness to a section of this kind as broadly as this paper does. Now correspond the advertised fairness of this section to another paper that makes no promise at all, balance the results of both and the percentage is the same. I love the Message Center and never fail to read it, every word of it every day, but the fact is that the last three letters I have written were chucked in the waste basket, complete, not one word printed; the one before them was so dissect* \ that I was ashamed to see my name tacked to it. The reason maybe, is that I am a state subscriber and do not pay enough to be eligible to this coveted space. So when my subscription expires, I shall change newspapers and save money. Having then no Message Center to read I shall save stamps by not writing for your trash basket, where this probably will go. Oh, wall, one more won’t make any difference —just 3 cents plus effort. a a a COMES TO DEFENSE OF FARMER By Raymond Clapper. I would like to enlighten R. J. B. on a few things. Why wouldn’t the farmer be heard from coast to coast when he was getting 5 cents a gallon • for milk, 25 cents for wheat, 11 cents for corn, 2 cents for hogs and no sale at all for cattle? When he bought tools, he paid a wartime price and other equipment was just as high. When the farmer gets a good price, labor will get a good price in return. The reason the farmer did not have to get relief was that he knew how to manage. The farmer has been as hard hit as persons in town, but R. J. B. can not see it that way. He should have gone back to his farm to live. If he made good money on his farm his tenant worked for little or nothing. Men living in town work from six to eight hours a day, but the farmer works 16 hours a day. He pays taxes on the idle ground that he leases to the government and gets in return a small* sum. He would have gotten more had he farmed the land. Everything the farmer gets he has to work for the same as any one else. Why can’t the town women organize home economics clubs the same as the fanners’ wives. Instead they

WANNA BUY A DUCK?

Working Wife Strikes Back at Critics

By Mrs. Doolittle. M. Trilby, I believe that Mrs. W. M. G. has you on the spot just about where you belong and we know why you want to push us married women out of the jobs we have worked hard to hold instead of getting out on your own and doing something less desirable. Within the last few years my employer has tried out, with extreme patience, 11 so-called office girls. All of these girls except two were single. Their minds ran on nothing except parties, boy friends, clothes and appearance. They wouldn’t even eat enough to have strength to work for fear of becoming fat; their days were filled with phone calls and personal calls in attempts to fit out a party for the night; lunch hours were extended in order to find something to wear that would outshow the others to a certain extent. So with all of these adverse conditions to face and from the fact that all of these single girls and one of the married women could not do the work even half-way right, the same old married woman is still at the post earning about twice as much for her employer as she receives in salary. Out of the 11 try-outs, one ot the married women stayed with us two years until she paid lor their furniture and car and had mastered the loan on their home. She quit work, had a child, forgot her shoi.*iand, and had another child. Her husband contracted some sort of ailment in his ear and face and they are all four now on relief, whereas if she had kept on work-

organize bridge clubs. Turning money over to the town people would be spent, “but. how”? Few farmers go to the movies, night clubs, beer joints, etc. The reason the .farmer doesn’t have an abundance of cream, butter and milk is because he has to save to pay his bills. Don’t accuse the farmer of making big profit. Tho ores who make the profit are the middle men. You might be one of them. If the person who works for a day’s wage hasn’t courage enough to organize and ask for a living wage he will always have a hard time. I live in the city but have a little sympathy for the farmer. a a a NICHOLSON BILL AROUSES IRE By Mrs. O. F. Powell. Having read some of the “doings” in the State Legislature recently I am moved with disgust in more ways than one! First is Mrs. Nicholson’s bill against breach of promise and alienation of affection suits that would give an immoral or homewrecking woman still more rope to live brazenly and openly in her sin, if the bill is passed. I will admit some breach of promise suits are disgusting, but all are not, especially if some cad has not only helped to rob a woman of her love, but also left her with his child to support. I have no use for a much married gold digger divorcee, but in outlawing them one often adds more sorrow to the other type. For a wife to be fined and imprisoned to even name as corespondent the one who had wrecked her home, would be like beating an innocent child until it was almost dead, then threatening it with more and greater punishment if it told who did it. That “wishy-washy” sentiment of a certain columnist “that we do not

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

ing they could have gotten along somehow. What do you suggest for her now? Os all the squawkers about married women working not one has offered a solution of the problem when the husband’s job is gone or when he passes out of this world, when he becomes unable to work or even if he takes a notion to leave you for someone else. You might say that we are no better than you to be in that condition, but I’m not asking for a worthless reply; I want a constructive and intelligent solution after we have given the best of our lives to a certain “job” and feel that it belongs to us and not to the flapper. If I wanted work as badly as you act like you do. I wouldn't try to push someone else out, I would put an act in the paper, set my own price, and ask for a job of housework. You would get at least two dozen good calls. I know, for my sister has done it more than once. There are thousands of such jobs in Indianapolis, but you girls don’t want that kind of work for you can’t chase out nights with a bottle and a cigaret. I would like to see you even try to do my job. You couldn’t do it until after you had been here five years or more, but still you are little enough to ask for it. Don’t be that way; you’ll be married some day and if you have any initiative at all you will not wish to stay home cooking beans and having little ones with all sorts of bills and bills and bills confronting your husband until he leaves you in the “soup.”

embarass those we love,” in such a case, is too silly for words. I suppose then if we loved or had loved a neighbor who turned bandit and robbed us of our life’s savings and on learning who had robbed us we would try, by law, not only to name him but punish him, we in like manner should be fined and imprisoned for it. Bosh! a a a ALIGNS SOCIALISTS FOR TOWNSEND PENSIONS By Socialist, Inc. I am very anxious to reply to the published debate between Norman Thomas and Dr. Townsend and, as a Socialist of many years’ standing, I want to make it plain that Norman Thomas’ deductions should be relegated to those things which are purely non-socialistic in essence. The Townsend plan should receive a qualified support from all Socialists in so far as it is a powerful expression of a principle which Socialists have been striving for since many years ago. Fundamental Socialists recognize the humanitarian effort evinceu in a retirement plan for those who have spent their best years in the service of society. Norman Thomas, in support of the Detroit declaration of principles, announced the imperative need for “drastic action.” This implied almost anything smacking of control of government through means even other than democratic effort. Why is Mr. Thomas so solicitous about

Daily Thought

If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a taijd which floweth with milk and honey.—Numbers, xiv, 8. HE who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.—Confucius,

.FEB. 18, 1933

big business paralysis that appears to be the consequen 3 should the Townsend plan succeed? Mr. Thomas must remember that big business is now paralyzed since its resort to governmental suosidy for support. Mr. Thomas, as titular head, or should I say, “grand deacon” of the Socialist party, should heed the confusion of the moment and not contribute to the general hysteria. The Socialist party must begin to express itself through men grounded in the feeling of a beautiful philosophy that attends to all who have studied the essentials, the all-embracing need toward every human desire. We should be done with men whose rampage against this and that is but the selfish desire for publicity. The Socialist scheme would extend the Townsend plan to a larger field not in terms of so many hundred dollars a month, but in terms of economic and human security. As Socialists, however, we recognize the implication of the Townsend plan as a move against a social structure which allows the thousands who have done their bit to sink into oblivion and starvation while the world moves on in its hectic manner, to further insanity, to further multiplications of social and political panaceas, getting nowhere and doing little.

So They Say

I am convinced that it is the duty of all branches of industry to recognize more and more the importance, not only from the social standpoint, but in its own interests, of providing greater social security.—Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president. General Motors. There is a temporary excuse for federal assistance to the indigent.— James A. Emery, general counsel, National Manufacturers’ Association. I am all for British machines, but empire aviation is behind the times in development of high-speed, longdistance aircraft. Sii Charles Kingsford-Smith. Both the East and West coasts are too highly conditioned by borrowed ideas to produce important art soon.—Thomas H. Benton, famous painter. The Metropolitan (Opera House) has a certain beauty and above all it has a tradition—a tradition which it would be foolish to throw away.— Walter Damrosch, famous conductor. Baseball of the future is going to be less of a pink tea affair.— Branch Rickey, vice president of St. Louis Cardinals.

INTERLUDE

BY ALYS WACHSTETTER Green shaded earth, pressed to your breast— So closely braced ... by blades of grass I’m knived— Here I find the placid serenity of peace. From all things bearing contest I am rived. Time swiftly spends loitering here. But combats must be won; I arise and take the spear. And so I drink no more from the tranquil fountain of your calm, No lingering thirsts I allow Myself. From this brief haven I depart . . . Staying nurtures a torpor I fight now.