Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 246, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 February 1935 — Page 20

PAGE 20

The Indianapolis Times % oßim noKißo SEWirirEßi rot ff. HOWARD Present TA! *'OTT POWELL ... Editor EABL D. BAKER ....... Bnin** Manager Phone Rtley S.YII

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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 23. IMS. GREED FOR JOBS 4 LL too typical of one group of con- *■ zressional Democrats is the House Banktrie Committee's proposed amendment to the Home Owners' Loan Corporation law. It would give ait HOLC 90 days to and- - all employes n„. residents in the parti ilar states rr districts where they are workins. and would make only residents eligible for appointment thereafter. Obviously this amendment has but one purpose—to give Democratic congressmen more patronage. Certainly it is not a move calculated to improve the lahber of the HOLC personnel. In the first few months of the HOLC. the job-hunters of Congress had a happy time. Their one-time colleague. “Seaboard Bill" Stevenson of South Carolina, was the head of the corporation crea'ed “to relieve dis- | treked home owners'' He apparently considered it his duty to relieve distressed Democratic congressmen—and to them he ■ threw open the HOLC pay roll. The loaded it down with faithful party followers# In a few months the HOLC had bogged down, and it became apparent that smne brains were needed to pull the HOLC out of the mire and start it operating. Seaboard Bill was dismissed, an John H. Fahey was installed as chairman, M'. * a.iey overhauled his staff. The TiOLC has >nce been running smoothly so far as its bus ness operations are concerned, but has had rough going politically, due to the snipping of disappointed patronage-seekers. Now comes this new patronage amendment, which, if adopted, will impair the efficiency of the HOLC. Some congressmen seem not to realize that the HOLC was created primarily as a business organization and that the corporation and its employes are servants of and trustees for the taxpayers. IF .MR. PERRY HAD WON IF ohn M Perry who sued for his gold in the Liberty Bond case had won, acre is what it would have meant to him, ’.n terms of purchasing power: For every dollar of his bond he would row be able to buy $2 87 worth of commodities. It figures this way: In purchasing power the dollar, as compared with the time the bond was bought, has increased 70 cents, I making it worth $l7O. His suit for gold con- : tended for 69 per cent on top of that. Total, $2.87. if Mr. Perry had been victorious. That is what dissenting Supreme Court Justice Mcßeynolds calls justice. GEORGE WASHINGTON BACK in George Washington's day the words left and right had no political connotations. If you were a conservative they called you a tors', and if you were very conservative you were an out-and-out monarchist; if you were radical you were a Democrat, and if you were downright Bolshevik! they called you a Jacobin. But whatever the words were. Washington had the same sort of problem that any leader must face in time of social upheaval—the Job of steering a fair course between the extremes demanded by different groups of his fellows. He was unquestionably a conservative at heart. He was a landed country- gentleman—probably the richest man in America, by all accounts—and he was an aristocrat by birth and training. Yet he was a rebel, too. To revolt against the king was no light thing, in those days. If the revolution had failed. Washington would unquestionably have been hanged, drawn and quartered in the tower of London, and he knew it as well as any one. The man who led the Colonial Army in 1776 must have had a good streak of the radical in him somewhere. In his own character he balanced the radical and conservative elements perfectly; and we add “First in peace'* to that familiar tag, because he did the same thing as President. That was no easy thing for him to do. any more than it is an easy thing to do today. On the one side were powerful influences which wanted the new nation contaminated as little as possible by this pernicious democracy business —some of them, indeed, wanted a new monarchy over here. On the other side were the ultra-radicals, who wanted their democracy made as absolute as possible. Washington listened to both sides —and made both sides work together for the country. He teamed Hamilton and Jefferson together in ins cabinet, which would be something like grouping Ogden Mills and Norman Thomas today. He steered a way straight down the middle. Hamilton got much that he wanted, and so did Jefferson. What the country got was a solid beginning on which it was able to continue the great experiment in self-government for many generations. The middle course is never very popular or spectacular. But it served the country very j w ell indeed, as Washington applied it. Might . rot the same thing be true today? INSURANCE PRESENTS PROBLEM BEFORE we get through with the vexing issue of unemployment and social security insurance, we are likely to find that our education on the subject of money and the way it works has been considerably extended. If the insurance and security measures pending in Congress should be adopted in their present form, they would eventually roll up an enormous Federal fund which would have some of the characteristics of a bit of radium. That is. it would be continuously active, and unless insulated pretty carefully it might have effects not counted on by its possessors. Congressmen Robert L. Dough ton and Carl Vinson, of the House Ways and Means Copamiuee, estimated recently that by 1980 the ie-

curtty plan would have built up a reserve fund of no less than $50.000 000.000. This, to begin with, would provide a fund with which the government could buy its own securities, thereby paying interest to itself and mixing up the ordinary debtor-creditor idea in a way to make a man dizzy’. In addition, the surplus could be used for investment in other types of securities, these securities to be sold when the money was needed. But at this point anew complication arises. David Cushman Coyle points out, in an article in the March issue of Scribner's magazine, that to handle any big security fund In this way will be to accentuate the swings of the business cycle which a security fund is supposed to guard against. One great cause of depression, Mr. Coyle remarks, is over-investment during boom periods. If the government's security fund is to be put into securities, this tendency will be tremendously accelerated. Nor is that all. When the crash comes, things are made worse, because security holders hasten to unload for what they can get. It would be right at such moments that the government, needing cash money for its security payments, would be obliged to sell the securities it had bought. Thus, says Mr. Coyle, the fund w-ould be a means of aggravating the instability of business with one hand, while preparing to relieve the casualties with the other. It is Mr. Coyle's idea that such a fund should be simply hoarded—kept in the sock, so to speak, drawing no interest, invested in nothing. This may seem to defy all principles of sound finance; yet money, and the ivay it w-orks in human society, are mysterious and sometimes illogical things. If w-e are to get away from these disastrous swings of the business cycle, w-e may have to 'ollow some such seemingly unsound course as Mr Coyle has outlined. NEPOTISM / I 'HE Seventy-fourth Congress' first monthly ■*- pay roll lists some 40 clerks or secretaries whose family are identical with those of House members. It will not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the congressmen are taking care of tlieir relatives. Nepotism is an old Roman custom which has been practiced long enough in Washington to become a venerable tradition. In prosperous times it violates good taste and good public practice. In hard times it is flagrantly unfair to those who need jobs more than the Congressman's relatives. Every session sees agitation to stop the practice, but it continues. Apparently the inst.net of man to look out for his sisters and his cousins and his aunts is too deep to be uprooted. An appropirate question is: Are they earning their salaries? Some of these relatives work hard. Others do not. Cases have been reported where a House member has drawn pay for children attending school in Washington. Such practices are illegal as well as reprehensible. House Democrats who are demanding that the executive branch provide jobs for their friends would do well to look to their own patronage practices before they demand the discharge of able and useful Republicans. IN THE BACKGROUND A N 82-year-old ex-hodcarner has won the annual award of the Denver Artists’ Guild for the outstanding painting of the year; and thereby seems to hang a little human interest story which doubtless has had its counterparts among artists of- all times and places. For the concluding paragraph of the announcement of this man’s triumph remarked that his wife has taken in washing for the last eight years so that her husband could paint. In allocating the credit for this man's artistic success, then, it is pretty obvious that a goodly share ought to go to his wife. And that is quite frequently the case with the wife of an artist. She never gets any particular acclaim for her husband's achievements; but in many, many cases she makes his success possible by so lightening his ordinary cares and responsibilities that he is able to devote himself to his art. HOW STUDENTS FEEL A CROSS-SECTION of. opinion on the lssues of war and peace has been obtained from American college and university campuses by the Literary Digest—whose editors apparently are not happy unless they are polling somebody about something —and the results are interesting. Os the 112.607 students polled. 90 per cent favored government control of munitions manufacture; 50 5 per cent opposed American entrance in the League of Nations; two-thirds expressed belief that America can stay out of the next great war; and 83 per cent said they would willingly defend the country* in case of invasion. It would be interest!’ ? to know how closely this reflects the sen*'*- of the country as a whole. Offhand, on At suggest that it is not very far from it. It's a fair bet that the average citizen distrusts the munition makers and The league, feels that his country* ought to keep out of the next war, and is ready to do his bit if any one else starts anything. INTEGRITY 'T'HE man whose birthday we celebrate today was not as turbulent a revolutionary as Samuel Adams, as great a statesman as Thomas Jefferson, as great a civilizer as Benjamin Franklin, nor as great a general as Robert E. Lee. But no American, and perhaps no man of history, had more integrity. W. E Woodward, writing of Washington, said: “The keynote of his personality was character, not intellect, nor imagination, nor t feeling. He was a perfect pattern of will and self-disciphne. He possessed fortitude, steadfastness. dignity, courage, honesty and selfrespect." More than ever in its history the republic, of wftich Washington was first citizen, needs to remember that there is no substitute for character. With the Hauptmann jury in vaudeville, People will begin to wonder whether Hauptmann really Is guilty.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

“Living Triumphantly, by Kirby Page. (Farrar & Rinehart.) a a a “The Challenge of Leisure.” by Arthur Newton Pack. (Macmillan Company.) 0 a a a “A New Deal In Liquor,” by Yandell Henderson. (Doubleday, Doran & Cos.) nun KIRBY PAGE has written a number of extremely stimulating books attacking war and promoting social justice. In the present volume he returns more definitely to his earlier interests as a minister of the gospel. The spirit and theme of his latest book is well indicated by the following paragraphs: “The most thrilling idea that ever entered the mind of men Is thus: There exists a wise and powerful and affectionate God, holy and righteous altogether, who eagerly desires to enter into intimate comradeship with htman beings created in His own image, and who challenges His children to become co-workers in the glorious adventure of creating a harmonious community i of kinsmen. “Driven by the dynamic of this idea, mankind | has climbed its loftiest pinnacles and nas reI vealed more vividly than may elsewhere be found the majesty and grandeur of the human spirit. Companionship with fellow mortals in a great enterprise is exhilarating; communion with the Eternal is inspiring; but only active co-partner-ship of man with God in building a fellowship on earth can release utterly his vast creative energies. For this reason, exalted religious exi perience has produced the noblest of all the sons ! of men.” a a a THIS is certainly a noble conception of God and his service, though Mr. Page himself has pointed out at great length in his own book on “Jesus or Christianity?” that not all Christians have conceived of God in this fashion or followed Him with such results. Anyhow we can wish him luck. And his book gives ample proof that he has by no means forgotten the possible social interests of Christianity. Mr. Pack has written one of the most realistic and valuable books devoted to the new problem of leisure. Its novelty and implications he makes very clear, to us. “Nothing, certainly, has been stranger or more replete with potentialities for change than the rediscovery of leisure Slowly creeping upon us in a manner little suspected because so easily absorbed in small quantities, leisure now rises to confront us as anew problem, and what was once regarded as the chief reason and goal of man's age-old struggle for wealth may soon become the lot of every one of us, whether we like it or not. “Just what is this New Leisure then? Manufacturers of cigarets will tell you it is time that can be well spent smoking ever greater quantities of cigarets—provided, of course, you smoke the particular brand they represent. Steamship and railroad companies w*ill tell you it is an opportunty for more travel. It is time to attend more movies, to beautify your school-girl complexion, time to read books and magazines, time to invest in guns, fishing tackle, skis. Time, in short, to buy. “The list is endless. For as usual the industrious gentlemen with an eye ever focused on the mam chance were not tardy in diverting this succulent phrase. ‘New Leisure,’ into possibilities of increased dividends in their own line of endeavor.” a a a MR. PACK devotes the rest of his work to a very stimulating series of chapters suggesting ways in which leisure may be made personally worth while and socially creative. Civilized drinking doubtless will plav its part in the leisure of the future and Prof. Henderson of Yale University has w*ritt.en one of the most sensible and constructive books devoted to this cause. He divides beverages into three classes, those below 5 per cent alcoholic content; those below 15 or 20 per cent, and those from 20 to 50 per cent. He would place no restrictions on the sale of the first class, would regulate the second class as we now do tobacco ano place the same severe restrictions on the sale of the third type as is now our practice in dealing with opium and similar dangerous and habit-forming drugs. In order to make spirits accessible except for medical purposes, he would have them diluted to from 12 to 15 per cent of alcohol at the distillery. Further to encourage the use of mild beverages he would put very light taxes on these and impose heavy ones on strong spirits. Here is a book which is worthy of the attention of both drys and guzzlers.

Capital Capers .BY GEORGE ABELL*-

MRS. CAROLINE O'DAY. New York's Con-gresswoman-at-large, and close friend of Mrs. Roosevelt, believes that members of the House of Representatives should become acquainted with one another. The other day. the idea was being discussed and Mrs. O'Day abruptly decided to give a party and invite all the “rookie” congressmen. In that way, she figured, the ice would be effectively broken. "I want every one to know who every one else is,” she explained. So there was a reception at 8 p. m. Wednesday at Mrs. O'Day’s Georgetown home (where she lives with Miss Frances Perkins. Secretary of Labor). All the new' congressmen—about 100 of them—came with their wives, except for the nine bachelors in the crowd. Following out the “know every one” idea of Mrs. O'Day, guests were tagged. Each congressman wore a placard around his neck with his name plainly printed and the name of the state w'hich he represents. If Congress doesn't know' itself after Mrs. O'Day’s party, you can’t blame the hostess. Note—A buffet supper w'as one of the features of the O’Dav reception. The reason for having the party so early is that congressmen may come directly from their offices to the affair, and they needn't wear evening clothes unless they w'ant to. an o THERE is a subtle difference between a w'easel and an easel. You can't take a weasel into the White House. One of the many artists who have been painting President Roosevelt’s portrait arrived at the White House the other afternoon, carrying a bulky package under his arm. A White House guard, alert against cranks, pointed suspiciously to the bundle. “What's that you have under your arm?” “That's an easel.” replied the artist. “A w'hat?” said the guard. “An easel.” “Well,” muttered the attendant, shaking his head. “I guess it's all right . . “But” he added warningly, “you can’t take it in there if it's alive.” Almost any householder would feel now that he was making a good sw'ap if he could trade two coalmen for an iceman. Dr. Tor~.send says one of the first things beneficiaries of his relief plan would do would be to buy cars. But the very first thing would be to buy a square meal. The woman warden of the Oklahoma jail from which SI convicts escaped must be wishing now that she had attended to her knitting—at home. Now we ought to have a Supreme Court to clarify the Supreme Court's decision on the j gold '"’ation. I

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

pedia and Atlas: “No word has been more abused and misunderstood than the word Socialist. The Socialist is not an anarchist; the two are opposed in theory and practice. The Socialist does not propose to destroy the family, abolish religion or divide up property, nor does he seek to carry out his ideas by riot and bloodshed. In a single phrase, Socialism means public ownership of the means of production and working class control of the government, a chance to work for all who will, and to all workers the full value of their product.” A vote for the two old parties is a vote for the continuation of the present asinine attempts to restore prosperity. A vote for Socialism is a vote for a chance to work for all who will and can. help for the aged and helpless, every man the fruits of his labor and hell for those who won’t work. tt tt tt

OLD-TIME RELIGION IS NEED OF NATION TODAY By Arthur Black I have read the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. If the man is guilty I think he should pay for it. Why do they call him world’s public | enemy No. 1. If it had been some j poor man’s child there would have i been little said about it. We have j had cases in our country just as : terrible as the Lindbergh case. Now the jury is going to make a dignified stage appearance for S3OO j a week. I would think that this jury of men and women would be better ofT if they would get their Bibles and peruse them, then go to church and Sunday School. What this country needs is more I and more old-time religion. a tt tt FORGOTTEN MAN REALLY IS FORGOTTEN, HE SAYS By John Connor The average citizen takes it for granted that the voice of the American Legion is the voice of the veteran; such is not the case. A more appropriate name for that outfit would be the “Legion of Ballyhoo.” j The legion may be a non-political, organization, but the members seem j to have an awful lot to say about what laws are good or bad for us. Their latest splurge is this antired bill. I remember being taught about some patriotic Americans who did a real job of government over- j throwing about 1776. One tries to figure out this de- ; pression and some of the crackpot schemes which are being tried while millions of us are undernourished and underclothed, skimping on this and cutting down on that. It is high time something was done about it. Seems lilp somebody said back in 1929 something about two chickens

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The Message Center

(Times renders ore invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 559 words or less. Your letter must be signed, but names will be withheld at request of the letter writerJ a a a SOCIALISM WILL GIVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORK Bv R. Sprungor I agree with B. B. M. of Noblesville that we are ready for anew age, but his theory will not work because it still leaves the root of evil—-capitalism—with us. To abolish capitalism with its misery and starvation, we must have complete modern Socialism. The following was copied from the American Year-Book, Cyclo-

GOOD GOSH!

Capital Is State Leader

Bv a Stagehand Prosperity can not be ushered in while millions of our population are deprived of consumption power. Their failure to consume is the prime cause of the so-called depression. Being without money forces their existence upon a bare subsistence level. Industry does not provide even that meager consumption power; the state had to assume the role of the Samaritan. Private industry has nc- responsibility to the state in the performance of its productive functions. Industry merely asks the state’s protective power to operate when it sees fit. Those who are on relief are nominally the sovereigns in the state. As sovereigns they go in rags and beg for charity. This is a real comedy of errors. A capital strike is legal, but a

in every pot and two cars in every garage. This was about the time the legion wanted the bonus in beer up in Detroit, but something went haywire with this, too. Then along came the New Deal for the forgotten man. It must have been a cold deck. I was mining coal dow*n in Sullivan County in 1917 when the first thing I knew T was being bulldozed by a hardboiled top sergeant. We took it all, for this was a war to make the world safe for democracy. Since we have grown older we see whose war it was. It didn’t take long those days to turn everything with beelike activty. Someone has said this is a war on hard rimes. No driving activity here now to win this one. Only the forgotten man is suffering, so there is no hurry. a a a BEAUTIFUL PARKS DO NOT AID NEEDY By Mr. Anna Smith In looking over Clarence Butler’s article, I must give my opinion on the beautiful parks and drives. If we had more homes with decent surroundings, places for children to play, substantial food for them to eat. decent clothes for them to wear, we would be doing far better than fixing more amusement places for the well-to-do who can afford some one to do the dirty work while they have good times. I am not against beautiful places, but I do think that while there is so much suffering humanity, these places can wait. I say, give the children a chance so they can look a person in the eye without shame. I beg you remember the married women have to work, or else. lam a widow. How many times I have been told I was too old to work. I try for house- j work and receive $2.50 a week for this. Who can do with wages like i that and enjoy life? I am not send- j ing this as a rub, but as common sense. a a a NATION STTLL RULED BY LEADERS OF PAST, HE SAYS Bv W. William* By an overwhelming vote in 1932, this nation booted the Hoovers, the Coolidges, the Tafts and the Hardings off the political stage. This booting was confirmed again last November. You said you wanted a New Deal. You were through, or thought you were, with the old deal under Hoover, with its riches on one side and its poverty* on the other, j You whooped tt up tot all the 1

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

labor strike brings out troops. All the legal machinery of the state is geared to prohibit the production of wealth by our private industrial system, except as the owners set the terms and conditions for operation. The machinery has priority legal rights over human rights and wants. Could this possibly be called a democracy? If it happened in Russia or Turkey we would call it autocracy. Our Legislature makes laws to protect the squirrels and rabbits in their right to life. The open season, however, for industry seems to be the year around. Could some of our mossback legislators ever think of fixing a social responsibility on our industrial property, so it would meet human needs? What do we want to recove-?

Roosevelt plans to rehabilitate the Forgotten Man; Congress abdicated its sacred right to make laws. Merrily the New Deal scattered its doles and its jobs at what I would call starvation wages and then someone thought of the Supreme Court; suddenly you find that these nine men really and truly rule the nation. We find they are more powerful than all the rulers of Europe and they rule without assuming any of the responsibilities of kings, dictators and presidents. You can not reach the Supreme Court by your ballot, which is the sole political weapon now available for your use. These men are paid $20,000 a with an extra SSOO for the Chief Justice. Just notice the difference in their wages and yours. Notwithstanding the fact that Hoover was unceremoniously booted off the stage along with all that Coolidge, Harding and Taft stood for, we find that Hoover and his Republican pals have seven votes on the Supreme Court as against two for Roosevelt, which came through the appointments of Wilson! The dead hands of Taft, Harding and Coolidge and the palsied hand of Hoover still rule the nation. It is well to keep this in mind. a a a TAXPAYERS’ ORGANIZATIONS DO NOT AID CITIZENS, HE SAYS Bt Will H. Craif. What good are our taxpayers’ organizations for the taxpayers? While every class of officers and every group of “special interest" are organized to the nth degree, our tax leagues, unions, farmers’ bureaus, et cetera, are closed up like oysters. The purpose of the tax organizations, it seems, is to get fees from members and give jobs to a few white shirt fellows. How are taxpayers to know about budgets and ecoriomic conditions? The Governor suppresses what doesn’t suit him and most newspapers are tied up to

Daily Thought

See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that wtiich Is good, both among yourselves and to all men.—Thessalonians 5:15. T? be doing good Is man’s most glorioue task.—Sophocles.

FEB. 22, 193$

petty institutions and special interests. What about the budget committee? It is backed by ex-Gov. Leslie as a graduate of Purdue and Gov. McNutt, graduate of Indiana. Why doesn’t this committee make its report so the people can have a look in before the jam of the closing days of the Legislature? If the Republican minority had a leader and with the guts of a chicken they could make it interesting for the “dictator” and his machine. God give us men to lift our burdens and lead us out of a wilderness. a an SUPPORTS ROOSEVELT AND HIS RECOVERY EFFORTS By ficnrfe Myers. Mr. Baxter, and I have my doubts if that is his right name, is another one of those men who have plenty of money, a nice home and a good radio and all the luxuries with plenty of clothes for himself and family. Now, because the Democratic Administration is imposing on such people a few more pennies in taxes to give us poor devils some work to earn a living, you yell your head off. You must have some great interest in the power business that you are yelling about the TVA. You are getting your toes stepped on, are you not? You had better come clean or you will get your whole boot tramped on. If you don't like our form of government and its operations, why don't you go to where there is a better one? I can tell you why you don't and that is because there is not another government in this world that is our government’s equal. Three cheers for the NR A, the TV/, and President Franklin Roosevelt!

So They Say

It was milk I drank and look a$ the size of me.— Walter Elliot, British minister of agriculture. Huey Long can’t win—and he can’t “take it.”—Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley, New Orleans. The church has no voice In world affairs; its influence is practically nil.—The Rev. Dr. Charles C. Peale, Columbus, O. People won’t stand for another winter of direct dole.—Aubrey Williams, assistant federal emergency relief administrator.

SMILE

by PAUL w. ROBBINS There's few folks use it— I'm sure more should— We’d all feel better. If more folks would. It gets new business And makes new friend*. On it, quite often, A sale depends. All of us have it— Our right by birth. So why not use it For all it's worth? It's a good habit, Always in style, To meet every one With h good, big—Snail* ,