Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 260, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 March 1935 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indianapolis Times <% *rmm-HOKAD xcffsrtrEi) *OT W. HOWARD PreM*nt TAI.COTT POWrLL Editor BARL D. BAKER Bailmi Uiniftr rtioß* RUfy s|

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MONDAY. MARCH 11. IMS FROM Cl*BA TO GREECE war in Cuba and Greece, Italy 's imperialist march toward Abyssinia, the conflict of dictatorships in the Baltic, the fourcornered mai.euvering for power of Germany, Prance, Bntun and Ru.ssia. and the steady Japanese push on the Asiatic mainland, spotlight the grim haste wltn which all of the large nations including our own are increasing their ; war preparedness. The immediate threat is in the ever-explo-aive Balkans. Larger stakes are at issue in Greece than those of republicans versus monarchists or dictators. Italy is suspected of supporting the Venizelist revolt in the hope of drawing Greece, with Albania and Bulgaria, Into Mussolini’s orbit. Yugosalvia and Turkey, ! partners of Greece in the Balkan pact, are preparing to prevent this. Bulgaria's protest j against the concentration of Turkish troops on i her border caused such alarm among the great j powers that the League of Nations has inter- j vened and induced Sofia to withdraw her pi vocative memorandum. Whatever the outcome of the present bitter civil war in Greece, prospects of Balkan peace are dark. Fortunately, the United States is not directly involved in the Balkans, but we are less lucky in the Caribbean with another Cuban revolution ablaze at our back door. A nation-wide general strike has been followed by martial Jaw and suspension of the constitution and the Mendieta-Batista dictatorship is taking extreme measures. Back of this revolt are both political and economic pressures. Political unrest *s fed by Mendirta's failure to carry out reform pledges of the 1933 revolution, and by increasing demand lor return to power of the more liberal Grau San Martin. Economically the island and most of the people are in wretched condi- j tion. Improvement along lines of land distribution and crop diversification, recently recommended by the Foreign Policy Association report anl by others, is a slow process apparently too hard for the compromising conservative government of Mendieta. The United States is involved indirectly not only because American capital dominates the island, but also because of the popular belief that Washington diplomacy got rid of Grau and handpicked the failing Mendieta. Even . Washington's concessions to Cuba in the form of a nrw trade treaty and abolition of the Platt amendment protectorate, and our avoidance of military intervention in the last revolution. have not eliminated the suspicion of many Cubans that Washington rules them through a puppet dictators! n. That Cuban hostility, wh. is reflected in part throughout Latin Amer. is an added reason for the Roosevelt adi istration to keep its hands as far away as . sible from ; the present revolution. GYPSY FARMERS A SENATE subcommittee is considering the Bankhead bill to create a Farm Tenant K>nes Corporation with one hundred million collars capital and power to issue one billion „ dollars in government guaranteed bonds. The funds would be loaned to that sizable population of tenant and sharecropper families now wandering from farm to farm, with no inducement to preserve the land and equipment they use. Through 30 to 50-year loans at low interest, they would be encouraged to become farm owners, establish homes, build land values and enter the social life of their communities. Forty-five per cent of American farmers j do not own the land they till. In Southern states —the single cash crop areas—tenancy ranges from 60 to 80 per cent. In the Kentucky tobacco belt and the Oklahoma cotton sector, the subcommittee learned, approximately 40 per cent of grade pupils drop out of school each term. Half of these depart during the tenant moving season. • During the last half-century, the increase of farm tenancy has been one of the undesirable yet widespread characteristics of rural America.” Henry Wallace, agriculture secretary. told the committee. “A large proportion of our tenants have little permar.ei.* interest in the land. We can hardly dea. fundamentally with soil erosion and other types of soil wastage until we bring about a change in the relationship of tenant fanners to the lands they operate. “In communities where tenancy is extensive there is an unusual degree of rural Liability and lack of well-knit social life. “Present conditions, especially in the South, provide fertile soil for Communist and Socialist agitators. “The American way to preserve the traditional order is to provide these refugees of the economic system with an opportunity to build and develop their own homes and to live on land which they can call their own.” Arguments that the government may lose money by inability to collect back all it lends in such a program are less persuasive than the need to make ours once more a nation of freeholders. BUSINESS AND EMPLOYMENT THE man who said that there are lies, dam’ lies, and statistics touched a popular chord. Mo-! of us learned to dislike figures while we were studying arithmetic m grade school and never got over it. Unfortunately, however, about the only way we can gauge the progress of our business recovery is by statistics. Still more unfortunately, the statistics that are now at hand are not entirely comforting. They show progress, to be sure- Ml P* €* / t

ress of w kind which creates new problems to replace the old ones. John T. Flynn summed It up very concisely In his recent newspaper articles. Comparing our ir.dustrk 1 output today with that of 1929, Mr. Flynn denonstrated that we have traveled 54 per cent of the way back—a pretty fair record, as far as production Is concerned. But In the matter of re-employment, we have covered only 28 per cent, of the distance. In wage levels, the gain from the 1932 low point is only 18 per cent. In pay rolls, we have gained but 21 per cent. Mr. Flynn draws this inescapable deduction from these figures: “It is perfectly plain that employers are spending an even smaller fraction of the cost of producing goods upon their workers." This does not mean that employers are a mean and conniving set of chiselers. It simply indicates that our recovery efforts are bumping us up against the knottiest problem of the modem age—the dismaying fact that modem industry is progressively able to produce more and more goods with the expenditure of less and less human effort. In the long run, any society which hopes to find its way back to a condition of peaceful plenty must find some way of answering that challenge. The Marxist says that there is no answer —that under capitalism it is utterly impossible to have both plenty and profits. The ordinary American won’t accept that statement. But for that very reason his obligation is so much the greater to find out how. under the existing social framework, the puzzle can be solved. No recovery' can be on a sound basis until employment, wage, and pay roll levels rise at something approaching the rate of production leveLs. AN AMERICAN SPEAKS REP. MAURY MAVERICK of Texas is attacking the latest American anti-red inquisition. The Texan, who wears medqls for bravery in battle, assailed the bills in Congress abridging the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment. He attacked the tyranny of California planters, the bunk about Communism in the Army and Navy, the attempt to inflate the handful of CommunLsts in the country into a red menace. He advised Army and Navy officers to go back to their business of defense and discipline and Congress to its job of relieving the distress of the people. “If we pass any statutes on the subject,” he told the House, “let us pass statutes to protect labor and the people of this country in organizing for their rights. Let us stop police brutality, deportations and illegal actions by officers. “It is very necessary that we do fundamental things for the restoration of world trade, for agriculture, for the rejuvenation of business and, in general, putting 11.000.000 men back to work. It is not necessary to pass hysterical legislation or hunt reds. There are enough laws on the books now to save this country. "We must maintain the freedom of speech and press and the liberty of conscience and religion.” THAT LIFE-SAVING COMMA EARLY four years ago, three officials of a defunct mortgage company in Cleveland were convicted of fraud charges in connection with their company’s sale of partial payment gold trust bonds. The conviction didn't end the matter. It went to the State Supreme Court, which ordered a new’ trial on the ground that the judge erred in his charge to the jury. The other day the retrial finally began. Then the defense attorneys argued that the indictment in the clause was faulty—because of a misplaced comma. They argued so well that the trial judge was obliged to agree with them and the men u-ere freed. Addressing the jury, the judge remarked that “this should illustrate the fallacy of making a criminal case a game instead of a method of arriving at justice.” That's putting it mildly. Here w’e have a criminal case that had dragged out for four y*ar —and it is finally disposed of because some typist put a comma in the WTong place! I! is any wonder that laymen grow’ impatient with the technicalities of the law? Perhaps It would be a good idea to let some Federal judges know that Franklin D. Roosevelt is President of the United States. "On Thus Site Was Born the Republican Party." reads a sign In Wisconsin. Democrats are looking about the country for the tombstone. Now the claim is made that Wiley Post's stratosphere plane was tampered with by a saboteur. Probably a man from Mars. A man in Florida demonstrated an invention by which he flew about like a bird. He took an awful chance, with the game bird shooting still on down there. The parents Dionne want to get control over their quintuplets. That’s funny. In the United States it's usually only one of the parents who wants custody of their children. The next thing for James M. Beck and Newton D. Baker to And unconstitutional is the overwhelming vote for President Roosevelt. When Eugene Grace, who drew such big bonuses during the World War, said he couldn’t see why the veterans should get theirs, it was far from a Grace-ful gesture. There will be no Jokes about the incor.ie tax in this department, for the simple reason that it IS no Joke. Depression seems to have made the country heartless. No one has offered to take up a collection for the woman who lost $300,000 in jewels in a Florida hotel robbery. Fashion designers are worrying about what the average man will wear this spring, but the average man isn’t. Hell wear last spring's suit, after getting it cleaned. That aviator who crossed the country in 114 hours needn't boast. It took less than half that tuna for Abyssinia to cross Mussolini.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

IN our absorption with domestic problems, issues of relief and the prospect of a boom, we are likely to lose sight of the broader aspect ! of world affairs which may upset our domestic apple cart by a devastating world war. Outside cf certain European cross currents I and conflicts and certain major sore spots in | post-war Europe, the Japanese issue is probably the outstanding menace to world peace. One | of the most intelligent studies of the Japanese situation is that by Messrs. O. Tannan and E. Yohan on “Militarism and Fascism in Japan’’ (International Publishers). The authors are leading Russian authorities on the Far East and are intimately familiar with Japanese materials. They give us a clear history of the rise of Japanese imperialism and militarism, discuss the j struggle of classes in Japan, and outline the prospects for the future of Japanese foreign policy. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is the illuminating contrast between the development of Fascism in Europe and in Japan. In Europe the Fascists and the Militarists are usually either one and the same thing or else | act with unanimity. In Japan, on the contrary, there is a growing rift between the Militarists and the Bureaucrats on the one hand, and the middle-class Fascists and their popular supporters on the other. Both groups are chauvinistic, but if the internal struggle becomes sharp enough, it may paralyze foreign aggression. a a a IF they unite on their foreign policy the prospect is decidedly one of a drive against Communism in Siberia and China or a war with the United States. Hence, the folly of any break between the United States and Russia. RussoAmerican unity is the only adequate checkmate to Japanese imperialism in the Far East, en:ouraged as it is by certain jealous European states. In his "Riding the Tiger" (Houghton Mifflin). Henry Carr presents a vivid journalistic impression of Sino-Japanese conflict §nd of the developments in the new China. It is nc such profound analysis as we discover ir the preceding book, but it is an extremely entertaining and informing collection of impressions of the contemporary Far East. Very interesting and significant is his suggestion that the intellectual leadership of the new China is passing from America to Europe. "Until now most of the Cantonese have gone to America to college. Europe has started a hard drive to get them. The European manufacturers found that boys trained with American machinery come back to China and order American machinery for their jobs. Many boys, both Chinese and Japanese, are now going to German and French universities. They like Germany, where life seems to be more like Chinese life than in America." , The reactionary government in England has been able temporarily to suppress the Indian I nationalists and the Ghandi movement. But. jin all probability, it will prove nothing more | than a temporary lull until some definitive solution is arrived at. In his "The Epic Fast" (Universal Publishing Cos.) a writer under the pseudonym of “Pyarelal" gives us a sympathetic account of Ghandi and his struggles, including opinions of many of the leading men of India with respect to the Ghandi movement. a a a PROBABLY the most valuable body of material on the actual situation in India today I is contained in the report of the delegation sent to India by the India League in 1932. “The Condition of India" (Universal Publishing Cos.). This represents a frank survey of the whole situation by eminent English liberals who have no desire to shield their country. Particularly devastating is the exposure of the almost incredibly brutal and filthy prisons in which educated and refined Indian Nationalists are herded along with prostitutes and debased criminals. The committee contends that the only solution of the India problem is self-determination worked out by constituent assembly. “It is clear, therefore, that if the future held nothing more than or different from what present policies contemplate we can look forward with little hope to any agreeable prospect in India. Before we can entertain any such hopes the assential elements inherent in the present position, which render a settlement impossible, have to be removed. "The way out is in recognizing and in helping the fulfillment of the principle of self-determi-nation. It is easy to dismiss it with such arguments as there is no ‘self’ capable to determination and that even if there were it is the prerogative of the British Parliament to determine. “The emergence of a ‘self’ in this context in definable form is itself a process in some ways parallel to the ‘determination.’ Granted the will to allow and to assist India in this task the time is opportune and the difficulties are not insurmountable."

Capital Capers BY GEORGE ABELL

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT early this week was the guest of honor of his own Cabinet at a dinner in the Mayflower Hotel. Silk-hatted, wearing a velvet-collared overcoat, the President arrived by limousine at the Mayflower a few minutes after 8 o'clock, riding in the front seat beside one of the White House chauffeurs—Monty Snyder. Alert Col. Ed Starling, new’ head of the Secret Service, leaped from the car as it drew up. His quick gray eyes scanned doorway, corridor, bystanders. Under his well-tailored evening dress a slight bulge at the hip indicated that Ed had not forgotten his automatic. It was his first big job of protecting the President. He did it thoroughly. Hotel corridors had been carefuly roped off. Accompanied by Mrs. Roosevelt, gleaming in white satin, and his mother, Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt (who wore orchids and pearls against a black evening gown), the President slowly made his way to the private dining room. Closely at his heels followed eagle-eyed Col. Starling, gazing warily on all sides. Precedence was handled by that State Department expert of etiquet. veteran Charles Lee Cooke, who can tell you without blinking how to seat a diner composed of Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, Lloyd George, Miss Fanny Brice and Stalin. a a a POLITELY, Secretary of State Hull offered his right arm to the First Lady. Vice President Jack Gamer (looking very well in the evening dress clothes he boasts that he never wears) followed with Mrs. Joe Byms, wife of the Speaker of the House, Joe himself, eyebrows bristling, white tie slightly askew, came next with Mrs. Gamer. Without a hitch, the guests swept on to the dinner table, several covertly observing the bottles of champagne nestling in ice buckets behind a blue and gold Chinese screen. Navy’s Swanson (who had been ill) advanced haltingly along the corridor, his face rather pale, his cheeks showing hollow behind his billowy mustache. Solicitously, Lieut. Charles Eenter of the Navy Band, hastened forward. “May I not assist you, Mr. Secretary?” he offered. a a a PHOTOGRAPHERS set up their apparatus, started making “shots.” Miss Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, bustled in early. "Please pose. Madame Secretary,” asked cameramen. "I'll only let you take a picture if you'll make it with the Vice President,” she responded coyly. "That's fine,” boomed Jack Garner, “but let me put my arm around her first.” And thus the picture was taken. a a a ON the beautifully decorated table, Expert Cooke had personally placed all the cards, embossed with the gold eagle of the United States Government, embellished by the fine Spencerian writing of the White House penman. Behind the wine glasses rose a huge loving cup made of confectioners’ icing, with a replica of the Whit*. House on top.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

MAKING A THREE RING CIRCUS OF IT!

The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to exprtss their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 icords or less. Your letter must he sinned, hut names will be withheld at request of the letter writer.) FACTORIES OF STATE HIT AT SMALL MERCHANT By Henry Mears. I would like to say a few words about what the factories of this state are doing. I guess the factory workmen think it a great thing for the company to sell them anything from food to diamond rings. Perhaps they don’t know that there is a sales tax on what they sell, but they sell the goods for what the merchant has to pay for it, and, in turn, knock the merchants out of the business. Why don’t these factories secure store licenses? Because they do not want their employes to go to a merchant who is trying to make a living. It is not only the factories that are doing this, but it is also the Governor’s Relief Commission. Here is an example: The commission buys four-buckle arctics and sells them to their workers 60 cents cheaper than the merchant can secure them wholesale. Why doesn’t the Governor’s commission stop competing with business when it taxes business to the limit to maintain the commission? What are you men going to do? Buy from the commission and let the little merchant go out of business? Why not get your eyes open and make the factories and the Governor’s commission stop this. I might also add that I am not a buyer, but I happen to know that all this is the truth. a a a TRESS SHOULD NOT SNEER AT TOWNSEND PROPOSAL. By A Reader. No one has ever read your editorial page with more pleasure than I do, but I can not say I agree with all your views, although I may be wrong in mine. But it seems strange that all papers keep so quiet about the Townsend plan and when there is a small item, its tone is a sneer and laugh. I have lived long enough to be able now to prove that the Townsend idea is right as I thought and talked when a school boy, but my elders said I was foolish and not to talk such crazy things, but if that plan had been put in force at that time we would not be in the condition we are now. You may think I am still crazy, but what chance have the children of today when they get to be ( 60 years? You write special editorials. Write your views soberly, not with sneers and laughs or that S2OO a month is too much or we can not raise the money or taxes would be too high. The government should tax every young man, then he would have a pension at old age. Everybody can not be a Mellon or a Rockefeller at 60. Someone has to plant and dig the potatoes and those who can not should have a rest and worldly peace near the end. a a a RELIEF SYSTEM HELD ECHO OF SLAVE DAYS By Lewis E. Fraiewr I am glad folks don't have to starve, but what an insult, what a shame to make an honest, industrious and worthy citizenship subsist on “relief” in a land of abundance. Z can not mist comparing the pre-

Police Sirens Disturb Sleep

By J. W. Eicb As one of a considerable number of traveling men who periodically find themselves in your city where, as elsewhere, we labor diligently to conquer that tough old bird, “sales resistance,” I should like to draw your indulgent attention to a nuisance that is tending to make Indianapolis a city wherein the traveling man finds it most difficult to obtain the requisite amount of refieshing slumber so necessary to him if he exp -;ts to be at his best during the day. I need not point out to you that the path of the traveling man has not been strewn with roses in recent years. When, after a hard day—and most of his days are just that—he seeks his room in one of your excellent hotels, he needs a bit of quiet in order that he may the sooner fall under the restful hypnosis of the god Morpheus. But what usually happens? Hardly has he laid his head on the pillow when his ears are assailed by the blood curdling, nerve shattering screams of Dolice sirens. Rushing to the window he looks at the sky and up and down the street expecting to see half the city in flames, but Usually all he sees is a motorcycle cop down at the corner just making a left turn with the red lights against him. Our weary traveler returns to his bed. Just as he again is on the verge of a sound slumber, hell breaks loose again. He gets up. This time it surely must be a fire or, perhaps some belated distinguished visitor such as Lindy, Amelia Ear’nardt, our President, or even Huey Long himself, is being given a motorcycle escort to his hotel or club. But no! This time he misses even the motorcycle cop speeding around the corner. Now muttering to himself, he seeks his bed once more, hoping the police have finished testing their sirens under nocturnal conditions. Alas!—just as he has drawn the covers about his chin, the infernal din is resumed. This time he reaches for the telephone and inquires of a sweet, sleepy-

Civil War southern plantation with the present situation. Then,, the slaves toiled and their masters, who were in power, received the wealth. Weekly, sometimes oftener, they went to the “big house” for their supplies. We have substituted “relief depots” and “transient houses” for the “big house” of that age. The basic principle of legal bondage was repudiated by society. The fundamental principle, the one factor which makes economic bondage inevitable is cherished and protected as an economic necessity and bulwark. Wealth is power. The profit system of production and distribution so affects the balance of surplus wealth that a pauper nation may still have a wealthy group and a wealthy nation contain a pauperized mass. Society needs capital (surplus wealth) and we have it. The widespread sentiment for the Townsend plan is an awakening social consciousness that society no longer needs the private capitalist. Labor is not wealth; labor Is life.

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

voiced operator, “What in Sam Hill is all this noise about?” The dulcet response is: “Why, sir, don’t pay any attention to those sirens. Our motorcycle cops are merely honoring a quaint old Indianapolis custom.” Whereupon the traveling man says: “Oh, yea£!” and makes a solemn vow never to spend another night in Indianapolis if he can avoid doing so. One inquires of a jovial Indianapolis business men: “Why do the motorcycle cops in this city exercise their sirens so frequently between the hours of 10 and 12 p. m.?’’ “Ah!” replies the jovial business man (he lives in the suburbs) “you see, those fellows have many hurry calls to make. “For example, about four squares away from where they happen to be parking a pretzel may fall from a tray to a bar, and, beside the pretzel there may chance to be a stein of foamy beer. Now, on each police motorcycle there is an ingenious device called a foam detector which flashes a signal to the cop who, with siren wide open, speeds to the scene. “For isn’t it a well-known axiom that ‘tide and foam wait for no man?’ ” So we learn that these sirenic cacophonies are considered quite necessary in the “line of duty.” I don’t know if your distinguished paper, through publishing this animadversion can do anything toward having these nightly serenades—so inconsiderately played by your police—adjudged a public nuisance, disturbing to the peace and quiet of your fair city, but I do know a considerable and growing number o 1 traveling men who make calls in Indianapolis, but do not spend a single night in any of your excellent hotels or clubs. This fact may be of interest to some of your public-spirited citizens and, perhaps, something may be done toward making Indianapolis a city wherein the harassed traveling man may have an even chance to court the favors of Morpheus.

Labor has no resistant power to the profit system, no innate protection. The position of wealth is determined by the flow of profit, not by labor. Profit is protected by competition while labor is forced to the subsistence level of physical life. Those on “relief’ have been forced below the subsistence level of life, while those to whom the flow of profit has delivered the surplus wealth are peers in possessions to the wealthy of all nations. I urge old-age pensions and the

Daily Thought

Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord our God. to walk in His statutes, and to keep His commandments, as at this day.— Kings, viii, 61. THE essence of true holiness consists in conformity to the nature and will of God.—Lucas.

MARCH 11, 1935

limitation of profit until the evolutionary adjustment of surplus wealth eliminates it entirely. I fail to see such results in the Townsend plan. a tt tt REFORESTATION PLAN OF U. S. SUPPORTED By a Backer of Roosevelt Please permit space to answer Mr. Bedford. He has a real argument, but I wish to point out some facts in favor of the Federal government buying up farm land that has become useless years ago, due to the shortsightedness of timber concerns who worked in these parts and stripped our state of timber without replacing it. Now then, Mr. Bedford, I have been around a bit. Take northern Indiana, south of the Kankakee River. The land was a swamp years ago, therefore, it is very rich land, but this land has been reclaimed by drainage. It keeps the farmers on those lands poor trying to keep up payments on these ditches. Every 10 years these ditches must be dredged. Who pays for it? The struggling farmer. Further south is the sand country. Down there the land isn’t worth a nickel. Let the drainage system go and in a few years the country becomes a swamp. That is the way it should have been left. Now' let us go south, down here in the hills of Kentucky, where the people are worse off. All this country is good for is timber and trapping, but it has been neglected. lam told that years ago there was plenty of game in these hills, but it is not there now. Mr. Bedford, you place your argument on a sentimental basis. Mr, Roosevelt has in mind the welfare of future generations long after you and I have passed on. Roosevelt’s plan does not call for the neglect of these country cemeteries—they wi'l be taken care of.

So They Say

Any fool knows you can’t clear the wreckage of 12 years’ madness in two years’ time.—Gen. Hugh S. Johnson. Baruch has led three Presidents to hell. That’s enough for me, understand?—Senator Huey P. Long. The Lord never had to play 93 one-night stands in a year, no, sir. —Richard B. Harrison, “De Lawd” in “The Green Pastures.”

THIN TRUTH

BY HARRIET SCOTT OLINICK I know I play the coward's part, I drape my life with Pin love upon an elephant Os shining glass, and feel no lack. I collect books and give them soulsf Caress their pages; reading print. I fancy vases’ slende - shapes. To these I give lo e without stint. If you should ever come :ne, I'd close my heart anu turn ms back; Would dry my tears, •md plunge mg hands Into my kind, gay onc-a-bra*