Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 23, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 April 1935 — Page 6

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The Indianapolis Times (A umirrH-HOffABD mEWfPAFKB) HOT w. HOWARD FrMt TALCOTT POWELL Editor KARL D. BAKER BualaSM Uiaipr Phono RMoy 5351

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Girt TAffht and tht praplt Will Find Thrir Otrn Wav

SATURDAY. APR IT. IMS. PUBLIC ENEMY NO. I—PHOOEY C CHANGES in the values of the news are amazing. A year ago John Dillinger was Public Enemy No. 1 and reams of copy were being written about his escapades. He had escaped from the Crown Point Jail March 3 and was being hunted throughout the Midwest. On April 6, 1934, little news of Dillinger appeared in the headlines, but on April 7, a car he had been driving was wrecked near Noblesville and he again had eluded the law. This event was worth columns. His escape from Crown Point was told in pages. He was supposed to have used a wooden gun to accomplish his purpose. He said so himself. Only this week the ghost of Dillinger crossed the front pages with reports that bank securities he had stolen were cashed here and reports that federal agents ascertained he had used a real gun to effect his escape. But how different than in the old days. Only a few paragraphs were used to “cover" these stories. Today news services carry short stories to describe the capture of Raymond Hamilton who, by degrees, was graduated to Public Enemy No. 1 since the death of Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and other underworld rats who became big time boys as long as they had machine guns to protect their hides. The reading public of this city, state and nation can be thankful that such changes take place in the news. Today the nation observes the eighteenth anniversary of declaring w r ar with Germany. Today the local traffic situation is worth many paragraphs—it is something that is of vital interest to all of us. The acquisition of the Citizens Gas Cos., also is of great interest and the prospects of another war bring real news to newspaper readers. And so the world, reflected in the mirror of the newspaper, moves on. And for this reason capture of Public Enemy No. 1 is related only in a few short paragraphs. For the present, at least, there is no trading value on that phoney title “Public Enemy No. I.'*

ISOLATION’S LIMIT George Washingtons advice to his countrymen included the warning, In time of peace, prepare for war.’’ The current idea at the capital seems to be to revise this to read. “In time of peace, prepare to stay out of war.” One of the most interesting things now under considerate hr ie Administration is anew kind of fc hey designed to keep this country cle f any scraps in which foreign nations may indulge. State Department, Senate Munitions Committee, and the White House have been considering the outlines of this policy with the notion that a nation which plays its cards carefully can't be forced into any conflict in which its own vital interests are not involved. It is proposed, for instance, to empower the President, in case of war among foreign nations, to halt the issuance of passports to Americans desirous of traveling through the war zone, unless their business is so urgent that they are willing to go at their own risk. Another proposal is that the President be empowered to withdraw United States protection from all American ships which enter war zones. American exporters might trade with warring nations if Uiey wished, but the risk would be strictly their own if they did so. These two proposals are long steps in the direction of that national isolation which seems to be growing so popular these days. But the isolation they propose is isolation of an intelligent kind; an isolation which quite properly would place the national desire for peace above the desire of individuals to profit by a foreign conflict. It is pretty clear that if we should repeat our 1914 kind of neutrality in anew European war. our chances of staying out of the war would be little better than they were the last time. We insisted that American ships and American travelers had an inalienable right to go through the war zones and to do business in any market they could find; our insistence on that right finally compelled us to uphold it by force of arms—and a war which seemed very remote, when it started, at last came to our own doorstep. Wouldn’t it be a good deal smarter of us to waive that right? We might miss some very profitable business, to be sure. War orders meant big dividends to American investors in 1915 and 1916. But in the end that trade landed us in the war—and, thereby, proved about the most expensive kind of business we ever had. Plans now being matured at Washington point in the right direction. If we are going to follow a policy of isolation in foreign affairs. we might as well carry it to its logical conclusion. LIKE FROG IN THE WELL ECONOMIC recovery in the United States is evidently progressing in a series of waves. The hollows between the crests represent retrogressions from temporary high points; but they also represent slow, but definite, advances over the extreme low of the winter of 1932-33. Just now, business is in its third New Deal slump. One business advance began with President Roosevelt's inauguration in the spring of 1933. and collapsed in July of that year. The next began in November, 1933. and lasted six months, to be followed by another decline. Last September a third advance began: and now it, too, is shading off. The encouraging point, however, is that each decline seems to be less precipitous than those before. The Federal Reserve index of industrial production stood at 59 4b

The Anniversary of War An Editorial

this eighteenth anniversary of America’a entrance into the Worll War there la increasing danger of another World War. No one denies that And Americans, virtually with one accord, want to keep out of it if it comes. No one denies that, either-. • But keep out, how? There is no easy way. Perhaps we might be drawn into it inevitably if there were a world war and it lasted long enough. Certainly the hopes of isolation areashaky at best, in the light of our history. Realizing that there is no such thing as absolute safety for us in a warring world, we have tried in recent years to co-operate with other nations in building an international peace system as a substitute for war. Though we declined formal membership in the League of Nations, which was dominated by European powers and concerned chiefly with European problems, we did make important contributions to the peace structure. We tried to lead toward joint disarmament, first at the successful Washington conference and later at the unsuccessful Geneva and London conferences. We were chiefly responsible for the Kellogg pact, and for the regional Pacific treaties. Today, through little or no fault or our own, disarmament is blocked and the Kellogg and Pacific treaties lie violated and valueless. We can not ignore that fact. We can and should continue to co-operate for peace with any and all willing nations. But we dare not ignore the possibility, even the probability, that world war forces are stronger than world peace forces. • • • SO the President and Congress are intent upon rushing to completion the largest peace-time naval and military establishment in our history. That is not enough. It is not enough because the danger of a territorial Invasion causing war is infinitesimal compared with the danger of external causes dragging us into a war abroad—as 18 years ago today.

the spring of 1933. At the start of last September's advance it was 71; today, we find that the average for the first eight months of the current fiscal year is 79. All this may be rather cold comfort. But it does reveal a slow, steady progress toward economic health. UNCLE SAM A REAL UNCLE Manuel l. Quezon, president of the Philippine Senate, tells the House insular committee that no country in the world has ever treated a subject colony more generously and kindly than the United States has treated the Filipinos. This tribute is all the more worthy of notice in that it comes from an islander who has been working for the independence of his people for more than 20 years; and it is a timely reminder that our government has, after all, made a pretty fair sort of record in its dealings with its oriental colony. There is something unique about this whole Philippine situation, when you stop to think about it; a body of people seeking their independence without any anger or bitterness, and a parent government awarding it to them without waiting for violence to jog Its elbow. All In all, the record Is one of which the American people can be rather proud. EXAMPLE FOR BUSINESS PROBABLY there are few Americans who will deny that we need a system of oldage pensions. There probably will be equal agreement that such a system must be operated by the Federal government. Nevertheless, it is well to remember that there are some far-sighted corporations which have been quietly conducting pension plans of their own on a truly remarkable scale. Fo r instance, it w'as announced the other day that the Pennsylvania railroad system is now paying out no less than $600,000 a month in pensions. It established its pension system in 1900. Today it has 11,000 pensioners on its rolls. The security that such a plan gives to a large body of workers is something beyond price. If more corporations did the same thing, the demand for a government pension system would not be nearly so pressing today. PEACEMAKER JAMES MULLENBACH, who died the other day in Chicago, was one of this country’s pioneering industrial arbitrators. A former minister, he was called to the battlefields of industry years ago and became chairman of the Labor Arbitration Board of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. His was the course of reason. So effective was his persuasiveness that when labor strife spread widely last year, President Roosevelt called him to Washington. He served as member of the oil, steel and textile labor relations boards. As in the clothing industry, on these boards he worked to prevent strikes, rather than to cure them after they had caused waste and hatred. He died as a result of overwork. Surely among the blessed these days are the peacemakers of industry. MONEY AWAITS MANY THE absent-minded professor of song and story seems to have a rival in the field of forgetfulness—the absent-minded investor. It is announced at Washington that the Treasury has $109,000,000 due to holders of matured United States Treasury Bonds. The holders of these bonds, who paid out their hard-earned money over a period of years, seem to have forgotten all about them. Perhaps some of them labored under the delusion that in buying the bonds they were making outright contributions to their government. At any rate, Treasury officials say that only a very small percentage of this money will ever be claimed. Forgetfulness which costs the forgettors upward of $100,000,000 is a form of absentmindedness which makes the legendary professor look like an exponent of the most rigid efficiency. Experts agree it will be difficult to keep the United States from being dragged into the next war. For one thing, there’s that natural eagerness o t our citizens to get oversaw and awaA jam the auto roeraca

Our big Army and Navy could defend us from attack, could enable us to fight a better war after we were in, and might even hasten our entrance into war because of our armed strength. But our big Army and Navy—even if twice the size—can not in themselves keep us out of a world war if it comes. Only a positive peace policy of our government, backed by public opinion, can keep us out. A positive peace policy means the deliberate removal, in so far as possible, of the causes of friction. In the case of Japan that means, among other things, removal of the immigration discrimination insult, and aloofness from Far Eastern commitments for which we are not willing to fight. In the case of Europe it means settlement of the old war debts dispute and non-interfer-ence in the new balance-of-power struggle precipitated by Germany. In general, it means that we cease the economic aggression of tariff war, monetary war, and war for special interests of,American capital abroad—the economic warfare which is the basic caflse of military war. * • • TT means that we remove the vested interest of certain American groups in war by nationalization of the munitions industry, that we make war unprofitable for all by heavy taxation, that we ban war shipments and war loans, that we realistically relinquish the free seas policy which we can not enforce without war and which is not worth a war In which all lose. Os course, all of these ideas are in the air on this eighteenth war anniversary. The American people are educating themselves in this, and the Roosevelt Administration is feeling its way toward clothing these ideas in actual policies and definite laws. But it may be a race with time. World war may be avoided abroad or delayed, but when it comes it comes suddenly. Safety for' us is in moving swiftly toward our preparedness for peace.

Looking at America BY GEN. HUGH S. JOHNSON WASHINGTON. April 6.—The New Deal Is in a nutcracker. One jaw is the LongCoughlin lot who say it doesn’t go far enough, the other is the Old Guard which says it goes too far. Between them they bid fair to crush it. By “Old Guard’’ I mean the most reactionary element of American business which wants to go straight back to Hooverism tomorrow. The howling joke is that both sides say that NRA crushes the little fellow and makes for monopoly. On the Old Guard side, this comes from the mouths of men who sponsored a system which, between 1919 and 1930 saw more than 1200 mergers wipe out more than 8000 little fellows, and that is just one record of authenticated cases vchich probably does not tell half the story. Most of business wants to see NRA continued. That part which does not is the most monopolistic and anti-social group in this country. v A year ago I foolishly appointed a so-called heavy-goods committee to suggest improvements in NRA. Their proposal was to cut its throat. They are now a lobby to assure the cutting. In this they are in accord with much that Senators Nye and Huey Long advocate. Aiding both are men in the Federal Trade Commission, under which this vast sweep toward monopoly went on for the 12 years before Roosevelt. Can you beat it? Extreme radicals, extreme monopolists, and yet men from the government’s official but ineffective trust-busting machine—all in the same bed together. a a a THE truth is that all but an insignificant part —not 5 per cent—of the little fellow complaint is from some small employers who say they can’t stay in business if they have to pay code w'ages for code hours. Minimum cede wages are so low that anything less would be sweating labor. The whole false front, of the charges that NRA fosters monopoly and oppresses the little fellow is set up to defeat the principal purpose of NRA which was to take the hqurs and wages of labor out of the shambles of merciless competition. For 40 years there has stood in the statutes a declaration by Congress that human labor is not a commodity of commerce. Never, until the enactment of NRA, did Congress ever do anything to make that declaration good. The hours and wage provisions of the codes finally did it. They are in danger of destruction—not by direct attack—but; by assertion that they oppress the little fellow in business. The object of the monopolists is to restore practices which for a decade wiped out competitors by the thousands every year. While not their object, it is a matter of indifference to them that this means the return of the sweatshop, of child labor, and of every abuse that existed before NRA. If they now persuade Congress to throw hours and wages back into the savage cockpit of competition, that is the affair of Congress. I insist that, in doing it, they step into the light, take full responsibility for what they propose, and not qpneeal it behind the greasy hokum of protecting the little fellow and preventing monopoly. (Copyright. 1935. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc. All right* reserved. Reproduction in whola or in part forbidden.)

GIVE AND TAKE SECRETARY HULL singled out one of the worst offenders when he announced that France must straighten out her trade relations to give American goods a fair break. By her import quotas and two-column tariff schedule, France has discriminated against American goods, while enjoying equal treatment with other nations in American markets. Fortunately the showdown on our most-favored-Eiation policy is to come with a powerful nation. France and America stand as equals in the international game of give and take. That we sel ltwice as much to France as we buy from her is not pertinent. If France wants a better balanced trade, the place to demand it is over the bargaining table where our reciprocity treaties are being drawn. The issue* now is equality of treatment. Our fight to regain lost markets abroad is a fight of desperation. We can not afford overnight to cut our cotton acreage in half, or gear down to domestic markets other industries built up to produce for world consumption. We can not add more millions to our unemployment rolls. Instead, we must restore jobs to those turned into the streets by the tightening bonds of economic nationalism. True, we helped to strangle ourselves. Failing to recognize that the World War changed ours into a creditor nation, we were foolhardy enough to enact the Smoot-Hawley law. But under the sane guidance of Secretary Hull, we are again turning economically toward the rest of the world. Secretary Hull's announcement is notice that henceforth we hew to a trade policy of enlightened selfishness.

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 SSO words or less. Your letter must he sipned, but names will be withheld at request of the letter writer.) m u n GENERAL JOHNSON RAPPED FOR COUGHLIN ATTACK By Tour Reader. May i register my protest against the deliberate, malicious lies of our armchair “General” Johnson? I, too, heard the broadcast of Father Coughlin last Sunday and nothing in his speech indicated his desire to overthrow the government of the united States by violence, as Johnson states, but on the contrary, he advocated the overthrow only by constitutional means—the ballot. This is one of the basic rights of an American citizen and it is evident that it galls our dear friend Johnson that the poor of the land have the right to vote out of office those that have betrayed their trust and repudiated their pledges made while campaigning for election. Johnson’s statement that Father Coughlin is a menace to the United States is a cry of one who has betrayed his trust and is caught. Father Coughlin’s program and organization is no more of a menace to the United States than is either the Republican or Democratic parties. Mr. Johnson further states that Father Coughlin stated that, if he (Father Coughlin) could not control Congress that he would start a revolution or war, is a deliberate, malicious, dirty lie. conceived by a low mud-slinging dish-rag that has been passed over every political greasy pan and pot since the World War. Johnson would not make a success at anything, not even a good failure, as paradoxical as that sounds. He is too full of misconceptions and falsehoods. Another statement that is obviously untrue, and that Is that the lectures of Father Coughlin are pro-Hitler. If you think that “General’’ Johnson is going over big and sets well on our (the reader’s) stomachs—well—just keep on printing his “slush” and then watch closely the next election. Thank God the majority still has a chance to rule in this country. nan NEW DEAL POLICIE? ARE ROUTINE GOVERNMENT DUTY By Robert Keating. V. E. boldly takes up the torch for Mr. Blume and defends Mr. Blume’s vagueness by being even more vague. He fearlessly answers question No 1 —to himself. Then he very bravely explains questions 2,3 and 4by not explaining them. V. E. thus spoke his mind—all of It, I suppose. I meant that Mr. Blume’s questions in themselves do not involve controversy. I mantain that both New Dealers and Old Dealers can give the same answers to those questions. Who says that one group of men is doing the thinking for the individual business man and labor? Didn’t some business men and laborers recently indorse the New Deal at the polls? Where they not thinking when they did it? I do not believe In one man or in one group of men doing the thinking for the entire nation. Neither do I believe that any such thing is happening under the present Administration. As to governmental interference? Government should not be a thing apart like another man who can go his own way while each one of us goes our own way. It should be the natural outgrowth of our necessities, desires, thoughts, actions and circumstances. As such, its function* must be to administer and regulate so that every one en-

ALL WASHED UP!

Intelligence in Presidents

By Julian Bamberger. I read with interest an article in your Message Center, headed “Bartich Has Done Poor Job of Advising,” written by Mrs. L. F. Kunkel, in which she prates of the boogey man, Bernard Baruch. Among the minor evils she lays at his doorstep is the blame for the American depression. She states “Also the idea that he has been adviser to five Presidents is no argument in his favor.” Avery high opinion you must have, Mrs. Kunkel, of the intelligence and integrity of our Presidents of the last 20 years. Republican .and Democrat alike, they sought his counsel. 'Keen, intelligent, honest, patriotic Americans they were, yet with one accord they turned unsuspectingly, or intentionally, as you would have it, to seek the advice of such a renegade as you claim is Bernard Baruch. Was it because of their stupidity or dull-wittedness that they failed to detect and recognize the evilness of his ways, which you have so easily and unerringly

joys both its benefits and protection. It should represent a composite of all of us. That is the New Deal. Does V. E. think the following actions constitute governmental interference? The abolition of child labor, outlawing slave wages and sweatshop conditions, regulating utilities which exist on a franchise which primarily belongs to the people, attempting to prevent the issuance and sale of fraudulent securities, and putting a stop to the practice of bleeding good operating companies with parasitic holding companies? Those are only a fqw of the things which the New Deal is doing or trying to do. To me they are not governmental interference, but mere natural functions of government. a a a AUTO CONTROL SHOULD BE BASED ON LICENSE By Times Reader. With all the present talk and excitement about automobile accidents, I don't understand why no one suggests control at the source, the issuance of driving licenses. As I understand it, any one with 50 cents can obtain a license, and any one without the 50 cents can go ahead and drive undisturbed until he has an accident—when the harm has been done. In New York and Pennsylvania (I have lived in both) there are definite requirements, both as to ability to drive and knowledge of traffic laws, which must be filled before a license is obtained. And once that license is suspended or taken away, it is no easy matter to get another. Furthermore, in both sttaes, any one driving along the road or parked in his car, is not surprised to have a state trooper come up and courteously ask to see his driving license. The frequency of these requests does not encourage driving without a license. The check-up on speeding, careless driving and disobedience of traffic signals is not spasmodic. It is in constant operation, especially outside corporate limits where the state police operate. Perhaps this idea has been suggested here, but I have been in the state over a year and have not read of any such suggestion. I have driven cars in Rochester. N. Y.; Buffalo, Syracuse, New York City, Chicago, Milwaukee. Philadelphia and St. Louis-but in none of these cities have I felt so unsafe

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

uncovered and exposed? Or was it because those five Presidents wilfully set their hearts and their minds against the welfare and good of the American people? And if Baruch deceived them, led them astray, and gave them ill-advised counsel, why not let us hear that fact from their lips, whose trust was betrayed. Was it moral cowardice that silenced the lips of Wilson and Coolidge? Is it moral cowardice that now seals the lips of Roosevelt, who fearlessly directed an investigation of the House of Morgan, bankers who could buy and sell Baruch a hundred times and never bat an eyelash? You, Mrs. Kunkel, and thce like you, who are so gravely concerned about the wool that Bernard Baruch is alleged to have pulled over the eyes of our Presidents, through which they could see not, but which could not blind your penetrating gaze—l beg of you, give those Presidents some small credit for at least possessing a tiny spark of intelligence and clarity of thought.

as on the streets and roads in and about Indianapolis. Your paper has held my admiration since I purchased my first copy, because I wanted to read Broun and Lippmann. I think you have accomplished a great deal in the advancement of progress. I wish you would put your paper behind a campaign for safer driving as you did for prevention of stream pollution. a a a GEN. JOHNSON PUT ON GRIDDLE BY READER Bw a Subscriber. I no not expect you to print this, because you are getting that way lately. But I just want to let you know I approve very much of the article in the Message Center April 2 by Carl Reeves. He expresses my views perfectly. If I am not mistaken. Gen. Johnson made his great name during the World War, by making the sorts of po#r men join the Army. At that time, he had the wealth and the courts behind him. When he tried to strut his stride under NRA and the wealth and courts got after him, he turned and ran. Some general! And you put him up as a shining star. I wonder why. I, like many others, have adways considered The Times a fair paper and it has gained in circulation. There is one thing I can give Gen. Johnson credit for. He has done ifore good for the National Union for Social justice than any other man could have. He has made the people think. a a m ROOSEVELT MAKING PROGRESS, HE SAYS By Roosevelt Follower. In referring to the article by R. R. G. in The Times on April 2, I can tell by the way you speak of our President Roosevelt that you are just another one of those “hotheaded Republicans,” who just can’t seem to get over that “landslide of 1932,” when our famous President. Hoover <you might call him famous!), was so badly beaten. Remember. you are just one of many thousands of voters! And the public preferred our faithful and intelligent Roosevelt! You spoke very unsatisfactorily of the NRA. The reason why the NRA isnt ’going over so big” now is because the business men are not standing back of it like they should. From whit you state, it didn {, help in the 'east—l suppose you have

.APRIL 6, 1935

forgotten about the thousands of people who are now making $14.50 a week who formerly worked for $4 or $6 during Hoover's administration. At least, President Roosevelt la working hard and has new ideas all the time, and that's more than we can say for Hoover, who did practically nothing to overcome the depression. You should feel ashamed to speak of our loyal Persident as you have—it surely shows you have anything but a genuine patriotic spirit! a a a PRAISES TIMES EDITORIAL ON JUSTICE TO NEGROES Br Rev. E. O. Price. I wish to express my thanks to you for your editorial in the issue of The Times Tuesday under the caption of “Justice.” Being one of the 15,000,000 American Negroes of this great republic, I certainly appreciate this great article. I have cut it out and am placing it in my Bible, which I carry in my brief case wherever I go as the superintendent of missions of this great state of Indiana and other states which I visit. I have just a few clippings which I think are worthwhile within the 'ast 60 years of my life. Your contribution goes with that few. I feel sure that when I fall asleep that my children and their children will appreciate your editorial.

So They Say

It looks as if I’ve become the standard bearer of a crusade to make the world safe for men.—Mrs. Roberta West Nicholson, author of “anti-heart balm” bill. There are very few gentlemen left in the world, and I know there are no ladies—in the old sense.—Dr. Henrv Noble MacCracken, president of Vassar. According to my experience, it Is more difficult to keep wealth when you have it than to accumulate it.— Andrew W. Mellon. Poetry or Impassioned proee moves us more readily, more deeply, and for a longer space of unflagging enjoyment than any of the other arts.—Dr. Frank Jewett Mather Jr.. director of Princeton’s Museum of Historic Art. Daily Thought And Jesus answering said unto them, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at Him.—St. Mark, 12:17. EVERY hour comes with som* little fagot of God’s will fastened upon its back.—Faber. ASLEEPBY POLLY LOIS NORTON It was only a tiny mongrel pup Asleep for good in the leafy drain. But I felt the tears come welling up To ease the ache of a wordless pain. I suppose a car in the gathering dusk. Or the city’s grimy smoke and fog Had struck and left the little husk— O God, is there room for a we* lost dog?