Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 24, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 April 1935 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indianapolis Times i\ HfRIPP'-HOWARD >'EWSPATER> ROT W. HOWARD President TAI-roTT POWELL Editor KARL D. BAKER Bminr** Manager Phone Riley s.V>l

Member of ITni*ol ; .Rorlpp* -H< ward wrp*p*r j Alliance, w*p*jw>r Enterprle Aoriaiion. Newpap-r Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulation*. Owned and pnbliab-d datlr (e*ropt Snndar) by The In - j dtanapolt* Tiniea Piihlluhtnsr j Cos. 214-220 w. Maryland-lit. j Indlanapolla. Ind. Price In Marion fount?, 3 centa a cop?; delivered b? carrier. 12 : enta a week. Mall atibecrip- 1 tton rate* In Indiana. a year; outld of Indiana, 65 cents a month.

Oie Light and R* Prrtple Will Emd Thnr Own Wav

MONDAY, APRIL *. IJS. “FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE” rpHE Roosevelt social security program has come through the Ways and Means Committee to the House floor mych the worse for its 11 weeks’ ordeal. The committee removed from unemployment Insurance and contributory old-age benefits all farm labor, domestics, casuals and employes of non-profit Institutions and from Jobless insurance benefits small firms that employ 10 or fewer workers, instead of four or less as in the original bill. It exempted most of the seasonal industries by raising from 13 to 20 weeks the period during which a worker must be employed to qualify for compensation. Out of 36,000,000 wage-earners only about 22.000.000. including the unemployed, stand to benefit, while the eliminated classes are those most in need of protection. The committee erred in eliminating provisions for the sale of government annuities to small-income classes. Chiefly, it erred in relinquishing Federal control over personnel, merit guaranties, minimum decency and health standards and other rules for the states to follow. ' i If the Federal government must collect, invest and allot security funds, shell out millions In annual subsidies and generally assume leadership it should also have adequate control of standards of administration and benefits. In this bill the committee seems to have allowed the states’ rights doctrine to r-’.n riot. Yet imperfect as it is. Congress should pass the Wagner-Lewls-Doughton bill with as little delay as passible. Wherein the flouse and Senate can improve it they should. But they should not permit the reactionary, extremist or perfectionist groups to defeat it or separate its titles. Imperfections can be ironed out in subsequent sessions. England has amended her unemployment insurance laws 26 times in 15 years. Despite its faults the new’ measure represents a momentous step forward in American history. It raises old-age pension standards. It breaks ground for a nation-wide system of uniform jobless and old-age benefits supported by industry. It aids the states in caring for their dependent and crippled children, and in their maternal and child welfare programs and public health systems. It sets out to substitute pensions for poor houses, insurance for relief, justice for charity.

TIME TO CRACK DOWN that a bench warrant has been ’ issued for the arrest of a defense witness in the Bruno Hauptmann trial, following return of an indictment for perjury, is a timely reminder that the courts too often are lax in dealing with plain and fancy lying in the witness chair. In this particular case, the man accused is one Benjamin Heier, who was called by the defense to testify that on the night the Lindbergh ransom was paid he sat in a car parked by the famous cemetery wall and saw Isidor Fisch cavorting about in the neighborhood. Whatever impression this testimony might have made on the jury was canceled, however, when the prosecution introduced evidence to show that at the time the ransom was being paid Heier was involved in a traffic accident away off on the other side of town. After the Hauptmann trial was wound up, the prosecutor called the grand jury’s attention to the matter, and an indictment was voted. About the only unusual feature of the case is the fact that the grand jury' actually did get busy. No one who frequents American courts can be ignorant of the fact that flagrant perjury has become almost as common as grass in recent years. It is an evil that afflicts criminal and civil courts alike. Hardly any criminal is so friendless that he can not get some Kindly soul to come into court and swear that he (the criminal' was many miles away when the crime took place; few participants in civil actions seem to have much trouble finding people willing to swear to anything and everything that seems at the moment to be advisable. Yet indictments for perjury are rare, and convictions are rarer still. You don’t need to think very long to see how profoundly the prevalence of such perjured testimony interferes wtih dispensing justice. Our whole judicial process is based on the theory' that people who come into court wUI tell the truth to the best of their ability. We have devised an oath calculated to impress upon the devout the supreme importance of sticking to the truth. Our laws provide severe penalties for those immune to such impressions. But perjury continues, and any lawyer or court reporter can tell you that the amount of lying that goes on in our courts is enough to make Ananias look like a piker. Until judges end prosecutors generally are realous to crack down on perjured testimony, the courts will be crippled. Nothing would help the dispensing of justice much more than widespread realization that the man who tells a lie on the witness stand is in for a very bad time of it a little later on. TREE MONTH IT is one thing to quote Joyce Kilmer and sentimentalize about trees that lift their leafy arms to pray. It is another to come to their rescue. April is a month of Arbor Day’s in the states. It is a fitting tim< to assay America's first serious movement to reforest naked wasteland and eroded hillsides. According to Charles Lathrop Pack, president of tha American Tree Association, last year saw more than 05,500,000 trees Aanted on

84.000 tcre of state forest land, and some 78,000.000 trees set out In 77,000 acres of national forests. This year there will be many more state plantings and at least 150,000,000 trees started growing in national forests. Spring plantings along the "shelter belt” project alone will aggregate 2,000,000 trees, a small beginning compared with the 10-year program for this magnificent adventure In sell-saving and water conserv - Mon. FERA also is financing tree-planting projects for highways and city parks. The chief factor nationally in forest rebuilding is the Civilian Conservation Corps, which last year tripled normal plantings in national forests, and will do much better under the new enlarged program. The states have piled up creditable records. New York with 40,000,000 plantings. Wisconsin with 15,000.000 new trees, and Michigan with 12,000,00C new trees, led the states last year. Encouraging as are these public projects it is equally important that private timberlands be protected from destruction. The conservation of timber on the privately owned threequarters of our total forests should be assured. Stricter conservation enforcement and co-operation between the government and the industry is required.

WORLD UNITY THAT sad and solemn noise you hear under the shouts and alarms from Europe these days is probably the dirge that is being chanted over all that it mortal of the League of Nations. With one tribe after another doing the war-dance about a flickering camp fire, international politics is rapidly shaping up into precisely the kind o{ mess which the league was designed to settle. And the league, defied and mocked over a period of many months, is no longer relied on by any one to handle the situation. Before the I-told-you-so chorus grows too triumphant, it might be a good idea to try to figure out just why the league has failed. The chief reason seems to be that it was a magnificent theory tossed into a world that wasn’t ready for it. It was so far ahead of its time, in fact, that most of us have never quite realized just what it was intended to do. For the league was not designed as an international debating society, or as a forum through which nations could negotiate a settlement of their differences. It was meant to be an instrument more powerful than anyj of its members, so that it could compel nations to abide by the decisions of international society. It was based on the Idea th&t if it pays for small states to group themselves into a nation, it also should pay for large nations to group themselves into a super-state. Thus the very features of the league cov%iant which aroused the most opposition were the ones most vital to the league’s success. The league h?d to be able to enforce its decisions; to do that, it had to know in advance that it could call on its members to use their armies and navies in the league's behalf. The people of the United States refused point-blank to agree to anything of the kind. A few years later Great Britain took a similar step, refusing to sign a blank check for use of the British navy by the league. The organization was thus hamstrung. Its chance to be a super-state was killed. It remained only for the course of events to prove its impotence. Pacifists are fond of saying that ordinary people don’t go about their daily business armed to the teeth to avert trouble—the intended moral, of course, being that nations needn’t do so either. But the point is that ordinary people go unarmed because there is a police force and an organized body of law to handle disputes for them. The league was nothing less than an attempt to provide such institutions on an international scale. The plan collapsed when nations refused to limit their own sovereignty. We seem to prefer a system of intermittent warfare to a system of enforced peace. The world as a whole is not yet ready to submit to international control for the. common good.

RAIL RATES AND FINANCES "O AILROADS are badly in need of the 85 million dollars additional revenue they hope to get out of the temporary freight rate increases granted by the Interstate Commerce Commission, Their obsolescent rolling stock will have to be replaced, regardless of business conditions. Repairs and rebuilding are needed along rights-of-wa.v. Debts aggregating more than 800 million dollars will have to be refunded in the next two years. Yet there is a convincing pessimism in the dissent of four ICC members who voted against the increases, holding that freight charges are already at the “ceiling” and that higher rates are apt to result in further loss of traffic to competing bus and ship lines. “Regardless of considerations of cost of service,” Commissioner said, “traffic can not and will not bear a materially higher level.” “If the struggle between the railroads and other forms of transportation is to become more intense,” Commissioner Porter said, “.. . then the railroads had better fortify themselves by a reduction in freight rates instead of an increase.” Eventually, the railroads will have to find some other solution for their problems. Federal regulation of competing carriers would help some. But a general overhauling of railroad finances to reduce the interest burden apparently is inescapable. The proposed Senate investigation of railroad financing, under the Wheeler resolution, should point the way to this achievement without sacrificing the interests of hitherto helpless investors. CONGRESSMEN STRIKE BACK SOMETHING seems to be coming over our Congressmen—or over some of them, at any rate. They are beginning to bark back at their constituents. First we have John S. McOroarty of California. who was irked beyond endurance by some of the silly letters he received and who finally wrote to a voter and invited him to “please take two running jumps and go to hell.” Next Ohio’s Stephen M. Young had a similar outburst. To a constituent who objected to his support of a certain measure, Mr. Young replied that he was going to keep on supportIds tt Afid Alt .vbo dliAimd vitb bis

could go to the same place that Mr. McGroarty told his constituent to visit. Somehow there is something rather encouraging about these replies. A Congressman must be responsive to sentiment in his own district, of course; but he must also be his own man, with a mind of his own. ready to follow the course he thinks best and take the consequences at the polls. A iittle more of this sentiment would give us a better Congress. FORGOTTEN IN PRISON MIKE CONNER of Mississippi has NJ discovered that the “forgotten man” has a number of representatives in prison. Many convicts, he found, are overlooked by the parole board because they have no money, no family, and no friends to bring their cases before it. They may deserve release just as much as the men who are paroled, but because everybody has forgotten about them, they get no consideration. In an effort to set matters right, Gov. Conner has been personally interviewing such convicts. Altogether, he expects to hear at least 150 long-termers tell their stories. His action reflects credit on him, and also Indicates a weakness not uncommon in parole systems. Whether a prisoner Is paroled should not depend on the influence he can muster. It is the board's responsibility to examine all prisoners’ case? without waiting to be prodded. Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES WE are told that we must wait until human nature changes before bringing the disgrace of child labor to an end. It is said that success can be attained only after the social conscience of backward states has come along to the point where the exploiters of children will be convinced of the error of their ways and will voluntarily send the “babies” home to go to school and to grow up. A little history will show the futility of this argument. Human nature, in any scientific use of the term, has not changed since the close of the old Stone Age. The “nature” of the slave driver in ancient Egypt was the same as that of the factory-owner who employs children in the textile mills of our day. The main difference is that those who hate this barbarous spirit of greed have become more numerous and influential than they were 5000 years ago. What we owe to the socially minded minority who have led in the battle against child labor can best be appreciated against the background of oppression from which their ideals and labors have delivered mankind in most parts cf the civilized world. An English father a century ago thus described to a parliamentary investigator the condition of child labor in English textile factories : "My two sons (one 10, the other 13) work at Milnes’ factory at Lenton. They go at half past 5 in the morning; don’t stop at breakfast or tea time. They stop at dinner half an hour. Come home at a quarter before 10. They used to work till 10, sometimes 11, sometimes 12. The overseer beat the eldest and loosened a tooth for him. j “They have been away 16 hours now; they will be very tired when they come home at half past 9. I have a deal of trouble to get them up in the morning. I have been obliged to beat them with a strap.”

THE conditions of child labor in the mines were even worse. Children 4 and 5 years of age were used in the mines as “trappers,’’ opening and closing doors for the passage of carts of coal. Dr. Ise.bel Simeral describes the almost incredible barbarities to which these children were subjected; “The work of these babies was usually that of trappers. They sat beside the traps or doors in the coal seams through which the coal carts were passed. It was dangerous to leave a door open as it caused great heat, closeness, and a possible explosion. These babies sat in a spot hollowed out in the wall and when they heard the approach of a coal cart pulled open the door by means of a cord and closed it after the cart had passed. “They worked for 12 and 14 hours daily with no light except what some kindly disposed miner was willing to give them in the shape of candle ends. The places were usually damp and no matter how monotonous the labor, the strap was applied if they delayed or endangered the work by falling asleep. “They never saw sunlight except upon Sunday, and had no relaxation whatsoever upon that day. Instances were known where highly sensitive children became imbeciles from the fright of darkness, loneliness, and the vermin with which the mines were frequently infested. “Even more notorious and terrible was the situation presented by the chimney sweeps. Children were frequently taken at 3 and 4 years of age—often kidnaped—for this work. Many of the early factory chimneys had flues less than a foot square. Some firms which supplied chimney sweeps cynically advertised “small children for small chimneys, tt tt u “HnHEY were pushed up through chimneys, A often while still hot. Many were burned to death, lost inside flues or smothered. They had running sores due to abrasions and infections and lack of care was all but universal. It took the hardiest child many months to get used to the work. These unfortunates were treated like animals, having their food thrown to them and going unwashed for months at a time.” Such were the abuses which greedy “human nature” permitted and fostered a century ago. The same greed allows and defends comparable evils in our country today. There is no instance, so far as I know, where any employer of child labor on a large scale has ever voluntarily repented and given up the practice. Nothing short of outlawing the practice has ended child labor in any country. Only a Federal child labor amendment will do it today in the United States. We pride ourselves upon being more up-to-date than Europe in our plumbing, transportation, skyscrapers and the like. It is high time we caught up with Europe in humanitarism. England wiped out child labor in 1833 and 1844. France began to restrict child labor in 1841 and completed the taboo by 1892. Germany curbed the employment of children as early as 1839, and outlawed it in 1891. The fact that we ’can not safely wait for state action alone is well borne out by the fact that state legislation against child labor has been agitated ever since the Massachusetts law of 1842. We would probably have to wait until 2042 before some states would wake up and take, this elementary step in behalf of social Justice and common decency. The suggestion that our manufacturers go to the front in time of war isn’t so dumb. They ought to be pretty good on the firing line. % Eligible men being scarce in Germany, unmarried women probably don't relish the government’s call to arms. A Spokane woman spent her last dollar , on rouge so she could enter prison “with her chin up.” She should have had her face lifted. Anew heart-stimulating drug, more potent than adrenalin, has been isolated from the “be-still nut.” Which casts new light on that phrase, "be still, my fluttering heart!” • Clarence Darrow says “Good times are gone forever.” But he is one who several years ago predicted tha 18th amendment would never be repealed.

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 SCO words or less. Your letter must be signed, but names will be withheld at request oj the letter writer.) tt n tt SEEKS NEW ORGANIZATION TO AID ENLISTE D MEN By a Regular Soldier. A few words to the public for friends and relatives of ex-service men of the World War. Back in April, 1917, headlines of all United States papers read “United States Declares War With Germany.” I, as a good American citizen, quit my job on which I was being paid between S3O and S4O a week. I enlisted in the regular Army, leaving behind a widowed mother and several small sisters and brothers to make the best of it without my support, not even asking the government for the sls allowed for dependents. Uncle Sam pleaded for men to enlist, but 90 per' cent were yellow and waited to be drafted. I went from one camp to another suffering untold agony from exposure and all other hardships. Then in the summer of 1918 they started putting drafted men in our regiment. These men—l mean children—were so scared they were afraid to walk post or do any military duties. All they would do was cry and talk of their parents and sweethearts they left behind. I was wounded twice and will carry these scars to my grave. In 1317 enlisted men got all the glory, now the drafted babies want it. We boys can’t join the V. F. W. because w r e weren’t overseas. Don’t the people know that more than 500,000 men who went overseas never saw the front? I sometimes go to their parties and they act like a bunch of whipped dogs. You ask them where they fought and how many battles they were in and to see their discharges. They will say “I misplaced it and I don’t know where it is.” They are afraid t® show it. They know that every discharge has it written in black and white. Then they brag abouo getting $1.25 a day for overseas duty, and we got *1 a day. Enlisted men should gef together and form an organization called “The All-American Enlisted World War Veterans.” a u tt ROOSEVELT TAKING IT ON CHIN FROM BOTH SIDES By Jimmy Cofonras. Every fence has two sides. Some stand on one side of the fence. Others choose the other side. And often the other side chooses them. Then there are those who stand on the fence. These folk can see both sides easily. But they fare terribly. Each side fires its spiteful quota of brickbats at these courageous individuals. Any sane Individual easily can observe the supreme tactical ability and the negative strategy of that blessed man, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The mass accuses him of allegiance to the class. And the class is not sure that he does not incline toward the mass. Yet there he stands on the fence in the thick of the battle, courageously taking it on the chin. If he steers a course that will yield the bulk of administration to the mass the class will withdraw its support. If he runs a course that will yield to the class the mass will revolt. Roosevelt literally has averted a revolution and is constructively and by degrees thawing and prim-ig the &1&S& mi it cehses tp he a Gihral-

LITTLE EVA!

Live and Let Live

By Mrs. A. F. D. When a student of religion advocates bodily destruction of humanity because of mental and physical disability, one should refer that student to the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Also, why should judgment of such a case rest with experts? Why not let the parents, wives and husbands of such cases be the jury? When you of normal mental and physical condition say, “Kill them and rid the country of some of its burden,” what can they say in self-defense? That is something to think about. I, for one, will stand by as I have had sufficient experience to entitle me to stand in defense of these unfortunates. My husband enlisted at the country’s call for aid, ignoring pleadings of father and mother, and stood shoulder to shoulder I with mature men. though he was a mere boy of 19. Why? Because his country needed him and he was ready to give his best. And now you say, “Kill them!” After one year of overseas service he returned, impaired in health due to influenza followed by exposure to all kinds of weather conditions which promoted tuberculosis. After three and onehalf years of marriage and my youngest child but three weeks old, he was removed to a government hospital suffering from a mental and physical breakdown, due to the strain of trying to care for his family while tuberculosis was waging a winning fight.

trean rock and is assuming mansize shape once more. When we have Roosevelt no more we will realize his supreme value to the country and to the ideals for which it stands. urn* CITY BOOKIE OPENS FIRE ON FARB By Bookie. An article appeared in a morning paper, saying that Lasky Farb was the .spokesman for the bookmakers. I emphatically wish to contradict this statement. I am in a position to know that Lasky speaks only to further his own interests and those of no one else. He has made matters worse by his chatter. I also wish to say that I know ihat Lasky has not received the sympathy of a single bookmaker in the city, the majority ,of whom have obeyed the police orders to close. They are not hard to recognize or locate. It is ridiculous and incredulous to think that the Chief of Police would allow a bookmaker to dictate the policy of the Police Department. It is quite certain that Chief Morrissey will not allow his peace of mind be disturbed by the chatter emanating from Lasky. * BANKS SHOULD BE FORCED TO PAY B* Mary Hrmrlrarn Recently Mrs. S. E. Carpenter. Noblesville, had an article on “Help Bank Depositors of Closed Banks'’ in the Star. I answered her article today in the Star, but do not know if they will publish it. Now what I have been thinking is this: Your pjper has always been a good fighter for the people of infcanapQUa. S?b£ don't JfOU

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

Tomorrow he will have been hospitalized nine years, and though I am thankful for the wonderful care that he receives and am thankful for the government making it possible for me to remain at home with my children during these most crucial years, our family isn’t complete. I am fortunate in having my parents to live with, as it relieves the strain of the long years of vacancy and waiting—for what? Mr. Beck must understand that a parent, wife or husband sees each individual as that person really was. They see beyond the mask. To them they are not a mass of human wreckage to be dispensed with when they become a cross to bear. I do not see my husband as Mr. Beck would see I see him as he must have been to his mother as a little tot, the son that she brought into this world and whom she loved, planned, schemed and worked for, and then as the son who, when he responded to his country’s call, left with her hours and hours of fear, anxiety and tears because of her love for him. Now he has served, his loved ones have served, his children are serving, because even though they do not call him Daddy—they know not the true meaning of the word —they are missing the love and protection of a father who would have been everything to them. Now you say, “kill them.” because of their helplessness. Is this the way we answer the call (o arms, now that they need us? Let some mothers express their opinions on this subject.

start a little publicity on this matter. Do you not think we have been very patient waiting for the last year, and have not received any of our money, and the banks are still running, and the banker is getting his money every month to pay his bills and we have to borrow to pay our taxes, when we have money in closed banks. Do you call that justice? Either close the banks and let them suffer, or either pay us a certain amount each month. Your paper has fought for things that have not been as important as this. Why don’t you help us a little? No wonder they do not pay us. Let’s get busy and maybe they will wake up a little to their obligations. Some people never pay their bills unless you dun them. No wonder there are men like Huey Long. The world makes you that way. Hoping you see things my way, and that you will help the people of Indianapolis get justice. * EXPLANATION OF GAS CO. "FINANCING” IS DEMANDED Bt William E. F.vani. What a Pandora’s box of complexities has been opened up by Mr. Lyons’ superb articles on our gas company's high financing. We will now hear from our city fathers Daily Thought Seeing that these things can not be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly.— The Acts, 19:38. SOME act first, think afterward, then repent forever.—C. Simmsm

-APRIL' 8, 1935

who will come forward with tha usual glib attempt to explain away the schemes of the allied stock jobbers and then some more unskillful efforts of the local tory papers by their use of mere generalities and a multitude of words endeavor to distract the public mind from the basic issues. A first-class explanation will serve, they believe, just as well as a first-class performance for the taxpayer who will have to foot the bill. They well know the brevity of the popular memory In public matters is notorious, and that in a short while, unless driven home by constant reiteration, most things become blurred and forgotten. So let us forgotten men raise our voices in protest and denunciation against the scheming of this local coterie of financial buccaneers as disclosed by the valiant Times, the people’s defender.

So They Say

Even at 80, one does not acquire the gift of prophecy, but I look forward to a return of normal conditions within my own time.—Andrew Mellon. NRA is not a vaudeville act. It is an effort on the part of government, business, and labor to get together and w’ork out things for common benefit.—Donald Rlchberg. War Is no longer the avenue to all mankind desires. My country, right or w’rong, is no longer a slogan accepted by self-respecting minds.—Hirosi Saito, Japanese ambassador to United States. Neither I nor any one after n.e will sign anything derogatory to our honor. What we sign we will keep. —Adolf Hitler. I find there Is great spiritual activity in the United States. That, I believe, is the most hopeful sign for the future.—The Rev. Fr. Martin C. D’Arcy, noted English philosopher. It is contrary to the spirit of Nuremberg to see white men defeated in wrestling matches with Negroes. —Julius Stretcher, Nazi leader.

GRANDPA

BY K. HILL I know the best old fella, That ever you did see; He’s big and strong and jolly, Just like him I would be. He knows about ever'thing. The best in the land; ’Cause when I ask him questi S'plains so's I understand. And when my toys get broken, He just knows what to do; With hammer, nails or wire. He makes them good as new. Sometimes he tells me stories, Or maybe sings to me; Or else he takes me ridin’, A'sittln’ ’stride his knee. If I grow to be a man. As good and kind and true. Then I’ll be happy, grandpa, ‘Cause I’ll be same as you. I know that God will blew you. And your life fill with Joys* ’Cause He loves you for bein’ go good to Uttfe bogv