Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 31, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 April 1935 — Page 14

PAGE 14

The Indianapolis Times .% *rmrr-HowAnn xrwspArr> ROT W. HOWARD rreMnt TAI.COTT POWKLL Editor EARL. D. BAKER Bnilntn Manager Phone Riley MM

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A. ' -- (rir* Light n id th People Will Pind Their Own Wow

TUESDAY. APRIL 1. 191SROOSEVELT AND THE BANKS r r'HEY are trying to wreck the Roosevelt "*■ bank reform bill. On one side are the Coughlin cure-allers. They have the extreme and loosely drawn Nye-Sweeney bill, which can not pass Congress, but which can help to block the Administration bill. On the other side are reactionary bankers and Senator Glass, determined to prevent reform. And lurking in the background are Df nocratic Congressional leaders, with knives up their sleeves, ready to flnisn the work of the more open enemies of the New Deal. They hope at the last minute to slash the heart out of the Roosevelt-Eccles bill and then pass it with much palaver to cover what they have done. Os the dire need for reform of the Federal Reserve System there can be no doubt. Whether It is called a central bank or something else, the people through their government must recapture control of the nation's money power. Business can not breathe without credit. As long as the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are run by governors responsible only to private bankers, the latter will rulP. Under the Roosevelt-Eccles bill the government would have to approve the selection of the regional governors, and would control the committee which supervises the allimportant open market operations. When the President took office he promised to "drive the money changers from the temple." To that end he forced through Congress the Stock Exchange and banking laws. But the reforms are far from complete. The pending bill is the next step. It is the answer to those who would change the whole system overnight. What the opponents of the Roosevelt-Eccles bill the American Bankers" Association, the Liberty League and the conservative Senators —fail to understand is that reform is inevitable. If they succeed in wrecking this bill, they will get by until next winter. But then they probably will get the Coughlin bill or something worse. This is typical of the general situation in Washington today. The conservatives are cutting under the New Deal, with the foolish idea that if they can only get rid of the Roosevelt program the country will placidly go back to being ruled by the interests. Many Democrats politicians are under the same delusion. That is the way of disaster. We are not out of the depression yet. The President’s legislative program for recovery and reform must be enacted within the next few weeks before Congress adjourns. Tliis will not happen automatically. It will not happen unless the great mass of voters supporting the New Deal make themselves heard on Capitol Hill above the clamor of the vested lobbirs and the partisan politicians. It will not happen unless the President drives through the obstructionists with all of his powers of leadership. PUNISH THEM, TOO WITH heavy rains, dust storms and poor visibility to harass the drivers of automobiles in Indianapolis, motorists find that members of their own clan are their greatest enemies after darkness settles over the city. - The motorist who observes the law. driving carefully with proper lighting on his car, discovers scores of other motorists who refuse to heed the law. They are the drivers who park their cars on heavily-traveled streets and promptly neglect to turn on lights. A car without proper front and rear lights is a menace, even on a well-lighted boulevard. Many eases in which automobiles have crashed into other parked cars are recorded on the traffic death list in Marion County in the last few years. If the police department really means to enforce the traffic laws and really means to halt the rising traffic toll, then duty will be neglected if these violators of the light law are permitted to go unpunished. EXCITING EXPLORATION TWO French explorers have just set off on a hike through the desolate Hoggar mountains of Africa in a hopeful effort} to discover the fabulous beautiful blond sirens of the Gara Ti-Djanoun peak. These lovely ladies, according to legend, live in fancy gardens high up in some lonely cleft of these very remote mountains, and are so extremely charming that no man who sees them ever returns. The Frenchman aim to find out all about them, to condui t a bit of archaeological research on the side, and—if the legend turns out to be a dud —to do a little hunting. Now all this is a sample of the kind of thing thst used to make exploration worth while—not because these sirens are supposed to be so excessively beautiful, but because the legenu itself is fanciful and improbable, so that it gives the explorers a regular story book excuse for making their trip. Ths world is shy on legends these days. When such a man as Byrd or Wilkins goes down to Antarctica, for instance, the dumbest school boy knows perfectly well what he Is going to see—ice, and lots of it, a few penguins, and possibly some particular mass of frozen rock and snow that no one ever saw before. There are no legends about the place. We know too much. The explorer may add to our knowledge of polar air currents and geology, but won t come back talking of marvels and unearthly portents. Such things have passed forever beyond the human horizon. It was not always thus. A few centuries ago an explorer did not merely set out to see undiscovered land; he figured he had a chance to stumble into the fabulous courts of Pres ter John, or bag a few unicorns, or find the golden

city of Mmnoe, or see those strange folk whose heads are in the middle of Jielr chests. The stubbiest island ttw; broke the sea line might be a place of mott unearthly wonders. That gave a spice to life, and it lent some point to exploring. Who wouldn’t be willing to rough it a bit, if he believed that he might run into a nest of mermaids with coral flowers in their hair? So these Frenchmen have brought exploration back to its old status. They hive dug up a legend; they are going off to find the sirens, who seem to have eluded mankind ever since Odysseus manfully sailed pasi. them. If we could have more expeditions like this one, exploration would be wor*h reading about once again. “THE DUTY OF THE VICTORS” A LFRED A. STACEY, national commander of tb<! Grand Army of the Republic, believes that the Federal government should pay Civil War pensions to veterans of the Confederate armies as well as to Union men. This, says Commander Stacey, would not onl> be a humanitarian act; it would help to remove the last vestiges of bitterness, and it would seal the harmony that now exists between one-time enemies. Such a move he says, is "the duty of the victors.” Precisely 70 years have passed since the men in blue and gray laid down their arms. The hatred and suspicion of war days are almost dead, by now. What more fitting way would there be for the country to symbolize this fact than to do as this old soldier suggests and put the Confederate veterans on the pension rolls? CAREER MEN IN POLITICS OV. HAROLD G. HOFFMAN of New Jersey, in an address in Ohio, calls for more "career men” In politics to end the prevailing distrust of political management. "We have failed," he says, "to develop a public servant personnel which is uniformly of such high character as to warrant confidence that administration by a government agency is bound to provide those elements of integrity, trusteeship, and inviolable ethics which would command universal respect for the public administrator.” There is a good deal of logic in this demand. It looks very much as if we were entering an era in which government would progressively become more active instead of less, and exercise more and more control over affairs which touch the lives of all of us most intimately. No such program can succeed unless public servants are of a very high type. The oldtime political appointee is as out of date as <he stagecoach in modern America. MURDEROUS CROSSINGS A T Rockville, Md., Just outside of Washington. a passenger train plowed into a school bus, killing 14 high school students and injuring others. This tragedy at the doorstep of the capital, typical of so many grade-cross-ing fatalities throughout the country, underscores the demand that the bulk of the SBOO,000,000 earmarked for highways in the workrelief program be spent for the abatement of such death traps. The Maryland crossing is only one of some 250.000 potential agencies of massacre in the United States. Last year these caused an es- ’ timated 2000 deaths and 5000 injuries. A lethal grade crossing can be exterminated for as little as $25,000. Gov. La Follette of Wisconsin reduced the death rate from this cause by 50 per cent in one year with an abatement program financed by the state and railroads. No form of public works offers quicker returns in jobs and salvaged lives than this. Now that the means are at hand to give work and prevent death it would be indefensible to spend this money on construction of highways not vitally needed. Auto drivers, especially those intrusted with the lives of passengers, must learn to stop, look and listen. The government's job is to send out its work crews at once to start dirt flying in a nation-wide project of deathproofing the highways. * THE ROERICH PACT 'T'HIRTY-ONE years ago Prof. Nicholas Roerich had an idea. Yesterday at the White House, the plenipotentiaries of 19 American nations, including the United States, celebrated Pan-American day by translating his idea into an international covenant. Under the Roerich pact, the signatory nations agree to protect cultural institutions and monuaients within their borders at all times and to respect the inviolability of those treasures of human genius in times of war. It is an open compact of civilization to end vandalism of libraries, cathedrals, museums and the like. All of the nations of the world are invited to add their signatures to the document approved so enthusiastically by the republics of the two American continents. Thus does progress inch forward. And thus do persevering idealists like Prof. Poerich and his small band of followers mold a better civilization. THE GRASSHOPPERS npHOSE who think of Hitler as the voice of the German folk, of Father Coughlin as the voice of Catholicism, of Huey Long as the voice of the United States 3enate may recall the words of Edmund Burke on the noisemaking of his day. Said he: "Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, imposed beneath the shadow of the British oak. chew and cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that they are many in number, or that they are other than the littled shriveled, meager, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of th*> hour.” That New Yorker who beat up Lis dentist was probably Just checking to if, as claimed, the man really was painless. The next war might be made acceptable to college student* by installing referees and holding it in a stadium. Under anew Washington ruling, dogs and cats may now ride in Pullman cars. Since meat prices went up. we thought all available space was taken up by hogs and cattle. People as a rule have greater yearning than earning capacity.

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

qpHE publicity which has been given recently to the Strachey case, to the Kearst crusade against liberal teachers and the like, has unfortunately distracted attention from the less spectacular but more dangerous efforts being made in our state legislatures and in Congress to crush out the fundamental American liberties relating to free thought and expression. Many of those who expect Fascism to come to America are looking for it to emerge in colorful fashion through the plotting of some dramatic figure. While worrying about Huey Long, father Coughlin, Gen. Johnson and the like, they fall to discern the manner in which Fascism is very really creeping upon us from behind through laws engineered by reactionary and patriotic societies. Unless this movement is exposed and checked, we shall not need any man on horseback to end democracy and freedom in the United States. Hence, the article on "Patriotism Dons the Black Shirt,” by Raymond Grant Swing in The Nation, is very timely. There are five major types of drives against civil liberties which are now under way in this country: (1) Compulsory loyalty oaths exacted of teachers; (2) attempts to keep the Communist party off the ballot and thus make revolutionary activity its only means of expression; (3) the imposition of heavy penalties on anybody agitating for the overthrow of government by force of violence: (4) provision for the suppression of propaganda among the armed forces of the government, and (5) the ousting and exclusion of foreign propagandists. nun THE silly loyalty oaths for teachers are now required in 15 states. They have been put on the statute books chiefly through the action of the Sons and Daughter of the American Revolution, the Elks and the American Legion. Far more serious than these loyalty laws is the effort to outlaw the Communist party. The usual pattern of such bills is the following: •No political party shall be recognized and given a place on the ballot which advocates the overthrow by force or violence of our local, state, or national government.” Inasmuch as the chief objection to the Communist party by patriots is the fact that it advocates unconstitutional methods of achieving reform, it is singularly illogical to compel it to abandon such constitutional methods of expression and activity as it uses today. Still more menacing as affecting many more Americans is the Kramer bill now before Congress which would impose a fine of SIO,OOO, or a sentence of 10 years of both on the following types of persons: “Whoever by word of mouth or in writing advocates, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or overturning the government . . . "Whoever, with intent to overthrow or overturn the government ... by force or violence or any unlawful means, prints, publishes, edits, issues, or knowingly circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any book, paper, document, or written or printed matter in any form containing or advocating, advising, or teaching the doctrine that the government . . . should be overthrown or overturned by force, violence, or by any unlawful means. . . . n n n “\\ THOEVER organizes or helps to organize, W or becomes a member of. or affiliates with any society, group, or assembly of persons formed to teach or advocate the overthrow or overturn of the government . . Since the government is obviously in no danger of actual overthrow by force, it is obvious that this bill is designed chiefly to prevent the expression of radical opinion criticising the present economic order. Particularly sinister is the McCormack bill, now before Congress, which would impose heavy penalties on those who in any way advocate disobedience of the laws or regulations governing the military or naval forces of the United States. The ostensible purpose of the bill is to protect the Army and Navy against radical propaganda, but its deeper aim is to curb any criticism of the use of the armed forces of the government in putting down civil disorders arising out of industrial disputes. Exhortation to a soldier to refrain from shooting down a striker could legally draw a two-year prison sentence. Perhaps most absurd of all is the Dickstein bill which would authorize the deportation or exclusion of any type of foreign propagandist. As active representative of the Pope in America, or of the British League of Nations Union could be proceeded against under this bill. If a foreigner asked a disconcerting question at a public forum, he could be thrown out of the country. Some of the state bills are almost incredibly absurd and far-reaching. In Connecticut, it was proposed to outlaw even pictures which advocated or encouraged any change in the government of the United States. Under this bill even a progressive cartoonist would have found himself hamstrung and liable to punishment.

Gertrude Stein says, "I like ordinary people who don’t bore me. Highbrows always do.” The part we can’t understand is that we can understand her. If a man bites a dog, that’s not news if the incident occurs at a lunch counter. Noted bigamist sentenced tc Sing Sing mop and broom squad. He must feel right at home. Famous woman writer says college women are better for the important project that can not be hastily carried out. Like getting hubby to finance anew spring coat. Remember when people used to chew each mouthful of food a certain number of times to aid digestion? Now they do it to get th|jr money's worth. J Rhode Island missionary returns to United States with tales of cannibalistic Solomon Islanders. Wonder why missionaries teach natives to love their fellow-men when they already dote on them? Helen Morgan of stage fame has sued her husband for divorce on grounds he forced her “to support herself.” We thought a piano did that. It has been proved, says a New York psychologist, that one mind can affect another at a distance. We’re convinced of it, having seen men turn pale after trumping an ace. That South African custom which requires a man to stand at a distance when addressing his mother-in-law was probably dictated by caution. Cleveland girl who hiccoughed for nearly three weeks straight was advised to dnnk lots of beer. The object seems to be a hicccugh to end all hiccoughs. Someone's been trying to figure out why, when short skirts appear good times are in the vicinity. What could be more likely to lure prosperity from around that comer. Remember when tots and the old folks were classed as dependents, before the Shirley Tem-ple-old age pension era? With that anti-war-profits bill. Uncle Sam would have to decline should another power ask him if he wanted to make something out of It.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Wry X XX ;X.. X • k! O |M \/ i . -.v 7 j % —■ j You OOnT ] 1 BELONG j x / / V

The Message Center

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these rolumns. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to SSO words or less. Your letter must be sinned, but names will be withheld at request of the letter writer J tt a tt V. S. CROP PROGRAM INCONGRUOUS, HE SAYS By Will H. Craijf. In a recent editorial, you said, "There is something so incongruous about paying men to raise less wheat and cotton and hogs at a time when millions of people are suffering for want of food and clothing that we can hardly expect to make this scheme permanent.” This is true, but how much more incongruous is it for the Federal government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce crops and then both state and nation appropriate millions more to teach the farmers how to raise bigger and better crops. What did the Indiana Budget Committee or the Economy Commission say about appropriating money to Purdue University for extension and experimental work among farmers? No one knows, as its reports were never made known so the taxpayers could see how their money was wasted and their interests exploited. The government is going to buy a lot of marginal land and retire it from cultivation. At the same time, it is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the Boulder Dam and other irrigation projects to bring into cultivation millions of acres of new land. Oh, consistency, thou art a charm! Going further, why should Indiana University have a teachers’ training course when we have two state and 12 non-state normals, turning out a great surplus of teachers with 8,000 now idle in the state? And why have seven divisions in the Conservation Department, manned by a lot of services, like geology, bugology, etc., when such work is fully covered by the Federal government and our own state schools. If the special session wants to "strike pay dirt” for the taxpayers, let them dig into the expenditures of the state schools. Conservation Department and Highway Department.

CONFIDENCE IN NATIONS' ASSETS NEEDED By John B. Reed. The defaulted loans and Interest on loans to foreign governments have caused loss of confidence in them and retarded commerce, exchange of commodities, thereby lessening production, closing industries and ousting employes. These foreign and domestic securities were unloaded upon the public for their money by the Morgans. Mellons, Whitneys, and others, acting as brokers who retained sizeable cash commissions. Now the banks go broke and our deposits are denied us. These deposits are represented by frozen assets of nonconvertible securities. Now prosperity will come on the return of confidence in securities and government's control of their issues. Congress, to relieve this depression, is borrowing billions from those plunderers on interest-bearing bonds, the money to be given to the needy, or spent cm federal, state or municipal works. This gives present relief, which is mo6t important, but does little toward, the most essential need-

THEY DON’T MIX

Day of Youth Is Here

Bv VV. H. Brfnnan. Your editorial on the students’ protest against war was fine and it seems people may yet see that if our young men and young women were placed in high offices, this country would soon be back on its feet. If they are to shoulder all these debts, they should have the say how to go about it and if they must fight our wars, they should be the ones to say when and how it should be done. In a letter from a writer I am told I am wrong about boosting the youth movement in politics. TJ*e writer said, “Old men for counsel and young men for war is an old saying and is good now.” But I do not agree with him, for it is a rotten saying, w r hoever says it. Os course, none of us wants war and to condemn our young set for protesting doesn’t make sense, no matter who does it. There is no need to fear our youths are going wrong in politics or war, for if they could get support and build up their youth movement in politics, it would be much better than listening to some of the older set year after year, telling of what great things to expect from them, "just around the corner.” If the youths call their meeting for May 29 in Indianapolis they

starting industries in the production of commodities. These borrowed monies must all be repaid with interest added. These plunderers must, in some way, be made to give this accumulated wealth back to the public where it belongs. One way is to step issuance of any interest bearing bonds and hereafter use paper money, as gold and silver instead. Confidence in the soundness of our country’s assets makes one investment as good as another. a tt a ROOSEVELT CREDITED FOR GOOD TO NATION By J. K. I quite agree with R. R. G., that it is not unpatriotic to criticise the President. But I do think that the criticism should be constructive. To be constructive, it should recognize and give credit for the good that has been done and condemn that which is detrimental to the nation. I do not subscribe to the “Roosevelt can do no wTong” theory, but I do look upon President Roosevelt first of all as a human being. He is not a devil nor is he a saint. Because he is human, he is apt to make many mistakes and listen at times to the wrong advice. However, if he never made mistakes, he still would not please everybody. The same might be said for any President. ttea LUDLOW PRAISES STAND OF TIMES ON AMENDMENT By R*p. Loo' Ludlow. Thanks very much for your letter and for its enclosures, the editorial and cartoon that appeared in The Indianapolis Times. I am deeply appreciative of the very effective support The Times is giving to the resolution which I have introduced to minimize the possibility of war. I have no pride of authorship whatever, but I believe the proposed amendment I have introduced is the most effective measure pend- * r

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

will get thousands to come at no extra expense, and it will be a meeting long to be remembered, since it will halt many of the little new party attempts and unite all youths in their attempt to assert their rights. When a people refuse to trust their sons and daughters, for fear they are "reds,” there is little hope lor the country, for if we go "red” our youths can be relied upon to put on the show just as well as any one else, besides fighting them in their attempt to enter politics as leaders in their own right rather than follow some of the old leaders. The young men and young women must act now if they hope to have any say in party affairs and call the meeting for May 29. The old line party men keep the young set stalled off, in the belief they will come in for something if they will let the old set do all the planning. It’s the bunk—youths must step out in front and tell, through their great creators, what the young men and women are thinking and what they propose to do, and the few old party men who keep sending up these smoke screens will fade, close up and step out of a picture that belongs to the young set by every rule and eve.*v reason worth while offering. This is youth's day.

ing before Congress as a preventive of war. I also believe that unless we secure the adoption cf this amendment, or one similar to it, we shall before very long find ourselves involved in another war. It is a situation. I think, that is a challenge to all patriotic Americans who believe in majority rule especially in respect to such a sacred decision as a decision for or against war. I think The Times is rendering a great service to humanity by its very intelligent championship of this cause, and as one who is seeking to be a humble instrument in accomplishing a beneficial sendee to humanity, I am very appreciative you may be sure. a a a YOUNGER GENERATION TAKES STAND AGAINST WAR By a Reader. It makes one’s heart swell to hear our doughboys tell it. When it comes to panning and rubbing it in till it gets results you can’t beat a dyed-in-the-wool doughboy. Some gentleman calling himself a “Regular Soldier, ’ either in a fanciful moment or by some mistake wrote certain things that failed to appeal to the real doughboys. In fact it raised their bile. The “Regular Soldier” has our sympathy. He hasn’t reached the end yet. I was a regular soldier myself during the World War. I remember all the battles in which I fought as if they were only yesterday. I remember I had blue pieces and brown pieces and a big agate. I lined up the two armies in battle array and hid the general (just like they do in the real thing). Each side got its turn to blast the men of the other side. I fought most the battles of the time and a iot more besides which I thought were necessary for a well-rounded war. Let us hope that my generation and the succeeding generation will engage only in this type of warfare. God alone, with the exception of some few of the fine lads that

-APRIL 16, 1935

fought In the last one, know the real truths. God spare us. The truth Is really and truly stranger than fiction. a an HE'S A DEMOCRAT WHO MADE AN ERROR Bt r. r. o. “Roosevelt Follower” flatters r\e. He is wrong on all counts. \ I am not a Republican, nor am hot-headed. I have never held public office and I don't think the de-' pression would have ended immediately had Hoover been re-elected. I think the $4,800,000,000 work relief legislation will do some good. It will help buy the Administration back into office in 1936. I have never tried to dictate to anybody and lam not a sore head. I am just a deluded Democrat who is honest enough to face the facts and admit the error of my ways.

So They Say

There is a rising tide of industrial discontent.—Senator Wagner of New York. He is very sweet and very wonderful. We will continue to be the very best of friends—Princess Barbara Hutton Mdivani, seeking divorce. I am watching events. When—and if—the time comes that I mav feel called upon to act again, I will act.—Upton Sinclair. Women who pluck their eyebrows endanger their eyes. Besides, that practice, in the opinion of men, is hideous—Paul Gifford, prominent Vermont optometrist. What science has done to makei it possible to live to a riper age Jsl offset by the tempo of the times.—/ Dr. H. W. Cook, insurance executivjs If recovery does not come soon, we may as well get ready for whatever Dr. Townsend, the Rev. Father Coughlin and Huey Long propose.— Edw'ard A. Filene. Boston merchant. Don't destroy 95 honest utility men to get at five utility crooks!— Fred G. Clark, national commander of Crusaders.

Daily Thought

Take you wise men, and understanding. and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.—Deuteronomy 1:13. VERY few men art wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching; for he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master. —Ben Jonson.

COQUETTE

BY POLLY LOIS NORTON You are a crimson leaf :loating upon still water, Blue-green ice that warms before death comes, Tongues of bright flame, embracing, cha-ring. And the dank smell of death in haunted empty room*.