Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 36, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 April 1935 — Page 10

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Cti'-e T.isht and the People Will Find Tlrir Own Wav

MONDAY. APRIL 22. 1935. THE ANTI-GERMAN ALLIANCE 'T' ASTER passed with immediate European ■*- y war less probable, but eventual war apparently more certain. The threat is postponed by the united front against German militarism, represented in the unanimous action of the League of Nations council. But Hitler's renewed defiance, and unwillingness to co-opcrate with the other powers in new treaties, creates a worse situation for the future. This is the European paradox—a protecti\e military alliance against Hitler is necessary to preserve peace, but such an armed P'uice in the past always has led to war and probably will again. The alternative is anew si: tern of treaties, more just to Germany and therefore more enduring than the victors’ Treaty of Versailles. But the prospect of getting Germany back into the family of nations on anew treaty basis is less than it was a fortnight ago. b b b It is ncithrr accurate nor fair to put all of the blame on Germany. The Allied powers over a period of many years had plenty of opportunity to rewrite the unjust Versailles Treaty on a basis of German equality. They refused. And their refusal was chiefly responsible for the fall of the liberal German republic. The German people did not turn back to militarism until after France and the Allies had convinced them that all peaceful methods of achieving justice had failed. So the Hitler menace is of the Allies' own making. After the Allies had thus brought Hitler to power they still had a belated opportunity to curb his control. Had they then immediately recognized Germany's political, economic and military equality, they could have destroyed the Nazi monopoly of German patriotism. This is not hindsight. This policy of justice for Germany has been demanded all along by peace advocates as the only realistic preparedness against European war. But the Allied politicians and militarists were too blind to see it. Os course, military equality for Germany, with her larger population and superior industrial and technical resources, could mean German military supremacy of Europe. The only way to prevent that is to make German equality conditional on general arms reduction. From the beginning this has been the way out for the Allies. But their own militarism, their unwillingness to cut at home, has stood in the way of a European settlement. It is true, as the League council says, that Germany has no right to arm in defiance of the treaty without agreement with the other powers. But it is also true that the Allies had no right to refuse to disarm themselves in cynical disregard of the treaty. The post-war disarmament of Germany was justified by the treaty on the ground that this would enable the allies to disarm. Since they did not keep their part of the treaty written by themselves, It is absurd for them to assume a holier-than-thou attitude because Germany is not keeping her part of a treaty which was forced upon her. a b b T>UT distribution of blame will not solve this international problem. Hitler is no less a menace to world peace because Germany has a just cause for equality. And the Allies are no less the immediate gqardians of peace because their stupidity caused the crisis. Under the circumstances it was necessary for France, Britain. Italy, Russia and the Little Entente during the last month to encircle a mad Germany with steel. But that is not enough. Germany must be brought back to sanity by ofTers of terms of joint disarmament so fair that the German people will accept them, even if Hitler does not. As long as Germany has nothing but her Versailles slavery to lose, she will fight. No military alliance alone can stop her. THE SILLY SEASON r I 'HE law is not always, as Mr. Bumble suggested. “a ass.’’ But through every legislative springtime some restless law-makers work overtime trying to make one out of it. From this silly season's gleanings of freak bills collected by the United Press one would think America had nothing whatsoever on its mind. Statesmen of New York. Nebraska and Wisconsin were found working for bills to paint school busses red, white and blue. An Illinois bill would make male teachers wear collars of the colors of Old Glory, and female teachers cuffs of the same. An Oklahoman would punish nudism with life imprisonment. A Montanan wants fan-dancers to wear costumes weighing at least three pounds two ounces when appearing where liquor is sold. A legislator in Rudy Vallee's state of Maine would link saxophonists with rogues and vagabonds, subject to 90 days in the cooler. But cruel and unusual was the proposal in Arkansas to make chicken stealing a penitentiary offense. Colorado's contribution is a duly passed resolution instructing Patrick Boyle, the Statehouse's Janitor, to run up to Eagle County and get “Old Two-Toe,” a muchwanted cattle-eating grizzly bear. DING, DONG, DING EXASPERATED bv Congressional indifference and administrative red tape. J. N. “Ding” Darling is about ready to throw up his Job as the United States Biological Survey chief. Ding says he is tired of running a oneman crusade to preserve wild game. He is Irritated because Congress has delayed in passing laws and providing funds to protect wild life, and because other Federal bureaus have not co-operated. It Is easy to sympathize and join In hh condemnations. It is easy to understand how a

world-famous cartoonist, who gave up a lucrative profession to perform an unselfish public service, should chafe at the frustrations of bureaucracy. But it Is hard to understand why a man who spent so long caricaturing Congress and red tape should be surprised to learn that his cartoons did not exaggerate. SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR ' | S HAT silvery airplane that went out over the Pacific the other day to blaze a trial to the Far East may have carried with it a •good part of the answer to that puzzling question, How shall we find a substitute for war? Whatever else war may be, it is at least—in its superficial stages, at any rate—exciting. The nations greeted the outbreak in 1914 with cheers, because life had grown too settled, too unexciting, too fixed in a sheltered routine. And as long as that condition persists, war can not be abolished. This flight to the Orient brings us back to an earlier stage in human history. It is a venture in pioneering and exploration in a day when pioneers and explorers are apt to find time hanging heavy on their hands. It is a reminder that the world still contains chances for daring men to try new paths and risk their lives. And when all is said and done, there Is something about the human race which makes it need such chances very badly. The whole growli ol civilization is simply the story of our efforts to make life more secure and orderly; but because there is this thirsting for adventure and long chances embedded in human nature, we no sooner increase security and order than we begin to grow bored. We have tamed the wild West, for instance, policed those lawless towns which once were at the mercy of the two-gun men, and made life as safe along the Mexican border as it is anywhere else. But having done so, we look back on the old days with wistful regret. We make movies about them and write books about them, and most of us retain in our hearts'more than a trace of that little-boy longing to get back to them. Because that feeling persists—it is illogical, but perfectly natural—it is an easy job to pull us into war. W r ar restores this last state of insecurity and excitement. It compels men to take long risks and get up against the old fundamentals of danger and death; and just at first, before we have had a real taste of it, we welcome it, for the simple reason that it provides a break m the prosaic routine of peace. What we are getting out in the Pacific is a return to the day of great ventures and high romance. It is impossible to read of these attempts to chart an air- line to China without realizing that this is exporation and adventure on a truly grand scale. This Pan-American Clipper is a direct descendant of Drake’s Golden Hind—in an age which supposed it had left that sort of thing forever behind it. i k If we can get enough of this sort of thing into modern life, we can make peace-time lose its old aura of drabness and dullness. And if we can do that, we shall no longer be easy marks for the war-makers. NOT QUITE SO BLOODTHIRSTY TAESPITE all the jingling of sabers in Europe these days, it is evident that national leaders, when pushed right to the brink of actual hostilities, do not want to fight. Italy and Abyssinia began drifting toward war several weeks ago. Troops were mobilized, frontier garrisons were strengthened, war talk filled the papers. It looked for a time as if a fight could not be prevented. Now, however, it is announced that the council of the League of Nations has persuaded the two governments to settle their dispute over the frontier territory in Africa by arbitration. Mussolini himself, supposed to be about as fierce a man-eater as any dictator alive, seems to have concluded that arbitration is cheaper than fighting. It is an encouraging development. It indicates that the league can still be of service to the cause of world peace, and it shows that Europe's statesmen are not quite as ready to go to war as recent news dispatches had lea us to suppose. BEHIND THE RACE RIOTS \ S a sidelight on the slum clearance problem, consider the report turned in by the New York Urban League on those recent race riots in,Harlem. The league, after making a study of the whole affair, finds that overcrowding and lack of recreational facilities were chiefly responable for the trouble. They compelled thousands of people to live under circumstances which set nerves on edge and promoted sullen resentment; need any one be surprised that it took only a minor incident to touch off a rict? The same moral applies to every city which has slums which, of course, means every American city of any size at all. Overcrowding and bad housing are the most expensive luxuries a city can maintain. A slum clearance program which brought them to an end would be about as paying a proposition as the navion could easily find. THE WORLD MOVES ON fact that an international equal-rights-for-v.omen conference is being held in the former harem of the sultans of Turkey is the sort of thing that leads to wisecracks. Women from 42 countries have convened at the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul. Istanbul used to be Constantinople and the Yildiz Palace used to be the seraglio in which the sultan's girl friends were kept under lock and key; to locate a feminist conference there, of all places on earth, is about equal to convening a disarmament conference in one of the Krupp factories. But for that very reason the incident deserves something more in the way of attention than a casual joke or two. It symbolizes one way, at least, in which the world has managed to make some very definite progress during the last quarter century. It is probably true that modem civilization has declined somewhat since the pre-war decade; but in this one instance it has made a decided advance. Suppose, for example, that we go back to 1906 or 1907. Nothing could have seemed less likely, then, than that the fight for feminine equality would sweep clear into the sultan's harem at any time in the near future. Even in England and America, the feminist was a person distrusted and ridiculed by ordinary folk, and her fight had barely>*>egun. Only the most of oplmista

would have predicted a victory in Turkey inside of one generation. But the world does move, and it sometimes has a way of moving a great deal faster than any one dares to predict. The fact is symbolized by this convention in Turkey's onetime harem and in it there is a spoonful or two of hope for a discouraged world. Just now such things as democracy, liberty, and peace look to be in a very bad way. They have been taking their knocks ever since 1914, and it sometimes looks as if one wallop would finish all three for ke°ps. But human history is an incalculable thing, and it can move in most unexpected ways to confound the pessimists. After all, the past generation has turned the palace of the Russian czar into a workers’ museum, and the seraglio of the Turkish sultan into a convention hall for feminists. Is one being altogether too hopeful to suspect that the next generation may bring equally surprising changes? MR. PELLEY PROPOSES PRESIDENT JOHN J. PELLEY of the Association of American Railroads has proposed a three-point program under which, given a return to prosperity, the railways “again will give a good account of themselves.” He urges the government to withdraw all subsidies from other forms of transportation and regulate them as it does the railroads; to oppose all legislation increasing rail costs; to end the services of Transportation Co-ordina-tor Eastman. Isn’t some of this a bit naive? Who does not remember the gigantic subsidies in farm, oil, timber and other lands the government handed the pioneering railroads? It is fair to demand equal regulation of competing carriers, as President Roosevelt proposes. But rail owners should not appear so shocked at government help for the younger pioneers in competing transportation. Railroads now can not shoulder new costs, but when they save money through consolidations they can help take care of workers displaced In the process. Under the RooseveltEastman plan now before Congress, the railroads would care for these displaced workers during a period of adjustment by old-age pensions, unemployment insurance and dismissal compensation. The alternative is to throw many rail workers’ families on relief. For the railroads to spurn the government’s helping hand in co-ordination plans, after years of unsuccessful attempts without such help, is folly. That would invite more chaos, wasteful duplications, cut-throat competition. But it may be possible under the Eastman government-help plan for the railroads again to “give a good account of themselves.” PASS THE APPLE PIE A MONG the other things agitating Congress these days is an argument over the comparative merits of the apple pies of Oregon and New York. It started when, Rep. William A. Ekwall passed around some Oregon apples and asserted that apples from the Hood River valley are the tastiest in the world. For reply, Rep. James P. Duffy of New York submitted a great stack of pies made with New York apples and invited his colleagues to taste and be convinced. About all that can be said at this distance is that the whole business is a break for the Congressmen. Apple pie is apple pie, whether it comes from Oregon, New York, or somewhere else, and if the argument inspires local pride to the production of bigger and better ones, all of us can give thanks. BETTER PUBLIC SERVICE r\R. LEONARD D. WHITE, new member of the United States Civil Sendee Commission, catalogs in his new book, “Government Career Service” (Chicago University Press), the forces which he thinks are pushing America toward a better public personnel system. “The key,” he says, “is to be found in the new range of governmental problems, carrying the state into fields which it has never essayed before and which . . . require the very highest type of public servant.” To indicate the difference between demands of the present and of the past, he quotes another writer: “Governments have come to be engaged not merely in preventing wrong things from being done, but in bringing it about that right things shall be done. A negative government only requires courage and consistency in its officials; but a positive government requires a constant supply of invention and suggestion.” Dr. White's book is formed from a series of lectures he delivered in February at the University of Chicago, where he is professor of public administration. He outlines a “career service” for American government employes, using the best Ideas from the British, German and other systems! It would include all in Federal service except the President's immediate aids such as Cabinet officers and their closest assistants. The humblest messenger boy would find the door open to the top if he had the driving power and the right goods to offer. “The more intimately one knows individual civil servants, the greater the respect for their devotion, their ability, and their loyalty to the task." he says. “By and large, it is the system which is at fault, and the system which must be improved.” In his encounters with dust storms, the farmer seems to be losing ground. Bishop Cannon says that two-thirds of the taxpayers are keeping the other third. But after all, they’re relations. That actress who married the Beverly Hills attorney evidently wanted to eliminate the middleman profit. The plight of the southern share-croppers must be nearly as bad as that of the northern share-croppers. Our idea of a real gentleman Is one who would give a woman his seat on the Stock Exchange. We can't understand why a rich man should object to the share-the-wealth program, since eventually his daughter would share it, anyway, with a titled foreigner. National air race parachute jumpers approach boss for a raise. Bet they weren’t bothered by that sinking feeling.

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 250 words or less. Your letter must be sinned, but names will be withheld at request of the letter writerJ B B B INEQUALITIES OF WEALTH CITED By Warren A. Benedict Jr. The average reader who read in the April 5 issue of The Times of the huge salaries paid certain executives, with a top of SIIB,OOO yearly going to an oil company executive, probably reasoned correctly that these excessive wages constitute an unwarranted drain on employes, the public and stockholders. Yet he probably failed to realize how insignificant they are when compared to the fortunes of some of our multimillionaires. Had the above mentioned oil executive been gifted with the longevity of Methuselah, he would have to have started 27 years before the Declaration of Independence at his present salary, and earned it continuously, to have earned the fortune of Doris Duke, who turned not a hand in acquiring her wealth. By like comparison, he would have had to start in the twelfth century to earn the reputed wealth of Andrew Mellon. Furthermore, the fortunes of these two would support in at least decency and self-respect for one year the population of cities the size of Anderson, Ind., and Louisville, Ky. That such huge fortunes are justified seems too dumb for any one with good sense to believe. Horse sense would argue that first every able-bodied man willing to work should have a decent job, then those with superior ability and energy should be rewarded proportionately, but not to the exent of the oil exective. Then, were there more than enough to go around, fortunes, but much smaller than the above mentioned, might be acquired. Huey Long is trying to bring about laws preventing such colossal inequalities of w’ealth. Yet for his horse sense reasoning the press generally, including the so-called liberal papers, rants and raves at him, hunts out and magnifies his weaknesses and shortcomings. But until such gross inequalities are remedied, we can not hope to make much progress. n b b COMMENTS ON WAIL OF REGULAR SOLDIER By H. E. Thixton. It seems to me that there were quite a few' regulars stranded in the states and ju§t crazy to get across. Where was this illustrious regular when the Ninth and Twenty-third Infantry mobilized in Syracuse, N. Y.? They sailed at only about 50 per cent war strength. Read my service record and weep. I served only 23 months and was across in time to follow the rolling barrage at Chateau-Thierry, Soissons, St. Mihiel, Champagne and twice in the Argonne forest and service also on three defensive sectors and in the occupation of the Rhine. Strange isn’t it, that was sendee in the Twenty-third Infantry and I wasn't so crazy about it either. I have a 75 per cent disability and receive no government pension. This regular would like to have had that sendee record, but thought it too tough to earn it. If those red-blooded regulars wanted to fight, why didn't they join the infantry or in the case of this particular truck driver, did he think that he could park his truck and go over the top? Surely he would know that the truck drivers were not combatants. There were no three million regulars who never got across, because there were not that many enlisted. There is a very close comparison gbetweea the

THE WITCH DOCTORS

These Laws — Oh, My!

By j. L. Lots of times, laws don’t make sense. Take, for instance, the happening of last week in two cases of criminal assault convictions in Marion County. Three men, all married, received suspended sentences and fines in Juvenile Court on conviction of having had criminal relations with a 15-year-old girl. They had been charged with contributing to her delinquency. A day later, a youth charged with statutory rape was sentenced to one to 10 years on the Indiana State Farm for having had criminal relations with a young woman who was in court when her lover was sentenced. In spite of the fact that she is pregnant, and in spite of the fact that they wanted to get married, the law took its course, and the boy went to prison. Two crimes of the same nature —the first particularly offensive—and yet a vast difference between the punishments! That doesn’t make sense, no matter how long the law is read, how letter perfect the judges are in their duty and latitudes. Neither, in a lesser way, does it make sense for policemen to be running around - enforcing, with unusual vigor, certain violations of the gambling laws, and leaving other open violations to their openness. I refer, of course, to the mild hysteria the police have recently enjoyed when they so much as thought of someone placing a bet on a race horse, and I refer also to the complete indifference they have shown to the operation of the policy game in Indianapolis.

drafted tenderfoot and the camouflaged dud known as the regular tenderfoot. I have never known that the government maintained a battalion of regular duds for the sinister purpose of shooting the little drafted boys. In plain words I am telling this regular that the government stationed him in the warm southern climate purposely to keep his tender and cold feet warm and in closing I might add that I certainly would have enjoyed the experience of having a man of his type taking a shot at me. I am not signing this as a regular soldier but am signing my name. And just a lot of other regulars' would have welcomed the oppoi unity which would have been afforded by such traits as you seemingly possess. Join up with the American Legion and line up with those other white elephants. a b b GOLD BRICKS AND BUSINESS FEARS By Georje Gould Hine. On Tuesday, Indianapolis business men complained of feeling considerably better. The daily bulletin on their mental condition, “Business on nervous edge,” hadn’t been changed for so long that they were able to look at it with some complacency. They sat up a little, took some nourishment and almost smiled at their nurses. But on Wednesday morning they had a relapse. The old bulletin had been taken down and anew one in box car headlines had taken its place. It said, “Business numb with fear.” No sooner had their eyes fallen upon it than they curled up and stiffened, stiffening while they curled, as their nurses sprang upon them with hot water bottles and oil. Now what was the matter with the old bulletin? It permitted occasional spasmodic movement. It was at least .humane* Why ossify, petrify and fossilize the delicate

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

Mow it is well known that the policy game, operated almost exclusively among the city's Negro population, runs without interference, and it is furthermore known to those who know that the policy game as operated here is unpunished grand larceny. I believe The Indianapolis Times called the shot of the policy game for Mike Morrissey, just in case he hadn't known it all along, and told him to the street, block, and type of business house where the drawings are made night and morning, daily. Mr. Morrissey, mildly mad on the subject of horse race betting, did not answer. Yet, the Negro population, largely on relief, is daily swindled of its stray nickels and dimes—brazenly swindled, if you please. It is unthinkable, of course, that the presence in the background of the policy racket of Negro politicians who can deliver votes has anything at all to do with the charmed life the racket leads —especially since the Negro vote in this city is a bloc to be reckoned with. Maybe the gambling laws don't make sense—l don’t suppose they do. I suppose that there should be nonpolitical gambling places licensed and operated according to law. That would be a good way out. But until that happens, any continued raids by police on gambling places they have known all along were running, can be supposed by thinking noncombatants to be caused by only one circumstance—and you don't need three guesses to get the right answer.

business psychology with “business numb with fear?” There can be but one answer to that. The financial desperadoes must have just arrived at the last stage of desperation. The President is going ahead with his reforms. More roads to quick and easy wealth are going to be blocked. On Thursday, anew gold brick was laid upon the President’s desk. It was triple-plated by the desperados’ confidence men, whose specialty is confidence, more confidence and still more confidence for business numb with fear. It glittered with hopes for the President's reelection if he would only quit repairing the roof while it's raining. It glowed in anticipation of the sunshine coming, when the roof wouldn’t need repair. But the gold brick glittered with false hope—the hope that there’ll be no third ticket in the field—the hope that a sell-out to the old deal would not start an avalanche to the left—and the hope that Republicans would knife their ticket in exchange for two years of marking time. It held out the hope of building $50,000,000 worth of machinery to make things which nobody can buy, because the purchasing power is concentrated in the hands of the few - —machinery which has been shipped around the world to make things this country formerly supplied, whose surplus production is shipped back here to

Daily Thought

God is my strength and power; and he maketh my way perfect.— II Samuel, 22:23, WHEN men cease to be faithful to their God, he who expects to find them so to each other will be much disappointed. Bfchop Home.

'APRIL 22, 193d

undersell our own. This Is its remedy for the unemployed. Not waiting for this remedy to take effect, it would stop government spending and let insecure business and properties of the middle class pay the full penalty of an orgy of stock market gambling such as the world never has before seen. It would resume the process of deflation because it knows that the great wealth it represents would emerge with gilt-edged properties foreclosed upon at a fraction of their value. They want to keep the middle class curled up, stiff and numb with manufactured fear in order that the bill for government spending will not be paid by taxes on excess profits and great incomes, but instead by taxes on the poor. And so we see canned editorials in our local papers headlined with ‘Business numb with fear.” It would seem that the best thing to do. in view of the fact that a third ticket would play right into the Old Guard's hand, would be to adopt Father Coughlin’s suggestion, keep your eyes on your Congressmen, support those who move forward with the President; bury the ones who don’t. Then, if we get an Old Guard President, even though the Congress can’t move forward against a veto, at least it can't go back.

So They Say

Looking at things as they are today, I'd say that me’n Paul would win 45 games this season, and the Cardinals will win the pennant by an eyelash.—Dizzy Dean. I have no interest in other men’s wives, except when they are taking special privilege by usurping men’s jobs—Wisconsin Assemblyman Maurice Fitzsimons, author of bill to return women “to the home.’’ What’s a million dollars? We made it once; we’ll make it again.— Rosetta Duncan of famed vaudeville sister team. I could not get on outside. I was afraid I'd get into more trouble. I want to come in.—Harry Iwanshyn, pleading for readmission to Sing Sing. As long as there can be a difference of opinion among nations as to what is truth and what is not truth, there will be war.—Nelson Macy, president of the Navy League. Honestly, I don't think stage training, dancing or anything of that kind does half as much good for youngsters as letting them alone. —Mary Brian, film actress. We are living on top of a volcano, and no one knows when it will erupt.—Gov. George H. Earle of Pennsylvania. I had always wanted to make the grade alone. Not that I couldn’t have enjoyed help, but I didn’t want any one to share the blame for possible failure.—Ruth Carhart, singer.

CONTRAST

BY HARRIETT SCOTT OLINICK The bosom of the sky is blue, Possessed of clouds of filmy white, That yawn and gesture, lazily; That languorous lie, waiting for night. Serene they lie, banked white upon The blue of sky. while mortal feet Are mad with -spring. Dull winter gone They prance a April street!