Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 40, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 April 1935 — Page 30

PAGE 22

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FRIDAY. APRIL 26. 1935. THE GUN THAT FAILED 'II!HETHER the Indiana legislators meet * in special session this year or hold a regular meeting two years hence, there is one Job cut out for them. That is revision of the present Indiana school loan act which, as it. stands, does not provide any penalty for the county official who violates its provisions. A case in point which stands before the taxpayers of Marion county is that Charles A. Grossart, County Auditor, violated the law but still he will not have to make amends. Pro. ecutor Herbert M. Spencer discovered the lack of a penalty provision in the statute. W.thout the penalty, the act merely represents the state of Indiana pulling a gun out of its pocket that has had the firing pin removed. Under the law, no county official can lend school funds on real estate for more than half the amount of the assessed valuation. De;pite the fact that Mr. Grossart says the assessed valuations were higher, the books in the assessor's office show otherwise. Perhaps Mr. Grossart, having held his post as county auditor for some time, was aware that there was no provision in the law which could call his turn after lending the money to Mark R. Gray, Indianepolis Commercial publisher. Perhaps Mr. Grossart actually did think the lots had greater value, although this seems rather out of order because he, himself, handed the deeds to the property to Mr. Gray seventeen days before the loan was granted. As it stands now, Mr. Grossart has committed acts, while holding office through the voting representation of the people of Marion County, that must be classed as unethical, but not punishable. Such laws should be revised or wiped off the books. As they are now, they merely are a waste of space in the statutes. Many other matters of this type may be brought forward in the next few weeks and it would be well for the legislators of the state to catalog these legal loopholes and make sure they do not exist any longer. ANTI-HITLER ANI) PRO-GERMAN ISOLATION of Nazi Germany by the powers continues. Following the League Council’s rebuke of German militarism, the chief powers are drafting an agreement for joint protection of Austria's independence, and Prime Minister MacDonald of Great Britain has issued a strong indictment of Hitler s methods. MacDonald writes in a press article: “Germany has acted in such a way as to destroy the feeling of mutual confidence in Europe. It asks other nations to accept a verbal pledge of pacific intention which it itself would not accept from its neighbors. Other nations can not be pacified by such assurance and can show ample justification for their refusal.” The significance of this is that MacDonald hitherto has been leader of the international group most anxious to compromise with Hitler. That policy of treating Hitler gently had two sources. One was the idea that a turn-the-othcr-cheek method would get farther than threats and sanctions. The other source was the traditional British policy of keeping clear of continental commitments, and of playing France and Germany against each other to prevent the supremacy of either. Although Stanley Baldwin had declared for the London government that the British defense line henceforth was not the Dover Cliffs, but the banks of the Rhine, the MacDonald-Simon group continued to hold out a hand to Hitler. From the latest MacDonald statement it appears that Hitler has aliented and lost the governmental group among all the allied governments least hostile to him. This MacDonald switch may result either in good or evil, depending on the followthrough. To the extent that it completes the close co-operative arrangement among the French. Italian. Russian. Little Entente and British governments to counter Hitler's threat to European peace, this latest development is beneficial. But if it weakens the minority movement for just revision of the unfair Versailles Treaty, it will multiply the forces making for war. A joint anti-Hitler policy abroad will make Hitler more powerful at home and German militarism more potent, unless coupled with the anti-Hitler foreign policy there is a proGerman foreign policy. Until the powers grant Germany treaty equality, including reciprocal disarmament, an embittered and wronged German people will prepare and plot a war of liberation. This is the fundamental fact which the Allies forgot in 1919 and continued to forget until they recently discovered the extent of Germany's secret rearmament. Now- that they have re-established a virtual military alliance against Hitler, the Allies are in danger of forgetting again that their military supremacy alone will not prevent desperate action by Germany. SECRETARY OF NATURE SPRING, when “all nature wears one universal grin.” is a proper time to think about those who loot and lay waste nature's bounty. Happily in the business of conserving natural resources America now can point with pride as well as view with alarm. In two years President Roosevelt has earned the brevet of Secretary of Nature. Although some of his Administration's conservation activity can be dismissed as pious verbiage and blueprint refoi m, it has taken histone steps toward salvaging the country’s remaining stores of oil, gas, timber, land and wild life. Great treasures in oil and gas have been saved through state laws and oil code regulations. But the toll of wastage still is appall| ing. Interior Secretary Ickes says the daily

waste of these two fuels would furnish light and warmth to all the 4,500,000 relief families. He advocated the Thomas bill to give permanent authority to the government in staying the waste of these essential but perishable stores of industrial power. Coal is plentiful, but it, too, must be mined scientifically. The National Resources Board reports an annual average waste of 35 per cent in American mining operations, compared with 5 to 10 per cent in western Europe. The Guffey coal bill would create a national coal reserve and gradually eliminate surplus and wasteful mining. The drought, dust storms and other aftermaths of forest-razing are lobbying for adequate timber laws. The states and the CCC are planting trees and fireproofing public lands. The government is pledged to add 134.000.000 acres to its national forests. The Lumber Code Authority is trying to enforce new logging rules. A national forest policy seems, at last, to be emerging. The President has said he will ask for special legislation covering long-term timber exploitation. In the nick of time the New Deal bestirred itself to save our basic resource, the land. The new Taylor grazing act adds 80,000,000 acres of public domain to the government's regulatory jurisdiction. Some of the annual loss of 5400,000,000 In soil destruction will be prevented under the work relief program that earmarks $350,000,000 for erosion control, reforestation and similar measures. Most neglected is wild life conservation. So far neither the Administration nor Congress has done much to co-operate with the biological survey's plans for saving the vanishing game in woods and streams. President Roosevelt is right in singling out for special laws industries that exploit the natural resources. The nation’s very life depends on husbanding, planning and wisely using these stored treasures of the people. CONFIDENCE IN HITLER "T UROPEAN polities is never easy for an American to understand, and the understanding is made a good deal harder by our habit of classifying the rulers of Europe as good men and villains. We see a man like Hitler, for instance, we add up the insanities of Jew-baiting and concentration camps which he has given Germany, and we assume offhand that he is a dark and unholy scoundrel. And then, when we see Germany giving him almost unanimous support and cheering him with wholehearted fervor, we can not understand it; and we take it for granted that the Germans have wilfully and perversely deluded themselves. It would be better if we should take the trouble to realize that Hitler’s immense popularity with his people is a perfectly natural thing with an entirely logical explanation. Milton Bronner, veteran European correspondent, points out that Hitler is above everything else the man who has enabled Germany to forget the humiliations of a lost war and a disastrous peace. For 16 years, he remarks, Germans lived in a sort of nightmare. The glorious war that they were to have won so easily had been lost. Instead of a victorious peace, with a triumphal march down the Champs Elysees, there was Versailles, with the German delegates forced to sign on the dotted line like so many criminals. After that, Germans saw allied armies on the Rhine. They saw French troops in the Ruhr. When Germany wanted anything her statesmen had to go to London or Paris, not as equals, but as suppliants. Always it was the Germans who were summoned to foreign cities to be told what the 5 ictors had decided on. Even when Germany was released from certain treaty obligations, the release came not as a matter of right, but as a boon. Hitler simply put an end to all that. He thrilled his countrymen by announcing that they would have army, navy and aerial forces as they saw’ fit and not as some foreign powers decided. He made the foreign statesmen come to Berlin to confer. Under Hitler, Germany ceased to be a suppliant for favors; instead, foreign powers were begging her to help preserve peace. A change of this kind, coming suddenly, does something to the national morale. As Bronner points out, Hitler has enabled the Germans to stop feeling like inferiors. Consequently, they idolize him—and small wonder! We can not hope to have an intelligent viewpoint on European affairs unless we first understand that Germany follows Hitler for the most natural human reasons imaginable. ODDS ON YOUR LIFE /"ADDS of 3500 to 1 are pretty long— more than long enough to satisfy the ordinary gambler. But when it is your life which is being gambled, no odds can be too long. Experts of the National Safety Council, having studied American traffic death figures, have discovered that those are the odds in favor of your surviving the hazards of automobile traffic during the coming year. You have one chance in 3500 of being killed; you have one chance in 100 of being injured. The odds seem comfortable enough, if you are disposed to treat your continued earthly existence as a gamble. But if you like security, they aren't really so very good. Upward of 30,000 Americans, many of them in Marion County, are going to find that those odds aren't any good at all, before 1935 is over. The one comfort is that, by remembering always to drive with extreme care, you can make the odds substantially longer in your own case. PUERTO RICO ASPIRES 'C'OR a long time American policy in regard to the Philippines was hazy and indecisive. The indecision has finally been brought to an end with the decision to grant the islanders their independence, and now it develops that the inhabitants of another island under the American flag want to see a definite policy formed for them. too. The Puerto Rican legislative majority is sending a commission to Washington to ask for statehood. Rafael Martinez Nadal, president of the Senate, says that Puerto Rico wants to know definitely whether it is ultimately to become a state; if not, he says, the islanders ieel that independence should be their goal. The question is a knotty one to decide, but that the Puerto Ricans are entitled to a definite answer is beyond argument. Their present status is unsatisfactory.

They have a right to know whether they are eventually to enter the Union or to go it alone on their own resources. HUMAN RIGHTS ABOVE ALL (SECRETARY HAROLD M. ICKES smacked the nail on the head when he told newspaper editors in New York that the great guarantee of a free press, free speech, and the right of peaceable assembly are just about the most vital portions of our Constitution. “We might give up all the rest of our Constitution, if occasion required, and yet have sure anchorage for the mooring of our good ship America, if these rights remained to us unimpaired,” he said. There is much sense in that statement. In the last analysts, our government is secure as long as the democratic processes go on uninterrupted; and they can not be interrupted as long as those three rights are maintained intact. Save them and you save all; limit them, and you are apt to find before long that you have lost all the rest. A SUCKER GETS WISE 'T'HE Senate Munitions Committee has evinced a curiosity about the war-time correspondence that took place between certain United States banking houses and the various al!ied commissions which attended to purchase of munitions in this country. Some of the committee members feel that if this correspondence w r ere made public, Americans would get some valuable knowledge about the prelude to their entrance into the World War. The British government doesn't think the idea is so hot. The British ambassador has protested informally to our State Department, and Stanley Baldwin has remarked that the inquiry might revive “a long-since obsolete controversy” and have a bad effect on the present international situation. All that may be true; yet the American public is coming more and more to feel that someone sold it a gold brick in 1917, and its desire to know more about the transaction is only natural. If a glance at this correspondence would be enlightening—as it well might—the committee ought to go ahead. That lie detector might come in handy for women whose husbands do. quite a bit of sitting up with sick friends. Os course, it would have to be overhauled frequently.

I Cover the World BY WILLIAM PHILir SIMMS

WASHINGTON, April 26.—Admiral William H. Standley, chief of naval operations, in an exclusive interview with Scripps-Howard newspapers today emphatically asserted that the Pacific maneuvers scheduled to begin May 3 are not in fact, and could not with reason be construed to be, provocative to Japan. At no time, he said, will any of our ships come within 2000 miles Os the Japanese mainland. Every phase of the operations will be confined to the eastern half of the world's most spacious ocean, and well within a triangle every point of which is American soil. “There is apparently considerable misunderstanding concerning the coming fleet problem to be played in the Pacific,” he said. “Annual maneuvers by our fleet have been held for many years. Since 1922 these maneuvers of the entire fleet have been called ‘Fleet Problems.’ Fleet Problem No. 1 was conducted in the vicinity of the Canal Zone in February, 1923. Their purposes are: “1. Training of pfficers and men under service conditions. “2. Tests of the material condition of the units of the fleet. “3. Study of types of vessels needed for our fleet. “4. Familiarization of officers and men with our strategically important locations. “5. Exercise of the fleet as a whole. “Fifteen fleet problems have been held. The locations of these problems have been the West Indies, the Caribbean, the Canal Zone, the west coast of Central America, the west coast of the United States, and the Hawaiian area.” n tt tt “T'OR years the department has desired to hold .T maneuvers in the vicinity of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Naval personnel are not well acquainted with this part of our territory which, nevertheless, is part of the area which would have to be defended in time of w T ar. “Alaska and the Aleutian Islands have a long undefended coast line. For the most part it is cold and full of unknown dangers to the seaman. Rain, fog and treacherous currents are prevalent. Naval personnel should be familiar with the physical and weather characteristics of this part of our country the same as other parts of our coast line. “Furthermore, the rapid strides made in aviation have added to the necessity for naval personnel becoming familiar with this area. “In order to carry out our fleet problems with the greatest economy, the locations heretofore have been in tropical or semi-tropical climes. This is the first year that we have known far enough in advance that the Navy would be located in an area where a North Pacific, Alaska or Hawaiian area problem could be conducted without a large expenditure of funds for fuel. “In the early spring of 1934 it was determined that the fleet would be on the West Coast during the spring of 1935. Problem 16 was then scheduled for the North Pacific area. International conditions were considered only to the extent of examining them to see that this problem could give no reasonable grounds for international alarm or objection. “When the necessary appropriations had been secured, the Secretary of the Navy anounced to the press on Sept. 18, that: ‘The fleet maneuvers (for 1935) will be held in the Pacific, in the triangle inclosed by Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.’ “Fleet problems are not aimed at any foreign power. Fleet Problem 16 was scheduled far in advance of the recent conversatioi s in London regarding naval treaties. The outcome of those conversations has neither added to, nor subtracted from, the desirability of holding the problem as scheduled. tt tt tt “'TVHERE has been no change in international J- relations that would now justify any marked change in the long-scheduled Fleet Problem 16. Any sudden change in plans at his time would create the false impression that we believe some such change has occurred. “All naval powers habitually hold fleet exercises in the vicinity of, and sometimes whthin sight of. the coasts of neighboring states. We have held problems in the immediate vicinity of British, Mexican and Central American territory. In the present problem some of our units will of necessity approach the immediate vicinity of Canadian territory. “For reasons of economy and oecause of the limited time available, the operations have been restricted to the area east of the 180th meridian. It will not be held in the Far East or in the Western Pacific or off the coast of Japan or at Japan’s front uoor as have been variously, but inaccurately, stated. “In fact the area of operations will be wholly in the Eastern Pacific and none of our ships will approach within 2000 miles of the Japanese mainland. Under such conditions it is hard to believe that these maneuvers can be considered provocative.” Upward of 200 fighting ships and auxiliaries, more than 450 airplanes and a personnel of 50.000 will participate. Maneuvers will last until well into June.

. THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

THERE’S NOTHING MAGICAL ABOUT IT!

, i

The Message Center

(Times render tt are invited to express their views in these columns. Make your letters short, so all con have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less. Your letter must be svjned, but names will be withheld at request of the letter writer.) tt tt tt LOYALTY OF LUDLOW IS DOUBTED BY READER By Edward Barker. Open letter to Congressman Ludlow: That was a deserved rebuke which the Indianapolis Times editorial administered to you Tuesday, April 23. To me also, you appear the strangest mixture of Liberal and Tory, a regular “Mr. Facing Two Ways”—“Good God, not bad devil” critic, a friends of both sides; good example of what the prophet had in mind when he said “Because ye are neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth,” a man of strange contradictions; a man who professes to be friendly to President Roosevelt while regularly giving comfort to those political enemies of his who are seeking to dig a pit for him—those partisans who constantly exaggerate and distort every effort of his at relief from the effects of Republican mistakes. Wearing a beard is no evidence of wisdom, and the phrase “our beardless young men” (in the cabinet) is a smart-alec metaphor that has neither point nor sense, for the reason that they are neither telling the business men what to do, nor how to do it —for the good reason that i Congress authorized all their acts, j both as to manner and method! j I have long been doubtful as to j your Democracy and of your professed affection for our beloved President. tt tt u SEEKS REVISION OF RELIEF SYSTEM IN COUNTY By a CVVA Worker. I wonder if your paper can explain how this $4,000,000,000 will benefit the man on CWA work. Will our wages be increased or will we still have to work at the amount they are now paying? I have three in the family and receive $27 a month. I know some have received $6 for coal, but if you can not give your investigator a smile and tell her how handsome she is, you do not get all that is coming to you unless you beg it and if we have to be beggars, here is one who will start as a burglar which my wife’s faith has kept me from for years. Why not change the investigators by laying them off for six months and let some of the other worthy and deserving women who now have to beg charity do the work? Why can’t the men now working receive their pay at the City Hall? a tt o YOUNG PEOPLE SHOULD BE SAVED FROM “CURSES” Bv G. Stark. The power of the devil is being turned loose all about us. in drunkenness, crime, kidnaping, murder, assassination and wickedness that seems almost unbelievable. Old Judas Nicotine and intoxicating liquors are undermining our whole nation. Oh, what a shame and curse. America, Christian America, which sends its missionaries to foreign countries to evangelize the world, itself going into degeneracy. Just see the booze-drunks and tobacco victims everywhere, both men and women, with its debauching results.

How to Prevent War

By W. H. Brennen. In your editorials you keep getting nearer the thing to quiet war talk. Put younger men and women in office; that’s the way to urge for peace. These men who are at all times boosting for war have the least fear they w r ill have to go if it comes. This way of trying to help matters by kicking to or about what the old set is forever doing, is too slow. Leaders in such matters, and this takes in the press, must see we need better men to do better thinking in government management. You seem to take this view, yet fail to come out plainly and say this country, with all its great power, its great resources and its able and educated young men and young women,

The whole thing seems a nightmare, j What chance has even a child against these degrading things when for money’s sake these unAmerican institutions will wreck the very soul of our nation? These degrading things are real soul-destroyers and the devil's sub- j statute for the church. Certainly a cause of alarm and a call to arms to save our young folk from these curses. a a a SOLDIERS ARE “JUST BUMS” TO NATION NOW. Bv R. Zander. What difference does it make what a few so-called drafted or regular soldiers think of each other? j It seems to me the attitude of Congress regarding the bonus plainly shows what they think. In 1917 and 1918, the soldiers were the pride of the country. Nothing was too good for them, but now reverse English is employed. With a large portion unemployed and on relief, myself included, I believe we are now called the bums and extortionists of the country. If they pay the bonus now, it will bankrupt the Treasury, so Congress says. Were we to be roped into anew war, within a week, two or three times the bonus amount would be appropriated pronto, without dire results to the Treasury. So, you so-called regular or drafted buddies, what do you think? Nobody seems to give a damn for either group. A fresh egg or a storage egg is after all just an egg. Forget it all. a a a SEEKS PROBE OF STATE BUCKET SHOPS By an Investor Who Lott. I see by the newspapers that the Securities Commission and the attorney general of Indiana are going after the fake investing companies and the bucket shop operators. That is fine, but it seems to me that it is something that should have been done a long time ago because Indiana has long had laws that covered the situation. It seems, to me that shyster stock brokers from every state in the Union have come to Indiana and have been allowed to flagrantly violate our laws. Many well known companies have rifled the pocketbooks of widows and orphans by selling fake securities, and the evidence brought out before Referee Wilde last Tuesday reflected on our officials who have permitted this

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

must put in use its best minds and get away from war, panics, famines and other folly, for we all want peace and plenty. All this is in our grasp if we would only cast aside old-style politics. It does not make sense to follow men who year after year keep in this rut. We must shake them out of it. Vote them out of office. But this can best be done by helping the young men and women to control, to offices, to leadership—now. If we get better government, we must get it through better leadership in politics. The press is built for the task and should lead in demanding this change. It is to the interest of all.

thing to go on. It was a disgrace to the state to hear the things that have happened. There are a number of concerns operating in the state that could be investigated with dispatch. I am glad that the attorney general has taken a hand, and I am sure that many other concerns will, if they are honest, assist in the investigation. If Atty. Gen. Lutz enters this investigation in good faith we shah see further developments. Let's wait and see what the attorney general and the Securities Commission find. Good luck to them. ana DUST STORMS LAID TO PEOPLE'S MISSTEPS By Mrs. Annetta Kelley. Is there any one so dumb that he can not see the swift, sure retribution of God in these dust storms that are laying waste the very ground that produced, by the natural laws of God, the very same wheat and little pigs that are now being destroyed? Is there no fear of God in the people any more? Do they prefer to obey man, the President, rather than God? Who is sending this punishment upon them in which we must all share? We are taught in the Bible to pray “Give us this day our daily bread. Then we wantonly destroy ;t. a a a POLICE COURTS, PRESS PRAISED FOR TRAFFIC DRIVE By Nelson J. Alley. Be it resolved. That we, the officers and members of the Supreme Lodge of the Protective Legion of Americans, assembled in open meeting, go on record as publicly commending the chief of police, Michael Morrissey, members of the Indianapolis police department, Judges Dewey Myers and Charles Karabell, The Indianapolis Times, the Indianapolis News and the Indianapolis Star for their untiring efforts to enforce our safety laws; Be it resolved, That we believe many lives have been saved by the

Daily Thought

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.—Proverbs xiii, 12. THE miserable hath no other medicine but only hope.—Shakespeare.

APRIL 26, 1935

efforts of these public servants and that they deserve tne praise and cooperation of all our citizens; Be it resolved that a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the mini utes of this meeting and made a | part thereof and a copy sent to each . one, pledging our support to all laws 1 and especially to those laws to safeguard the lives of our children. tt u b UNEMPLOYED PROTEST COMMENTS ON BILL ; By Indiana Vnemployrd Ininn Man. P’ind inclosed a clipping from your paper where you said that the Lundun bill is a fantaitic and bankrupting bill. We protest that statement, as we consiier the Lundun bill is the only bill that will protect the worker in case he loses his job and also protects the unem- < ployed and others.

So They Say

For two years the Democrats have been at bat with two men on base, but no runs and two out—the NRA and the AAA. That's the net of it. —William Allen White. There is less today of both dogma and intellectual religion. But there is more religion of the kind that comes from the heart, instead of the head.—Sir Wilfred Grenfell. The Stock Exchange exists because it is equipped to render service.—diaries R. Gay, on being nominated as Exchange president. The nationalized Tammany machine of the Roosevelt-Farley administration has succeeded in organizing the greatest patronage distributing machine in the history of our country.—Howard Scott, head “Technocrat. The presidency's a dog's life. I’ve known every President since Harrison, and it’s a dogs life for them all—Former Senator David A. Reed, of Pennsylvania. During the depression, the female of the species has proved herself more versatile than the male, if not more deadly, by digging up jobs—unheard-of jobs—when the standard ones were not to be had.— Mrs. Loire Brophy, New York business woman. I have no aspirations In the direction you mention, but I intend to take a shot at what is going on when I think the right moments have arrived.—Herbert Hoover, replying to letter suggesting his candidacy in 1936.

Pear Blossoms

BY MAUD COURTNEY WADDELL Gay, happy, clustered blossoms of lovely grace. Remindful of fleeting beauty and duchess lace. A few days of fairy enchantment brought Soon after winter bleak; then harsh winds caught Each tiny, white petal—swirled them around Like a snow storm lost, soft falling to ground.