Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 41, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 April 1935 — Page 6

PAGE 6

The Indianapolis Times <A srmrrs-HOWARn newspaper) ROT W. HOWARD rrenMent TALCOTT POWELL Editor EARL D. BAKER ........ Basin'’** Manager Thone Riley KGI

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SATURDAY, APRIL 27. 1935. THE INDIANAPOLIS SCHOOLS UNLESS the Indianapolis Schools system finds some way of obtaining an unrestricted Federal grant, its services and personnel will be seriously impaired, it appeared today in studying the address of Carl Wilde before a Parent-Teacher meeting. Mr. Wilde deplored the condition of many of the schools system's old buildings, the overcrowding in many of the schools, and the pay reductions suffered by the city’s teachers. Mr. Wilde, vice president of the school board, is absolutely right. The school system has suffered considerably in the last few years and not a small amount of the slashes in its budgets have been the result of anguished cries from taxpayers’ organizations. Taxpayers, The Indianapolis Times long ago pointed out, are slashing, in effect, their own throats when they start injudicious knifing of school city budgets. Nothing can be more important to the fathers and mothers of Indianapolis than near-pe r fection operation of the city’s schools. The Times, in a series of articles a few years ago, pointed out the dreadful conditions of many of the city's school buildings. One of the articles discussed the problem of a fire hazard at one of the structures. Two days later a fire broke out at the school. Fortunately, it was a minor blaze, but fire hazards should not exist in buildiry- where our children attend school. The School Board has been forced to reduce the salaries of teachers and to reduce the teaching staff in the retrenching drive that followed the onslaught of the depression. This reduction in the teaching staff has resulted in the overloading of classes. It is high time for the School Board to consider seriously the plight of its many teachers. They are not being paid salaries commensurate with their positions and if we are to have teachers devoting their entire thoughts to the welfare of their pupils we must do away with some of the financial worries that now beset the majority of our instructors. Indianapolis must realize that it gets what It pays for. And we’re not paying enough for our schools system.

PENNY RACKETEERS IT is with a shudder of disgust that many of ■ us have read the expose of penny, nickel, and dime racketeering in the Negro sections of Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Times has related how the "dream" lottery works with its.almost absurd “shut-out" system, a method that gives the “sucker” not a chance in a million to win any amount of importance. It is sickening when one learns that Negro Democratic politicians are the operators of the pool, plying their trade for a paltry few cents among persons of their race who ccn cam hardly enough to keep them in nourishment. A penny, a nickel, or a dime—it’s actually a “meanest-man-in-the-world” story. HARRY HOPKINS PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT could not have found a better man than Harry Hopkins to be the sparkplug of the four-billion-dollar works relief program. Things hum wherever and whenever Harry' Hopkins sticks in his hand. Dynamic, tireless. purposeful, he knows how to slash through government red tape, get at the heart of a problem and force action. The problem which he now tackles is one of the most serious in the nation's history. Nearly one-sixth of the population exists on doles. It will be Mr. Hopkins’ job to make the works program click, and transfer the breadwinners of relief families on to pay rolls. Mr. Hopkins has been a very human and effieient relief administrator. The remarkably few instances of graft and favoritism in the relief setup have been traced to state and local officials and eradicated. No scandal has touched his own operations or those under his immediate supervision. He has resisted political pressure without needlessly antagonizing politicians. Almost overnight he organized a far-flung corps of relief workers, who, fired by his own enthusiasm, accomplished an almost impossible task. A lesser man would have cracked under the strain. But Mr. Hopkins kept his balance and his objectives. A man with a bureaucratic type of mind mieht have been content in such e position of power over the lives of millions. But perhaps no other man in the country has felt more keenly the inadequacy and degradation of the dole system. His goal is a job with a living wage for every American. As head of the works progress division, he can move down anew path toward that goal. A FACE-SAVING DEVICE THE California State Assembly has voted to ask Gov. Merriam to commute the sentences of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings in order to solve “a fixed and contentious problem." This is not the way out either for California or for the two victims of its injustice. If they are guilty of the mass murder for which they have served 19 years in prison they should not be freed. If they are not guilty, as every’ unbiased student of the case from the United States Supreme Court down now thinks, they should either be freed by the courts or pardoned by the Governor. The assembly's proposal is obviously a facesaving device for a state that is embarrassed by world-wide criticism yet refuses to admit it has unconscionably wronged two of its citizens.

This device would not restore citizenship to Mooney and Billings, or remove the stain of guilt the state has put upon their lives. Pending In California courts is a motion for a writ of habeas corpus to free Mooney on the ground that he was denied due process under the Constitution in being convicted by lying witnesses known by the state to be perjurers at the time. The United States Supreme Court has indicated that if this case comes to it via state courts it will entertain the motion. Freeing Mooney and Billings under such a writ would put the blame where it belongs—on California's courts. Pending also are pardon applications. If California wants to save its courts from the odium of having been used as instruments of revenge instead of justice, its Governor will pardon Mooney and Billings without delay, THE CITY HOSPITAL THE City of Indianapolis would have more basis for being justly proud of Dr. Charles W. Myers, superintendent of City Hospital, if Dr. Myers were not so personally modest and so professionally objective. In the routine of the research department, it was disclosed yesterday in a news story of the annual hospital report, antidotes for three heretofore invariably fatal poisons have been discovered in the last two years. A feather in any one's cap if he chose to wear feathers in his cap! The report disclosed, too, that meals were served last year, at an average cost of a fraction over 10 cents each. That compares very favorably with other hospital dietary department records, and it tops achievements of a good many other tax-supported institutions that aren't called upon to cook the expensive special diets that are prepared daily at City Hospital. In making his report Dr. Myers showed a lively imagination and good news judgement. It should be expanded next year to include evfn more of the Interesting, important and useful information that Dr. Myers and his associates can glean from the operation of an important institution in this city.

MASTERS OF SCIENCE F'AR up in the jungles of the Amazon there is one of the most romantic railroads in the world; a railroad, according to grim legends, whose construction cost one human life for every tie in its track. This railroad is a silent testimonial to the power of the human race to triumph over the most amazing natural obstacles. Built to carry Bolivian rubber around the rapids in the Madeira and Mamore Rivers, it runs through fever-infested jungles from eastern Bolivia to the town of Porto Velho, in Brazil. Ocean steamers can dock here, more than a thousand miles from the mouth of the Amazon; the railroad was built to give Bolivia something resembling a seaport. Its construction took years of time, thousands of lives, and millions of dollars. The engineering obstacles were many; the region was more unhealthy than Panama in its worst days, what with yellow fever, tropical malaria, and other maladies. That the road could be built at all was a remarkable evidence of mankind’s ability to cope with nature at her most hostile. But although men can defeat nature, they can't beat their own blindness. What jungle and microbe could not rlo, human folly has done. This railroad has triumphed over natural obstacles only to succumb to the depression. Writing in the current issue of Harper’s magazine, Earl Hanson tells how this railroad has fallen on evils days. “The rubber business is on the rocks,” he writes. “The railroad doesn’t pay expenses. Two trains a month are now run each way. Budgets are pinched alarmingly on the maintenance and replacement side. ‘‘Let the process continue and the road will eventually be abandoned. Towns full of white men will be left stranded, and Indianization, now already going on, will be speeded up. Everything is dying and slipping back to the jungle.” And right here, in miniature, you have a telling picture of what is wrong with the w’orld today. As far as nature is concerned, we have won our age-old fight. We can build practically anything we can imagine; we can whip the jungle at its worst, take ocean ships to the middle of South America, and connect them with a railroad in a spot where even to build a footpath would have seemed absolutely impossible a generation ago. But we can't seem to find a way to make things work after we get them built. Our technical progress—great enough to make the desert blossom like the rose any time we choose—is at the mercy of our inability to master the economics of modern society. We have conquered practically everything except our own stupidity. The one thing that keeps us from making a garden spot of the whole world is the simple fact that we are standing in our own way. The decline of this dearly-bought South American railroad is a perfect example. LOBBIES, OPEN AND SECRET THE average citizen may not be represented at either of the two pressure group sessions in Washington next week—the United States Chamber of Commerce convention and the rally of American Federation of Labor leaders. But the welfare of the average citizen will be vitally affected by the legislative grist which Congress grinds out between these upper and nether millstones. The pressure method is not new to Washington. It is a technique that has been employed since our republic began, and probably will continue in use to its end. Asa matter of fact there is nothing unhealthy about this simultaneous gathering of business leaders in one hall and labor leaders in another at a time when Congress is considering NRA and collective bargaining legislation. The open conflict should help to clarify issues, force wiser Congressional debate and decisions and automatically protect the average citizen. Unfortunately this automatic protection is not provided when lobbies operate in secret, as they do too frequently. Pennsylvania state police announce hitchhikers will be jailed or fined. In other words, thumbs down on thumbs up. Huey harangued the Senate in an Easter outfit which included a red tie and lavender shirt. Nevertheless, seismographers still are confident their instruments recorded the Formosa quake.

I Cover the World BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS

WASHINGTON, April 27.—Neither the Japanese government nor the Imperial Japanese navy has ever looked askance at the com- ! ing North Pacific maneuvers of the American fleet. Ambassador Hirosi Saito told the ScrippsHoward newspapers today. At the end of last December, timed with Nippon’s dramatic denunciation of the Washington naval limitation treaty, stories were widely circulated in this country that the United States would hold the greatest naval battle practice in its history ‘‘at Japan's front door.” Widespread protests followed this alleged “answer” to Japan. Some of the protests were even sent to the Japanese embassy here. The maneuvers, it was charged, were “provocative.” Cabled abroad, the Japanese took the American protests at their face value. A popular misconception arose on both sides of the Pacific, fraught with undoubted potentialities for Jap-anese-American ill-will. What both Japanese and American governments knew—but what the public did not seem to know or had forgotten—was that the exercises had first been broached as far back as 1933, and that they had been publicly and officially announced in mid-September, 1934. a a a THIS was a full month before the Japanese and American delegates arrived in London to confer on naval ratios, and more than three months before Japan’s withdrawal from the 1 limitation agreement on Dec. 29. The maneuvers, therefore, had no bearing whatever on London or its aftermath. Another thing the public seemed unaware of, but which both governments knew, was that the fleet's exercises would be confined to the northeast corner of the Pacific, between California, Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands. And the Pacific is 23 times the size of the United States. ‘‘The Japanese government and our naval people have never misunderstood the matter,” Ambassador Saito said. “They know that navies are navies and that it is the navy's business to be familiar with not just some of their waters, but all of their waters. Never having exercised in the misty North Pacific region, it was clearly understood that units of the American fleet would want to go there. “The only misconception was in the minds of the public. But now that it is becoming known that none of the American ships will approach closer to Japan than the 180th meridian, more than 2000 miles from Japan proper, the misunderstanding is clearing up. The friendly visit of American warships of the Asiatic Squadron to Yokohama and Kobe should also help.” Ambassador Salto is perhaps the youngest and most outspoken ambassador Japan has ever sent to the United States. He has spent many years of his life here in the consular and diplomatic service of his country. He knows American psychology as well as he knows that of his own people. nan THERE is every reason in the world why the United States and Japan should be on good terms,” he declared. “Fundamentally our national interests probably clash less than almost any other two nations one could name. They are for the most part complementary instead of competitive. We buy your cotton, you buy our silk. And so on. “War between the United States and Japan would utterly ruin both countries. It could only play into the hands of others.” The ambassador paused and chuckled. “Once there were a stork and a clam. They were neighbors on the same beach. Spying the open clam, the stork reached down with his long bill to swallow it. But the clam closed down on the bill of the stork and wouldn’t let go. So the stork had the clam and the clam had the stork, but along came a fisherman and took them both. “It’s an old Chinese fable. “There is a good deal of jealousy in the world at the expense cf Japan and the United States. That has been so ever since the World War. There are people who would not at all mind seing us destroy each other for their benefit. It is up to America and Japan to see to it that those who would create friction between them get nowhere.”

Liberal Viewpoint BY DR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

NEARLY every informed economist who has viewed the current situation with unbiased insight is convinced that bolstering the consumer offers the only key to any reasonable hope of preserving the capitalistic system. We talk a great deal about over-production, but so far the main trouble has been that people have not possessed the money to buy the goods they desire or can legitimately use. If capitalism is to survive, even for a relatively brief period, there are two things which obviously are necessary. First, the mass of Americans must have money enough to buy more goods. Secondly, they must have the means of being informed regarding what they are buying—in other words they must be protected against fraud and misrepresentation by the makers and sellers of the goods they purchase. These fundamental facts are driven home both with reai force and charming informality by Clark Foreman and Michael Ross in their work, “The Consumer Seeks a Way" (Norton, $2). The book is as readable and absorbing as "Robinson Crusoe.” The facts of our economic life are analyzed with extreme realism by means of a hypothetical biography of “John Littleman,” an unemployed bank clerk, trying to live in our United States in 1935. The book should be pushed with great vigor by the publishers, since it is the sort which might be read avidly by millions of the common American people whose experiences are so much like those of the character traced in this book. Not since “Coin's Financial School” of a generation ago has there been a better piece of popularization of economic questions. And the ecenomic principals of Foreman and Ross are far more sound than those of Mr. Harvey's classic of the days of the free silver controversy. If the average American wants to know “what it is all about.” this is the book for him. The authors’ conclusions are thoroughly sound and cogent. a a a THERE are two main avenues of attack by consumers,” they write. “First and immediately, they can study and attempt to remedy the various frauds and impositions which they suffer through deceptive advertising and improper methods of manufacture. Every citizen should be interested in finding out whether or not he is fretting the most for his money and whether or not he and his family are being poisoned by impute products. “The second objective which we must work for is the extension of governmental responsibility over larger areas of our industrial life. The principle of having public commissions to regulate production and distribution, which through long usage in connection with public utilities has become part of the American scene, should be accepted as necessary in many of the bigger industries.” “To those who raise the issues of government interference and bureaucracy, I answer that it is high time that the government interfere. When our economy breaks down to the extent that it has. we—the people, the consumers, the voters of the country—must step in and push the special interest groups aside. We must not be afraid of the names they will call us or the bogies they will produce. Now is no time to hesitate before the bugaboos of the wealthy privileged groups. We must definitely get on with the job of making this country one in which all of us can live decently. “It has only been through our insistent cooperative efforts that we have accomplished what we have in the past and it is only in this way that we can hope to shape the future as we desire it. If our steady democratic advance meets with forceful resistance on the part of any minority, we must be prepared to meet force with force and-fight for the greater good of the nation regardless of the banner which camouflages the real motives ol the over-privileged.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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The Message Center

(Times rentiers 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 writer.) ana HOLDS STATE RELIEF IS ABLY OPERATED By J. W. P. In answer to the letter of Miss Noone on Senator VanNuys’ comparison of the cost of relief administration under old system of township unit to that of the present state operated, wherein he shows cost of V,2 per cent under township to 10 per cent state, may I state he is absolutely correct. But was it not a fact that under township control, we experienced the basket filled with pineapple, canned milk and bacon, issued on a certificate to the relief family, with no choice but take it or an order issued to a designated grocer with an agreed price above the price of regular sales because of carrying charges or having to wait on the county or township to pay? The basket was then handed or delivered to the relief man as we handle a bale of hay, fodder or straw to the dumb animal, with no choice in the matter, but take it home and eat what was given. True, the cost is greater, but instead of a few political grocers handing out bacon, etc., under the state supervision, each man is handed his check weekly, properly signed by the Governor's Commission on Unemployment and the relief man is privileged to go out into the open competitive market and buy as any other good citizen is, just what he wants and wherever he wants, instead of a few selected grocers receiving all. Many or any of the merchants may receive a part or all of the week's earnings-, naturally selling to the relief man for cash. The morale of the relief man is -worth the difference in the cost between the figures the Senator so ably sets out between the township unit and that of the present state relief so ably operated. an n THERE S NOTHING CUTE’ ABOUT DISLOYALTY, HE SAYS By B. M. G. Until I read Hevwood Broun’s article April 22 in The Times, I had formed no opinion regarding Mr. Walgreens withdrawal of his niece from the University of Chicago because of communistic teaching. Mr. Broun after, to my thinking, the second greatest preamble in history, concludes by thus addressing Mr. Hearst, who presumably has shown poor taste by sympathizing with Mr. Walgreen: “Isn’t it better to have a girl or boy learn these things in the classroom rather than have him pick them up from street companions?” In that case, I presume Mr. Broun would advocate the teaching of prostitution, bank robbery, gambling, the dope habit, display of lewd pictures, also plain and fancy cussing in the classroom—anything which might dangerously influence the impressionable youngster should be pounded into him in the classroom, otherwise he might possibly escape it in the street, what? Dangerous reasoning, Mr. Broun. It seems that we must go violently mad either to the right or the left in bringing up our young things. Either so mid-Victorian we smother them or so ultra-modern we strip them naked and leave them unprotected to every germ. Do you believe the students are •thinking up all their little teapot riots, demonstrations, comic revolutions, strikes, etc? i believe they

‘OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS’

He Doesn't Seem to Like Pleas

By A Good Democrat. Will the State Administration be so kind as to enlighten me as to just who is Governor of this sovereign State of Indiana? I have just finished reading your newspaper and I am dispatching this to you post haste. Russell Ryan has quit the state liquor commission because your article relates he couldn’t stand Pleas Greenlee’s tinkering around with the appointments. The Governor recently said politics would play no part in the appointments, but Mr. Greenlee seems to have countermanded the

“think" they are. But I wouldn't doubt there are many little would-be Marxs and Lenins and what-nots in professors’ clothing in our halls of learning—more of them than we would care to think of, sowing little seeds of contempt and discontent with our patriarchal old constitutional government so insidiously that the poor, pliable little gurnps under their influence imagine they are thinking up these profound and mighty deeds of prowess. We laugh and think the young things are cute. Like the pretty Vassar lassies who stamped their little feet and pouted, "We won’t take the oath of allegiance”—cute? Is ignorance ever cute? Is disloyalty to God, flag, your flesh and blood ever cute? Your martyrs, your heroes? Is contempt for your country, your history, your tradition cute? Is it intelligent, learned or noble? No, Mr. Broun, your article intensified my conviction that there are bats in the belfry of many of our halls of learning and if after removing a few nieces and nephews, a few aunts and uncles clean some of them out, so much the better. After all, we have to live with these young cuties after they are too old to be funny, and modern psychology freeing all inhibitions too suddenly in wobbly young lambs is pretty heady wine. Social living still demands a few repressions even in our so-called halls of learning. If our pets are to come back to the great American home again, isn’t it only sensible that their training shoulc include being house broken?

A VOTE-CASTING MATTER, IT SEEMS TO “J. L.” By J. L. Ever since early spring there have been news stories now and then about the proposal to change the pool on Fall Creek-pkwy, near College-av, from a casting pool to a wading pool. It seems that the children of the neighborhood want the park board to reserve the pond for them, and it seems the fishermen want the park board to keep the pool for them to practice casting in. At the last report the park commissioners haven’t been able to decide just what to do with it. The commissioners are appointed by the mayor, and the position is honorary —no salary. Under ordinary circumstances it would seem that making up one's mind about whether to use a given pool for a casting practice place, or a wading place for children wouldn't take much time. To begin with, in either case the pool must have water in it. Maybe a good way to begin on the problem would be to fill the pool and then start from there. It'll have to oe done sooner or later, and while the commissioners are weighing the matter is as good a time as any to

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

Governor's order with words practically to that effect. I have a lot of respect for Paul V. McNutt, but I can't stomach this everlasting countermanding of his orders by Pleas Greenlee. The election returns, as I remember them, failed to show Mr. Greeniee ELECTED to anything and as far as I'm concerned they never will. I know the rumors that Pleas would like nothing better than to be Governor, but by the manner in which he's acting as Governor now I’d actually leave this state if he became a Governor with full title. He's just another Huey Long in miniature.

get that work done. Just any kind of water will do, so long as it’s pure. Having filled the pool, the commissioners could sit around and consider the issues at stake. Children, one of the appealing bodies, have a great deal of human interest on their side. If the commissioners turn them down in the matter, the commissioners will be looked upon by the entire city as hard-hearted men who have no human qualities —the kind of men who would push baby chickens into water. That would be bad politics. Children would band together and take the stump against the party at the next election, and as their lisping oratory rase during the campaign, the party would recall the Bible prediction that a little child shall lead them, and see its grasp on the voters dwindle to nothing. That, moreover, has a second, and larger, significance, since it would start children into politics and Indianapolis might have a bunch of ward heelers running around on political business in kiddie cars. On the other hand, the fishermen of the city have votes to cast, as well as fishing flies, and they look pretty formidable arrayed at the voting booths. Personally, if I was the park board I would dump the matter into the lap of Mayor John W. Kern and let him settle it. He's paid to decide important things in the city. But let’s have action. It's getting too hot for this suspense. a a a PEDESTRIANS’ CARELESSNESS FLAYED BY MOTORIST Bt a Motorist. In the April 25 issue of The Times I noticed that the death rate caused by automobile accidents has increased in Indianapolis at a sharper rate than in any other city in the United States. Asa motorist I feel that in many instances it is the pedestrian who is to blame. We all see such headlines as this: “Motorist Kills Another in Marion County”—“Richard Roe. father of two was killed on his way to work when he stepped, without looking, in front of a moving automobile. The police said the driver of the car was not at fault.” In spite of the fact that death was not the driver's fault, it was h£ld against the motorists. Why

Daily Thought

The Lord sha.l cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things—Psalms xii, 3. FLATTERY is a base coin which gains currency only from our vanity.—Rochefoucauld.

APRIL 27, 1933

i not publish a list of pedestrians killed by their own negligence? We have in our municipal code a regulation pertaining to the way pedestrians are supposed to cross streets. The law provides for crossing at street intersections only, and, if there is a traffic signal pedestrians are to cross with the gosign only. Why not make the police enforce the “jay walking” laws to protect motorists from careless pedestrians? Much has been said about autos running through caution signs. It is an impossibility to always stop when the timing is so short on the change. Try making the change a little longer, Capt. Johnson. I should like to hear why. by action or statement, these common sense traffic laws can not be enforced. a a a LAUDS TIMES-EM-ROE SHOOTING SCHOOL By H. D. Skiles. I want to express my opinion regarding the free school of instruction in the use of firearms sponsored by The Times-Em-Roe Sporting Goods Cos. at the Indianapolis Gun Club. As an observer I was impressed by the courteous and patient manner in which the instructor, Mr. Adams, handled his class, giving particular attention to the art of handling a gun in a correct and safe manner. Every one was given personal attention. I think it is an unusual opportunity for those interested ii field or target shooting to take advantage of the instruction given, thereby reducing the chance for accidents in the field as well as improving their marksmanship. Tt also enables one to enjoy the art of shooting flying targets when field shooting is not in season.

So They Say

God help capitalism if it won’t defend a common national crisis without its pound of flesh.—Senator Vandenberg of Michigan. Any man who condones the NRA, the AAA, and other things going on in this country is a radical.—Gov, Talmadge of Georgia. If I can’t beat a clown like Baer, I'll never admit I was a fighter.— Jess Willard, after challenging the champion. All we have to show for administration schemes is the greatest debt the country ever had, shattered confidence, and a Federal government waterlogged with ward politcians.— Col. Theodore Roosevelt.

Idle Question

BY MARY JOHNSON If we immortal be, then time goes on forever But, we are taught, that scarcer things are ever More precious than the common, countless stuff; (And more time than we can use) Queer then, we feel there is never time enough To do all our "ougM-to-do’s” And things we would rather choose. If we fail to do a mere thousand things or so Why do we fret or fear. When there’s eons to spend in that place where we go. Each one of us, from here?