Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 198, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 October 1935 — Page 9

It Seems to Me HEYWOOI) BROIH A STORY from Palo Alto says that Herbert Hocvcr is receiving a great deal of fan mail as a result of his news releases and his broadcasts. It is amounting: to almost a thousand letters a week, and 99 per cent of it is favorable. Mr. Hoover has every right to feel encouraged. If things keep up like this he stands an excellent ehance of getting a sponsor before the snow flies. His record on mail is dose to that of Alexander Woollcott. Mr. Hoover has not yet sent, out any autographed pictures of

himself upon receipt of twenty-five coupons. But there is one danger in the situation which I would like to point out to Mr. Hoover. It seems to me that the percentage of commendatory letters is far too high. If Mr. Hoover were putting out straight entertainment—if. for instance, he played the violin or the accordion or did dramatic sketches —there would be no harm in prac - tically unanimous approval. But a.' I understand it, the gentleman from Palo Alto is a news commentator after the manner of Ed Hill or Boake Carter.

Hcywood Broun

T do not mean that he is in any sense an imitator. There is always room on the air for still one more broadcaster who will bring a vigorous point of view to the discussion of the world's affairs. And just there is the rub. a a a Controversy Sometimes Fun IF 99 per cent of the letter-writing listeners say, “Talk came in well, and I certainly agree with you," it is just barely possible that Mr. Hoover has been too strict in avoiding controversial subjects. Os course, I'm just guessing as to this. I haven’t caught the program yet, because it has generally been on at the same time as my two radio favorites—Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd. Still, it does seem fair to assume that a dissent of only 1 per cent must indicate too great an insistence upon attacking the maneating shark. Os course, even with that line you do tread upon a few toes. I'll bet that Will Beebe has already written in to say that sharks don’t bite people. Now, if Herbert Hoover were to discuss America’s withdrawal from the Olympic games or the case of Angelo Herndon or the European situation I'll wager that he would receive an even greater number of fan letters. Os course, some of them would be brickbats, but a commentator must expect that. I have been engaged for a good many years in about the same sort of work as that which Mr, Hoover is doing, and I hope he will understand the spirit in which I offer a little friendly advice. I was a newspaper columnist shortly after the turn of the century', at a time when Herbert Hoover was merely a mining engineer. My original notion was to be h genial philosopher. I endeavored to make everybody love me. And they didn't. And so I said, “To hell with them! I'll really give them cause to bawl me out." a tt a No Impudence Intended NATURALLY, it would be Impudent of me to suggest myself as a model to Herbert Clark Hoover. I hastily disclaim any such intention. After all, I never got 1000 letters in a week. The most I ever got was back in 1912 when I was trying to find a remedy for poison ivy. But my experience merely supports that of many better known men. Even Herbert Hoover will fail if he hopes to have everybody love him. Sooner or later he will find that out. So why not try a few right-ha”d punches? I can understand that a man like Mr. Hoover, who has had nothing but praise all his life, may shrink from exposing himself to adverse criticism. But it, isn't really so terrible. The friendly letters and the unfriendly ones balance up. Indeed, the warm ones actually seem a little warmer because of the presence of scrap iron in the pyre. I advise Mr. Hoover to read all the letters he receives and to answer as many as he can. Os course, he may find it necessary to employ form replies such as "Thanks for your friendly letter" and “Go and jump in the lake." The recipient will understand the spirit of gratitude ,r. which they are sent. And just one more sugge. „ion—lsn't half an hour pretty long for a program of just straight talk? How about using a good dance orchestra to break it up? Without some such device I think Mr. Hoover may find that he has exhausted all his material and that presently he will be saying the same thing over and over again. Incidentally. I understand that Mr. Hoover needs to brush up a little on his tone production. I wonder if he has ever listened to a broadcaster named Roosevelt? (Copyright, 1935)

Your Health BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

AFTER spending 11 1 ,2 years in the Arctic and living for about nine years of that time on an exclusive diet of meat, the Explorer Stefansson was given a complete physical examination, in 1926. He found that an exclusive meat diet worked as well when he was inactive as when he was active, and in hot weather as in cold. After an exclusive meat diet lasting 12 months, two Arctic explorers living in New York were given similar study. In their cases also no serious changes were found. The blood pressure w not disturbed; in fact, in one man it was lowered. The men had no lesening of physical or mental vigor. Recently Stefansson was examined again, after a lapse of nine years, to find out whether there had been changes in his body as a result of the meat diet on which he had lived so long. He is now 55 years old and has aged very little. a an HE has been in excellent general health since he lived on an exclusive meat diet. He has worked rather strenuously, and has led a sedentary life, yet he does not suffer from any disturbance of his blood chemistry or of his digestion. He reports that he has no headaches, but occasionally some colds. His blood pressure, although he is 55 years old, is 120 systolic and 80 diastolic, which is considered the normal blood pressure for a person aged anywhere from 21 to 45. A meat diet is essentially a high protein diet There has been a tendency for people to be afraid of proteins—a tendency utterly without sense, since proteins are the building materials of tissues. A large supply of our proteins is found in animal products and in dairy products.

Today s Science BY DAVID DIET 7

THE universe as we know it today may be only two or three billion years old. astronomical researches so far in 1935 indicate. A maximum age for the universe is between five and 10 billion years. Only Sir James Jeans clings V) the idea that the universe is trillions of years old. Dr. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory, marshals these facts in his summary of astronojnical progress for the year. These estimates grow out of the theory of the expanding universe and depend upon calculations of how long it took the universe, starting its expansion from a central point, to reach its present distribution. That in turn depends upon the rate of 'expansion. bob THE Harvard astronomers have calculated an age of about hve billion years for the universe. The Mt. Wilson astronomers make it a little younger. Now. says Prof. Shapley, Sir Arthur Eddington, the famous British astronomer, gets a value for the rate of expansion which is 50 per cent larger than the Mt. Wilson figure and double the Harvard estimate. "The long time scale has suffered still more by the calculations and arguments presented during the past year and the students of this subject, with the exception of Sir James Jeans, agree that the expansion of the universe, the age of the earth, the characteristics of double stars, the nature of the clusters in the Milky Way, and the character of the arms in spiral nebulae, all favor the short time scale.

Full Leased Wire Service of the United Press Association,

Boake Carter

°f America’s destiny? Woodrow Wilson became President of the United States in 1913. He came in on a wave of reform and recovery. President Roosevelt became President of the United states in 1933. He, too, came in on a wave of reform and recovery. Wilson called his program the New Freedom. Roosevelt calls his program the New Deal. Acts of reform passed under the Wilson regime included the Federal Reserve Act, the anti-trust law, the income tax law, the Federal Trade Commission and a good many others. Big business

fought the passage of every act all down the line with bitter intensity. Acts passed under the Roosevelt regime, so far, include the utilities regulation act, the NRA, the Wagner Labor Bill, the Social Security Act, the Omnibus Bank Bill, Securities Act and a good many others. Big business fought the passage of every act all down the line with bitter intensity. a a a IN 1914, war broke out in Europe. For two and a half years, Wilson’s New Freedom was forgotten because of what transpired in Europe and America became the supply house which underwrote the war, financially and commercially. Eventually, the stake grew so big that America joined the side on which she had invested the most money. The New Deal acts of 1935 have been passed—and war looms the horizon of Europe again. Is this strange parallel going to run the same deadly course? It is both possible and probable. Can the parallel be avoided? Let us see if we can find an answer. a a a THE United States went into the World War for two main reasons—a strange, unreasoning fear that democracy was about to fall to pieces, and secondly, because industry, agriculture and the bankers, became hopelessly involved commercially and financially, trying to make money out of somebody else's war and kidding themselves that they could stay out of it and not get burnt. The unreasoning fear was subtly fostered by Allied propaganda. The British propaganda mill worked like a well-oiled machine. It wasn’t until the war had been going on for at least a year, that the Germans suddenly realized what was happening—that a tremendously damaging case was being built up against them in the United States by a master of the technique of understanding a national psychology and then playing it for all it is worth. When the Germans promoted a counter-propaganda system it was too late. The damage had been done. a a a THE image that Germany was the villain had been planted too firmly in the popular mind to be eradicated. The national sympathies had been skilfully guided to support, if not actively at least passively, the allied cause. If any one so much as raised his head to suggest caution and backed up his argument with cold logic—he was howled down as a friend of the enemy. If someone mildly remarked that military preparations were causing a lot of aimless and useless graft and confusion, he was condemned as a national traitor. If one was so luckless as to possess a name with a Teutonic sound to it—he was eyed with hostile suspicion everywhere he went, even though he might have been a descendant from a Revolutionary family. This was to be a “war to save democracy—a war to end wars."

it ir * !i® ji' ii li Weapons of the World War and Weapons of the Next War Pictured in Contrast |.. -

A formidable artillery piece of late 1918 that is outmoded today.

BY STANLEY A. TULLSEN . XEA Service Staff Writer OUTSTANDING advance in artillery since the World War is the vastly increased mobility of this devastating aim of the land forces. A thrilling scene in the great conflict was the arrival of a field piece at the point of action, its crew lashing the spent horses for their last ounce of speed. But more thrilling to a hard-pressed commander of a fleet of high-speed trucks towing big guns forward at 50 to 60 miles an hour.

The Indianapolis Times

BLACK SHIRT BLACK SKIN

War *oes on in Africa while Europe toils to prevent its spreading into another World conflict. Why Benito Mussolini sent his legion* to battle and what the result may be are discussed with keen insight hv Boake Carter in his Black Shirt. Black Skin.” the sixteenth installment of which is presented here.

Oh. the allied propaganda agents worked with consumate skill. The man who thought of those two famous slogans little realized how well they would do their work. Democracy is a precious word with Americans. It has epitomized a national psychology for 150 years. The politicians prate of it at every opportunity and the 200 per centers trot it out on every occasion as a sure-fire rabble rouser. It has made us, through the years, feel a little holy, engendered the idea that we are the chosen custodians of the democracy of the world. a a a A ND so when the kaiser’s marched into Belgium, the gold brick that our democracy was going to collapse if he were victorious, was sold to us by the allies and we bought it, lock, stock and barrel, never questioning the salesman. Thus was created the strange “fear" psychosis in our national makeup, that whenever the sound of marching feet was to be heard in the world, the fear for our democracy was to arise. There was little excuse for swallowing it then—but that was all 21 years ago. The world has changed in these two decades. There is little excuse for it today, although a national anxiety is justified. America’s commercial interests have become so intertwined with the world that whatever happens elsewhere on the globe, is bound to affect American industry, and therefore American social life. If the time comes again, that America shall be looked to, her help courted and her arms requested—this time the slogan will be “Save democracy from Fascism.” instead of “Save the world from Kaiser-ism.” And the fear psychosis generated by the World War—a psychosis utterly missing from American life from the day independence was declared up until 1914—will rear its head again. a a a THERE will be those who will counsel reason and caution and will quote cold facts and point to logic and they will be damned as friends of Fascism or Communism. There are signs of it about us already today—the disaffection bill, threatening anybody who criticises Army of Navy policies, with jail, which fortunately died with the passing of the reform Congress—merely to mention just one item. However, “fear" alone will not be the major factor which will entangle us again—but rather our industrial resources and the part we play in the western world’s industrial system. The raw materials utilized by Industry in peace-time are the same raw materials utilized by man when he goes to war. And the finances used to promote peaceful pursuits are the same finances used to pay for the waging of wars. The business of shipping arms and munitions internationally is a reprehensible business. But lately we have placed too great emphasis upon it. The munitions business is not a cause of war. It never has been. It is merely a symptom of war. Italy can make her own muni-

INDIANAPOLIS, MONDAY, OCTOBEPv 28, 1935

The Story Behind the Ethiopian War

*By BOAKE CARTER*

Mussolini poses on his horse for the populace—and behind him is a statue of Caesar—who conquered foreign peoples, too.

In the great Ogaden district where Italy’s southern armies strive to drive back defending forces, every home is in peril from air raids and artillery attack, so Chief Bakala Ayele, most influential man in a region near Nalual, has trained his family and retainers as home guards. Even his wife (right) and young sons bear arms for use against raiding planes or land foes.

tions. Ethiopia perhaps can not. And the common cry is that it is unfair to withhold arms from both nations, for this lends indirect support to the strong nation, to the detriment of the weak. n n QURELY this argument is so old to not need destroying again. Yet perhaps it should be done once more. We did nothing about the control of the shipment of a :ms at the beginning of the World War. Those munitions which were sold w mt mostly to the allies—for they had the ships and they had the necessary control of the seas. This anomaly soon appeared so obvious that Congress moved to embargo such shipments. Promptly the allies protested. They said that this would be a most unfriendly act—certainly it could not

.■I

Battery of modern 8-inch howitzers, which can be sped to the front at 55 miles an hour.

A graphic idea of the old and the new is given in the views of the guns here. ‘‘Calamity Jane," elevated almost to her limit, was being prepared to fire one of the last shots of the war on Armistice Day, 1918. With the old box trail, which gave her a right and left swing of only 5 or 6 degrees, and her clumsy iron-shod wheels, the sturdy old gun looks like a museum piece. Then note the huge, sleek 8-inch howitzers, present pride of the U. S. cannoneers. The one in the fore-

be construed as an act of a neutral. So the State Department obligingly let the proposal die. Immediately Germany howled in protest and said that the United States was throwing ’ts lot in with the allied cause. President Wilson did his best to explain the dilemma by quoting international law—but he might as well have saved his breath. The fact remained that because we failed to act before the war, nothing we could do after the war began, would satisfy either s ! de and therefore placed the United States in a hopelessly embarrassing position. We simply couldn’t be neutral, no matter which way we turned. a tt a THOSE who argue against any embargo action before the actual outbreak of hostilities, de-

ground just has been fired, after being demounted. It can be elevated to 45 degrees and has a ten-fold greater traverse than the old gun. These howitzers have been towed at a speed of 55 miles an hour and embody all the latest innovations in big gun designing. NEXT—The powerful armored cars that play a great part in modern cavalry reconnaissance and the clumsy types that were the “last word" in World War times.

cline to face realities. Any honest neutrality action taken by any nation, is bound to benefit the strong. But in the two and a half years prior to our entry into the World War, we carefully kidded ourselves that we were being neutral, by selling to- every one. Actually we were not selling to every one, because one side had neither the ships nor the control of the sea to enable it to buy. Therefore we were, in reality selling only o the other side—and eventually the investment grew so large, co pled with the “fear’’ psychosir worked so cunningly by the sam side to which we were selling, i tat we plunged in to save what we could from the wreckage. Tomorrow—How War Can Come. (Copyright, 1935. bv the Telegraph Press Harrisburg, Pa.)

Second Section

Entered ns Second-Class 'tatter at Pontofric*. Indianapolis. lad-

The Wail 1 See It GEN IGIISJOKi "ITLASHINGTON, Oct. 28.—1n his Pittsburgh VV speech, the then Democratic candidate archl% r “let the country in on a little secret.” He was going to take, in exchange on each Cabinet appointment, a resignation in blank to beconte effective whenever the appointee felt difficulty in going alone with policy—presumably the policy stated in the platform and in the speeches. Our foreign trade policy has certainly not been that. If ever this country needed, as Secretary of State, a realistic trader, thor-

oughly aware of all the wiles and ways by which the chancellories of Europe have made a sucker out of the United States without significant interruption since 1916, it is now. That was the promise of the 1932 campaign and that we have not had. On the contrary the world is more thoroughly honeycombed against our commerce than ever. The expedient of devaluating the dollar made easier every cent of debt and interest payment by our debtors abroad made harder every cent of payment by us to our foreign creditors. It enabled foreign buyers to take our goods at a lower absolute price than our own people can

buy them, and made it correspondingly hard for us to buy our necessitous imports. Our policy generally is eiasing not only our present. export markets, but our hope of future markets. We have made no progress in trading down economic barriers against us. a a a Uplifting Begins at Home THE policy has been a noble one—in the tradition of simon-pure old-fashioned Southern democracy. It has been conducted by a dependable gentleman of the old school, so stately, intelligent, kindly, honorable, and yet so firm—a rarity in these whirling days—that it is hard to suggest that, in the cirstances, there might have been a better choice than Cordell Hull. In many ways there couldn't be. But in these hard-bitten days, we needed a realist, with the trading eye of an eagle, a thorough knowledge and practical experience of world-eco-nomics. and with no such yen to uplift Europe as to forget that uplifting—like charity—begins at home. We had two outstanding Democratic world figures who answered that description Bernard Baruch and Owen Young. Baruch was said to be “too luminous a figure ” Owen Young was a “a business man." The result has been true to these reasons. We got neither luminosity nor business. On the economic side, our foreign policy is a failure. iCopvrieht, 1935. bv Unite and Feature Syndicate. Inc.)

In The Money

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28.—1n my annual checkup to see if the Bureau of Engraving and Piinting is getting away with any of the money’ it makes, I ran into an appalling thing. In the last six weeks, the bureau has printed and delivered, for the Christmas rush, 218 million revenue stamps to be put on bottles of blended ■whisky! Each stamp represents one bottle. That makes nearly’ two bottles of liquor for every man, woman and child in the United States, just for the holiday period. If your two bottles are gone before New Year s Eve you might speak to some of those children, who shouldn't be drinking blends anyway. And the man in charge of all this liquor-stamp piinting, Director Alvin William Hall of the bureau, has never had a drink in his life. He doesn't mind other people drinking, in fact he’d sort of like to take a drink himself once in a while, thinks maybe it and make him feel better, but he has gone so long now he just hates to break his record. tt tt tt MR. HALL has been in office 11 years. He is a youngish, gray-haired man, very easy and pleasant, who talks like a human being. He is pioud, in a modest way, about the shape the bureau is in, and I’ve never heard any one say he hasn’t done a good job. The bureau, in case you don’t already know, is the place where every piece of paper money, and every postage stamp in the United States, is made. The bureau makes more stamps than anything else. They’re printing nearly 14 billions this year. And yet, Mr. Hall has to send up to the postnffiee to get stamps for his own mail. When I was there, he had been waiting since 9 o’clock for a messenger to bring stamps from the postoffice. Ninety per cent of the bureau’s work is replacement. In other words, money keeps wearing out. so they bring it back and grind it up, and print new bills in its place. tt tt tt THE bureau gets its paper from a Massachusetts firm which has been supplying the government with its money-paper for 60 years. The paper is three-fourths linen and one-fourth cotton. Our paper money is the strongest in the world, they say, but i\ doesn't last as long as it used to. The auto is to blame. We travel around more than we once did, and hence handle our money more, and gas station men with greasy hands roll it around fn their pockets. It's pretty hard for employes to get away with money at the bureau. There is such a perfect checkup system that if a sheet of bills disappears, they know about it within a few minutes. And they know what section it disappeared from, too. Then they lock the whole section up and start looking. But once in a while somebody does get clear away with some. The last time was in Marcn, 1933, when they had a iot of temporary employes. They've since got some of the money back, through regular spending channels, but they never have got the guy who took it. They’re still looking, though.

Times Books

IF you feel that a Fascist dictatorship is just one of those things that couldn t possibly come to pass in America. Sinclair Lewis has a savagely derisive answer for you. He has put it in anew book, satirically entitled “It Can't Happen Here.” and this book tells how dictatorship overcame the republic in the 1936 presidential election. < Doubleday. Doran. $2 50.) Mr. Lewis’ dictator is Senator Berz°lius Windrip, who seems to be modeled roughly after the late Huey Long. Windrip noses out Franklin Roosevelt for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He promises SSOOO a year to every American, calls for government ownership of banks and utilities, demands a better break for laborer and farmer, and is triumphantly elected. ana THEN he gets busy. He has organized uniformed marching clubs, known as the Minute Men. When Congress refuses to pass a law giving the President dictatorial powers, the Minute Men throw Congress into jail and all power passes to President Windrip. Mr. Lewis makes a Vermont newspaper editor his hero, and tells the whole story from the viewpoint of the old-fashioned liberal. And his moral is that there is quite enough prejudice, selfishness and brutality in America to create a dictatorship. All we need is a little bad luck. I hope everybody reads “It Can’t Happen Here." (By Bruce Cattonj

A ' ;l

Ger.. Hugh S. Johnson

BY ERNIE PYL