Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 296, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 February 1936 — Page 9

It Seems to Me HEffIOOD BROUN BEING no St. Bernard with a jug of rum around my neck, I remain Indoors during the gales and look to the newspapers for subjects on which to comment. The wind was spewing an icy edge on all the sidewalks of New York when I came across the interesting column of Miss Nancy Randolph in the Daily News. As you probably know, it is called "Society,” and the stock head includes

a picture of a champagne glass and an opera hat. It was the first paragraph which met my eye and I read: "PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 13. Alfred Emanuel Smith is stepping out as one or the social lions of the season. Tonight he is the guest of honor at a dinner at Whitehall. Come Monday evening he's to be the white-haired boy at a dinner party given by Mr. and Mrs. William Theodore Hoops at tl eir home on South Orean-blvd. No one i.as glimpsed Al's brown derby since he came down last week.”

It is interesting to kpow that A1 cortinues supremely happy ar.d contented and that, a little belatedly, he has become a social lion. And in this connection it is interesting to note that Al's social career has been the precise reverse of his public life. In politics he came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. a a a At Least He Tries \ FRIEND and fellow' columnist from New York has been taking a Washington w'hlrl, and I find that at least one of his reactions seems a little bitter. At least I find F. P. A. writing in his column in the Herald Tribune: "Mr. Hey wood Broun, the passionate orator whom, the first two days I was here, I heard give exactly the same speech three times, said that nowhere was there an easier audience than in Congress.” The crack about Congress was naturally merely a surmise. I have been able to corner individual Senators and Representatives from time to time and make them stand while I stated views. But I wouldn t call that a speech. And, anyhow, F. P. A. wasn't there. We were fellow speakers at the National Press Club and discussed a paper on which we used to work. I hope I spoke with some passion, and I am sorry if it was dreary, too. But my regrets are moderately mild. Quite a while ago I made up my mind that I was going to fight as hard as I could for certain things in which I believe at the risk of boring some people. Asa matter of fact "risk” is too mild a word. I am well aware of the fact that in the last two years I have bored thousands of people. It may run into th<| millions. a a a Partin His Fault IN part that is my fault. My words and thoughts get set in certain formulae, and it is hard to change. Even really accomplished speakers suffer a little from the same fault. It is hard to realize that a thing which seems to you vital, necessary and righteous may be a matter of complete indifference to anybody else. . ... Pi obahly the best way is to try a different method of attack, but the natural tendency is to raise your voice and pound your fist upon the table. Still the worst way is to be silent. When you speak your heart out and fail to arouse interest that’s too bad, but it isn't tragic. Its tragic only when you clown your life away, even if you do arouse interest. I know because I've tried it. (Copyright. 1936) Validity of Entire TV A Not Decided BY RAYMOND CLArPER WASHINGTON, Feb. IS—Those—and they are the very best people—who believe our machinery of government is perfect down to its last gadget are triumphantly acclaiming the Supreme Court validation of one TVA contract as proof that no improvements are desirable. It‘shows, they say, that when the New Deal does something sound, the court is broad-minded enough to recognize it. Those who believe that our machinery of government is one of the great inventions of civilization, but that nothing human is perfect

and beyond improvement, see something else in this opinion. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act was signed by President Roosevelt on May 18. 1933—almost three years ago. This week the Supreme Court expressly declined to rule upon its constitutionality. We must wait, nobody knows how long, to know whether the court will permit us to keep TVA in whole or in part. All we know definitely from the court is that one comparatively small contract

signed by .TV A is constitutional. From this some infer that eventually the court will find TVA constitutional as a whole. Others infer that the court may kick out part of it. You guess what the Supreme Court will do at your own peril. a a a OPPONENTS of TVA sought to use the Wilson Dam contract as a vehicle for determining whether the TVA Act was constitutional. The government. believing it had a better chance of getting half a loaf, sought to narrow the case to the one contract rather than risk invalidation of the whole enterprise. The Supreme Court confined itself to that narrower question. In other words, the court upholds one detailed action of TVA. But it postpones decision as to the validity of the act itself. Some may think that the court ducked the main question temporarily in order to allow the present storm in Congress to blow over, hut that is beside the point. Common sense would say that we should first knov whether the law was constitutional. Then, if found to be constitutional, it would be appropriate to determine as instances arise whether officials have acted beyond the authority bestowed in the law. In the present case, the court is proceeding in reverse order. The last thing we will hear is the answer to the main question. a a a ''l''HE court and many lawyers oppose advisory -1 opinions or declaratory judgments not arising out of specific cases. They want the court to pass on the constitutionality of legislation but to defer this function as long as possible. Naturally lawyers prefer that system. It makes more business. But if the Supreme Court is to retain its veto power over Congress—which is another question again—why should it not register its veto immediately with regard to the constitutionality of a law just as the President is required to register his veto immediately? That would not preclude the court from subsequently overruling actions of executive officials which were deemed beyond the powers of the statute. Delays under our existing procedure seem wasteful when millions of dollars and such necessities as light and power for whole are involved. a a a POLITICIANS recognize two kinds of graft—honest graft and the other kind. Commenting on conditions in a certain state administration, one of its defenders gave this definition of honest graft: ‘ If I am on the liquor control board and I tell a distiller he can sell us his liquor if he will give me 10 per cent on his sales to the state, that is graft and I ought to go to the penitentiary. But suppose I say to him: ‘l’ll send you a man. You put him on as your salesman and pay him a commission of 10 per cent on what he sells us.‘ That is honest graft,”

Herewith Is the fifth of a series of articles on the administration of relief In Indiana, by Arch Steinel, Times staff writer, who has made a broad study of the relief setup in the state. BY ARCH STEINEL “TJUT what can I do, Dear! I tell you I’ve tried to find a hired girl. They won’t work at the wage We’ve been paying. No—no—l can’t find Annie. Yes—l’ll try again. But it’ll have to be some other girl than, Annie . . . she’s working ... Yes, I’ll get the car greased ... Bye.” The telephone receiver in a downtown business office banged in masculine futility. The office stenographer got a “going-over” for a mis-spelled word and all because “Annie,” the hired girl, would not work for the wage paid in one North Side home. Just a few r blocks away at 37 S. Meridian-st sat Annie among her FOUR HUNDRED . . . other Annies, Joans, and Janes . . . and actually 400 in number. The FOUR HUNDRED pressed the treadles of sewing machines as did Annie while serene and contented they

Hey wood Broun

tell why they refuse household work or acting as kitchen “mechanician” when they can receive $55 monthly and an assured income by working on a Works Progress Administration project. "Why should I slave in a kitchen for $6 a week when I can get employment here. Me! I’m doing something Tv®* been wanting to do —learning pattern-making—and maybe some day I’ll be a dressmaker if times improve,” exclaims "Annie,” some one’s "Annie.” "Annie” is bne of the lucky women working on three floors of the S. Meridian-st building makinf garments for the city’s indigent. * tt tt SHE feels she’s lucky,‘first because she is one of the “chosen” with a WPA job. She was out of work before she went on direct relief. She has three always hungry mouths to feed. A wage of $6 a week and board would not care for herself and her three children. J. H. Crawley, assistant director of Marion County’s WPA office, and other officials say that the security wage of $55 monthly in the county has tended to increase wages in private employment rather than decrease pay. A department store controller in Indianapolis tells of a similar circumstance and the desire of the WPA worker to be secure in employment at a fair scale of wages. The merchant wanted a carpenter "part-time,” but when he approached the man who had worked for him on former occasions he was told that he had WPA work and feared that if he worked at odd times for his old employer that he might not be able to keep his WPA job. u tt tt COUNTY WPA officials declare that since they have assured workers that they would be reinstated in WPA should their private employment fail that a greater tendency to take jobs in industry is seen. They assert that some workers have accepted jobs in industry at lower wages if permanency of the job was assured. Loafing on WPA projects is held to be no greater problem than in private industry. "There’s about as much loafing on WPA as you’ll find in the United States Steel Corporation.” vouches Wayne Coy, Indiana Administrator. "The trouble we have with men and women is trying to work when it might mean a death warrant. We try to be sure that they are sound physically,” he added. A "look-around” the S. Me-ridian-st sewing project for women finds substantiation in Mr. Coy’s declarations. The women are calm workers and the calmest is Mrs. Bettie Cunningham who is “70 years old, March 2, and don’t feel a day of it.” n a HER needle steering in and out of patchwork quilts supports a 74-year-old husband. Her rent is $5 a month for a room in the home of her daughter. The daughter’s husband works for WPA. The daughter is blind. The grocery bill for the aged couple is $lB a month, the coal bill $8 more and what’s left of the $23 goes toward medicines and few little luxuries for her sick husband. "This is so much better than getting grocery relief. We old folk can't eat what the young ’uns do and by working I can get Pa and myself a few more things,” Mrs. Cunningham says as she smooths the folds of a dress which she declares is 14 years old "if it's a day.” Possibility of increase of the oldage pension from a maximum of sls to S3O monthly at the March special session of the General Assembly holds no rainbow with a pot of gold at the end for Mrs. Cunningham. "A job's all I want. They can keep the pension,” she says. Working on the floor below Mrs. Cunningham is 18-year-old "Daisy.” Negro girl, who in taking a $55 Federal pay cheek monthly

Clapper

Full leased Wire Service c! the United I’ress Association,

SALVAGING 475,000 HOOSIERS a a a a tt tt tt .tt tt tt tt tt a si Many on Relief Refuse Private Jobs Paying, Less Than WPA

BENNY

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cares for her father and mother and nine sisters and brothers. . u tt \ THE workroom's first floor has Mrs. B. L., who typifies the life story of many feminine workers on the sewing project. Deserted by her husband she was tossed for the first time in her life into the industrial maelstrom. Seventeen years a housewife fitted her to cook and sew for her daughter—rand the relief line. “ —And now I'm sewing. This pays on the government loan on my place instead of letting it lag as I did while on food relief,” she explains. Her story of a wandering mate is mirrored by the workroom’s supervisor as picturing many of the stories of those working on the project. "It seems as if the men all picked up with the depression and loss of jobs and moved out,” she said. tt tt LEAVE the ladies to their sewing and barge to the landscape and underpinning repair at James Whitcomb Riley Hospital or go out on Kessler-blvd and watch WPA working on a 20-year dream of Indianapolis for a boulevard encircling the city—a dream that work-relief is to bring true. Watch Charles West, 131 Bright-st. toss. shovels of earth into a wheelbarrow in the basement of Riley Hospital. He is 66 and when one’s 66 one does not move with the alacrity and speed of youth. A teen-age boy could shovel faster than Mr. West does, but the job does not demand speed—just conscientious effort. Mr. West labors for his $55 monthly check and says: ' ‘ I’ll be doing it as long as I’m able ?nd as long as I can get work. We’ve got nothing, my wife and I, to throw away on our WPA checks, and if some other job came along I’d take it. All I want is work”. In another sector of the hospital J. C. N., a skilled brickmason, receives the top wage of SBS for his class of labor. J. C. N. owns an SBOOO home, 1929 value, and he owes S4OOO on it. His WPA wages are paying on a government home loan. a a tt “ TUST let someone offer me J $4500 for that home tomorrow and see how quick I’d take it,” says J. C. N. Brighter days are in store* for J. C. N. for he believes he will be one of the skilled workmen to take a job under the Public Works Administration when it begins a proposed $15,000,000 work program in schools and municipal projects of Indiana about March 15. Permits are needed to talk to WPA men and women while on project work. Protection against radical organizations fomenting trouble in the labor ranks, preventing the waste of time through salesmen and persons dunning for bills! is given as the reason by county WPA authorities for the “pass” rule. "What they do. who they talk to. after they leave the project is their business, but while they’re working we want them to work without distraction from outside sources,” one WPA official said. tt tt a ONE radical group in Indiana is credited with fanning tempers to white-heat in Indianapolis during December when relief checks were late on the White River levee project. A project foreman, police say, was ducked in the river and then the workers rushed to the county district office at 110 S. Meridian-st. Demands were made for checks. Police squads were called and the crowd dispersed when they were told the checks would be paid on the following day. A strike on a Terre Haute work project was quelled after workers protested measures. Both disturbances were laid by WPA officials at the. door of a radical organization. While WPA workers would sooner suffer almost literal ana amputation than lose their jobs the state and county has two groups of unemployables aside from the person receiving grocery

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1936

pnowiff J jWF "Lo/ | i )v/ jp 3STH 5T 1 -! oi gS (Jr dr ! M is • I if i jMu>~ ;J 1 LEGEND 3b ji — 1 ■— ■ ■ COMPLETED BY CITY !; COMPLETED WITH . \ '1 FEDERAL AID V 1 l.iii'iTT UNDER CONSTRUCTION FEDERAL AID PROJECT

Kessler-blvd, 20-year dream of city fathers for an around-the-city highway, is being realized under the Works Progress Administration project sponsored by local officials. Marion County WPA’s office nas 11.36 miles of the highway under construction and 3.50 miles upon which work will begin shortly. CWA and FERA built 5.57 miles, bringing the boulevard mileage built by the government to 20.43 miles. The city built 47 miles of the boulevard. A short stretch of road, off of 38th-st, is the only section left to be built. Construction of Shadeland-dr and 56th-st form the major portion of WPA’s construction mileage on the boulevard as shown in the above map.

relief—who are kept by pride on the one hand and residence qualifications on the other from being eligible for either work or direct relief. a a a THE first unemployable who lacks residence qualifications to obtain either a job or a grocery order is the transient man or woman. The prideful jobless one is unemployable because the good circumstances of his relatives or his own monetary sock has kept him from accepting direct relief and he can not receive work-relief unless he has served time on the grocery order line. He is the state and the nation’s Mr. and Mrs. X, social workers and Wayne Coy, WPA administrator, say. In some cases his financial burdens are eased through aid from Community Fund welfare and relief agencies. A brother, sister, father, or mother takes care of him or her in the doldrum days when he can not obtain odd jobs. "Estimate him in Indiana? It can’t be done,” says Martin F. Carpenter, Indiana State Employment Service director. The transient, a man and his family from Podunk, Neb., or ihe "hillbilly” youth from the Ten-

Washington Merry-Go-Round BY DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19. History probably will record the munitions investigation, now nearing its last sessions, as one of the most useful in Senate annals. But its untimely termination is clouded in an atmosphere of backstage politics and petty personal bickering. Two mistakes prevented the committee from doing the kind of job it might have done and from continuing unhampered until the job really was finished. The first was the appointment of a Republican as chairman. Senator Gerald Nye—who introduced the munitions resolution —deserved to be chairman, but repeated experience has proved it inadvisable to place a minority member at the head of an important investigating body. There are invariably certain majority members who, secretly opposed to the probe, will make use of partisan prejudice to attack it. This was the case with the munitions inquiry. From the very start, Democratic leaders balked at giving Nye the funds he asked for. A Democrat would have had little difficulty. But a Republican—well, that was different. The other big mistake was Nye’s failure to grasp what Jim Reed, acid-tongued one-time Senator

nessee mountains, whoever they are or wherever they come from they are dependent during their stay in Indianapolis on Community Fund relief agencies. tt a a GENEROSITY of‘a citizenry in contributing yearly to the Community Fund agencies pays the transient’s bill for a night’s lodging and meals. The burden of the transient became an Indianapolis problem last fall when the Federal government withdrew its workers from the field, closed transient bureaus, and left to Indianapolis a shelter for aged nonresidents and a few out-state camps. These camps and shelters are being demobilized as rapidly as possible. A transient bureau was established in the office of the Center Township trustee, 214 N. Senateav, and from Dec. 7 to Feb. 6 a total of 1863 white persons and 127 Negroes have passed through the bureau and thence to Community Fund relief agencies to receive aid. Thirty family groups are included in the 1990 caseload and the low percentage of Negroes visiting the bureau is attributed by social workers to the race's desire to stay near the place

from Missouri, once expressed to John T. Flynn. Flynn had made Reed a lush offer to write memoirs of his various political battles with Woodrow Wilson. Reed refused. "There is one thing I have learned about life,” he said. “Never attack a saint. Woodrow Wilson is still canonized.” Nye made the mistake of attacking Woodrow Wilson. • a a a Whose Brain Trust? Consistency, thou art a jewel! Ever since its original the American Liberty League has heaped scorn and ridicule on New Deal Brain Trusters. In pamphlets and speeches it has derided the of-fice-holding professors as impractical theorists and bunglers. Yet. lo and behold, there has just issued from busy presses of the league a leaflet quoting an impressive selection of professors AGAINST the Administration. A careful scrutiny of the pamphlet discloses, however, that some of the professors most prominently quoted are actually not the foes of the Administration they are made to appear, but have merely expressed themselves critically regarding one of its policies.

where they are known in times of unemployment. The severe weather of December and January also is given as an additional reason for the Negro remaining in Southern climes. tt a a INCREASED cost to private charity and the Community Fund relief agencies in caring for the transient is revealed in the records for October, November and December when 4011 individuals received meals and lodgings from Salvation Army, Theodora Home of the Volunteers of America, and the Wheeler Rescue Mission. The three-month period preceding, from June to August, showed that with the transient under the wing of Uncle Sam that 2151 clients were aided or 1860 less than in the closing months of 1935. Care of transient families by the Family Welfare Society and Catholic Community Center jumped from no families cared for in June, July and August to 72 families in the final three months of the year. Under anew plan being worked out all financial responsibility for care of transient families is to be lodged in the township trustee while Community Fund relief agencies are to continue paying for the single wayfarer who comes to Indianapolis. The average cost of $14.80 needed to care for transient families during their stay in the city is high because it includes railroad fare to transport them to their homes. a a a C—OMMUNITY FUND agencies feel that transporting families to their legal residences is good economy. Believing in a relief preventative as the best cure to keep local men and women from grocery orders or township care the welfare agencies help families to aid themselves through incidental care, . . . coal . . . food . . . clothing. “Many are border-line cases. Families almost down and out who seek advice and with temporary aid manage to make their own way without resorting to poor relief,” explains one welfare agency executive. Nor is the fact that a man has a job considered releasing him as a case on the books of welfare agencies. Every supplemental aid, encouragement in the way of extra clothing and supplies, acting as a breakwater to prevent long-stand-ing creditors from drowning him in hopelessness, are parts played by Community Fund relief agencies in staving off the return of the man and his family to the relief rolls. Next—Relief’s Future in the Eyes of Citizens.

By J. Carver Pusey

Second SecticfS

Entered as Second-Class Matter at I’ostofflce. Indianapolis Ind.

Fair Enough ml fraim GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Feb. 19.—This is my first trip to Germany, and so. naturally, it was interesting to watch operations in the wooden press headquarters, or pesthouse, where the journalists from many lands are at work. The room was about 50 feet long and 20 wide, with three long work tables littered with mimeographed bulletins, tattered programs, old notes, spiked paragraphs and a lot of portable typewriters. The writers spoke in many languages. There was

a bank of letter boxls presided over by the Countess von Bernstorff, a slender blond, who married the son of the man who was Germany's ambassador in Washington up to the time the United States entered the big war. She speaks English and is interested in sculpture, but has been unable to work up any enthusiams for art among men who are leaping from Alp to Alp in ski boots. The Countess participated in a curious little rumpus in the evening as the crowd caTne stamping in from the men’s figure-skating competition. Dr. Arthur Burk-

head, an American who teaches German at Harvard, dropped in to compose a few thoughts for the Christian Science Monitor and was denounced by a yel-low-haired youth as an enemy of Germany. The young man told the Countess that on Thursday night at the hockey match, the professor had spoken of the German crowd as a mob. He seemed to think the professor was a German, and more or less put it up to the Countess to do something about it. a a a The Professor Calls the Turn # T' HE professor got sore and told the young man A he would either have to prove his charge or defend himself in a suit, and the squealer then began to hedge, saying he hadn't heard the professor'* remark but that his girl friend had. "Well, then, bring her in,” the professor said. The young man dragged in a not very toothsome pencil in a somewhat flea-bitten leopard skin coat, who said she had not only heard this good herr doktor professor call the crowd a mob but refer to them as lowbrows and roughnecks. The Countess was disposed to laugh it off but the professor seemed to think if he didn’t clear it up at once it might get worse later on. The man and woman eased out, but the professor chased after them. It then developed that both squealers were German outlanders living in Czechoslovakia, who merely wanted to receive credit for turning in a traitor. The Nazis have been insisting that the Olympic games are not in any sense a Nazi propaganda tool There was great embarrassment Friday when some journalists found in their letter boxes a mimeographed sheet announcing that a well-known leader of the Nazi movement from Czechoslovakia was going to be present and that this would be a fine opportunity to obtain his picture. One American writer found this sheet in his box and gave it to me. About 15 minutes later a Nazi official came up to ask if he could see the paper. I let him read it, and he said it was a very deplorable error. a a a An Error Is Corrected 'T'HOSE who called for their mail later found no -I- copies of the announcement. Later communique was issued explaining that the circular was distributed without authorization. Seme of my friends tell me that certain feelings will be hurt by my description of the military scene in the town Thursday afternoon when Hitler came and the streets were filled with camouflaged army trucks and troops. I don’t know what to do about that, for I was writing from personal observation and experience and the place did look like a little town behind the western front during an important troop movement. If they didn’t want publicity they shouldn’t have turned out demonstrations of armed strength simultaneously with the Olympic games. To be quite frank about it, they simply don’t know how to pipe down on their propaganda, and the efforts to use the Olympics as an excuse for political publicity will defeat their bwn purpose, for the foreign correspondents are by no means dumb and they’re taking home observations to be written later. I think that the difficulty is that the politicians don’t know propaganda when they see it.

Gen. Johnson Says—

Georgetown, s. c., Feb. 19. —what about the London Naval Conference? At the 1922 Washington Conference, by concessions as to bases and fortifications, we greatly impaired our power to defend the Pacific in order to get Japan to accept a five to three ratio in ships. She kicked that over and that made our concessions pure sacrifice. Naval limitations are not peace measures. They are devices to limit taxes—and this one is not even that, since there is no restriction on the size of navies, but only on the strength of some ships. Before we are made ridiculous in another of these international games of "strip” poker we ought to •learn six realistic considerations: 1. The United States hasn't a friend among the great nations. 2. As Will Rogers said, "We never lost a war nor won a conference.” Since 1915 we have been the world’s fat boy with the only bag of candy. 3. The repudiation of the war debts; the violations of the Four-Power, the Seven-Power and the Kellogg-Briand pacts, and of the arms provisions of the Treaty of Versailles; and the disrespect of the covenants of the League, justify the suspicion that these violators with whom we propose new concordats, will keep them while expedient and not one instant longer. 4. We have two seacoasts, separated by a continent, to defend—two oceans to patrol—and Japan broke the 5-5-3 limitation with us alone in view. 5. We have no acquisitive aspirations anywhere and. of all nations, we can better afford a Navy built with an eye absolutely single to oar completely adequate defense. 6. We. more than any other nation, rely on naval rather than military defense, and have no Army worthy of the name in readiness for war. Maybe we .shall survive our starry-eyed idealism at home, but may fostering Providence at last make us realistic abroad. (Copyright. 1936, by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)

Times Books

WHISPERING RIVER” tD. Appleton-Century, New York: s2>, by Helen Topping Miller, is a simple romance set in a little Carolina town among the shrimp canners. Circumstances force Wayland Gannett, just graduated from college, to return to the home of his impoverished grandparents and seek work in the only possible place of livelihood—the shrimp cannery. The heroine is introduced early in the book in the person of Linda Rhett. the parson's daughter. Wayland soon becomes enamored of the saint-like Linda and the story could very well end at this point were it not for the complications brought about by the passion with which Marie Labaw, a Portuguese fisherman's daughter, pursues Wayland. However, this situation is solved and with the help of Jerd, Linda's reprobate brother, the lovers are brought together, fiei to pursue they interrupted cestle-btultUag. (By Dorothx JUtU >

Westbrook Pegler