Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 305, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 February 1936 — Page 9

It Seems to Me BWH ONE of my first bosses bobbed up against my path last night and shook a warning finger in my face. The gentleman in question was a veteran ’way, ’way back when I was a newspaper fledgling. Naturally, I listened with close attention to what he had to say. “I made you what you are today,” he began, •‘ana I’m far from satisfied.” ‘‘The trouble with you and all your tribe,” he continued, ‘‘is that you get high hat

and forget that once you were reporters and might be again if you worked hard enough. I don't read your column every day. Why should I? “For the last few years you’ve been writing your opinions about this and that. What do I care about your opinions? Opinions are a dime a dozen. Who gave you the right to have opinions except on things you’ve taken up with your own hands and seen with your own eyes? “Take up your easy chair and walk,” said he, “and don’t set a

Heywood Broun

word down on paper until you’ve walked two miles and looked to your left and to your right and to the ground or sidewalk in front of you. Follow your nose and quit wiggling your ears.” 000 Satisfaction His Motto TN all probability that is good counsel, and almost any minute now I intend to heed it in moderation. If my old preceptor had allowed me to get a word in edgewise I would have argued that I was striving hard to be roundsman rather than a policeman on fixed post, and I would have pointed with pride to the fact that I had been to New Orleans, "oxville and Washington since the first of the flag . a while ago I endeavored to make myself an inquiring reporter right here in my native town, and the column broke out into a rash of pieces about the Aquaiium, the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise and the Bronx Park Zoo. But at the end of a week the managing edi; f said, ‘‘Rest, perturbed spirit; the stuff is pretty terrible.” Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I aim to please, and I will follow any counsel which seems confident and sagacious. Os course, when one is advised to take a walk he naturally wants to be told just where and in which direction. I have a chance to do some columns from abroad this spring—England, France, Germany and probably Russia. I have hesitated because I feel that there is hardly any quarter of the globe right now where a reporter could walk more advantageously than in America. 000 A Hunter's Paradise THERE are few potential happenings in Europe more interesting than a Liberty League dinner, though I am not sufficiently the optimist to believe that A1 Smith will pull anything like that again in this campaign.' Asa matter of fact, this country is so teeming right now with Page 1 game that the hunter need not even walk very much. Everybody is running for something. Even editors like Col. Knox are running. The reporter need only lie in the long grass and incorporate himself at a given point. It is a good idea to pick a spot near a water hole. Before the sun falls even an indifferent marksman should find himself equipped with a couple of buffalo robes, a brace of gazelles and maybe a section of elephant tusk. In 26 years I never knew a time when so much was going on within commuting distance. I mean to go out and report these vital happenings at first hand. In fact, I mean to buy myself a round-trip ticket on the subway and write a book to be entitled “Ten Cents That Shook the World.” (Copyright, 1936) Politics Is Getting Very Complicated BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, Feb. 29.—This is a blurb, and well deserved, too, for the makers of campaign buttons and other political year trinkets. May their sales increase. Politicians make the business of running for office too complicated. Here is Roosevelt, maneuvering for position by asking Columbia University to let him keep Tugwell for another year and the next day having the partly business advisory council in for luncheon. Borah is putting burrs under the sad-

dies of the favorite sons and stalking horses. Landcn is speechless with a choking spell and Vandenberg is holding that look of uninterested expectancy which freezes on the face of a wallflower. They work out all of this as deliberately as a director plans the box office kiss of a Hollywood star. 000 /T'HEREFOFU, all thanks to the noble cause in which Geraghty & Cos. of Chicago, makers of 100 per cent union-

made campaign merchandise, are enlisted. Politicians are receiving Illustrated circulars now. Geraghty oilers for sale to candidates, not prepared speeches on any subject with well chosen literary allusions and no long or unusual words, not ghost-written interviews with the press about how candidate (insert name) saved his first nickel, not platforms that will break down if you put your full weight on them. No. Geraghty will sell you something tangible which you can pass on to the voters. Lajk'l Clips—" For the organization that needs powerful publicity at low cost." A lapel star—" Kelly for'Sheriff," A little tin ax to hang in your butt^hole —“Cut Taxes With Nolan.” They'll put in jlny name for the same price. A metal bangle, elephant shaped. "This is a heavy metal bangle for the G. O. P. attractively finished.” For your automobile dashboard, a choke type oil reminder. Put your candidate’s name on. When you choke, think of (name candidate). A Spinning Top—" Excellent for any candidate.” Run down with (name opposition candidate). Favorite Item—The little metal chirper. "When compressed it produces the cheerful ‘chirp’ sound which imitates a frog, cricket, beetle, etc. Just the thing to get publicity into voters’ homes.” They don’t say what kind of publicity. Profane most likely. Baa THE reason for this blurb is the hope that it will encourage candidates to invest heavily in this merchandise. The taxpayer can't do anything about a broken promise but complain. But with a handful of these little chirpers or tin economy axes for the lapel, he can go home and give them to his kids and be a hero. It is the taxpayer’s only loot. P. S.—Geraghty also carries "flags for all purposes.” There are extra large sizes, for scoundrels to wrap themselves in. ' BBS President Roosevelt is asking Congress to vote a "windfall tax.” It is intended to recoup the proceed* of what Secretary of Agriculture Wallace called the "greate*t legalized steal" in history—when the Supreme Court in the AAA decision gave back processing taxes to those millers, packers and other firms which had gone into court and refused to turn the tax over to the government, p

WHAT’S WRONG IN OUR SCHOOLS? "attaa-aaa * a it a a a a ‘Pay-as-You-Go’ Plan Attacked, Defended by Civic Leaders

This it the sixth and last of a series of articles on the Indianapolis schools system by Arch Steinel, Times staff writer. BY ARCH STEINEL “JNCREASE school revenues through fairer distribution of taxes. ... If we keep on fooling around our schools are going to bankrupt the country. ... It is the only thing possible if we want schools to care for increased enrollments ...” And there you have excerpts from opinions of Indianapolis civic leaders on the proposals of Indianapolis School Board committees to revamp the financial structure of the

city school system by the adoption of % a “pay-as-you-go” plan for financing $2,210,000 in building construction. Opponents of the “pay-as-you-go” plan in the main are willing to build the necessary structures, but declare that now is not the time for burdening taxpayers with direct levies for school purposes. 000 THE civic leaders, for the most part, admit ihat overcrowding is a serious problem in Indianapolis schools but some feel that today—or even next year—is not the time to spend more money. On the other side, those favoring the immediate use of direct taxes to build new schools see it as the only way out if the school system is to serve the community, adequately. William A. Book, executive vice president of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, said: “The reports of the building committee of the school commissioners set forth one of the serious problems confronting this community. There will be general agreement that Indianapolis should continue as fully as its economic position will permit, to improve and enlarge school facilities. “We have had one or more experiences of neglecting this problem until necessity compelled action. “The crowding of so much building into a few years then proved to be very costly,” he said recalling the years of 1919-1920, when $4,865,000 in bonds were issued for school structures—a debt-load which Indianapolis wiil have to pay in 1939-40. 000 “|-XNE of the most important issues, it seems to me,” added Mr. Book, “is that of obtaining a fair distribution of the revenue which the state collects for the primary purpose of relieving local property taxation. Our organization has repeatedly shown that Indianapolis and many other municipalities in the state have received much less than a fair proportion of statecollected monies. “We have reduced our governmental expenditures as much, or more so, than the vast majority of rural taxing areas; yet we have not been able to accomplish the property tax reduction these areas have accomplished, because we have not had a proportionate share of the state-collected revenue. “What can be done,” he continued, “to increase school revenue for Indianapolis from this source, possibly pretty largely spells the answer to the present school building problem. “It will be possible,” Mr. Book said, “to carry on some improvements through partial reliance upon further bond issues and partial use of the direct property tax rate. Yet, with the other needs to be met, and the absorption of our entire bonding power, it may not be possible to go as far as school officials’ reports first indicate. “Governmental students have urged municipalities to rely less on borrowed money and more on current revenues for permanent improvements. How far we can go in meeting the needs of the school system depends on our studying the other problems outlined and upon united effort on the part of taxpayers and officials, alike, to obtain equitable treatment in the distribution of state-collected revenues, raised for the purpose of spreading the tax bases.” 000 MR. BOOK is a former school business director and observers see in his declaration for a fairer distribution of taxes, a possible drive by the Indianapolis Chamber and other organizations for a realignment of tax distribution through the introduction of a law at the special session of the Legislature, expected next month. Commending the “pay-as-you-go” plan for payment of current school needs with direct tax levies as a “good thing,” Paul C. Wetter, Inc., said that “the plan is commendable but the question is, can the taxpayers carry the additional load at this time. Our backs are about broken now. Thousands of homes were sold in the past springs for taxes and thousands more will be sold. Can the taxpayer carry an additional burden?” George Q. Bruce, president of the North Side Federation of Civic Clubs, Inc., said:

Clapper

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The Indianapolis Times

“We shouldn’t incur any more debts until we get out of this depression Two or three years from now we may be able to carry the load, but now—l can’t see it.” 0 0 0 •JIiJRS. JAMES L. MURRAY Os Indianapolis, legislative chairman of the Indiana Congress of Parent - Teachers’ Association, said: “Personally I think the Indianapolis School Board is taking the only way possible to get new buildings. There has been a great increase in high school enrollments, we know. The ability to sell bonds is at too low an ebo to help build schools Direct taxation is the only thing to do if we want schools to care for the increased enrollment. No o:ie likes increased taxes, but I don’t see how we can solve the situation in any other way.” John C. Kirch, president of the South side Civic Club, said: “I think if we keep on fooling around our schools are going to bankrupt our country. It seems the more we educate, the more crooked they seem to get. If it wasn’t for a few of us older ones who got our education in a little red schoolhouse instead of a college education, God knows what would become of us. I don’t think our club will be in favor of a $2,000,001) expenditure for city schools.” Mrs. George Shepherd, president of the Brookside Civic League, said: “Our league has not taken action on the plans of the school board. I am personally familiar with the need for more schools and the crowded condition of Technical High School and feel that more and better buildings are a necessity.” 000 ALBERT NEUERBERG, president of Sherman-Emerson Civic League, said: “I don’t like to say anything to hurt the construction of needed buildings, but I believe we should get more value than we receive from our money. We should have better financing of schools than we have had in the past. All branches of government should be operated more economically and that applies to the school system, too.” Defending the use of direct taxation to build structures and end overcrowding and health hazards, Carl Wilde, Indianapolis School Board president, said: “Provision must be made during the next several years for funds to meet the most acute situations. . . . This would mean that some money must be raised by property tax levy. Naturally the public does not relish paying

Tl 7 ASHINGTON, Feb. 29. * More than 150 suits seeking to snare part of the one billion dollars of processing taxes have been filed in Federal courts throughout the country. Internal Revenue Commissioner GuyT. Helvering estimates that 1,500,000 suits would be required to cover the disputed billion. . . . The most musical sounding name on the government roster is that of Golden W. Bell, an assistant solicitor in the Justice Department. Donald R. Richberg, one-time “Assistant President” has resumed the practice of rail labor law. He has been employed by the railroad brotherhoods, whom he represented before becoming a government official, to formulate legislation to protect rail workers from loss of jobs through carrier consolidation. ... A reminder of the “horse-and-buggy” era that stood a few rods from the Reconstruction Finance Corp. office has succumbed to the machine age. An adjacent livery stable has been replaced by a garage. . . . Ffiends of Mrs. Huey Long, are advising her to keep her 18-year-old daughter Rose from talking too much. m m m Smoking Room SENATOR NORRIS of Nebraska has found a way he can listen to Senate debate and finish his cigar at the same lime. He sits in the lobby doorway, just off the floor, holds the door open with his foot, and puffs away. . . . Before the next session of Congress convenes, there will be additional elevators installed to carry visitors to Senate galleries. . . . Nor-

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1936

There’s no danger of the farm horse in the upper photo coming to life but if he did he would probably give a horsey neigh and couple of horse-laughs at the students at Tech who study about farm management and livestock • in a room that at one time housed the map-horse’s ancestors. The room was a stable in the days when shells were made on the Arsenal Technical campus instead of grades in Latin, et al. —And this building at the right is not down in the hills of Brown County, but just pne of outdoor lavatories which school commissioners seek to eradicate from the city’s school system.

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

ris, TVA’s model town, is proposing to hire a community dentist, on salary, to take care of TVA teeth. .. . Senator Pi 1 1 ma n thought he had lost a silver plaque valued at SBOO. It is an ornamented silver disk, replica of the Aztec calendar, given to the silver Senator by E. Plutarco Calles of Mexico. It disappeared when Senator Pittman asked to have it polished by his messenger. Senator Pittman led a frantic search, found it in a drawer of his Foreign Relations Committee table. tt u a Running Mate TT seems that almost half the Republican . presidential aspirants would like to have Jimmy Wadsworth of New York as vice presidential running mate. Close friends of Wadsworth say he has received overtures from the camps of Gov. Landon, Col. Frank Knox and Senator Arthur Vandenberg. . . . Atsy. Gen. Cummings has the most lavish and ornate office in Washington, but does no work in it. He uses a small study just behind it. “Trying to work in that big room,” says Mr. Cummings, “is like having a desk in Union Station.” . . . One of the proudest claims of Wyoming's Democratic Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney is that he studied history and law under Professor Charles A. Beard, world-famous historianand scholar. . . . Treasury records show that some $300,009,090 in gold coins are still unreturned. Much of it is believed to be abroad and much has been irrevocably lost. . . . Commenting on the claim by a big utility executive belittling the importance of

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taxes. Nor do public officials enjoy asking people to do so. . . . The property tax burden falls upon every citizen in the community.” “But on the other hand,” continued Mr. Wilde, “the benefits of our school system are likewise to the benefit of all our citizens, regardless of whether they have children in the public schools or not. No citizen will begrudge the expenditure of money necessary to overcome the existing shortage in school facilities if due care and economy are exercised in the process.” 000 ALAN BOYD, attorney and school commissioner, said: “That taxes are burdensome, is undeniable. The question of what the taxpayers is buying for his money is a major consideration. He can make no better investment than to insure sanitary, comfortable and efficient conditions for the children of Indianapolis, under which they may obtain the best education and training we can provide.” The Indiana Taxpayers’ Association predicted at the lowest

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point of the depression, 1932, the need for the Indianapolis School City, as well as other governmental units, for a “pay-as-you-go” plan with a refunding of the bonded indebtedness to spread it out over a period of years extending through 1976, instead of present bond maturities ending in 1963. The bonded indetedness kt the time of the report was $1,000,000 higher than the $10,020,000 indebtedness of today. 0 0 0 CRITICISM of former financing was given as follows: “In the fever of post-war activity the school city, civil city and the county anticipated that such conditions would continue and the units of government failed to schedule bond retirements in a manner whereby an equable distribution of the debt load could be made for the future. “We urged to escape the conquences of the past, that- a uniform amount of bonds be retired yearly. As this would be less than the average scheduled for the whole period we recommend that the difference created be reflected

the Supreme Court’s TVA decision, Senator William E.‘ Borah declared: “The scope of that ruling is much broader than is generally realized. Those who say otherwise are whistling in the dark.” n tt tt Sergeant-at-Arms CJERGEANT-AT-ARMS of the Democratic National Convention at Philadelphia will be broad-shouldered Col. Edwin A. Halsey, who started Capitol service as a page boy in knee breeches, rose to be Secretary of tne Senate. . . . Threat of larger potato plantings this year, befoie Federal regulation takes hold, is seen by agriculture officials in the fact that in Baldwin County, Alabama, 160 cars of seed are being planted as against 128 last season. ... It was a keen debate in the Senate Commerce Committee when polemical Senator Vandenberg of Michigan attacked the Florida ship canal project. Opposing him was Florida’s H. H. Buckman, who, in addition to being an engineer, was captain of Harvard’s debate team in 1908. * m Labor Chief TTEAD of the Democratic LaA bor Committee in this year’s campaign will be Daniel Tobin, president of the Teamster’s Union and a power in the A. F. of L. Tobin headed the Roosevelt labor group in 1932 and was an active candidate for Secretary of Labor. When Miss Perkins got the job he went into a sulk, but :ias got over it.

in lower taxes or else used for necessary projects, rather than issue new bonds to finance such expenditures. This will mean an inauguration of a pay-as-you-go system for the future.” Graphs leveling off the debt load so that the school city would spread its bills until 1976, at the rate of $250,000 in bond maturities yearly, and thereby escape the almost $5,000,000 debt mountain that faces the school city in 1939-1940 were outlined. Today, officials of the Indiana Taxpayers Association point to these graphs, suggestions for a “pay-as-you-go” plan, and relate how their plans received a “thumbs down.” They say the refunding of a good portion of the bonded indebtedness should have been done during the years of the depression or as much as could have been done. tt tt THE factor of high interest rates of,bond issues written in the boom post-war period of 1919-1920 as well as in normal years plays a role in cutting down the debt load. Business Director A. B. Good says that bond issues carrying interest rates of as high as 4% per cent were issued in 1920 and that his office would be “tickled to death” to retire those bonds if they could be found. Investors holding the expensive money bonds are content to clip coupons and collect a philanthropic rate of interest during these days of cheap money and low interest rates. School officials cite the incident of one man who came into the school business office with a bond maturing at rate of 3V 2 per cent interest who said: “I’d be glad to keep this bond forever and let you have the principal as long as I get my 3V2 per cent interest. Do you know where I can find some more of them?” a a HOWEVER, the finance and building committees of the school board say that tight money or cheap money school patrons expect their children to be housed in sanitary buildings, given ample work room and ample instruction and be safe from health hazards.* They point to outside toilet facilities, to overcrowding in city high schools to a degree where teachers and students double-up in seats and desks, *and to Technical High School structures termed unsafe from health and fire standpoints. Then they point to an ever-in-creasing high school enrollment which by the time the School City reaches its debt peak in 19391940 may require two additional high schools to house new students. —And they say: “What should we do? Who or what comes first? The answer lies with the parent and the taxpayers in Indianapolis.” THE END.

By J. Carver Pusey

Second Section

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postottice. Indianapolis. Ind.

Fair Enough WESTBROOK PEGLER PRAHA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Feb. 29.—The capacity of Hitler's'*Ku-Klux can not be exaggerated, but the fact remains that the bravest people in Germany are excluded from the gang. It takes very little courage to join a racket whose members enjoy the right to cheat and rob the non-members, but the man who defies the mob does so knowing that the Nazis will break him, persecute him and his family, and perhaps kill him. Os course, the Jews receive the worst hamir r---ing, because Hitler is constantly

inciting his hoodlums to chase them up alleys, but the Jew has no decision in the matter. But there are thousands of brave, stubborn Germans, Protestant as well as Catholic, who had every chance to accept the protection and the looting privileges which the swastika confers and refused to surrender their principles. This took physical courage far beyond that which is required of a corner loafer or neighborhood politician raiding a darkened home in the dead of night. It also asked for moral bravery of an

even finer kind. For this type of dissenter, as German as beer and as patriotic as old Bismarck himself, understands full well that he wil 1 be classified as a traitor to his country. 000 A Test of Character This means that he may be tried before a court of neighborhood ne’er-do-wells on a charge of treason, and shot or locked up for the rest of his life without a chance to clear his name. If he keeps his liberty his fight is a lonely one, because if he tries to enjoy the companionship of other game dissenters some spy will report that they are plotting treason, and the gang will come and get him in the night. All this is bad enough, but the test of character is even worse torture if he has a family, because his wife and children naturally will be made to suffer, tco. His wife is doomed to spend the rest of her life cut off from the normal friendships and social relations of her station, and the children find themselves excluded from the playgrounds of the Nazi kids whose pleasures are entirely warlike. Thus, in organizing the new Germany. Hitler has drawn heavily on the ranks of the mediocrities and cowards who fight only in packs. It would be foolish to suggest that all Nazis are yellow', although they include all the front-runners in the country, but the highest courage they ever will be called upon to display can not compare to that of the true German w'ho deliberately chose to defy them, knowing what a lonely, miserable future he was in for. There are more upstream fish in Germany than you would be likely to suspect, but individuals among their number disappear quietly into their graves or concentration camps, and the rebels themselves have no way of determining how numerous they are, although Hitler probably knows. Sometimes their courage fails and they surrender, and when that happens the Nazis gloat over the vanquishment of brave Germans who reached the end of their endurance. 000 Streicher — Super-Patriot THEY had an occasion of this kind a few months ago when Julius Streicher, who made his fortune publishing obscene literature in the guise of a patriotic campaign against the Jews, presided at a dinner for 1500 political prisoners who had just been released. There were brave and patriotic Germans seated all around him, whose health and determination had finally cracked in prison, but Streicher rose and, in the role of super-patriot, patronizingly offered to provide railroad fare and passports to Russia for all who wanted to go there. It is this assumption that any one who isn’t a Nazi must be a Communist which intensifies the difficulty of the non-conforming patriotic Germans. And the fact that none of the guests accepted Streicher’s offer was interpreted to mean that 1500 Communists had just been beaten into submission. It is perfectly plain that most of the Nazis are Nazis because they are afraid to hold out. They are afraid of one another. Afraid of the police, of the janitor, the waiter and the housemaid, and they give up money in fear to a hundred rackets as the collectors come around in uniform, with the swastika on the left arm, rattling the cup and thundering the challenge, “Heil, Hitler!” It is a strange method, Hitler’s. He reduced his people to trembling cowardice, told them how brave they were to submit to a few hoodlums and organized a government combining the methods of the Ku-Klux and A1 Capone.

Art in Indianapolis BY ANTON SCHERRER

JUST about this time a year ago, Grant Wood and Henry Keller came to Indianapolis to select the pictures for the twenty-eighth annual exhibition of work by Indiana artists. They went to work at 9 in the morning, finished their job around noon of the same day. In the course of three hours they examined close to 700 entries, picked 208. It works out around 18 seconds to a picture. This is less time than it takes to make a decent telephone connection; less time, indeed, than it takes to open a cellophane-wrapped package of cigarets. At that, last year’s show was a good one—the best, perhaps, of any held during the Peat pontificate. So what? We bring up the subject today because some time this week Gifford Beal and Nicolai Cikovsky (who know their busindks) came to town to pick the pictures for the Twenty-Ninth Annual Indiana Artists’ Show, which opens tomorrow to begin a month’s run at the John Herron Art Institute. We can hardly wait to learn whether this year’s judges were fast enough to lick last year’s show. B St B BEGINNING next Monday, the H. Lieber Gallery will show a group of colored reproductions of Vincent van Gogh’s work. On July 27, 1890, Vincent Gogh picked up a revolver, threatened his doctor, then shot himself in the stomach. Some say he chose his chest. It doesn’t matter much. His last words wore: "Did you ever know such a clumsy and helpless fellow as me?” Some time before that he cut off his right ear, gave it to a girl in payment of a tip. He had no money at the time. What happened before that is the story of a bruised and battered life. Son of a Dutch parson, Vincent van Gogh wanted to follow his father’s calling. Unsuccessful as a postulant, he became a church lay reader instead, then a missionary, until his passion for giving away everything he owned, including his bed, led to expulsion. He turned to painting, painfully picking his way as he went. Except for help from his family and a little advice from Paul Gaughin. who was yet to make his reputation in the South Seas, Van Gogh received no encouragement whatever. Quite the contrary. Crusty Cezanne, fearful for the future of French art, implored him to stop. Van Gogh sent everything he painted to his only friend, a younger brother, Theo, who was a fairly successful dealer in Paris. Brother Theo tried his best, sold two paintings, sent Vincent $4 for the first, SBO for the second. The sum represents the gross receipts of Vincent van Gogh’s entire career. Today. 45 years after his death, you have to coddle a dealer to let you have a Van Gogh landscape for $50,000. His portraits are left for 5-and-IQ-cent

store magnates to fight for.

Westbrook Pegler