Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 313, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 March 1936 — Page 13

It Seems to Me HEM.MIN YORK, March 9.—My resolve to be a re- ’ porter, If possible, Is not working out so well. In a week's time I have i:ot found a single piece of exclusive news, and I have developed a heavy cold which may confine me to my luxurious suite and compel me to dish out mere opinion. Os course, it was a mistake for me to pick out New York as the city in which to break in. Too much happens here and over too great an area. Naturally, I assigned myself to the elevator strike as an outstanding news event, but

whenever I got hold of a story I found somebody el e had printed it four or five hours ahead of me. ® I have a story of still another man in a trench helmet who is running an elevator and carrying a shotgun. When I got down to the office I noticed that I forgot to get the name and the address, and that delayed me a little. But chiefly I didn’t print the incident I dug up because it would sound as if I faked it. The gentleman with the shotgun

Heywood Broun

was very earnest and intent. It seems he doesn’t believe in labor unions, and he’s planning to stop them, particularly in apartment houses. When I asked him how, he explained that he would organize a Tenants’ Defense League and that everybody who joined would have, to pledge himself not to give an elevator operator a Christmas present if he happened to belong to any union. I have my doubts as to how well this would work, because there is already evidence that the building service employes are already skeptical about Santa Claus. tt n a It Begins With a “K” K STILL, as a reporter, I haven’t any right to an opinion. I must be factual. I must tell about the little old lady who drove up to the apartment building in a cream-colored car. She got out and said to the doorman: “Ls that goof with the p :n still running the elevator?” The doorman nodded, and she got right back in her automobile and drove away. I understand that the man in the trench hat also frightened quite a few of the children and a water spaniel named Nellie. My man’s name begins with a K. Mr. K, which is the best I can do (I never pretended to be a good reporter), lives by himself on the twenty-fifth floor. He has six daughters, but they are all married. The last time he used the shotgun was hunting ducks on die Great South Bay five years ago, I wish I could remember the number of that buildlnr,. I'd know it if I saw it. That’s the building where Hans lives. Hans is a police dog, blit he believes in organization and the closed shop. He simply refuses to be taken for a walk by any strike breaker. Hans has held out two days already. It tt It Missing the Right Spot I WENT up to the general meeting of the strikers at Star Casino on Tuesday night to hear James J. Bambrick, president of Local 32-B. I believe Mr. Bambrtck was on a newspaper once himself as a linotype operator. He is an excellent speaker, dealing in irony to a large extent. He spread-eagles very little. I watched the parade start at the end of the meeting and followed it a few blocks. Then I showed my reportorial ineptitude all over again. The procession seemed so peaceful that I felt sure the police would create no disturbance and so I took a taxi downtown and stopped at a restaurant. But no sooner had I started on my sandwich than there were shouts, murmurs, sirens and the sound of radio cars. It was some three or four blocks to the north and if there was any ncise of tinkling glass it was obliterated by the tumult of the police swinging into action. I cl ed for my check and was about to go when my ear was captured by a fascinating English accent from the next table. A large stout man in a dinner coat sat chatting with a friend and paying no attention to sounds of strife without. He was saying, “You know, there’s been a really extraordinary amount of stuff in the press lately about tickling uout.” That’s what makes New York tough for a reporter. There are too many rings to the circus, and while one man is demanding a living wage another is tickling trout. Europe Won't Fight, Washington Thinks BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON. March 10.—The best judgment here, both in and out of the government, is that Europe will not fight. Britain, it is felt here, holds the key to the situation and is determined to shift the issue away from the battlefield and into the League of Nations, where every one can cool off and try to take a sane view of realities. Britain’s chief problem is to sell Prance on the idea that Germany is an able-bodied nation once

more and must be treated as such, not as a crushed foe. That involves also overcoming the French feeling that while Germany can be beaten now, it might be more difficult a year or two later when F'tler is more fully armed. As for Hitler, it is thought that he has enough to check him from further belligerent moves in the quick demonstration of support which France has received from the old allied nations, and with the significant difference that Russia this time is a powerful fighting machine instead of a

decayed and dying monarchy. Britain’s main problem with Hitler is to dissuade him from such offensive moves as his invasion of the Rhineland and his ruthless tearing up of Locarno. In other words, it is Britain’s task to pound some common sense into both sides. a a a AMERICAN business men are wondering what a European war would mean in terms of profits here. Arms and amunition could not be exported imder the neutrality law. But other materials, including cotton and foodstuffs, could be sold. How would Europe pay for them? Probably out of some $4,000,000,000 in foreign owned securities now in the United States plus about $1,000,000,000 in shorttime balances. The figures are estimates and wcfuld be subject to considerable shrinkage if foreigh owners attempted to dump them to obtain funds for war purchases. That is about all that war powers could do to obtain American materials since they would be unable to produce export goods to exchange for war materials, and surely they don't expect to borrow from us as they did the last time. Still, with some $5,000,000,000 already here to put into supplies, the possibilities are obvious. Equally obvious is the necessity of more intelligent handling of our neutrality policy than was the case 20 years ago. ana In 1914—A scrap of paper. In 1936—The sanctity of treaties. Time marches on. But it doesn't get anywhere. Ai Smith's Liberty League speech as rewritten for the inner circle dinner in New York. There can be but one capital— Moscow or Wilmington.” . a a a A N anonymous spy in Tularosa, N. Mex., sends in word that the CCC boys there drive government trucks to see their girls. At Uncle Sam’s expense, “Join CCC and See the Girl!” Luckier still is the lad in Merle Thorpe’s favorite story who wrote to Join CCC. His letter went by mistake to the Commodity Credit Corp., and by return mail he received check for 110,000. $

The legislative building at Edmonton, Alberta, now under the sway of the Social Credit forces. Six months after the $25-a-month eovernment of William Aberhart won election in Alberta, the Scripps-Howard Newspapers sent Forrest Davis to that province tor a resort on the status of the enterprise. His fourth article follows: BY FORREST DAVIS Scripps-Howard Staff Writer Alberta, March 10.—The Social Credit prophet, William Aberhart, and his infatuated optimists did not teach the prairies to sing. Before “0 God, Our Help in Ages Past” rent the 1935 midsummer peace of Wetaskiwin, Peace River and Medicine Hat at “study group,” Main-st rally and basket picnic, an earlier campaign song had spurred the fickle Alberta majority on a march to Edmonton and power. In the years 1919-1921, when wartime farm prices crashed, Henry Wise Wood, a “gaunt, silent” immigrant from Missouri, organized a political victory for the United Farmers of Alberta, quite as sweeping as Aberhart’s, to

the tune of “Maryland, My Maryland.” The Fanners’ Party sang militantly, the paraphrased dictum of their song being: “Organize, Oh Organize!” Fourteen years, a world-wide depression and the rise of the radio worked the difference in moods between the two election campaigns. In 1921, the rural majority, well-nourished from the fat war years, relied on its own associated powers. Mildly radical and class-con-scious, the United Farmers believed that co-operatives, a degree of government ownership and wheat pools—a device for maintaining prices by withholding surpluses off the Liverpool market—would restore the war-time state of well-being. tt tt tt BY 1935, Alberta’s rugged individualists, dispossess ed landowners, not workers, had surrendered hope in their own capacity to right things on the “last frontier.” Observing that their buying power had no visible relationship to the productivity of their fields, the farmers concluded, with Mr. Aberhart, that the fault lay with the financial system. Thus the spirit of the frontiersman bogged down and, in search of miracles, he preferred to cast his burden on the Lord and His self-announced prophet, Mr. Aberhart. ' Whereas the note in Wood’s song was aggressively self-confi-dent, Mr. Aberhart’s campaign hymn was propiatory. In one aspect, however, the elections were alike. The young political hussy, Alberta, gave herself whole-heartedly on both occasions: a whimsicality which the stoutly British members of the Ranchers Club attribute to the large infusion of middle western populism and religious mysticism into pre-war Alberta. The wrath of Bryan, in the view

Clapper

TITASHINGTON, March 10.— * ’ A score of big business men who are members of the Business Advisory Council went to the White House recently to tell the President what they thought the government should do about various economic and financial problems. One point on which they laid great stress was the necessity of cutting Federal expenditures and balancing the budget. Mr. Roosevelt listened goodnaturedly and silently until they had finished. Then, for 30 minutes. he gave them a straight-from-the-shoulder reply that left them gasping. “Government spending to relieve unemployment,” he said, will continue. It will continue as long as such aid is necessary. Ycu

’attorney 1 AT LAW W ! ATTO*r*Y \ "— —'— i ' ''' ' *'

I The legislative building at Edmonton, Alberta, now under the i lin * 1 j *1 " - S3OO a year as effective political way of the Social Credit forces. i l bait, let them consider that tht , A .. . . i ! .afeAlSftWßl offer was to individuals. Six months after the eovernment of Aberhart won A family, not untypical, with foU! rowncf lof a resort on the status nl the enterprise. His fourth article follows. | minors qualifying for SUITIS IPS' BY FORREST DAVIS I than $25, might receive up to sls( Scripps-Howard Staff Writer a montll OUt Os the “credit fund.’ prophet, William Aberhart, and his infatuated opti- < JEll <; hard-working farmer on his owi ni. ts did not teacii the prairies to sing' Before “0 God I land might go a whole year withha Help in Ages I ast lent the 1935 midsummei peace of as Dr. Townsend’s S2OO a month- \ etaskiwin. Peace River and Medicine Ilat at study j but it sufficed. )aign song had spurred the fickle Alberta majority on a “j [ M 1 nominal allegiance to Maj ' 1 the years' 1 191 j/To o iTTvhen wartime !'• rm prices j Douglas’ formulas merciv 1 rom Missouri, organized a political victory for the United intellectual wh< he Tune f a? SVVeeping Al)eihart S ’ tQ Bl{ lifetime paling the. o Maryland. The Farmeis prairie 1 perhaps, no difficulty’in Douglas arty sang miiitantly, the tt is true, parenthetically, that s&m § <.l Mr. Aberhart, the fundamental

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

BENNY

The Indianapolis Times

of the Ranchers Club, ranges the prairie with Aberhart. tt tt a IT is true, parenthetically, that the surplus population of the Mississippi Valley was drained off by the Alberta land booms before wartime prosperity and the appeal of the sun shifted it to southern California. And, beginning with 1900 and the migration of former Populist Gov. William Leedy of Kansas, agrarian unrest was imported with the settlers from below the border. Leedy, tall, lank and bearded like Uncle Sam, incidentally, while demanding “people’s banks” and greenbacks for Alberta, insisted—--30 years too soon—that he had balanced the budget and given Kansas a good business administration. The Missourian Wood succeeded Leedy as a “Yankee agitator,” beginning also with a Bible class and ending as unofficial leader of the United Farmers and uncrowned “wheat poo’ king.” Today more native-born Americans dwell in Alberta than in any political subdivision outside the United States. A sociologist might find a common root for the political vagaries of California and Alberta in nineteenth century, Midwestern Populism. tt it a NATURE conspired with the godly, spring floods, hail, early frosts and rust affliction the province throughout the 1935 campaign period. The magic symbol in Alberta is “the crop,” syllables as firmly bedded in the economy of Alberta as ‘the market” in New York, “steel” in Pittsburgh or “automobiles” in Detroit. All hands agree that the series of farming disasters would have induced political restiveness in 1935; but, lacking Mr. Aberhart and his cash promises, the swing, it is supposed, would have been with the rest of Canada, back into the Liberal Party. But in the spring the “super Father Christmas,” the “Cough-

might as well make up your minds to that. “I know some of you gentlemen are very eager to have me retired to private life. Let me give you a bit of advice. “If you w r ant to get me out of the White House the first thing you will have to do is to stop chiseling. Stop chiseling on your employes. “Every time you lengthen hours or lower wages—as I have evidence is being done—you make thousands of votes for me. “The worker says to himself: ‘lt was not that way under NRA. The New Deal is for me. It is my friend.’ No. gentlemen, chiseling on the hours and wages of workers is not the way to beat me.” Some of the business moguls admired the President’s frankness. Most of them, however, privately

TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1936

William Aberhart (center) and members of his cabinet—E. €. Manning (left), provincial secretary, and Dr. V, Wright, chairman of the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

lin of the prairie,” forsook pulpit and school desk for the hustings. More accurately, he expanded his pulpit into province-wide proportions and launched a provincewide class in applied economics. . “With Douglas on one hand, the Holy Ghost on the other,” he ranged here and yon, offered his here-and-now Promised Land with precisely the assurance he heretofore had employed in guaranteeing life eternal to the penitent. tt it tt HE handpicked candidates for the Legislature, he addressed picnics numbering 5000, he weaned away United Farmer locals in droves, he displayed enormous talent at campaign organizations, he called for boycotts of a skeptical press. Ala Coughlin, he lambasted the bankers and the “50 Big Shots” of Canada. The campaign, a sort of mass revival, proved surprisingly mild. The Farmers, beset by the accumulated errors of 14 years in office, besides a couple of spicy amorous scandals involving the premier and a cabinet member, stood by helplessly as the rank and file flocked to the Aberhart banner. The Farmers had invited Maj. Douglas, founder of Social Credit, to spread his gospel in the province and retained him as Chief Reconstruction Adviser at SSOOO a year and expenses from London and return for brief visi tations. The Liberals declined to give serious battle. The Conservatives, fleeing from the wrath to come elsewhere in the Dominion, had been an all but negligible v'.inor-

expressed resentment at the implication they were “chiselers.” a a a WASHINGTON and New York soon will see a Roosevelt on the stage singing and dancing in the chorus of a musical show. The show is the 1936 production of Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club. The Roosevelt is the President’s son John, Harvard sophomore. The audience should have no trouble spotting John. Six feet 4 inches tall, he is the tallest of the 16 in the chorus. Furthermore, he will be dressed as a man. Eight of the 16 will be dressed as women. John’s “female” partner will be Gfeorge F. Baker Jr., son of the financier, who is a critic of the President.

ity in the province since its creation in 1905. tt tt tt NONE could withstand the Christmas appeal, so definite, so plausible when Mr. Aberhart’s organ tones explained it. The zeal of Social Crediters rose to such heights that they objected violently to dissent. Heckled, Mr. Aberliart would ask his audience: “Do you want me to be interrupted?” The answer invariably came in a thunder of “NOES,” and if heckling persisted the offender promptly was ejected. Mr. Abernart’s improvised party held a convention and drew up a platform. It needed none. If purse-proud readers sniff at

FINE PLAYING WINS

Today’s Contract Problem By optimistic bidding. South has become the declarer at a six-heart contract. Clever playing, however, will produce the contract. Try it. 4A 8 3 VK 7 3 4 A 10 8 6 4 2 A Q AKO. N U\JSS2 V 9 w r ¥QIOS2 ♦ Q 973 W C *=*Js *J 10 6 5 b *973 4 2 Dealer * 10 7 6 4 . V A J 6 5 4J * K *A K 8 None vul Opener—* K. Solution in next issue. 3

Solution to Previous Contract Problem BY W. E. M’KENNEY Secretary American Bridge League TODAY’S hand came up during the recent Maryland state open pair championship tournament, won by Fred D. Kaplan and Dr. Richard Ecker, both of New York. It illustrates fine dummy handling by Kaplan, enabling his partner and himself to score a top on the board and helping them to win the title. It also illustrates very fine defensive play, which was offset by an alert declarer. The jack of diamonds opening was covered by the ace in dummy and trumped by East, who now cashed the king of hearts and returned a low spade. South won with the ace. Declarer now paused to analyze the hand. He already had lost two tricks. If he proceeded to trump his remaining heart, he could not get off the board without either

S3OO a year as effective political bait, let them consider that the offer was to individuals. A family, not untypical, with four or five adults and three or four minors qualifying for sums less than $25, might receive up to $l5O a month out of the “credit fund.” That are no small potatoes in a land where, as we have observed, a hard-working farmer on his own land might go a whole year without handling more than SIOO in cash. Neither so high, nor so wide as Dr. Townsend’s S2OO a month—but it sufficed. s tt tt MR. ABERHART, yielding nominal allegiance to Maj. Douglas, used the inconclusive Douglas’ formulas merely as a springboard. Others found Douglas mystifyingly vague—not Aberhart. A small-town intellectual who has passed the spare hours of a lifetime parsing the utterances of Elijah and Hosea,. to say nothng of St. John the Divine, would find, perhaps, no difficulty in Douglas. Mr. Aberhart, the fundamentalist, interpreted or misinterpreted the Scottish engineer literally, to the dismay of Douglas and the dyed-in-the-wool, original Douglasites in the province. Thus it came about that Social Credit, which is the preoccupation of a small group of middleclass intelligentsia in the United States, became a mass movement in Alberta. And on Aug. 22, when the votes were canvassed, it was found that a Social Credit, which its founder scarcely recognized, had elected 56 out of 63 members of the provincial Legislature with 54 per cent of the popular vote in a fourcornered fight. The promises, which took flight so readily from the pulpit in Calgary, and the rallies of the faithful elsewhere, had come home to roost. TOMORROW—Aberhart enters Edmonton and a vale of grief.

* 8 2 V 3 *AK Q 6 3 * A 10 8 6 4 N |* J 1 ¥lO9 6 2 w *AKJB 4J 10 9 8 w 74 5 S 4 Void *Q 9 5 Dealer *K J 3 *AKQ 9 5 3 ' ¥QS *742 * 7 2 Duplicate—N. & S. vul. South West North East Pass Pass 1 4 Double Pass IV 2 * 3 V 3 * Pass 4 * Pass 4 4 Pass Pass Double Opening lead—4 J 3

permitting East to trump another diamond or allowing West to gain the lead in clubs and then having another diamond ruffed by East. He therefore decided that his only line of play was to try to establish a long club upon which to discard the heart, and this would have to be done before pulling trump. So he led a small club, and now West made a very fine defensive play to the queen to prevent the trick from being passed into East’s hand. Declarer was forced to play the ace and was astonished to see the king of clubs played by East. South knew this unquestionably was an effort to unblock the club suit. It was a very fine defensive play by East, who probably held the jack and a*lov club. Kaplan returned the ten of clubs, which East was forced to win with the jack and now, regardless of what East decided to return, South was assured of winning the remainder of the tricks for a contract of four spades, doubled. (Copyright, 1936. by NEA Service. Inc.)

By J. Carver Pusey

Second Section

Entered ax Second-Class Matter at Postoffice. Indianapolis. Iml.

Fair Enough MOM VIENNA, March 10.—Back in the good old days of monarchy, life in Vienna was very romantic, old Francis Josef, the Emperor who reigned from 1848 to 1916, was an extremely pious man who devoted himself to many good works, but even he had his honey—an actress by trade—who used to live close by the imperial palace and often dropped in of an evening to help him worry about his responsibilities.

She was, in fact, a close friend of Empress Elizabeth, who was a Bavarian Princess and sister of crazy King Ludwig, and the two girls sat up consoling one another the night that the Emperor’s son Rudolph killed himself and his mistress in 1899. Rudolph didn’t like his wife and wanted his marriage annulled so that he could make an honest woman of his friend around the corner, but Francis Josef was a firm believer in the sanctity of marital ties, and he disapproved the idea. After all, he didn’t care much for his old lady, either, but he was taking

his punishment, and he expected Rudolph to do as much himself. tt tt n Measured for a Casket SO they measured poor Rudolph for a royal bronze casket and laid him in the cellar of Capuchin Church and shipped his playmate down the country, where they stuck her down a hole until the wind blew away the reek of the royal romance. Later they permitted her mother to spade up the grave and give her formal burial. Nine years after that the Emperor’s old lady went to Geneva for a little vacation and was stabbed by an Italian nihilist as she w r as stepping off a boat, leaving the old gentleman alone with his mistress—the lady of the theater. Now, at 80, the mistress of Emperor Francis Josef lives in quiet luxury, much respected by press and public, in Vienna, remembering the good old days of the empire. She owns an important downtown block, a town house and villa in country and receives to this day from the Austrian people a generous pension based not on any personal favor to the Emperor, but on her service to irt and the state as a member of the theater. She does all right in a country where the beggars cringe and whine on the streets at night and people stand in line at the Capuchin Church above the luxurious tombs of the Hapsburgs waiting for a cupful of soup for their children. . The revival of the good old days would bring back to the cellars of the Emperor’s palace about a million dollars’ worth of wine and remove from the vulgar gaze of the peasants, who sometimes find their way to town, the imperial crown jewels, the order of the Golden Fleece, the orders of the Garter and Saint Stephen, the tooth which is said to have belonged to John the Baptist, and the order of the Rose of Virtue. The order of the Rose of Virtue is a papal decoration of which only three women in history have been found worthy, and this one was presented to the Empress Augusta, the 19-year-old bride and the fourth wife of the Emperor Francis 11. Francis II was 63 at the time, and for some reason it seemed appropriate to celebrate the virtue of the bride of 19 with the order of the Rose. The fact that she was marrying the Emperor could have had no bearing on the incident, of course. a u tt Royal But Shabby Robes THE royal and imperial coronation robes have a strangs ly shabby appearance on close inspection, like the apparel of the actors in a costume play which finally finds its way to the masquerade store for renting to high school dramatic societies. Some of the ermine is merely white fuzz, with the black tails marked on in ink, and most of the velvet seems no more luxurious than the traditional plush of the American day coach. But it looked much more beautiful in the good old days, when the good and pious monarch and a thousand relatives of more or less intimate degree lived by the labor of a people who delighted to support them. These were the good old days of simple virtue, decency and respect for sound institutions, but certain incredible dopes among the population seem not at all eager to bring them back.

Gen. Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, March 10.—Suppose the New Deal went down tomorrow and the Old Guard moved back to the seats of the mighty. What changes would occur in the substance of national government? Our three principal problems are unemployment, agriculture and Federal finance. Would less money go to aid the unemployed? No aspiring Republican has yet had the nerve to say so. The money could be made to go farther—but there is not as yet any dependable sign of real reduction in the cost of taking care of 10,000,000 unemployed. Furthermore, some public works already in progress will cost unnumbered millions to complete. Would the new Administration cut down the “benefits” to agriculture under AAA? On their lives they would not. Not one political flirt with popular favor has threatened anything so drastic. tt it tt BUT if there is to be no great reduction under these two principal heads of expenditure, where is there any broad promise of immediately improved Federal finance? It will have to be found in multitudinous smaller economies and the field for these is limited. Prosperity depends on inducing private capital to reinvest itself in productive enterprise. That, in turn, depends on an abstraction called confidence. The creation of that confidence is a job of pure salesmanship, and here‘some New Dealers have gloried in producing a contrary effect —enormously abetted by Republican attacks. The truth is that this Administration is as good a “sales proposition” as anything its opponents can offer, but that the selling of it remains a continuing blunder. (Copyright, 1938. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)

Times Books

“/CHRISTINA,” by Claude Houghton (Doubleday, Doran & Cos.; $2.50), is a convincing study of a man driving himself mad by brooding over a problem instead of thinking about it. It tells about a successful London business man whose one interest in life, aside from his office, ia his wife. He is so completely devoted to her that when, at last, she dies, the bottom drops out of every thing for him. And as he sits disconsolate in her room, he finds a packet of love letters In her bureau. They are in her haridwTiting and they express a deep, burning devotion—but they aren’t addressed to any one. The man’s grief immediately turns into uiinding fury. His wife has been untrue to him; through all the years she has deceived him—and he doesn’t know who the other man is. ana SO he becomes the victim of a fixed idea. Month after month he goes slyly about town, checking up on every male acquaintance his wife had. Ho finds nothing io substantiate his suspicions—but that only makes him more suspicious, until, in the end, he looks on her as a Messalina whose favors were available to all men. At last, completely beside himself, he boils over in a devastating act of violence—and then, too late, discovers what the reader discovered early in the story . . . that he has been utterly mistaken from start to finish. Mr- Houghton has written a strong, fascinating novel•J.Cßy, Bruce Cat ton.),

Westbrook Pegler