Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 44, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 May 1936 — Page 19

It Seems to Me HffIODMN gTAMFORD, Conn., May I.—l believe this is the planting season. The farmer across the way has hitched up his horse and is plowing up one of his fields. Naturally, I want to do my part in conserving natdral resources, but every spring I fall Into the same quandary about what to plant. I do not Want to glut the market by raising com and wheat, and so I sit idly by waiting for some official

word to go and in what particular vegetable direction. Asa matter of fact, the chief crop in this section is newspaper columns, operas, detective novels and whimsical essays. From half a mile away I can hear Deems Taylor picking out chords on a clear night, and when the wind is right the thump of Westbrook Pegler's typewriter sounds sturdily across the lake. My own particular preoccupation is to lose 50 pounds and get anew speech. •Only a few days ago I made my farewell address until the fall. When the leaves begin to

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Heywood Broun

fall and the agitating season comes round again I hope I will have more numerous “heres” and quite a flock of additional “theres.” In addition I might even get a few new columns. n n a We're Not Isolated BUT I would not give the impression that we are altogether Isolated herb. and dependent solely upon such messages as we can glean from the bees, the birds and the flowers. Roosevelt came in very clearly on the night of Jefferson's birthday. In fact, this colony is situated psychologically like most of the rest of the country in the manner in which we are having our minds made up for us about the coming national election. We read about the candidates in the newspapers and hear them over the radio. Judgment will be passed upon the aspirants wholly on the basis of the spoken and the written word. Some of us go into town to see the newsreels, but, as a rule, the look of the leader plays no great part in the choice of the voters. It isn’t such a bad system at Warren Gamaliel Harding looked more like a statesman than almost any other President I have ever seen. And this magnificent stage presence of his had quite a lot to do with the unfortunate fact of his election. The race should have been decided upon ideas. Still, even the invisible candidate may project a personality. We are not dealing wholly with disembodied factual issues. I had not heard a presidential broadcast for some time until I tuned in on the Jeffersonian dinner. The charm and skill of delivery remain, and I think that Roosevelt has been wise in restricting his radio appearances. People got tired of hearing Floyd Gibbons say, “Hello, everybody,’’ and “My friends’’ could grow irksome if insisted upon excessively. But Mr. Roosevelt has the knack of reading a speech as if he were talking it and also as if he meant every word he delivered. His speeches don’t read so well, because upon close examination you find such a scarcity of detail. The President thinks we would all be happier if wages were higher and hours were shorter. I doubt that anybody but the Chamber of Commerce will fight him on that, but it would be interesting to hear the method by which these changes are to be brought about. Even Palo Alto's punning paragrapher indicates, between wisecracks, that he would prefer to see America rich rather than poor. nun Trees and Me t Are Just Alike INDEED, I think that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political speeches are too short. He furnishes an excelent introduction, but stops just at the point where one listener at least always feels inclined to say, "So far so good, but now go on with the story.” But I’ve got to stop, too, because a man is cutting branches off the big maple just outside my window. .1 asked him why. “That tree is almost 100 years old,” he told me. “When trees get old they have to reduce.” “Trees and men are just alike,” he added, looking rather pointedly at me. I think the analogy could be carried too far. He's just about to spray the maple to keep away tent caterpillars.

Landon Friends See Convention Victory BY RAYMOND CLAPPER / 'I''OPEKA, May I.—Friends of Gov. Landon now regard his nomination by the Republican nation convention in June as practically certain. Naturally they are prejudiced in their judgment. Nevertheless it seems to this observer that they will be fully vindicated at Cleveland. Landon leaders here believe the Massachusetts primary result gives their candidate the final push necessary to put him over. Whereas 76,710 Republicans wrote in Landons name, there were only 15,585 other write-ins, scattered among Hoover, Borah, Vandenberg and Knox. Here in Topeka they state the delegate lineup as follows: Landon, 216 delegates already sure; Knox, 60; Borah, 47, and Vandenberg, 38 Michigan delegates. Some 250 delegates already chosen are unpledged. Nearly 400 are still to be selected. The figures alone are inconclusive. Yet they indicate two things: First, that among the working Republicans who participate in party primaries, Landon is a favorite - second, that his organization has been more effective than rival organizations in lining up instructions in state conventions. It is rare that a candidate comes through a national convention without having both of these elements of strength. Landon, more than any other candidate, has demonstrated that he has both. • But that only carries the picture through the national convention. It tells practically nothing as to what Landon s strength as a presidential nominee will be. For instance, remarkable as the Massachusetts write-in campaign was, all five candidates received a total vote of only 92,293, whereas in the 1932 campaign Hoover and Roosevelt polled a total vote of 1,537,107. The result merely demonstrated that among those active party workers who turn out on primary day, Landon is the favorite. And even then, for instance, of 30,000 Republicans voting in Boston, only one-third marked in a presidential preference. Therefore, Landon leaders will be deluding themselves if they take his unquestioned popularity as the Republican organization favorite as any index at all of his strength in the election race proper. m a m THERE is every indication here that the Landon forces fully realize the great difference between the contest for the nomination and the contest for the election-rthat one is an internal organization fight among active politicians and that the other is a question of vast mass strength with the public at large. One evidence that they are awake to this here in Topeka is the private satisfaction taken in the large votes which Borah is getting. These votes, it is hoped here, will serve as a warning to the extreme conservatives in the party. " \ Landons role is difficult. A life-long progressive Republican, sympathetic to the early start of the New Deal but not to its later management of affairs, Landon undoubtedly recognizes that a Republican campaign on the type Hoover would like to make is hopeless. Yet he will have a large extremely conservative element in his party to deal with. His position is somewhat like that of Harding's in 1920, when the task was to hold pro-League of Nations Land anti-League Republicans together, but the dif■ferer.ce i—and it is a vital one—that Harding s elec- ■ tion never was in doubt and his only task was to I preserve party harmony and keep every one happy, [ This time the Republicans have two strikes on them ad must make an aggressive fight to win. They w4m H*? ha vino a wK/tln w nn * m • ' *** *r 8 nouwg.

HAPPY DAZE BACK-FOR WALL ST.

Jbnvious byes Cast on Market as Stock Prices Soar Skyward

BY JOHN T. FLYNN (CopyrluhC 1936, by NEA Service, Inc.) YORK, May I.—Wall Street and Main Street are getting their wires crossed again. At least so it is said. Certainly the old stock market, which has been sick so long, shows signs of boiling once more. The brokers are quite happy about it. The board rooms everywhere are filling up with customers. Some bankers pretend to be very much disturbed by it. But in Washington the Administration keeps very quiet and gives off the impression of being secretly delighted at this evidence of business activity and recovery. The people who lost their shirts in 1929 to 1983 are fingering the ticker again hoping that they may get back

the wads they saw evaporate a few years ago. If you look at it on paper, it seems easy enough. Suppose, you say to yourself, you had bought some General Motors stock last year at 27. It’s now 61. Or suppose you had bought some Chrysler stock at 31. The other day it was 103. To put it differently, suppose you had SIOOO. With that you could have bought without straining the market requirements 65 shares. They would cost $2015. But you could put up SIOOO and borrow the rest. In the last year tnose 65 shares rose from 31 to 103, or from $2015 to $6695. There’s a neat profit of $4680. After you had paid your commisisones both ways and interest on the loan, etc., you would have had around $4500 clear profit. Pretty soft, eh? And all you would have had to do would be to have SIOOO, give the order to your broker and wait for the stock to rise, meantimfe, sitting around taking it easy or, perhaps, working away—slaving at your regular job for a measly $2500 a year. But why work when it is so easy to make money? u m u ALAS! there are just two flies in this ointment. One of them is this. If you had a thousand dollars a year ago, how do you know you would have bought Chrysler, instead of something else? A lot of stocks went up. But a lot didn’t go up and a‘lot went down. Take American Sugar Refining, for instance. That was 50. It went up last year to 71. But what makes you think you would have bought it at 50—the low? Os course you wouldn’t. The market had begun its upward march before the public was well aware of it. Had you bought it probably it would have been nearer 71. And then you would have seen it go down to 56. This, of course, is where the outsiders—which means almost all who play the market—get caught. They climb in on the tail end of these rises just in time for the descent. Here is a list of shares taken just out of the stocks beginning with A—those at the top of the list —which went up and went down and the prices: High for week of 1935 High April 6-11,1936 Adams Mills 37% 26% Advance Rumely. 20% 3% American Can . 149% 123% Amer .Corn Alcohi 35% 29% American Ice pfd 37% 19 American Snuff . 76 63 Amer Sug Refin'g 70% 56% Amer Tobacco . J 04% 92% Amer Tobac ‘B’ 107 94% Astin Nchls pfd A 63 42% U M M THE other fly, of course, is this. No matter how much you make In the market, you do not have a profit until you wrap up your winnings and get out of the market. But, alas, if you once win you WILL NEVER STAY OUT. Now let us see what has happened to the market. For one thing it started up a year ago— April, 1935—and has been rising more or less persistently ever since. That is extraordinary. Few persistent rises have been so long-drawn-out. In the next place the rise has been heavy. It is interesting to compare with the beginnings of

THIS CURIOUS WORLD

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Fisheries form Alaska's most important industry, to say nothing of the minerals hidden there. Coal deposits alone are estimated at about 19 billion tons. Gold is plentiful, but only the fields near the

The Indianapolis Times

the last great bull market in the early days of Mr. Coolidge’s Administration. There had been an unhealthy upward sweep in business in 1922. But all through 1923 business moved down. But toward the end of the year the stock market moved up. There is a story that the late George F. Baker, sitting in J. P. Morgan’s office at that time, said to Mr. Morgan: “Jack, I think the end of this depression is here and that this is the time to start buying.” A clerk from a large brokerage house on Broadway was going into the office at the time and overheard this. He rushed back to his office with the news and this firm sent up buy bulletins which set in motion the upward swing. That was the beginning of the most violent and craziest bull market in history and which ended in the worst crash in our history. MUM NOW let us see what progress it made the first year. In 12 months the market went from 83 to 96. These were the average prices of 50 leading stocks. Here was a rise of 15 per cent. But the present market started at 84 and last week was around, 125. While the Coolidge market rose only 13 points in its first year, this one rose 41 points. While the Coolidge bull market in its first year went up 15 per cent, this one went up 48 per cent. And the rise in industrial stocks, taken by themselves, was even larger. • Is this healthy? That Is the question which is being asked on every side. And even in Wall Street some brokers are wondering just how long it will last and how far it will go and what force will drive it forward. First let us compare it with business. In April, 1935, the business index—a figure marking the rate of business activity—stood at 82. One year later it was 97. It is around that figure now. There is an increase of 15.3 points or a rise of 18.6 per cent. While the rate of business activity was rising 18.6 per cent, the stock market was soaring 48 per cent. Why? Let us compare 'the market with employment. While factory employment was rising 5 per cent, the market was rising 48 per cent. Why? While all manufacturing production was going up about 7 per cent, the market was rising 48 per cent. Why? M M M IT is, of course, difficult to make a comparison with earnings. Earnings have risen. But yields are not yet at the point which justifies the prices to which the market has risen. To sum it up, therefore, while employment was rising 5 per cent, production 7 per cent, business activity 18.6 per cent, the market soaring 48 per cent. There can be no doubt that certain corporations have enjoyed a large increase in profits. And that this would be a basis for the present market upswing. However, the rise in prices has extended to corporations which still enjoy no profits. Railroad shares, for instance, have risen, but the railroads still show a deficit. Os course, stock prices are

By William Ferguson

FRIDAY, MAY 1,1936

V •. \ • > . * "V " fH -

“Alterations Going On” is the apt title for this unusual view of the New York Stock Exchange from the talented camera of Margaret Bourke-White. Atop the steel network of scaffolding, workmen make a busy din as they alter the imperturbable facade of the great Wall Street market place.

based, not only on real values, but on expectations—and immediate expectations at that. What can we hope to see the shares sell at in a day, a week, a month or two or six? That is the question. If there is some force in the market pushing it up so that

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

WASHINGTON, May I.—The larger the benefits derived from the New Deal, the louder the wails of big business anguish. Witness the du Ponts, most famous munitions, chemical and motor manufacturers in America. The names of Pierre, Lamont, Irenee and other members of the du Pont empire top all the list of contributois to such New Deal enemies as the Liberty League, the Farmers’ Independence Council, the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution, and so on. Loudest complaint is that the New Deal is hamstringing business. But recently the du Pont Company issued to stockholders its “Quarterly Statement,” as of March 31, 1936. It contained these figures, highly revelatory of the improvement of the du Pont fortunes in the last year of the New Deal: A total net income of $14,713,782 for the first quarter of 1936 as compared with $11,096,142 for the first quarter of 1935. Surplus of $213,432,051 on March 31, 1936, compared with $186,022,733 on March 31, 1935. Note —Close friend of Franklin Roosevelt Jr. (some reports have them engaged), is Ethel du Pont, an heiress to these millions. MM* A T his press conference a ,f\. newsman asked Secretary Henry Morgenthau: “How do you explain the continued rise in price of government bonds the last few days? Is the Treasury planning anew bond issue?” “No, but the explanation Is very simple,” said Morgenthau, with a twinkle in his eye. “After the President's speech in Baltimore the young people of the country were so buoyed up with confidence in the future that they went out and invested in government bonds.” “Huh,” grunted the reporter, “what have they been buying them with, relief money?” a a a MOTION picture actors and authors are stirring up a lot of backfire against Red-hunting Congressman Charles Kramer and his sedition bill, which would put free speech back to the days of A. Mitchell Palmer. Those gunning for him include Grou'iho Marx, Irving Berlin, Morris Ryskind and Oscar Hammerstein 11. Out in his district —which includes Hollywood—Kramer is having a lot of difficulties, and it looks as if his political days were numbered. ALTHOUGH the Smith-Kerr Tobacco Control Act aroused no great hullabaloo outside the tobacco states, New Deal experts consider it one of the most im-

shares can be bought at one price with the expectation of selling them at a higher price a little later, then the real value of the shares does not count. The important thing, therefore, is—what is the force which is sending this market up? Is it

edent for eventual state control of cotton, even corn and wheat. What they are watching now is whether the tobacco states cooperate. All the Smith-Kerr bill did was to give the states permission to agree among themselves to reduce acreage. Now—as specified by the Supreme Court when it knocked out the AAAactual acreage reduction is up to the states. State control of cotton production in years past has caused bitter wrangling and complete failure. Each state wanted a larger quota. Also there were nine cotton states. U U tt TTOWEVER, in the case of flue1A cured tobacco (from which cigarets are made) only four states control production—Virginia, Georgia, North and South Carolina. Thanks to aggressive Congressman Thomas G. Burch, Virginia already has passed a bill enabling it to fix a tobacco quota. The South Carolina Legislature is considering one. North Carolina may call a special session. Anti-New Deal Gov. Gene Talmadge will not co-operate, but the growers of Georgia probably will. It looks as if anew means

GRIN AND BEAR IT

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“Now that Hubert is getting bold, 1 feel much safer a out him. ,: ?;~

recovery in business? Is it the fear of inflation? Is it manipulation? TOMORROW What has brought the Wall Street Cock Robin back to life?

of crop control would get started via the tobacco road. M M A ONE of the young elevator operators in the Senate Offi ;e Building has sworn o/I wi-se-crcck-ing with passengers. The other day a passenger remarked pleasantly, “Funny weather we are having, isn’t it? I see there was a snowstorm in Oiiic this week.” Without looking up the operator replied, "Yes, and I suppose we’ll get it here next week. We always get everything that Ohio doesn’t want.” The passenger burst into a loud guffaw. The operator turned, found himself looking at “Honest Vic” Donahey, ex-Governor, now Senator from Ohio. * U M WITHOUT benefit of clergy, the Senate is galloping along toward adjournment. Only twice since Jan. 16 has it called upon the services of its chaplain, the Rev. Zeßarney T. Phillips, to open deliberations with prayer. . . . Joe Robinson, Democratic Senate leader, always brings a lighted cigar to the floor of the chamber, smokes it until the stroke of noon, when the gavel falls. . . . (Copyright. ’9S, by United feature Syndicate, Inc.t

by Lichty

Second. Section

Entered m Second •Cl*** Matter at Postoffice. Indianapolis, Ind.

Fair Enough WESIMH YORK, May I.—The Postoffice Department has outlawed several ingenious attempts to outsmart the law against the sale of lottery tickets. So presently the law itself Will be attacked again in Congress by statesmen who have gathered great stacks of imported and domestic figures attempting to show that the national government is paying at least a billion dollars a year for the luxury of a principle. A billion a

year is the sum that used to be mentioned as the amount which the Treasury surely would receive from the liquor business upon the repeal of prohibition, jind I feel a . little bashful about asking how this year's billion is coming along, for, up to now, the boon of repeal has not been apparent in the tax bills. Moreover, the farmer who was going to buy anew car and new store clothes for the family all around with the money which he was going to receive for his barley, hops and malt, thus starting a happy circle of prosperity,

seems to have looked to other sources for his revenue. In certain respects repeal has been a beautifui success, for the corner saloon is back in New York and Chicago, with other saloons between the corners, and it is a fine American privilege to screw the top off a square-face and drink defiance to the AntiSaloon League in plain view of the police in Indianapolis. M M M Millions Still Need Work T>UT the taxes have given no perceptible relief and -LJ the great masses of bottle molders, label printers and stickers, cappers, salesmen, truck drivers, cork designers, coopers, bartenders and bouncers who were to be returned to honest toil have made no impression on the problem of unemployment. With the disappointment of repeal for a guide and warning, however, it might be well to view with skepticism the enthusiastic predictions of those who would place Jottery tickets on sale in every postoffice and substation if Congress only would say the word. The principle at stake hardly is worth what it casts if repeal of the present lottery laws would bring in a billion a year or possibly two or three. After all, we have lots of principles and we have sacrificed better ones for less. In France, where the lottery was a great monetary help to an embarrassed treasury, the draw was conducted with great care and remarkable dignity. Yet fraud crept in. The Germans and Italians have lotteries, but the novelty soon wore off and people nowadays either ignore them or invest sparingly. M M M No Chance to Win THE Cuban lottery is familiar to all American tourists and business visitors to the island but persons of experience shun the tickets in a belief that Americans are jiot allowed to win under any circumstances. I have made more or less merry at the expense of the consul general of the Irish Free State in New York by citing the fact that the tickets on the Irish Sweep are peddled in this country with the obvious connivance of his government, contrary to our law. However, the Irish Sweep has a fine reputation for honesty and prompt payment without discrimination against the citizens of other countries, and if we must have one theirs would be a model worth investigating. Their trouble is that they can't spend away the profits as fast as they accrue. Yet Ireland, too, with the best sweep in the world is not to be envied by the United States and I suggest that we ought to save the lottery as the last baby to be thrown to the wolves of adversity.

Gen. Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, May I.—Prof. Moley says that one great lack in government is a proper contact with business. It is the greatest lack. The Department of Agriculture represents agriculture. The Department of Labor half-way represents lubor. The Department of Commerce does not represent business. Cabinet departments are political and service units. They can't always be representative. Some authorities think they ought not to be. Whether they are or not depends on whether the person at the head of each is representative of his subject. Only the Secretary of Agriculture happens to be. The present bitter, sniping hostility between government and business is a pity, a shame and a tragedy of unnecessary mutual misunderstanding and distrust. The blame rests about 50-50 on both sides. On the business side it rests on a small, powerful group of die-hards, who were determined from the start that the ancient rules must not be changed and liberal government is not for us. 'They poisoned co-operation by working at the hearts of the great business associations. They affronted government at every chance. a a a ON the government side there were subordinates who regard profits as a crime and property as a reproach. They harpooned business at every opportunity. The breach thus caused grew until it is a chasm. It is bad for government, bad for business and murderous for the country. There are plenty of the very foremast leaders of our greatest industries who know that the essential liberal aims of this Administration must be achieved. If only such contacts could have been kept, we could have gone forward without staging a bloodless rebellion. (Copyright, 19J6, by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.) -

Times Books

MOST nbvels about post-war Russia describe cither the heroism and triumph of the proletariat or the heroism and flight of the aristocrats. Ayn Rand takes a middle course in her new novel, “We the Living” (Macmillan: $2.50>, and tells about the middle class folk who stayed in Russia and tried- to make a go of things after the revolution had turned their world upside down. It makes a tragic story, packed with significant overtones for those vague dreamers who think that a revolution would be an interesting experience. For it makes clear the plain, brutal fact that, in a time of revolutionary upheaval, the innocent bystander is simply flattened out. Like some of the bourgeoisie in this novel, he may not care much one way or the other which way the revolution goes; he simply wants to live his own life and enjoy such simple pleasures as come hie way. • mm BUT this he isn't permitted to do. No one has anything in particular against him; it's just tiiat he occupies the field of fire, and the fighters can't stop shooting on his account. As far as he is concerned, the world goes insane. He suffers fearful things without even the satisfaction of knowing that he 1s suffering for some "cause.” He's just in the way. “We the Living” is chiefly concerned with a young middle class girl who tries desperately to save one thing from the wreckage—her love for a middle class boy. -It's no go. The revolution rumbles over her, crushing her without knowing or caring that it la crushing her. She doesn't “deserve” her fate—and that is the whole point. eoilto'^aJ^tekSg.^'RO^ 011 dldnt nCed

Westbrook Pegler