Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 45, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 May 1936 — Page 9

It Seems to Me HEYMBIUI YORK, May 2.—1 see the police are making raids on contract bridge games and, naturally, I’m worried about my mother. She,was not sympathetic when I was arrested in Milwaukee, even though I pointed out that I was a first offender and also a “political prisoner.” But now If the campaign against contract continues she runs the risk of being apprehended as a common gambler.

Indeed, from my observation, her bridge is even n little worse than that, and so if her apartment is raided I suppose I could stand aside and say grimly, “Retribution,” and let it go at that. But I would do nothing of the sort. If the worst occurs I will stand shoulder to shoulder with her in court. Maybe I could arrange to get arrested for picketing on the same day as a sort of tactful gesture to lessen her sense of shame. She leads away from aces and neglects to keep jump bids alive. .But she is still my mother.

' 1

Heywood Broun

I never thought to see her part of a crime wave. Probably it could all be traced to something in her early environment, and I have retained Leibowitz just to be on the safe side. If he was able to win an acquittal for Vera Stretz I have every reason to feel that he could get my mother off with a small fine. ana Living in a False World IT ought to be quite possible to procure witnesses to testify that she seemed to be under the impression that she was playing parchesi. Os course,, my mother doesn’t actually run a bridge club. She plays only with her friends. Still, some of the strangest people do drop in. It would be a quibbling defense to say that the stakes are small. If the prosecution summoned me I would have to break down under cross-examination and admit that the usual fortieth of a cent sometimes is abandoned. Along about two or three in the morning I have known my mother t,o say recklessly, "Let’s play two more rubbers and make it a twentieth.” But the phase of the case which would give Leibowitz the greatest trouble would be the undoubted fact that sometimes my mother sallies forth and plays contract for a good deal more than a twentieth of a cent a point. I have wired to her that if the cops put the lug on her and ;he faces a rap the best thing tc do will be come clean and throw herself on the mercy of the court. Os course, I wouldn’t like to see her snitch on Marc Connelly’s mother, who generally takes her to these tournaments, but she might as well admit that sometimes she plays for prizes. These so-called tournaments always are advertised as being for the benefit of something or other. My mother has been so faithful in this sort of charitable work that I don’t see how a single American still can be starving. Somehow it doesn’t seem to matter just who or what is named as the object of the drive. The tournament always turns out to be a benefit for my mother. Maybe she plays under wraps at home, for put her in with a hundred other women and it is 10 to 1 that she will come home with the handpainted vase, the ash tray or the silk umbrella. n tt tt Saved From Fate Worse Than Death OURS has not always been a united family. We were split into three sections by the elevator strike, the Guffey coal bill and the fact that my mother once belonged to the D. A. R. and was thinking of running for third vice president. I always have felt that contract bridge came along just in time to save her from a fate worse than death. At present I think I ought to say, in all fairness to her, that she wouldn’t go across the street to hear a patriotic address unless it was in the hope of getting a fourth for bridge. Ironically enough, some of my activities of which she has disapproved strongly now may prove useful to her. I am in a position to give her good advice. When the police come, go quietly. Insist on your one telephone call before they lock you in the cell and don’t give your right name or my record will be used against you. Landon Is Growing as Drive Develops BY RAYMQNP CLAPPER TOPEKA, Kas., May 2.—The big league political education of Gov. Landon began about last October. That was about the time he first began to receive serious consideration as a possible Republican presidential nominee. For six or seven months, without any great amount of speaking on his part, his strength has steadily increased until he is the loremost contender. What has happened to Landon himself during this period? I talked with him last October and again this week. The difference between Landon then and now is immediately apparent. There has been obvious growth and development. The difference is a good deal like that which comes over a college freshman by the time he reaches his senior year. Stage fright has been replaced by confidence. Knowledge has been absorbed rapidly. His horizon has expanded. The country boy is not thinking back on his smalltown high school days but is looking out toward the world into which he expects shortly to be thrown, and he is soberly trying to get his bearings. That is the kind/of growth that taken place in Landon. He has absorbed from ' isitors. Any morning in his office you will see a cross-section of America, an Eastern banker, a party of California touri its, somebody life former Senator Frelinghuysen of New Jersey," a visiting editor, a politician he knew in the 1912 Bull Moose campaign, a Kansas farmer and his wife. Some of these visitors have something to give him, others are looking for something from him, he takes them as they come. * m tt Landon breaks the grind by getting out of Topeka a good deal. One day he is across the line attending an Oklahoma pioneer day celebration. A few days later he is in Kansas City making a short talk to the graduates of Baldwin University. Or he goes to Troy, Kas., to crown an apple queen. it a tt ONE of Landon’s days this week went something lik,e this. During morning office hours he saw an Eastern business man; held a conference with his legislative leaders over the constitutional amendment which will be required to enact social security legislation. the original Kansas plan having.been rejected at Washington because it proposed lo work with county, rather than state, funds; saw three Topeka newspaper correspondents; shook hands and chatted briefly with perhaps 20 casual visitors; climbed into his roadster with a friend and at 11 a. m. set out for Clay Center, Kas., to attend the funeral of a college cl&ssnifttc He stopped at Manhattan, Kas., for lunch, saw several political friends in the hotel and gathered them around his table. Telephoned one or two others, who promptly dropped in and talked state affairs. Arriving at Clay Center, he stopped at one newspaper office, visited with the editor, telephoned the other, who came by and accompanied him to the funeral; called on the widow, and drove back to Topeka, arriving at the end of a 250-mile trip by 7 p. m. He had a friend in at dinner, issued a statement commenting on the Massachusetts primary', and after an hour or so on the porch discussing social insurance, reciprocal tariffs, money, re-employment, walked downtown with his dinner visitors and on to his office for an evening’s work. Occasionally he hides out to dig and chew over policies. He has studied Richberg’s book on NRA, Epstein’s work on social insurance. Hallgreen’s “Gay Reformer,” to illustrate the variety of his reading. Os course, he follows newspaper and radio discussion closely. At the moment he Is giving much thought to the kind of platform he hopes his friends will advance at Cleveland.

HAPPY DAZE BACK-FOR WALL ST. ****a a a a a a a a Three Factors Combine to Push Market Prices Upward

(ThK ii the last of a seriea of two articles on the stock market.) BY JOHN T. FLYNN (Copyright. 1936. by NBA Service. Inc.) YORK, May 2.—Who and what has brought Cock Robin back to life? What force is it that has revived the stock market? Os course the general impression that recovery is setting in is sufficient of itself to give an impetus to stock prices. But as already pointed out, a mere 18 per cent rise in business activity would not be a sound basis for a 48 per cent rise in stocks. Beyond the general notion that recovery is under way—a very uncertain and not at all fixed conviction—there would have to be a belie! either way that recovery was going to continue for a long period

or that some other factor was going to move stocks up for a while. What could this other factor be? Unquestionably It is the feeling that some kind of inflation is under way and that it will continue for a while longer. The force making for higher prices is a combination of these two forces plus one other. The vague yet dominating impression of recovery is spread out among what might be called the investing and semi-investing or semispeculating public which buys for the long pull. The more professional elements in the market do not share this view. But they realize that this public impression is a fertile soil to do business in. And they also realize that the improvement in profits and the rise in purchasing power is the fruit of the credit inflation under way. They are convinced besides that this credit inflation will continue for another year or so. And so out of these elements they have put on the pressure with some response from the public and the corresponding rise in prices. tt tt tt THE confidence in inflation is, of course, based on government spending. There is no fear in Wall Street of any immediate resort to currency inflation. But Wall Street is able to understand that the expenditure of more than eleven billion dollars by the Administration in three years—all of this eleven billion obtained without taxation and with bank loans. —is a form of credit inflation. There is $11,000,000,000 of purchasing power created not in the normal way by producing anything and paying out this sum in costs, but by sheer technique of Uncle Sam borrowing and passing the money out to business through the medium of relief, etc. If you will go into a neighborhood and lend money or give away large sums of money to the people in the neighborhood you will be putting purchasing power into the hands of the customers of the merchants in that neighborhood. If they show signs of prosperity you will know where it came from. This is what the government has been doing—putting billions of purchasing power into the hands of the customers of our merchants everywhere. Wall Street knows this will continue. The President still has left more than five billion dollars in unexpended balances already granted him to spend. He has also announced that he needs another billion and a half and maybe two billion for relief. Also at least an additional billion is to be distributed to the veterans as bonus money. It is certain this will go on as long as Mr. Roosevelt is in power. And Wall Street secretly knows that even if the Republicans win

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

WASHINGTON, May 2.—Senator Jim Couzens suddenly has gone on a behind-the-scenes warpath against the sweeping investigation of railroad finances

THIS CURIOUS WORLD + By William Ferguson

H ATL£AST HISTORY MA GHfNOGEROSCS * * f A ARE RJEL-ATE.D TO HORSES/ V

A short perusal of any history book is enough to convince one of the astounding number of truly great men of history who had larger than average sized noses. Galileo, Descartes. Newton, Copernicus, Caesar, Napoleon, Washmgtoqgknd Lincoln are only a few of these. ’

The Indianapolis Times

they will have to continue spending. tt it TXTHAT does this mean in ▼ V terms of the market? It means that the inflationary policy pushing the market up is going to last at least for another year, it means that, if the market continues up much further, a break is sure, but that the break may be only temporary and will be followed perhaps by a recovery. Even if the market does not go higher, there may be a temporary break, to be followed by recovery. But it also means that the whole price structure is based on* a thoroughly unwholesome force and that sooner or later there must be an adjustment. The other force in the market must be noticed. The market seems to me to be a distributors’ market. That is, during 1933 and 1934, various operators and institutions and corporations acquired by compulsion large blocks of securities. More recently, when Wall Street saw the definite inflationary character of the market, more active operators began to accumulate low-priced shares. With the lift in business these people have been selling their shares to the hopeful public. How much actual manipulation has been going on to effect this it would be difficult to say. This, perhaps, helps to explain how there has been so much activity without a corresponding increase in bank loans in the market. There has been a heavy distribution of low-priced stocks which many persons have been induced to buy for cash and without the use of market credit. Also, there has perhaps been a lot of floor trading either to help in distribution and boost stocks or merely to take advantage of the current situation. And, of course, a lot of this trading is done without either cash or credit. St tt tt THIS is further confirmed by the volume of trading. It has been large, but not at all recordbreaking. Thus, last year there was a lot of heavy trading, yet the total sal"s of shares were only 381,666,000, or not very much more than 1934. And it was only a little more than half what was done in 1933. This year, thus far, sales have been heavier than in the same months last year. That is, they have been around 200,000,000 shares or somewhat less than 1933. This would seem to indicate that since there is no enormous demand being exerted against the shares, the upward swing of stocks has been helped along by some of the old devices. This brings us to ask —what has .happened to Wall Street under the new regime—under the Securities Exchange Commission? The answer, of course, is that nothing much has happened yet. The situation stands about as follows: There are two acts affecting

which the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee has been conducting, in preparation for public hearings. Much mystery surrounds the wealthy Michigander’s

SATURDAY, MAY 2,1936

-Marc |§|f IP * ‘ I mt ■ Jshßl H f. * ■ 1 I ■ i'* |v '■>* Vi fW ’ HR >?• $ Wm BBPk >4l 1 I -' f a jjp -^ i ft-0f ' < $ i jjfijnj Bp

Boom days turn the floors of the New York Stock Exchange into scenes of frenzy. A rare view of the Curb Exchange during a lull in the day’s hectic business is presented here by Margaret Bourke-White.

Wall Street. One is tin. Truth-in - Securities Act. This has been beneficial because it forces bankers or corporations putting out* new issues of bonds or stocks to file with the commission a very full account of the essential facts affecting the securities. This act has w r orked fairly well thus far. But it has not affected the stock exchanges very' much, since very few new stocks have been issued. This has been not because of the act, but becausp of the general investment situation. The other act is the Securities Exchange Act, under which the commission governs the stock market. Investors must understand that the commission does not aim to advise investors or to aid them in their investment or speculative problems. Its business is to see that the exchange is run as a free, honest market place. While the commission has done some good work, it has really not done very much, as yet, to change the methods in the market.

abrupt change of attitude. He is a ranking member of the committee and for months offered no objection to the inquiry. His sudden attempt to ax the probe is much to the secret delight of the uneasy railroad moguls and their bankers. .. . Windsor-tie wearing Rep. Robert A. Green of Florida, who filed the impeachment charges against Judge Halsted Ritter, now is wrangling for appointment to the ousted jurist’s place. A congressional redistricting of Florida has brought Green and Rep. Williiam J. Sears (formerly at-large) against each other, and Green, fearful of defeat, is trying to grab off the vacant judgeship. .. . The Republican committee on national convention arrangements narrowly escaped an open row with union printers. The union complained to Rep. Chester C. Bolton of Cleveland that the committee planned to have the official program printed by a non-union shop, threatened to rouse a rumpus. Bolton investigated, had the work switched to a plant acceptable to the union. n tt e VICE PRESIDENT JACK GARNER is offering to bet Republican Senators that they can’t name six states their party will carry next November. Sc far he has no takers. . . . Assistant A tty. Gen. John Dickinson once worked at the same desk and in the same law office in Northampton, Mass., as did Calvin Coolidge. ... A large poster in the main entrance of the Justice Department advertises a mystery play to be performed by the “F. B. I. Theater Group.” The initials F. B. I. stand for Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Gman agency. The poster is adorned with pictures of comely feminine members of the F. B. I. staff. . . . Judge Ben Hillard, defeated for re-election to Congress in 1918 because he voted against United States entrance into the World War, has announced his candidacy .for the seat of Senator Edward P. Costigan, of Colorado. United Feature

'T'HE COMMISSION has laid X down some rules under which securities are listed with exchanges. The facts which corporations whose shares are listed are compelled to supply are specified by the Commission. But this is hardly more than the stock exchange already required in listings. And some critics have even insisted that the Commission had actually mitigated the severity of the exchange rules. Speculation with bank credit is not in the hands of the SEC. The power of margin rules is lodged with the’ Federal Reserve Board. Up to recently margin rules were scarcely more severe than any prudent brokerage house would have required. And even now, while for most active stocks margins of 55 per cent are required, this is not much different from the requirement of a sound commission house even in 1929. However, there has been some improvement here. But the whole agitation against speculation with borrowed funds is by no means settled. There are men in Congress as well as in academic circles who believe that margin trading should be done away with altogether. Next, manipulation. Can brokers still manipulate stocks? And do they do it? The law contains a series of prohibitions against manipulation. One is that it is unlawful to do so. This is not very effective, since it is very difficult to prove manipulation in any given case. The only way to prevent manipulation is to take out of the hands of operators the weapons they use for the purpose. What are these weapons? They are in part (1) margin

GRIN AND BEAR IT + + by Lichly

| f imUnh.

. “Do you have to have that leopard skin coat now — can't you wait'll we finish this, tourl”

credit, (2) the collaboration of the specialist, (3) the aid very often of floor brokers, (4) fictitious trading, (5) publicity, tips, rumors, etc., (6) options and other devices to aid brokers to accumulate shares, (7) short selling. tt tt ■AyTARGIN credit the operators still have in abundance. The specialist still remains unchecked. The commission has been studying this subject, but has done nothing about it. The floor trader still remains unchecked. Here again the commission has been studying the subject, but has not acted. Fictitious trading is prohibited outright by the act. The commission has hauled one broker— Mike Meehan, a large scale broker and operator—over the coals to prove that he conducted a lot of fictitious trading in Bellanca stock. But the trial has lasted for six months and the testimony makes up bales of paper. Obviously the commission can not repeat such an effort often. One thing it can do is to make the punishment so severe when it does investigate as to make brokers fearful of being caught. Publicity, tips, rumors, etc., are of course all made unlawful by the act. The commission may make rules against options, but as yet it has not done so. Thus, we see that while the commission has been studying many subjects and has made some good investigations, notably the investigation of the whole abuse of reorganizations, it has not yet got down to brass tacks really to curb the market. If the market misbehaves, the commission is going to be blamed.

Second Section

Entered as Second-Clan* Matter at I’ostoffice, Indianapolis. In cl.

Fair Enough MW! M YORK, May 2.—Something tells me that a country which has fed on banquet chicken, New England shore dinners and the barbecued beef which mocks the hunger and the bridge work of the American tourist along the highways will roll with the punch of Senator Dickinson's charge that many of our citizens have been eating canned dog food, and come up smiling. I don't know the ingredients of these rations which

are put up for the canine package trade, but I have had much experience in public eating places and remember many meals which might have aroused the humane society had they been offered to a dog. The Senator may not get around as much as some of us. Do you suppose he ever has sat through an alumni dinner or the annual get-together of the district managers of a big American business firm? if so, wouldn’t he remember the cold pale consomme, the gutta percha broiler with the fuzz barely

singed, the canned peas, done in a shade of housepaint green, the traditional hard-shell roll and the tasteless butter? Has he ever stopped his car at a clam parlor anywhere along the coast of Maine or a turtle steak resort in Florida to torture his teeth and innards with gritty chowder or corduroy meat? That Favorite Delicacy TTAS the Hon. Gent from lowa never attempted XX that favorite American delicacy hewn from the carcass of an abandoned heavy duty tire burned in the fumes of a gasoline incinerator and served as the house specialty at a thousand roadside cabins, East and West, all of them knowi\ a% Bill’s Bar-B-Q, dine and dance, good eats? If not, he hardly can call himself a 100 per cent American, and if so, would he inflict these horrors on a dog? The Senator overstrained for dramatic effect in charging that his fellofv-men ''were down to dog food. It might have been better for his purpose had he said, on the contrary, that only a few Americans were known to be up to it. It is my impression that in the United States the family dog eats about the same sort of fare that the family gets along on. Asa rule he is a genial, understanding mutt who knows his prerogatives and comes to the table with the family to sit by, not exactly begging, for that is bad manners, but making little gestures with his ears and tail w'hich amount to an eloquent silent appeal. He gets a splinter of meat here, a dab of the dressing or bread and gravy there and keeps his appetite in check that way until dinner is over, when he gets all that is left on his own plate by the back stoop. a a Board Bill Is a Serious Thing TF he is a dog on special rations, he usually does X much better, for kennel dogs are fed on good meat bought fresh from the market in large quantities, cooked by a dog expert according to a veterinary’s instructions and served on time with appropriate vegetables. Certainly one kennel of dogs of which I have knowledge were better fed than most of the people of the class for whom the Senator has been breaking his heart. They eat beef almost exclusively and their hotel bill is a serious item to the man w'ho owns the herd; but then the dogs sell for SIOO or more a head and mediocre beef, which brings only a few dollars on the hoof out West, is converted into very superior dog flesh in a few months. Human beings are more fastidious than dogs in some respects but they have other tastes which dogs abhor. I am thinking at the moment of whisky, gin and cigarets. I believe you could be arrested if you were to inflict on any dog a half dozen highballs or Tom Collinses or tie the poor mutt down and gas him with the fumes of a package of cigarets.

Gen. Johnson Says— May 2.—ln the 1923 campaign, ▼ v Mr. Hoover said that machine production turns out goods much in excess of what we can consume, and that in order to maintain employment we must sell more goods abroad. He advocated doing this by lending “our surplus capital” to backward and crippled countries. Asserting that in March, 1921, we had between five and six million unemployed, he claimed that “within a year” these had been given jobs and that employment had been maintained since with few recessions. He was Secretary of Commerce then and it may be assumed that he knew what he was talking about. In March, 1921, the United States employment index stood at 83.9. One year later it was 83.2. In other words, not five million new jobs—but none. In 1928 the base had been changed from to 1926—100, but since 1926 on the old base was 91.9, it is not hard to revise the 1928 index for comparative purposes. In July, 1928, it was 83.7, or .2 lower than in March, 1921—when, according to Mr. Hoover, between five and six million men had no jobs. It indicates a vast unemployment right at the time of the Coolidge boom, PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT said something at Baltimore about there having been tremendous unemployment in 1928, and Ogden Mills accused him of carelessness with facts and misuse of figures. Nobody knows the facts about this baffling problem, but if there was any misuse of figures, it was by another President. A commission on unemployment in 1921 reported only 2,750,000 unemployed in industry, w'ith pos-sibly-another 750,000 in miscellaneous callings—and not between five and six millions. Whatever the figure was, if this Federal index of employment means anything at all, the 1928 figure clearly indicates that our mechanized industry, even when going full steam, does not provide enough jobs. (Copyright, 1936, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

Times Books

SUSAN ERTZ looks 50 years into the future in her new novel, “Women Alive” (Appleton-Cen-tury; $2), and draws a picture of a world that has got itself into a very bad fix, indeed. It has solved a good number of its ordinary mechanical problems. In it, people are healthier, better fed, better clad, better housed than they are now. * But they haven’t learned how to avoid war, and they finally get into one which leaves them, as its legacy, anew and deadly pestilence—a pestilence which leaves the men unharmed, but kills ofT every female on earth. So the race takes its head in its hands and sits down on the curb to await extinction. Just as it gets its mind prepared for the inevitable, the expected miracle pops up. There is, after all, one woman on earth; a young English girl, who escaped the plague and is hale, hearty and full of life. The race, thus, isn't going to die after all. It is going to start all over, from scratch. Its possibilities are infinite. It will be composed of a select few who will have at their disposal all the science, wealth, and knowledge of past generations without the drawbacks. Miss Ertz plays with this idea, then brings her novel back to 1936 and writes “finis.” Although you get the feeling that she could have done more with this provocative theme, the story as its stands is readable and stimulating. (By Bruce Catton.)

1

Westbrook Pegle?