Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 52, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 May 1936 — Page 9

If Seems to Me rail BROUN YORK, May 11.—Some of Gov. Landon’s close supporters are making no very great secret of the fact that the result of the California primary is not displeasing to them. The Ilearst-Merriam coalition has taken a licking from the Hoover crowd, and that, according to Alt’s friends, removes the publisher as a political albatross from the neck of the Kansas Coolidge.

The only trouble with this reasoning is that the proper name for the defeated faction in California should be the Hearst-Mer-riam-Landon coalition. It is possible that the Governor was led in chains into this party strife, but it is undeniable that he was part of the parade. Hearst’s advice in this particular instance seems to have been very bad. The charge against Landon still remains that he is willing to take from San Simeon advice both good and bad. He could have kept hiS name out of the California squabble. Indeed, he

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lleywotid Broun

could have kept his word to do this very thing, but the pressure from his .sponsor was too great. He did not dare fly in the face of nis patron. It does not seem to me that Alf M. Landon deserves any credit if William Randolph Hearst is thwarted in his attempts to icad the Republican Party by forces wholly outside the wish and will of the Kansas Governor. If St. George slays dragons it is not meet that someone who never gave the Saint a tumble should amble upon the dead monsters and exclaim, "See what we've done!” a a a Good Old-Fashioned Fight AND, as a cold matter of fact, the California battle was hardly pitched upon the heights of Armageddon. It was not a contest in which the children of darkness were routed by the children of light. On the contrary. It was a good old-fashioned newspaper publishers’ fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of circulation. Mr. Chandler’s Los Angeles Times was out against its Hearst opposition, and the Onandler news stories, editorials and cartoons carried the day. But it is well to remember that, in spite of much to be said on the other side, William Randolph Hearst is not the most reactionary force in the newspaper business. I’ll admit that it is a neck-and-neck race, but when Chandler and Hearst come whipping down the stretch a blanket could cover them both. And I wish it would. If the California primary gives comfort to Republicans they are an inveterate group of straw snatchers, because its meaning seems to be that even Alf M. Landon is considered just a shade too dangerous by a large section of the party. Aside from Mr. Chandler, the one person who has a right tr throw his hat into the air and holler is Herbert Clark Hoover. He is not likely to win the nomination in spite of this victory, but his voice may be heeded when it comes to the making of a decision. tt titt Hetiveen Tiro Millstones T STILL think that Alf M. Landon is almost home * as far as the nomination goes, but he will have to get it on the first two or three ballots, or not at all. He is beginning to assume the role of the man between the upper and nether millstones. Hoover finds him 1.00 liberal, and Borah regards him as ultra-reactionary. There is a powerful grinding force between the right and left when they gang up on a political leader in this fashion. Much has been made of the rifts within the Democratic Party, but they are less than they were a month ago. A1 Smith’s Liberty League address has proved a great unifying factor. It practically sounded a death knell for walking Democrats. Al’s picnic in the woods now promises to be a hermit's feast. He is going to have a lot of sour pickles left over when the meal is done. Nor can I understand the commotion over the fact that Col. Henry Breckinridge polled a 16 per cent protest vote against Roosevelt in Maryland's Democratic primary. Anybody who takes 16 per cent as an index figure and applies it to the Democratic vote throughout the country can figure out the election of almost anybody he pleases. i Copyright. 19361

Students Turn to Platform Drafting BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, May 11.—While grizzled oldsters stew over a Republican platform, a group of Northwestern University students, as a stunt, have knocked out a nonpartisan draft that deserves to be printed in the Congressional Record for the benefit of the real platform makers of both parties. This amateur platform approves the general objectives of the Administration, condemns its waste and the haste in social change which has outrun the possibility of effective administration . . . condemns the Republican Party for failure to provide constructive, intelligent opposition . . . proposes that industry be given the alternative of re-employming the idle or of bearing the cost of relief . . . advocates abolition of child labor, urges minimum wage laws, collective bargaining and unemployment compensation. Proposes reorganization of the tax system, taxation of unnecessary corporate surpluses, and a balanced budget at the earliest moment although recognizing that the present demands on the government make this a temporary impossibility . . . urges return to the gold standard as soon as other nations return to a sound monetary basis ... advocates crop curtailment only as a temporary measure with a long-time program of soil utilization . . . recommends Federal encouragement of both farm and consumer co-operatives. Favors a nonpolitical tariff commission, which, free from executive interference, would negotiate reciprocal trade agreements . . . insists upon Federal responsibility for conservation of natural resources, by constitutional amendment if necessary . . . urges a drastic neutrality policy and prohibition of munition sales abroad with nationalization of the munitions industry . . . suggests Federal aid for institution of co-operative group medical service . . . asks stricter pure food and drug legislation . . . advocates extension of the Civil Service System and creation of a nonpolitical academy for training government career men. Believes the Supreme Court should be fully supported in its present form , . . proposes the President have power to veto individual items of legislation . . . views with alarm the declining importance of states, although recognizing that a gradual increase in the power of the national government is inevitable . . . condemns growing repression of civil, political and religious liberties and believes that “only where there is genuine tolerance can there be democracy." When college youngsters are turning out statesman stuff like that, it is no wonder that the old hokum doesn’t go down with the public as it used to. a a a ONE of the leading lights in the American Liberty League and chairman of its lawyers’ ccommittee, Raoul E. Desvernine. has written a stirring bock explaining the soul of Americanism and how Roosevelt has just about ruined it, leaving none of us any freedom at all. But the bock lets you down with a bang when vou hit the back flap and read that Mr. Desvernine “spent many years abroad negotiating foreign loans for American bankets in France, Italy, Germany. Austria, Hungary. Spain, as well as the principal countries of South America.” One of those chaps, obviously, who helped load up America with the boom-time foreign bonds which brought so much economic freedom to small banks around the country that they had to close up and call the sheriff.

FARMING THE CO-OPERATIVE WAY

Sharecroppers Given New Start on Sherwood Eddy Project

BY JACK BRYAN NEA Service Special Correspondent jyjEMPHIS, lenn., May 11.—Twenty-four sharecropper families, most of whom stood destitute by an Arkansas roadside a few weeks ago, today are sowing seeds of social experiment at Delta Co-Operative Farm No. 1 in northern Mississippi. Directing the planting is Dr. Sherwood Eddy, retired Y. M. C. A, leader and social reformer. Dr. Eddy is accepting the South’s challenge to its

critics to “see if you can do any better.” He is actively at work setting up the first of a series of co-operative iarming projects as his solution for the evils of the sharecropper system. Dr. Eddy aims not only to give the sharecropper a chance to work out his own salvation. The experiment will, at this fall’s harvest, also be a laboratory in which the Rust brothers oi Memphis will test their mechanical efficiency and as to the feasibility of its use to improve rather than impoverish the condition of the men it replaces. Investigation of the plight of the sharecropper was begun by Dr. Eddy in March of this year. He saw the Arkansas cotton fields, and evicted tenants living miserably in tents by the roadside. He saw plenty. tt tt “T WENT through some of the richest landl have ever seen,' he said, ‘‘and I saw the people who woked it rewarded with malaria, pellagra, hookworm, illiteracy, injustice and the peonage of par•petual debt.” Within a few days he had bought 2139 acres near Hillhouse, Miss., for his experiment. The money came from a strange source. Just after the World War, Dr. Eddy raised a $500,000 fund to help feed the people of the occupied Ruhr tenitory. Within a year Germans had repaid every cent with interests. Dr. Eddy put the money in a trust fund to be used for some appropriate purpose. With S9OOO raised through personal subscription, Dr. Eddy used the fund as security and borrowed the balance needed. The farm, of good “buckshot” cotton soil, with about 500 acres cleared for plowing, was bought at $5 an acre, with mules, a tractor, other equipment, houses and barns. Within a month, under direction of Sam Franklin, the project was under way Four new houses, one a week, had been built of lumber exchanged for timber on the land. * Children were in school, women in the homes, men in the fields. a u tt 'TWENTY acres had been planted in co-operative garden and feed crops. The first of 400 acres of cotton were going into the ground. The land lies ideally to make a fair test of the Rust picker. The Rust brothers, eager to socialize their invention, which is to do the work of 100 men. set up the Rust Foundation, through which they will devote nine-tenths of their personal profits to this and later co-operative cotton farms. All profits fro mDelta Co-op-erative go to the farmers in a group. Instead of the commissary so common in the cotton belt.

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND BY DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

ME P *• <2 ao£s iTj&tD 1 <! tS* V TO m& *MW K * Will Tue^po Po Y 1 \/ CRITICS OF THtto? \ V see OR NO——

AUTHOR’S NOTE—These answers are given from the scientific point of view. Not ail moral questions can be answered with absolute scientific accuracy, but no decision as to what is morally right is possible without Science. Science puts the rights of organised society above the rights of individuals.

1. Far prouder. A good horseman or piano player or a psychologist or biologist feels his abilities and skills in these lines are taken for granted. But nothing delights the horseman like showing he can play the piano or the pianist that he can ride a bucking : bronco or the scientist that he can paint pictures or imitate a hoot owl of do a tap dance. I have my favorite accomplishment for surprising friends but am not going to reveal it until l get a chance to surprise you. 2. If it does such a man would have been a loafer anyhow. With many men it acts as a stimulus to hard work and to making good on their own account in order to avoid the charge of "loafing on their wife’s money.” 3. The public does not know how to criticise intelligence tests—they

The Indianapolis Times

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Mrs. W. F. White is “furnished” with cash instead of store credit, and is thus able to patronize the co-operative store managed by Blaine Treadway.

each farmer is being given S2O a month to live on. A makeshift consumers’ co-operative has been set up, where they may buy necessaries at their own store. General direction remains in the hands of trustees until the farmers are trained to take it over. But a council of five has been elected by the families to govern living conditions. It determined to keep the races separate, though guaranteeing economic equality to both white and Negro croppers. The homes of the white and Negro members are now going up on opposite ridges. Alfred Day, a successfl farmer .of the neighborhood, has been * hired at a salary to take full charge of the farming operations. From their earnings, the co-op-erating farmers will buy the farm over a period of years, title going to the group. The money repaid will be used to start other similar ventures. a a a npHE Mississippi community has welcomed the experiment, which is a change for these farmers, who met only suspicion and distruct in their old homes. The county health department jumped at the chance to create a modern community. With WPA funds, it is undertaking sanitary and preventive health measures. These include screening the houses and immunizing the farm-

can only be criticised intelligently by the psychologists who get them up and they are criticising them unmercifully all the time. However, parents and teachers are often justified in complaining at the way some immature or pseudo-psycholo-gists interpret and use intelligence tests. Such persons often advise parents or young people foolishly about vocations or personality adjustments and bring great harm both to these individuals and to the cause of intelligence and personality measurements. An intelligence test in itself is one thing but what to do about it depends greatly upon the individual and in this the intelligence and personality of the tester is as important as is the test and its results. Tomorrow—Does it take as much energy to fail as to succeed?

MONDAY, MAY 11, 1936

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ers against typhoid, diphtheria and smallpox. The average planter of the neighborhood is interested, but skeptical. He doubts that the experiment will “pay out.” “It must pay,” Dr, Eddy insists. “This isn’t a home for brokendown sharecroppers. If it doesn’t pay its own way, it’s no good.” The attitude of the new cooperators themselves is pretty well summed ,up by Jim Henderson, drawl-voiced cropper. “We used to work jes’ as hard a-growin’ cotton for other folks,” he says. “We ain’t a-goin’ to quit now when we’re doin’ for ourselves.”

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

WASHINGTON, May 11.— Latest inside on the pending tax bill is that the President’s advisers are split into two sternly hostile groups over it. One group, composed of Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau and Herman Oliphant, his general counsel, is for it. Virtually all the others are net. Considering that the bill originated with the Administration, this is a unique and difficult situation. Some of the insiders who are on the outs with the bill are even supplying brick bats with which business is assailing it. Their motives, however, are different from those of business. What they want is the bill in its original state—before it was gutted oy the House Ways and Means Committee. a a a THEY place responsibility for the gutting at the doorstep of Herman Oliphant. The Ways and Means Committee, they say. adopted his suggestions almost in toto. In fact, he wrote the committee’s report defending it. Apparently oliphant overlooked loopholes in the bill which, his critics say, will involve the government in hopeless litigation and prove to be tax leakages up to as much as $300,000,000. Asa substitute, critical insiders are urging the President to junk the present bill, but retain its graduated corporation taxes and add anew surtax on undivided dividends. The Senate Finance Committee probably would jump at this, if the President said the word. a a a IT looks as if the Cuban government has defaulted permanently on the $10,000,000 loan floated by the Chase National Bank for President Machado. When registering its outstanding bond issues with the Securites and Exchange Commission recently, Cuba failed to list this issue. At first this was considered an oversight. But later Cuba filed a summary of all its indebtedness. The Chase Bank loan again jvas omitted. Apparently the present government of Cuba does not consider it a debt. Note—The loan was used to construct a highway the length of the island. Machado’s son-in-law was employed by the Chase National Bank at the tjme. This aroused much resentment in Cuba. a a a MRS. ROOSEVELT is the most social-minded First Lady ever to occupy the White House; that is. “social-minded” in her interest in problems of the masses, rather than in official entertaining. Many a time the President has had to call upon Marguerite LeHand to act as White House hostess because Mrs. Roosevelt was off visiting subsistence homesteads, or a school for the blind, or investigating an unfortunate labor situation. Some time ago textile labor cir-

Clearing land and plowing it for the planting, this tractor clears the way for the first co-opei’ative cotton venture in the South.

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Built in a week at a cash cost of $25, this house is a palace to families who recently camped homeless and helpless by the road.

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Dr. Sherwood Eddy, left, congratulates W r . F. White, member of the council, on evident progress at the Delta co-nperative farm.

cles received a call to the effect that Mrs. Roosevelt was interested in the progress of a strike in a chain of mills near warm Springs, Ga. Replying to the inquiry, labor officials informed Mrs. Roosevelt that the strike had been over many months. Victor in the strike had been C. J. Callaway, owner of the mills, a close friend of the Roosevelts. He has been entertained by them many times. Mrs. Roosevelt conveyed her sympathy and expressed a desire to meet the textile workers if the opportunity presented. She was reminded of this when the National- Women’s Trade Union League of America held its convention in Washington. So she invited a group of Southern delegates to be her guests at the White House during their stay in the Capital. a a a Congressional barbers say that the long locks once the prerequisite of statesmanship now are completely out of style. a a a THOUGH Farley and the President expect to see the abandonment of the two-thirds rule at the convention, astute Charley Michelson, political adviser to Roosevelt, says he is not so sure. . . . Townsend chieftains are arranging a national convention in Kansas City in July. Announced purpose will be to decide the organization’s stand in the presi-

GRIN AND BEAR IT

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“He does my talkin’ fer me.”

dential race. Unofficial purpose will be to answer the disclosures of the congressional investigators. . . . Rex Tugwell disbanded a conference of resettlement advisers the other day by saying, “I have a more important engagement. I’ve promised to take my daughter to the zoo.” . . . When the Washington Auditorium was converted into an office building for part of Harry Hopkins’ staff, part of the stenographic corps got desks in the men’s retiring room. . . . Senator Thomas of Oklahoma walks witn dignified tread these days in anew pair of coffeecolored sport shoes. .. . Rosycheeked Congressman Gearhart of California still has hopes of slipping an excise tax into the new revenue bill to stem the imports of Japanese perilla oil, competing with California linseed oil. a a a Jim Farley's mind is on Philadelphia and the Democratic national convention to such extent that even his watch is set on Philadelphia time —one hour ahead of Washington's standard time. a a a NEW DEAL scouts returning from lowa report that Senator Dickinson, bitter AAA opponent, is facing increasingly difficult odds in his re-election race for the Senate. Farmers are reported to be opposed to him. (Copyright. 1935. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.i

by Lichty

Second Section

Kutered m Second-Cpis* ut Pnstolfice. Indiana polls. Ind.

1 (mr the World m HUP SIMMS (Batting tor Westbrook Pegler.i jpARIS, May 11.—As weird almost as Wells’ tales of the war of the worlds is the glimpse one catches here of the feared collision between Germany and her neighbors as planned by Reichswehr engineers. While France and her allies base their plans on conditions as they existed at the time of the Armistice in 1918. German strategists are looking 50 years

ahead. The next war as they will wage it will be as different from the World War as the World War was different from the Civil War. Speed is the key to the Nazi tactics. Speed and still more speed—mobility combined with terrific power and surpiise—on the ground as well as in the air. is what they base their hop’s on. Plus military precision tuned up to absolute perfection. The French have built the now famous Maginot Line named for the general Who designed it. It reaches from Belgium to Switzerland. Nothing even approximating it. save the

Great Wall of China in its day, was ever constructed by man. Opposite, in the Rhineland, the Germans are going to lay out fortifications of their own. The impression which seems to have got abroad is that the Germans intend to duplicate the Maginot conception That is in error. While Germany plans to make her Rhineland inviolable. I understand she hopes to do so by creating a few Gibraltar-like positions, strategically situated, and to rely, in between, on what I have heard called mobile forts.” tt tt u Have Appearance of Tanks 'THESE appear to be a development of tanks, c( ~ n pI Vf. anew kind of gun. firing anew kind of shell with anew kind of powder-all co-ordinated and operated by anew kind of military formation If one can conceive of cavalry raised in striking ioice to the n-th power, mechanized, and much faster, that seems to be something like it. An eye-witness to a demonstration put on by a single unit of these “galloping forts” at Frankfort-on-the-Mam expressed himself as aghast over its performance. The unit, corresponding to a regiment set out at night from Frankfort. It pursued aEt a bee-line. It crashed across fields, roads beinpurely incidental, up and down dale at 40 miles an hour. Coming to the River Main, it paused for a few minutes while a mechanized, motorized bridge was quickly thrown across. Again it moved on and again it crossed the stream—just to make it hard. Reaching its objective, it swung into position, fired a few rounds, unlimbered and returned to base by another and just as difficult route. And all before daylight Tnat is only a sample cf what the new German aimy lias up its mailed sleeve. I witnessed the army s demonstration here on Hitler’s birthday—r 20 - Almos t everything on wheels, the newest oi everything, ligntning quick, wicked-looking. a u n Looking Eastward, Is Hint r THE nature of the new German army indicates x it is not primarily for use against France, but more against eastern Europe. Nor would it seem that she contemplates attacking Russia .via the Baltic provinces. The terrain there is too marshy. Her rolling forts would be at a disadvantage. On tne other hand, military observers here state Austria Czechoslovakia and the Russian Ukraine offer ideal country for a motorized campaign. Given the above, Hitler’s recent moves, both diplomatic and military, dovetail perfectly. He offers to guarantee immunity to France and Belgium, but not to eastern Europe. He warns France to "quit meddling in affairs far removed from her own frontiers, and tells her she will be safe if she will He takes steps to make France stay put. He creates a mobile army of little use against the Maginot Line. He makes bid after bid to win over England. He proposes the abolition of heavy tanks and big guns. And the bombing of demilitarized cities behind the lines. With Hitler able to get France, Britain and the other powers to agree to his scheme of things the stage would be all set for just the kind of gallopade he is reported to be planning in the opposite direction.

Liberal Viewpoint BY HARRY ELMER BARNES

the World War we were made familiar v hymn of hate. In due time we learned how foolish it had all been. Right now our distilled upper crust is trying to teach us anew hymn of hate against President Roosevelt and his family. The whole matter is admirably presented by Marquis W. Childs in his article “They Hate Roosevelt” in Harper's Magazine Mr. Childs points out that there is a virulent hatred of Mr. Roosevelt on the part cf certain el--ments: It permeates in grea.ter or less degree the whole upper strata of American society. It has become v.ii.h many persons a fixed idea. One encounters it over and over again in clubs, even in purely social ciubs, in locker and card rooms. At luncheon parties, over dinner tables it is an incessant theme. “And frequently in conversation it takes a virulent and unlawful form, the expression of desires and wishes that can be explained only, it would seem in terms of abnormal psychology.” All of which. Mr. Childs points out. Ls incredible from the standpoint of any sane logic on the part of tne class which is most critical of the President. If the ve.y wealthy in our country were guided bv intelligent self-interest they would be all but ecstatic in their affection for the President. As Mr. Childs makes clear, in 1935 corporate prefits, such as dividends, had increased by 40 per cent, while wages had increased by only 2 per cent. Likewise, the prices oi stocks have gone up from two-fold to 10-fold over what they were in the sprint cf 1 ;33.

Times Books

IN “The Devil Theory of War” (Vanguard: 51.50), Charles A. Beard studies our entrance into the World War in the light of the Nye committee revelations, and tries to figure out just why war comes and how it can be avoided. It is foolish, he remarks, to suppose that men go to war because they are somehow inherently evil, or that the sly machinations of the devil push us, unsuspecting, over the brink. So he goes over the Nye committee’s findings, piece by piece, and concludes that we went to war in 1,117 principally because we had got ourselves too deeply entangled, commercially and financially, to do anything else. We built up a great war-time prosnerity, he says and tied it to the allied caus:. Wnen 1917 came, we could have avoided war only at the price of a stunning economic depression. Our politicians and other leaders couldn't face the* price, so in we went. And for the future? Let us pass rigid neutrality and embargo laws, urges Prof. Beard: let us refuse pointblank to trade with warring nations, and devote ourselves to the cultivation of our own garden. In that w r ay we may stand a good chance of keeping at peace. If we do as we did the last ime, he believes, we shall wind up as we then wound up—neck-deep in the soup. (B. C.)

Wm. Philip Simms