Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 July 1936 — Page 17
' Nt EW YORK, July 1 10.—1 thought that the’ 5
‘reply which John L. Lewis made to the ? “Tron and Steel Institute was an extremely effective address. ‘Like a good many news- * paper columnists, John L. Lewis speaks best when he is mad. He was good and mad over the radio, but he heightened the effect of what he ~ said by imposing a considerable restraint upon himself. Mr. Lewis has been known as an autocrat. This . charge is less true than it’ may have been a couple of years ago. Of course, he is impatient of opposition and BoBncoRCUrFing opinion, but be has learned that his strength depends largely on the mass behind him. The whole tone of his speech was one in which he saw himself as the serv-
ant and. spokesman of organized dnd potentially organized groups |
which would be in support of the |
principle he advocated. I was excited because it seemed to me that labor now has a new instrument which may be -used advantageously, With full warrant John L. Lewis spoke of the espionage system which prevails in the steel industry. The Institute itself distinctly suggested jin its full-page ad that things would go ill with “such workers as attended union meetings or engaged in discussion of union activities. But even this well-knit and powerful $5,000,000,000 or--ganization can not come between the steel worker and the voice which rides the ether waves. He was able to talk face to face with men to whom the _ gospel of organization is still new. - And in all fairness to John L. he did not minimize the dangers. He frankly told the unorganized - workers that they might be discriminated against, discharged or even roughly handled if they attempted to form unions free from company domination. But ~ there is not only courage, but a security which rises out of numbers. ! ” » #
Getting Down to Cases
EWIS spoke for a full half hour, but he wasted very little time in oratorical flourishes. He drove ahead.with facts and figures. Of course, he did pull one fast one on his listeners. I imagine that many in the radio audience were startled when he named Lindbergh as among those who have attacked the Money Trust. Nevertheless, there are sections in the Middle West where the name Lindbergh - still means the crusading, farmer-labor political leader rather than the brilliant young flier who once took his father by plane from meeting to meeting in Minnesota. \ Again, it seemed to me extremely shrewd for Lewis to disown the role of being a: purely unsélfish knight in shining armor seeking to bring salvation into dark places.
: ® 8 = Lewis Breaks New Ground
F course, Lewis was breaking new ground in his _ very plain suggestion that united labor should fight along the political as well as the economic front. It is said that the president of the United Mine Workers of America is politically ambitious for himself. That may or may not be true. My own impression is’ that Lewis is far more interested in the movement than he is in any particular personality, including his own. But if he has ambitions I see no reason why that should be used against him. He does stand out at the moment. as the most vigorous and effective leader in the labor field. He is not, of course, the perfect instrument. But : ¥ suffers from no delusion or grandeur. He still 4 s of himself as a member of a group much bigger and more important than himself. .I hope - he takes to the” gir again, many times, fwithif thes next few months. To me he carried the<impression of utter sincerity. Of all the people who have approached the microphone recently John L. Lewis stands out as a man who is able to be both concrete and eloquent. To be factual and to be moving. To be inspiring and clarifying. All at the same time.
My Day
BY ELEANOR ROOSEVELT EW YORK, Thursday—After all the heat of the day it was glorious yesterday afternoon to arrive at the cottage at Hyde Park, put on a bathing suit, and stay in the pool for an hour on and off. I tried to play one of those childish games of throwing rope circles over e pegs and was as awkward as could be. I became {rritated with myself beyond words and grew even hotter than I had been when going around the camps. It was a comfort at least to be able to plunge into the pool. We had dinner on the porch with the sun setting across the brook and over the faraway hills. Even at Hyde Park we need rain very badly, which keeps one reminded of the suffering in the Middle West. It seems as though the people living in the states that have been visited by recurring droughts are getting more than their share of hardship. They are suffering of course, because as a nation we have not expected our government to show foresight in the development of the land. We have allowed individuals ‘to do as they thought best, and they could hardly be expected to have an altruistic attitude toward the future. PS Now we are faced with lands that must be returned to buffalo. grass, or trees, in order to prevent the suffering which many of our people are enduring . toda : We came down to. New York by a morning train after breakfast on the porch. Since then I have had a long conference with a gentleman who is deeply interested in certain specific methods of meeting the - general economic problems. |, . A short visit with Mrs. Ruth Bryan Owen, whom I am happy to see so radiant. At 5 I go to a tea at Teachers College, and speak at 5:30 on “The Present Day Agencies Directed Toward the Security of the American Home and Family.” This is such a mammeth subject that I have asked to be allowed to limit it somewhat, otherwise I . feel both the speaker and the audience might spend. the night.at Columbia, and I expect to be in a motor . starting for Hyde Park at 6. 7 OoRyTIgL.. 1936, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)
New Books
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS LTHOUGH in NEW TRENDS IN SOCIALISM (Dickson & Thompson, $1.25) we find a series ‘British wri
writers, the questions treated American
gather favorable
EL 2 !
Hiihois of Two Minds on Fut “of Corn’ Belt and America, Davis Learns.
Forrest Davis is “sampling” the Midwest's opinions about, recovery, the job
in hand and the future, ticle follows. :
on a Jefaurely Journey ‘cross sounte}.
BY FORREST DAVIS
|
Times Special Writer GPRINGFIELD, IIL., July 10.—The countryman. of Abraham Lincoln, in a region committed to yeneration of “the rail-splitter’s rugged character, appears to be of two minds about the future of the Corn Belt and of Americas
His thought is badly split.
As he gazes out on-the familiar prairie, his angular small towns dominated by rusty grain elevators; the small industrial cities—Peoria, Springfield, Decatur—Ilooking at these he observes that times indisputably are better. He finds, too, upon examination that he is still a free man; his civil and economic liberties unimpaired. No red fiend in bureaucratic form has as yet snared
the Corn Belter.
Moreover, he is cheered by word that a new prosperity awaits the corn-hog section through the soy bean— a legume adapted to a myriad industrial uses which rapidly is invading the corn lands. A bean promising a new era
to town and countryside.
But when the down-state Illinoisan turns to the Chicago papers owned by the “press lords,” Hearst, Knox and McCormick, he must conclude that the Reds have seized
Washington, the outlook is black and that he had best, like his prudent ancestors, take to the stockades. The Chicago papers cover this section of Illinois like a
dew.
This conflict between appearance and theory has brought on a state familiar to psychiatrists and which may be called the jitters. The malady rages among Springfield business men, is less aggravated in the rural counties. I cite the case of a Springfield business leader, who, after figuratively pulling the shades, locking the door and ordering me not to use his name, vividly went over his symptoms. ® 8 % ISCOUNT,” he .said, with some violence, “anything I say: I train with a crowd that believes, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that the country has gone to hell. . At luncheon daily, we sing a hymn of hate against the -Bolsheviks at Washington.
ot Vie te. certafifthat "Women ‘are to | tionalized ‘any = moment.”
od corporation statements give us red spots before the eyes. “We have had ‘three hard years,’ we're all getting rich—and how we hate it! . “I know business is enormously better. I know that the Caterpil-
{ lar ‘Co. at Peoria is working 13,000
‘men ab capacity; that all industries serving the farmer, including the Harvester Trust, are bogged with orders. “I know that the farmer is pay-
ing his debts, roofing the barh,.
painting the house, buying cars and clothes and more tractors than in all the last five years put
‘ together. But will I admit it? No.
Has Roosevelt’s New Deal ruined the country? Hell, yes.” Certain psychological resistance to recovery manifests itself in Springfield. | The Chamber of Commerce gloomily neglects to statistics—increasing bank debits, department store sales, pay rolls, etc. Looal newspapers are barren of news'reflecting: economic improvement.
Yet business men privately admit that trade is immensely better. 8 2 8 EORGE REID, Scott County J farm advisor, escaped the jitters altogether. nomic reports, not political news. Reid’s political temperature is normal. He has yet to see-a Soviet Commissar out of Washington and he probably wouldn't recognize a class angle if he saw it lying in the road. I talked with Reid about the crop and soy beans—especially soy beans—on the sunny town square at Winchester, Scott County seat. A week-day, the square was crowded, closely parked, with farmers’ automobiles, of which a third were shinily new. We were interrupted a dozen times by farmers who stopped to pass the time of day or ask advice from the
expert hired by the county to ad-
vise them. The soy bean, in case you aren't up on your agriculture, makes the black sauce which you spurt on chop suey. That is the least of its uses. One gathers from Reid that the reign of corn, the native yellow maize of the aborigines, may . ‘be imperiled; that the soy, which ‘has nourished countless genera‘tions of Chinese and for which, as much ‘as anything, . Japan ‘took Manchuria, may be a sérious rival for the corn belt throne. HE alien beah, it appears, threatens the primitive, cornhog, husking bee economy of these
prairies. ‘So far it is only a threat,
the implication of a mixed farmand industry system likely to produce small, local factories in these villages alongside the tall corn
elevators and the hog loading pens.
Reid believes tha the corn belt's future, granted chronic overproduction of meat, lies in the sort of industrial farming which the soy makes possible. And by good fortune soy, the “wonder” bean, flourishes rankly in the corn belt’s acid soil.
This year, thanks in part to the =
Government’s Soil Conservation bonus of about $11 an acre for plowing the soy bean under, Illinois acreage shows a gain of 25 per cent over last year’s. Reid
hadn’t the total acreage statistics
He reads eco-.
LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND
By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGG
SHOULD NOU ALNAYS Tey TO SELECT LEISURE RECREA AND PLEAGURES THAT
IMPROVE Noy ?
YES ORNO ——
| “The Reaper”—Photograph by William M. Ritasse—Black Star. ; I
at hand but he assured me they were impressive, | Hou Tsi, a god of fertility, conferred the soy bean on the Chinese in the ancient time. Brought here by a Yankee tea clipper in’ 1804, the plant remained a curiosity until 1890, when the Department of Agriculture sought to adapt it to our climate. : In 1935 5,000,000 American acres —a sizable proportion in Illinois— were planted to soy beans. This “year, the Department of Agriculture with the collaboration of 12 Midwest States, established a soy bean experimental station: at the University of Illinois (Urbana). All these facts George Reid quietly recited as we stood on the square at Winchester. » ” = N he came to. the ind significances of the bean, listing its jnptte uses, he’
grew moderately lyrical. The list- , ing left him a bit breathless: infant foods, milk, macaroni, nonfattening bread and bread for diabetes; cooking and salad oils;
- soap, enamels, varnishes, paints,
linoleum, printing inks, lubricating oils and plastics. A plastic may coat the butcher’s scale or it may make the door and paneling in your library. Plastics are among the most ingenious new materials in our civilization., : Good for man and beast, the edible soy bean is so rich in protein .that it::makes a low-grade substitute for meat and dairy products. In:the feeding lot, a farmer may winter his stock with soy bean mash at a third the cost of hard grain. Unlike corn, the soy bean endows the Soll, With, Ritro- | gen. i 4 Reid cited the
Decatur, which formerly - ground corn for industrial purposes. Con-, verted to the soy bean, it expands visibly. A new mill has been opened herein Springfield within the last several months.
“I look forward to the time,” said Adviser Reid, “when every county seat in the corn belt will” have a mill where the farmer may haul his beans; receiving back, bushel for bushel, mash for feedg “An abundance of oil should‘ stimulate all sorts of small, countryside industries where the young folks can work at home.” George Reid, who is too busy to think about whether the country has gone to the bowwows, has faith that the old-fashioned en-
terprise of the people will. take |
; reer: the corn ‘belts future.
~Tomorrow—A. view of Indiana, -
GARBO A
This is the fifth ol six dispatches on economic conditions in in Sweden. :
BY WILLIAM PH ‘PHILIP SIMMS Scripps-Howard ‘Foreign Editor ASHINGTON, July 10.—Even Greta Garbo is doing her bit in the sane live-and-help-live movement which has lifted Sweden high above the turbulent right and left dictatorships of Europe. In doing so Garbo, the glamorous, has proved that despite Hollywood, fame and fortune, she is still at heart a typical, sentimental Swede. We were standing in front of Konsumhuset, vast new headquarters of the Consumers’ Co-operative Society of Stockholm, Thorsten Odhe and I, commenting on the enormous “amount. of co-operative construction going on. Odhe is in charge of ‘the sociéty’s publications, one of which, a weekly with more than 500,000 circulation, is the largest in the country. “Right up that street there ia | couple of blocks,” he said, pointing at the thoroughfare leading up the slope to our right, “is where Greta Garbo was born. And see that row of buildings, crossing the end of her street on top ofthe hill?” I said I did. “Garbo is the principal owner of those houses. They are low-priced apartments for workers. You might }
-call them: model tenements. They
are small flats, spick. and span and modern in every
05€ | not nearly so attractive.”
DS SWEDI
(Mill Island) at the entrance to Stockholm * harbor. The island is owned outright by the co-operatives. On Mill Island are the CO-Opera-tive Three Crowns flour mills, the hard bread or. cracker factory, and plants producing macaroni, oatmeal and other cereals. .On it, too, are the homes of the workers—modernistic, glassed in, terraced, attached houses, each with its garden and each with its lawn. By ingenious arrangement they afford an unusual amount of privacy. 3 s ” 8 “Y COULD tell you that these homes are co-operative, like the factories, and still be telling the truth,” said Odhe. “But we do not call them that because they do not quite fit our own definition of the word. We regard the homes as purely commercial in: the sense that they are owned by the co-op-erative society and are only rented to the tenants. “However, the rentals are very Jlow—just sufficient to make them maintain themselves. We rent them | to co-operative’ employes on the same basis that we sell our goods— the ‘best possible value: for the cheapest price. Ewployes. ‘do not have to live there. Y fan live wherever they please. hey hey live there becatise it would cost them 25 or 30 per cent more for something
Ge
nt, operatives insist on that.‘The whole | | enterprise is a Jve-sndchlp tive A | proposition. i .
SH CAUSE]
of tens of millions without going into debt. . “While we were buying the island and developing it,” Odhe said, “we were, at the same time, cutting the price of flour, oatmeal and other cereals to the people and improving quality. You can figure for yourself what the profit to the private owners must have been. s « Pp Pe T= savings banks of the society do not invest in co-operative enterprises. Johansson wonlt-have it. Funds are invested in government bonds and similar securities for liquidity and can be withdrawn at any time. The whole cost of distribution, | from producer to consumer, figures up to about 16 per cent, “says, as against 25 to:30 per cent for thei independents and 17 to 18 par-eent| even among big - »Amgrican chain stores. Included is’ everything— | breakage, spoilage, waste, shrinkage, transport, rental, taxes, packing, retailing and thecrest. There. is: no middleman’s ‘profit. to. pay, because there is no middleman. The low prices which the consumer enjoys are due to a combination of things—to efficient production in modern mills, . the elimination .of ‘waste, economic handling and re‘tailing without gluttonous profits anywhere along the line, , 3 Wages are the top. : ditions are of the best. The co= |
Next—An interview. With de} Swede Who Woud .Have Run (Ford Bagged. :
by Ly
NEV. YORK, Rly 10. Ones again Mr. Lloyd George feels the stir of life and something in the tone of his remark about the present British Cabinet suggests that he is about to have another Volume of
. smacks more of "the Louisiana . Legislature than of logic and cul“ture. And it is likely to make print | wherever books are sold. Even if it dees remind the Eng- | lish-reading world that Mr. Lloyd George is an author and stimulate business for his books, nobody can ‘declare that he was merely making ballyhoo. Maybe he does think that “the present cabinet is composed of rats, although it is not always possible to discover. what he thinks [i from what he says. : The old gentleman with the white mane has been since his re- | tirement one of the most prolific
“authors of intimate history in all the world. English -
. politicians are prone to regard their cabinet as the back stairs and to keep diaries and files of miscellans eous papers for future profit. 5 American statesmen have not yet been very Slice “cessful at this sort of tattling, seeming to regard their secret, informal material, obtained under confidene * tial circumstances, as something which properly bee longs to the nation and not to themselves. Or it may be that they are merely careless, forgetting to put by the stuff day by day which would make commercial copy after the wheel has turned.
8 ® 8
His Pay Low, Expenses High
M=® LLOYD GEORGE did not get much pay ag war Prime Minister.” The income tax reduced his net to about $18,000 a year, and out of that he had to buy groceries for a great many unavoidable guests who went to Downing Street to discuss the war with him. - Benito Mussolini also did a good business ir’ memoirs, but, although he is a journalist by trade, he performed this work through thé medium of a forger, er, or spook. Perhaps he was too busy to do the job by hand, but then, too, he was known as an awful faker when he was running around northern Italy and Switzerland. It may be that he did not trust hime
-, self.
Your correspondent had a long visit with the Duce’s forger, or spook, one day last winter and , reckoned from the mode of her life that they must have cut up quite a nice hunk of American and Brite ish money. The forger was a lady, and as she spo with great feeling about the noble sacrifice of the Italian peasant women who were tossing their gold wedding rings and miserable little trinkets into the melting pot, she lay back on a divan twirling on her finger not only a wedding ring but a diamond ring with two stones each the size of a bath sponge.
"Holds No Illusions le ML LOYD GEORGE 1s by far thé best of these Ds stairs authors of the old world. The old gent “has a knack for it. He is tough, truculent, and without illusions about men who are ‘accepted
by the world as great hisiorica} figures and*national heroes.
There is no telling whether he thinks the present cabinet is composed of rats or not. During the war the old man sent armies out to capture the on colonies, but a few months ago he rose up in Com= ‘moris and gave the government the devil for not turning them back: to Hitler, Also during the war he kicked the entire Hearst outfit out of England. He detested Hearst in those days, but- in Simpson’s res taurant one night last winter he met a Hearst core respondent of the old war time and exclaimed, as he shook hands, “Well, I see we are both writing tor the same boss!” Hearst found out his price and hired the war pre< mier of England.
Merry-Go-Round
BY DREW PEARSON AND ROBERT 8S. ALLEN
ASHINGTON, July 10.—Although there will be no formal announcement for some time to come, the President’s campaign Plans gradually are taking shape. The campaign will be divided, roughly, into two parts. The first will be a tour of public works proj ects and of the drought areas of the West. The ond will be a series of quick, hard-hitting s in the bigger cities of the East. The first trip will begin toward the end of or early in September. It will be primarily an spection tour without much out-and-out poli haranguing. Most of the President’s Spoesiics
emphasize conservation, flood control, - Chief purpose of the trip will be personal con People
vention and the farm problem.
con-| tacts—always important.
to look at the President.