Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 July 1936 — Page 10
(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) W. HOWARD + + « «so so so + o's President
UDWELL DENNY + . so se 60s ++; « « Editor RL D, BAKER + + + + + + + + +» Business Manager
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Their Own Way SATURDAY, JULY 18,
1938.
THE PUBLIC'S BUSINESS
HE public's business is the public's business. Thomas gf Kemp, general manager of . the Citizens Gas and Coke Utility, and other responsible heads of that property of the citizens of Indianapolis, apparently forgot this maxim when they kept secret the letting of contracts for $400,000 of new equipment on June 22, Mr. Kemp explains today: “The contracts were not made public at that time because there was nothing to be gained by it. We knew that the story would come out when the contractors applied for building permits.” Such facts regarding the public business should not “come out.” They should be announced officially by the employes of the people to the people.
THEY HATE ROOSEVELT
N elderly doctor in California, oppressed by the plight of the aged poor, conceives what he be- . lleves to be a cure for their poverty. Expounding his idea with great zeal, he is overwhelmed by the re sponse he receives from those whom he proposes to jelp. He finds himself heading a great and right pou’ cilisade, a crusade that is bigger than himself, The crusade becomes political and politicians run to It sweeps down upon Washington to engulf the nations} capital. But it doesn’t. A sane, des termined, elected leader of the country sets himself He knows, what every student of economics knows, that the plan won't work. His sympathy for the aged poor is equal to that of the California doctor; he is going as far as he can go, ‘and farther than any President ever has gone be- ~ fore, to protect them against want. . The Townsend movement is wrecked. As for Dr. Townsend— He hates Roosevelt. ” » 8 | YOUNG Catholic priest in Michigan discovers that the magic of his voice is not lost on the
~ radio, that he can sway thousands by their firesides _ as easily as he can sway dozens in their pews. He has
& burning conviction that what is wrong with the
country, what is responsible for the misery of his
parishioners, is the banking system. He finds in-’
- stant popular response when he turns loose his “wrath upon the bankers and presently he is swept off his feet by a crusade of his own launching. He ~ adopts inflation as his cure for poverty and he carries his cure to Washington. The politicians start running for cover. None, they think, can stand before this priest's vast army of radio listeners. But the President, engaged in fighting the bankers to some real purpose, does stand, and the threat of inflation dies away on the ether in which |: it was born. As for Father Coughlin— He hates Roosevelt.
® » » : ‘PROTESTANT preacher in Louisiana, with a gift for turning the Bible to blasphemous uses, falls heir to the political dictatorship built by the demagoguery of Huey Long. He had witnessed and participated in a crusade, less sincere and less widespread than the two described, built on a less-than-half-baked plan for dividing the country’s wealth. He had seen his hero, by cunning and gall, chase the politicians in Washington to cover. And he had - geen Huey’s great one-man movement wrecked like= Wise when it came head-on against the President. So the Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith— “He hatés Roosevelt. : 2 8 =» 5 ‘HIS week in Cleveland are gathered from all : parts of the country some thousands of aged poor people. They have come to Dr. Townsend's ~ convention to consider plans for carrying his crusade forward, to get it going again. They have got there the best way they could, surmounting real hardships in most cases to make the trip. They are living ~ there the best way they can, some in cheap hotels, some in the parks, eating nickel sandwiches and drinking milk. - They gather all day in the great hall to hear the wisdom of their leaders. Not only Town-
send—and the smart ‘lads who have turned his |
crusade into a profitable organization—is there to talk to them, But Father Coughlin speaks. He takes off his coat and collar—he unfrocks himself literally, as he unfrocked himself figuratively many months ago—and he talks to them. And the Rev. Gerald Smith speaks. He takes his Bible from his ‘hip pocket and he gives them the stuff that stirs the canebrake camp meetings. |
And as the eager, wistful old folks drink it in.
Thirsting as they do for a little light in their darkness, for a little hope in their despair, what do they Jearn? What have they learned thus far this week m these three speakers? They have learned only Dr. ‘Townsend and Father Coughlin and the Bev. Gerald Smith, like the “princes of privilege” and
pnomic royalists” in the Liberty League and the
re -stocked clubs’— ‘Hate Roosevelt.
AT THE X-ROADS
JF 10.veans. Miss Esabiths Dut Wout tte : or Spalis Mulley golf Samplonsiy. This year she dropped out of the city competition. She did not say so, but we are told she dropped out to make sure the local honors were passed around. Now she has won the state women's golf crown seven years. It may be that she wants to take the championship 10 times to tie her city record. Miss Harriett Randall, another Indianapolis player, who ‘was state runner-up last year and again this week, promises to make this a difficult feat. . We congratuls#te these players, and others who will be out again for the women’s golf title next year, for their keen rivalry and good sportsmanship.
PARKING METERS
ONALD F. STIVER, director of the State Department of Public Safety, returns from a trip to the Southwest with a recommendation that Indianapolis and other Indiana cities adopt parking meters. : The meter plan of attempting to solve the parking problem was started in Oklahoma City a year
reports “at least 60 otHer cities have installed meters or are planning to do so.” Oklahoma City . officials report queries regarding the meters from , such far-off places as Iraq, Hawaii and South Africa. Cities where parking meters are in operation include El Paso, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, Tex., Kansas, City, Mo., and Miami and St. Petersburg, Fla. The Tacoma (Wash. City Council postponed installation pending court sanction.
Meters were installed at Memphis and then removed without explanation. Louisville, Ky., and Pontiac, Mich. failed to reach agreement with manufacturers as to who should pay the cost of sidewalk repair should the meters prove unsatisfactory and have to be removed. Tulsa definitely rejected the plan, as did Omaha, whose corporation counsel went on record as a supporter of “freedom of the curbstone.” Cities which have taken up the question of metered parking more or less seriously include Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Fresno, San Francisco, Seattle, Toledo and Washington, Fifty cities have sent investigators to study the Oklahoma City meters in operation, 44 to see the Dallas system. While motorists have not been universally enthusiastic, city officials and merchants have praised the parking meters. More information no doubt would be welcomed regarding a parking plan which
cities without parking meters will be out of date.”
BUSINESS—AND BEWAILING
HE G. O. P. state platform writers, who deplored “government interference and competition with business,” and critics who accuse the New. Deal of retarding recovery, may not have been reading the ‘papers. We suggest shey ponder these recent Indiana news stories:
Employment and pay rolls increased in June for the fifth consecutive month, contrary to the usual seasonal decline.
Clarence A. Jackson, state gross income tax director, announced that collections thus far in 1936 show a continued increase in Hoosier income. The Tepartment of “Agriculture reported a May increasz in Indiana farm income of more than $2,000,000 over May, 1935. Cash sales of live stock and crops increased. ~- County’ Recorder Ira P. Haymaker said ‘second quarter: figures’ on:property transfers showed a definite upward business trend. The Indiana license department reported a gain of 40,535 passenger automobiles and 8054 trucks for the first half of 1936, over the same period last year, indicating a sharp rise in business activity. There are 81,147 more driving licenses in force today than at this time last year.
s n » HE and commercial buflding activity in Indianapolis shows the biggest increase in years, while building trade unions report employmént gains ranging from 50 per cent to more than double the 1935 figure. Home building increased 200 per cent during the first six months of 1936. Indianapolis postal receipts were Teporied as ranking twentieth in the nation,
New automobile registrations in Marion Cqunty So far this year show a gain of several thousands over last year.
Bank ‘ deposits are up. Manufacturing shows marked improvement. Steel operations are near the 1929 levels. And remember, this is an election year, when business is “supposed to be bad.” ‘Some of those profiting most from this new boom in business are those doing the loudest lamenting about the New Deal. They're ‘makitiy money - again—and how Hey hate it.
| A WOMAN’S' VIEWPOINT By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
. A MEMPHIS woman, member of the bar, writes to express her outrage at the brutal treatment of inmates of the State Reform School at Nash- - ville, Tenn. Horrifying stories were written recently of a case in which a boy was lashed into insensibility - by guards, and further investigation has disclosed a dreadful condition.
Our correspondent has some pertinent things to say on the subject. “Men never institute reforms" Is that. true, gentlemen? “It is ‘nearly always women who have to do that, and it seems to me
may be a civilized and a Christian nation, but I
civilized when we penuit such brutalities to continue.”
How right she ist
nessee reform school. . Possibly the tale will s be hushed up. But these outrages agg'riot uncommon. Proof of that is found in the stories about ich Tiare accgis out fron Paw eveay go:
ago, Since then fd has spread until the United Press -
caused Mr. Stiver to predict that “in a short time
{can not
time we did something about reform schools. This
doubt it seriously. We must be a long way from
Our treatment of ‘criminals i will brand us forever as barbarians to future gen- fe erations. ‘And it is such treatment that makes possible the cruel methods recently exposed at the Ten-
might pay the weather man to
come’ down from his high perch and his delicate instruments and stand a while in the sun with the rest of us. He might learns thing or two. ,
an 1 5. 11 bet hie weather mab} | doesn’t know what you're talking
about when you bring up the subject of the “back-sprung” girls in our town. All right, I'll start at the begin-
ning. A “back-sprung” gf is the |
very latest—and I hope to Heaven,| | =
the last—meteorological phenome-
non of the summer, At present, it's! |
a phenomenon confined to our department stores, but there's no telling when or how it will spread.
Seems like a lady clerk can't sit| down any length of time these days| |
without something happening to her
back, or rather to the back of her | dress. The dress begins to bulge and | gets bigger and bigger: until finally |
it looks like a balloon. Indeed, like
a balloon it sometimes bursts. A| girl in that predicament w said tof
be “back-sprung?” - Nobody can account for the phenomenon. Some people who have opinions about everything, including even women, say it’s the cut of
{modern dresses, which is a euphemistic way of saying it’s the tight-
ness of modern dresses, Others say it’s the makeup of modérn materials. And others; to. which this column belongs, say it's just the heat and let it go at that. Anyway, I
thought the weather ‘man might ,
like to know. ” ” =
ND if the weather man were living down in the street instead of up in the clouds he'd know something about the plight of a gang of carpenters on a certain building operation) in Indianapolis. The carpenters ‘on the job, tired of the way the sun was behaving, decided among themselves to begin work at 5 o'clock in the morning instead of around 8 o'clock, as they had been doing. The new arrangement enabled them, of course; lo knock‘ off work around 1 or 2 o'clock, just about the time the sun was getting ready to do its worst. The contractor saw the validity of their argument and everything was going fine until the union. representative turned up and made the men go back on the old .schedule. Said it was an infraction of union rules. But :that ‘wasn't all. The eon tractor had to come through and pay the men “time and a half” for all the “extra” hours they put in.
r 2 » 2 3 HICH leaves me just enough
space to observe that practically all the parasols you see nowadays are carried by Negro women. The fact that nearly all happen to be red parasols has nothing to do with the story. ; I took up the matter with one of the women. “Why,” said she, “don’t you happen to know that if you: hold up
_|your right hand in this:here kind:
o’ weather it's goin” to do you more good than all tite salt water you can drink?” “I s'pose,” she continued confidentially, “it’s got sumpin’ to do with.the circulation of your blood.” I filed it under “Materia Medica.”
Ask The Times
Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of faet or in-: formation to The Indienapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13thst, N. W., Washington. D. C. Legal and medical advice can not be given, nor can extended research be undertaken.
Q—Is an alien who entered the United States illegally early in 1823 and has lived here continuously ‘ever since, subject to deportation? Can he now take out citizenship papers? A~—If he has lived here contin ously and unmolested since his entry in 1923, he is not now subject to deportation. However, he has no legal residence in the United States, and be naturalized without leaving the country, re-entering legally, and establishing a residence for the required number of years.
Q—How did “Pussyfoot” Johnson lose his eye? :
A—In a prohibition meeting at | ‘London,
Essex Hall, England, in 1919, when he was hit by a missile
{nev by come ane’ ithe andl.
A
The Hoosier Forum I disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire.
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns. religious controversies excluded. Make wour letters short. so all can have a chance. Limit them to 250 words or less. Your letter must be signed, but names will be withheld on reouest.) 8 8. 8
READER DISLIKES PEGLER,
‘SULLIVAN COLUMNS
By Ima Reader
When Westbrook Pegler’s column started in The Times I supposed he
was only a bumptious, smart alecky
kid, perhaps the son of some stockholder who could not place him elsewhere, but in the course of a year he has made ‘cracks intimating that some of the old reliable writers are his bosom friends, and that he has been bumping around -in the Journalistic world for 20 years.
Is it possible that any teachable
person could hang around printing | ©
offices that long and not even begin to grasp the very fundamentals of the craft, what a newspaper is for, what readers want? He is my nomination for America's prize boob, and I believe he holds the allAmerican championship for. Dessimism and cynicism. . ‘Mark Sullivan is another painful misfit that might well be given
Your Health
BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. .
N old Irish doctor ‘once ‘said
that there are two types of deafness—one due to wax in’ the ear and curable, and the other not due to’'wax and not curable. There also are several kinds of
earache—the two main elasses be-:
ing those due to infection inside the ear that usually is carried from the nose and throat, and those resulting from other causes.
The average man can guess at the
cause of a stomachache or even at the cause of a headache, but he can hardly guess the cause of an earache. This can be diagnosed on' by some one trained in, esam:nation of ears.
Sometimes an earache is caused
by a boil or an infection in. the terior down to the eardrum.
There was a time when people
used to carry earspoons in their pockets, and would use them even in public for what they were supposed to be good for. The .ear~ spoon disappeared from polite society, however, long before the toothpick lost caste. When a boil, begins in the canal | that leads down to the the tissues around the boil promptly swell. Swelling means esture,
a place along with Pegler. Sullivan can use more words to say the least and say the same thing day after day than any one I know. I dare you to print a ballot and let readers vote their preference for your writers. - Good old reliable Broun’ is always interesting; Barhes is also. excellent; Gen. Johnson combines wit with common sense in a way. that makes ‘you want more of his ‘logic; ‘Clapper is good most of the. time and Dutcher always gives interest+ ing information. - Your own: editorial writers comprehend national affairs and portray them in a manner that has no equal.
IT have been. interested in The.
Times for about 40 years—I had a paper route when it was The Sun. I
‘| have always ‘admired its fearless
and unbjased editorials, its policy. ell“the truth regardless of. .who or how it hurt; but ar of my friends have expressed extreme dislike for the philosophy—if it can rightly, be so termed—of Pegler and Sullivan, and we surely will not continue to support a newspaper that seems unable to understand what a detriment these misfits are to a metropolitan paper. Get us a Tracy, a Kaufman, give us ‘more Barnes, Broun, Dutcher of have your own able writers an the
: ‘space—P : TERMS wedLThiyd HATRED
OF F. D. R. STRANGE By Hiram Lackey * A Republicari business man came to me yesterday, complaining ‘that he was desperately worried. © He yearned for peace: of mind.
He "| begged me to help adjust him to a
Sittin inal: is more than ‘he: can ar, He was rsuaded to prayer and eh By His friends insist on and ‘expect him to work for the election of Landon. i ne His intelligence and (education enables him to compre the fact that it is ridictilous to prate about giving adequate relief to the unemployed- and at the same time of balancing the -budget, without “offering anything more constructive | than the Republicans offer to solve
canal which leads from the ex-]> uM ploy ent ang labor -prob- :
lems. I askéd this wealthy man why he hated President Roosevelt—his friend, who saved our American aristocracy from the destruction of a bloody communistic revolution | and to whom our are so deeply indebted Ir their prosperity. His answers,’ the answers of h
tability, children, if slums, unemploy~ ‘ment, profits, scdrée, money, flop, ‘houses, rags,
A 3
group, ‘as ‘any ‘psychiatrist knows, can be. explained only in terms cf abnormal psychology. After his confidence had been won, he relaxed into the twilight stage of sleep. He was given the word “Roosevelt.” Then * slowly and painfully the following words arose from his marginal consciousness: “Bank failure, horror, recovery, permanent, conservation, bloodless, revolution, "courage, taxes, hate, his, class, disloyalty, courage, progress, education, abundance, leisure, build, peace, hope, charity.” Then: he was given the word, “Landon.” His lips moved: “Horse, buggy, selfishness, Liberty League, Wall Sirest Republicanism, respecidle, rich, hunger,
ickal;. cup, coffee, please.” Then the patient was shown how that’ if our gratitude be inverted, we tend to hate President Roosevelt and his recovery measures, because they remind us of the horrors of bank failures and other Hooveristic thorns of reaction. Also that the wealthy simply can’t bear Roosevelt's seeming class disloyalty.
“TIME, PLACE AND YOU BY JAMES D. ROTH
Fe Over the | Shseshold and outward
with sul, flowers and muffled No turning back, you're at journey’s
The: os called, “with clay. you'lh blend.
When you have won your heavenly : spurs, And, from earthly cares are free, A permanent reward is yours. For: it’s written—“Come unto me.”
‘Now is the time, here is the place,
You who are infinitely small, Should pray for strength to win the race, Be Sd for His call.
DAILY THOUGHT
“For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.—Hebrews 3:4.
‘ET the chain of second ca .be ever so long, the first is ivays in God's hand.—Laving-. | ton.
>. ;
SIDE ECLANGES By Gone Clarke
i ft 4 i ' ‘
Vagabond
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE
Ernie Pyle has interrupted his regu« r itinerary fo make a quick trip inte drought country. Aftef completing
C 2FpEs i
“I don't know of & man in neighborhood that wouldn't go RT he could,” Mr. Keeler said. “But how could I go? I haven't any money. I'm too old to break in and make my way in a hew place. I'm not able to work much any
{ more.”
Will Keeler came here from Iowa 35 years ago. He bought a “re linquishment.” A homestead somebody had started and didn’t finish. He had 320 meres.
: HE grew *trom a young man into an old man without ever leaving his 320. He never got rich. Some years he had good crops, and some years he didn’t. But he got along, And then eight or 10 or 12 years ago—Will Keeler doesn’t remember just when it was—things started g0= ing to pot. . A bank failed and he lost some money. There was a year or two of drought and no crops. Theré was a year or two of big crops, but low prices. Will Keeler kept sinkg. Finally he rented out the farm, and moved up to 15 acres he had bought about half a mile from this village. “I had $3000 when we ‘came up here,” he said. “I'd still have been ‘all right if I'd just have let the farm go right then and kept the$3000.
“But I kept paying the instalments on the mortgage, and spending a little here and there, and the first thing I knew the money was gone, and then the farm went.” Rural Credit got it. Rural Credit is the state farm loan organization. Mr. Keeler says Rural Credit and. the insurance companies have most of the farms sroune here. 2 ” R. KEELER and I looked around. There wasn't a stalk of. corn in sight. “See that field right there,” he said. “Corn was planted in there, and it. . never even came up.” A woven wire fence on the other side of the road. was buried nearly post high in drifted ‘dust. Grasshoppers were leaping’ all around. The wind was steady and scorching. “When I first came here we had some dry years,” Mr. Keeler said, “but not these terrible hot winds. Why, the corn couldn’t live in this: wind even if there wasn’t a drought.” I asked him what he thought the government should. do. . He said the main thing right now ° is to enable the farmers to keep their milk cows, so they'll have something to stars another herd fwith next year. They'll have to have feed loans. Will Keeler is on relief now. He worked on the roads all last fall, and got $40 a month. Then he got the flu, and was in bed two months, He can’t do hard work any more. So he’s on straight relief. He gets $12 a month. He has no children, / His wife will be 65 in a month or. two. . 2, WELVE allies isn't much; but Will Keeler could scrape by on it, plus’ what he could raise for
| himself. . Except . .
He planted 250 cucumber plants, and a couple of aeres of sweet corn, - and a couple of acres of potatoes, and a lot of little things like that. The corn came up, but the hot wilds cooked it, and there isn’t any
The cucumbers were all right till the grasshoppers came. There aren't. any cucumbers now. Mr. Keeler’s potatoes went to the beetles. They have one milk cow and a couple of dozen hens. Raised about 75 chickens this year. Can’t raise any more than that; nothing to feed them. The cow gives good milk, Will Keeler doesnt know why, There isn't a bite of grass in the. Hiile pasture for her. “How are you going to get the. winter?” I asked him. High. “I don’t know,” Will Keeler said,
JULY 18 _ INDIANA HISTORY