Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 September 1936 — Page 12
"the rugged Kansas farmer,
| : |
paper
careless autoists.
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Give Licht and the Peopls Will Find Their Own Way
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1936.
THE LAND LORDS
OV, LANDON ran quite a temperature at: Portland de- | nouncing some imaginary Roosevelt policy which he | intimated somehow deprives the farmer of being “lord of | ~ his own farm.” | Of course, in the first place, there is no Federal law which prescribes or gives any Federal agency the power to |
prescribe what crops a farmer shall or shall not plant, or in any other way interferes with the legal right of a farmer to do with his farm as he pleases. Apparently what Gov.
Landon undertook to do was to give a diabolical dictatorial
twist to the soil conservation and domestic allotment law, which is nothing more than a measure giving to individual farmers the right to participate, or. not participate, as they choose, in a voluntary co-operative program of production,
designed to conserve soil fertility and prevent price-depress- |
ing surpluses in certain cash crops. But quite aside from the
putting up a straw man to knock the stuffing out of it, the ideal he posed of every farm owner being lord of his own
land is one well worth scrutinv—from the standpoint of
public pohliev,
WE suggest that the Governor can get a good slant on this ideal if he will go back to Kansas, down to the southwest. corner—the Dust Bowl. There he should find huddled in a shack backed up against a sand drift. with that farmer to the topmost dune, and ask him what
desolation, the domain of which he is lord. Or, since about half the farm land in the country is owned by absentee landlords, other slant_on his ideal by the head
a lot of farm lands. The Governor might ask
~ of that company how much he prizes proprietorship in the
‘drought region. : Soil experts say that nature requires from 400 to 1000 years to build one inch of topsoil. The average depth of topsoil for passable farm land is seven inches. And what nature worked from 2800 to 7000 years to create can be wasted away in a fraction of one farmer's lifetime if that farmer does not take proper care of his land. One heavy -rain can wash away an inch or more of topsoil of land plowed on a hillside. Land with a gentle 8 per cent slope, planted continuously in corn, will lose seven inches by eroSion in 18 years, soil studies show.
=n n
ET Gov. Landon apparently would have us believe that “the preservation of a system of unrestricted competitive capitalism is so important that the government should
to be the “lord of his own farm.”
What rights would the Governor say the ggandson of | Electorate Like a Football
HE other day, Turner Catledge of the New York
' the land owner should have? What rights have the landowner whose farm is farther down the slope to protection from gullies which start near the top of the
- incline?
: Although the Ro aseveli Administration has not yet ~ limited the sovereignty of individual farmers, at least it has inaugurated policies which accept a measure of responsibility, and which in time might be developed into a longrange land conservation program: that would prevent the fertile West from becoming another Gobi Desert. But apparently the dust storms at Landon's own back door have taught him nothing.
DEATH ON THE HIGHWAY ; SALT LAKE CITY offers John A. Burt as its-candidate in
a nation-wide search for the safest American autoist. Mr. Burt, it is asserted, has driven 1,500,000 miles in 2914 years without an accident. But what a contrast with the rest of us! Advance statistics offer scant hope that the publicity drives of the National Safety Council, American Automobile Association and others are bearing much fruit. For the first seven months of this year the record of auto accident deaths stands at 18,560. months of last vear. quota of about 30,000 killed. The greatest increases have been on rural highways and the streets of small towns. New York and other cities
have tightened their traffic regulations, increased sentences
for reckless driving and made it tough for drunken and But fewer than 20 states have standard laws for the examination of new drivers. States with driver's license laws reduced their average death rate 21 per cent from 1926 to 1935. Indiana and other states without such laws have had to record increases of from 4 to 33 per cent! is a field for state action and co-o operation.
POLITICS AND POW ER
HE Third World Power Conference banned political discussions concerning power policies, but that won't take
the politics out of power or power out of politics—for a’ very simple reason.
Public utilities are granted monopoly by society. In re- | turn for the grant of monopoly the right of the public to regulate is conceded, theoretically. Actually, however, the efforts of government to regulate the utilities have been in the main ineffective. Therein rises the political issue. It will be with us as long as adequate regulation fails to exist. Hence, we believe, in power conferences political phases should not be banned, but rather should be discussed freely. Ve think it is bad business for a gathering signally
to deal with the subject to play ostrich-in-the-sand , be
delivered )
fact that the Governor was | indulging in the familiar rhetorical campaign exercise of |
| as the disease «! may be confiscatory, as Mr. Hutton
What rights have future | ~ generations to a source of foodstuffs?
{ tetrahedral egg. | The literary craftsman leaves as clear a mark on | | his production as the rifling of a pistol leaves on its
“THE INDIANAPOLISWIMES | Anybody Can Bag a - Stuffed Moose—By" Talburt
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler NEW YORK, Sept. 15.—Neddie Hutton,
And the Governor should walk out |
the financier, sometimes known as
: : | Uncle Tom Hutton, the tax slave, comes back thrill of pride he experienced as he surveyed the scene of | from Europe resigned to life under the lash | of Simon Legree Roosevelt after looking over
| conditions in the Old World. the Governor might get an- |
visiting the office of some in- | surance company—preferably one which has foreclosed on |
That is what
I thought, too, when (I returned last spring and I think Mr.-Hearst will bring back the same sentiment when he comes home. It doesn't take long for an American tax slave to discover that the antidote to bolshevism is just as bad itself. Our taxes
sincerely believes, but the dictators of both kinds, Fascist and Communist,- confiscate not only a man’s money and property, but also his
“freedom. And, if a fellow can hate
Roosevelt for nibbling away at tha edges of his fortune, what would be the torture of his soul if he suddenly found a lot:of arrogant ward leaders telling him to shower down with special donations, running his business for him and threatening to toss him;into Alcatraz for the rest of his life if he let out so much as a plaintive peep? It is easy to agree with Uncle Tom Hutton that
Mr, Pegler
| Roosevelt has tossed. away money in his first term
not only for sedative purposes, but to re-elect himself. The number of useless, shiftless nonentities and incompetents who have ‘been placed in mock jobs as guests of the government on the de luxe dole at wages
: : : : . [. of from $3000 to $10,000 a year exceeds the imaginanot interfere in any way with the right of every landowner |
tion of the most indignant economic royalist in the
land. n o »
Times had a piece which I believe was exelusive, announcing that after election Mr. Roosevelt is going to reorganize the government, consolidate bureaus
| and all such as that—object, efficiency and economy. {| We heard that before in 1932, but maybe the boss does" | mean it now because he is very mulish about his pet
ideas and once he is re-elected he doesn't have to care about the squawks of the faithful parasites of the Democratic organization because he knows he can't grab the brass ring for a third ride. He can dust them off by the thousand because he, personally, will be all washed up after the second term and the country will either bounce toward a new Republican party or go still more bolo in 1940. As Knute Rockne used to say, a football has a funny shape and takes funny hops, and the electorate has the same characteristics. Yet, if the boss does go in for a ruthless slaughter the next time around, the victims will scream, but tax slaves like Uncle Tom Hutton and the people themselves, receiving the benefit of more efficient government plus other reforms, might consider another Democrat and four years more of the same. It is my impression that Uncle Tom Hutton has been a pretty good loser. In the boom years when people were all more or less dizzy he was a leader in the Palm Beach set. ® n 5
Hutton Helped Out
Bl ne the panic cracked down, Uncle Tom Hutton quit all the foolishness and ran a free
| restaurant: for busted guy$ in New York, gave away { a lot of money and did his best to help. In July, June and May the toll exceeded the same | At this rate we may exceed the usual | against high taxes that made 10.000 votes for Mr. Big. Now he says that in spite of the taxes. Roosevelt | and all he-is going to stick around. by contrast with | the Greenwich (Conn.) broker who announced that i if Roosevelt was elected he was going to bail out and
Later he tried to campaign against Roosevelt, but decided that every time a rich man let out a holler
go to Canada. Welcome home, Uncle Tom, and may you always find plenty of side-meat in the cabin.
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it—Voltaire.
CONTENDS SPRINGER MISREPRESENTS FACTS By Dora Wall, Brooklyn, Ind.
I have just read Raymond 8S. Springer’s speech made at Alexandria in which he sald Gov. McNutt had inaugurated the “spoils system” in his administration. May I ask the name éf the system the last four Republican Governors used? “Spoiled” doesn’t describe it; it was rotten. | It strikes me as pathetic when a man tries to make a speech to defend a party that has been guilty of the very thing he must condemn so strongly now. Can any one recall a time when the Republicans were in power in this state when a Democrat had a job handed out to him? : Where the law requires that both parties be represented, the Democrats were always in the minority: A Democrat never got an appointive office. Wasn't that the “spoils system”? ; Mr. Springer ean not point to any achievements the Republicans have made, so he misrepresents facts. . . Mr. Springer thinks Gov. McNutt has set the state back 25 years. How? I ask. The state was bankrupt when Gov, McNutt took office. Teachers were not paid; churches ‘and other buildings were made into soup houses. Now Indiana, like another state we hear so: much about, has a ‘balanced budget’— and not with Federal funds, either. There are times when silence is golden, Mr. Springer. 8 #7 = RECALLS FATHER WON PRIZE AT FIRST FAIR By Marietta L. Miller, Chillicothe, O.
I have just read in The Times the “Indiana History” article on the first State Fair, held in 1852. It awakened so many memories and traditions that have been handed down to me that I am inspired to relate them. - My father wasya Marion County farmer. That year he had gone to Kentucky and brought home a fine Durham bull calf to build up his herd. When the fair opened, he proudly entered his bull calf and was awarded first premium. As father had to remain at the Fairground to look after his calf, mother and the little boys were left to look after the home and the livestock, with "the help of neighbors. Father had also arranged with a neighbor to take our family to see the fair . ... I was a babe in arms. I am wondering how many there are today who were there then. I have lived all my life in Marion County until the last two years, and have atJehded most of the succeeding state airs
yx | CLAIMS RAILROADS | CAUSE ANNOYANCES | By J. Ed Burk
{ I am calling your attention to | various annoyances of the railroad | trains that proceed down the Big | Four Railroad. Chicago Division, | especially engines on passenger
General Hugh Johnson Says—— EW YORK, Sept. ghost. The Portland speech could no more have y that this Administration's failure to be short-changed
been written by the hand that produced the Chautau- | qua and Middlesex speeches than a hen could lay a
bullets. The Landon acceptance speech bears the unmistakable mark of at least five separate word - mechanics. The author of the West Middlesex and Chautauqua speeches was in large part Landon. Ap# comparison with" his letters and his speeches as thé Governor, reveals his touch as clearly as fingerprints on a window pane. But this new effort in Maine! No newspaper man —no ‘discriminating reader—could be deceived into thinking that the 10 and I2-word headliner sentences of the latest Landon efiort were not written by some snappy ad-writer of high-pressure selling patter. % "FF oF NY public man is entitled to pick the brains of his staff for anything he can get to put in his public speeches. Mr. Roosevelt is a master at that. But Re picks oniy what expresses himself and his own personality. : But, on a careful reading of Gov. Landon’s first five efforts, at least eight different methods of expression and 380 Several distinct and discordant Shilosaphies ‘are heard coming out of "he 1 mouth of the Governor of
15—Gov. Landon’s got a new |
The most astonishing statement in the speech is
again by European diplomacy in the London economic
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)
trains running at high speed across
the intersection of Harlan-st and Fletcher-av. According to my information, that is a two-mile zone which calls for a 20-mile-per-hour speed limit.. Some day it is just going to be too bad when one of these. trains connects with an automobile, for we have inadequate warning signals at Harlah-st. I am also complaining, as I did several years ago, of the unnecessary whistling of these locomotives, particularly yard engines which run around four or five miles an hour and whistle their heads off.
#8 =» BETTER JOBS HELD WPA WORKERS’ AIM
.| By Earl F. Stone
I would like to express my thought in behalf of WPA fellow-workers
who have had better jobs and are not satisfied with relief work, but who are making the best of it. I was standing on a street corner talking to a gentleman when the question came up about being satisfied with relief work. I-told him I wasn't satisfied with a WPA job and a lady waiting for a street car asked me if I worked on WPA. , Of course, I told her I did, and she said, in a hateful, overbearing ‘tone, “What do you want? You have a good job,” and blurted out that a poor dumbbell like me would never get a good job. A person who is satisfied with a
SEPTEMBER BY BARBARA G. GRIFFITH
Grape-scented mornings sweet and cool, When happy school, Until-a golden sun at noon, Smiles down again as warm as June. And yet, in sapphire heavens bright, A harvest moon, will shine tonight.
DAILY THOUGHT
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. —St. Matthew 24:5.
O swallow and follow, whether old doctrines or new pro ganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind. —Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
children trudge to
The Scherrer, Pyle, Ferguson, Fishbein and Science columns have been moved from this
page to the Feature Page (Page 11).
ASHING
1 ballots will include 10,000,000 new
litical prosperity rainbow is a |e) brick. If we really want “se-
| | $60-a-month WPA job and does | not want a better job must never | have had much of anything in past years or is just one of those lazy, | happy-go-lucky “cusses” who would | not. work at a real job. Can't the American people wake | up and understand that we should | enjoy the fruits of our labor (if we | labor), the same as the aristocrat | who enjoys the fruits of our labor? | If our money was in circulation, | as it should be, and easy to get, | there would be more work in these United States than labor to do it. It would furnish decent living conditions for the masses. There must be more in life than just a mere existence if we are to prosper as a ‘nation and everybody is to enjoy the abundance of everything put here by God at man's disposal. We must not destroy it. Are we going to be called dumbbells for wanting better jobs?
2 o = CONSUMERS URGED TQ CONTROL GOODS By H. L. Seeger The great national sham battle of
voters as participants on Nov. 3. The presumption exists that if one party or the other gets control of the political jobs that go with the majority party, then all will be well with the losers, regardless of the other factors.
One of our wildest ideas is, that political parties produce good iimes or bad times. Under our economic structure of privately owned and operated business, we create those peaks of prosperity and valleys of depression by our failure to recognize that production and distribution of wealth is as much a matter of public concern as public health or public safety.
Exploiting of our neighbors seems to be assumed as the “constitutional right” of individuals. That sort of “right” is not far from the viewpoint of the Sypreme Court in the Dred Scott case. That case rested upon the right to exploit human labor, through ownership of the person. Modern exploitation is but a modified form of slavery. Upon this principle 1of exploitation rests our whole economic structure of production for profit. The means of production must rest with the consumers of the products of industry. That of course means more widespread ownership of industry, wide enough to include all the consumers.
The pot of gold at the end of our
rity,” the consumers must organize to get control of the means cof production, to produce for the “profit and use of the consumer.” That can not be achieved with | ballots or bullets, but with sacrifice and intelligence, in organizing as consumers to create goods for human consumption as a primary object, rather than to depend upon individual producers to produce goods for human exploitation. That means consumer economic organization, entering as competitors of the exploiters, and ignoring
wolitical buncombe.
N, Sept. 15.—Democratic advisegs
conference—its refusal to tie up the dollar to the pound and turn control of American price structure and
| foreign trade over to the Bank of England—is respon-
sible for the present world madness and threat of war. s = 2
HE writer knows some of the greater authorities on that subject. None believes what Gov. Landon says. Few are altogether agreed on the effects of that incident. But such an extreme and dogmatic statement on this vexed and highly debatable technical problem by a man whose information and experience in this field is nil, would be shocking in its imprudence if it were not so clear that he spoke as a parrot speaks. But who put this dangerous doctrine in his mouth? Franklin Roosevelt did not make and could not have checked economic nationalism in The World War made it and the the only American impulse it got was the iniquitous Smoot-Hawley tariff under Hoover. That was followed instantly by reprisals in tariff and quotas that honeycombed the world in water-tight compartments. What did Gov. Landon’s mentor mean? Did he mean we should now again sit down at the European poker-table with the treaty repudiators who are re‘sponsible for the condition he deplores, and retreat from the present Rooseveitian position isolation?
ing with potential trouble.
_ dissension, the Kings County Democratic organization
who hang around Jim Farley's desk are far from cheerful about the New York situation and the prospects for victory in the state next November. A major reason for their uneasiness is the removal
proceedings now in progress before Gov. Lehman against District Attorney Geoghan of Brooklyn (Kings County). Underneath is a political powder keg burst-
The situation may play a decisive role in determining ‘which way New York's all-important 47 elec toral votes go Nov. 3. Here is the behind-the-scenes reason: Kings County is the most populous in New York state and has the largest Democratic registration. Unlike Tammany, which is split wide open with internal
is a virile and closely knit machine. If can deliver the vote—as evinced by the tact that it re-elected Geoghan in 1034 despite sensational charges against
him. Wie the conceded strong anti-New Deal sentit prevalent in up-state New York, Roosevelt must carry Manhattan and the adjoining boroughs by a big majority in order to hold the state in his column. To get this heavy majority he must ‘have organization.
~ » »
backing ihe Rugs Coumy she : is already n 05 Dicdly to we | ‘may
It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun
NEW YORK, Sept. 15.—In a North Dakota
town of 1000 people, 800 tried to get in to see a play when a Federal Theater unit came to town. Most of the adults had not seen an actor in 20 years, and none of tha
children had ever gazed upon a performer
except in the movies. You Broadway cynics may remark that the be-
leaguered thousands had not missed much and that: you would not care particularly if you never saw an-
other actor in the next century. Buf that would be your baser nature talking. : Even if the movies ever come of "age I don't think that they should walk across the face of that art which must regretfully admit that it, is the parent. It would be silly to deny that the picture people do good things upon occasion, but most of these fine ventures havein them an accidental quality, Hollywood is a factory which takes mountains as its raw ma--terial and then proceeds to go into the mass production of mo.e hills. : Every now and then somebody goes into the .famtasy of what Shakespeare would have done had he been tapped for the coast. Some of the film reviewers have stated that he would have been just crazy about the screen version of his “Romeo and Juliet.” I don’t profess to know how he would have liked it.
Mr. Broun
=" = =
Praise for Boondoggling UT I came not so much to swat the movies 4s to praise the boondoggling of the present Administration. The very enterprises which have been assailed as wastefully extravagant seem to me the finest achievements of the Roosevelt regime. It may be that we have been anxious‘ not to ape the ways of the Old World, but certainly America has been a: long time in getting around to doing even a fragtion of what many foreign governments do for the theater. Of course, the Landonites are basing their campaign upon economy and a strict reduction of the functions of government. Many a Republican orator has stated that the less government we have the better and that, outside of passing measures for the preservation of law and order, Congress should sit by and do nothing. Both farce and tragedy have found their way to the stage*through the Federal Theater, and I hopa that sooner or later Hallie Flanagan will tackle a revue; or a musical comedy. . = un n >
Take the Candy, Buddy -
I AM told that my grandchildren will have to pay for all these fripperies of the New Deal. I'm sorry, but as yet I can not weep for. my grandchildren. I haven't seen them. Still, I will admit that I have a concern about the kind of world in which they may, if any, be born. But I would wish them nothing better than the legacy of becoming arrivals in a land of beauty and joy, even if that did entail some burdens upon the prosperous. Somehow or other I see my grandchildren as extremely rich. I don’t mean that any inheritance is moving in theair direction, but they will have their grandfather as = such a powerful example. Some tiny tot will be told. to put his penny in the bank and pass up the lollipop. “Remember,” his stern parent will say, ‘your Grandfather Heywood died in the old men’s home, He never could remember to put anything aside for a rainy day.” But if I can speak to that infant down the years Il tell him, “Buddy, take_ the candy and let tha _ compound interest go. What's a little rain after the fun you've had?”
The Washington Merry-Go-Round
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
the warpath and secretly “knife” both the Governor and Roosevelt. This might well prove fatal to the New Deal ticket in the entire state. Still -further complicating the situation for the Democrats is the fact that the two leading pro-New Deal newspapers in New York City are leaders in the agitation for the removal of Geoghan. These papers have been demanding his scalp and bombarding Leh- ° man with clamor for drastic action. - : If the Governor pussyfoots on the issue, or refuses to fire Geoghan, they are certain to criticise him— thus again playing into G. O. P. hands. For the Governor and, indirectly, the President, the situation is one of a choice between ‘the frying pan and the fire.
® = = ATHER CHARLES COUGHLIN is planning to add a school to his ornate stone Shrine of the Littla
"Flower, at Royal Oak, Mich. It will be built with con.
tributions from his radio followers. The priest broke this news to his parishioners the other Sunday in the form of a request for funds to buy the necessary ground. Next day a non-Catholic admirer donated a 17':-acre tract for the purpose. Co 's’ following among non-Catholics is ons of the remarkable things about his Shrine. On the usher staff there are four non- -Catholics. This is unusual in a Catholic: Shih: te his Coughlin says Jushose puniding proposed school is to “teach and expound the practices and principals of Ct