Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 September 1936 — Page 12

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The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) :

EARL D. BAKER Business Manager

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LUDWELL DENNY

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- MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1936.

SEASON'S END

HE Indianapoiis Indians heaped considerable glory upon | themselves before Milwaukee won the American Asso- |

ciation playoff finals yeslerday. The Indians got off to a bad start in the 1936 season. A disastrous eariy road trip put them down in the second division for several weeks. Then the club began a comeback. It climaxed this drive by nosing out Minneapolis, 1935 champions, for a first division place, and in the first playoff series defeated St. Paul, this year’s second place team, four games to one. The pennant-winning Milwaukee Brewers, particularly tough competition for Indianapolis all season, took the playoff finals by the same margin.

BANKS, BANKING, BANKERS HE meeting of the American Bankers’ Association this week in San Francisco might well be turned into a thanksgiving service. For at no time in years have the banks of America faced brighter prospects. How different from four years ago when the bankers

met in Los Angeles, in the midst of another political cam- | That was the year when bankers went sleepless at night, mourning the loans they had been forced to call, |

paign.

and afflicted by nightmares in which they saw depositors storming at their doors. Yet the bankers dt Los Angeles heard Secretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills solemnly declare that the Hoo- | ver program had made the nation’s banking and credit structure secure. And just as solemnly the bankers passed | resolutions which now sound weird. One noted that busi- | ness improvement was under way; another branded bank- | deposit guaranties as unworkable; another deplored the increase in the maximum amount of a postal savings ac- | count, by which the government sought to combat wide- | spread hoarding; another frowned on a proposal to make | commercial banks give up their security business; another | urged delay in the establishment of a home loan bank sys- | tem, ‘and another demanded a reduction in government borrowing and taxation. : u n n "| HE bankers had no monopoly on blindness at that time. | They were not the only ones who failed to see that our economic "and financial and social system was tobog- | ganing toward a crisis which would make the adoption of new methods imperative to survival. The crisis came in March, 1933, and scarcely a bank was still doing business when Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office. The new President was as-beset by" conflicting counsel as his predecessor had been. But unlike the latter, he had confidence in the people, and the people had confidence in him; and he was bold and quick in matters | where the other had been timid and slow. Some of the new President's close advisers were convinced that it was impossible to reconstruct a workable new private banking system on the wreckage of the old. They held that the easier way—indeed perhaps the only | way out—was for the government to take over the banks lock, stock and barrel, or set up competitive banking facilities in the postal system. But the man now charged by some political enemies with having communistic leanings

decided otherwise. » = n JHE reform and_relief measures which he put through during the bank holiday, and in the months that followed, are too numerous to relate here. They. included: Divorcement of banks from the business of stock jobbing,

ending abuses of a few which had brought the old banking

Another Feature of the

Indiana, 83 a | year; outside of Indiana, | f5 cents a month. Ad- | dress 214-220 W. Mary- |

| conduct

system into disrepute; strengthening the Federal Reserve Svstem: extensive loans to enable banks remaining open |

* to meet depositor demands: speedy liquidation of the assets | of closed banks; RFC purchase of stocks, notes and de- |

bentures to build up capital structure; relieving banks of distressed mortgages through the FCA and HOLC and the creation of a healthy new market for bank credit through the FHA, and—perhaps the most potent of all in easing public fears—the insurance of deposits through the FDIC. Through all of these measures has run one dominant | purpose—the re-establishment of public confidence in banks. | The bankers meeting in San Francisco may disagree with some of the New Deal reforms. But one thing is sure. They can indulge in their dissents leisurely. They | know the banks back home still will be open when they |

return.

LOOK WHO'S HERE! | VICE PRESIDENT GARNER hung up his gun and fishin’ | pole down in Uvalde, Tex., bought him a sporty new Homburg fedora, went to New York, took a squint from | under his overhanging brows and saw his shadow. He decided there would be four years more of Roosevelt and | Garner, and then lay down for his usual afternoon nap. Discovered later by reporters,he was not found feeding pigeons, like another Mr. Throttiebottom, but “just bum- | ming around.” : But Mr. Garner isn’t going to keep on bumming around. He'll make radio and stump speeches and do any other pieces a modest second fiddler is supposed to do. Don’t expect him, however, to get excited or go shouting across the country at the top of his voice fike his Chicago rival. He'll do his bit, but he won't get himself mixed up with the No. 1 role, and be sure he won't go out to spin wild alarms on his own hook—such as an impending crackup of banks and insurance companies.

BREAD AND MEAT OF POLITICS

ROM the lips of Col. Knox comes this jeremiad: “Four ‘more years of misgovernmert and blind experiment, and the forces of revolution may have taken hold. Four more years and we may not be permitted to choose at the polls.”

To people enjoying the bread and meat of better times,

‘

ia, A

, 4D

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES —By Herblock

~ { # J L - \ - 3 NAT oi “7

Next War

Fair Enough

'B; Westbrook Pegler Coughlin and Townsend Take Up |

Tools of Fascism in Attempting To Silence Voices of Opposition

EW YORK, Sept. 21.—It is hard to be-

lieve that our two leading Fascists, Father Coughlin and Dr. Townsend, fully

| realize what they are doing, for they both

seem to be honestly stirred by pity for the poor and love of country. Yet both, in their angry zeal to push through their theories, have adopted methods which would smash the American democracy to a gory ruin. It takes a good leader to

a popular movement within the liberal bounds - of democratic procedure. because

| that system permits freedom of

opposition and calls for superior character and ability. A dictator needs nothing but sufficient brute -orce to crush the opposition. For all the braggart arrogance of Fascist and Nazi, for all the

| constant- childish clamor about

their raeial superiority. they are

-ashamed in their < hearts: because

they know that when they had ai a chance to govern themselves by Mr. Pegler the authority of elected public leaders they failed miserably.

# =

I= wanted to govern themselves and they en-

vied thé Americans. but they just didn’t have what it takes, and the dictators moved in when the people flopped. Their savage prid€ in present condi-. tions is a defense mechanism. Though they may sweep on to conquest over weaker peoples, it will always humiliate them in their souls to realize they were not sufficiently civilized to adjust their problems

. by reason rather than the rifle.

Both Father Coughlin and Dr. Townsend have repeatedly shown a contempt for popular rule, which -is directly traceable to their incompetence as Democratic leaders. They are both only a couple of years out of total obscurity, and both have been annoyed to discover that real leadership calls for tact as well as zeal. So both have resorted to dictatorial methods. and Father Coughlin to public insult and abuse of those who exercise their American right to disagree. The priest, like Hitler and Mussolini, calls himself the leader of his organization, and, like them. he insists upon scle, final authority in all decisions affecting the politics of a group which is said to number millions. He has no party congress or conference, no advisers or consultants. What he says goes. His followers have no recourse but to accept his decision in all matters and give him full obedience. : 8 ¥ = R. TOWNSEND, of course, has no talent for democratic politics. He undertock to run a conven-

tion of his party in an orderly manner, but soon demonstrated that he hadn't the faintest appreciation of the American system of government when he read a man out of the party by fiat because the man presumed to make a speech defending ihe President of the United States against the insults of Father Coughlin. Dr. Townsend said that Gomer Smith of Oklahoma

| should have delivered this speech in private to the

executives of the party if he nad to make it at all. Tne old men and women of the convention might hear the abuse but not the defense and Dr. Townsend was furious because they had been exposed to the corrupt influence of a minority report. The old doctor simply can not meet the conditions of democracy and, so, like Father Coughlin, he resorts to main strength. ' Democracy is the hard way,

but the results are worth the extra effort. ;

+ in the coming election.

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it—Voltaire.

CONTENDS HOOSIERS LISTEN AND THINK By L. C. Maddox Strangers who might have been | visiting Indianapolis Sept. 5 when President Roosevelt visited here | might very reasonably have observed |

mediocre compared with like receptions reported for the President elsewhere. |

I mingled with the crowds in three different locations to see the President three times that day. I was reminded of that day during the campaign of 1932 when I stood in that vast crowd assembled about our Circle to hear Mr. Roosevelt deliver a stirring campaign speech. It was likewise mediocre in the enthusiasm shown, yet a large majority of that assemblage must have voted for Mr. Roosevelt on election day. ; : Considering myself just an average citizen of Indianapolis, I believe that the same voters will cast their votes for the President again I believe that it is typical of our citizens here to listen attentively to political words spoken by all sides involved in major elections, when they are spoken by those in high public office, but to be unusually reserved in their emotional outbursts of enthusiasm. After all, that may be the better way. We ordinary citizens, who are interested enough in our public affairs to vote each election day, surely can not be barnstormed into voting contrary to our own interests simply’ because one party or the other, ar one candidate or another is able to command more publicity than the other. Residents of Indianapolis, yes ot Indiana, have been sold many things, but according to their national reputation, when a salesman gives them the “rush act” he is not successful. Beware of that candidate who crosses the country in a flash to deliver a last minute speech to voters who might just be thinking things over for themselves. Beware of bill-board promises that bear no label of authority in promising “regular jobs and regular pay.” What motives could have been holding such erstwhile employers back in offering employment during the last three vears? Will they not have tired of their own idleness and once again seek the profit that has been theirs for so long, regardless of who might be our next President? We have only to decide with whom our fares are better. Even if President Roosevelt is not a genuine Democrat, as some of the plutocratic Democrats say, nevertheless, if elected agdin he will have the authority granted any President by the voters of this country. . He has shown that he intends to use that authority for the best interests of the most of the people of this country. Surely, we ordinary citizens will make a fatal mistake unless we stick to the only real friend we have had in the White

House in many many years. I in-

(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.)

that the reception by our public was | eng to stick with him whatever

may be said about him. = » 2 DEPLORES CONDITIONS ON PLEASANT RUN-PKWY

By Mrs. E. J. Poe . So we are to have the usual increase in taxes, or rather, a larger increase. No doubt it will help the city live up to its slogan, “Own a Home—No Mean City.” To me that is a laugh! Perhaps, though, the increase will take care of cleaning up Pleasant Run-pkwy. The stench from the grossly misnamed stream has been almost unbearable.

A petition was circulated and signed by practically all the residents and was backed by two civic clubs, but we got no action. City officials don’t live near it! We may get a tree or two set out where three in succession are gone, and where requests have been made previously for their replacement. The sidewalk is a stumbling-block because of the large roots of trees. It was halffixed, but the work did no real good. We may get an old rusty street sign removed. The few letters left on it are just enough to puzzle people unfamiliar with the neighborhood. It reads Ringgold-st, while it should read Pleasant Run-pkwy. We missed getting our street resurfaced this year for the first time I can recall. It would be too much to expect to have the trees sprayed in early spring to prevent caterpillars from moving in! Luckily, the sun attended to them this summer. We

THE LIE

BY VIRGINIA KIDWELL We did not part in anger, We did not sob or sigh, We did not part with sadness, We parted with a lie.

I promised you I'd write to you, You swore that you'd reply; We parted with our love still true, But on our lips a lie.

Fate knew we'd never meet again, You knew it—so did I. And so we mitigated pain By parting with a lie.

DAILY THOUGHT

.A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city; and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.—Proverbs 18:19,

AC small offense may be a A just cause for great resentment; it is often much less the particular instance which is obnoxious to us, than the proof it carries with it of the general tenor and disposition of the mind whence

( really need more policemen. Have { you ever noticed how many of them | frequent beer taverns even in uni- | form? | I don’t remember a time when { gambling and vice flourished as it { does now. Everything goes! There are nudé shows down town and nude shows at the fairground. One of the latter was exhibited before children, with none barred. At the same time our school children were unprotected that the officers might enforce the laws and city ordinances

at the fairground.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun ;

"Little Fellow’ Comes Intel. His Own in Presidential Years: Then He Falls Back Into Dark Oblivion

JEW YORK, Sept. 21.—Visitors from foreign iands frequently express surprise at the length’ of our election campaigns. When a party get's in power, it is there, as far as the executive branch -is concerned, for a full four years. And so with us a presi-

dential election is an ordained festival of long duration.

" n 2 OPPOSES PROPOSED CHANGES IN TAXES By Perry Rule, Bringhurst The state G. O. P. platform-draft-ers were not mistaken when they | surmised that any kind of a tax is

We have need of talking points, and an: election furnishes a subject concerning # Which everybody has a right to . an opinion. Indeed; a presidential campaign-is a sort of Cinderella interlude for that unfortunate person known as “The Little Fellow.” -

| unpopular and proceeded to attack |

| the gross income, the gasoline, and |

| the auto license taxes.

loads The repeal of the gross income tax law and the reduction of the gasoline and auto license taxes would require the tapping of other sources. ’ Mr. Springer has spoken of substituting a state net income tax law. A law of this sort would’ require a legion of mathematicians to operate it, and in times of depression few citizens would have a net income from which to pay either incoms or property tax. In such times net income tax payments would diminish to almost the vanishing point. The 3 and 4 per cent sales tax | offered as a substitute for the gross income tax law is a preposterous proposal coming from those who propose to reduce the gasoline tax because it is burdensome, and place it on food and clothing, greatly increasing the burden of the laboring classes, few. of whom now pay. any gross income tax because of the thousand dollar exemption. The consensus is that for the want of serious and sustained thinking the G. O. P. state plat-form-drafters and Candidate Springer have got off on the wrong foot and have greatly added to promoting the defeat of the G. O. P. state and congressional tickets. 2 2 = COMPLAINS ABOUT NEIGHBORS’ COMPLAINTS By “Linden-st Burden-Bearer” Speaking of neighborhoods, Lin-den-st at Pleasant Run-pkwy is surely a place for disturbances. 1 was a resident of the North Side in an aristocratic district before this depression robbed me of my home

After the votes are counted he will be back in his pumpkin coach once again and his fine raiment will be in tatters. But at the moment he is tickled by the fact that many -men in various parties are trying to hand him the glass slipper. Indeed, the benefits accruing to “The Little Fellow” even’ during .a campaign- are almost wholly " verbal; nevertheless, people accus= tomed to neglect are grateful even for kind words. I heard a great lady of the Long Island polo set grow almost maudlin as she discussed the sad fate of a little pants presser who was punished for vio-

lation of an NRA code. E is interesting to follow the fate of some of the = little féllows who were told to go in and swing in order to make this world safe for the du Ponts and the Morgans. The Schechters celebrated. their Supreme Court victory in champagne, but have sinca drunk more bitter waters. And now Joseph Tipaldo, the little laundryman who constituted the shock brigade in upsetting New York's minimum wage law, has announced that he is broke and looking for a job, Of course, it may be said that even in penury he has his memories. He was the instrument by which the high court had an opportunity to rule that women are free to work for as little as it shall please the law of supply and demand to afford them. That is called freedom of contract or, in the Landon phrase, “free enterprise,” and the little fellow will always find that his big business brothers are not only willing but anx-

ious to help him in any effort to keep wages down and hours up.

Mr. Broun

=” ” n

» = | IT WAS preity well bent—left out in the cold, holding the bag,” he says now with some bitterness. To me this smacks of ingratitude. Mr. Tipaldo had his day as the darling of all those who believe in the freedom of the individual worker to sell his services for what the market will afford without coercion from any quarter. We'll have no ‘regimentation in this country if Landon and the League have anything to do about it. They love the common man, and they will pretty nearly die for his right to stand up alone against the

sky and get picked off by the machine gunners in the intrenchments of privilege. Only the other day I heard a lovely lady say that while it was.true that young children were used in the cranberry -bogs of New England, it was a healthful activity and kept them out in the open air. . Workers of America, fight for the air and you are sure to get it. But I have another motto for those small business men who believe that guest rooms are ready for them in the House of Morgan. To them I would say, “Those who live by the chisel will die under the hammer.”

General Hugh Johnson Says—

The Only Probable Outcome in Spain Is Victory for Fascists. What Is Going on There May Be Forerunner to General Slaughter in Europe

ETHANY BEACH, Del., Sept. 21.—It is hard for a layman to judge the pulling and hauling in Spain, but our technical military observers. are convinced there is only one probable outcome—victory for the Fascist rebels. What does that add up to for a Popular Front France? Isolation on one side, a fortified Rhineland opposing a fortified Maginot line—both impregnable. The ancient route of conquest is closed. At the south end of the curtain is Fascist Italy, manning bastiohs also-probably impassable. And if Fascist Spain, with Nazi and Italian help, corks up the Pyrenees, the

' magnificent French land forces are all dressed up

with no place to go. = = » WAR becomes a question not of France against Germany, but of communism against capitalism. If each European nation were sclidly capitalist or Fascist, as opposed to solidly Communist, it wouldn't be hard to draw a compelling conclusion about what would happen in a war to determine the survival or extinction of communism. No nation can fight a modern war without efficient steel and chemical industries. The maximum steel production of the capitalist and Fascist European

Assuming that the British navy retained commana

it sprung.—Greville. :

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

- Republican Staff of Undercover Sleuths Keeps Democrats Jumping

With Charges of Waste a

| pendable national solidarity. These

of the seas, a struggle in the northern hemisphere based on communism would find France a small and relatively helpless island in a sweep of nations from Manchukuo eastward at least to the Dneiper. Russia and France, with combined steel production (as an index of technological strength) of 20,000,000 tons, wouid be opposed to a production of 96,000,000 tons among capitalist and Fascist nations. Ed Z = = = T= hitch in any such conclusion is that where such extremes as outright communism or out-

right fascism are important factors, there is no de-

philosophies cut across national boundaries, RE This is war in its most terrible form, for two reasons. One is that there would be no united loyalty within any one nation or even within any family. ‘The second is a corollary of the first—that, since no military command can tolerate treason beneath its own colors, and the punishment for war traitors is summary death, solidarity could be obtained only by fratricidal mination—the blood purge among survives.

That is what is going on in

ASHINGTON, Sept. 21.—OCne branch of the Republican campaign organization is keeping the Democratic command jumping. It is the staff of undercover sleuths who are digging up charges of alleged waste and politics 1a the Works Progress Administration. Rural Resettldment and other relief agencies. There is a daily barrage of these accusations and the Democrats are kept busy replying. The gumshoe corps is one of the least known and most interesting activities of the G. JO. P. It was organized, and 1s being directed by Sam Jones, a professional publicity agent who handled the propaganda for Gov. Gene Talmadge's grass-roots convention in Macon, Ga., last spring.

EW DEALERS charge Jones has secret Liberty : League connections, but he indignantly denies the accusation. He works out of the W offices of the Republican National Committee. Much of the material used by William Hard, G. O. P. radio propagandist, in his broadcasts is supplied by Jones.

ing in

nd. Politics in Federal Relief Organizations

paper and sent him to New Orleans to dig up antiNew: Deal ammunition. ; The inside word is that henchmen of the late Huey Long promised to supply some “hot stuff” if Jones would send an agent to Louisiana. bo Jones also has certain ex-New Dealers on his staff, though recently some of the G. O. P. high command have ordered him to employ no more deserters from the enemy camp. : : Jones is concentrating his chief fire on the ma jor doubtful states, such as Pennsylvania, New "York, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts. Pennsylvania is receive ing special attention. vi .

y # & 1 i A NEAT supporting act is being quietly staged be. hind the scenes by two old cronies. White House Secretary Marvin McIntyre and dapper, oil-millionaire Jimmy Moffett, ex-Housing Administrator, have their Eyes on two choicé patronage plums and have joined ha to further their respec tive ambitions. | : [ay : McIntyre wants one of the Sownjssioetships on the new Maritime Board. Moffett 'is eager to be named Assistant Secretary of the Na! _ McIntyre, having the ear of the Pres hs good friend Jimmy's cause,