Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 December 1936 — Page 14

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The Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD EARL D BAKER President Business Manager

LUDWELL DENNY Editor

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RI ley 5551

Give Lioht anda the People Will Pind Their Own Way

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1936

THE BRAKE ON GOLD T a time when we are all thinking about money in terms of what it will buy for Christmas, we have little appetite for deep-dish talk of sterilizing the gold inflow and checking the unhealthy growth of excess banking reserves. But it is not necessary to go into the ramifications of this latest credit move to see where it fits into the general pattern. It is the second precautionary step the Administration has taken to keep within manageable limits a busiThe first step was the Federal Reserve Board last August in

ness boom that is already under way. the action of increasing the reserve requirements of member banks, to discourage bankers from getting too loose in the lending of depositors’ money, That first move apparently has had no bad after-effects. There has still remained adequate bank credit for sound business expansion. Nor is this second move any reversal of the-easy money policy which has been pursued since the early days of the Roosevelt Administration to encourage business to go ahead. The purpose is merely to prevent future imports of foreign gold, of which there is already an unusually large quantity in this country, from disturbing our bank credit structure, either by causing an abnormal expansion of credit facilities as the gold flows in or an abnormal contraction when it flows out again—as it most certainly will with the disappearance of the causes which now induce it to seek refuge or investment here. While it may be interesting to speculate on the probable life of those causes, such as fear of war abroad and the attractions of a rising stock market here, yet we find it still more interesting to observe how the Administration is holding to the recovery program it outlined when it first undertook to break the grip of the depression. The more orthodox financers said at the time that the only way out was through drastic government retrenchment. But President Roosevelt and, notably, Chairman Eccles of the Federal Reserve Board held that, with business retrenching, the government had to take the opposite course. So with bold strokes the Administration did all in its power to loosen up credit and to encourage business to use

that credit by spending money to provide jobs and wages | | gence or ability.

the customers of business. Gradually business improved and began to expand. And apparently the Administration has about decided that private industry’s expanding pay rolls and profits have gained enough momentum to carry the country on up the recovery hill. Through the Treasury and the central banking system, the Administration has begun to feel for the brakes.

for

This also seerns to explain why hitherto one of the most vigorous advocates of government spending, has started talking about the wisdom of working toward an early balance of the Federal budget. THE POPE SPEAKS T° all those who admire cheerful courage in the face of affliction there is a most appealing note in the remark made by Pope Pius XI after he had arranged to broadcast a Christmas ve message to the world: “When my voice is heard over the radio, it is to be hoped the world will at least believe 1 am still alive.” It is characteristic of Pope Pius that he should think first and always of others—that, although suffering, his foremost desire should be to reassure his anxious followers. Fis doctors, fearing the effect of even the slightest exertion on a 79-year-old man who has been gravely ill, would have forbidden the broadcast. But he overruled them, ahd tomorrow he will be carried to an armchair in his study and for a few minutes he will speak into the microphone. Millions of people, of many faiths and in ‘many lands, Jistening to that gallant voice from the Vatican, will rejoice %o know that Pope Dius is still alive and will unite in ‘the hope that he may be spared to broadcast many another

Christmas message.

MAKE “LOCAL” SHARE RELIEF continue, we have no notion that Uncle Sam can go on

all the people that all the local governments would like to have the Federal government support. The local governments——states, cities, should be given an incentive to help the Federal government hold its work relief pay roll within reasonable bounds, and reduce it as it can be reduced without human suffering. They would have that incentive if they were strictly required to pay a fair but specific share of the cost of the Works Progress Administration program. WPA started on the assumption that this would be done. The Federal government would pay wages and administrative costs. The local governments would pay for materials and for project plans and supervision. In return,

they would get jobs for their unemployed, and they would |

also get desirable public improvements. That was the theory. Having ho law behind it, it hasn't worked out well in practice. Some local governments have contributed their fair share. Others have contributed more. But many have contributed much less. They weren't penalized, because Ad-

ministrator Hopkins refused to let the unemployed suffer,

no matter what the local governments did. Before Congress votes ‘any new appropriation for work

relief, we believe it should write into law a fair, specific | and enforceable standard for local contributions to the |

WPA program. That will halt the present competition among local governments to shift an ever-incraasing share of the load on to the Federal government. And it will mean a better

WPA program, with money available for planning and me.

terials to go into

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—— HE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Off on Another Big Game Hunt—By Herblock

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Something Happens to a Man's Spirit When He Is Down and Out That His Walk and Gaze Betray.

NEW YORK, Dec. 23.—Money is only clam shells or metal discs or scraps of paper, and there are treasures of the heart and soul which money can not buy, but most people, being broke, are unable to keep this

in mind and sustain their spirits. When a man is down and out and on the street, unable to get any job at all, something happens to his spirit which can be observed in the droop of his shoulders,

the set of his hat, his walk and his gaze. He can not escape a feeling of inferiority among people with regular employment even though he knows they are definitely not his equals in character, intelli-

These people—even his friends —feel, on the other hand, a sense of superiority and regard him, perhaps unconsciously, as a casualty., He may bortow for a time, but not enough to carry on in his i wl

| accustomed way, and he can not ’ | continue to borrow very long. But borrowing in itself, when a man

Mr. Pegler

is borrowing merely to live, is a depressing experience, and the money lacks the power of carned money to revive his spirits. Of course, none of this applies to bums or habitual ne'er-do-wells, but only to men of normal ambitions and selfrespect. Women in the same predicament must be different. We somehow do not think of women at all in considering the down-and-outers. They are seéarce in the breadlines, they rarely are seen begging on the streets, and they are not recognizable in crowds by the same plain signs which identify busted men. Of course, I do not ‘mean the shuffling hags of the city streets who are the opposite number of the confirmed male bums. I mean reasonably young, decent and intelligent women. There must be many of them, but their despair is not apparent. Maybe they kill themselves. un ” 2

WEEN a mah is down and out he has time on his hands for brooding. He may travel ‘miles to see a man about a job and discover that the job is filled or that it is one of those jobs with no base pay, but only a commission for the sale of some useless knick-knack which ‘nobody would buy, except out of

| pity.

Turning that down, he finds himself back on the street with nowhere to go but just anywhere. So he walks and walks. He gazes into store windows at luxuries which are not for him, ‘and feels inferior and gives way to people who stop to look with an active interest. EJ ” = HE sees thousands of other people, bookkeepers or clerks or chemists or wagon hands busy at their work and envies thém from the bottom of his soul. He simply can not convince himself that he is a good man, too, though he argues it out and arrives at a

favorable verdict hour after hour.

It is just money which makes this difference in

| him. With a little money he would be himself again, J MPORTANT as we believe it is that work relief should

Some employers take the most shocking advantage of people who are down and out. The agencies hang out little colored cards offering miserable wages to

; c Wali | busted men—$12 a week, $15 a week. An $18 a week indefinitely borrowing money to pay work relief wages to |

job is a plum, and any one with $25 a week to offer does not hang the job out in front of an agency on a

| colored card. I have a want ad clipped from a local

paper demanding a clerk, a good clean penman, to take telephone orders for a sandwich shop from 11 a.m. to 2 'p. m. for 88 a month. Not $8 a week, but $8 a month. The ad says also, “state religion.” Can

| You imagine the brutal effrontery of any one who | demands a good, clean penman for 11 cents an hour | inquiring into the victim's religion?

ASHINGTON, Dec. 23—=Two retired major generals=-Hagood and Rivers—have been doing some emphatic writing about national defense. They don't altogether agree with each other. Neither agrees with the present policy. But they do agree that we don't need to get mixed up as a participant in any foreigh war unless we want to. This is vital

| NARROW ESCAPES ADD

ZEST TO LIVING By Constant Jumper In answer to “Constant Reader's” delightful dissertation upholding the rights of the pedestrian, I would like to observe that his psuedonym is surely a misnomer, for how could anybody be a constant reader and not have acquired a better knowledge of conditions as they exist. Perhaps in “dear ol’ Lunnon” his | essay would be looked upon as de-

cidedly droll, but in America we | demand more accuracy. He must | | think pedestrians very senile in- | deed, if they would get three- | fourths of the way across a street | and not be able to make it. For | my part, I could give the fastest | pickup half the distance and win | going away. I wouldn’t think of giving up my daily brushes with automobiles. Things are tame enough, without taking away the little excitement we have left. Our Pilgrim fathers dodged arrows and wild beasts en route home to supper and the danger added zest to the meal. If I can escape grinning death by an eyelash two or three times, I can put my feet under the table with a feeling of accomplishment and triumph. Fie on your conservatism, “Con- | stant Reader.” 2 » ”

BELTEVES CITY SHOULD OWN

LIGHT UTILITY By Walter Smith, Cambridge City

Now is a mighty good chance to get loose from the light and power utility. While it is still an open ques- | tion, the small domestic users had | better buck up with a petition containing the names of 5 ‘per cent of all who voted fér city clerk and city council, giving the Public Service | Commission a 10-day notice that the citizens of Indianapolis want to own the plant themselves. After the filing of this petition, the ques-

tion goes to the Circuit or Superior Court. There must be a good law firm for counsel. At the court appearance there fs an estimate made as to the abount of bonds necessary to carry through the ptirchase of the utility. At the election, every one must do all possible to get out a sure majority vote, for another vote can not Be taken for two years. If Indianapolis had a plant like the one at Richmond, it would be four and a half million dollars a year ahead. The ‘Richmond utility, reorganized nine years ago, paid $100,000 bonds that were ‘guaranteed by the Westcott audit and has paid the city $2,162,186 in nine years. | This year it pays $310,000 on the | city budget, as it did last year. Tt | burns 125 tons of Indiana coal each 3% at $1.20 a ton and gives a rate | of ® cents a kilowatt hour down to | {a cent and a half, with special rates | for cooking, heating and power. | | This is $10 per capita and a third | | Tess than the Indianapolis rate to |

| the domestic consumer. |

| ‘Newcastle has a city-owned plant, | ‘reorganized about six vears ago on

‘General Hugh Johnson Says —

| ing ‘nation which decided to take advantage of our ‘switch from the old system. ‘On the danger of retaining responsibility without | authority in the Philippines, both of these officers are persuasive, and Gen. Rivers makes comment. The shortest difference between two points

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but 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 your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

a bonded indebtedness of $92,000. These were almost paid in the first year. Now there is a profit of about $10,000 a month. At Frankfort, Huntingburg, Winamac and Columbia City, the municipally owned utilities are carrying the whole city budget, and Anderson has a city tax rate of only 12 cents, Logansport’s is only 14. Jasper has an electric rate of 6 cents

| for the first 25 kilowatt hours and |

21% cents afterward. Wabash contracted for its utility for $4750, and Boonville has freed itself from the Evansville Light and Power Co. In Canada the rates are from

[000 men can take $30,000,000 worth {of coal annually from property belonging to the coal syndicates withcut feeling that they are stealing; if the public refuses to regard their acts as stealing, and if the law re- | fuses to punish them for stealing— | then, if it isn’t stealing, what is it? | It seems to me that the question | can not be answered without recog- | nizing that society has two sets of [laws for determining what is right ‘and what is wrong. First, the re- | cent man-made laws. Second, the | ancient laws that have come down {to us by way of tradition. Of this latter class of laws, one of the old- | est is the principle that natural re- | sources can be owned by no man— that nature has given them to all {men in common. This principle is [still in force in ancient lands, such | as China and the biblical countries. | For instance, in ‘China ‘the war [lords have long since gobbled up

2 cents to a half cent. The English | all the tillable ‘land but they have rate by law is three-quarters of & never dared lay claim on mounsent. | tains, lakes, rivers and forests. The Remember that a good home- poor man still has as inuch dlaim

owned plant will set you ahead at

least million dollars. There are lots of municipal plants, and any of them make electricity at less than

half a ¢ent, as at Newcastle, where |

812 kilowatt hours are manufactured for 6 cents. Louis Tudlow, Pleas Greenlee, Senator Chambers and others are good authorities that this is a local question.

(Indianapolis Power and Light Co. officials declined to comment. — THE EDITOR).

n ” » ANSWERS QUESTION ASKED IN COLLIER'S By L. L. Patton, Crawfordsville John T. Flynn, in the Dee. 15 issue of Collier's, describes the bootleg coal industry that has sprung up

in West Virginia as being neither |

communistic nor socialistic, and as being something quite different

from stealing—a something he can't |

explain.

He states the issue thus: If 20,

FADS AND FANCIES BY PATRICIA BANNER

|on these as the war lords. When | the Japanese came into Manchuria | they gained control of these prop- | erties only by using their bayonets. | The principle of private owner- | ship of natural resources is not a part of the principle of capitalism. It is very little more than an upstart in comparison with the reverent old principle of public ownership of natural resources. This, 1 believe, is the answer to the West Virginia situation. Tt is a conflict

tion. N WY RECALLS HAMLET'S WORDS IN ABDICATION CASE By M. M. B,, Terre Haute Likeness of the abdicating and succeeding kings of England call to mind Hamlet's words to his mother, which, with minor changes, might

now be addressed to the British empire: “Look here, upon this picture and upon this,

"| The counterfeit presentment of two

brothers.

[= what a grace was seated on this

brow;

between man-made law and ftradi- |

| Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove If T could only, only cook. himself: I'open up my nice new book An eye like Mars, to threaten and And read—degreés and Fahrenhejt— | command: , . FHS to me=but T'm all A combination and a form indeed, right -. -. I'll cook a meal that is complete— | his seal My hat! My gloves! | To give the world assurance of a Where shall I eat? man: | This was your sovereigh. Look now I don’t know much bout boullion | what follows:

stock, Here fs your sovereign; like a ‘milBut, I look well ih a ‘morning frock. | dewed ear,

D ATLY THOUGHT | Blasting his wholesome brother,

Have you eyes? But the eves of the wicked shall | Could fail, and they shall not escape, leave to feed, and their hope shall be as the giv- | And batten ‘on this ‘moor? ing up of the ghost—Job. 11:20.

Have you ‘eyes?” If the mere delay of hope deferred makes the heart sick, what will the ‘death of hope=its final | and total disappointment=despair, flo to {t?—W. Nevins.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ABHINGTON, Deo. 23=A few days ago the Social Security Board announced that more perisions. Ti Statement DAIS very Touy retin: an illumine re. tt The real signicance of the | a tre. we 3 what ft revealed but what - weal:

Wher Svery T60 WH Seem, 'W St Jun D, IN HRmIOR from ite.

you on this fair mountain |

The Washington Merry-Go-

: 350,000 Employers Are Not Complying With Social Security Laws; Munitions Firms Do Brisk Business With South American

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Final Returns on Election Ara Deceptive as Far as Showing Made by Minority Parties Goes.

NEW YORK, Dec. 23.—The final returns from the presidential election are deceptive in the showing made by the minor parties. This is particularly true in regard to the radical groups. Norman Thomas re-

ceived 187,000 as against 885,000 in 1932. This is practically a cut of 80 per cent in the So cialist vote, but I think it would be very unwise for anybody to take this as an indication that America is growing more conservative. After all, the chief rival of Norman Thomas in the last election was Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'm quite aware of the fact that Roosevelt is not a radical, but the Ree publicans drove many voters into his following by magnifying the left wing tendencies of the Administration. Certain voters, have ing the choice between the Sociale ist Norman Thomas and the “so= cialistic” Roosevelt, chose the are ticle that was better advertised, Then, too, there were a number of progressives and quite a few radicals who had no misconcep= tion about the President, and still felt that they should vote for him in order to forestall the threat of Gov. Landon. Here the Literary Digest played an important role. Both Thomas and Browder would have fared much better if the straw vote had not created such a scare as to the possibility of Republican success. Browder, with approximately 80000. fell below Foster's total of four years ago, and yet I think there is a great deal of evidence that communism has made material gains in the last two or three years. The gains of communism have been made fo a large extent among the so-called “intellectuals.” T have no means of knowing what the figures are in regard to party membership, but among the men and women who write plays, motion pictures, novels and newspaper stories there is certainly an increasing drift to the left,

Mr. Broun

” ” yd

IA oR RpING to its present strategy, the party of Browder is less dogmatic than the party of Thomas. Indeed, certain Socialist veterans have bes gun to taunt the Communists as mere parlor pinks, This seems to me an unfair assertion. My own ex=perience has been that the Communists are very much ‘more on the job. Indeed, T would recommend to all progressive organizations that they try and get a few left wingers into the camp. 1 hope that the American Labor Party will think better of its announced policy of barring out all avowed Communists and Soofalists. Any new politi= cal organization stands in need of a great deal of self-criticism. Think of what a couple of Communists might have done for the Republicans if they could have been induced to play along and bore on

In the last four years the Democrats did have a working leaven of radicalism, although 1 think that very few of the up-and-coming youngsters who once animated the Administration could fairly be called Communists. Henry Wallace himself is a sort of revolutionist, but in a utopian and mystic way, ® ® »

HERE was at least one tragic element in the last election. There can be no denial that Roogew

But it is still less than clear precisely what they want

In so far as the will of the majority I'm of tHe opinion that Roosevelt was el by a progressive-radical coalition. will Jook ‘closely into the ranks of and lend an attentive ear, an audible whisper of,

is ‘evident, elected largely If the President his own followers I think he will hear quite “Go left, young man.”

Round wy

Countries,

government. But the constitutionality of the social security law is still an undecided issue, The Trease ury wants to wait and see what the court does about the att. ® Bw Cordell Hull is at Buenos Aires, trying to promote peace, it Is a little~known fact that the United States 1s doing a boom-time business with Satin Amv, in ‘arms, ammunition, and implements The T ted States has the

largest del he ™ Cont rgest delegation at the

a are working overtime with

h States airoraft factories are also working overtime=turning ®ut training

Argentine, how e Triter-A ie : \ of the Ir merican Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, is Uncle Sam's best customer in munitions. Fer purchases for the year have pinced big orders with