Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 February 1937 — Page 10

PAGE 10

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1937

TWO WRONGS—AND A RIGHT HE proposition that the end justifies the means is one of life's most alluring arguments—and one of the most treacherous. No one was ever more provoked to employ it than was Franklin Roosevelt, as he fashioned his plan to change the complexion of the Supreme Court. He took office when the nation was on its back and yelling for help. Ile helped, and how! To prevent a relapse, he created a program for social and economic modernization, that there might be a better distribution of wealth, a fairer break for the little fellow, a wider spread of opportunity, a destruction of the special privileges and the exploitation and the crookedness that had brought the nation to its calamity and threatened the very life of our democracy. Then, as special privilege, which had joined so lustily in the “Save us!” cry, began to see that danger was receding —and with it the privileges—it rose and began to attack its rescuer. The better it felt, the harder it hit. It seized upon the courts as its arsenal, employing every device known to high-priced lawyers. So the second phase of the New Deal was one of bitter disheartenment for Franklin Roosevelt, the victim of probably the coldest ingratitude in all the history of public life. Came the campaign for re-election, the hate-Roosevelt davs, and the mad effort to smash the man who had saved the country. And. the election—the overwhelming indorsement of the President and his policies. : among those policies was to carry on, within the Constitution if possible; if not, by amendment. » » =n t td I

2

tered around by a judiciary whose life-tenured majority

y “ re > Pp +3 y 2 § f was so preponderantly out of tune with the whole spirit of | — e what he was trying to do, should look for a speedy way of | CAPT JOE PATTERSON, the owner of Nor was it illogical, knowing as he does that the |

emergency with which he has been contending is by no |

action.

means over, that he should not welcome the longer alterna-

tive involved in the amendment process; that if any way | could be found to avoid the tortuous path still being traveled |

by the child-labor amendment he should use that way. So he picked what seemed the easiest route.

Jut we fear that it will prove the hardest; that, by the | very nature of it, move resistance will be engendered than |

if any other road had been chosen. Why? Because the problem runs in the first place to an overbalance of power. That overbalance is now with the

judiciary. It was started in Marshall's day with Marbury |

vs. Madison. The courts are and have been too much the final authority in a democracy wherein the will of the people is supposed to be supreme. What we have witnessed since special privilege started to convalesce is evidence enough of that. But what does Roosevelt propose? lle would cure imbalance with imbalance—when what the Government needs is balance. lle would devise his own Marbury vs. Madison. And he would proceed to put the excess of power this time with the executive. By the simple process of gaining for himself the authority to name enough additional judges he would mold the supreme tribunal to his own desire, That is the scheme. Were this but an issue of the moment, merely something to accomplish a vitally needed purpose and then to call it a day; were only Franklin Roosevelt and his specific objectives involved, we would be second to none in our enthusiasm over the prospect of so simple a device to accomplish his high aims. But we cannot get away from the fact that in terms of our nation’s future there is much more than this to it; that if a Roosevelt can find an ingenious method, in a governmental system of supposedly equal and co-ordinate branches, to assume through the appointive authority the power of one of those branches, so could a Harding. ” =» s = " ”

OUR first reaction when we read the message was that the plan was just too clever. Having spent nearly every waking hour since, studying it, and hoping to find a way to like it, we are still of the same mind. From the beginning we have been for Franklin Roosevelt's objectives. We are more for them today than ever. Further, we believe that our country will be in for more serious trouble than it ever yet has seen if the forces of reaction again get control, We reserve the right, after reading the debates, to conclude that Mr. Roosevelt's plan is the only way. But we don’t believe it is. Several scores of measures dealing with the problem have been offered since Congress convened. The President’s plan, while it comes from the most influential source, is only one. We hope that Congress in its consideration—in the discussion which promises to be the most important since the days that preceded the Civil War—will give to other proposals as well as this the fullest thought, that some method may be worked out which will not be founded either on the philosophy that the end does justify the means or that two wrongs make a right,

ELIHU ROOT HEN death called for Elihu Root yesterday in New York, there passed from the scene the oldest and one of the greatest of our elder statesmen. Had he lived one week more, he would have been 92. Yet up to his last illness his world outlook was as keen as

ever, proving that years alone do not always bring upon us |

what we think of as old age. The mere recitation of some of the high spots is sufficient to reveal not only the extraordinary span of his useful life, but its devotion to his country and to mankind. President Arthur made him a district attorney well over half a century ago. He was President McKinley's Secretary of War. Ie was Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt and a Senator at the time of Taft. President Wilson sent him to Russia on special mission during the World War. And afterward, as ardently as any other leader save President Wilson himself, he fought to line up the United States with the League of Nations and the World Court. “All the terrible lessons of the last decade,” he said when he was 76, “show that the most insuperable obstacle to the peace and happiness and growth of the people is their incapacity to receive the blessings that are ready for them, if they will but take them.” : There was disappointment, perhaps, but not bitterness. For until his dying day his thoughts were on a world organized for peace. Ile never lost hope that eventually the incapacity of people to receive the blessings held out to them could be cured by patient education,

No |

MARK FERREE | Business Manager |

Price in Marion County, | 3 cents a copy; delivered | 12 cents a |

Mail subscription rates |

And Number One |

is not unnatural that the President, having been bat-

| employees in its own union, " must be our own workers.

Nooaade ote

a Fragen STA i UOT

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Neutrality Here !—By Talburt

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Columnist Describes How He Got Blighted as an Urchin by Working As Newsboy or ‘Little Merchant.’

York Daily News, is always publishers of other papers about their employment of little boys, or urchins, as newsboys and route carriers because he regards this as child labor and is against it. It is always nice to see a penitent sinner whooping “hallelujah” on the mourners’ bench but what I want to know is, what about me? Because a long time ago, when

the New ribbing the

| I was an urchin in Chicago, my | youth got blighted amid the sors | did influences of the city streets

in the services of The Chicago Tribune from which Capt. Pat= terson derived his original fortune. I got blighted both ways, peddling and delivering Capt. Patterson's old paper, but, in justice to him, I have to say that he exploited my childhood only half as much as Mr. Hearst. He exploited me only in the a. m,, but Mr. Hearst sapped my

vitality, stunted my growth, cor= Mr. Pegler

rupted my morals and clouded my

young dreams both morning and evening. Old Victor Lawson, who then owned The Chicago Daily News, Old Hutch, the owner of the defunct Evening Journal,

and the proprietors of the Inter-Ocean and Record= | | pampered and petted that it ig like | Have foreign trou- |

Herald blighted me, too, and before that up in a place called Excelsior, Minn, I took a pretty good blighting from three Minneapolis publishers, only one

| of whom I can remember by name.

2 ” = AGREE with Capt. Patterson that child labor in the circulation branch of the newspaper business is very bad for the morals of the little merchants, because father was a famous evangelist who didn't drink, smoke, chew or use profane language and yet I was pretty good at all these activities before I was 16 years old. I also learned to shoot craps.

In the morning, though, I used to swear quite a lot, especially when people would leave clothes on the

line on their back porches which would interfere |!

with accurate throwing of the papers which were rolled up and tied with string. After two or three trials with the paper tumbling back down, I would

| cut loose with a blast and haul it all the way up to the !

third floor by hand, kicking and stomping on the

| stairs to wake people up by way of revenge.

" o ” APT. PATTERSON cites the testimony of Warden Lawes that 69 per cent of the scholars

at Sing Sing were newsboys, and I won't argue with | statistics, but I can say that the only two urchins in |

our neighborhood who went to prison were too smart to be little merchants, They didn’t care for some of that 4 o'clock in the morning stuff, and they couldn't be bothered hopping street cars in the evening selling

sheets for a profit of one-third of a cent when they |

could cut the lead plumbing or copper wire out of a building and get $2 from the junkman,

Did I ever tell you how I came to quit getting blighted? Well, it was a Sunday, and a blizzard on the lake front, and I was shoving my little wagon of Sunday papers through the show when, all. of a sudden, the wind blew away about 20 Tribunes, and while I was chasing the pieces it blew my route book into the lake. That made me thoroughly disgusted, so I just went home, leaving wagon, route book, papers and all, and when the route-boss called up to tell me I was fined $3 I said, “Oh, shut your face.”

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will

defend to the death your right to say it.=Voltaire.

| WONDERS IF U. S. LABOR

| IS PAMPERED

| By Paul Masters, Anderson

For many years American labor |

| has occupied a position of superior "ity in the world. The

{laboring man has more privileges, |

| is paid higher, works shorter hours and under better conditions the laboring man of any other na- | tion. most dissatisfied | man.

of any laboring

{and working conditions but they look with contempt on the Ameri- ' can labor racket. 1ations point jeeringly to America and say that nothing like that could | happen in their countries. { Recently Adolf Hitler proudly proclaimed to the world that all of | Germany's workers were happily | at work and that his country was { not torn with strikes and | controversies.

This was a direct slam at Amer- |

ica and our numerous strikes that do so much to retard recovery. | When I read such

| can’t bring myself to believe this is | true. Has American labor become so | a spoiled child? | ble-makers found a refuge in this country with a gullible public to follow their fanatic theories | policies? Can't American | take prosperity without it going to [its head? Is American democracy

| tottering toward one of the foreign |

| forms of government? | By the unwise action of a few, | American labor has been placed on the spot. These few sit-downers have placed our Government on the spot as they have placed officials on the spot. . . .

uncalled-for sit-down strikes to an end and go back to work. We turned the corner and were speed- | ing down the road to recovery; let's not go back to a strike-made depression.

” » o ENGINEERS WARN AGAINST SPREAD OF MALARIA [By E. J. M. Malaria control engineers warn | that recent conservation activities will bring an increase in malaria. | J. A. LePrince, senior sanitary | engineer of the U. S. Public Health | Service, writes: “. ++. Veteran engineers . . . will

| | hot be surprised when in the near |

| | | | | { | |

| Valley malaria belt extends up into | the hill country. . . | extend northward to those states | where it was eradicated all of 30 | years ago. | “Beyond a doubt it is essential

| that we conserve our soil resources, |

that we re-establish our forests, and prevent rapid runoff and river | floods. Activity in this direction | has already been under way for

American |

than | But, sad to relate, he is the

The workers of other nations | envy the American's liberties, wages |

Leaders in foreign |

labor |

statements I | { cannot help wondering if Germany's | government is better than ours. I |

and | labor |

Let us bring these foolish and!

future the present Mississippi River |

. It may also |

(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.)

| some time and we have built | small dams in many stream beds land shall build many thousands more. And though we may not Liave heard it Madame Anopheles (the malaria-bearing mosquito) has already said ‘Thank you’ and is re-establishing her race rapidly | where topographical conditions made this impossible in the past.”

The Federal Government, in a beautiful little book entitled “Little Waters,” encourages the building of such small dams, and none who read it will remain unconvinced of the need of storing water by means of ponds and lakes so created. But how about the mosquitoes that such ponds and lakes will produce? Are the State and local gov ernments prepared to cope with that problem? Top-water minnows will do much to hold down the mosquito population—but are these | governments prepared to supply a | sufficient number and are the means of publicity and distribution ready? And minnows are There must be other biological, or natural, control of mosquito production. We know so little about it, and there must be much that can be discovered. Surely a nature which makes water re sources necessary to man can fur- | nish a means to make them harmless also. In fact the very health authorities which warn us of the mosquito danger tell us they be- ( lieve that natural means can be { found to control the mosquito,

REWARD!

By VIRGINIA POTTER You came, I smiled, And lived a King! I found real joy In everything!

not enough. means of

You left; I found Life bitter, hard, And I became A lonely bard.

But tho’ I lost, The hours we spent, I have their memory For my content!

AILY THOUGHT

OR thus saith the Lord; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them.—~Jeremiah | 32:42,

No man who continues to add something to the material, in- | tellectual, and moral well being of i the place in which he lives is left { long without proper reward.—Book- | er T. Washington.

either through natural enemies or by making the environment unfavorable to her though favorable to other forms of life. Here is a field for research by the Government and by foundations. We should remind ourselves also that there are authorities which say that it was malaria which destroyed the Roman Empire. Malaria has long been the curse of the South. It should be eliminated there and everywhere, not allowed to spread. ¥ 8 » y GREED BLAMED FOR UNEMPLOYMENT By R. S. Greed for profits prevents workers from buying back all they produce. The result is unemployment and idleness, which, in turn, results in crime and murder, Munitions interests want profits

and therefore try wire pulling to | Heavy arma- | ment creates suspicion, fear, hate

sell arms to nations.

and war.

Capitalistic hypocrisy attempts to

teach us the brotherhood of man on Sunday and then tramples on men during the week. If we throw out all things that our superpatriots consider alien, I fear we will have to throw ourselves out and give this land back to the Indians. Maybe they wouldn't want it now, May the people gain strength to apply the solution of collective security before our self-appointed overloads, in their selfieshness, lead us into fascism—the last, desperate stand of capitalism.

¥ 4 » URGES LEGISLATURE TO PROVIDE JOBS

By Charles Burton If a man is deprived of the chance to make a living for himself and his family or to contribute usefully to society, and if private industry fails to provide this opportunity, the Legislature should find some means of presenting the opportunity to workingmen. Every workingman. should have an occupation where he may contribute something to society. . . believe that 90 per cent of the workingmen's wages are inadequate and are too low for good living standards. ” ” on

LAUDS FLOOD RELIEF WORK

By a Reader For those who are continually wondering what America is coming to, I suggest a trip to the flood area. Down there is America in the raw. Of course, one will see some greed, uncontrolled lust, cowardice, and selfishness, but these are indeed only specks on a great picture, The pic=

ture is one of bravery, charity and | One cannot see the | large scene without knowing that |

human love.

the American race is a race of which he may be proud to be a member—a race that goes forward, not backward.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun In Tumultuous World Filled With

Many Forces of Evil, Columnist Finds Yale Show Pleasant Diversion,

EW YORK, Feb, 8—In a tumultuous world filled with many forces which do not make for good it is pleasant to turn one’s thoughts to something stable like dear old Yale. I hadn't thought about the place for vears, and so it was refreshing to see “Naughty Naught” at the American Music Hall. This is one of the most lively entertainments of the season. Of course, you can get beer as weil as Yale, and it has always seemad to me that the New Haven college stood in need of some sort of chaser. There may be those who take Yale

straight, but I assume that in the end it gets them in the liver.

Possibly a good many shows now current would be greatly helped if one could view them from a chair beside a table rather than an orchestra seat. Some of the most bitter feuds in the world arise from the physi= cal indignities inflicted by those who pass after the curtain is up. Of course, they do not escape unscathed. It is no trouble at all to trip them up as they go by. I don’t know just what name the doctors give to the phobia felt by those who sit in the middle of a row. Former dramatic critics suffer from it prodigiously. They have been conditioned to aisle seats, and each foot away from these main arteries seems a step in the direction of perdition. It is bad enough to stumble to your spot while the lights are low and some character is engaged in heavy and portentous emotion. But I'm not sure that the trip between the acts may not be even worse. It is now possible for those whose shins get kicked to identify the culprit and mark his face for further reference.

" u "

T used to be my custom to go to the right during the first intermission and reserve the leftward passage for the second. It is not a good system, since it multiplies by two the people who can’t abide you, And the net result is a situation in which the perambulating patron finds himself hated by those on both the right and the left. He might as well be a liberal in an election. But quite a different set of conditions prevails at the American Music Hall. I'm sorry to say that I went late and missed a scene which describes the home life of Yale men. Indeed, by the time I got there the hero, a member of the crew squad, had already been lured into a saloon. But in all fairness to “Naughty Naught” the hero was in a mood neither to give nor to receive. A dancing girl in the bar was inviting him to kiss her, and his indignant answer, “I cannot—I am in training,” remained one of the high spots of the evening,

Mr. Broun

” ” o

T was an easy moment for the arrival of late comers, since the mood of the audience was informal, and several spectators, obviously not Yale men, were calling out, “Go ahead, you sap, and kiss her.” It has sometimes been held that comic effects can not be gained if the authors and the actors reveal the fact that their object is one of mockery. In general that seems to me to be true, but it does not hold good in the case of “Naughty Naught.” The burlesque is broad, and the players shoot the works in practically every scene. Perhaps you can't make anything subtle out of a Yale man's ear. At any rate, it seems to me that the show is extremely funny and that the American Music Hall is among the gayest of New York's institutions.

EW YORK, Feb. 8-The essential idea of unionism is that in complex and collectivist industry no man can do or does, as Mr. Knudsen recently suggested, “make his financial arrangements for himself”—meaning dicker for his own wages. If there is to be such bargaining as wili give labor its proper share in the inaustrial partnership, it must be organized as industry is organized and must bargain through independent representations.

Theoretically everybody admits this. Practically

| the theory is frustrated by disagreements. Employers

say: “Sure. We'll organize ovr men—each company’s But their representation We won't deal with outsiders.” This is a company union. It is absurd from two angies, Even with the best of intentions, the employer dominates the men. The bargaining struggle

| is a form of conflict.

= " ” LSO, companies compete in sales. If labor ore ganization is only company-wide, the most humanitarian company is clogged by the sweat-shop methods of its most inhuman competitor. An industrial union is an organization of all the workers in an industry. In its ideal form it negotiates with all the employers in an industry through its elected representatives who are not employees. No employer can dominate it because its representatives

Lat

DIT REN OR OAR oni dd ad ih GS LSE LU So dd

‘General Hugh Johnson Says—

Company Union Is Absurd Because Employer Dominates Men and Most Humanitarian Firm Is Clogged by Methods of Sweat-Shop Competitor.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Lammot du Pont, Most Hard-Boiled and Shrewdest Member of Family, Has Constituted Principal Opposition to Settlement of G. M. Strike.

are independent. It relieves labor relations from the clog of the most backward company, because one com= petitor doesn't care, within reason, how high his wages 80, if his competitors all have the same scales. » » ” ¥ is obviously the ideal form of union except for one important angle-—the consumers’. If Nean= derthal reaction in industry and coftfee-cooling chairwarmers in labor-leadership ever get sense enough to see that industry-wide partnerships between management and labor practically give each industry con= trol of its own price and production problem, then— “caveat consumer,” Craft unionism is only for the aristocracy of labor. It says that all skilled workmen, regardless of either the industry or the company for whom they work,

| shall belong to one nation-wide union, They bargain

with separate employers for their crafts only, which

in the mass-production nation-wide industries means | a dozen different unions—independent jurisdictions, |

any one theoretically capable of paralyzing production for the sake of an insignificant minority of workers, Their contributions furnish fat sinecures for shellback old-school leaders who in their entrenched personal security are as reactionary as the most hidebound Tory. Mr. John Frey of the A, F. of L. battling Mr. John Lewis of the C. I. O. sounds exactly like the Liberty League. , |

{ oli wi

————ll SUE G LLL

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, Feb, 8.—~One of the most important inside factors in the General Motors strike is the array of big-shot industrialists who are giving the automobile company secret encouragement and backing, It is not a fight in the automobile industry alone. Steel, coal, and other auto magnates know that if labor wins this war, their turn will be next, and they are urging an unyielding position on the part of General Motors, Of these various figures, most recalcitrant and most powerful is Lammot du Pont, chairman of the Board of General Motors and head of the great du Pont industrial dynasty.

" 8 n

I AMMOT DU PONT is the man who puts iron in f the spine of the sometimes discouraged and wilt= ing Alfred P. Sloan. It was Lammot who called off the conference which Miss Perkins proposed between Lewis and Sloan last week. It is Lammot who has blocked all attempted peace negotiations, and it is Lammot who will permit no voting of workers, hecause to do so would recognize the Wagner Labor Disputes Act. § NOTE—What Lammot du Pont may not know & that John L. Lewis is just as much op ; vote

Ra

of the workers, because it would show his union to be greatly in the minority. Alongside Lammot du Pont is another shadowy figure, one of the most potent magnates in British industry. He is Sir Harry Duncan McGowan, head of the giant Imperial Chemical Industries, a director of General Motors and an important factor in molding motor policies. W » » ” OW much Sir Harry is backing up Lammot du Pont's strike stand is not known definitely, but pro-labor Senators have been considering an investigation to ascertain the amount of foreign influence within General Motors. They think there is a lot. What they have been able to find so far is an in. terlocking arrangement between the du Pont company and McGowan's Imperial Chemistries, by which the two companies pool each other's patents and die vide up the markets of the entire world, ; i NOTE—Last week Sir Harry was on King George's oY pailt 43.43. most. Hardebolled, succegse the mos - , SuCCess~ ful, shrewdest member of the du Pont family, He is the man who became. head of the miscellaneous

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