Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 February 1937 — Page 12

PAGE 12 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE Editor

ROY W. HOWARD President

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1937

A “MUST” FOR THE LEGISLATURE ARION COUNTY had the highest automobile fatality record of its history in 1936. In little more than a month this year, more than twice as many persons have been killed in traffic accidents in the county as during the same period of 1936. This alarming increase underscores the need for prompt legislative action on a standard drivers’ license law and other essential features of a rounded safety program. This should be a “must” for the Legislature.

EXPERIMENTING OVERNOR TOWNSEND is asking the Legislature to amend the Indiana Unemployment Compensation Act. Fle would eliminate emplovee payments, abolish employerreserve accounts and make other changes. Obviously, any such experimental legislation must be amended eventually in the | We fail to see. however, how six weeks of experience and facts as to the operation can be sufficient basis upon which to deter-

ight of experience.

mine a change in the law, State systems of unemployment insurance still are in the formative stage. A wide variety of plans is being tested in the “experimental workshops” of states and the District of Columbia which have Federal-approved unemployment compensation laws.

Ox oD)

Indiana is one of the 10 states which call upon em- |

plovees for contributions. Twenty of the 23 laws passed since July, 1936, have taken the opposite view and provide for employer contribution only. Today, the Indiana law covers an estimated 553,000 industrial and commercial employees. Besides being one of the first to get a program under way, our State also has heen a leader in establishing merit as the basis for selecting a competent personnel. The Federal Social Security Board has emphasized this important state responsibility, saying the state programs will succeed according to the competence of those who operate them. ’ Wisconsin is the only state with a straight employerreserve account. Indiana and Kentucky combine features

Vermont permits a separate employer reserve.

such as is now suggested for Indiana, under which all contributions go into a single state fund. From this fund benefits are paid to all eligible employees regardless of their former employers.

Business Manager |

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TIMES

i i le ml ll MATA

IN hn A

Looks Like Big Year for Comic Valentines—By Herblock

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Housewives and Doctors Heroes of the Flood in Indiana; Worst Starts as Water Recedes.

(CHICAGO, Feb. 10.—A letter from an Indiana woman protests that the generosity and personal sacrifice of the rivertown people in housing and feeding the un-

| fortunate washouts of the Ohio River flood

have been insufficiently recognized. It seems to me that this phase of the disaster was pretty well covered but perhaps it wasn't. If not, it

| should be reported that the spirit of the people of both the pooled-fund and employer-reserve accounts. |

was very noble. The women of the local Red Cross chapters, just

| ordinary women of the kind whom Thirty-two states have adopted a straight pooled fund, |

the census takers put down as housewife, turned to and cooked

| and served meals by hand to anyone who crawled off a log, and | about the only credential that a

The plans vary somewhat from state |

to state, and all involve actuarial principles that will require |

time to test. We are not opposing amendment of the law, which we assume will be necessary. We merely question the wisdom of change before anyone has sufficient basis of experience to judge either the virtues or defects of the law. Being an Administration measure, the proposed amendment doubtless will pass. That may be wise, but in our judgment it is premature, MAKING IT HARD N ironic fact about the coming battle over the President’s court proposal is that the most potent argument for his short cut has been handed to him-by his enemies. In blocking a measure close to his heart—the Child Labor Amendment-—they have staged such a demonstration of delay as to prove all too dramatically how difficult it can be made to change the Constitution. While we do not like the President's proposal because of reasons we have stated, we do believe that a realistic approach to the whole question of what can be done calls for recognition of the fact that the amendment method is a

buildings or courtrooms but more | were taken into private homes and

human being needed was an appetite, of which there was no lack. In some places the washouts : were quartered in empty store ; ; # A a

given some kind of shake-down Mr. Pegler

and it just seemed to be taken

| for granted that anyone who had

a dry house would shelter as many people as it was possible to crowd in. The doctors, too, sailed in and worked around

| the clock for there were many bad colds and quite

long and tedious and uncertain process made more so by | all the arts of modern propaganda used to deceive and be- |

fuddle governors and legislators. We hope that the agitation now at white heat over the whole court and Constitution question may at least react favorably in behalf of this one pending measure to free children from looms, factories, mines and shops. Every month ratification of it is delayed will be an argument for a shorter and, we believe, more dangerous way.

ROUNDBOOKING HE Government has some £600,000,000 invested in rail-

roads. Yet a few key men in Congress apparently have undertaken to starve to death the Wheeler Commit-

tee’s investigation of railroad finances, a clear understand- |

ing of which seems to be essential to protecting the Gov- | |

General Hugh Johnson Says—

ernment’s investments. These key men hold the purse strings. They limited the funds of the Wheeler Committee, and now by the trick of putting riders on appropriation bills they are trying to cut off the co-operation which the committee has had from the trained staffs of the ICC and PWA. The Government is spending billions of dollars through WPA on relief, a substantial part of which goes to persons who lose their jobs by strikes and lockouts. same key men, by the same methods, apparently are trying to wreck the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee investigation of labor spies who stir up industrial disputes that lead to lockouts and strikes. It may be clever politics, but it is not good government.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? HE War Department has asked Congress to change the name of the Chemical Warfare Service, making it the Chemical Service, and bills to that end have been introduced in House and Senate. Probably it won't make much difference. The Chemjcal Warfare Service, by any other name, can hake as ‘deadly plans. Congress might decree that poison gas should be called attar of roses, but those who die of it would never know the difference.

Yet these |

a lot of pneumonia, and there was a personal touch in all the relief work which showed the human race at its best. ”n n » A> now that the water has fallen and the dra- . X matic phase has passed, the worst of the trouble starts, although it will receive little national notice. A flood when it is a flood is something to see for it is exciting and in a sense clean. When the water goes down, however, it leaves slime and horrible objects on the beach. Every man’s little house and farm are his own problem. There is no community effort here. His furniture falls apart, the plaster comes off his walls, his house or garage or barn may be left slaunchwise, partly on the lot next door, and all this is his little worry. The militia, the Coast Guards and the visiting firemen and police will be gone and the community will be back on the old basis.

Some pretty terrible slums have been washed out |

and this would be a break for the country if there were any assurance that the reconstruction would not merely replace the slums with the salvage of hovels that were unfit for human habitation in the first place.

Oppose Child Labor

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10.—Active participation by two Catholic clergymen in the nation-wide drive to ratify the Child Labor Amendment emphasizes the fact that the Catholic Churely is not opposing this Federal ban on the employment of wage-earning children. One is the Rt. Rev, Msgr. John A. Ryan, one of Catholicism’s most prominent thinkers. ‘The other is Bishop Robert E. Lucey of the Amarillo (Tex. Diocese. Bishop Lucey recently advocated ratification at a Knights of Columbus banquet in Amarillo. He said the opposition was composed chiefly of two groups— those who oppose it in behalf of their own economic interest, and those who are insufficiently informed as to its meaning and scope.

WHERgLoNC o

Sudden Death—-1937 —By Talburt

“WEDNESDAY, FEB. 10, 1937 /

24 Deaths in 40 Days

Marion

Were

| Lemon can enlighten | reading any American history.

The Hoosier Forum

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

READER DEFENDS SUPREME COURT By Mabel German

Our Government, a constitutional republic, has three branches, name{ly, the executive, or Presidential; the legislative, or Congressional, and the judicial, made up of the Supreme Court, The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicial in the same hands may be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. The power was distributed as widely as possible to prevent the tyranny of one man or many. After a law has run the gantlet of Congress and the President, it is subject to interpretation by the Supreme Court. Thus, it was made almost impossible ior any political party to get hold of all three branches of the Government.

exactly the opposite of what it takes to keep a people free. himself

When we get away from our

constitutional form of government,

with each branch staying within

| its power, we have anything else |

{ but government by the people. When our Supreme Court does not function in its constitutional capacity it will be too late then. These

are well qualified for their offices. Whether they ever leave Washington or not doesn’t alter the | fact that the constitutional laws affect the whole people. is always on the job and for this the American people can be thankful. We salute” these trustworthy “old men,” the Supreme Court. 2 2 F PRAISES GENEROSITY TO FLOOD SUFFERERS By Chester Smith + + » Just the other day I heard a radio comedian say he would donate $1000 to the Red Cross for relief work. Persons like that one will have some stars in heaven to shine forever for them. Generosity is a great thing, The | public has responded generously in | this emergency and I am sure we will all continue to respond with all we can possibly do.

> » =» READER BELIEVES PLATO

But the present Administration is |

William |

nine men are appointed for life and | high |

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies ex- | cluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters {| must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.) |

land worked it into his school of | thought, |by Plato and by the Stoics. {goal of Plato and Zeno was the | same-—to fulfill that popular desire | for a philosophy to meet individual {needs. To exchange a state of in- | dependent research for a state of | authority and learning. At that | period of civilization, man wanted

| to get away from the leisure state.

| was the action state, a natural | process of catching up with what {he had learned, discovered and in- | vented. The cycle of civilization is again |in that same phase.

1863. That is the day we collectivized or centralized money, thereby | destroying private bargaining. This | created a need for horizontal unions, { which, in turn, will succumb to vertical unions and collective bargaining. John L. Lewis knows his Plato and his stoicism and so does President Roosevelt. As for Aristotle, he was Alexander's brain truster,

= » =» SUGGESTS NEW LAWS | AS CRIME SOLUTION | By M. C.

We read quite a bit about crime among our young men and women, and no one seems to know what to do about it, I think it would be very easy to reduce this crime wave among young men at least 50 per cent. Let ouf Legislature, which passed laws compelling boys to go {to school until they are 16 years old, also enact a law to keep all | married women out of factories and public institutions. We have hundreds of capable young men and women who are unable to obtain employment and who could fill these | jobs taken by selfish married | women, | Many of these women will ad- | vertise for a capable, | for a housekeeper and to care for

The Court |

LAUGHTER By KEN HUGHES

Socrates was interpreted | The |

The United | States entered that phase Feb. 23, |

{ she wants to. | Mrs. Coolidge are to be admired as | Presidents’ | thoughtful of the poor and down- | | trodden.

single girl | | these men go home, as do the con- | veyer men?

children for $3 a week. A wonder- | ful opportunity for a single girl. | Evervone knows the conditions here | in Indianapolis. Our factories are | full of married women with the exception of a few, and in our | public institutions are many mar- | ried women who aren't even capable. It is a shame that we | have a political system which will | permit these conditions. . . . know many cases where the hus- | bands have good positions and their wives work too. Have we got one state legislator | with backbone enough to bring this much-needed legislation before our | lawmakers and try to remedy the |

: | conditions? Finally, he did, and the Dark Ages | conditio

n n Eb READER LAUDS FIRST LADY FOR INTEREST IN FAMILY By Mrs. Ida McNorton Some woman wrote to the First | Lady of our land a letter, parts of which Mrs. Roosevelt quoted in her | column, criticising her for the con-| tent of her daily column, “My Day.” That writer must not approve of a person in the public eye having a | family to speak of whenever he or | Mrs. Roosevelt and | wives who have been | If the poor hold out over these years of depression it will be partly because of kindly thoughts and smiles. Our President and his wife have aemonstrated that they are capable of giving these smiles and thoughts. | We should not criticize, but should be interested in whatever our Wirst | Lady does. I have kept a scrap- | book of the “My Day” columns. I} love to read them when I am alone. | "

# # LABOR CHIEFS DEFENDED

BY WRITER By Dan Regarding an article by M. R,, Anderson, there is a lot that he] cannot understand. There are many ‘men whose interest is in dividends, not the men

| who sweat eight hours along the conveyer lines.

When it comes to | the slack period of a shutdown do

They do not. . . I happened to be a general manager of a company during the depression and the man came to me |

| bership of the Supreme Court.

County

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Roosevelt's Court Plan Places Problem in People's Hands Where It Belongs, and Opposition Is Mad.

NEW YORK, Feb. 10.—This column wants to get on record as emphatically in support of President Roosevelt's suggestions for judicial reform. It still seems to me that an amendment to the Constitution is necessary,

And of the varying plans I prefer the socalled Madison amendment which would give Con-

| gress power to override a Supreme Court veto by a

two-thirds vote, But I am surprised to find some

liberals lukewarm or even hostile to the President's proposals on the ground that they do not go far enough, There is nothing mutually exclusive in being for the plan to appoint six new justices and also working for an amendment. No matter what scheme of judicial reform anybody has in mind, he ought to admit that the Presie dent has precipitated the problem into the field of public discussion. And he has done so with a dra=matic gesture which takes the argument out of the hands of the few and puts it up to the people. In regard to the Roosevelt proposals, an editorial in the New York Herald Tribune called “Striking at the Roots” moved me even more than the President's own persuasive message on the other side. I think the roots ought to be the goal of the American people. Let us examine briefly a few of the arguments already brought forth against enlarging the memsThe other three points raised by the President, besides this one, are important and useful. I think there is no doubt at all that these are absolutely certain of adoption. But it is only fair to say to the credit of the President's strategy that he has undermined opposition to them by topping this trio of suggestions with one more radical. Those who want no sort of change at all will be so busy trying to block the primary point that they will have no energy left to stop the other three, ” » ” OF course, Mr. Roosevelt starts with the advantage that nobody can possibly maintain that his major proposal is unconstitutional. After all, as he points out, the membership of the high bench has been increased four times. He has ample precedent, It

Mr. Broun

| is a little ironic to find the Herald Tribune accusing

Mr. Roosevelt of “availing himself of the one loop~ hole in the Constitution.” As if defenders of cone servative interests have not been using such cons venient openings for many years. What on earth is the “due process” clause but a loophole for reactions aries?

Laughter is Deep music

LINKED WITH MODERNITY By Lowell Rees

L. L. Patton gave Wesley Wilson a litevary horse laugh recentiy. But Mr. Wilson can laugh last, because Plato has a proper bearing upon American politics. Of course, he did not lay the whole range or sequence, but he did communicate the majority of what we call liberalism. Plato stood an athlete up before him and jotted down the thoughts that came to him as he viewed the man of muscle. He stated that man is not made for a life of pleasure, but is made for action. Zeno, of the sea, caught up the same chord

wind,

Exodus 29:46.

Left Wingers and Hardest-Shelled Reactionaries Unite in Wanting Court Amendment, Latter Because They Think They Can Defeat It.

ASHINGTON, Feb, 10.—If the Constitution is a system of checks and balances, what is the check on the Supreme Court? The check of Congress on the President is impeachment and overriding the veto. These take two-thirds votes. The check of the President on Congress is the veto. The check of the Court on Congress and the President is the power to declare a law unconstitutional and that does not take a two-thirds vote—only a majority. : The checks of Congress on the President, and vice versa, were expressly stated in the Constitution. The check of the Court on Congress and the President was not expressed. The Court inferred it or deduced it as inherent in the judicial power, But—again—where is the check of Congress and the President on the Court? ” n 2 TT President has answered this question, and he didn’t have to deduce it or imply it. It is expressly stated in the power of Congress to create the offices of the justices, to fix their number, and the power of the President and the Senate to select them. it is also explicit in the power of Congress to regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Court. In all the attacks on the President’s plan only the half-cocked and hysterical have intimated that it is unconstitutional,

What, then, is all the shooting for? It is because the President proposes to exercise a constitutional power—to apply one of the jiggers in our “admirable system of checks and balances.” How is that an assault on our American way of life? The other checks and balances—veto, overriding a veto, and frustration of Congress by invalidation of a statute—these are exercised several times a year. ” ” EJ EARLY all comments concede that there was need for something to be done. But many of them insist that this “something” should be an amendment to the Constitution. The authors of these fall into two classes—the left wingers who really want to change the capitalist and profit system on the one hand and, strange to say, our hardest-shelled reactionaries on the other, The latter believe the amendment would fail of ratification and that the delay

would paralyze the New Deal, and that they could use this as an issue to rebuild the Republican Party— an issue in which their constitutional odds of winning are better than 3 to 1 because it takes three-fourths of the States—not of the electorate—to ratify. Neither one of these purposes is very frank or di- / rect, and both raise the question: “Why change the ' Constitution to permit something to be done that it

provides for doing as it now stands?”

Of a crystal pool Rolling in widening ripples At the touch of the wandering |

DAILY THOUGHT And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them; I am the Lord their God.—

ing to work for anything. They say a drowning man will grasp for a straw and so will a hungry man work for anything he can get. Is it right for me to hire him for 30 cents an hour beceuse he is hungry,

Let me say a word for the leaders of organized labor. They usually are men who have worked hard for the cause in their locals and have advanced step by step because of the faith their fellow men place in them. I do not think Mr. Lewis or Mr, Martin think anything

In all his dispensation, God is at |about such things as dues, but we | work for our good.—John Jay.

‘all know it takes money to fight. . ..

every day, begging for work, offer- |

when he is worth a dollar an hour? |

One of the major arguments of the diehards will be that Franklin Roosevelt is insulting old age.

=” #” n

GAIN we shall witness the somewhat humorous spectacle of horrified complaints from industrial leaders that it is cruel to put pressure upon judges to accept pensions at the age of 70. It will be amus= ing, in a way, because these same gentlemen very generally toss their own employees on the scrap heap at the age of 40 or 45. It seems to me that the President has only just begun to fight. He has put the problem into the hands of the American people, where it belongs. And that is democratic procedure. Indeed, that is why

the gentlemen on the other side are so supremely outraged.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

One Reason Roosevelt Chose Present Court Plan Instead of Amendment

Was Reported Drive of

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, Feb. 10.—Those who worked with the President on his Supreme Court message to Congress say that it was one of the most carefully thought-out steps he has ever taken. Many Roosevelt advisers urged him to propose a Constitutional amendment, and for a time this was very seriously considered. An amendment limiting the power of the Court would pass Congress easily, it was believed, but one very important development influenced Roosevelt in deciding against this. ame to him from various sources that a dri RI under way on the part of Liberty League forces to influence state legislatures. In fact, the reports were that big business interests were raising money to buy up legislatures, if possible, to kill such an amendment.. ” ” ” HESE reports were checked, and Roosevelt finally became convinced that a Constitutional amendment would be too risky and in any event would take too long. He is anxious to get legislation regarding minimum wages, maximum hours, and—If possible

—crop control this spring. Therefore, the plan of enlarging the Court finally

was decided upon. The message to Congress which followed con-

Liberty League to Influence Legislatures,

tained a lot more hidden dynamite than appeared on the surface. The President very cleverly worked into it quotations and reform plans which had been advocated by the very justices now sitting on the

Supreme Court, » on n

NE of these was Justice McReynolds, bitterest enemy Roosevelt has on the Court. So without mentioning names Roosevelt wove into his message to Congress the fact that McReyne olds, as Attorney General in 1913 and ’14, recome mended to Congress that when a judge did not retire at the age of 70 “an additional judge be appointed in order that the affairs of the Court might be adequately discharged.”

McReynolds, who proposed to retire judges after 70, celebrated his 75th birthday last week. Roosevelt also worked in some quotes from Charles Evans Hughes, who once delivered a series of lectures in which he emphasized the manner in which judges clung to the Supreme Court beyond the age of usefulness. Hughes felt that 70 might be too early to retire, but that “a compulsory retirement at 75 could be more easily defended.” Hughes will be 75 in April. Hughes agreed, however, that “the risk of having judges who are unable properly to do their work and yet insist on remaining on the bench, is too great to permit chances to be taken.” wh