Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 February 1937 — Page 16

‘PAGE 16

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD President

LUDWELL DENNY Editor Business Manager Owned and published daily (except Sunday) hy ahs The Indianapolis Times ’ by carrier, 12 Publishing Co., 214 W week. Marviand Maryland St Mail subscription rates Member of United Press, in Indiana, $3 a year, Scripps - Howard News- | paper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

cents a month.

RlIley 5551

Gire Lioht amd the People Will Piad Their Own Way

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1937

NEPOTISM

(GOVE NOR TOWNSEND'S appointment of his son to a |

State office was inept.

We assume voung Mr. Townsend is capable and will

serve the State well. But that cannot remove the charge of nepotism against the Townsend Administration at a time when it should be building public confidence. Such confidence is too essential to the success of the Administration to be jeopardized by nepotism.

LIGHT WITHOUT HEAT IE friction between the Roosevelt Administration and the Federal Courts has proportion to the mvolved.

issues

Fortunately a of 500 thoughtful scheduled to gather cussion that should

tional Conference on Constitutional Amendment.

Qroup

This meeting will try to unite on a constitutional plan which would give Congress clarified powers to meet the | staggering national problemas of unemployment, sweatshops, |

low buying power, farm and city slums, periodic depressions,

monopolistic controls and other evils besetting our machine |

The Liberal View

Im ratio to the vital nature of the issue which has been so |

‘By Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes

out of this meeting of minds, which for long |

civilization. The results of this meeting we hope will be illuminating dramatized by the President's recent proposal. And we trust that have been found

curing

¢ the overbalance of power in the judiciary from which

working on the problem, a better way may be

we now suffer, threatens in our opinion to set up another |

the executive.

1 1+] v " Va v 1 NE » { overbalance in behalf of

REBUILDING

HE 106-vear-old Indiana river town of Leaveaworth,

virtually wiped out by the flood, may be rebuilt on a hill. has meant their

which

the side of a r “Thousands, in

ver other periences. But most of them will go back. They love the river. The rich, Leavenworth—founded by the D’Lyon Skiff Co., which made river boat hulls—typifies the attraction of river trade.

bottomland is

ple, and a flood won't drive them away.

For some cities, such as Louisville, a few blessings |

may follow catastrophe. Louisville is planning to rebuild part ol its stricken area aiong modern lines. “The Point,” a riverfront district crowded mostly with squalid houses, may become a park. Similar projects may replace other

slum areas.

Ugfortunately, the cities and states and Federal Gov-

ernment have not worked out a co-operative plan for financ- | | ruthlessness.

ing slun: eradication and building of low-cost homes. The flood not only has dramatized again the evils of slums. authorities—agencies that in this emergency could seek Federal help in replacing waterlogged and houses with new low-cost homes in safer places.

Federal, state, Red Cross and other agencies are working tirelessly at the job of relief and rehabilitation. Their

work would be far easier today if proper housing legislation had been provided.

This disaster should drive home the lesson. The pend- |

ing Wagner-Ellenbogen Slum-Eradication Bill in Congress

would make substantial Federal grants and loans available |

to local housing authorities, And the flood should impress the Legislature with the fact that Indiana communities are equally unprepared to avail themselves of such grants and loans.

HITLER AND THE KAISER HE most tragic thing of all about international affairs is that while history goes on repeating itself as ceaselessly as a phonograph record, mankind seems to learn little or nothing as the lesson goes round and round. Herr Hitler, for example, right now is following in the footsteps of the prisoner of Doorn. It is quite as if the life and fate of William 11 mean absolutely nothing to him.

Back at the turn of the century, the Kaiser could have |

had an alliance with Britain for the asking. But the Kaiser's advisers put other ideas into his head. What is happening now in Europe is but a repetition. Herr Hitler might have driven a wedge between the British and the I'rench had he gone about it the right way. And

he might have succeeded in bringing about a real rapproche- |

ment between Britain and the Reich.

But, like the Kaiser before him, he has tried to gain his objectives by methods of ruthlessness and fright. He

nas torn up treaties and flung them back in the faces of their makers. He has created one of the strongest war machines in Europe. His air force threatens London. He has reoccupied the Rhineland, reached out after Austria. He talks of wiping Russia ofl the map and using the Urals for a Nazi garden. He makes an ally of Japan and warns that Germany must have colonies or fight. He pulls a bluft tn Morocco and meddles in Spain. He cuddles up to Italy— on the tender flank of Britain's short-cut to India—and rattles the saber until its clatter is heard all the way from Gibraltar to Vladivostok. Thus history goes right on repeating. The Hitlerites are even beginning the old chorus that if war comes it won't be their fault. Nor will it, for that matter. For war really isn’t anybody's fault. It is everybody's fault. War is always the sum of all the mistakes everybody makes from the last peace treaty to the next ultimatum. War is the fault of a pathetically dull mankind that listens to history’s record, as it goes round and round— listens, but does not learn. N .

( ¥,

MARK FERREE |

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

outside of Indiana, 65 |

as vet produced heat far out of | light that has been shed on the many |

citizens is in Washington on March 18 for a dis- | add much in terms of light—The Na- |

than the short-cut method which, while it is aimed at |

| nothing

| for the ruthlessness of the pioneer

The river is a part of these peo- |

| tinue the mopping-up process.

| inous { storms which harass our country.

| great country has been so rapidly

[t has demonstrated the need for local housing |

substandard |

canoneers vs. Roosevelt, |

out with blood in their eyes—just let th

Hasn’t This

oe XR

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES® Trailer Craze Gone Far Enough?—By Talburt

THURSDAY, FEB. 11, 19371

—

\3 \ SIT Ly — >

(Substituting for Westbrook Pegler.)

Rugged Individualism of Pioneers Is Often Praised, but It Cleared Path for Floods

| NEW YORK, Feb. 11.—We tender a lot of

rhetorical homage to the spirit of the

| frontier. We pay tribute to the rugged indi- | vidualism of the pioneer. We point out how Overnight, the town's 418 residents were uprooted from livelihood. |

1 TW, “ys . . | flooded communities, had similar ex- | picture. Nature has recoiled, has gathered her forces

this enabled our forefathers to

nature and build America. Now we are beginning to see the other side of the

conquer

anew and is reconquering man. The recent floods are

more than the penalty which nature is belatedly exacting

who laid waste our now denuded river valleys, and of the plutocrats who followed in his tracks to con-

Over against the oft-praised advantages of rugged individualism in the development of America we shall now have to set off the rufloods, droughts and dust

It is probably true that no other

developed and exploited as the Dr. Barnes

United States. But we are now

| coming to understand that it is equally true that no other country has been more rapidly or thoroughly | mushroom |

devastated by these same processes of

n ” ”

HE whole Ohio Valley and much of the Mississippi Valley was once covered by magnificent hardwood forests. mosi disgracefully light-hearted manner. Trees were burned down wholesale to provide clearings for agriculture. Then those that remained were lumbered off relentlessly with no thought of the morrow. now we are scourged by floods and threatened with a grave timber shortage.

The current trend toward a great American desert is equally a product of shortsighted scrambling for immediate profits. were plowed under in order to take temporary advantage of high prices of grain. Now we have our dust storms which not only leave this land dessicated but bury under mountains of dust tens of thousands of acres of ordinarily fertile lands.

” n un

N<& only has the spirit of rugged individualism been responsible for our disasters. It has also been the major force in preventing us from taking adequate steps to safeguard ourselves against the disasters implicit in the shortsighted policies of our ancestors. It has discouraged a planned economy and any systematic public works program which might long ago have rendered every flooded city immune to the torrents. If there ever was a President who was familiar with national disasters it was Herbert Hoover. But when the depression overtook us he made no effort

to set in motion a great public works program to pro- |

tect us against floods and deserts, and, incidentally, provide that mass employment which would have helped to check the depression and to restore prosperity. Rather, he created the Reconstruction Finance Corp. and ladled out the country’s money to financial moguls who had all too frequently gambled away their own resources and those of their stockholders.

If Mr. Roosevelt is to give us a real New Deal |

it will have to include stalling these largely

————————

a new attitude toward fore-

“ cd W \ \ ;

and Droughts. |

sion attain the greatest success.

{ the chin whiskers and overalls of

These were destroyed in pioneer days in the | x S p | spoke in the dialect of New York's | €Ven Sl ac mart

raincoat, And |

Pasture lands and buffalo grass |

Three’s a Crowd

WELL, WHICH 00 You

National Safety Couneld ————

The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will | lefend to the death your right to say it.=Voltaire.

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

| [of their jobs and so notified this | office. In every case the man's job | will be held for him. In all but three cases the employer will either | Letters | continue his full pay or will pay the cifference between his regular poy |

{and his Militia pay. These threc |

“Real American Humor”

“Bob Burns’ naive musings have the essential quality that has characterized most of the American humorists who have won wide public acclaim. He is a wise guy, | with the ability to appear dumb. “If one calls the roll of the great American humorists he will find a striking similarity of technique. The illusion of dumbness may be attained by different methods, but, in- self-supporting. variably, those who attain the illu-

“Artemus Ward disguised the | ”

half-illiterate cow- | By Lieut. J. E.

| ballplayers. Wallace Irwin, when he

| spoke through a Japanese schoolboy, | 20d medical staff were sent with each of our units.

and idiom; Milt Gross, when he |€Stablished in a heated building,

| bewildered by American customs |

| platitudinous sermons had he not |is entirely

| to a family estate? . Shorter hours may not produce | the Naval Reservist was speaking for |

more wealth, but it will reduce much | himself only. want. We abolished the 12 and 10- | hn ow hour days without dire results. In- |

stead of part of us earning all, we | . : yi . ay might all earn our part and all be | ON ALTON “UNBECOMING

Isn't it worth a trial?

Fleming, indianapolis Naval Reserve Headquarters |

The Forum letter of Feb. 9 from | mores by phrasing them in the un-| an Indianapolis Naval Reservist in tutored diajects of Messrs. DOOICY | puangville was very misleading and | fied in dubbing him a snob.

| 3 | contained several statements that | ¥ Ww Ww

When the Indiana Naval Militia | FOR “COWARDICE” | was called out for duty in the flood “Ring Lardner found his widest area, we did everything in our power

popular response when he spoke | to protect the health of the men and | through the medium of dumb-cluck | srovide for their comfort. A doctor

The number of men referred to | erroneous.

| men already have been released. The co-operation from employers has | been excellent.

Isn't every - We pride ourselves on the very

| ganization. I am quite certain that |

TERMS PEGLER'S COMMENTS

| By Mrs, E. H. Ewing I think it was very unbecoming of Westhrook Pegler to refer to the | good people of Alton as “hill-billies,” | after enjoying their hospitality, as | he says he did. Some very fine statesmen have come from those | same hills. Perhaps if they visited Pegler in his home town they would be justi-

”

Commanding

| SCOLDS THE TIMES

By Hiram Lackey Just as some newspapers have to | be taken to task constantly because of their unfairness and propaganda, so does The Times have to be taken to task for its timidity when said timidity functions as

downright cowardice. For years The Times has barked | for collective bargaining and for | the decent standards of living We now | which can be gained by that prac-

Quarters were

locations were was issued an boots, blanket

(couched them in the argot of the | have 124 men in Evansville and are tice. When the cause of collective

| office boy, the truck driver, and the | relieving them | poolroom lounger. duties permit.

| the high-brow crowd, and, through

| call on the people. They speedily

ar a . | to Indianapolis. attain. in the poular mind, the un- !

: | have said they enviable status of smart aleck. The | SOT :

as fast as The peak “The great wit, or the sophisti- [was 191 men, including regular (cated wisecracker, may appeal to | Navy men from the local Recruit- : : ing Office. Of the number now in | heh, attain a brief popular vogue. | Evansville 53 have asked to remain | But the Dorothy Parkers, the Noel | o5 long as possible since they have | Cowards, the Beatrice Lillies, soon no work requiring them to return Twelve other men could

I have personally contacted em- | ployers of men who were uncertain

their | bargaining found in John L. Lewis number | an active, virile leader and when he launched a militant drive to | give The Times the justice for | which it has barked, what did The | Times do but run out on Mr. Lewis, scurrying off to the editorial hole, | leaving Mr. Lewis to fight the big | dog himself, Instead of lying with its head out of its hole, growling at Mr. Lewis, | The Times should’ have demon- | strated courage consistent with th> | occasion and its reputation,

stay until

| Dunne, Will Rogers and Bob Burns, | | craftily conceals it.”

» un on

TO END POVERTY, BELIEF |_of love

| By F. M. Kirkendall, Secretary Anti. {To hold a questioning heart Until there is answer.

| Poverty Club, Dayton, O. | A little more than a century ago |

| the first-born in a family fell heir | DAILY THOUGHT

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that waverwave of driven with the wind and tossed.

to the family estate. { When the “law of entail” was | abolished it worked a hardship on | [the first-born. The eldest heir could | (no longer exploit the others, not | leven high-hat them. | When we adopt the six-hour day |

eth is like a

—James 1:6.

{and the four or five-day week it

General

Hugh Johnson Says —

Faith must have adequate evi- ‘ ; dence, else it is mere superstition. : preventable national disasters. | will work a hardship on the worker | —A. A. Hodge.

It Seems That the Same Forces Whose Opposition Elected Roosevelt

Now Are Hammering Away

ASHINGTON, Feb. 11.—The drum-fire barrage being laid down on the President ’c Judiciary | message is like the Landon campaign which so effectively elected Mr. Roosevelt—same battery positions, same guns, big and little—same ammunition, It occupies the same space in the same papers and

thunders the same awful threats of dictatorship and dissolution,

Because of its deafening volume, it is i the same initial reaction “view halloo and ei 5 “this is the kill.” Maybe in a day or so my much admired, but never met, Mr, Mencken will trot out his Chinaman to run Mr. Roosevelt ragged. Mr. Landon is going to speak. It's Just exactly the way they gave the President the greatest victory in the silliest Republican campaign in American politics. The election proved that, in addition to congenital Democrats, there is a big inarticulate mass of about eleven million voters for thirty or forty million people who don’t reach the public prints, but who feel very emphatically on the question of these particular

HEY regard this household artillery as their enemy, and Mr. Rooscvelt as their friend. They may not be very alert on complicated constitutional

| people and these particular

at His Proposal for Supreme Court Reform.

: papers begin to pan the President. This is a very important issue. Tt deserves deliberate debate. But it would be a swell idea for the opposition to stop screaming and jumping up and down and to keep the debate on the issue and off Mr. Roosevelt as a dictator and an enemy of the Constitution, the republic, mother, home and flag. What that dramatizes is the “tremendous power of the forces of intrenched greed attacking the protector otf the poor.” It is bonehead strategy and rotten tactics.

» » ”

T is rumored that the lawyers, in serried ranks of state, city, county and national bar associations, are charging onward with hardly a gap in their lines to smash the center of Mr. Roosevelt's prepared position. That would be reminiscent of the Liberty League mobilizing lawyers to write a round-robin swearing that AAA was clearly unconstitutional when only fiveninths of the Supreme Court concurred. In fact, most of this sudden whirling scene looks exactly like the Liberty League winding up to knock itself out again. This isn't a lawsuit. It's an incipient crisis. To the average man it looks precisely as though the very forces of “wealth and privilege” which tried to beat him and Mr. Roosevelt on exactly the same arguments, and were themselves overwhelmingly rebuked, are trying to pervert the election and frustrate these popu-

questions, but there is one sure-fire Tals tun them

nly approved policies within a month of his inaugu-

WIFE y 4»

By KEN HUGHES SHORTER HOURS THE WAY | Her eyes are circles

REPEAL OF PARTY LAW SOUGHT BY VOTER By H. S. Bonsib To the Indiana Legislature: As a taxpayer and citizen of Indiana, I protest the unjust law re= quiring minority party voters of In- | diana to obtain a certain number of |

| with democratic government.

the sea

| he might flunk it.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Supreme Court Justices Seemed To Writer to Be a Trifle Self Conscious Under Public Scrutiny.

VW ASHINGTON, Feb. 11.-—It is rumored : that the orchestras of hotels, rese:

taurants and night clubs have been ine structed not to play “Happy Birthday to You” when a justice of the Supreme Court

comes into the room. That's a lie. I made it up myself, but it is true that the nine gentlemen who may be called upon to split six blessed events among themselves seemed a little self-conscious undes publie scrutiny Monday. The 8S. R. O. sign was out, and

most of the spectators in the crowded chamber seemed to be asking with their eyes how the members of the high bench would take it. There was confusion. As a rule, the justices enter in a body and stand almost in military tormas= tion for some 20 seconds before they take their seats. I had ex= pected, in my romantic way, that this time the chins would be elevated by a quarter uy inch and the shoulders thrown back farther than ever before, as if to say to the general public, “We will show that census taker where he gets off.” It didn’t work out. Mr. Justice Brandeis, who will be 81 on Nov. 13, wandered in by himself and was alone for at least a minute, And then they sat, and presently the nine men listened to the arguments which will decide whether Angelo Herndon, a Negro worker, is to be delivered to the mercies of a Georgia chain gang, As one faces the Court, they sit like this, reading from left to right—Mr. Justice Roberts, 61, and born on May 2. Mr, Roberts seems younger than that, and the first time I ever saw him in civilian clothes I thought he was Tom Shevlin, the old Yale football player,

Mr. Broun

” ” ” TIERCE BUTLER, who will be 71 on St. Patrick's Day, does not look like anybody in particular, and his trick is a scratching of the left ear. Mr. Justice Brandeis has a head which is a sculptor's dream. He could sit for a statue of Elijah, and the fine modeling of the face is accentuated by the fact that he offers a profile to the contending lawyers and cups his chin in his right hand. Willis Van Devanter will be 78 on April 17. and he looks like a minor Shakespearean actor. He uses

| glasses only for reading.

Chief Justice Hughes, who will not touch 75 until April 11, pays very close attention, but does a great deal of reading of presumably pertinent documents during an argument, ” ” ” USTICE M'REYNOLDS had his 75th birthday only last week. He spent the day quietly. He could very well be carved as a Confederate general on the face of some convenient cliff. But he fidgets. George Sutherland is only 74, and looks like a Lats ter Day Saint, particularly Brigham Young, But he reems less vigorous when he speaks, for his voice is low and mufYled. Harlan Stone, 64, and born on Oct. 11, seems the friendly businessman type, who offers you a highball at the 19th hole. Benjamin Cardozo will not be 67 until May 24, and, if Brandeis is the prophet of the bench, Cardozo is the poet. I have not caught him in any characteristic gesture, but he seems to have his gaze fixed on the far wall of the courtroom. I don't know whether he sees meadows or men, but if he were called upon suddenly to parse a sentence or conjugate a verb I think

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Bureau of Air Commerce Under Vidal Has Been Easy Going in Enforcing Safety Regulations; Plane Accident Reports Show Frequent Violations.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, Feb. 11.—During all the buckpassing which has featured recent investigations into air tragedies, one significant fact has not generally leaked out. This is that the Bureau of Air Commerce has been lax in enforcing safety regulations. Handsome Director Eugene Vidal, and other air officials, have talked glibly about new safety devices. The Bureau's glowing press releases point with pride to the “safety manuals” issued by the air lines. Yet the Bureau's own accident reports show frequent violations of botlx the manuals and of Government regulations, These violations usually are made with the knowledge of the air line, since the pilot must turn in a chart of a planned course before he takes off. ” ” ” M*® VIDAL is a charming gentleman, was once & West Point football star, has been a great favorite of Mrs, Roosevelt, and more than once has benefited by special pleas made in his behalf by Amelia Earhart Putnam. But the records of his own Bureau show that he is as easy-go ir enforoe~ ment as he is charming in his

During the Hoover regime, public the penalties it imposed

ule, by

after Mr. Vidal became director, a censorship was clamped on such announcements. Search of the Bureau's files shows that but one case

| has been referred by Mr. Vidal to the Justice De=

partment for prosecution. This compares with 32 prosecutions begun in the pre-Vidal days. Fines have been collected, but they have not been as heavy as previously, and furthermore fines are but a puny enforcement weapon. In contrast, the Bureau has sweeping powers to ground planes in bad weather and to revoke transport licenses for serious violations, ” ” n NE thing which Walter Runciman, president of the British Board of Trade, confessed to Presi dent Roosevelt in the privacy of the White Housa discussions, was how worried the British were about

the slowness of their aviation armament program, .. By March 1, 1037, they were scheduled to have manufactured 71 new squadrons (there are about 18 planes in a squadron). _ But on Dec. 14 they had only 32 squadrons coms pleted. This meant that in order to finish on schede:

plants would have to speed up production VOL obviously ble. v it worse is after March 1, the increase,