Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 February 1937 — Page 20

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PAGE 20 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

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SE LS

ars

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1937

EASIER VOTING, BETTER VOTING SHORTER ballot, the clearest route to more intelligent voting, seems to be approaching realization in Indiana. The automatic voting machine put an end to untimely delay in population centers and helped modernize voting procedure. Uniform registration did more. Now, the ballot-shortening program being pushed in the Legislature by the League of Women Voters promises further gains. A resolution for a constitutional amendment making the State Superintendent of Public Instruction an appointive instead of an elective office has passed both houses. It must be approved by the next Legislature and submitted to popular vote hefore it is effective. A bill to make the Reporter of the Supreme and Appel-

late Courts an appointive oflicer has passed the Senate and |

is before the House. An amendment is not needed in this case. Another bill to eliminate the pretense of voting on individual Presidential electors has passed the House. The wisdom of these measures is obvious. On a short ballot, all the offices to be voted upon receive attention. There is no blind voting, no need for slates. No other reason than politics can be given for the Senate action in killing a companion measure to take the Clerk of the Supreme Court out of the elective class. Voting under a short and simplified ballot will be more prompt and intelligent.

THREE WISE MEN

w 0 many dead cats have been hurled at the lower Federal courts for tying up Federal laws by injunction that it 1s pleasing to applaud three judges of the Fifth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans for practicing judicial self-restraint.

A group of Alabama employers asked an injunction

to stop collection of unemployment-insurance taxes under the Social Security Act, declaring the tax unconstitutional. The circuit judges upheld District Judge Davis of Bir- |

mingham in denying an injunction, opining, first, that the tax was laid for the general welfare, and, next, that even if they thought otherwise it was not their business to pass on the law’s constitutionality.

“Relief by injunction in an inferior court is not or- |

dinarily available to stop even an unconstitutional tax before 1ts unconstitutionality has been settled by the Supreme Court,” they held. Unfortunately such “relief” has been far too available in some of the Federal courts in the past three years. Senator McCarran, author of a resolution passed by the Senate calling on various New Deal agencies to report the

extent to which Federal injunctions have tied their hands, |

finds an amazing record of judicial nullification by these lower courts. the administration of the AAA. Private power companies

obtained 56 injunctions against spending PWA funds for |

The Wagner Labor Act was hamAnd so on.

building electric works. strung by 80 injunctions. If all Federal judges had the same conception of their

proper function that 1s held by the three in the Fifth Cir- |

cuit, the present controversy over the Federal courts might never have arizen.

BASKETBALL FEVER

HE basketball season rapidly is nearing its peak, and

Hoosier teams are attracting widespread interest to the

sport which a national magazine recently called “Indiana madness.” X In the Big Ten, major league of American college bas-

ketball, Purdue and Minnesota will battle for the leadership

at Lafayette Saturday night. Indiana University has dropped some in the Big Ten standings since the first semester, but it still has an excellent all-season record and Vern Hufiman, I. U. star, is rated by many as the best guard in the Western Purdue's Jewell Young, leading Conference points, is another pnenomenal product of Hoo ball education. Indiana and J neet, for the last time this season Feb. 27 at Lafayette ex's have been sold for months. Among the Indiana Cr Central Normal of Danville leacs The college games are thrilling, hut the big comes in the high schools. The current high school melee is even more baffling than usual. At the top of the heap is the 1935-36 champion, Frankfort, undefeated this season

Conference.

indefeated

excitement

except in one game by Jeilerson of Lafayette, a team later |

beaten decisively by Frankfort. Other strong contenders leave the outcome in doubt. The elaborate state tournament, involving more than 700 high school teams, will get under way March 4, with sectional meets in 64 centers. The following week these

winners will play in 16 regional meets. After that will

come four semifinal contests, one of them at Technical | Then the four top teams will meet |

gymnasium here. March 27 at Butler Fieldhouse to decide the championship. This season's performances—excellent playing, good sportsmanship and keen rivalry—add to the great appeal the game has for Indiana.

A FEDERAL ANTI-LYNCH LAW

HE usually wise Rep. Hatton Sumners of Texas has argued against a Federal anti-lynching law less eonvincingly than an Alabama mob has just argued for one.

Rep. Sumners says that lynchings have declined under | state enforcement from 3.4 victims per million persons in |

1892 to about .07 per million in 1936. But last week 50 men broke into an Alabama jail, hanged and riddled with bullets an 18-year-old Negro and escaped without arrest. More impressive than statistics is the conclusion of an

influential Southern paper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, |

Some 2000 injunctions were issued against

scorer by 45 | sier basket-

THE Why Boys Leave Home !-By Talburt

INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

‘Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

N. Y. Baby Killer Claims Infant Bit Him, and That Reminds Writer Of Mussolini

EW YORK, Feb. 19.—Like as not some impetuous people will want to imprison or even sentence to death that man in One- ' onta, N. Y., who sheok to death a 15-month- | old baby. Ilowever, a reasonable examination of the events leading up to the tragedy suggests a much different conclusion. The man’s explanation is that the baby bit him, and if that is true there would seem to be a pretty clear case of self-defense. Biting is a crime, and while the extreme youth of the victim will have to be considered, the faet remains that in the immediate absence of the police any man has a right to protect himself from assault. Sometimes, at first reading, such an incident seems extremely brutal, but good citizens will remember the somewhat larger, but otherwise almost identical case of Italy and Abyssinia which disturbed the world about a year ago. It may be recalled that the I.eague of Nations went off halfcocked in the fall of 1935, adopted a boycott against the Italian government, and but for the strong determination of Benito Mussolini and

vs. Haile Selassie.

Mr. Pegler

{ The Times for a good many years |

FRIDAY, FEB. 19, 1937 |

Historical Figures—By Herblock i

gio

CONGRESS PLANNED ON A CHANGE TO FIVE, BUT THE SIX REMAINED VERY MUCH ALIVE.

SIX HIGH JUDGES, SUPREME AS HEAVEN = AND JEFFERSON ADDED NUMBER SEVEN-

TWO MORE AD x

biotin graf RL

420)

NINE HIGH JUDGES WERE SITTING WHEN LINCOLN MADE THEM AN EVEN TEN.

TEN HIGH JUDGES, VERY SEDATE]

AEN AR

eae oh Ea Sel o aa Ca BL

1937:

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

what yon say, but will

READER RAPS COMPARISON OF F. D. R. WITH LINCOLN By A. L. T. I have been a constant reader of

cluded. Make

and have always thought it a fair and consistent newspaper, but the |

| other day The Times certainly made

is most horrible.

the high principle of the nation might have wrought |

a great, irreparable wrong. At the moment it appeared that Mussolini had cast his eye about the map and had wantonly hopped on a primitive and almost defenseless fellow-member of the League for no reason but to take a land that wasn't hisn. The Duce insisted, however, that Haile Selassie was threatening the Italian nation from a distance of 3000 miles and in effect had bitten him. = un 2 USSOLINI didn't ‘exactly pick the baby up, for physical contact with the Ethiopians is repugnant to highly civilized persons, but he did shoot

a few of them here and there by way of admonition. | | tersections, in

At this the baby bit him, and the gallant defender of the gates of Rome accepted the fray with the heroic courage of a great soul fighting for his honor and his life. Happily there were some wise souls in the world

who did not join the League of Nations in its impul- | sive verdict against Italy, but examined the evidence |

and saw the justification. I happened to Ye in Italy at the time, and though my own first impression was against the Duce, I came to a pause when I observed distinguished churchmen exhorting young Italian farmers to leave their fields and go abroad to ficht the foul aggresser, un n ”

HUS Selassie’s high churchmen had delivered ex-

hortations almost identical in principle to the | scabby brutes who went whooping into Addis Ababa |

shouting the native equivalent of trust.” And, anyway, there was no getting around the one fundamental fact that the baby bit the Duce. I learned this myself, to my great relief, and that is

“In God is our

Why in the present instance I hope justice will pro- | | bile.

ceed calmly, with particular attention to the question whether the baby drew a knife on the man in Oneonta, N. Y.

‘General Hugh Johnson Says— Part of Opposition to Roosevelt's Court Plan Based on Crack at Charles Evans Hughes, Most Distinguished American Except President.

For the District Draft Board in New York City, | we asked a man named Charles Evans Hughes to | He had come within a shadow | of the White House. He had been a member of the | But he accepted. No case was ever delayed.

WY hemsoron Feb. 19.— “The man who advised me to write that letter is still in this room.” So Woodrow Wilson said, twitching the curtains | of the Cabinet room and looking out at the Washmgton Monument.

ithe Mayor is

} | | |

He was speaking of the greatest |

error of his career—the letter saying that he must |

| have a Congress of Democrats in 1918. | was Burleson. At the beginning of the war the Presid . sident had | electrified the country with this slogan, “Politics | are adjourned.” He called to his assistance men of | Rialty regardless of party. 16 War Labor Policies Board which this wri ) his writer | has always thought is the answer to our labor prob- | lems, was headed by Republican ex-President William | H. Taft. He was advised by Felix Frankfurter.

un ” ”

Br toughest, problem in the draft was the City of New York. I will never forget the first day 1 1eard of the pro-German, It was in a telegram and Bh Jou ora. I didn’t know whether the sender prot about a musical program or obscure

It happened to be a protes oh :

that there 1s “no hope of ever wiping out lynching, the |

greatest crime against Southern civilization, except through

Federal action.” %

{

complaints, but that he was on the were all Be ot pe an descent, Wissonewn. carers

The “man” |

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

letter short, Letters

| PRAISES POLICE I'OR

WOULD A JUSTICE FEEL LIKE A IF THE NUMBER WAS RAISED TO — SAY FIFTEEN

‘been fined.

| or ! contributing

{ when | the residential section their experilence downtown will cause them not [to cross in the middle of the street

| erossing | should

the mistake of its existence in comparing President Roosevelt's life with that of our nation’s hero, Abraham Lincoln. How could it dare to do this? It Lincoln has always been my hero, just as he is of every right-thinking American. The grandest, most true-hearted man ever to be born in this country or to live in it, and a newspaper compares him with Mr. Roosevelt. It is most disgusting. My father knew Abraham Lincoln well and served in the Civil War. I wonder what he would do or say about such libel as that. Father always said that there never would be another man born in this world who conld reach the height of Lincoln. There never has been and never will be, in spite of your paper. n » 2 URGES STICKERS FOR CARELESS WALKERS By Ward B. Hiner During the last three months hundreds of automobile drivers have I think something like 15,000 stickers have been placed on cars downtown, and I see now that arranging to buy meters to charge people for parking in certain places. Half of our police force is busy putting stickers on cars, but the City Council and the State Legislature seem to asleep to what is causing this terrible loss of life on the streets and highways of the state. A pedestrian crossing between inmy opinion, is as offender as the drunken driver because he is to injury or damage that may be done to him. Why not have to cross at intersections? Put a sticker on the offender as on an automobile parked in the wrong place, then, perhaps, they will get out home in

great careless

or step out from behind a street car into the path of an automobile. This is a serious proposition. Liability and property damage insurance is increasing daily because of the hazard. The Legislature should pass a law that any person between intersections not be allowed to collect damages if he is hit by an automo-

There is no doubt that the pedes-

irian has certain rights that he de-

serve as chairman.

Supreme Court. board into panels.

Once Mr. Hughes came to see me in Washington and a fool subordinate made him wail for an hour. | I tried to apologize for delaying so distinguished a

citizen. His reply was:

“There are no distinguished citizens except as they

are doing distinguished duty.”

The point is that he is the most distinguished |

American except the President. 2 ” n

serves, but pedestrians are not only taking chances of injury to themselves, but they are destroying the

financial responsibility of insurance | and many |

combanies, stockholders

others.

I don’t blame the police depart- |

ment. Its members are doing their duty as well as they can, but the City Council and Mayor of Indianapolis should do their duty

and enforce some kind of regula- |

tion on pedestrians. If the council

and Mayor cannot do this, the Leg- | islature should certainly take cog- | we wit- |

nizance of the slaughter ness almost daily in this and other cities.

| TRAFFIC DRIVE | By Hiram Lackey It seems that traffic safety leaders reached the bottom of the problem | when they decided to make law practical and arrested 80 offenders | in one day. Our Police Department | deserves to share the credit making practical what our press has advocated for so long. In dealing with brute force, why not continue to employ the only thing that brute force respects?

True, man has a divine nature

| rifice, but when man—and what seems worse, woman—gets behind a

be |

| steering wheel he forgets his di- | vinity. At least, that is the tendency. Too often man respects only | force. The law is force.

n =n n SUGGESTS PUBLIC PARKING LOT NEAR COURT HOUSE By S. H. Placing parking meters in the |en. downtown area ought to be a good | ciety. But ; thing for the stores outside of the behind a steering wheel they seem restricted parking arca. Thar’s gold | to become as mechanical and inin them thar motorists’ pockets if | human as the motor of the car. one succeeds in the gold and niciel | i 08 0» operation. The bad feature is lur- | , yowrprs CRITICISM OF ing the victim to the area. What | ANSwERS onl : we need is a free municipal park- | AMERICAN LABOR ing lot near the Court House large | By Conley Calvert enough to make street parking un- | To Mr. Paul Masters: necessary. The cops who hunt over- | Regarding your recent Forum lettime parking peas could be the ter — We American laborers still hy TS a OL ails rofitable to | Rave privileges. We are not under the oa bv crectns D Te ilo | any of those jeering, foreign leaders Ya : ls Ye “2 1 you spoke of. automobile service station with gas|*® eo a leader, our President Ana a | . © < As y be L r pumps, tires, and other auto neces- | wis is fair to capital and labor A i “| alike. It is only the selfish who

A TAPESTRY OF DREAMS | can't see this. As for Hitler and his

| happy workers, the workers can't By PATRICIA BANNER

| say anything for fear of losing their At twilight a dreamer in solitude | heads. If I had tried to make myWeaves a motif in silver and blue; |

self believe that Hitler's GovernA tapestry woven of twilight dreams | ment is better than our own I A pale star peeps shyly thru. .. . |

wouldn't have hinted it. A whispering breeze—A hight bird's |

American labor has not been call | pampered and petted until it is like And shadows black ‘round the tall | trees fall. {ened and has for: the first time in The perfume of flowers, bright clus- | history the backing of the American ters of dew— Government. American labor

PACKED SARDPINE

MErgioc 7

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun Writer Is Thrilled Because Woman He Knows, Albeit Slightly, Has Been Arrested for Attempted Holdup.

TEW YORK, Feb. 19.—It is always inter esting when one finds an acquaintance

| suddenly achieving prominence, and I was de-

| cidedly thrilled to see by the papers that a

for |

which was revealed by infinite sac- |

I am not prejudiced against womAlways I have loved their so- | when ‘some women get |

woman I know is being held on a charge of

attempting to hold up a lunchroom with a toy pistol. I would be boasting if I said that the defendant, who gave the name of Norma Parker, was a friend, since we were never formally introduced. And still our paths crossed briefly one morning about 4:30 o'clock in the West Side Police Station. That would have been in November, 1936, a little after the election. I happened to be a back seat guest of Walter “\Winchell, who was showing Walter Duranty of Moscow how crime is handled in this country. On this particular trip our host kept complaining that it was a very quiet morning. Winchell was right in the middle of an elaborate apology to Duranty about the oppressive amount of law and order when there came a clear call that all hell was popping in W. 65th St. and that a tenant was carving a girl friend severely. The mishap, seemingly, had occurred in the hallway of the building. We went past traffic lights and

Mr. Broun

| swung around corners on one wheel.

| to the station house, and so we rushed there.

| | | |

a spoiled child. It has just awak- |

| { { |

can |

The dreamer weaves into his scheme | take prosperity without it going to |

Then veils it in moonglow and goes | its head. I believe that if labor had |

on his way. | been given justice, this DAILY THOUGHT Ye ask, and receive not, because ve ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your Ilusts.—

James 4:3. |

| millionaires or paupers and would

| action of many, labor has | placed on the top and if Roosevelt

country | would not have half so many muiti- |

{ have had no depression. By the wise | been |

gets the backing of Congress as he | did that of the people in the elec- |

AM prejudiced in favor of him | tion he will make laws that will put |

who, without impudence, ask boldly.—Lavater.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, Feb. 19-—Some of the New Dealers who are worried over the defection of He divided his | Senate liberals from the President's Supreme Court

| proposals have worked out a compromise plan which they believe will swing Senators Wheeler, Norris, Johnson, Borah and other prima donnas into line, The latter are purists, who believe the only way to chieck the Nine Old Men is through a constitutional amendment definitely limiting the Court's power. They consider President Roosevelt's proposals roundabout and makeshift. The compromise, therefore, is to pass a constitutional amendment, but tack on it a rider which would provide that in case the amendment failed of ratifica-

can | this country on a solid foundation. | | Every man will have equal rights. |

But in spite of our breakneck pace the police had already gathered in three persons and taken them The ambulance had not yet arrived, and a policeman was using his club as a lever for a tourniquet on a wounded girl's arm. She was bleeding badly and screaming. Soon the sereams became moans. She called for her mother several times, but mostly she repeated over and over again the name of some man. Seem-= ingly he was the third person who had been gath= ered up in the dragnet.

" ” ”

HE man who was being paged in these hysterical whispers paid not the slightest attention. Nor did Norma Parker. She chewed gum but never clicked it. It was the cud of contentment, Two stretcher bearers carried the wounded girl out. In reply to a question from Walter Winchell the doctor replied, “She hasn't much chance.” That proved too gloomy a prognosis, for I observe that the only charge which lies against the defendant (with the exception of the holdup accusation) is that of felonious assault, The police began to question Norma Parker. That didn’t fluster her at all,

" " ”

w HEY were quarreling about this man here,” one of the cops said, pointing to the material wit=ness who sat beside me. He was about my age, bald and not at all prepossessing. Still there was no hint that Norma Parker took an interest in him. No, not in him, the police, the correspondent from Moscow or even Walter Wiachell, We were all dirt under her feet. She seemed a very forthright person.

WKH finally gets back to Woodrow Wilson

twitching the curtains on the evening of his | This column agrees with the Presi- |

In logic | but gets no shred of encouragement from the con-

® . | servative bloe. snowed under with objections, mostly in error about |

ereatest error. dent's suggestion about the Supreme Court. and law there is no answer. But Congress has been Because 1t

what the proposal really means. Why?

took a crack at Mr. Hughes and because it was too

slick. This writer doesn’t know whether “the man who advised me to write that letter is still in this room, put all of Washington knows who he is. As this column has formerly observed, he is slicker than two eels in a barrel of stewed ok. But is that what the republic needs just now? -

| in the opinions handed him by the Nine

tion by the necessary 36 states, the Roosevelt reform proposals automatically become law. This idea is finding some favor among progressives,

2 = 2

UPREME COURT attaches say that the reason Attorney General Cummings has been so

ci!

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Favor of Senate Liberals Courted With Compromise Court Plan That Would Make President's Proposal Law if Amendment Failed to Pass,

clerk, marshal and reporter in Nos. 10, 11 and 12, and the Attorney General in No. 13, ” n ” M=Es ROOSEVELT continues to have difficulty in bringing complete paradise to the Arthurdale, W. Va, homestead project. The First Lady motors there frequently, is on the best of terms with all the settlers. A local company sold power to the Resettlement Administration at the rate of 5 cents per kilowatt hour, which was sold to the settlers in turn at 6 cents, This was rather embarrassing to the Administration, since the famous “yardstick” rate of TVA gives a maximum of 3 cents per kilowati hour, even goes down to 1 cent according to the amount used, Naturally the differences caused loud wails of protest. Finally the company reduced the rate to 3 cents, But this never has been passed on to the settlers, They still continue to pay the 6-cent rate. Mrs. Roosevelt, informed of this on her last visit, was most indignant. She has advised Resettlement officials to correct it i he »

1 3 ® =» =

ao irate the President is at Stanley

3 WRT a

—-