Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 February 1937 — Page 18

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The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE

ROY W. HOWARD Editor Business Manager

President

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Give Light and the People Will Find

. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY

CITY MANAGER SYSTEM BILL now before the Legislature would permit Indianapolis to establish the city manager form of government. Indianapolis voted for this change years ago, but it was knocked out by a court decision. The Legislature thus far has done little about such fundamental reforms. So this bill may not receive the favorable attention it deserves. But it does call attention to the need for local governments to put their political houses in order., The Twentieth Century Fund estimates Federal budgets will drop

from 8225 million in 1937 to 5352 million in 1940. Mean- | while, state and local expenditures are expected to go up from about nine and one-half billions this year to an estimated 1215 billions in 1940. That should be a warning to worry less about Washington and more about our counties and townships, cities and states. City manager operation is part of the answer. Modern | and simplified local government also involves city-county | consolidations, personnel based on merit, elimination of taxautonomous townships and school districts and a drastic reduction in the 170,000 costly political subdivisions. With the growing dependency of so many of these units upon the Federal Government, it is idle to decry Federal encroachments on state and local governments. The job is to cut down these units and make the remaining ones function as part of a modern economy. Can local government in America survive? The question is asked frequently today. Tt is more than an academic question.

THE DANGER IN OBSTRUCTION—(1) MUCH talk of dictatorship has been in the air since the President's court proposal was announced nearly three weeks ago. In that connection we desire to quote from a letter we have written to a reader, a letter which we shall split into two parts, under the heading given above. Then, in a third article, we shall discuss what in our opinion is the best alternative to the President’s plan yet advanced. From the letter: “We believe the proposal is dangerous for reasons we have stated. Dangerous not because of any dream of dictatorship on his part, for he views it as a very practical matter of getting a long-blocked program through. But dangerous because of the concentration of power that is inherent in the plan; a power which if seized by some future executive employing this precedent might be used to take over the works. “We are convinced however that there is another and more immediate and explosive danger in the situation, and | therefore we cannot be serene with you when you say that | ‘this wave of opposition both to the Constitution and the Supreme Court is not primarily the result of any failure of these two factors in our Government, but results rather | from the fact that they are functioning precisely as they were designed to function, namely, as a check on judgments which may be the result of emotion rather than reason.’ “Dictatorships arise when peoples come to the conclusion that their present forms of government have failed to function and cannot function, and when that conclusion is coupled with widespread economic trouble, then they become willing to exchange civil liberty for economic liberty; to trade habeas corpus for ham and eggs. “Especially is that true as a society grows more complex and the range of individual opportunity correspondingly less; when great portions of the population which once were engaged in smali private enterprises are absorbed into a payroll environment where their security, regardless of their competency, may be threatened at any time by great economic movements, here or abroad, over which they have no control. “In our time we have seen a steady and rapid decrease in individual opportunity in favor of pavroll regimentation, and in even that section where the individual still operates on his own—nontenant farming—we have seen hard times, even when the payroll section was thriving. And for six vears we have seen widespread suffering both urban and rural, with Government funds the only barrier against starvation and revolution.”

(Continued Tomorrow) DOCTOR TOWNSEND WO far as we know there is no one in all of America who wants to see Dr. Townsend punished. Doubtless every one of the 12 jurors, who voted to find him guilty of contempt of the House of Representatives for wilful failure to comply with a committee subpena, did so with reluctance. Yet, while Americans as a whole will hope that the presiding judge makes the good doctor’s punishment as light as the law permits, all of us have reason to approve a verdict which upholds the right of Congress to carry out one of its most important functions—the function of in- | vestigation. The Townsend Plan is no longer a burning issue in this country. Many things contributed to quieting the conflagration that once raged around this particular scheme. One was the easing up of the depression; another the President's social security program, which the interest stirred up by the Townsendites helped to bring into being. Still another was the cooling effect of the Congressional investigation which Dr. Townsend walked out on—the in-

| ly they just make memorandums

vestigation which revealed that many in the Townsend organization had motives that were mercenary rather than idealistic. It was an instance of light dispelling heat.

KEEPER OF THE PUBLIC PURSE REP JAMES P. BUCHANAN was one of the best men who ever filled the important post of chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. That hard-bitten Texan knew something about how difficult dollars and cents are to acquire and his feeling of responsibility to taxpayers:

_THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES All Cleaned Up for the Celebration—By Herblock

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler | Jersey City Man Backs His Town |

As Having Worse Government Than Chicago, but Writer Refutes Him.

NEW YORK, Feb. 25.—In honest but exag- |

gerated civic pride, a Jersevman by the name of Vincent disputes the recent assertion of these dispatches that Chicago is the worst city in the matter of misgovernment, graft and the absence of civic conscience among the citizens. Mr. Vincent nominates Jersey City under Frank Hague for this honor, and complains of a big debt,

exhorbitant costs of government, a political judiciary, high taxes and the suspension of constitutional rights. Jersey City has her points, to be sure, but the fact remains. that Jersey City is really a model city

{ by comparison with my old home

town of Chicago. Why in Chicago they don't worry about the cost of government at all, because they don't even know what the costs are, because they don't keep books. MostMr. Pegler on scratch paper and leave them around any old where or jot the figures down on the walls. If somebody gets officious, demanding to know something about some particular phase of the city's finances, they point to a pile of old scratch papers or the figures on the wall and say, “There it is, brother, help yourself.” Sometimes by mistake they may put some tax figures in one of these ledgers, but they never try to balance them, because you can imagine the confusion vou would get if you should foot up the morning line at Hialeah plus 10 miles of pavement at so much per mile, plus the last election returns, divided by the telephone number of a girl named Edna. If a grand jury begins to ask foolish questions, they tear the pages out of the books and paint the walls over, and if a private citizen gets too fresh they indict him, not anybddy in the administration. This goes for any administration.

B* :

CK in my time as a cub reporter around the City ancy was a little bit different.

un »

Hall, which was then new, the system of account-

In those days they would have fires in the vaults, |

and when the firemen would come shuffling through the corridors in their rubber ‘boots, reporters like

| George Fox and Pat Henry and Jack Malloy sitting | in the penny-ante game would say.

J “It must be the first of the month; the boys are balancing the books again.” Why just to show you how nave Mr. Vincent is in

his complaint about taxes for Jersey City, ‘Chicago

doesn’t bother with taxes at all. not to pay any more taxes. Honest, they just made up their mind that taxes were too much bother, what with all the hard feeling and the waste of the citizens’ time hanging around the tax office waiting for the employees to come back from Hot Springs or Miami or the Michigan summer resorts. So instead of taxes they use a thing like a

They just decided

| rouble or Pancho Villa money called a tax anticipa-

tion warrant. ”

HESE warrants are liens on the taxes in case anybody should ever pay any taxes, and they used to shove them on the banks in return for regular money to pay the contractors and supply companies which do business with the city. I don't know what the bankers ave expecting to do with these roubles—play them on the piano, maybe.

un 2

General Hugh Johnson Says —

THURSDAY, FEB. 25, 1937 |

1) 4 LE PUN DN k > LAER

SURE ax WE CAN MAKE 4 iT A

A J

i e— wha BURT & -——

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what wou say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.=~Voltaire.

{FAVORS JUDICIAL REFORM | BECAUSE OF OPPONENTS | By R. S. S., Brazil

| opposes the President's { of it.

|old groups that hated President

(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.)

| ganda, misrepresentation and invec-

| Roosevelt before the election still | tives obscured the landscape and a | hate him and have lined up against | rift in the ‘cloud disclosed the pudgy

his plan.

[form of Herb. Leaping headlong

The same stock arguments used | into place beside him, we see our

| during the 1936 campaign are again enlisted against the Supreme Court

| senior Senator from Indiana.

| Speedy and unequivocal = action

reform. One is that the Court is | has always been the mark of a mind

| HIGH RENTS AND UTILITY | BILLS ARE CRITICIZED

pened last fall, will the nation ever | again look to the Maine election for an indication of the national verdict? ”

” ”

By Mrs. C. B, B.

. + » I hope the time is not far off when the Government will build dams and install dynamos that will supply electric current to the people at a reasonable rate. The employees of such an undertaking would be | paid a decent wage, and the public

| {

—)

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun Wonders if Washington at Valley

Forge Prayed for Fewer Liberals And More Men He Could Trust,

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 25.—Washington’s birthday was passed quietly by me in motoring to Valley Forge. I had not known that history clustered quite so close to Philadelphia proper. However, there is something of a surfeit in the wealth of tradition hereabout. Almost half the houses along the suburban roads look as if they might have been the headquarters of George Wash«

the guardian of the people and protector of their liberties. that the Constitution will be wrecked. An eighth-grade school pupil knows that the President can appoint as many judges as he wishes with the approval of Congress. | The overwhelming victory of the | President in the last election showed

what the people think of him, and |

Another, | fee] satisfied with one's self, to have

It must be gratifying to | Would be insured conservative rates.

| made up. b { Canada has these conditions.

| no misgivings. But then, how could | anyone have doubt in face of all the messages - of commendation? Why

ing their part. Rents have

The rental agencies are also playbeen | | raised from $2 to $5 more a month. |

| not publish them and their writers’ | signatures, or would that be violat|ing a confidence?

” n Ld

[if left to the people, this question | BILL PROPOSES TO CHANGE

| would be solved with another great | victory for the President, | ® @ = | SENATOR VANNUYS SCORED FOR COURT REFORM STAND

| By Only a Voter, Cumberland

| daily accounts of the numerous mes- | sages being received by our senior | Senator and commending him for

{ his “‘courageous” stand against that |

| terrible “tyrant,” President Roosevelt. Our only surprise is that the number of messages was not larger in a matter as vital as the Supreme Court issue. A year or so ago, when the President's Power Bill was so bitterly fought by the power interests, one little messenger boy admitted sending several thousand telegrams and signing hames from a city directory. . « . The plain, ordinary people who voted for the Senator are so doggone busy trying to scratch out a living that they will have neither the time nor the money to make themselves heard. But why worry about them? Of course the packing of the Su{preme Court with Republican corporation lawyers by Harding, Coolidge, Hoover et al. was ali right.

The extreme top age for retirement Big business retires many of its em-

60 or 65 The Court justices are eligible to

ing this Administration?

The American voters are all wrong. |

| |

in ‘all other lines of endeavor is 70. |

| DATE OF MAINE ELECTIONS [By Rruce Catton

| It will be interesting to see what { happens to the motion recently in-

| | | |

| | | | {

| troduced in the Maine Legislature | We are now being regaled with | whereby the date of the State elec-

tion would be changed from early

| in September to the first Tuesday

| be to put the State election on the |

| same date as the national election as is the course in other states. This would rob Maine of its last chance to pose as “weather vane” in Presidential elections. I suspect that the people of Maine will be loath to give up this distinction. The eyes of the nation are focused on Maine, quadrennially; if the new law passes, Maine will be just one of the 48 states. And yet, in view of what hap-

WISDOM By ANNA E. YOUNG

It seems there was a wise old bird Who in a tree dia dwell, Who never spoke—not even a word. We know his story well.

He listened close—he heacd

! much

ployees before 50 and executives at |

retire on full pay for life at 70. Why | do they hang on so desperately dur- |

| { |

Rumors are leaking out to the ef- |

| fect that big business, expecting the

| |

| President to amend the Oonstitu- |

| tion, 1s

busy gaining control of |

| enough legislatures to prevent rati- |

| fication by the various states.

The |

| President crossed them up by intro- |

| ducing the present measure. The

Yet he never did repeat The things he knew of such and such, And he kept his lofty seat,

To sit and hear and not declaim A thing he'd ever see— If we were owls and did the same This world would better be.

DAILY THOUGHT But and if ye suffer for right-

eousness’ sake, happy are ye, and. be increased soon.

be not afraid of their

SO |

| LINE WITH LIVING COSTS

By a Worker

| dollars last year, why does it insist

| 35 cents per hour for a 44-hour | week, but this does not enable a | man to support himself and family

| mount and even rent on shacks will | : ‘ : | | again much as if it were a public tavern.

May I ask if taxes have been raised | that much? May 1 ask, is this tak- | ing advantage of the people who arc not able to own their own homes? The people of this nation are getting fed up with such conditions. | This was shown in the last two Presidential elections. Mr. Roosevelt has made many changes and the time is not far distant when | more changes are to be made. ” n ”

LEGISLATURE IS URGED TO SAVE MORTGAGED HOMES |

There are several bills in the | Legislature which aim to abolish the |

judgments on foreclosures against | farm and home owners. Not satisfied with taking away all the equity which the owner had in | the property. the law now throws a | millstone around the necks of dis- | possessed farm and home owners by | permitting a judgment in excess of | the mortgage, which is a levy on | the future earnings of the dis-| possessed. Imprisonment for debt is | nearest of kin to this. House Bill 71 and several others | would abolish this atrocity, but | pressure from Federal agencies now lending money oppose this passage. The bills are embalmed in committee. The HOLC “loans” apparently were not to save homes but to save financial institutions with taxpayers’

money. . » n

” n SAYS LOW WAGES OUT OF When a firm cleared one million

on paying low wages? True, it restored a pay cut so that we receive

in decency because living costs |

Would the high-salaried officials |

“ia ; Wa . | divine i | vicious practice of issuing deficiency | he guidance.

| them both.

ington. And most of them were. But the gas stations and the quick lunch places follow the same style of architecture. Indeed, Valley Forge proclaims ite self from afar with signs which introduce the antiquarian to Vals ley Forge beer, the Valley Forge bar, the Valley Forge sandwich shoppe, the Valley Forge golf course. One is moved to wonder why the ragged Continentals grumbled, Winter is not vet gone, but al« ready spring's promise was in the air along the ridge where the troops bled and shivered and starved in the fierce season of discontent. Of course, the place is now a pleasant park where Boy Scouts

Mr. Broun

| whoop and race along the terraced fields.

| after the first Monday in November. | ma LY

The effect of this, of course, would |

In the school room where I studied American history there was an engraving showing Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge and asking Later in my mature vears I read the angry complaint of a higher critic who said that Washington was not a very powerful worshiper and that in any case he would not have knelt in the show to make his plea. The critic held that would have been bad for discipline, of which there wasn't very much at Valley Forge. Indeed, the whole incident was dismissed by the stern historian as wholly mythical, ” n n HE prayer in the snow he would put beneath the branches of the cherry tree and then obliterate I was sorry to have the matter come up. Personally I quit the cherry tree almost as soon as 1 grew skeptical about Santa Claus, and I never had any lively faith in the ugly rumor that George Washington was the sort of person who could never tell a lie—not even to oblige a friend. But, nevertheless, I have accepted with enthusiasm and alacrity the idea of George Washington kneeling to pray in the snow at Valley Forge. If he failed to do it physically I still believe he must hav» done so in spirit, because he and the American cause wers hard pressed that winter. Some of the difficulties which they faced still afflict our democracy, » » ” HATEVER the equivalent for the Chamber of Commerce may have been, it proved a reactionary force in the Revolution. Some of the Sons and Daughters who criticize progress today may be descended from old skinflints who gave the army a run-around in the matter of rations, clothing and shelter. There was no cementing centralization in the setup. Recruits could walk into the army and out

I have been interested not only in the pictorial

The old smoke screen of propa- | fellow.

Walter Lippmann, Oracle of the Old Order, Has Misrepresented Effect of President's Court Plan Which Is Clearly Constitutional.

ASHINGTON, Feb. 25.—~This column has argued

not only that the President's judiciary proposal is clearly constitutional but that its explicit |

constitutional sanction is a part of the framers’ “ad-

mirable system of checks and balances” among the |

three branches of government. Nobody has tried to refute the accuracy of that except, as this column anticipated, “the half-cocked and the hysterical.” Behold samples of the screaming of - the chief Lreast-beater of that ilk. “Gen. Johnson v4 4 is. An enthusiast for this argument . (i. ‘e, licentious, dissolute, profligate “that has yet been offered . . . law to violate its spirit . .

use the letter of the . Vicious kind of legalism

wy Previous remarks have been “not honorable

. « « lawless legality . . . no self-respecting man . . .

would accept appointment, (to the Court) under such |

conditions” and so on and on The author of this spluttering scurrility is none

other than the stately and sesquipedalian, Mr. Walter |

Lippmann—oracle of the old order, high priest to economic royalty. » » "

WEA the President has proposed that Congress

do is of the letter and, as I believe, the spirit of the Constitution. If it is immoral, the

for the spending of their, money was genuine,

.Consti tu- |

tion is \.. Mr. Lippm 5. that, before |. EER ERE

cutting of the cards by a yeferendum with the deck stacked at from 38 to 1 to 50 to 1 against approval. | He repeats the exploded lie that a New Jersey | pants Presser went to jail on a Federal statute. He | misrepresents the effect of the President's proposal. | The shyster sophistry about “lawless legality” is an affront to Public intelligence. If intellectual morality | is an issue here, the scarlet letter belongs to Mr. | Lippmann. He, not I, is subverting the Constitution

| and ravaging the rights of honest difference of | opinion.

. » the ‘most immoral” | or corrupt), |

"iH » | AR Paul earnestly beholding the council said: ‘Men and brethren, I have Jived in al good | CONSCIENCE: . . , and the high priest, Ananias, com-

manded « . . to smite him on the mouth. Then said

Paul

| smitten contrary to the Jaw.’ And they that stood by said: ‘Revilest thou the high priest?’ Then said Paul: “I Wist not, brethren, that he was the high

priest’.

These last two senterices are where me and Paul differ. When I wrote this piece, I wist well that he was the high priest ang I still say he is a whited wall. The Crass, brazen nerve of these pontifical pundits who yes were juraping up and down that the Was exceeding the Constitution, now writhhe is applying the. | |

» NOW how sublime a thing it is

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

« + ‘Thou whited wall; for sittest thou to | judge me after the Jaw, and commandest me to be |

verror, |

{ won't let us forget.

representation of Washington's prayer but curious to know just what boon it was for which he asked. I wonder whether it could have been, “O Lord, you know those liberals! From now on would you mind sending men I can trust?”

In Conferences on Supreme Court Plan, President Points Out Prosperity Can't Continue Without Wage, Hour Laws and Abolition of Child Labor,

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, Feb. 25.—The private conferences on the Supreme Court proposals which the President is holding with Senate leaders are the most frank and forthright of his career. To at least one group of Senators he laid bare the economic and social philosophy he intends to follow during the coming four years. He pointed out that the United States today was reasonably prosperous, and that it was his duty and the duty of Congress to see that this prosperity continued. But it could not continue, he said, with some eight millions unemployed and with the country's basic industrial and agricultural problems still unsolved. In his opinion, he said, these could not be settled until Congress and the states had power to fix minimum wages and maximum hours and abolish child labor.

¥ ” "

ITHOUT these basic remedies, he feared that present prosperity would prove brief and fietitious and the country would head into another depression cycle. The only way to cure this recurrent cycle of prosperity and depression, the only way to flatten out the peaks and raise up the valleys on the nation's economic chart, he said, was to get hie DA pa and industrial evils and to them

The nation, he said, could not wait for the slow |

and uncertain process of amending the Constitution. He had reason to believe that various organizations were out to block ratification, just as they had. sabotaged ratification of the Child Labor Amendment. Therefore, if the Supreme Court insisted on blocking the country’s basic reforms he strongly believed that the only solution was to get a Court more in tune with the times. Ld ” ® HERE were many contributing factors te the final settlement of the General Motors strike, but two inside factors probably counted most. One was the attempt General Motors originally made to get an agreement with Ford and Chrysler to keep production down during the strike. General Motors officials pointed out that John L. Lewis’ organ=~ tion planned to pick off the big companies one by ons, therefore the industry should stick together. Chrysler agreed to keep down production, but Ford would not. However, as the strike dragged on and Chrysler saw Ford capturing the automobile market, Chrysler decided to ditch the earlier agreement. The steel moguls, the du Ponts, even the Morgan firm brought all kinds of pressure, but Chrysler went ahead. The second factor was a threat by John L. Lewis to go on the radio and urge all American workmen