Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 March 1937 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

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MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1937

TAX EXEMPTION ABUSES HERE is a growing public hostility to the abuses of property tax exemptions. Indianapolis and other communities are scrutinizing assessment rolls carefully for doubtful cases. Kansas has wiped out exemptions for college fraternities and social organizations. Pittsburgh assessors placed nonoperating utility property on the tax rolls. Wisconsin has returned similar property to a taxable status. Other states and cities, once lenient in this matter, are becoming strict. Tax exemptions are governmental subsidies. As the realization of this spreads, the public insists that the subsidies be justified. How can you justify such a subsidy to a fraternal order on an office building rented in competition with privately owned buildings? The exemption on one building means higher taxes on others. The system obviously is unfair to competitive privately owned property. A program now before the Legislature would cure many of the existing evils. One hill would amend the old holding company acts— cause of much of the abuse—to give the property holders affected seven years to dispose of property not used exclusively for an institution's educational, religious or similar purposes. Another would eliminate exemptions on “annuity gifts”—under which original owners of some property have been able to increase their income from the property by giving it away. A third bill would require listing of such property for inventory. Bills on other phases of the problem are pending. A sound program should be worked out, one that is fair to taxpayers, to competitive businesses and to the institutions

affected. = = =

HE nonstate-supported educational institutions have a practical argument for a partial exemption. They now educate about as many students as tax-supported State institutions. They thus are serving a function which otherwise would be expected of the State at an added ex-

pense to the taxpayer.

If the State provided adequate facilities and paid com- |

petent professors sufficient salaries to carry this added

educational burden, the argument would be less valid. But | It would seem folly then to curtail or |

the State does not. cripple Indiana's many fine private colleges at a time when the State has difficulty carrying the present load. This practical immediate problem—one aggravated by the depression—should not be forgotten in the drive to stop

tax exemptions abuses.

£2.000.000 WORTH OF PAINTINGS F you were a multimillionaire and had an eye for art, you might have a collection of paintings worth $2,000,000. But if you were Croesus himself you probably could not have acquired the particular pictures in the unique exhibit of 17th Century Dutch art at the John Herron Museum. For the pictures in this show have been borrowed from museums, galleries, private collectors and the Dutch Government itself, The student of art will find in this collection the work of men less well known than Rembrandt and Hals. For the layman, there are the originals of the old masters he has often seen in reproduction. For the historian, there is the work of a people who contributed much to the cultural foundation of the United States. Save our own, there is no art in the world that has a closer relationship to America. During the 17th Century, many Dutch artists were financed by patrons whose profits

were derived from trade with the New World which the | Dutch had created around New Amsterdam, now New York. |

American collectors later bought so much Low Countries art that in proportion to the amount produced there is more of it in the United States than of any other foreign school. True, too, is the fact that Dutch art deteriorated largely after Holland lost her footing in America. Hence, because it is great art, because it has a close relationship to our culture, because it is a unique collection and because all good painting is a joy to the eye, it behooves Indianapolis citizens to see this exhibit.

A NEW DEVIL WORD A MERICARS, like more primitive folk, are inclined to fight their battles by means of voodoo. A new voodooism is being bandied about by reactionary

newspapers in an effort to cross up the pending Child Labor |

Amendment. They are calling this humane proposal the “Youth Control Amendment.” Of course, this amendment is not one designed to e¢ontrol youth. It empowers Congress to prohibit and regulate the labor of children under 18. But nene of the amendment’s supporters has suggested that Congress would be asked to do more than prohibit tha employment at wages of children under 16 and regulate the work of children between 16 and 18. It can be counted upon to do nothing so silly as trying to control youth, other than to keep youngsters from doing the type of work in factories, mills and mines that stunts their bodies and warps their souls.

KILL HOUSE BILL 60

HOUSE BILL 60 is an ill-advised attempt to regulate “fair price” practices in Indiana. It should be distinguished from Senate Bill 23, a fair trade measure already enacted into law by the present Legislature. Similar fair trade laws now are in force in 16 other states. But the “fair price” bill seeks a complicated policing of retailing. A study of the provisions indicates their administration would be almost impossible. As one example, important provisions hinge on what is “cost.” And accountants differ widely on the meaning and definition of cost. In our judgment the bill should not g \ Focod

ssid FJ

i A

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES And We Think We Have Troubles! —By Herblock

CORONATION ARRANGEMENTS

WHO PRECEDES WHOM IN THE PROCESSION 2

Ot MANY VARps

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler Writer Holds Modern Burlesque's | Strip-Tease Acts and Comedy Are Something Less Than Art.

EW YORK, March 1.—I have been wondering if the members of Congress haven't anything better to do at this time than sit around a committee room while a couple of meat-show promoters mock whatever decency there may be left in the land, with a defense of a type of entertainment which seems foul to me. This refers to the respectful Morton Minsky and Herbert Kay Minsky, of New York, by the House Committee on Immigration in connection with the Dickstein bill to limit the importation of foreign theatrical talent. This bill has some merit, because the Europeans treat American actors about the same as we treat Oriental coolies, and there should be some equalizing pressure on this side to protect the poor American “ham” from foreign competition. The peril to art is only nominal, | and a talking point for the oppo- | sition, because there isn't much art in most entertainment on the stage or in the glamorized gin mills of the present day, and anyway, our kind friends on the other side would soon listen to | reason if we were to get as tough with European performers as the Europeans are with ours. As it is, we pay money out of taxes to provide op-

hearing given to

Mr. Pegler

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but w:ll

defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltauire.

| IS LEGAL

By W. L. | Do opponents of the President's | court plan aver that the plan is |

| HOLDS COURT PLAN |

Ballard, Syracuse

cluded.

(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

an individual and as a free member of society. It is a thing which | we cannot leave to chance if | would continue to live under

| protection of the fundamental pre- | | cepts which are the foundation of |

Letters

we | the |

It Seems to Me

‘By Heywood Broun

dustry That Needs Protection With The Exception of Gypsy Rose Lee.

NEW YORK, March 1.—Recently I have been commuting to Washington, and I

| | Defends Strip-Tease as Infant Ine

portunities for unemployed piccolo players, acrobats |

| and shrieking sopranos, while the jobs go to visitors with a faint reek of garlic or the tell-tale stains of chutney on their ties.

That part of the argument will keep, however while I submit my contention that the modern burlesque show and the strip-tease, which the brothers Minsky extolled as American art without a word of Sisent from the committee, are something less than Tt 2

= = ” HAVE watched the steady campaign apainst . decency in the meat section of the show business since 1920, or thereabouts, when Morrie Gest gave

shell of something like cake-icing at the old Century. The commercial promoters took back somewhat after that, afraid of the police and clergy .but there came a couple of sloppy musical shows on Broadwa v, with the girls peeled to the hide from the waist up and from that time on It has been a case of anything goes.

The comedians have specialized in depravity and laborious drollery. y

There is a question whether the suggestiveness of the tease is worse than the lines and business of the comedians, but my vote goes to the comics, = = 2 WENT one evening with Ernest Truex to a burlesque show at the Irving Place Theater, and when we left at the first intermission he said that in all his years in the theater he had ne or imagined that any producer would have the gall to present anything so rotten, even at a stag, as one revolting dialog. And when the brothers Minsky claim certain famous comedians of the somewhat respectable stage and screen as graduates of burlesque, they neglect to add that burlesque in that day was a prim and moral theater by comparison with the combination of the strip-tease and its attendant comedy. That Mr. Dickstein does art no good to identify it with commercialized indecency is the opinion of one who has been around enough to learn the facts of life and somethihg about the extremes to which

the customers a flash of a nude female encased in a |

| hibiting | by prison labor into states having

and legally the same as| shooting or jailing the judges? Or | merely that there is unlawful in- | tent in the doing of a lawful act? Do they not confuse our law and legal institutions with extraneous moral issues? Doss the intent or motive make any legal difference? Was there no intent the other times such changes | were made? The Supreme Court once obviated such a move when it reversed itself and permitted Abraham Lincoln to have an income tax to win the Civil War. Aren't we at war now? F. D. Rs private intent may be extra-legal, but his proposed act is legal. We must ourselves neither stoop to illegality in opposing the plan nor substitute an empty discussion on morals for a purely legal issue, A more pertinent question concerns the many liberal and leftist New Dealers who recently resigned. Did they retire only to be reappointed later to the new judgeships? Will this swing vo the right continue all through the future appointments? If we should move 10 de- | arees more to the right, we will be | all for II Duce. * 4 N FLAYS MARTIN'S COURT STATEMENT By John L. Niblack The recent unfair attack on our Supreme Court made by Homer Martin, head of the United Auto- | mobile Workers, cannot go un- | answered. Mr. Martin said, “The | mandate of last November should | not be flouted by the Supreme] Court—." The Court has not flouted the | mandates of last November. No act | of Congress or of the President passed since that date has come] before the Supreme Court. The only | case to be decided by it since then | that might be classed as New Deal | legislation was the Federal act pro- | shipment of goods made |

laws against such. That act was

| passed long before last November.

The Court upheld it. Mr. Martin said, Court packed with judges appointed | by Presidents dead or repudiated by the people.” The nine present

“— a Sunreme |

judges of the

| Court were all appointed by a duly

clected President of the United | States and approved by a duly elected Senate after investigation of fitness and ability—all as provided by the Constitution. Mr. Martin said the Presidents | hill to provide six more Court mem- | bers would free the will of Congress “from the attacks by judicial oli-

-garchy.”

That's enough to show the misstatement of fact by Mr.

[ millions

| are

| By L.

| AS were

Martin. | -

withheld on request.) |

has had to decide whether some acts of Congress were prohibited by the Constitution. All nine judges unanimously held that the NRA Act was | clearly beyond the powers of Con- | gress according to the Constitution. This is no time, however, to ap- | peal to reason in this country. I| merely will say that, in my opinion, | Mr. Martin's utterances give com- | fort to the Communistic Third In- | ternationale, ignore the warnings of | history, and set at naught examples |

across the sea, where men languish |

in prison camps maintained by bru- | tal governments which do not tol-| erate freedom. Such statements as | Mr. Martin's fan flames which set | neighbors fighting each other, as in Spain. | Happy a country where law and order survives, and where people are | free. Let's get some sense in this country again. Let's think of the | who have followed the | Stars and Stripes to defend the very ideals which Mr. Martin and his kind so caliously attack. | Thousands of young men sleep in | unmarked soldiers’ graves, and, if | we are not vigilant, liberty will be buried in some unmarked spot this continent within the next years. Will the American citizens who | neither millionaires nor labor | leaders sell their birthright for al mess of pottage? They will not. § 4 8 FEARS “USURPATION” OF COURT POWER

Wood It will not be long before the issue involving the Supreme Court | comes before Congress. It is an| issue of tremendous import to every American who values his rights as |

or | <9 |

RHAPSODIES By MARY WARD Old ivory piano keys Plaved on by the sunshine, You could unlock no melodies To me half so divine the tunes through Her fingers, soft as falls the dew In summer on the eglantine— The songs my mother knew.

that tinkled

DAILY THOUGHT Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice.~II |

Samuel 15:4. |

T is with our judgments as with | our watches: no two go just |

| Minton

| betrayal,

this country. A man with too much power al-

| ready will give us liberties in inverse |

proportion to his. It always hap-

| pens so with the usurpation of pow= | machine, |

er by an individual or a and at the present time we are singularly blessed with both. Is it not time that we should insist on the preservation of the benefits made for us and thus far kept by us? Our

places by means of political setups. It was made thoughtfully by men wise in living; formed out of lives which had suffered for

might govern and be governed right eously. It is proposed to destroy that foundation. If we stay our hand and voice this will be done. Let us, then, write to Senators and VanNuys and to as many of our Representatives as it is possible for us to address, urging them to stand against this proposed |

” ” o RAPS JUDICIAL REFORM AS DICTATORIAL MEASURE By Hopeful, Taswell

William Lemon seems to think that anyone opposing President Roosevelt's proposal to pack the Su-

Constitution was not |

| | | | | | | made by men who grabbed their | |

freedom. | They devised an instrument stable | and yet flexible, under which men |

| thought I'd hit on a good system to find the

center of news interest without delay. It used to be my practice to go straight from

the station to the bar of the National Press Club. Naturally, after a long journey one would rest there a little while and debate the problem of the | Supreme Court. The Washington correspondents know more about the practical as= pects of that issue than any of the Senators or Representatives. After all, they have been around longer, and most of them will still be there when the present Congressmen are gone.

man sits down in the bar he isn’t running for anything. He will tell you what he really thinks, which may coincide with what he has written, but also on occasion may sheer off a little to the right or the

Mr. Broun left of his published works.

But after listening and even par=-

ticipating in these debates for a couple of hours I used to say, “I'm a working man, and it's time to get on the job. What's doing? Tell me where to go.” As a rule, the tips were friendly ana useful. I would

be sent over to freeze my toes on the lawn of th&\

White House waiting for reluctant Senators to come out of conference or I would be«steered to some intere esting discussion in the Senate or advised to try the La Follette Committee on Civil Liberties. But on my last trip my friends betrayed me. Nobody told me that the Minskys were appearing before

preme Court is a sponsor of the Liberty League. Most people are interested only in | what is good for the nation as a| whole, not what is good for one man. No one man should have the power President Roosevelt is asking for, |

{ Should his measure pass, he would | | be | solini or Hitler,

as much a dictator as Mus- | I would like to know that the | coming generation will have a land of liberty, but this will not be if we| do not stand pat and voice our ob- | jections when we see things being done wrong. Let us use our heads more. brains will

if we don't

Our never do us any good use them.

” n ” VOICES PROTEST OVER PREDICTED RENT RISE By A Disgusted Renter Whenever shortages of necessities occur, up springs profiteering. Though new houses are being built rapidly we still have a “house shortage” in Indianapolis. House rents, especially through rental agencies, have gone up from 15 to 40 per cent in the last vear, until | many families are forced to pay | one-half of their income for hous- | ing. Now the agencies have met | again and are going to force addi- | tional raises. | Mothers of the Parent-Teacher | Associations, here is our chance to|

The Supreme Court has made no | alike, yet each believes his own.— | protest, or our children will have

Pope.

to suffer. |

| bert,

Mr. Dickstein’s group in the House Inquiry on Alien Artists. I was not present when the Minskys—Her= Kay and Morton—defended the integrity of the

national art of the strip-tease. o I AM not altogether in sympathy with the bill which Rep. Dickstein is sponsoring. It would practically prohibit the importation of all talent from abroad Art should know no frontiers. And yet, as a practical matter, actors’ unions and musicians’ unions have a right to protest against the restriction made by for= eign countries against American performers. : Still, the way out ought not to be in raising a counter wall. Such barriers will simply grow higher and higher as the retaliatory process goes on. Recie procity is the remedy. There ought to be an interna« tional conference of all the unions affected in all the leading countries of the world. And this conference might very well arrive at some arrangement by which the limitations are either abolished or reduced.

" ou

n F ” J. vet I sympathize with the Minskys in their ! fervent declaration that the strip-tease art should not be stripped of native talent. According to the testimony, most of the finest performers in this country come from the typical prairie states. It is an infant industry, and a cornfed stripper from Kansas may be squelched at the very beginning of her career if she must compete with the lady from France who can not only loosen a shoulder strap but say “"Oo-la-la” at the same time. It takes years for a Kansas girl to say “Oo-la-la.” And some of them never learn. Still the Minskys made one stategic error in men= tioning Miss Gypsy Rose Lee as the leader of the industry in the United States. Gypsy Rose Lee is not an infant industry; she has arrived. Miss Lee stands in no need of any protection save against holdup men. In fair and free competition she can meet competitors from all alien lands and hold her own,

some men wiil go to make a dollar.

| attacks on the will of Congress. Iti

‘General Hugh Johnson Says —

ASHINGTON, March 1.—The idea of Civil Service is swell.

peintment and promotion, is proof enough of the value of eliminating political appointments and cre-

on a basis of merit alone. It would be excellent if the entire Federal Government could be similarly served. But the present Civil Service system certainly leaves much to be desired. The idea of competitive examinations at stated intervals, resulting in lone

from appointment until these lists are exhausted certainly deprives the Government. in many in stances, of the benefit of selection and choice of the best available material.

= = 2

AKE a case in point. Anybody who came in contact with certain departments in NRA will re- | member six young women secretaries of such oute | standing ability that they attracted wide admiration. | They were as valuable and as able as any men in | the whole organization. | All but two were expert stenographers—the kind whose work you don’t have to edit. All wete so intelligent that the best letters resulted when you paid, “Welle so-and-so and tell him such-and-such,”

Present Civil Service System Leaves Much to Be Desired; Too Much Talent Is Missed by Periodic Examination and Waiting List Plan.

It Looks as if Justice Depa Fine Justice Yan Devanter

Experience of more than a cen- | tury and a half, with the Military and Naval Acad- | emies and with the Army and Navy systems of ap- |

ating a professional, career status for public service |

waiting lists of “eligibles” and the exclusion of others |

ey -eould supervise

| the carrying out of departmental policy and keep

their departments going without a ripple, in the absence of ol their bosses. Two of them are still in Government service but not, I think, in Civil Service status. Now, with Civil Service soon te be the almost invariable rule, it would be practically impossible for the Government to employ any of them. There is no rating for “secre= tavies” The periodical examination for “stenogras phers” will not occur for two years, ” 8 2 [pees the “waiting list” idea make up for this 4 deficiency in outstanding and unusual types of efficiency? Of course not. Outstanding and unusual types don’t languish on waiting lists. They are nabbed up instantly. At least in no emergency job did this writer ever find any gems in the Civil Service walting list —and in routine jobs, very few. Doubtless there are some excellent people of very high grade | there, but this particular aspect of the system con= demns the Government, in general, to a reservoir of mediocrity. Under the Ramspeck bill, probably soon to be passed, the shift to Civil Service of emergency administrations, not previously under it, will not ruin those administrations, because the bill provides for ims mediate examination of those already employed. But this does net cover the loophole to whieh this piece is ade essed. A :

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, March 1.—Although the Justice Department hates to do it, it has been virtually forced into the position of summoning one of the august Supreme Court Justices, before whom it must plead its cases, and fining him for duck-shooting without a proper license. It was on Dec. 8 that Game Warden George King came upon two elderly gentlemen in a duck blind at Occoquan, Va, 35 miles down the Potomac from Washington. He asked to see their licenses. The first produced a license bearing the name ZeBarney T. Phillips. It carried the proper Federal stamp, as required by the Migratory Bird Act. The other license, however, bore no stamp. It was made out in the name of Willis Van Devanter, 78-ycar-old Justice of the Supreme Court. King reported tlie case to the Biological Survey. Maximum penalty is $500 fine and six months in prison. 2 ” 2

HE whole thing probably would have died a bureaucratic death, but for ZeBarney Phillips. That genial gentleman, who is Chaplain of the Senate, told a few friends what he thought was a ‘‘corking story” about a Supreme Court Justice falling afoul of the law. The story leaked out, was picked up by

IEA Samar i a

| called upgn to pay a small fine,

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

rtment, Albeit Unwillingly, Would Have to for Duck-Shooting Without Proper License.

Most people considered it a good joke and forgot about it. But the Biological Survey of the Agriculture Department was in a difficult spot, Not long before this episode it had insisted that the Justice Departe ment prosecute similar duck-shooting cases against Walter Chrysler, the automobile manufacturer, and Joseph B. Weaver, high official of the Commerce Dee partment. Also the Bureau got a deulge of letters from sportse men throughout the country wanting to know: “Why should a Supreme Court Justice be treated any different from the rest of us?” ‘ea TT Justice Van Devanter himself put the wrong foot forward. He made a statement to the press that he was not aware he was violating the law. This brought smiles and more letters. “What would Justice Van Devanter say,” queried

one of them, “if anyone appeared hefore the Supreme : Court and pleaded ignorance of the law as his dee

fense? It is safe to assume that a man found in a duck blind, dressed in hunting clothes and carrying a gun, did not come there to meditate upon the mean‘ng of the Constitution.” So it looks as if Justice Van: Devanter would be

Moreover, when a newspapers=

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