Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 March 1937 — Page 12

PAGE 12°

The Indianapolis Times

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1937

JOEL BAKER'S TESTIMONY DESPITE the red herring that Joel Baker tried to drag across the trail of official inquiry yesterday, one thing 18 clear: Baker has yet to explain his operations in the local political intimidation ring. The public cannot be diverted from that central issue. Too much already has been revealed about his activities. After Peter Cancilla’s arrest in the slugging of Wayne Coy, and before the Legislature's Investigating Committee called him as a witness, Cancilla boasted: “I'm not going to let them question me. I'm going to

argue with them. I'll tell plenty.”

He told nothing. grounds he might incriminate himself. But Baker argued with the Committee. constitutional immunity against answering any questions except those he wanted to answer. The verbatim testimony, published on other pages of today’s Times, shows that instead of answering many questions Baker made a series He interrogated the committeemen Saker refused to testify on some

of political speeches. and wisecracked at them. kev points. details.

Baker said he didn't know it if the Welfare Merit Bill |

he got from Rep. Downey was the original bill. He denied threatening Mr. Coy or Virgil Sheppard and denied he was with Cancilla after the assault on Mr. Coy. He contradicted previous witnesses—even the testimony of his own close associates. The show Joel Baker put on comes too late to help justify his acts. The public cannot forget that he ran away and stayed in hiding until he was indicted with his aid, Cancilla, on charges of malicious mayhem and assault and battery with intent to kill Mr. Coy.

MAENNERCHOR-ATHENAEUM FFILIATION of the Athenaeum and Maennerchor was agreed on Wednesday night. This union of two old

and valuable Indianapolis organizations should prove mutu- |

ally beneficial. The cultural activities of the Maennerchor plus the athletic, social and fine restaurant facilities of the Athenaeum should produce a well-integrated organization. congratulate the directors of the societies for their wisdom in uniting and wish them all possible luck.

TABLE TALK FOR SEVEN (GOVERNORS of six industrial states dined at the White House the other dav and told President Roosevelt much the same thing that the United States Conference of Mayors has already said. Substantially, it is this: The cost of relief to employables “cannot be borne” by state and local governments, and so must be borne by the Federal Government. All needy persons who are able to

be given work hy the Federal Government. on WPA should be kept there until they get private jobs, and those who leave WPA for private jobs should be replaced by employables from the direct relief rolls. That would continue WPA, on a larger scale than at present and for an indefinite time, at a cost which there is

much reason to fear “cannot be borne,” even by the Federal |

Government.

The Governors and Mayors are correct in saying that WPA does not now employ ail needy employables. Even at 1ts peak, it fell short of that by nearly a million. But the remedy, in our opinion, is not to expand WPA. It is, rather, to contract and liquidate WPA ; to put Federal public works on a sounder basis, and to give Federal help to the state and local governments in maintaining necessary direct relief at a decent level. The Government's attempt to provide jobs for ali who need them, never wholly effective, is becoming less so. As Robert S. Brown points out in his articles now appearing in The Times, WPA is slowly going to seed. The young and the skilled are finding private jobs, and the proportion of clderly, unskilled and marginai workers on WPA payrolls is growing. n n n ” n u MEANWHILE, in many states, direct relief is in a bad way. Many local governments are not providing adequately for their unemployables, or for their employables not on WPA. The excuse some local units offer, that their forced contributions to the WPA program leave them without enough money to meet direct-relief demands, may or may not be justified. At any rate, it is true that great numbers of needy people are getting no relief while others are getting a miserably inadequate dole. We doubt, however, whether the best solution for what the Governors rightly call “this stupendous problem” is likely to come from public officials whose natural interest is in getting Uncle Sam to shoulder a larger and even larger share of the load. We believed that unbiased study of this problem—and that is what is needs—would develop a solution materially different from the one proposed by the Governors and Mayors, and very much fairer to those who need relief as well as those who must pay its cost. Such a solution, we think, will have to be based upon some such general principles as these: That WPA is too costly and too progressively ineffective to be continued indefinitely. That the Federal Government should undertake public works only because they are essential, not merely because they create jobs; should employ workers full time at full wages because their labor is needed, not because they can't find jobs elsewhere; should do the work economically by modern methods, not wastefully by hand labor. And that the state and local governments, being held strictly responsible for a fair share of direct-relief costs,

should be helped by the Federal Government to maintain decent standards.

outside of Indiana, 65 |

Cancilla refused to testify, on the

He claimed |

He “didn't remember” on other important |

We |

| trouble is that they are shiftless

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

rire ICRA ARRANGE AER EUR RE ES ARTE

SERA deh a IER RD

“It May Be a 50-to-40 Decision” —By Herblock

1 ies ck

RES

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Houses at Quoddy May Be Going |

To Ruin, but Hardly Anyone Gets A Good House Built These Days.

EW YORK, March 13.—The Herald Trib- |

une is taking a few more belts at poor

little Quoddy village at Eastport, Me., the | collection of picturebook houses, most of

them of the love-bower type, built by the Army Corps of Engineers to accommodate the white-collar help employed on the Quoddy Dam project which has been abandoned. The H.-T. says the houses are going to ruin already, what with leaky

roofs, flimsy construction and the lack of occupancy. It is not hard to believe that the love bowers are showing wear and tear, because many American workmen don't build very good houses these days. I don’t know whether the or ornery or what, but my guess is that most of the so-called carpenters, electricians, masons, and all such who work on the building of a house just don't know their stuff. And whatever the explanation may be, they build some terrible houses which spring leaks and warp and come open at the joints long before the second mortgage is paid off.

Undoubtedly the building

Mr. Pegler

contractors should be

| coupled in the betting with the workmen, and any- | one who is thinking of building a . . . . | advised never to get chummy with anybody on the work, but unable to find work in private industry, should |

All those now |

house should be

Job, but regard them all as enemies, plague them with constant fault-finding, and positively never fall for a pathetic plea for a little more money in advance of the date stipulated in the contract. The contractor may come around and say that his wife needs an operation or his life insurance is about to lapse, but nuts to that, my friends with the nesting fever, because the minute he is paid up he will sling his tackle into the truck and split a crack in the atmosphere getting out of there.

» un ”

SK anyone who has suffered. You will hear about roofs stuck on with glue and plumbing that wouldn't drain, paint that peeled off like sunburned skin or blew away like powder, turtle-back floors and come-apart cabinet work, sagging foundations, nondraft chimneys and ccllars which in rainy

| weather are good regatta courses.

And always there is the story about the expert called in a few months after completion of the house who went around poking in corners and clucking to himself and finally said, “I don't see how any man could have been so dishonest as to take your money for this kind of work and material.” n on " N the basis of considerable inquiry it is my conclusion that the only way to get a house built right in the first place is to lay off work at your own business entirely and spend every hour on the job. squawking and beefing, inspecting every foot of lumber and every nail and pipe and brick, and always with an attitude of cold, frank suspicion. Maybe the Army Engineers did get some Quoddy houses built of the insubstantial stuff that dreams

| are made of, but I hope the Herald Tribune will

make the same inspection of some private dwellings in the same price range, and give us a tell what they find, ana by all means what the owners have to say about the materials and the workmanship of the building trades.

The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will

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

umns, cluded.

(Times readers are express their views in these colreligious controversies ex- | ® nn Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

invited to have a general cleanup and no |

whitewashing.

DECLARES FARMERS COLLECT THREE WAYS | By Herb Ferris

Letters

| literate person could misunderstand | it. Yet, Mr. Bernard Cunniff, in a

Marion County Welfare Board? Why | working hours so that more people

| Laws are being passed to shorten

recent Forum letter, has somehow | misconstrued it, perhaps for the | sake of an argument. Mr. Cunniff | cheerfully attempts to present a | difference between the views of the | late Justice Holmes and these of | Mr. Tarkington { No such difference exists. | Justice Holmes said that the pro- | visions of the Constitution were | “to be gathered not simply by tak{ing the words and a dictionary, but | by considering their origin and the ‘line of their growth.” Mr. Tark- | ington. said that the Supreme Court {acts as a dictionary for the na- | tion, explaining to the nation the | meaning of the words and groups of { words in the Constitution. He did not say that the Court explains those words and groups of | words by means of a dictionary | He said the justices were the dictionary. Obviously—that is, obviously to anybody except a casiuistical argufier ot partisan — Mr. Tarkington implied that if an ordinary printed dictionary couid be used to interpret the Constitution | there'd be no use for a Supreme { Court. When Mr. Tarkington compared the functions of the Supreme | Court to those of a dictionary I feel certain that Mr. Holmes, unlike Mr. Cunniff, was aware that when a | dictionary defines a word it ex- | haustively considers that word's ! origin and line of growth. | It seems to me that Mr. Cunniff’s | quoting from Judge Holmes is | | rather enjoyable, as he seems rath- | er ludicrously to have forgotten the {age at which the great jurist end-

| of recent developments

| men as either of these two publi- | cized persons to manage his busi-

| Indiana.

is a man appointed and retained as |

| director and given blank authority |

to “hire and fire” who in the light | has been | proved unfit for such a position? Would a business man employ such |

ness? Why was a special committee necessary to bring these things to light? Why should our police and fire- | men spend time around our Legis- | lature to lobby for particular legislation favoring them when they are public servants and paid to serve the public?

legislative |

n n ” CRITICIZES OLD-AGE PENSION SETUP By a Reader. Brown County The slugging of Wayne Coy was 2a deplorable incident and a disgrace to the State of Indiana. I do not know the details of the circumstances but I know that Indiana's | Old-Age Pension Law is a farce, pure and simple. Anvone with leather spectacles can see that. Our law makers made a mistake in stopping when they ousted Joel Baker. They should abolish all welfare boards and let the State Board | take care of the aged persons. This situation is one that calls for investigation with no political polish put on anycne. High taxes and political activities are reaching dangerous stages in| The’ people demand better government and are entitled to know what becomes of tax money.

land still live on his farm?

| city and hold positions it is bad, but

| Many of these farmers drive to work

| is going on. | given the choice of the check or the | | city job as long as he lives on the

| Landon and Mr.

| they have failed to disclose it. | they have anything to cure unem- |

will be employed. Laws will be

passed for crop control. Is it fair for a farmer to have a job in town

When a man and wife live in the how much worse this is. The farm-

er collects from his farm produce, the Government and industry.

from the country and never pay | taxes to the county in which they | work. But don't blame the farmer if vou are out of work. Blame the legislators who should know what The farmer should be |

farm. " Ho n BELIEVES F. D. R. FOES FACE POLITICAL BURIAL By W. Scott Taylor Democrats in Congress who are |

fighting the last campaign all over | again, this time on the other side |

| of the fence, are not facing another |

election like last November's. They |

| are facing political burial so deep |

that they'll be glad to stay there. If the deserting Democrats have | anything to offer except what Mr. | Knox offered— | faith, hope and private Oy!

| ployment or rescue the middle class | | from the next depression they have | failed to disclose that.

Perhaps these deserters have all |

| every state of the Union. | some few acted out of a high sincerity it need only

| ed his career on the Supreme Court

Now, while the iron is hot, let's |

the answers that Landon and Knox |

plan

me:

General Hugh Johnson Says —

One Important Result of President's Court Plan Largely Lost Sight of Would Be Injection of Needed Speed and Order Into Lower Courts.

ASHINGTON, March 13.—In all this furious debate about the President's judiciary proposal, one aspect of it is lost in the smoke of battle. That is its provision for putting system, speed and order into the lower courts and curing the absurd condition where, because of conflicting decisions on constitutionality, an act of Congress is law in one district and no law in another. The condition to be remedied is appalling. The courts must have respect if not veneration, if we are to maintain impartial nonpolitical justice, but arbitary inefficiency and a startling lack of system and order are not among the grounds of respect. In his Senate testimony Mr. Cummings cited a Federal district in which were pending 1593 cases. Of this number more than 1200 had been there more than a year, 1007 more than two years, 860 more than three years, 732 more than four years, 629 more than five years, 531 more than six years, 420 more

than seven years, 361 more than eight years, 307 more than nine years, 264 more than 10 years,

HILE this is a Federal Court of first instance, these figures do not include the long periods of litigation in state courts and controversy elsewhere that undoubtedly elapsed in many of these cases before they reached the Federal District Court. In practical effect, it amounts to a substantial denial of justice on a broad front. the accumulation of fees, exy and nts ir

| some of these nine-year cases. . bad that good lawyers frankly advise their clients to | submit to almost any injustice or indignity rather

path of Federal litigation. Why should it take nine years or six or three or even one year to settle a law suit?

| tion nor very much method anywhere in the judiciary and it is entirely too complacent toward delay. = ” on T is a decentralized organization system, but it is not tied together in any central directing authority

governmental organization. This looseness probably was intended to maintain the intellectual independence of the judges—and that must be maintained.

tasks should be left almost completely to chance.

of the Attorney General, who is not only purely a political officer, but aiso the principal litigant before the courts which he administers and appoints. Surely this does not tend to maintain the intellectual independence of the judges. The President proposes a reform of most of this antique abuse. Quite apart from

the Supreme Court controversy, this aspect of his suggestion enthusiastic and universal popular

FATE

By VIRGINIA POTTER I used to thirk I'd never smile— | the old guard that believes depres- | If you and I would part, brutal | But now I knuw I'd simply sigh— | wholesome. And mend a broken heart.

| With someone you hold dear, : Cancilla | But men are much the same I guess | because of the increased efficiency And I'll meet more—I fear.

DAILY THOUGHT

And I am this day weak: though anointed king; and these men the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for The Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness.—II Samuel 3:39.

E who does evil that good may | : come, pays a toll to the devil | pions of the new heritage and bid What is the matter with the |to let him into heaven.—Hare.

The

The condition is so | than to set their feet on the long thorny, desolate |

The answer lies | in the fact that there is neither very much organiza- |

in any such manner as in any business or any other | { form.

But to do that, 1t is not necessary that the adminis- | trative system of its business and the distribution of |

Such direction as there is, including the control- | ling function of appointment of judges, is in the hands |

* | omitted from their speeches. Maybe | { they can tell those progressive Re- | | publicans who voted for Roosevelt | | why they are now lined up with |

| sions are necessary, inevitable and |

There is nothing in any of their | | speeches to indicate what great |

It's nice to love and dream and | new enterprises they have in mind |

to enable private industry to take | bacl: men who are no longer needed

| of methods and machines. Nor have they stated what they have in | mind to take the place of a max- | | imum-hour law for spreading employment, or a minimum wage law | for increasing general purchasing | | power. . . . The old gua’ | proud of its new cruits. They are now where they | | belong. As for the progressive Re- | publicans, they salute the cham-|

‘action should be | Democratic re- |

| them a long farewell.

_ ——

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun Suggests 102 Millstones Be Sent To Albany for Legislators Who Killed Child Labor Amendment.

EW YORK, March 13.—In the 18th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew it is written of anyone who oifends against a child that “it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of

the sea.” To Albany should go 102 millstones to the Assemblymen who killed the Child Labor Amendment.

It goes without saying that these members of the Assembly should be set in the memory books of the voters and blotted out of public life when next they show their heads. But that is too long to wait. Right now they should be belled so that all shall know them by their comings and their goings. And quite properly some distinguishing mark might be set upon the door of their abodes. Shameful days have been known before in the Assembly in Albany, but now the Lower House of the Empire State becomes the lowest in all the land. At times,

Mr. Broun

| 1 understand, men have gone to the Legislature who

were not above sharing in illicit profits, but even such

| might recoil at the thought of trafficking in the toil

of children. This is our Legislature—yours and mine—and we must share some part of the blame. Many of us in election years have been so intent upon some major candidate that we have swept down a line of levers hardly knowing or caring about the fact that we are also expressing a decision as to the Assembly. And if we chance to see the regimentation of children in a mill in any part of this broad country we must bow our heads and say, “That is our concern. This deed was done in Albany.”

” o ” T is not often that a simple member of the Assem=

bly gets an opportunity to export his stupidity into And if anybody says that

be answered that sincerity will hardly serve as a shelter for children who struggle through torturing hours in the sugar beet fields of the West. We know the names of the men who did this thing, and we know the forces and agencies which cracked the whip, and these men and things will be remembered. In the ranks of this legion places should be re-

| served for all who pretended to be wliolly against

child labor but There are few foes so dangerous as those who proffer aid but insist that the goal must be cbtained in some other way.

» ” ”

ND surely there must be one section of this parade of philanthropists, public men and prelates de= voted to a representative of those publishers who brought the tragedy into being, I do not see how it will be possible to top the Her= ald Tribune, which even twisted its news columns and made “youth control” the mandatory phrase in describing the Child Labor Amendment. When the knife had been driven home out popped an editorial entitled “Now End Child Labor.” The friends of exploitation have won a temporary victory. But now we Know all our foes and their names. At least none of them can stab us in the back next time. Let the cry go up, “When do we fight again?”

Washington Merry Go-Round

One Figure, Unflustered and Unhurried, Emerges From Court Plan Fight in Senate; He Is Henry Ashurst, Chief Puncturer of Stuffed Shirts.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen | ASHINGTON, March 13.—Out of the tension | and turbulence of the Senate Supreme Court | hearings emerges one central figure, unflustered, unhurried, and unabashed that at heart he has no enthusiasm for the Rcosevelt judiciary plan. He is Henry Fountain Ashurst, first Senator from Arizona, chief puncturer of senatorial stuffed shits,

| chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and a man

whose philosophy of public office he has expressed like this. “In the Senate you are on roller skates. You go partly where you like to go and partly where the skates take you.” The Ashurst skates are now taking him out to do | battle for the President on the field of judicial re- |

” ” ”

HIS is not a new game to the Senator from Arizona. In an emergency he can always turn on | the fire and feeling, During the floor-fight on Boulder Dam. Ashurst was in the vanguard of the attack, waged a furious filibuster against the bill. Privately, he did not care r snap of his fingers about Boulder Dam. But his State was against it. So he got as lathered up as the spotted pinto he used to ride over the deserts of Arizona. Born in Nevada in 1874, he migrated with his par-

out a small ranch. There young Ashurst rode range,

| { ents by covered wagon to Arizona, where they staked | later went to school in California and the University |

While still a youth and without formal legal training, he became a lawyer. He soon got into politics and was elected county attorney. When Arizona became a State in 1912, Ashurst was a member of the Territorial Legislature. He entered a large field of candidates for the Senate, got the second largest number of votes, came to the Capital as junior Senator.

un ” on HILE he is not a headline figure, no one in Washington outranks Ashurst in charm, wit and candor. He is one of the most lovable, amusing and outspoken men in public life. “No Senator can change his mind quicker than 1,” he laughs. He electioneered as a bonus supporter, but of the four votes ne cast on the question, two were for the

| bonus and two against.

“At least,” he remarks disarmingly, “I was 50 per

| cent right.”

Only a few weeks ago Ashurst was busy denouncing suggestions to pack the Court. Instead he urged a constitutional amendment giving Congress freedom to enact economic and social welfare measures. In 1935 he was against any tampering with the courts or the Constitution. But today he is for the President's proposal. When this was announced, he received a wire, saying: “Glad to see that for once you are on the side of the people.” To which Ashurst telegraphed: “My heart is al= Jaye, with the people, even if sometimes my vote not.

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