Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 March 1937 — Page 13

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The Indianapolis Times

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

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Give Light and the Peuple Will Find Their Own Way

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1937

DEATH IN A SCHOOL ATHERS and mothers throughout the world grieve with those parents in the east Texas oil fields whose chil dren died in the frightful rural school explosion at New London. Disaster is most poignant when its victims are the voung and the helpless. Death never seems more blindly, needlessly cruel than when it strikes under such circumstances as this. And, along with grief for the dead and pity for those who mourn, comes to other communities the haunting fear: schools, to our children?” The record of recent years reveals little foundation for that fear.

Mail subscription rates

65 |

“Could a thing like this happen in our |

Considering the millions of children who assem- |

ble daily in the schools of America, tragedies like the one |

at New London are fortunately rare. For that another school disaster—the Collinwood School fire which cost the lives of 178 pupils and teachers in a Cleveland suburb 29 vears ago this month—is largely responsible. After the Collinwood fire, when it was discovered that inward opening doors and lack of adequate fire escapes had increased the death toll, demands that other schools should he made safe were heard and heeded in every part of the country. Not every American school is safe from fire today, but the element of danger is far less than it might have been had the sad story of Collinwood not been written. And so it may be again. Whatever the cause of the New London explosion, this seems certain—that it might have been prevented. Such things are not acts of God. They result from human errors or oversights.

INDIANAPOLIS BOWLERS BOUT 150 Indianapolis men will compete today in singles and doubles events of the. Bowling Congress now in session in New York. Last night 32 local teams swung into action on the alleys. More Indianapolis teams are yet to compete. A vear ago Indianapolis citizens were swarming to the Fair Grounds to see the elaborate setup of the 36th A. B. C. Bowling is a sport in which there is no middle ground. You either like it very much, or it leaves you cold. Many persons in Indianapolis belong to the former class, and the number has been growing since last year’s tournament. Further proof, if any were needed, that Indianapolis is a bowling center is provided by the two championships held here. The Falls City Hi-Brus became the world’s championship team last year, and Johnny Murphy holds the allevents title. The Lieber Beer team holds the state championship while the Barbasols are best in the city. Therefore, because howling is becoming a popular Hoo-

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

The Battles of the Century—By Herblock

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

4891,000 Employees of State And Local Governments Do Not Pay a Cent of Federal Income Tax.

| WASHINGTON, March 20.—According to

sier sport; because this is the biggest A. B. C. ever—over | 4000 teams competing for prizes totaling $145,000; and be-

cause the tournament lasts so long that it begins to assume the proportions of an historical institution, we wish all Indianapolis entries the best of luck and shall be disappointed if they don't carry off a good share of the honors.

REFORM OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS p

agencies, have aroused public interest in simpler and more efficient government at Washington. of the problem.

When are we going to do something effective about our |

| vice versa.

ROPOSED Supreme Court changes, following the Presi- | dent's plan for reorganizing Federal departments and

But that is only part |

local governments—the more than 170,000 political subdi- |

visions now operating?

The gravity of this problem is underscored by Carl H. |

Chatters, executive director of the Municipal Finance Offi- |

cers’ Association of the United States and Canada.

vival” of local self government . . . and that if such government is to survive, it must put its house in order. He lists among obstacles to the survival of local gov-

He be- |

lieves certain forces at work today threaten the “very sur- | 4 "boinc "Ghich the Supreme Court undertook to

the best figures to be had in Washing- |

ton, there are now 4,891,000 employees of the states, counties and municipalities, drawing more than three billion, dollars a year,

who don’t have to pay a cent of Federal income tax on their salaries or even make out a return. There are also about 1,500,000 Federal employees

| who are exempt from the state in-

come tax, if any, in the states where they reside. A lot of Federal employees who live across the state line in Virginia and work, to use

| a euphemism, in Washington, thus

escape a state tax which is borne

| by people in private pursuits who,

in some cases, make less money than the guests of the community. These exemptions are protected by a series of Supreme Court decisions, the latest of which came down Monday, holding that the Government cannot tax a state or There is something obviousiy cockeyed about all this, because the income tox amendment says Congress may collect taxes on income from whatever source derived. The whole income tax situation, Federal and state, is now a dizzy confusion, but the trouble rests in an ancient and fine-drawn decision given more than a hundred years ago. The succeeding courts have used this as a precedent to deny the plain language of a constitutional amendment and throw the weight of the income tax on less than two million people to the profit of the public employees. ”n » »

OREOVER, there are many mendicant always around with the tin cup to cadge money out of the national Treasury in loans which never will be repaid, which have refused to adopt state income taxes of their own. If they had state income taxes they would not need to prey so heavily on the Government and these permanent borrowings represent, in effect, precisely

Mr. Pegler

thwart when it pointed out that the states must not

| be allowed to devour one another.

Yet there has been so much sentiment about the

| great emergency that the Federal money is shoveled

ernment the national trend toward tax limitation and | homestead exemption—‘" They strangle local government | rather than reform it through orderly and intelligent meas- | ures”’—growing use of state grants-in-aid, and movements |

to abolish local property taxes. Ile opposes wholesale governmental consolidation, but proposes combinations that would cut the total to one-tenth the present figure. The recent Legislature encouraged, rather than curbed, the trend Mr. Chatters warns against. And it ignored the

report of the Governor's Committee which pointed the way |

to reform of local government in Indiana. Some states, including Indiana, have made progress in reorganizing their state government. Nebraska, with its new unicameral Legislature, has taken a further step. Cincinnati and Milwaukee have shown what can be done to modernize city government. County government remains antiquated and costly. Abolition of Indiana's township system is long overdue. mark too many of the lesser divisions of government. Here is a good place to start bringing government up to date.

COLUMNIST BITES EDITOR

Ww to The New York Herald-Tribune, which publishes Dorothy Thompson's column. One of The Herald-Tribune’s pet aversions is the Child Labor Amendment, which it always refers to disparagingly as the Youth Control Amendment. But in her column Miss Thompson writes: “A vast amount of nonsense has been talked about this amendment. It is said that it will give the Federal Government the right to control, in the most minute detail, the education and home life, school and playtime activities, of all young persons in the United States under 18 years of age.” It must

© toal remarks as “nonsense.” We know something about S that type of embarrassment, for our own columnists, Gen. k Hugh Johnson, Raymond Clapper, Heywood Broun, et al., 3.hgve an aggravating way of popping into print with -y Opinions onnosed to onr.swa,

E wish to offer a word of understanding sympathy |

2 Sag. ci, pied

out to relieve distress in states which could meet, or anyway make a better showing with, their local problems if they had their own income tax. Nobody has any serious notion that the moocher states ever will call around and pay off in full. " un n HE Southern states have been the most persistent and successful panhandlers, but sovereign state

rights are not mentioned when one state dips into |

the Treasury for a disproportionate grab at money

| derived from all sources.

It doesn't follow, however, that a younger bench would take a different view of the income tax exemptions. On the contrary, a court packed by the New Deal might feel a debt of gratitude toward the Administration and affirm the findings of the nine old men so as to shield from state income taxes the politicians and politico-technical experts sent out by

the national Government to administer various be- | nevolent works of the Government,

Gradually, and surely, state government is throw-

| ing up the sponge and delegating its troubles, though

none of its rights, to the nation and, in a measure, to the superior members of the great sisterhood.

4 Ck & [| Among these rights is the income tax exemption of Waste, inefficiency and confusion

political salaries.

states, |

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1937

YEAR, BUT I THINK JACK BENNY AND FRED ALLEN WERE FONNIER

Hergleoc

| Will Somebody Sing “Star-Spangled Banner”!

i i i |

The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly

defend to

disagree with what you say, but will

the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

ment read before a mass meeting in the Murat Theater not long ago, in which he protested against { President Supreme Court | posal,

pro-

1 am emboldened to do this since |

| he has given such a “liberal” in-

| terpretation of old age—probably |

de-

| Court reveals in ‘the onward march |

of time. Dictionaries are always | progressive, adding new words as culture develops, and or enlarging the umderstanding of | certain classes of words, such as “economics,” brought about by the inevitable changes haiman relationships are constantly undergoing. The Supreme Court, as a dictionary of the Constitution, meets none of these requirements of uni- | versal accuracy with its majority | and minority opinions over contro-

| versial statutory enactments. That | | is, the majority opinion says that |

| the law under | perfectly white

consideration is

| acterizations, while the minority

| opinion definitely says it is black |

| (unconstitutional), Thus, the dispute is ewer going on, it once happening that a Civil War was brought about bafore one such question was settled. All human institutions axe falli-

ble, including the Supreme Court, |

with a majority faction sometimes standing astride the road of prog- | ress, only to be finally overthrown | by the march of democracy. Traditions fade into the past and make way for new concepts, and

traditions may be broken in order |

to clear the way for new and vital | changes in environment. If it were not so the Dark Ages would persist to block all progress to an em | lightened freedom. I yield to no man in my respect: | for the courts as an essential ele-

ment in orderly democratic proce- |

dure, but I reserve the right of

General Hugh Johnson Says—

I now criticize a part of his state- |

the |

Tark- |

the Constitu- |

liberalizing |

(constitutional), to | | use one of Mr. Tarkington's char- |

(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.)

evaluation and criticism and refuse

to extend idolatrous veneration for |

venerable things.

alarm sounded by the hysterical

beating of drums by special privi= |

leged classes and their satellites, or | those who are unable to untangle themselves from the | period of our social and political life.

” ” ”

COURT REFORM PROPOSAL CALLED “INSPIRED” By F. E. Buxton I am sorry to note attitude of The Times the President's plan to control, not the Constitution, but the divided personnel of the Supreme Court. Times editorials on the subject have been confusing and inept. To attempt to amend the Constitution

now is the very thing the enemies of the Government have been hoping for. How long will it be until the American people will learn that the | President has a peculiar “inspira- | tion” which is withheld from others?

the recent

” ” ”

GETS APPROVAL By Ex-Butlerite One wonders why the 49th St. zoning problem is of such vital in-

terest to a resident at Buckingham |

Drive and Cornelius Ave., five blocks away from the affected area. The City | has repeatedly promised to take | care of the Fairview business situation, having studied it for six

| thing doubtedly granted a variance where it will do the greatest gooa with the least damage.

MY AIM

By VIRGINIA POTTER If T can’t have a love that's real— Unselfish, full and fair— | I do not want a love at all, For life 1s full of care,

And love can make the hardest road

Far easier to bear, If it is grand and lasting— And willing to give, and share!

DAILY THOUGHT How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! —I1 Samuel 1:27.

GREAT war leaves the country with three armies—an

army of cripples, an army of

Labor Situation Is Becoming Dangerous Due to Lack of Policy on All Interest, Labor Must Abandon Sit-Downs.

Sides; in Public and Own

EW YORK, March 20.—The labor situation is becoming wholly impossible and very dangerous. As Assistant Secretary of Labor McGrady said recently, neither Government nor labor nor management has a labor policy. The essential principles of the Government's attempted labor policy are: (1) That in the great complexity and overwhelming organization and power of modern industry, there is really no such thing as individual bargaining or possible individual protection in labor relations; (2) that the creation and protection of labor rights requires labor organization and representation independent of the employer-employee relationship; (3) that multiple bargaining contracts in a

single plant are abortive ad impossible and therefore | that the common sense and democratic solution is in- | | dependent and exclusive representation in any form | . oN | that a majority of workers in free election may select. be embarrassing to The Herald-Tribune to |

have one of its own columnists characterize its own edi- |

There isn’t much the matter with that. But two circumstances have arisen to vex and frustrate the Government's policy. » » » LTHOUGH it is the law of the land under the Wagner act, the Supreme Court hasn't vet said so. Its intimations are to the contrary, and it seems to be deliberately SOI a Sonetution, Until that doubt resolved—one h

procedure.

» = »

Board has itself emasculated the policy by certifying | minority unions as exclusive bargaining agencies and by abandoning any pretense of judicial and impartial

In this utter confusion of policy and judicial decision, it is no wonder that the whole country seethes | with the worst labor troubles in this generation.

is a lot of gravy

In this lush

I take on none of the emotional |

stagecoach |

regarding |

FAIRVIEW ZONING ORDINANCE

Planning Commission |

years or more, and, taking every. into consideration, has un-|

mourners, and an army of thieves, | y —German Proverb.

The Washington

NATION'S NEED STRAIGHT | TALK, HE SAYS By John LL. Niblack The articles in the Hoosier Forum are interesting. Some writers have the nerve and forthrightness to sign their names and I admire them for | doing so. Straight talk and frankness is what we need in this country. I say “hats off’ to the numerous Forum contributors on payroll who are writing to column in support of the President's bill to make Federal judiciary a | branch of the executive department, Not so, however, to the “Subscriber” who wrote a piece published March 9 and was too cow-

ardly to allow his name to be used |

(over the letter in which he said | “The Supreme Court has created | disrespect by its special interests in most cases.” Such a rash

statement implies

either vast ignorance of Supreme | intol- |

Court decisions erance of our

or a huge American form of Government. I challenge the unknown writer to come out from behind the bushes and cite special interests the Court members. If Subscriber has lived in country any length of time and is familiar with our customs and traditions he knows that the Federal judiciary, beginning with Judge Baltzell in the local court, is known for speedy and impartial ments. He knows that the Federal

courts are above reproach and far |

| removed from the tainting touch of the spoilsmen in all political parties Instead of criticizing our Federal

courts, let's make the State cours |

more like the national ones, ” » » SATIRIZES ITALIAN CLAIM TO BUFFALO BILL By W, Stone Col. William PF. Cody through life thinking he was born in

| Denver grave in 1917, five years be-

| fore Mussolini's march on Rome |

| brought the term fascism to the | headlines of American newspapers. Now a newspaper in Bologna has “discovered” that Buffalo Bill's real name was Giovanni Tambini, that

| he was born in Barbigarezzo about |

| 1840, and that he was “a typical | Ttalian—who was full of Fascist courage and daring.”

cow newspaper should some day “discover” that Daniel Boone was | Joseph Stalin's grandpa. and led

buckskinned bands of Communist of |

| trappers across the steppes | Siberia long before he braved the wilderness of Kentucky. Or if one of Adolf Hitler's propaganda orcans should “reveal” that Will Rogers wasn't an Oklahoma Cherokee at all, but a Nordic Nazi spawned in a Munich beer cellar. Such are the celights of a | press” in the lands of dictators.

Private Financial Interests HOLC Securities, Leaving

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen { ASHINGTON, March 20.—Certain big financial

interests are secretly trying to get their hands on two billion dollars of Government gravy—which

in any man’s language. The gravy

| boat is the juicy portfolio of mortgages held by the Home Owners Loan Corp. | cache there are mortgages totaling |

the public | your |

the |

this |

judg- |

went |

So don’t be surpirsed if some Mos=- |

“free |

law.

sit-down strike.

ganize without discrimination, punishment, oppression or even influence,

only effective form of protection we have is the sitdown strike.”

lic and the public peace.

ganizations to insist on it is to invoke the opposition of outraged public opinion, of Government ‘and of the at means only defeat and de-

Shhh

—— aa i CR

T= most dangerous of these developments is the | The labor argument is: “The | law of the land requires that we be permitted to or- |

This is flagrantly, defiantly and | universally violated. We are denied our rights. The | law seems powerless to protect the rights it gives. The |

Regardless of sympathy with frustrated labor and | condemnation of reactionary employers, labor simply | | must abandon this outlaw pretension. For labor or- |

$3,000,000,000, but $1,000,000,000 of them are considered | “doubtful paper”-—that is, notes endangered by a more | than even chance that the home owner will default. |

The remaining $2.000,000,000, classed as gilt-edge in-

vestments, are what the money-boys are greedily |

eying, For several months a lobby representing banks, insurance companies, and building and loan interests

persuade Treasury and HOLC executives that the

Government ought to sell these gilt-edge securities to |

The argument used is that time-worn battle“Get the Government out of business!”

Nh » O the casual eye the lohby has a good case for If the Government turns these

them. ery:

—Byv Talburt

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

| James B. Conant, President of Harvard, Opposes Court Reform;

His Argument Wrong, Writer Says.

EW YORK, March 20.—James Bryant Conant is the president of Harvard University and, 1 understand, a chemist. He has just undertaken to state his position on | the Constitution of the United States and | the proposals of President Roosevelt, Whether this issue can be settled by any of the familiar formulae of the laboratories I do not know. | But after reading the statement of President Conant I have a strong feeling that he should stick to his sodium and his chlorides and leave alone those subjects concerning which he is unable to make a strictly scientific approach. The young man who heads Harvard stated in an open letter to Senators Walsh and Lodge that he supported them in their oppo= sition to the movement to liberal« ize the judiciary. He mentioned the fact that he has not been entirely satisfied with certain decisions of the High Bench in regard to progres= sive legislation. And he added to that, “But many of us who have been interested in combating this threat to freedom are now alarmed by the proposed change in the Supreme Court. To us it. appears contrary to the spirit of a free, democratic country: it points the way for an interference with the judiciary which might eventually jeopardize the liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.” This is a traditional and fallacipus argument. It is heid that if the complexion of the present Court is changed a rampant majority may step upon the toes | of minorities and deprive them of their rights of fres | speech, free press and free assembly. But as a chems ist James Bryant Conant should be more interested in factual findings than in theories. » ” n LABORATORY experiment was conducted durs ing the period of the great war, and the Sue | preme Court proved to be a reed in the wind as far { as individual liberties were concerned. Eugene V, | Debs went to Atlanta because he voiced his opposition to conscription. The Supreme Court did not stay or abate his sentence. And right or wrong he certainly | deserved that protection which the Bill of Rights in theory offers to those who stand up against some temporary ferment, The heat engendered by the prohibition contros versy was somewhat less than that produced by the | war, but even then the highest Court of the land did not stand firm. . It caught the infection of popular sentiment, and for the second time within a generas tion the Bill of Rights was torn to tatters.

Mr, Broun

un un ” {| FN all fairness to Dr. Conant it must be admitted that he is the inheritor of an evil tradition. He | has come into his present post hard upon the heels of A. Lawrence Lowell, and Dr. Lowell did not increasa the prestige of Harvard by affixing, in effect, his sig= nature to the death warrant of Sacco and Vanzetti, It was said at the time=it may still be said--that A. { Lawrence Lowell acted out of deep sincerity, But | Sacco and Vanzetti are dead, and few now honestly believe that they were justly convicted.

Harvard University, in spite of an old and a glori= ous tradition, is the creature of a highly conservative tradition. Dr. James Bryant Conant has been elevated to headship as a scientist and a liberal, but the men who control the funds of Harvard are neither liberal nor scientific. And the right way to bet is that they will choose no man unless he is willing, under pressure, to play dead, roll over and give his paw when the request comes from those who actually run the I show,

Merry-Go- Round

Would Like to Get Control of Gilt-Edge the Government to Hold 'Doubtful Paper.'

| and collecting agency. This would save vhe taxpayers | money and Washington a lot of headaches. But there is a monumental joker in the plan. While relieving the Government of the $2,000.« | 000,000 worth of gilt-edge mortgages, the wily finan | cial interests want no parl of that $1,000,000,000 of | “doubtful paper.” They are all for “getting the tiov= ernment out of business” that is sure to be profitable but want it to continue in business where no profits | are in prospect.

” ” ” NDER their proposed scheme the HOLC would have to be continued as a liquidating agency to handle the doubtful mortgages. Thus, instead of breaking even, or possibly making a small profit-- [ as it is likely to do with its full portfolio=the HOLC

| has been working persistently behind the scenes to | WOUld be left holding the bag with a big loss,

It is persuasive—but it is not enough. There isan- | other party and another consideration here—the pub- |

So far the ingenious plan has made little progress, Note: While the financial interests have been try. ing to get their hands on the HOLC gravy boat, a strong movement has developed in Congress to forea | down the HOLC's interest rate. The agency hore rowed its money at 14 to 3 per cent, charges bors rowers 5 per cent. This is lower than private lends ing rates, but the Congressional critics say the Gove ernment not make more than a nominal profit ‘on loans to ‘home owners, .