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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

SS IEC She

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1937

The Indianapolis Times | The Battles of the Century—By Herblock

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W, HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY President Editor Owned and published Price in Marion County, daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co. 214 W, Maryland St.

by carrier, week.

in Indiana, $3 a year;

outside of Indiana, cents a month.

Give Light and the Peopls Will Find Their Own Way

Member of United Press, Scripps = Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bu-

reau of Circulations. RIley 5551

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.

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 “Could a thing like this happen in our |

haunting fear: schools, to our children?” The record of recent years reveals little foundation for

that fear. 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 years 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 be 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 mav be again. Whatever the cause of the New London explosion, this seems certain—that it might have heen 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

" ! Aalls City Hi-Brus became the world’s cham- | held here. The Falls City Hi-Brus bec: t le Be A

pionship 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 bowling is becoming a popular Hoo-

MARK FERREE | Business Manager

| { | |

3 cents a copy; delivered | 12 cents a

Mail subscription rates |

Disaster is most poignant when its victims are the |

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

4891000 Employees of State And Local Governments Do Not Pay a Cent of Federal Income Tax.

7 ASHINGTON, March 20.—According to | the best figures to be had in Washing- |

| ton, there are now 4,891,000 employees of | the states, counties and municipalities, draw- | ing 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

| 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,

sier sport; because this is the biggest A. B. C. ever—over |

4000 teams competing for prizes totaling $145,000; and because 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

| down

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

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

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 Officers’ Association of the United States and Canada. He believes certain forces at work today threaten the “very survival” 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-

ernment the national trend toward tax limitation and |

homestead exemvtion— They strangle local government |

. oform it through orderly and intelligent meas- | Ne rather than reform it g . g | will call around and pay off in full,

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

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 Monday, holding that the Government cannot tax a state or vice versa. There is something obhviously cockeved 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 n

OREOVER, there are many mendicant states, 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.

Mr. Pegler

If they had state income taxes they would not |

need to prey so heavily on the Government and these | VOT | none of these requirements of uni- |

permanent borrowings represent, in effect, precisely the menace which the Supreme Court undertook to thwart when it pointed out that the states must not be allowed to devour one another. Vet there has been so much sentiment about the greay emergency that the Federal money is shoveled

| out to relieve distress in states which could meet, | or anyway make a better showing with, their local

problems if they had their ¢wn income tax. Nobody has any serious notion that the moocher states ever

HE Southern states have been the most persistent and successful panhandlers, but sovereign state

u" n

| rights are not mentioned when one state dips into

the Treasury for a disproportionate grab at money

| derived from all sources.

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. system is long overdue. Waste, inefliciency and confusion mark too many of the lesser divisions of government.

Here is a good place to start bringing government up |

General Hugh Johnson Says ws

to date. COLUMNIST BITES EDITOR

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

Abolition of Indiana's township | | Among these rights is the income tax exemption of

WE wish to offer a word of understanding sympathy |

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 de- * tail, the education and home life, school and playtime activities, of all voung persons in the United States under 18 years of age.”

[t must be embarrassing to The Herald-Tribune to |

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

to-ial remarks as “nonsense.” We know something about that type of embarrassment, for our own columnists, Gen.

Hugh Johnson, Raymond Clapper, Heywood Broun, et al., |

3.hgve an aggravating way of popping into print with opinion : |

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

political salaries.

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

Herglrocy

Will Somebody Sing “Star-S

SA AA BN 5

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will

defend to

the death your right to say it.=Voltaire.

‘OLDSTER’ CRITICIZES TARKINGTON STAND By John F. White It is not with any lack of appreciation or respect for Booth Tark- | ington—with whose books I have | spent many interesting hours-—that

| I now criticize a part of his state- | ment read before a mass meeting in

umns, cinded.

(Times readers express their views in these colreligious controversies exMake your letter so all can have a chance. must he signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

| evaluation and criticism and refuse | to extend idolatrous veneration for

NATION'S NEED STRAIGHT | TALK, HE SAYS By John IL. Niblack i 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

are invited to

short, Letters

the Murat Theater not long ago, in which he protested against | President Supreme Court

| posal. | 1 am emboldened to do this since

pro-

he has given such a “liberal” in- | age—probably | | period of our

| terpretation of old

It seems to me that Mr, ington was rather unfortunate in | his characterization of the Court | as a “dictionary of the | tion,” since mo court, in any degree, can lay claim to the longtime accuracies of a dictionary. I am unaware of any contention that | dictionaries, in the definition of | words, were determined by a major- | ity vote, such as decisions of the Supreme Court are made, while the | minority definition is entirely dif- | ferent, Neither do dictionaries reverse or repudiate their own acts, | such as the history of the Supreme | Court reveals in ‘the onward march of time. Dictionaries are always progressive, adding new words as culture develops, and liberalizing | or enlarging the imderstanding of certain classes of words, such as | “economics,” brought about by the | inevitable changes haiman relation- | ships are constantly undergoing. The Supreme Court, as a dic tionary of the Constitution, meets

| versal accuracy with its majority and minority opinions over controversial statutory enactments. That {the law under consideration perfectly white

| acterizations, while the minority

| opinion definitely says it is black |

| (unconstitutional),

| Thus, the dispute is ewer going | on, it once happening that a Civil |

the |

| leged classes and their satellites, or |

Tark- |

Constitu- |

| President | tion” which is withheld {i nm others?

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

venerable things, 1 take on none of the emotional | alarm sounded by the hysterical | beating of drums by special privi-

those who are unable to untangle | themselves from the siagecoach | social and political | life. ” » | COURT REFORM PROPOSAL CALLED “INSPIRED” By F. E. Buxton I am sorry to note the recent attitude of The Times regarding | 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 wiil it be until the American people will learn that the has a peculiar “inspira-

”

” ” ” FAIRVIEW ZONING ORDINANCE GETS APPROVAL By Ex-Butlerite One wonders why the 49th St, zoning problem is of such vital interest to a resident at Buckingham | Drive and Cornelius Ave,, five blocks away from the affected area. The City Planning Commission | to take

having studied it for six years or more, and, taking everys | thing into consideration, has un- | doubtedly granted a variance where | it will do the greatest good with the least damage.

MY AIM By VIRGINIA POTTER

| fore Mussolini's | brought

Forum contributors on payroll who are writing column in support of the President's bill to make Federal judiciary a branch of the executive department, Not so, however, to the geriber”

letter in which he said “The Supreme Court has created

| disrespect by its special interests in

most cases. Such a rash statement either vast ignorance of Supreme Court decisions or a huge intolerance of our American form of Government, 1 challenge the unknown writer to come out behind the bushes and cite the special interests the Court members, If Subscriber

implies

has lived in this

[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 eourt, is known for speedy and impartial judgments, 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

| eourts, let's make the State courts

more like the national ones, ” " » SATIRIZES ITALIAN CLAIM T0 BUFFALO BILL By W, Stone Col. William PF. Cody went through life thinking he was born in

Scott County, Iowa, and considering | [ himself a typical American frontiers | man, Indian scout and Wild West | He was laid to rest in a |

showman, Denver grave in 1917, five years bemarch on Rome the term fascism to the headlines of American newspapers. Now a newspaper in Bologna has “discovered” that Buffalo Bill's real

the public | to your |

“Sub | who wrote a piece pub- | lished March 9 and was too cow- | ardly to allow his name to be used | over the

from |

| War was brought about boafore one | such question was settled. All human institutions are 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 persh:t | to block all progress to an em | | lightened freedom. | TI yield to no man in my respect | for the courts as an essential ele- | army | ment in orderly democratic proce - | { dure, but I reserve the right,

How are

try with

If T can’t have a love that's real— | Unselfish, full and fair—- | T do not want a love at all, | For life 4s full of care, " | And love can make the hardest road courage and daring. . Far easier to bear, So don’t be surpirsed if some Mos- | If it is grand and lasting--And willing to give, and share!

DAILY THOUGHT the and the weapons of war perished! —II Samuel 1:27,

GREAT war leaves the coun=three eripples, mourners, and an army of thieves, | of y —German Proverb.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

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 |

that a majority of workers in free election may select. 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 delaying a conclusion. Until that doubt

Board has itself emasculated

procedure, 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.

sit-down strike, The labor argument is: “The law of the land requires that we be permitted to organize without discrimination, punishment, oppression or even influence. This is flagrantly, deflantly and universally violated. We are denied our rights. The law seems powerless to protect the rights it gives. The only effective form of protection we have is the sit- | down strike.”

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

| is a lot of gravy in any man’s language.

name was Giovanni Tambini,

| 1840, and | Ttalian—who was

that he was “a typical full of Fascist

cow newspaper should some day “discover” that Daniel Boone was | Joseph Stalin's grandpa, and led | buckskinned bands of Communist | trappers across the steppes of | Siberia long before he braved the wilderness of Kentucky. Or if one nf Adolf Hitler's propaganda organs should “reveal” that Will Rogers wasn't an Oklahoma Cherokee at all, but a Nordic Nazi spawned in a of | Munich beer cellar, Such are the delights of a | press” in the lands of dictators,

mighty fallen,

armies—an

an army

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 The gravy

| boat is the juicy portfolio of mortgages held by the | Home Owners Loan Corp.

T= most dangerous of these developments is the |

In this lush cache there are mortgages totaling $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 & lobby representing banks,

| insurance companies, and building and loan interests

It is persuasive—but it is not enough. There isan- |

other party and another consideration here—the public and the public peace.

condemnation of reactionary employers, labor simply must abandon this outlaw pretension. For labor organizations to insist on it is to invoke the opposition of outraged public opinion, of Government ‘and of the law. That means only one thing the defeat and de-

Regardless of sympathy with frustrated labor and |

’ MN

has been working persistently behind the scenes to |

persuade Treasury and HOLC executives that the

Government ought to sell these gilt-edge securities to |

them. The argument used is that time-worn battle ery: “Get the Government out of business!” al » O the casual eye the lohby has a good case for its proposition. If the Goyernment turns these mortgages over to private ir there no longer

[OLC

that | { he was born in Barbigarezzo about |

“free |

pangled Banner”! —By Taiburt

SAYS

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

| B. Conant, President of Harvard, Opposes Court Reform; | His Argument Wrong, Writer Says.

James

| EW YORK, March 20.—James Bryant 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 issite 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 held 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 free | speech, free press and free assembly, But as a chem 1st, James Bryant Conant should be more interested in factual findings than in theories. ” ” n A LABORATORY experiment was conducted dure { ing the period of the great war, and the Sue | preme Court proved to be a reed in the wind as far individual liberties were concerned. Fugene V, Debs went, to Atlanta because he voiced his opposition te 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 entiment, and for the second time within a generas tion the Bill of Rights was torn to tatters.

Conant

Mr. Broun

| AS

uo ” ” N 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 sigs nature to the death warrant of Sacco and Vanzetti, It was said at (he time-it may still be said--that A. Lawrence Lowell acted out of deep sincerity, Rut Sacco and Vanzetti are dead, and few now honestly believe that they were justly convicted.

Harvard University, in spite of an old and a glorious tradition, is the creature of a highly conservative tradition. Dr. James Bryant Conant has been elevated to heaciship 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 pres= sure, to play dead, roll over and give his paw when the request comes from those who actually run the I show,

a ——————

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 financial interests want no part of that $1,060,000,000 of “doubtful paper.” They are all for “getting the Government out of business” that is sure to be profitable but want {t 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 would be left holding the bag with a big 108s. 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 forca | down the HOLC's interest rate, The agency bore rowed its money at 1% to 3 per cent, charges bors rowers 5 per cent. This is lower than private lend