Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 March 1937 — Page 22

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The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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Give Light and the Peuple Wili Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1937

THE CHRYSLER ARMISTICE AGAIN a threat of bloodshed has been averted in Detroit —averted by the patience and resourcefulness of Michigan’s Governor Murphy and by the common sense and intelligent self-interest of the disputing principals. The agreement on the part of John L. Lewis and the United Automobile Workers to move the sit-downers out of the plants and on the part of Walter I’. Chrysler not to resume operations while negotiations continue, is another milestone in the giant and rapid steps American industry

has taken lately toward general acceptance of the principles and practices of collective bargaining. First came the truce in General Motors, then the union | contract with U. 8S. Steel, and now comes this Chrysler | armistice which but few can doubt will lead ultimately to a working relationship satisfactory both to the employer and to those he hires. And thus does the unionization of

America’s mass production industries move boldly forward |

on a broad front. That permanent peace in all industries which all Amer- | icans desire is not vet in sight. But we are, we believe, on our way to the time when sit-downs, violence, espionage, Jockouts, blacklistings and other unethical and punitive weapons of industrial warfare will be abandoned, and when | emplovers and workers throughout the land will adjust their differences only through the peaceful process of ne- ! gotiation, mediation and voluntary arbitration. For that is | the end and logical outcome of true collective bargaining, wherein employers and workers respect each other’s legiti- | mate rights and enter into contracts mutually binding. Employers accustomed to hire and fire at will, to fix | take-it-or-leave-it wages on the open labor market, to de- | termine the hours of work and the speed of assembly lines by their own yardstick of engineering efficiency—such employers do not easily accommodate themselves to the restraints and responsibilities of collective bargaining. Likewise employees, who have functioned like automatons, starting and stopping and speeding up and slowing down at the push of a button, are not employees who overnight can adjust themselves to the necessary discipline and obligations of unionism. As an individual, an employee in a modern factory is a cog in a great machine. But as an organized group, workers become a collective human force with great power. And only by time and experience do those who wield strange, new authority familiarize themselves with the responsibility that always goes with power. Unionism in many of our big industries is now in its raw, early stages. llence the violence, misunderstanding and distrust. But we are approaching the time, we confi- | dently believe, when employers and workers will accept collective bargaining as a matter of course, and will make and live up to contracts as a matter of mutual advantage.

A “SPANISH ADOWA”? | HE most dangerous tension over Spain that Europe has | vet encountered is in the making, for the high explosive known as national prestige has become involved. In the “little world war” which for months has been raging in the Iberian Peninsula, the Rebel-German-Italian coalition appears to be taking a beating. The Loyalist-Rus-sian-French combination is reported to have trounced the insurgents and driven them back from Madrid. “We waited 40 years to avenge Adowa (the Italian defeat in Ethiopia in 1896), but we managed to do it,” 11 Duce | thundered to 250,000 Fascists jammed into the historic | Venice Square to welcome him back from Tripoli. Then he added a word of grim reminder. Should the day ever come, he said, “when memory becomes weak, we are here to give it a prod.” This sounds like a threat. At least it is a warning. A new Adowa, this time in Spain, almost certainly would precipitate a Kuropean crisis of the first order. It would be not only a stunning blow at Fascist prestige at a moment when fascism can ill afford it, but Europe and the rest of the world would not let the Duce forget it even if he were inclined to do so. All of which is serious business. the average mortal finds hard to take. The other is ridicule. So, it 1s not surprising that Italy refuses, pointblank, to discuss at London the recall of foreign “volunteers” now fighting m Spam, and that the word from Europe is that Anglo-ltalian relations are worse than they have been since the Mediterranean war threat in 1935. A “Spanish Adowa” might provide that spark.

There are two things One is a beating.

long-feared

SCHOOLS AND STREETS THE Texas school explosion has spurred other communities, especially those where, as at New London, oil and gas wells have been drilled near schools, to demand more vigilant protection for their boys and girls. But each month of each vear automobiles kill more | American children than did this worst school disaster in | our history. Last year, the Travelers Insurance Co. reports, 5410 chiidren below the age of 15 died in traffic ac- | cidents—more than 450 a month. Of all age groups, according to the National Safety Council, the greatest traffic | death increase in 1936 was among school children. Marion | County’s 1937 toll is tragically higher than last year’s high | figure at this tine. Horror over the school explosion is natural. The calm- | ness with which we accept slaughter by automobile, with its longer list of victims every month, is neither natural nor sensible. Po For accidents can be prevented. Proof is the fact that the death rate from other accidental causes, including explo¥ions and fires, has trended downward through the same years that have seen the automobile death rate climbing. Compared to the streets and highways, most schools are places of great safety. We should do everything we can to make the schools still safer, but even more urgently needed is determination to make the streets and highways at

i Government | to have only honest men in this | service, and I claim no evidence to | the contrary, but the opportunity | is there nevertheless.

| cases referred to here. | espionage to back up the honesty

Contra) Feat

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ‘Another Little Something for That Hope Chest !—By Talburt

| | |

TE a YT Tne

rr ba apap a

vs pe Tp yn

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1937 )

Fair Enough

| By Westbrook Pegler.

Discretionary Power of Income Tax Agents to Approve or Disallow Returns Held to Be Dangerous.

| HIGH MILK PRICES

W ASHINGTON, March 25.—There is a |

dangerous weakness in the administra- | ' tion of the Federal income tax which pro- ' vides an opportunity for graft on the part | of the reviewing agents, and for harassment | of the taxpaver for political or personal | motives.

The reviewing agents are given discretion in many cases to approve, curtail or entirely disallow deductions and raise the tax, a power A

| which obviously creates a tempta- | tion for | strike a private compromise with

a dishonest agent to

the subject. It may be that the

is fortunate enough

The best protection, and the

{ only sure way of preventing graft, { 1s to provide definite checks, and

AS ne

Mr. Pegler

these do not exist in the type of There is

of honest men and worry the dishonest agents, if any,

| but crooks take chances in any zone of operations.

But even if the agent is strictly honest as to personal larceny, he still has a power to mulct the vic-

| tim on behalf of the Government. merely because of { Some personal dislike for him.

) This puts the citizen at a disadvantage, for he must plead for the agent's

| and the sick, especially those suffer-

| row money to pay his taxes, what | | be receives for his products, then | helped create.

{ pay the price of 12 cents a quart | for milk. They feed their children

| always trying to raise the tax on

The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly defend to

disagree with what you say, but will the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make youn letter short, I know of cases of men who work | so all can have a chance. Letters every day and are still unable to | must be signed, but names will be | withheld on request.)

CRITICIZED

By William Lemon

canned milk. Who is getting the profit?

include the exempted | farmers, farm labor, domestics, selfthe producers, we know. | employers and all the other 50 milMilk is an essential factor to the |lion gainfully employed. A scheme health of children, aged persons that would require all the people to | pay taxes to pension the aged of =

Not

ing from tuberculosis. Yet, we criticize European countries where goat milk is cheap and plentiful. The price of butter has placed it| Some day we may come to a in the luxury class, and they are | general old-age pension system, | based upon risks spread over | whole of society and founded in the ideal that all workers should be re[tired on the social earnings they We are far from

figure up what you pay on your |[Teady now, even if we accept that

[salary workers might prove very un- | just.

cleomargarine. Ask the farmer, who has to bor-

| end. From this you can figure the | Philosophy, either to assume the tax

| profit.

CONDEMNS HASTE IN | SOCIAL SECURITY By M. S.

favor and abide by his whim when the law should |

| strictly define his rights and permit him to stand | on them.

If he offends the agent, who is only human, whether hy the cut of his jib, his political views or the smell of his pipe, he runs the risk of adverse decision and a loss of money which might not occur if he could only harmonize with the Government yepresentative, = = ® CW addition to all this, the agents have a right to delve deep into the taxpayer's private accounts,

and thus intrude in matters so intimate as to be none

of the Government’s business.

Conceivably this could lead to blackmail, and at the

very best it sets up a

| personal inquisition certainly no less searching than

the questionnaires to which organized labor takes such violent exception in large industrjal plants. Not a check may be paid, not a purchase made but that the agent may consider 1t his right and duty to demand a fuli explanation, though the item may have no bearing on the computation of the tax.

able married life, was called on to produce proof of

| the marriage may not be typical. But if it is an ex-

ception it shows the powers which an agent may take

to himself if he believes the victim stands in need of

a little personal discipline. Such proof is not gener- | ally required, but that very fact suggests that the de-

i mand was intended as harassment in this case. ty . | BELIEVE the taxpayers in these inquisi{ ‘ons are t inclined to fear that the agent has final powers, | and must be propitiate { The truth is, however, that the agents themselves are rated according to their work and conduct. and may | be called to strict account for abuse of their position if the taxpayer is sure of his own ground and willing to go to the trouble. The taxpayer naturally does not like to take an appeal from the reviewer's decision if the amount in- | volved is small, as it often is. He may decide to

skip it and pay off to avoid expense and trouble. But | if he has reason to believe that the agent has tossed

un =

| him around for spite or for any other reason, he may | 20 to the local collector about it or,

carry his grie

EW YORK, March 25.—The most alarm-

ing of recent radio suggestions is that Senate debate be broadcast nationally. The right of the Senate to talk is, among other qualities, sacred. But

the right of a citizen to escape that talk ought to be Just as sacred.

movies, the air, hog-calling contests and side-show ballyhoo—you have to have at least something on the ball. But not in the Senate. All you have to have there is vocal endurance. n

” n

T is a Senator's privilege to talk about, anything he

L wants to, as long as he wants to, and to say as little as he pleases while doing it. Huey Long talked the appropriation (for social security to death by reading recipes for Southern cooking. But that privilege pertains to the Senate and exists only on the Senate floor. This power of palaver is a terrible thing—far more terrible than is generally realized. It is worse than sit-down strikes—worse than a rule requiring a two-thirds majorfty of the Supreme Court to in-

jl ns sate, 1

validate an act aj Congress to keep it from usurping

{ go plan.

| burdens or the administrative problems such a system would raise. I suggest that for the time being | Congress should make haste slowly {and learn as it goes. In the meantime the generous impulses of Mr. { Vandenberg and his friends could Senator Vandenberg of Michigan | be turned toward increasing the and others are urging immediate [Federal es for Jeeay ied: . .... | dependent children and the in amendments to the Social Security |under the state-aid grants of the Act that would change the old-age fact and encouraging the laggard benefit feature to a spend-as-you- states to meet their shares of these They would leave the | obligations more generously and de-

_ | cently. present per cent wage and pay- |

roll tax as it is, start paying out |

td » 2 |

9 & »

» »

| increased benefits now, abolish the | NINE NO MYSTIC

at any sacrifice of self-respect. | I¥ [tic changes urged by Senator Van- | | denberg now would mean

Johnson

Suggestion That Senate Debate Be Broadcast Nationally Is Most Alarming, Because Any Senator Can Talk as Long as His Lungs Hold Out

| social security would do well to de- | mand that Congress hold off any { major amendments until the going | system has been tested and is bet- | ter

| no hurry. The case of the man who, after years of respect- | | Two is an actuarially | tributory or savin

| Political and economic dangers lurk | and untrue. {in the contemplated building of al

| creased payroll taxes in the future. or both. | eventual abandonment of the con- | tributory or thrift plan and the set-

- accumulating reserve in favor of | CIPHER, INFERENCE

a small contingent reserve. . The suggestions are decidedly | BY R- §. S., Brazil Dal more intelligent and liberal than | In a recent Times editorial it was the Republican platform’s Federal- | stated that one argument against State dole scheme, based on the | : Yan » Presiden roposal to change means test. But friends of real jan resident's Wop g | the Supreme Court was that not a single Republican member of Con- | gress favors this plan. This, The | Times said, is significant. especially any | strike at the

understood; amendments that vitals of the act. The present 2 per cent tax rate is not to be raised to 3 per cent until 1940, so there's

| this. They opposed him in the 1936 | campaign. They failed then but are [ now way. The present system under Title! The

sound con- |

statement that

the typically idea.

American We agree with its critics that | elected unless they back him is silly

| progressives have for years favored mountainous reserve of 47 billions of | —— - dollars by 1980, that the eventual |

HEATHEN IDOL

(Infidelity) By KEN HUGHES | T bowed in awe | Before a curious idol, | Until it crumbled at my | In dust upon my feet.

| 6 per cent tax in 1949 might be too | { high, that there is logic in Govern- |

ment, contributions. But the dras- | either | Government subsidies or greatly in- touch

And they would mean the

i J DAILY THOUGHT ing up of a general pension sup- The sting of death is sin, and ported by all the taxpayers. For if the strength of sin is the law.— general taxes are to be poured into | I Corinthians 15:56. pensions for the aged the present

ginning of salvation.—Luther.

Says —

ment. The country probably does not realize that | it takes a two-thirds majority of the Senate to keep

it from actually paralyzing the functions of other departments of government,

29, is a

" uw u NE single Senator, if he can get the Senate floor, | that date.

| special group of industrial wage and

the |

Real Democrats and |

The W

classes— | the number nine that sensible peo- |

| ple should be obsessed with its im- | | portance?

# | VANNUYS URGED TO BACK ROOSEVELT POLICIES

| By Hiram Lackey

” »

| An open letter to Senator VanNuys: When we Rooseveltian Democrats | land civilized Repubiicans voted for | {you we believed you were a friend |

(of the common people. We did not |

| know you were influenced by mo- |

{of Roosevelt, in a very real sense, | is all that makes a Democrat su- | | perior to a Republican. We urge you to ponder the sig- | i nificance of Roosevelt's statement, | | relative to rapid social changes. It | |is the key to an understanding of | | the fact that you cannot fool the | | people who entrusted you with pow- | | er. Senators who for petty and selfish reasons oppose Roosevelt defeat | | their own ends. | * We ask you to behold the politi- | cal ruins of the once magnificent Al | Smith. Consider the poor mental | health of this “liberal” who refused | to read the Roosevelt barometer. | Indiana hgs a sound suspicion of | what is the real driving power back | of the “pure and lofty ideals” of the | stubborn Roosevelt opposition. We Rooseveltian Democrats and civilized Republicans who sent you to the Senate insist that you line up with Senator Minton and help hin | in his noble effort to achieve the | justice which vou both promised. We urge you to lay all pettiness aside and to place che welfare of the | country above your personal vanity and instincts of a corporation lawyer. We have the right to demand that you join President Roosevelt in trying to place good {men on the high bench and stop | working to defeat the purpose we { had in mind when we placed our | faith in you.

| " 9» > DEMANDS REDUCTION | IN RECEIVERS’ FEES By Luther McShane

{ When the Legislature, at the re- | |auest of and with the co-operation | of the Indianapolis Bar Association, {passed certain legislation regarding | ambulance-chasing lawyers no great | number of persons were concerned. | But many people were and are | concerned about the tremendous | fees granted in receivership cases, {and we wonder why something in

| the way of a law or an investigation

[this situation. :

| currency. | trade lasts.

| ment is a single wistful paragraph in

ashington Merry-Go-Round

Partial Upholding of Wagner Labor Act by Supreme Court Would Be

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Carnegie Book on How to Win Friends Fails to Impress Writer Whe Violates 'No Criticism' Rule.

W YORK, March 25.—1 have been reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie. As yet I haven't finished, but I think I get the idea. If not completely equipped to win any

| friends 1 ought to know enough by now to | corral a few acquaintances. | tragedy of the book lies in the fact that | Carnegie may have gained the whole world, he has

the ironic Mr,

But to me while Jost me. This, of course, is own personal tragedy. And it may even be that in the latter portion of his volume he will take me into camp. Perhaps he is just playing me now as one deals with a sailfish. But if I am to be landed the fisherman must begin to work fast. At the moment, Dale Carnegie seems to me among the least attractive of all authors. Of course, I'm wrong. What sounds like smugness might be no more than that warm glow which emanates from a man who is wholly content with himself and the world he wags, and it must be admitted ‘that his text book is built upon the solid and rocky foundation of familiar anecdotage. Moreover, I have already proved myself a back= ward scholar, for one of the rules at the very beginning of the book is that one should never criticize a fellow. By criticism one merely drives the object of rebuke a little deeper into his heresies and foibles. Abraham Lincoln wrote a bitter letter to Gen. Meade when that warrior failed to destroy Lee's army after the battle of Gettysburg. But Lincoln never sent the letter. He merely left it in the archives to plague the descendants of Meade in the days to come. And so it might be better if I burn this column.

Mr. Broun

x un

N defending my position as one who is not altoe gether persuaded by Dale Carnegie I can only say

| that the system is less simple than may appear on

the surface. As I understand the trick, vou win fame and friends and money by never rapping anvone, but by always handing out compliments. And if the compliment is not sincere that's no dice and the roll doesn’t count for you. The good salesman never talks about himself, He finds out what the customer is interested in and then throws that into the conversation. And, of course, the good customer doesn’t talk about himself, either. He talks about the virtues of the salesman. So at the end the whole thing comes out just the same as if each had talked about himself in the normal manner, All the economic and spiritual and political probe lems of this unhappy world could be solved, accord= ing to Mr. Carnegie, if only we would adopt a new We could live and prosper by exchanging

" ‘LL make peace with Mr. Carnegie if he will only think up something nice to say about me, Rut

u z®

| I'll need at least a month to pay him off in kind. The

only pleasant thing which I can mention at the mo“How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It happened to be down my alley. “How I wish such a book as this had been placed insmy hands 20 years ago!” writes Mr. Carnegie, “What a priceless boon it would have been!” Now, isn't that the truth? Often I've said to mye self, “Heywood, what a pity it is that as a young re=porter you didn’t have a chance to improve yourself by reading the wise and inspiring and witty columns of Mr. Broun in his maturity.”

———————— ee ———

Blow to New Deal if Purely Intrastate Commerce Were Excepted.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen 7ASHINGTON, March 25.—Next Monday, March

| strategists are eying with apprehension. Next decision day of the Supteme Court falls on New Dealers have a strong hunch that the

date which uneasy Administration |

The Senatorial talk-racket is peculiar unto itselt. | In all other competitive vocal efforts—the stage, the

Senate itself Jimitin

can keep right on talking to obstruct the whole

| legislative department of government for just as

long as his tongue and lungs will function, and he | can keep the ballvhoos rolling along. No power under the Constitution can prevent him, or even interfere with him, except a two-thirds vote of the Rg deRate to some specific period. On the question of reform of the Supreme Court more than one-third of the Senate is in opposition. There can, therefore, be no “cloture” or limitation of debate. Human endurance cannot support indefinite and uninterrupted hours of so-called oratory, although it has been continued for 17 hours by one man. But 30 or 40 Senators, banded together gh ly a bill to death, could quack continuously for That is the weapon that could be used and may be used to kill the President’s judiciary proposal. May sweet providence prevent that mouthy murder Worley o> MamCuYer from fing brodoast to the

i Court will then hand down its verdict on the Wagner

Labor Disputes Act—and uphold the law at least in part. Relief of the White House master minds that the

| Court, will partially uphold the act is based on the | “political sensitiveness” of Chief Justice Hughes and

Justice Roberts. Always alert to follow public opinion, they are expected to side with the liberals on the validity of the measure as it relates to interstate commerce, That is, they will vote with Justices Stone, Cardozo and Brandeis that the law may ‘constitutionally be applied to industries engaged in business that crosses state lines. But for purely intrastate industries, such as a canning factory, they are expected to line up with the Butler - Van Devanter - Sutherland - McReynolds group and declare the act unconstitutional.

” FJ ” O the Administration and its labor backers it

such a

i AY, 8

re saul 2 |

law, or as they express it, “emasculate the statute.” Second, and far more serious at present, the favor= able part of the decision would give opponents of the President’s judiciary plan a potent answer to the charge that the Court is an incorrigible foe of labor legislation, So the inner circle is eying next Monday with a wary nervousness, fearful of a “bad break” and uncertain what to do to prepare for it. n HILE the Supreme Court and sit-down strikes chiefly engross the Senate floor, the inner sance tum of the Vice President's office is concerned with chitterlings, pronounced “chitlins.” : The chitlins debate started when Rep. Lindsay Warren of North Carolina brought Jack Garner five pounds of them not long ago. Garner, who has boasted that he will eat anything once, now has become one of the champion chitlin eaters of the nation. He says no other dish can surpass it. _ Those who argue over the pros and cons of chitlins with him are Senators George of Georgia, Bachman of Tennessee and Bulow of South Dakota.

: 's dictior

” un

fie