Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 March 1937 — Page 23

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The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD MARK FERREE President Business Manager

LUDWELL DENNY Editor

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reau of Circulations. RIley 5551

SCRIPPS ~ HOWARD

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1937

THE BUTASH CASE REGON has just repealed its so-called “criminal syndicalism” law. Dirk de Jonge was convicted under this law and sentenced to seven vears for no other offense than speaking at an orderly Communist meeting in protest against illegal police raids and the shooting of striking longshoremen. But for the U. S. Supreme Court's reversal of his conviction, de Jonge would have heen martyred.

Indiana's simiiar law, passed 18 years ago, was invoked for the first time last year when a magazine salesman, Paul Butash, was convicted and sentenced to one to five years. As Butash waits in prison, the Indiana Supreme Court considers the evidence about his talk on economic injustices before a little meeting at Angola last summer. The witnesses who testified against him admitted they arranged the meeting and induced Butash to appear so they could trap him. Available facts do not indicate that Butash advocated revolution by force and violence .and crime. His recent Supreme Court brief charges that the “only violence Butash ‘incited’ was the personal violence directed against himself when the reactionaries in the audience violently assaulted and ejected him.” Regardless of the outcome of this case, the existence of the Indiana criminal svndicalism law is an invitation to overzealous and patrioteering persons to abuse it. The tendency to elevate economic heresy to the rank of revolutionary doctrine is dangerous. The Butash case started some agitation in the recent Legislature for repeal of the Indiana law, but the act still stands. California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington, Idaho, Ohio and other states that were stampeded by postwar hysteria into passing such laws are considering repeal. In the de Jonge case, the U. S. Supreme Court did not hold the Oregon law unconstitutional, but it warned Oregon that 1t could not use that law to prohibit the rights of free speech and assembly.

“The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions hy force and violence,” said Chief Justice Hughes, “the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional nght of free speech, free press and free assembly, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government.”

“MY BENITO” T is difficult to think of the mighty Mussolini as tender

and sweet. But that is the way Madeleine de Fontanges describes “my Benito.”

tather, our picture is of one with brass-studded barrel chest, spouting fire and dining on scrap iron. “Our indestructible will” and the “gusts of our im- | petuous and tempestuous truth,” to quote from Il Duce’s Jatest outburst—that is language which doesn’t square with the sweet nothings of the lovelorn. Grim-visaged war and stern alarums persist in our conception of the dictator, and therefore it is almost impossible to envision him as capering | “nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious pleasing of | a lute.” But you never can tell. There's that old truism about nothing so soft as a hard-boiled egg: and about history repeating. Particularly Roman history. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were a couple of tough guys, too. But we read: “The personal fascinations of Cleopatra induced him (Caesar) to undertake a war on her behalf. . . . In Rome she lived openly with Caesar as his mistress, until his assassination, when she returned to Egypt. Subsequently she hecame the ally and mistress of Mark Antony.” Thus was the course of empire fashioned in the long, long ago. And so, we are wondering.

BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP MUSSOLINI may roar and workers may sit down, but tomorrow the eves of Indiana will be turned toward the Butler Fieldhouse where four teams will fight for the state high school basketball championship. Nearly 15,000 fans, who bought up all the tickets a week ago, will watch Huntingburg, Central of Ft. Wayne, Rochester and Anderson battle for the sports title closest to Hoosiers’ hearts. The new champs will be crowned tomorrow night. Whoever they may be, spectators will have seen a great show and just about the best basketball there is anywhere, We salute all four entries and hope that each team is at the top of its game tomorrow.

INDIANA HEADS JOB LIST

WITH a 4.1 per cent gain in employment in February over January, Indiana led all other states for the period. Hoosiers may well permit themselves a pat on the back for this achievement, However, relief rolls still are long, and it should be remembered that complete recovery may be attained only by continued progress.

CLEAN UP THE COAL BILL HE Senate is about to receive the new Guffev-Vinson hill for stabilization of the bituminous coal industry. We hope it will look carefully into the personnel provisions of that measure. As passed by the louse and approved by a Senate sub- | committee, the bill exempts a large part of the commission’s staff from civil service requirements. This mass exemption is in direct conflict with the civil service policy laid down in President Roosevelt's plan. This bill is an important experiment in regulating a great industry which needs stabilization. We support its general objectives. It may provide a pattern for regulation of other interstate industries. We hope the effort will not be clouded at the start by suspicion that the spoilsmen ~uave been around,

—

| hit a loud foul to date.

JEW LEADERS INSULT THE Geman PEOPLE

Fair Enough

‘By Westbrook Pegler

Tip-Off Is It May Be Overrated. NEW YORK, March 26.—Mussolini’s bold

rear in Spain, where they have gone up against major league pitching for the first time. It is often thus in the baseball business, and perhaps the Italian Army, too, is just one of those training camp stars who look great in batting practice and knock a lot of home runs in the exhibition games but fold up when the competition begins. The Duce has done everything that can be done for an army through pep talks and praise, and certainly no soldiers ever were given better tools for their work. He also gave them a practice war against a Class D club in Abyssiriia so as to boost their morale with a victory, although the Class D club was so weak that the

Italians didn't get much real practice in the campaign. The odd thing about the | Italians’ rapid advance to the Mr. Pegler

{ rear is that this war in Spain was | supposed to be a practice war, too. The Spanish Com-

munist, Army was merely a sand lot outfit at the beginning, for most of the Spanish Regular Army had gone over to the Rebels, leaving the Government

| comparatively few troops.

This army has since been stiffened with antiFascist volunteers from France and other countries, but socially, as you might say, it is not an army at

all, for many of the soldiers have been fighting in |

their store clothes. So the Duce sends his invincibles against this pick-up team in a war that was intended as another eavy workout, and the first time they meet any real action they are seen running the wrong way.

" un "

Pps this is the tip-off on the spirit of the

rank and file in armies which are composed of

| prisoners under the dictators,

It is hard to believe that a poor peasant, mechanic

| or clerk would have much enthusiasm to give a leg or

his life in a practice war and in the role of invader ROLIA% men of his own kind defending their home soil. Mavbe the humble Italian in the ranks doesn't want to die for the Duce after all, but finds himself

| In Spain against his will and with no desire but to

return home and scratch the side of a hill with a hoe.

W all the Duce’s warlike clamor all these vears and his threats against the peace of the whole world, his club had one foot in the bucket the first time it looked at reasonably good pitching, and hasn't even

" ” =

ment, but there is reason to start hoping that the conquering legions of Mussolini are on their way back to the bushes even before the season begins. Now the Duce is threatening to produce some more riots around the British Embassy in Rome because the British papers referred to the licking in Spain as another Caporetto. This puts the press and public of other countries in a delicate spot, for the resemblance to Caporetto is prominent, but to mention it may cause a great massacre. Yet if the advance to the rear in Spain is a sample of what the world has to fear from Mussolini, a fairly stiff slap in the face from some real army might restore a little sense in Italy and permit the world to go back to work.

HATEVER the reason, the news is plain that for |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES A Partial List of the “Jew Leaders” —By Kirby

Mussolini's Highly Touted Army Runs Wrong Way in Spain and |

warriors are advancing rapidly to the |

in laying the 1940 political stre ' | that problems of Sh ay What bodes this solemn dreariness? 4 No outery from birds upon the

‘been relegated to backsta

It is too early to pass judg-

| many million employables in

| | |

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1937

RR INSEE

MAYOR LA SUARDIA. DRIG. GEN. HUGH S. JOHNSON JONN L. LEWIS. WILLIAM GREEN. 13 STATE GOVERNORS. 4JMEMDERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE Sq SI. NORMAN ANGELL » AND MANY OTHERS.

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The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly disagree with what youn say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

DISCUSSES TEXAS DISASTER | AND STRIKE TROUBLE { | By Ward B. Hiner i | ++. We have read of strikes in | various cities, of court orders being violated, of destruction of strikers and of antagonism that exists be-

umns, religious cluded,

Make your so all can have a chance, must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

(Times readers are invited to |blessings of liberty to ourselves and express their views in these colcontroversies ex- |

posterity. Those statesmen who wrote the

short, | Constitution lived under

Letters

letter

document to make people free. It | provides for any and every condi{tion that may arise. It has three

t ¥ y y ~ " i i Wiking what we call capital and 4 denoising | branches with the duties of each | . e complish much toward demobilizing | clearly defined. F We read of approximately 900 | {his huge army of unemployed. | The three branches are made to | lovable children being killed in a Married women whose husbands are | prevent exactly what the American | | school In Texas. Who knows but working should retire that their people are confronted with today,

what within a short time, if this | condition exists, the whole country will be in a chaotic state which, in the end, will cause bloodshed and destruction amounting to billions of dollars, We must not allow law and or-

nate women.

not allow court injunctions to be {ignored, nor the rights of our la- | borers to be ignored. We are suffering from a great | misunderstanding. We have reached | the point where men will be | against men, families against families and brothers against one another. If there ever was a time in the history of this country when [a moratorium should be called, now is that time. | If a moratorium was called by our Governor as well as our President for 10 to 30 days it might pre[vent a seriousness which we will never be able to pay for. Payrolls must not cease to flow, | court orders must not be ignored, and law and order ‘must be preserved if peace and happiness are to prevail. Laborers may be suffering—there is no doubt that they are in thousands of cases —but de- | struction and disobedience to laws will not win a victory, for that will | only bring disaster to us all. , . .

the sun.

that industrial

| machine's slave? |

By Mabel German If those in

” ” = TERMS UNEMPLOYED FORGOTTEN MEN By Frank T. Blaine, II Since last November's votes have been counted and the judicial squab- | ble has started, the unemployed | have become forgotten men.

birds

place may be taken by less fortu-Un-American aliens should be returned to their countries so that taxpaying Americans can get on some payroll. persons should be retired at 65 years of age on Federal pensions so that (der to be broken down. We must younger men can find their places in

ery should be taxed. The tax club | has been used extensively to get sc | many things in line. productive machinery instead of the «“wWEEK-END” SENTENCES

”

SAYS CONSTITUTION IS NATION'S SAFEGUARD

favor of Roosevelt controlling the Supreme Court will read the preamble of our Constitu= |

general welfare,” and “secure the

THE BIRTH OF SPRING By F. F. MACDONALD

How somber are the woods and still, What quiet gravness fills the air! | Hushed are the throats of singing

| And heaviness is everywhere,

to prevent any branch from usurpling the power of the other two. Clearly, no person of average intelligence can conscientiously say he is in favor of Roosevelt controlling the Supreme Court. Bear in mind | that Roosevelt | legislative branch for four years. | Hero worship is bad for all con-

home

Old

Industrial hours per man should | cerned, especially the hero. It gives be cut to absorb unemployed work- him false ideas. Roosevelt will never ers and wages should be raised so |Save America, but America can save production can be absorbed. Labor-displacing machin- |

| herself if businessmen and produc-

Roosevelt, ed to serve, not to rule,

”

| businesses.

Why not tax | » =»

| HELD AID TO JUDGE

{ By B. C.

One of the worst dilemmas with which a judge has to contend arises | when he is compelled to sentence,

”

not a criminal at heart, for a minor infraction of the law.

In Rochester, N, Y,, a law is being | tried out that may erase this problem, It calls tor “week-end” I rences,

{to spend the following three Saturdays and Sundays in the county | jail, In this way, he is punished, | and vet undergoes no risk of the loss lof his job or earnings. If the plan is successful, it is said, legislation will be drawn to make it |

|ers are allowed to run their own | . + +» Was elect

for a short term, a person who is |

tyranny | land knew what to write into that |

has controlled the |

Justice demands that the offender |

sen- | A man arrested for intoxi- | | cation, for example, may be ordered |

It Seems to Me

By Heywqod Broun

Headlines May Give Public Wrong

Impression of Hughes' Letter On Court Proposal, Writer Fears.

NW YORK, March 26.—The letter which Chief Justice Charles vans llughes sent to Senator Wheeler probably will have considerable effect in serving as an obstacle to the President's Supreme Court proposal. And this will be chiefly through its headline value, It is a great pity that American copy readers are 80 highly skilled in the art of making a few words tell a complete story. Unfortunate-

ly, the story told in a headline may be somewhat misleading, or

The Federal Government is so little concerned with their plight

Low hang gray skies about the hill Mantling bare trees upon its crest; Stilled is the chatter of woodland

| applicable in other communities. It | | seems to be an experiment that law

|census to ascertain the facts re-

that it refuses to take a national | things

The busy

garding this crisis. | nest, 1

So much time is being consumed

weariness

of Spring!

General Hugh Johnson Says—

David Lawrence's Idea That 1937 Model Dictator Has Sneaked Up On

Us in Person of John L. Lewis Is More Than a Little Farfetched. |

ASHINGTON, March 26.—In a recent column, Mr. David Lawrence wrote a portrait of a dic= tator—American style, He quite correctly said that, when we get a dictator, he will be very different in pattern from any of the current models—look differently, act differently, talk differently. But Mr. Lawrence says a 1937 model dictator has snuk up on us without a dictator suit on. “He is to day the actual dictator, wielding more political and economic power in America today than any other man not even excepting Mr. Roosevelt, who is being compelled to accept (his) view, . , .”

| | { | |

Mr, Lawrence's bogey man is, of course, John L. |

Lewis, Labor, where Secretary Perkins does about as Mr. Lewis wishes.”

called John Lewis in supposedly to meet Alfred Sloan whom she had sneaked in through another door avoiding a solid phalanx of reporters. But Mr. Sloan didn't want to see Mr. Lewis. So she kept Mr. Lawrence’'s American Mussolini stewing alone in an anteroom for the greater part of a business day and sent him away fuming, but impotent, “Lewis dictates to the White House,” writes Mr, Lawrence, That shows how far off a journalist can get when he stops reporting and starts guessing. The only real

who, he says, “dictates to the Department of |

squirrel keep:

Maternal nature pauses in passive p

And breathlessly awaits

DAILY THOUGHT

And Paul went down, on him, and embracing him said, : Trouble not yourselves: Ume | jife js in him.—Acts 20:10,

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

be permitted to adjourn without passing the revised |

Guffey act. That's what he asked. What he got was a kick in the pants, So far as I know, the only request he ever made that was promised, was that Donald Richberg

be |

kicked out of NRA, and the Supreme Court beat the |

President to that. with the President, is, however—and he visics, too. ; Mr. Lewis has seen the President twice since election. Mr. Lawrence may think Mr. Lewis is dictator at the White House, but that isn't what Mr. Lewis thinks. He thinks he is little Orphan Annie,

He isn't in “frequent conversation” His great enemy William Green comes in the front door when he

» ”

} R. LEWIS dictates t q "ja - : ". ® =» es to the National Labor Rela HAT'S a joke. In the General Motors strike, she | sons

tions Board, which inter jects its orders or re-

| frains from issuing them according as the pressure from

BI nate ———————

the Lewis forces give them their cue.” That hasn't been my observation. Lewis is pretty alert, but not quick enough to dictate to those babies. You don't dictate to a streamlined Santa Claus.

The last Lawrence charge takes the cake—that |

Lewis not only

tain businessmen. He halfway won a strike and Mr. Myron Taylor avoided a similar strike by a halfway concession. But most of the important businessmen I know, outside of the coal industry, wouldn't give him

dictates to Washington, but also to cer- |

authorities generally might do well | to study. ”» » »

MAINE AND VERMONT GET BACK IN NEWS By Daniel Francis Clancy, Logansport

| Dash it all, why must we always | it ourselves in the same class as! | the Russian Communists, English | | Laborites and such? Why shouldn't | | the American ambassador and his | | staff wear court dress? . . 1 readq | | the other day about Baron Graves, | | known as England's most eccentric | | peer, England often says it is the | {land of eccentrics. I say that In- | | diana doesn't do so badly. Among | the odd Hoosiers I have known were |

to his

the Birth

and fell

For his

« TH

| Edward and opposed Baldwin,

| censored

at the very least insufficient to convey to the reader all the neces= sary facts. This is not said in criticism of the copy desks of the country. As a matter of fact, some of the happiest days of my life were spent, as a copy reader, but, un= fortunately, I wasn't good enough to do any particular harm to the psychology of the nation. There is something to be said for that style of journalism, better known in England than here, in which each news story is topped by a label rather than a headline, You probably know the style— “Murder,” “Marine Disaster,” “Unfortunate Divorce.” Under this system the announcement of the letter from the Chief Justice merely would have been indicated by “C. E. Hughes.” But before discussing the gist of the letter from the Chief Justice I would like to sav a little more about headlines in general, Particularly I have in mind their unfortunate effects in the handling of the problem of crime. I'm not maintaining that the facts of even the most brutal murders should be out of the newspapers. Indeed, I think more light will be needed rather than less,

Mr, Broun

" Ad "

UT it is a poor sort of illumination which dee pends upon the flashlight explosion of screaming headlines. When a certain type of crime has been committed it very often happens that there is what we know as a “wave,” to use a familiar headline word, Now, to some extent this mav be explained on the ground that when the trend of public attention has been centered upon some particular sort of offense it becomes newspaper practice to follow out the line and play up news of that sort, But I have a feeling and a fear that when such phrases as “Sex Fiend” and “Ax Murder” glare upon every front page those crimes increase because of the power of suggestion upon receptive minds,

n ” n UT to get back to the Chief Justice, I'm looking at the top line of a three-column head which says, “Hughes Attacks Court Plan.” Possibly ho fundamental injustice has been done, because 1 im= agine that Charles Evans Hughes may very well be against the proposals, lock, stock and barrel, Still, in the interest of entire accuracy, it could be pointed out that his letter dealt with only one phase of the proposed legislation. The Chief Justice distinctly stated that he was not taking up the question of policy. He merely denied that the Court lagged in ity business and that a larger Court would be more ex peditious. Now, even if one accepts this contention without reservation it hardly settles the whole problem, And in these days of vital and fundamental issues I think there ought to be a campaign to urge readers to go on to the end of the story and not stop with the headlines.

Leaders of Opposition to President's Court Proposal Plan to Put Him on Spot by Asking Whom He Would Appoint if Measure Passes,

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, March 26-—Opposition leaders are hatching a wily maneuver to put the President on the spot with his Supreme Court plan, The heart of the Administration's argument for power to increase the nine old men to 15 has been that the Court needs an infusion of “new blood, young men with a modern outlook and understanding.”

The antis now propose to use this argument as the fulerum for a flank attack on Roosevelt. At the | conclusion of the hearings before the Senate Judiciary | Committee, their plan is to issue a statement to this effect:

" ” ”

" OU say the Court needs younger men with more | liberal views. All right, tell the Congress and the | country who these six young and liberal men are. We have a right to. know who you plan to put on the Court so that we can more fairly judge the soundness and reasonableness of your proposal and intentions.” A demand of this kind, if made with sufficient vigor and impressiveness, might prove extremely emparrassing to Roosevelt. Interest in the identity of the possible men is second only to conjecture over the of the battle on the Pr

six new

3 ania Wor,

rf a dy

point, but his foes could give him some hot moments

by demanding it. A LOT of the idealistic young men who romped to the aid of the New Deal during its first ene thusiastic days now are cashing in on their idealism. Several of them have now joined the sugar lobby and are hovering over the new sugar bill, Here is the lineup: Chauncey B., Wightman, former economist of the AAA Sugar Section in charge of the sugar program in Hawaii, now lobbying for the Hawaiian sugar proucers, Ot A Dickey, former economist of the AAA

n ” »

| Sugar Section, who went to Puerto Rico to curb the

production of its sugar producers, now lobbying for the Puerto Rico Sugar Association, John Dalton, former chief of the AAA Sugar Sec tion, now lobbying for the big sugar refiners who once caused his section many of its difficulties, Dudley Brown, former administrative assistant of the AAA Sugar Section, also lobbying for the refiners, Myer Linsky, former statistician of the AAA Sugar Section, also lobbying for the sugar refiners, Chief pre booty in the new sugar bill is

the and

Cuban’ quota

J f NE