Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1937 — Page 12

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The Indianapolis Tim

LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE Business Manager

Ne 3

ROY W. HOWARD President

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1937

TRIED METHODS BRING RESULTS

RAFFIC fatalities reached an all-time high in America last year. And last month, the National Safety Council reports, traffic deaths increased 24 per cent over February a year ago. Marion County, with 19 more deaths than at this time in 1936, and Indiana, with a total increase in fatal accidents, are conspicuously absent again from the list of safer communities and states. Part of the heavy accident increase this year can be explained by the fact that exceptional weather drew an unusual amount of highway traffic. But even this cannot explain away the lack of a co-ordinated safety program in Indianapolis. Definite encouragement in the safety movement may be found in the figures showing that 18 states reduced motor vehicle deaths during 1936 despite a great increase in traffic volume. “The reductions in these 18 states were not obtained by some brand new idea but by the intensive application of the standard line of attack,” says Sidney J. Williams of the National Council. The Council's three-part formula of education, engineering and enforcement is no secret. It has been applied in other communities with success. It can and should be applied in Indianapolis.

TOWARD A LABOR POLICY IX its unanimous opinion upholding the Railway Labor Act the Supreme Court went far toward helping Congress promote industrial peace through the formation of a national labor policy. Such a policy is about three-quarters written Federal law. The Norris-La Guardia act drastically limits the use of Federal court injunctions in labor disputes, outlaws “yellow dog contracts,” protects labor's right to selfunionization. The Wagner Labor Relations Act shields workers in their eilorts to unionize, forbids certain unfair employer tactics and creates a workers’ tribunal of first instance to enforce the new code of labor rights. The Railway Labor Act grants these same rights to railway and airline workers and in addition sets up for.these industries a Federal mediation system to aid in making and maintaining agreements in the interests of peace. Completion of the Government's labor program awaits, first, a Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Wagner act and, next, the extension by Congress to industry generally of the mediatory technique so successful under the Railway Labor Act. Slowly and painstakingly the Government is evolving a policy and a body of laws to take the place of the costly anarchy that has reigned in management-labor relations for so many vears. Its formula is a typically American one, grounded in fair play. The sooner it becomes universally accepted law and is adopted by both employers and workers in letter and spirit, the sooner we can hope for industrial progress and domestic tranquillity.

THE “CO-OP” REPORT N view of the threat of rising prices and the widespread interest among consumers in co-operative ventures as a way to combat high prices, the report of the President's

committee on co-operative enterprises abroad is timely. |

[t will be of less value, however, than would be a study of

consumer co-operative trends in this country, such as the |

Baker Committee urges.

We know that the co-operative movement in certain |

European countries has done well by the people. But we know little of the movement in this country, except that it has been growing apace, particularly among the farmers. One of the most valuable bits of advice in the report is from Charles KE. Stuart, member of the committee, who warns that “artificially stimulated co-operative movements are likely to be highly destructive and of small benefit.” Co-operation will not grow successfully in the hothouse of paternalism. It will thrive only in the free air of voluntary collective action.

the older countries.

THE LAST LAUGH

HEN the Administration launched its project for planting a “shelter belt” across the prairie states as a moisture conserver against droughts and a windbreak against duststorms, critics laughed. They said it was a waste of money, a “hare-brained nightmare”; the trees would fail to grow or would die in youth. Today the Forest Service announces that with only $3,000,000 out of the allocated $15,000,000 spent on the project, millions of young trees are flourishing along the belt, some of them already 15 and 16 feet high. Despite two of the worst drought years in history they say that 550 of every 740 trees planted on shelter-belt strips and farm windbreaks are living. The real “hare-brained” are those who oppose the treeplanting. And the real “nightmares” are the duststorms which the shelter belt is designed to curb.

JOHN DRINKWATER OHN DRINKWATER, the insurance man who turned poet, dramatist and critic, has gone, and literature will be the poorer for his passing. Time's verdict must be awaited on his stature as a poet. But as an essayist and playwright his name surely will rank among the first in the English-speaking world. Drinkwater loved children, March winds, flowers and all the things of beauty, but chiefly he admired the greatness of big and simple men. England owes him gratitude for bringing to life her Cromwell, Burns, William Morris and Mary Stuart, America for letting us meet the real Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. He made these figures live in literature or pass before the footlights as convincingly as they trod the stage of life. r

into |

In time, we believe, it will become | a significant movement in the United States as well as in |

THE INDIAN

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1937

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Hurled Bricks at Writer for Lynching Comments Now Defend Illegal Sit-Downs.

NEW YORK, March 31.—A few years ago there was a gaudy, two-passenger lynching in San Jose, Cal., which provoked me to say that there were two murderers at least who would not be turned loose on the country after 10 or 15 years to do it

again. The country was pretty well fed up on murder

Persons Who

and the technical escapes for murderers provided by |

shysters of high and low degree and by political intervention. It was my idea that the mob at San Jose just went nuts for an hour in exasperation over the law's failure in matters of this kind. Well, then it happened. All the coffee-room philosophers and shaggy thinkers of the butcher's paper magazines dusted off their big, foreign words, and all the flat-heeled intellects of the female auxiliary came storming down the street heaving bricks of indignation and scorn. The high-note of their cry was the sanctity of the law, orderly procedure and the disruptive force of lawless action. I still wear some of the knobs they raised, but I never entertained the idea that I might be wrong until just lately. And now, how do you do? For now I find all of them trying to crawl into my bed, and if you will be good enough to avert your gaze a moment, I will pull on my pants and haul out. Now I find them all cheering the lawlessness of

Mr. Pegler

the sit-down strike on the ground that this violation |

of the law, this defiance of the courts and other constituted authority, this lynching of government in the United States is the revolutionary action of American labor although the American Federation of Labor explicity repudiates the sit-dqwn and the big General Motors strike, at least, was the act of a minority.

n = a MERICAN labor is a big term. It includes millions of unorganized working people and millions

of others who belong to unions, but aren't orators or | parliamentarians and have little or nothing to say |

about the actions of the smart professionals who run their affairs. It also includes that majority of the General Motors employees who wanted to work but could not. I find that my new bed-fellows also tolerate in print the repudiation of legal contracts either by candid refusal or by the most cynical and dishonest sabotage even though the contracts were dictated by the union leaders themselves and are thoroughly agreeable to the rank and file. There is a lot of ham and a good deal of Tammany in the smart labor leader. He knows how to pour it on the boys in meeting and create false presumption that they are dirty

finks if they vote against his proposition however |

wrong they know him to be. ” ” " HIS sort of thing I now read from those who were

heaving the chimney at me, a brick at a time, a |

few years ago for my having said that the San Jose lynching represented a mementary revolution of the people of the town against the habitual failure of the

Jaw in the murder cases.

And even though some admit that the sit-down and repudiation are respectively illegal and dishonest, they say it is the only way to meet the illegal and dlshonest methods of the big employers. Say, comrades, ain't that just what I said about the lvnchings?

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.=Voltaire.

| | CONSUMER HELD KEY TO UNEMPLOYMENT By H. L. S. | The Times editorial on “Getting | Nowhere Wastefully” ignores the | | fact that perhaps never again will | private industry absorb all the un- | | employed. We shall always have more than five million unemployed | if we depend on private industry to | furnish jobs for all American workers. Harry Hopkins knows this and that is his reason for talking to Congress for a permanent work relief program. Of course this is disturbing, and to whom could it be more disturbing than the five million who are now out on a limb? There wili be five times that nhumber when the next bubble of infla- ” tion bursts. The ability of Federal finance to shoulder that load ought to be more disturbing. We are trying |g. w. s to solve our economic problems by | Cn decrees from the oracle. Those| ©S0 many problems are insolvable from the |Preached to top. They must be solved from the bottom. Strikes are disturbing and are | also barking up the wrong tree. ! Regulation of private industry in the interest of the producers is also [ disturbing. What the producers [lack in intelligence in meeting the | needs of consumers with ever-in- | creasing values is to be equalized | by short-changing the consumers, | by giving less value for existing | buying power. Here is regulation [in the reverse. The consumer will regulate and | relegate these inefficient producers | into bankruptcy courts. Profits can accrue to producers { only after they have made profits | first for the consumer. Consumer | | profits must constantly increase. | Hopkins cannot supply this in- | telligence for private producers so | | he proposes jobs from taxes or | debts which are burdens on pro=- | ducer and consumer, It would be cheaper for the Government to hire production ef- | | ficiency engineers to show producers | how to cut costs and speed up | wealth production. The consumers

familiar roads, slaughter.

brakes

¢o that they movement with

holders of the

and children.

wage.’

“4, Thou health and

him. Neither

old age.

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your so all can have a chance, must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

Inexperienced drivers incorrectly, create a their often brings them to disastrous end. ¥ 2 » Race drivers will agreee with me that it is safer to drive on the race track where all cars are going in one direction than to face the hundreds of cars on public brainless wonders at the wheels.

SUGGESTS NEW DECALOGUE FOR INDUSTRY

sermons labor time that one aimed at the pewemploying would seem timely and fair. By way of a text Zion's Herald, liberal organ of American Methodism, offers the following Ten Com- | mandments for Industry: “1. Thou shalt not exploit women

“2. Thou shalt not deny the la- | borer’s right to more than a ‘living |

“3. Thou shalt not make a ma- | chine out of him. | shalt steal his prospects | life by forcing upon him long hours | and unhealthful working conditions. | “5. Thou shalt not spy upon him, | or bear false witness against him. | “6. Thou shalt not suddenly throw | [ him out of work through the ‘shutdown’ or ‘lockout,’ and then wash thy hands of all responsibility for shall mindful of the helplessness of his

“7. Thou shalt not decide critical | issues in industry solely from the angle of money-making. “8. Thou shalt not employ high-

priced legal talent to find a way to ‘beat the law’ whilst thou holdest up thy hands in holy terror over the letter short, | ‘sit-down strike.’

Letters

of view, and begin to regard dustry as a stewardship for common good. “10. Thou shalt love the Lord thy

the

slither off to use their applying them | bouncing | car, which

all ‘thy soul, and with all thy

strength, and with all thy and thy neighbor as thyself.”

AGREES CONSCRIPTION BILL SHOULD DIE By Mrs. Bertha Randall, Noblesville In an article, “Kill the Conscrip- | tion Bill,” in the Nation Feb, 14, Stephen Raushenbush, chief investi- | gator for the Munitions Investiga- |

highways with

| tion Committee, gives an analysis of the Hill-Sheppard bill (H. 1954-325). | He says: “This bill provides | ately after Congress war, the President, further legislation by Congress, can | draft several millions of men be-| tween the ages of 21 and 31. He can | | control business by licenses, prior- | ities of shipments, price-fixing, and | by inducting managers into the service as civilians. He can appoint ail the agencies he deems necessary to | carry out his orders and rules, and the fine for disobedience of the rules | is $100,000 or one vear in jail. Lastly, his | there is a tax of 95 per cent of all in | income above the previous three- | year average.” Mr. Raushenbush points out that “Capital was not drafted in the last | war and cannot be drafted during the next one.” The President is given the power of an absolute monarch. Men are to give up their lives and labor its freedom, but capital | need not fear control of production or price-fixing. | “The Hill-Sheppard bill ‘encour=- | ages a war boom by rewarding those | companies which engage in it and | | penalizing those companies which |'do not,” the author says. | He said an irresponsible acquaint-

are being around Easter | that immedi- |

| | class has declared | |

without any

not impair

thou be un-

also must organize to set up production on their own account.

” ” ” EX-RACE CAR DRIVER OFFERS SAFETY PLAN By Howard O. Carter

For reducing automobile accidents I propose the reduction of driving | speeds by one-third between the | hours of 6 p. m. and 6 a. m. with full 24-hour reduction on Sundays | and holidays, a 30-day test period throughout this state. My experience as a former A. A. A. racing car driver has taught me that |

fathers,

drivers before a race make many bers 33:54.

for

rates.

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Chrysler Soon Will Demonstrate Absurdity of Having Two or More

Bargaining Agencies for

ASHINGTON, March 31.—If you accept the idea of collective bargaining between industrial management and representatives or agencies of its employees, how can you have two or more collective bargaining agencies for the workers? That means two or more sets of hours, wages and working conditions in the same factory. Human imagination could hardly conceive a greater or more complete absurdity.

Yet this is exactly the supernal and ineffable nonsense on which the Chrysler negotiations are hung up. It all goes back to the idea of “proportional represen=tation” and the Automobile Labor Board during the NRA. The difference between the situation then and

the situation now was that Section 7A of NRA, due-to |

a blundering brainstorm of Bill Green, prevented an employer from dealing exclusively with representatives of a particular union. The law is different now. It provides for an excluvise bargaining agency whenever a majority of employees designates one. That does not, as is popularly supposed, mean a closed shop, i. e., a shop in which a man can't work unless he joins the union. It only means that the collective bargain, which sets hours and wages, shall be negotiated once and only once, and that by a majority of the workers. " 8 ”

IN Ze0ny can reasonably argue the common sense of that. What kind of a system would it be for Mr. Chrysler to pay & minimum 50 cents an hour to ‘workers who ‘belonged to a ‘company union and 40

Workers and Detroit Trouble Will End.

Union?

than Mr. Chrysler. Generally speaking, at almost any automotive meeting, where Mr. Chrysler sits is the head of the table. Why is he portrayed as taking a position that could not for a moment be defended in logic or in fact before any important and informed tribunal? Very simple. Mr. Chrysler is a denizen of the industrial community. Courageous and independent as he undoubtedly is, he has to live with his suppliers, his customers and his financial associates—and they are almost a unit in opposition to the indispensable idea of exclusive majority representation. 8 ” ” T won’t do. Mr. Chrysler is King Canute sitting on the shore and commanding the tides to stand still because gentlemen of his court have insisted that it will be effective, Danish King didn’t believe it.

show as a demonstration of its nonsense to his flattering associates.

has built out of his own genius, Mr. Chrysler has suffered this strike. Tt is hurting him, but he has enough financial fat on his ribs to stand it. But, boy, what it isn’t doing to the courtiers as the tide rises!

The Chrysler-Canute demonstration will be suf- | Mictent, The Detroit Jabgr trouble

DREAM SHIPS

By PATRICIA BANNER

I sail alone on a sea of my own; | In a dream ship, I'm sailing to | dream ports unknown To be crashed against rocks, tossed about like the foam— But mv dream ship keeps sailing . .. And my dream ship sails home. {

DAILY THOUGHT Every man’s inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth;

according to the tribes of your ye shall

cents an hour to those who belonged to the C. I. O. |

Utterly unthinkable, and nobody knows that better |

According ‘to the tradition, the | He just put on the |

At considerable sacrifice to the great company he |

is ‘about over.

| Ane of his suggested that the preamble of the bill should be changed {to read: “To establish a military | dictatorship in the United States, to force companies to engage heavily with foreign belligerents and thus decrease our chances of peace, to! | silence in advance all opposition to! | the draft of men for service over- | | seas, to silence labor and destroy collective bargaining before labor is | aware of what is happening to it, [to put into the President's hands | power to rule the nation completely on the pretext of war with Rurita= nia, to kid the public about equality, and to hold out a real incentive to | the Liberty League to put their | | President into office just once, because he could stay there forever.” Those of us, the common people,

inherit.—Num-

neglect to

“9. Thou shalt cease looking at | labor from the master-slave point | in- |

God with all thy heart, and with | : 0 | moment I am on the spot, and all because of

mind; |

lt Seems to Me ‘By Heywood Broun

Phi Delts Correct Writer for Inaccuracies He Ruefully Admits In Column on McReynolds Speech.

EW YORK, March 31.—It is always diffi cult for a columnist to admit that he has been even slightly in error. My own practice has been to vield apologies only when the boiling oil got up to my knees. But at the

a piece which was intended to be in a light vein. Within the last few days I wrote of Mi, Justice McReynolds and of a speech he made at a dinner

of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, and in commenting on his remarks I incautiously said that he and Alexander Woollcott were the only living Phi Delts I'd ever heard of. Now it turns out that Woollcott isn't a Phi Delt at all and that Lou Gehrig is. It seems that Mr.Wooll= cott belongs to something called Theta Delta Chi, which had a chapter at Hamilton College in 1909, when Mr. Woollcott was an undergraduate, Nor does the roster of Phi Delta Theta begin with Lou Gehrig and end with McReynolds. W. M. U, Jr. writes to inform me that the fraternity is the largest in the United States and that the only correct statement I have made is that no Phi Delt has as vet been hanged. On account of the size of the organization this is rather a proud boast among the brothers. Mr. U. writes “Phi Delta Theta has a more diss tinguished group of alumni than any college fra= ternity in the U. S. A, with the possible exception of Delta Kappa Epsilon, and I'm not sure that the Dekes would have as many distinguished men. Have you ever heard of the following: Ex-Governor Joseph Buell Ely of Massachusetts: Secretary of the Interior Harold Tckes; the father of Tallulah Bankhead, Speaker William B. Bankhead of the House: Will Hays, George Hearst, William Randolph Hearst Jr Randolph Hearst, Brock Pemberton and Jouett Shouse?”

Mr. U's communication convinces me that Mr, Justice McReynolds does not stand alone,

Mr. Broun

” ” 2

AP in all fairness I should print the letter of GG. R. Seeley of Torrington, Conn. Mr. Seeley writes: “As a member of Phi Delta Theta I ask vou in all fairness to refrain from further remarks about the Phi Delts’ banquet in Washington. “I'm sure you meant no harm, but, vou see, vou have merely agitated a subject many Phi Delts wish to have nothing said about. “For several years a dirty Phi Gam trick has been played on the campus of many leading colleges. Yes, and the Dekes, Sigma Chis, S. A. E.'s and others have been in on it, too. “They have been telling fine fraternity rushees that Justice McReynolds belongs to Phi Delte Theta, and I personally know one Phi Delt Chapter that lost seven sons of Phi Delts last fall because of it. “It is true Phi Delta Theta has never had a mems= ber hanged. And we hope to maintain the record as long as possible, “Some fraternities are not so fortunate, Please, therefore, put the soft pedal on this McReynolds busis ness. We wish to get a decent break with the fresh men in September.” » * = ND in my brief excursion into the matter of publie men and college fraternities I went on getting wronger and wronger. In speaking of the Supreme Court IT thought to humanize the nine Justices hy mentioning the fact that beneath the black robes fra= ternity pins gleamed upon the undershirts of Mr. Hughes and Mr. McReynolds.

Conscription bill.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Question of War or Peace in Europe Rests Largely With Mussolini Who Would Be in Mood to Fight if Rebels Lose in Spain.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, March 31.—Confidential cables to | the State Department during the past week have been groaning with bad news about tHe danger of war in Europe. | There is no doubt, according to these cables, that | the question of peace or war rests largely in the | hands of Mussolini. | When one of the Merry-Go-Rounders was in Italy last fall he asked Count Ciano, Foreign Minister and | son-in-law of Mussolini, whether he was optimistic | for the peace of Europe, Without hesitation Ciano | replied: “It all depends on Spain. If General Franco is successful, there will be no war in Europe. If the other side wins , . .” (here he held out his hands in a questioning gesture) “ . , . Well, anything may happen. Italy cannot afford to have an unfriendly government at the mouth of the Mediterranean.” American diplomats who heard that remark were inclined to pooh-pooh it as youthful bombast. At that | time Italy had not even sent troops to Spain. But subsequent events indicate that Ciano was talking not for himself, but for his father-in-law. ” ” 4 O understand how dangerous is Mussolini's mood right now, remember that he has an army of 1,250,000 men already mobilized ahd with time hanging heavy on their hands. Also, he has great pride in this army, basks in the glory of its Ethi vic tory, probably would prefer to fight rather per-

| nounced intention to attend a sugar conference.

The Italians defeated by the Spamish Loyalists were road=builders, not crack troops. But the world does mot know that, considers their retreat a reflection on Mussolini's regular army. Britain's truculent attitude toward Italy derives from the fact that the British have more to worry about from Mussolini than anyone else in Europe, Already the Italians have built a strategic concrete highway across Libya to the border of Egypt, gateway of Suez. Already they have built a powerful naval base in the Red Sea, part of the British life-line to the Dominions.

In Libya Mussolini posed as the protector of the Moslems, received two emissaries from the great Arab chieftain Ibn Saud. If Mussolini can rally the Arabs to his Fascist cause in Iraq, Palestine and Arabia, he

| would have British prestige frayed and frazzled in the

Near East. ® BB =

ATURALLY there is a lot more of Norman Da= vis’ sudden trip to London than the ane Ace tually he wants to arrange the sugar coating for an arms conference. Roosevelt, Hull and Bullitt still are toying with that idea—though almost nothing can come of it,

Perhaps even more important, Davis will drop some quiet hints to the British to sit calm, not get exe oited over Mussolini. American advice, for whatever it ‘may _be worth, is to let the Spanish kettle stew at