Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 April 1937 — Page 14
PAGE 14
The Indianapolis Times | (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
ROY WwW. HOW ARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager
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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way
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_ reau of Circulations. RIley 5551
TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1937
WHO SHOULD PAY—AND HOW FTER a two-year survey by a staff of 20 tax experts, the Twentieth Century Fund (an independent agency devoted to the study of economic and social problems) has recommended a sweeping reform of Federal and state taxation. ; The recommendations include: : Widespread repeal and reduction of Federal sales taxes and tariff duties and of state sales and property taxes which now fall especially heavily upon persons of low income; Obtaining a larger portion of Federal and state revenue from personal income taxes, by lowering exemptions to $500 for single persons and $1000 for married couples (present Federal exemptions are $1000 for single persons and $2500 for married couples). Concerning the sales tax, the report says: “It does not take account of the taxpayers’ abilities to pay—except in the rough fashion that the more a person spends the more he pays. But poor people spend more of their incomes than rich people of theirs. The sales tax, therefore, takes a larger percentage of the poor man’s income than of the rich man’s, since it is levied at a flat, not a progressive, rate.” = ® ” ” ” 2
ONCERNING the desirability of income taxes over in- |
visible taxes, the report says:
“Everyone in the United States should be made con- |
scious of the fact that, 1f he wants Government services, he has to pav tor them. The well-to-do may properly be asked to cover a large share of the Government’s costs, but hobody shouid expect to go ‘scotfree’ unless perhaps he is completely dependent on the Government. As a matter of fact, of course, nobody does go ‘scotfree.’ “The local property tax, and also excise and other indirect taxes, enter, in part at least, into the cost of almost all goods and services. But the burden is hidden. “The personal income tax is the best tax to promote tax consciousness because the taxpayer is compelled to figure out his own liability and to meet it . . . the consciousness of taxation should increase as Government expenditures increase . . . the personal income tax will make large numbers of taxpayers directly aware of changes in the general level of Federal and state . . . expenditures.” We have in the above refrained from an attempt to paraphrase, using instead direct quotations, because of the pleasure we get in reprinting in somebody else’s words a philosophy of taxation which we have espoused again and again in these columns. But nowhere in its report does the Twentieth Century Fund comment on the volume of Government spending. Therefore we should like to add a statement of our own to the effect that, if by reason of the lower exemptions here recommended, the number of income tax payers were .increased from the present 2,000,000 to 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 (the Fund's estimate), the volume of public spending would shrink overnight. It would, because that many more voters
would feeling the twinge of the pocket nerve. Indeed, it may be the only way to bring Government spending back within Government income.
SAID THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER... TWENTY years ago today America entered the World War. Today, on the heights of Arlington above the nation’s capital, there stands the tomb of the soldier “known but to God.” . :
Who he was, what he must be thinking in Valhalla,
what he was like on April 6, 1917, what he would say if he c6uld come back and see the preparations now feverishly under way for another "Armageddon, would be interesting. to know. So we. give you the version of Col. Frederick Palmer, dean of American war correspondents and officer in the World War. It is from his new book, “Our Gallant Madgess,” a volume you will want to read. | ot “Was he a Smith, or a Schmidt in| the melting pot? “How often had he been bawled out for failing to snap into a. salute, or for not having a clean rifle or a button of his blouse buttoned? ; | “Was he naturally a first-class fighting man, or did he just manage to keep up with the gang? One of the company grouches or good at clowning to keep spirits high? “Had he ever labored groggily to put on his first aid the while he hugged a shell hole under a swath of bullets, only to be half-buried by a shell burst? | Had he ever felt something moist on his cheek after an explosion to find that it was a bit of a buddy’s brain? Did a shell fragment
slash off his identification tag before he ‘got it for good’ '
10 yards farther on? GE “Was he a youth from the bare banks of the Missouri, nr the orange groves of California, dropped by machine-gun fire as he worked his way through the ruins of a French village; or a youth from a New York tenement, coughing from incipient pneumonia as he crawled through the chill mud on the banks of the Meuse only to be gassed? “We shall never know. : “Were he to come back to earth, one of his first ques‘tions would be just how he did get it, if consciousness had been snuffed out by having his brain crushed by a shell or "by a bullet through his heart. on ; “We may be sure that when he realized all the honors ‘that had been paid after death he would say, ‘What good do they do me now? x “Also, we may be sure that before he was ‘killed he “said the same as the returning lords, knights and squires of the ancient Crusades, the same as the foot soldiers trotting at the heels of their masters’ horses, the same as the veterans back from the Napoleonic wars or our Civil
‘War, or any war which was not a parade to easy victory
and loot; the same as the surviving veterans of one ancient Crusade heard the veterans of the next Crusade, and surYiving veterans of our Civil War heard the veterans from ~ &'rance say: ; , “‘Never Again!’” /
Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler It Is Very Curious That City People
Make Fun of the Farmer, Because Without Him They Would Starve.
ASHINGTON, April 6. — By what strange kink do you suppose it came about that city people the- world over assumed a supercilious attitude toward the farmers who raise all the food we eat, except fish, and the clothes we wear in such stylish superiority? How came we to adopt as terms of disdain such words as hick, bumpkin, oaf, yokel, rube, rustic sod-buster, hay-shaker and plow-jockey? Don’t
tell me, I can guess. We got that way a long time ago when the farmer was a chattel on the land and the people in the cities were rulers, traders and manufacturers. The rulers lived in luxury and style and the urban people around them began to ape their fancy manners and pretty soon they got an idea that anybody who pushed a plow through the soil and spent the days bent over picking insects off the parsley was a sucker and none too. bright to work so hard for so little. There was something in that, no question, although most city people were not too smart, either, for they too worked hard and long and lived badly in congested quarters, and still do. ‘ . : Yet even the poorest of the city people somehow regard themselves as being one or more cuts above the farmer and the word itself is sometimes used as mild opprobrium. And of course, the prosperous members of the city population, not only in this country but everywhere, feel conscious of a great superiority over the men and women whose werk in the fields alone enables them to live. Literally that, because if
Mr. Pegler
| there were no farmers the city people would go naked { and starve.
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HAVE never seen it happen, so well has the idea been woven into the social decorum of the cities, but if a farmer should appear in his farmer’s working clothes, which is to say his overalls, with mud on his shoes and surrounded by his own atmosphere of honest B. O. at one of our stylish hotel restaurants or iy nbs hore svning dress is desired, he would be eaded off a e door and n Pps a ot even permitted to He would not be allowed to intrude his presence on people gathered to eat the food and drink the liquor of his raising off tablecloths raised by farmers. They wouldn't like him any unless they happened to be pretty well along in their drams in which case they might spontaneously decide to clown him around in a derisive way. And then they would charge him half as much for a small sheet of steak as he received for a whole cow on the hoof, including antlers. I once saw an $8 steak on the menu of a hotel in Washington when a complete cow, alive and able to moo, could be had for five, ” ” J
OF course the farmer, himself, is not as independent 7 as he used to be. He used to know how to make his own leather and cloth, shoes and candles, or if he didr’t; then someone in the neighborhood did. But in case of necessity he could recapture these knacks in a short time and meanwhile, at least he would eat, which Is something the city couldn’t do for him unless the city were content to go it on caviar, lobster and cod. A very ingenious fellow is the farmer. He sticks some seeds in the ground and pretty soon here's wheat for breakfast or spinach for the baby or corn for whisky. If he wants milk he turns on the cow and if it’s bacon or hamburger that he craves for dinner he takes one of his pets out behind the barn and rolls his own. He can get along without us, but we need him every hour and yet we call him names. I hope he never gets out of temper.
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Where a Little Sit-Down Might Help !—By Talburt
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Massachusetts— There She Stands!-:By Kirby
JRLEY'S
TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1937
IS
if VETO KILLS MEASURE | TO REPEAL 3
TEACHERS QATH LAW
, . : The Hoosier Forum : ! 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will : defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
HIRAM LACKEY’S OPEN LETTER CRITICIZED By Bob Martin
An open letter to Hiram Lackey, author of “An open letter to Senator VanNuys”: Since you have so unqualifiedly sought to represent what you quaintly term the “Rooseveltian Democrats” and the “Civilized Republicans,” I-think it is only fair to warn you of the serious consequences involved. It is very evident that you failed to tender your little contribution to the Editing Department at Washington before publication. Imagine, if you can, the embarrassment you have caused the Administration by your self-styled class-conscious title of Rooseveltian Democrats and as self-appointed party spokesman, the damaging admission that any Republican is civilized. The Administration was in a constant turmoil during the last campaign covering up promiscuous inflammatory statements made by certain incumbents. Now that they have relaxed, with the Editing Department functioning smoothly, you have to pop off. Wait until Farley hears of this. In your denunciation of VanNuys you failed to give him credit for starting one of the first triple plays of the season—VanNuys to Roosevelt to Lewis. It certainly pulled Chrysler out of the hole when he was in there pitching his head off with aN the plants occupied. If you are unacquainted with scorekeeping, VanNuys and Roosevelt get assists and Lewis all the put-outs. Yours for free speech. = ” EJ CONGRESS HELD SUPREME OVER JUDICIARY : By J. E. Burton
The Constitution of the United States provides for a system of government composed of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, the latter branch being appointed by the President and confirmed or created by the Congress, to whom, through the Constitution, we, the people, have delegated that creative power, We, the people, by the election every two or four years choose those standing for certain- issues, and give to them, through the majority vote, the power to hold office and to represent us on those issues, and they are supposed te fulfill their duties as prescribed by the Constitution. If the people have a division of thought we can and often do have a President of one party and a House and Senate of another. When this occurs we have an unbalanced government that checks itself, and generally there is nothing doing until another election two years hence. There is no initiative, referendum or recall. Why should not this be changed? ‘When the President, House and Senate are all of one - party, this
situation is the result of united
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be - witbheld on request.)
thought of the majority of the people. Such a result is virtually a mandate from the people for those elected to office to get busy and do their jobs.’ The Constitution provides that the President shall recommend such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. Congress has all power to legislate. Congress may accept the President’s view as presented in his message and pass legislation to conform thereto. Then, the Constitution says, “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” "Congress may not accept the President’s views as presented in_his message and do nothing. The President has no power to compel Congress to do otherwise and accept or reject his suggestions. Why should this not be changed? Congress, being all-powerful, can create and pass legislation to suit its own judgment. The President, in his judgment, may veto this legislation. The Congress can override his veto by two-thirds vote of each
house and it becomes the law of the |
Fand without his signature. Thus, then, “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and must do so, even though he has stated his aversion to the said law. The Constitution further provides that “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Thus, having created and
established courts, Congress, which |
is all-powerful, can legislate to change the courts as it shall deem best conforming to the limitations of the duties of the courts as expressed in the Constitution. Only the creator is supreme. The thing created is subsidiary. The courts are created by Congress®'and thus are not supreme. Congress only
WHAT I WANT
By VIRGINIA POTTER
I want to do as others do— I want to have my fling, I do not want to settle down, I feel the call of spring!
I want to live aloof and free— With one true love in my heart, So do ‘not pull so tightly, lest You and I should part!
DAILY THOUGHT
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth: and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.—Matthews 7:8.
No one who is not accustomed to give grandly can ask nobly and with boldness.—Lavater.
is supreme, being ‘all-powerful to make changes and we, the people, elect Congress and watch Congress for the results.
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PUBLIC COMPLACENCY IS SATIRIZED By a Working Woman I am just a cook, a working woman. Recently I saw. the good citizens going to church, observing Easter week all over the city, then sitting snug and complacent, literally patting themselves on the back by showing that they are good citizens and Christian people. Yet, a 74-year-old man was found dead of starvation and exposure. True, he was what respectable people call a “derelict,” but he was well known at all the public places near where he lived. Where are the fine citizens that let a human being die in that manner? ; ” "on DICTATORSHIP CHARGES REPUDIATED ‘By H. V. Allison Mrs. Mabel German's article referred to John L. Lewis and President Roosevelt as using different tactics to become dictators. I remember that in the last campaign she bombarded the Administration with all her vocal epithets. Does she remember where we were five years ago and what results we have had since that time? Soup
kitchens are no more and business is better than normal. The-opposing critics gre falling in line” of march to better times. Streets crowded with buyers are proof of the pudding. : 8 nn x BEECH GROVE STUDENT VEXED OVER PUBLICITY By a Beech Grove High School Student. We have gotten a lot of ugly publicity from the evolution controversy and we're being laughed at by other schools. We have always been proud of our school and have worked hard to get the North Cen-
tral accrediting we now have, hut. the Rev. Allen has taken it upon-
himself to make this trifling ‘incident a nationally known affair. "How would you feel if you had attended the recent state) basketball tournament and after answering someone’s question about where you went to school, Laving them reply, “Oh, yes, you're the ones who think your ancestors hung out of trees by their tails.” Anybody knows that when such a man as Heywood Broun takes the time .and space in his column to write about a city of 5000, such as ours, it has become an item before the eyes of millions of this nation’s citizens. My Hoosier blood is boiling to think that a Kentuckian is tearing us to pieces.
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It Seems to. Me By Heywood Broun
Frank Sullivan Advances Simple Suggestion for Placing Check on Power of the Supreme Court.
EW YORK, -April 6.—In the welter of suggestions about laws and amendments to curb the power of the Supreme Court the simplest remedy of all is advanced, timidly, by Frank Sullivan, the humorist. “Apropos of one of your recent columns,” writes Mr. Sullivan, “nothing might come of this, but it is worth investigating on the off chance. Are any of the conservatives on the Court members of ‘Skull and Bones? I believe a member” of Skull and Bones 1s bound to leave the room if the society is mentioned. “It ought to be a simple matter for a New Deal lawyer arguing a case before the Supreme Court to bring in a casual reference to Skull and Bones. “Maybe McReynolds, Van Deventer, Sutherland and Butler are all Bones men. If so we would “filibuster them out of the courte room indefinitely, simply by have ing someone on duty at all times to yell, ‘Skull and Bones!’ every time one of them tried to sit down. Even if we only got Butler, it would be something” There is something in what Mr. Sullivan suggests. If memory serves me right his plan will not be feasible if literally interpreted. But Frank Sullivan and I are both loose constructionists. I think Mr. Sullivan means to say that it might redound to the public weal if it were possible to create discord among the nine. The ideal scheme would be to hire Madison Square Garden and match “Due Process” against ‘General Welfare.” That battle would never go 15 rounds. A knockout would be inevitable. Along more immediate lines it might be expedient if liberal-minded hostesses would work together in ~ inviting the members of the Supreme Court out to dinner parties. : : .In the case of Chief Justice Hughes there would be no particular point in this. I understand that the Chief Justice has taken on the Bones technique in a measure. I am told that on two, or three occasions he has left very lively parties because some guest un= dertook to discuss the Supreme Court in his presence,
Mr. Broun
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OT all the members of the high bench adhere to this rule. Not so very long ago I went to a buffet supper in Washington at which one member of the Court was present. Only a small table and a de= canter separated us. I pulled the decanter over to my side in order to talk freely. But while the eminent jurist did his work on water he talked with a candor which raised the roof of my scalp. Referring to one candidate mentioned by the Republicans, he said, “If he's nominated I don’t believe he'll live a year.” He then asked me point blank whether I had ever heard Governor Landon in the newsreels. I said no. The Justice of the Supreme Court then rendered his own opinion. “He smells,” he said succinctly, :
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FTER that I rather gathered that all bars were down, and I ventured. a few opinions of my own. Later one of the guests more familiar with the mores of Washington informed me that I had been indiscreet. “You are not supposed to discuss cases which are still pending,” he told me. I believe I did attempt to put in some background about the Watson case, but honestly I didn’t try to dictate the decision. Moreover, before I had gone very far Charles A, Beard, the historian, got the floor and did a fine rabble-rousing speech of three-quarters of an hour on the theme that the conservative| bloc in the Court was construing the Constitution in| a cockeyed manner,
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General Hugh Johnson Says—
Time of Year Recalls Our Entrance Into World War and Beginning of Fight Against Depression, and in Many Ways Two Periods Were Alike.
EW YORK, April 6.—This time of the year recalls our declaration of war against Germany. It also recalls the 1933 beginning of active war by the Federal Government against depression which also got
under way this month.
The two seasons were very much alike—great emotional upsurge, sudden magnification of the powers of the Federal Government, furious activity of making new laws to fit unprecedented conditions, hurried. assembly of new bureaus, administrations and departments necessarily manned by inexperienced and mostly young men. : In the war period, the writer had the job of improvising both the method and the nation-wide organization for the draft, and later of improvising a method and organization for directing the vast army purchase program. In ihe depression he had the job of improvising the Plan and organization of NRA. Both of these experiences were almost perfect parallels—war hysteria and furious effort in both cases, not because anybody planned it that way or wanted it that way, but because there was a job that had to be done and done as the President succinctly says—now.
8 8 ” ; 1 OOKING back on both, there is no question in the « world that no such ponderous or high-power ef-
fort was necessary—at least not in such tremendous degree.
We converted practically every industrial establishment for the manufacture of munitions and so con-
gested our industrial areas with orders that we were
FREE ns
not getting as much production as we did before—at
a cost and loss of billions.
Looking backward it is perfectly apparent that if ° European factories and proceeded here in a more orderly and deliberately planned preduction, we would have turned out more and better tonnage at a fraction of the cost to the country. . A lot of people profess now to believe that AAA and
we had relied more on
|The Washington Merry-Go-Round
Merry-Go-Rounders Predict That After Long Fight, Which May Lasi Until July, President Will Get About What He Wants on Court Issue,
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Alen ASHINGTON, April 6.—Here is the Merry-Go-Round summary of what will happen to the President's proposals for reform of the Supreme Court. Time—It will be June before the Senate comes to a final vote. The current Judiciary Committee hearings
NRA were ravening and destructive monsters—but nobody thought so in April, 1933, when all the heads of
great industry were in Washington wailing, “All is lost save honor.” .
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HAT about the Court and the Constitution in W 1917? We slammed on war-time prohibition by a Federal statute when nothing was clearer than that you couldn't do that without an amendment. In the espionage acts we put bracelets and leg-irons on freedom of speech and press. As for NRA’s great-grandmas—the war {ndustries, food, railroad, fuel and trade boards—all that NRA and AAA ever did or dreamed was drop-the-handkerchief compared
with ost great game of industrial regimentation.
we didn’t just ask ‘em. We told ’em. And the Supreme Court supported it all. What becomes of the dogma that the Court can’t fit the Constitution to necessity? If invalidated New Deal improvisations had come up in the first, rather than the last six mora of their statutory lives, the resulf would have beeh different.
be another two weeks of secret deliberations before a
bill is reported to the Senate. Debate on the Senate floor will last at least six weeks. It will start slowly, increase in tempo and heat, but with no filibuster—for two good reasons. First, a filibuster is effective only where there is a time limit on a session. There is no time limit here; this Congress can continue until Jan. 5, 1939. Second, filibustering tactics could easily boomerang against the opposition. After the Senate vote, there will be two to four weeks of discussion in the House. :
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commandeered the railroad and telegraph business. As for all the rest of industry and agriculture, |
INALLY, after Senate and House agree on a bill, there will be debate on the confirmation of new justices.
proposed six young men will depend entirely on whom Roosevelt names. Senate polls——Today, the Administration has the numerical lead in the Senate.
SHEAR 5
will last over a week, possibly longer. Then there will ;
Only the Senate passes on appointees; and | | now long it will take to obtain a Senate O. K. on the |
The President's bill has steadily gained strength |
since his Victory Dinner and fireside broadcasts, and there is every indication of continued strength. The opposition’s own secret poll lists 42 “sure” votes and eight “doubtful” (49 votes will be necessary to defeat the President). Of the eight doubtfuls, opposition leaders admit privately they expect to get only two. . On the other hand, the confidential check list of the Administration gives the opposition only 14 cer tain Republicans plus 26 Democrats: Total: 40. On the other hand, New Dealers calculate as sure for Roosevelt, 55. Final total they predict is 60. Fare ley’s private estimate is a majority of 6 votes. Final Outcome—Roosevelt seems sure of getting virtually what he wants. It may not be the bill he is now demanding, but the modifications will give no joy to the opposition. He will be able to put what he wants through the Supreme Court, and that is the main thing he is after. So far Roosevelt has stood pat, stubbornly re= fused to consider any compromise. However, he has
cautioned lieutenants to tread softly and to leave “no wounds that can’t be healed. The President does "not want to split the Democratic Party if he can
help it. : Aftermath—Following disposal of the Court issue will come the real work of the session. The Ade ministration plans to follow the Court bill with a barrage of -important farm, labor and social welfare Treasures: Behind much of jhe spposition, to Roose. velt’s courtigplan, in and out-of Congress, is fear of this legislation. ye u Lr Sadi < PRE