Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 April 1937 — Page 10

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

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MONDAY, APRIL 19, 1937

A DUTY TO LIBERALISM RESIDENT ROOSEVELT today is working on a new message to Congress concerning relief expenditures and the budget. What he says in that message and how Congress reacts to what he says will determine whether the seven-year policy of Government borrowing is to be projected into a hazardous future or to be brought to a definite and necessary close. Once before this Administration made a sincere but short-lived attempt to balance outgo with income. That was early in 1933, when the Economy Act and the President's orders carrying it out lopped approximately a billion dollars off the budget then projected. But political and economic pressures of that time speedily restored that billion and added several more billions to the Government's spending-program. ; Today circumstances are radically altered. There are still streng political pressures for more spending. But bigscale pump-priming has ceased to be a pressing necessity, Let us therefore hope that the President and Congress will not approach this problem in the cavalier manner that has been so evident through the borrow-and-spend years. Let us hope instead—and let us, as a responsible self-gov-erning people, insist—that the President and Congress address themselves Tb the task with the determination and courage that its magnitude commands. It will be difficult. Estimates of revenues for the next fiscal year must be reduced in line with this year’s disappointing returns. “Realities should compel us to revise our expenditures accordingly. Then, when revised, if they still do not meet, the only honorable and safe way out will be to readjust Federal taxes to get whatever additional revenue is necessary to bring those figures into balance. The Roosevelt Administration has less than four years to go. In that time the President wants to bring about many liberal reforms that will make for a better life among a people of whom he finds one-third to be ill-fed, ill-clothed, 1ul-housed. His ambition is a noble one. To achieve it he should keep in mind his own warning uttered four years ago. Here are the President’s own words: “Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy. We must avoid this danger.” :

WILMINGTON TEA-PARTY

TOCKHOLDERS’ meetings, unlike the foregatherings of labor unionists, - politicians or other garden-variety Americans, are notorious for their dullness. The management generally arrives with a brief case full of proxies, votes the program and then retires for highballs. In Wilmington, Del., the other day, Bethlehem Steel Corp. staged something unique. Mr. Lewis Gilbert, “Minority Stockholder No. 1 of the U. S.” and champion of the inarticulate little investor, was there, aided by a corebel, Mr. L. B. Koshland of New York.

We will not dwell upon the scene of disorder that fol-

lowed a demand by these two upstarts that the jovial

Charles M. Schwab be thrown out of his $200,000-a-year Job as chairman of the board and retired on a $25,000 pension because of his 75 years. Nor their insistence that the management put back into the treasury $15,000,000 it allegedly borrowed from the corporation in 1931 to buy stock. Nor the clenched fists, “livid” faces, offers to “punch you in the snout,” and other expressions of outraged dignity on the part of the management and its friends. Suffice it to say that their rebellion was buried under an avalanche of lofal proxies, and the sentence of contempt meted to the disturbers of corporate peace and order.

But as a lover ofi democracy we do wish there were .

more meetings like this one. We have never understood why corporations should still run their affairs on the model of the old ring politics that used to thrive in the party convention days. It’s funny how hard-headed business men slave and save for years only to turn their investments over to strangers in the naive faith that these, their managers, can do no wrong. A few more Gilberts and Koshlands with the time and energy-to take part in stockholders’ meetings would make American business safer and more democratic.

FAREWELL TO THE POOR FARM "UST 10 years ago a little group of devoted souls met in New York City, organized the Association for Old-Age Security and set out to abolish that disgraceful relic of the Elizabethan age, the poor farm, replacing it with a nationwide system of old-age pensions. Joined by the Eagles and other groups, their little voice became a national roar. To= day success beyond their fondest hopes has crowned that campaign. : Boor farms are not extinct in America, but they are passing into history.

people, today approximately 1,200,000 persons past 65 are ‘receiving pensions in 41 states, the District of Columbia,

Alaska and Hawaii. And pension laws have been passed in |

47 states—in all but Virginia. Thus small pensions—now averaging $18.76 per month each—will soon be available to all the needy elders. More important than pensions is the launching of the great Federal system of thrift annuities, paid out of compulsory wage and payroll taxes. An event of major importance to this country occurred the other day when a 23-year-old New York stenographer received the 26,000,000th old-age account number and card. Some day, if all goes well, earned annuities will be paid by industry’s and employees’ savings to all American workers reaching the age of 65. Plenty of work lies ahead for the friends of real social security. The Social Security Act is a far-from-perfect instrument even for meeting its limited aims, and will require many amendments. The great field of health insurance is practically unexplored. We have only tapped the problems of the masses of underprivileged men, women and

Whereas in 1927 only four states were giving inadequate pension help to about 1000 old

_ THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES .

The Meanest Use of Power—By Kirby

PRIJAVS REA Jews ANG

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MUSSOLINVS 3 ‘MARRIAGE LOANS® TO STIMULATE - BIRTH RATE

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Writer Doesn't Know What to Make of Hilarious, Crazy Miami And Finally Decides It's Cockeyed.

MIAMI, April 19.—I swear I don’t know

what to make of this crazy, hilar--

ious, but altogether pleasant town. The locals don’t know what to make of it either, and perhaps the best way is not to look for

the answer but just take it easy and have a good time. For a dozen years, the boys have been saying that the rough and tumble days were now past and

that starting next fall Miami would grow up, turn square and lead an honest life. And always next fall, the opening of the horse track, slot machine and roulette season brings in the rakings and scrapings of Broadway and Chicago swindlers, fancy-men, journeymen thieves and ordinary hustlers to hold carnival until the saxophones sob Home Sweet Home in April. The local statesmen put in the off season calling one another porch climbers and door-mat thieves in competition for a lot of penny-ante public offices which don’t pay enough in salary to buy their cigarets. The leading publishers also join the sport and print fearless announcements that crime must go, while a changing group of intermittent blackmail sheets chisel along, printing scurrilous insinuations about people who do nothing about it because they couldn't collect a quarter even if they won in court. Right now, two of the big-shot publishers are engaged in an exchange of insults which in the frontier journalism of Mark Twain's time and place would have called for a settlement with small arms before the ink was dry. But one calls the other a grafter and that one calls the first’ one a notorious racketeer, and the public is left as the merry war wages on.

” 8 ” : A this would be harmless but for a streak of shocking cruelty in the community’s dealings with down and out people and occassionally with real bad men who have the misfortune to get caught. They got a single-handed jewel thief named Henry Sitamore a few years ago and gave him 40 years, which may have served him right. But then he

broke jail and gave them quite a chase and since then he has spent five years in solitary confinement. His attorney is going to court today not to get him out of prison but to get him out of solitary on the plea that he is going crazy, Meantime, there have been deals between public officials and the underworld which have outscored the total of Henry Sitamore’s thieving but nobody ever spends an hour in jail. One representative of the slots estimated that the profit on a single season would come to 20 million. Now the slots have been voted out by popular referendum but if you think there will be no slots in Miami next year you are just being naive.

” ” o HRY SITAMORE'S plight is not likely to wring many hearts for he is a very low character, but if that one doesn’t touch you I think you might feel at least a twinge of resentment against the so-called hobo express which is a motor truck that carries out hungry and busted men whose only crime is poverty and dumps them over the northern county line every morning in the big season. Yet, while busted, weak and hungry Americans, including a possible few with self-respect, are riding the hobo express, the town positively crawls with wellknown police characters from big northern cities and people seem to think that is all right.

I tell you this is a cockeyed country. There never was anything like it anywhere.

Mr. Pegler

The Hoosier Forum

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

CHARGES MERIT BOARD SYSTEM A JOKE By a Taxpayer for 23 Years I see that a certain man says the Merit Board is a joke. And so it is, as many of us can see. More than a year ago my son made application for a fireman’s job. The application was signed by five good citizens (as required). One of the signers was a local judge. Nothing was ever heard of it. Recently a neighbor's son was given a job as a fireman just as he reached the age of 21. His father is a politician and has a good job. His mother said that when the boy was 21, they would put him on the Fire Department. This boy failed the examination twice,.I underscand, and still he got the second examination closely following the first. I've heard that if the first examination is failed they shall not have a second until a year has passed. I den’t know whether this is true or not. After another applicant had failed to pass the physical examination after passing the Merit Board examination he was given his place on the department. Now, where: does the Merit Boaid stand on this kind of matters? ! ”n 8 ” WHY NOT MENTION GANGSTER-KILLER? By Mrs. V. R. Dodson, Bloomington The Times recently contained quotations from an article “Made in U. 8S. A.” published in Berlin in Der Angrifi—“It's now the fashion in the United States that a national hero must flee with his second child after gangsters have killed the first.” . It might enlighten us if Der Angriff would tell us the name and country of the gangster who killed our hero's first child. If gangsters and criminals who are in this country illegally were deported there would be fewer inmates in the penitentiaries, fewer crimes and fewer persons to keep on Federal relief. ” 2 ” IDEAL MARRIAGE NO STRIP-TEASE, HE SAYS By B. C.

It is just about time for someone to remove the growing impres-

sion that the ideal marriage is a

species of glorified strip-tease act. Marriage as an institution has taken many a beating, in the long course of history; right now it is taking a worse kicking around from its friends than its enemies ever tried

"| to hand it. : Just recently, for instance, a mu-

sical comedy queen announced that chorus girls make the best wives. Why? Because they are always neat, trim, and seductive: their hair is always waved and their noses are always powdered; and their slips never, never show. Shortly before that, we had a national picture magazine offering a series of photos designed to show wives how to disrobe without shocking friend husband’s esthetic sensibilities, the pictures being posed by some blond esthete from a burlesque show. And, paving the ‘way for these

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Federal Tax Failure, Behavior of U. S. Bond Prices and Proposed Mass . Of Spending Make Washington About as Cheerful as a Mausoleum.

ASHINGTON, April 19.—There is little sunshine and great unhappiness here. It isn’t only the fight on the President’s court plan nor the revolutionary Wagner act rulings. The unexpected March revenue failure and the behavior of Government bond prices, coupled with a mass of proposed spending which, if all permitted, can’t possibly avoid the greatest deficit in the history of the Treasury—this is ominous. : Spending has been a tremendous support to this Administration. It can’t be suddenly cut off without shaking the New Deal structure to its deep foundations. Yet, it can’t be continued if the credit of the United States falters. There are only three ways to prevent what threatens, and one of them is pluperfect ruin—to print money. The other two are increased taxes and reduced spending, or a combination of both,

8 ” 2 “JNCREASED taxes” sounds easy but it isn’t. A glance at the current sources of revenue indicates that the almost confiscatory taxes in the higher brackets—high taxes on big incomes—are failing to increase receipts. There is Senator LaFollette's brave and forthright proposal to go after the lower income groups. Some studies I saw a year ago indicated that the most that could be hoped for here would not exceed

.$200,000,000 and the. expectation can not be | very | much larger today. © ht adele

(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 withheld on request.)

demonstrations, we have had whole reams of advice in the women's magazines, lovelorn columns, and similar spots, all piping in the same tune. If your husband leaves you, or starts chasing butterflies in somebody else’s back yard, it's your own fault. x And it is about time that someone inquired whether the average hubby can possibly be as great a jackass as this line of talk would lead one to think. Just what one of these dainty sirens would look like after she had done an ironing for a family of four on a hot August day is something the advisers never seem to touch on. | Human beings aren’t quite so stupid as all this be-a-siren advice would lead you to suppose. Oh, some of them are, of. course—and they deserve to get exactly what they do get, which is unending disillusionment. But most of them are fairly well-balanced. So can’t we have a little rest from this advice which assumes they are all dolts?

# #2)» MAPS SALVATION

FOR GOLF WIDOWS By Bruce Catton The wife of a noted golfer dramatizes the dismal lot of a “golf widow” by suing for a divorce. Her advice to prospective brides of fairway addicts is “Don’t.” With all respect to the unhappy woman, however, I wonder if she took every step possible to make her married life a success. If she simply sat home ‘and waited for her mate's seasonal return, perhaps she got what she deserved. But a “golf widow” generally can avoid

DELIRIUM

; By KEN HUGHES I felt the cool and fragile lace Brush my fevered, heated face; My maddened eyes have met the night, An interlude, cube upon cube, All shadows, not a single light. I watched the trails of whirling stars Drop fiery streams to earth; I wondered if illurained birth Would end a broken, futile sleep. Then awakening, I found The radiance of day.

DAILY THOUGHT

Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you.—John 6:27.

OU and I toiling for earth, may at the same time be toiling for heaven, and every day’s work may be a Jacob's ladder reaching up nearer to God.—Theodore Parker,

her bereavement by use of a little guile. : For instance, she could insist upon playing golf with her husband. Then, every time he prepared to drive, she could hum a little tune. She could take care that each of her drives would not carry over 10 feet, making it necessary for him to wait as she meandered slowly over the fairway. And she could chatter away about the beauty of Nature, or the drabness of golf togs worn by other women nearby. . In this way, it would be only a matter of time until her mate exploded, broke his clubs, and hence became a home-body. ¢

n ” » FINDS RURAL FEELING STRONG AGAINST C. 1. O. By Elmer Lee Horn, Cloverdale

I live in a rural community and I rotice that there the public sentiment is strong against the C. I. O. and organized labor. Can this be because all they read is on the antilabor side of the argument? If the public had an opportunity to read both sides of the argument, wouldn't persons be apt to reason that with recovery making great strides and with profits, dividends and production near the 1929 level, while employment lags far behind, the surest way for rural folks to share in this increased business and prosperity would be for labor to receive a larger share? Profits and dividends usually go to that class of people who do not spend more more, regardless of income. There need be no fear that workers will get more than they can spend, as the workers outnumber the profit-takers about 10 to one. It stands to reason that rural communities and business in general would benefit if workers got a larger share of the national income. ” on ” CHARGES NAZI-FASCIST TROOPS DRILL IN U. S. By a Subscriber. With the proposal for the change in the Supreme Court, the “Constitution boys” immediately shouted that we must save the U. S. from communism. But these persons are silent about Nazi-Fascist troopers drilling here. Would they have us look for a red herring while Fascism slips upon us? This method was used by Hitler in Germany. They shout of patriotism and Americanism, but they are silent on using the Constitution in defense of the common people. What good is a Constitution to a half-starved, half-naked people while some provileged class lives in luxury on the labor of others? ’ Capitalism operates by the cart-before-the-horse method since it places capital and property rights before human rights. Labor produces capital and the products that make wealth, so in the name of justice workers’ rights should be first. What we need is more education and action for social and industrial democracy.

Seems to Me Heywood Broun

Writer Uses Worestling Match To Show President Should Not Stop Pressing Court Plan Now.

EW YORK, April 19. — A good many

ears ago Frank Gotch of America, wreHod George Hackenschmidt, the Russian Lion. Students of the Supreme Court situation will do well to study the details of this encounter, for it is highly pertinent in the

present controversy. : Hackenschmidt was an established institution and

considered invincible when he came to the Garden

to meet Gotch. Nobody had ever succeeded in amending the Russian Lion or revising him in any way. ; He was one, of the strongest men who ever crawled into a ring, and his muscles stood out like iron bands. with an adversary his victory never came through any 5-to-4 decision. It was always unanimous. : Gotch, a product of the Amer= ican farm, was a good deal lighter than the Russian and less powerful, but he possessed the edge in speed. Almost at the beginning of the bout Gotch worked upon the weakness of his foe. Hackenschmidt had feet of clay, and so, naturally, Frank tried for a toe hold and obtained it. This was a novelty in wrestling as far as the visitor was concerned. He could not break away, and he began to flop about and pound on the floor of

Mr. Broun

the ring with open hand. First he gave low grunts

of anguish, and presently he was shouting at the top of his voice in his foreign patois. Gotch was a good strategist as well as an excel lent wrestler. As soon as he found “that Hackenschmidt was beginning to wilt under: the hold he increased the pressure and clamped down upon the tortured toe. He knew that he had his man on the

run, and, far from letting up, he redoubled his efforts.

” 8 ” 1° be sure he received good advice from the large : crowd of citizens assembled. Naturally, they were in favor of the local boy who seemed to be making good, and with one accord a great chant arose, “Break it off, Frank!”. ; And, indeed, it may have been that Gotch in his determined assault would actually have torn the une fortunate Lion limb from limb. But as the pain ine creased Hackenschmidt flopped wildly two or three

| times and then, when the kindly offices of an inter-

preter were offered, announced that he wished to withdraw. : . As I remember, the match was originally scheduled for best two out of three, but Hackenschmidt did not wish to wrestle any more that night, and he conceded the championship to Gotch. This defeat took away much from his prestige and self-confidence, and the Russion Lion roared rather mildly throughout the rest of his professional career.

” Ed 2

HE bearing of all this upon the Supreme Courh - Palpably, Roosevelt has-

fight should be obvious. achieved a toe hold and applied the pressure. Already Justice Roberts has said, “Uncle.” But at least four members of the Court still hold out and refuse even to mutter, “Second cousin by marriage.” ; In this situation I am surprised to find that certain men who ‘profess to be friends of the President are advising him that he has already gained a suffi-

cient victory and that he should abandon the success= ful hold which he now has and call it a day. I think that all who believe in liberalizing the courts should join in the chant which encouraged Gotch to press on to victory. The only proper slogan for a liberal right now ought to be, “Break it off, Franklin!”

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

William Green Becomes Member of Musician Union Because Miners Likely

Will Expel Him and He Must Be Unionist to Be A. F. of L. President.

| mausoleum. :

There is another reason why no heavier taxes should be placed on small incomes. Between the levies of the states and the nation in so-called “hidden” or sales taxes in one form or another, the “forgotten” man is already getting ‘his right up to the limit of endurance,

” 2 2 : '

T= total spending bill, if not the total tax burden, L of Federal, state and local governments is running close to half the national income. That's as high as you can get and maintain national credit, and you can’t maintain credit on that if there is no prospect of ever getting taxes up to equal outgo. To come to the point of this piece, there isn’t any prospect of doing that in the Federal Government by increased taxation, The Administration, has only two real alternatives—to cut spending or to print money. If the price of Government bonds should take a Serious nose dive, we would have a new bank holiday— or else. The Government would almost certainly be forced to make them redeemable at par—in paper money—the ultimate spilling of the beans. The President is no fiat money man. All these and a few other fat, greasy clouds, like massive uncertainty on ‘the labor-industry front, the international situation, both politically and economically, and the prospect of an interminable and partly paralyzed Congress make this pity as merry as a

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, April 19.—William Green has quietly become a member of a musicians’ union. No one had ever heard the president of the A. F. of L. playing an instrument—not even a Jew’sharp. But he now carries a card in a Chicago musicians’ union just the same. It was a case of “a stitch in time” for Bill. : Some months ago, in retaliation for his attacks on the C. I. O,, the United Mine Workers, of which Green has been a member for 25 years and formerly an officer, suspended him and ordered him to show cause why he should not be permanently expelled. Since then the fight between Green and John L. Lewis has become an irreconcilable vendetta. Green is planning shortly to call a special A. F. of L. convention to oust the insurgent unions. Knowing that the moment he does this, his fate as a miner is sealed, Bill had a friendly A. F. of L. musicians’ union in Chicago enroll him in its ranks. This card squares him with the Federation’s constitution, | which bars an expelled union member from ‘holding office. ” » ” OT undercover rivalry is developing in the new trans-Atlantic airline industry. Until recently, .it appeared that Pan-American Airways, tied up with British Imperial Airways, would be the sole. bidder for U, S. airmail contracts over this,

—

_ Now, however, postal authorities learn confidentially that Glenn Martin of Baltimore, producer of PanAmerican's famed Clipper ships, is planning to enter bids. The Postoffice Department expects to ask for bids in June, anticipating that plane service across the Atlantic will be started early in the summer.

= EJ 8 UCKED away in one of the scores of press hand - outs daily pouring across the desk of Washinge

ton correspondents, was the tipoff on the next move against the Wagner Labor Disputes Act.

The release emanated from the National Asso-

ciation of Manufacturers just one day after the Supreme Court's sweeping validation of the law. The N. A. M. did not attack the decision. On the contrary, it declared that it has always stood for

submission to the dictates of the Court and that the .

labor act decision is no exception. However—and this was the clue to the next move against the law—the association added: : |

“While labor under this law is not compelied to

assume any responsibility, satisfactory working ar- : rangements must be based upon the voluntary assump- : Where there are rights there must be corresponding duties.” : Which means just this: That the Manufacturers® °

tion of genuine responsibility for |its acts.

Association and other interests which fought the act Will Dey Sol 13 heuge its scope by Congressional ope: Ons aa i :5

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