Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 May 1937 — Page 10

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PAGE 10 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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Give Light and the People Wiil Find Their Own Way

SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1937

THOUGHT FOR MOTHER'S DAY S we send flowers tomorrow to the best little mother in the world we should remember the thousands of women who die each year in this country trying to become mothers. : America’s record for maternity deaths is a disgrace. For years the rate here has been highest of any industrial country in the world. In 1935, 58 American women died - for every 10,000 live births, a higher rate than that of any of 15 countries, except Chile and Lithuania. In New York and other large cities the rate is higher than it was 20 vears ago. Of the 12,500 women who died in childbirth in 1935 more thah half could have been saved by proper prenatal and obstetrical care. Some hope lies in the grants-in-aid to the states under the Social Security Act. But the problem must be met chiefly by each community.

DIRTY HANDS IN HARLAN HEER impudence hits a new high in the telegram from coal mine operators inviting Chairman La Follette of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee to Harlan County, Kentucky, for a personal investigation of labor conditions there. . Knowing Senator La Follette, we know that he would go to Harlan, even at the risk of his life, if he had any reason to believe that would be a fair and useful thing to do. The mine owners’ offer to post a $50,000 bond for his safety and to pay him $100 a day for expenses is a gratuitous insult to his courage and his sense of duty. Their effrontery in .suggesting that an investigation on the ground would put them in a more favorable light than did the|recent hearings in Washington is worse yet. Of course the operators, given opportunity, could produce witnesses to swear that all is sweetness and light in Harlan County, that the miners are happy and contented, their employers generous and kind, the mine-guard deputies a noble lot, and that the union which has attempted to organize the miners is responsible for all the trouble. And such testimony, in the light of the record, would be worth exactly noth > For the most damning ev idence concerning labor conditions in Harlan has been supplied, not by miners or union organizers, but by mine operators themselves and by public officials subservient to them. Consider the admis"sions of Pearl Bassham, chief supporter of the Harlan County Coal Operators’ armed thugs to prevent union activities he gypped his unorganized employees by raffles of used automobiles, by gross overcharges for medical services and by 15 per cent discounts on wages drawn before regular paydays. Or the admission of George Ward, secretary of the operators’ association; that he destroyed its records because he anticipated the Senate investigation. Or the admission of High Sheriff Theodore Middleton, who has grown rich since he took office, that the deputies he has appointed to serve the mine owners have been responsible for “a great deal” of the violence in the county. We do not intend to imply that all coal operaters in .. Harlan are as mean as Bassham, that all their agents are as evasive as Ward, or that all public officials are as contemptuous of human rights as Middleton. We do mean to say that, while the coal operators of Harlan continue -to associate themselves with a Bassham, to employ a Ward and to tolerate a Middleton in the Sheriff's office, they have no respectable defense to offer to the Senate committee or te the country.

ANOTHER THREE-HORSE TEAM RESIDENT ROOSEVELT, viewing the political scene, declares the three-horse executive, legislative and judiciary team is failing to pull the governmental load because Old Judiciary insists on sitting down in the harness. Be that as it may, economists and not a few business men are beginning to view the economic picture with con-

cern lest that other three-horse team that caused the 1929

smashup—profits, wages and prices—get out of hand again This three-horse team can pull us steadily toward a “balanced abundance” if industry holds its profits to a reasonable level, divides its higher earnings with labor in proportional wage and salary increases, holds prices down to a point where consumers can afford to buy. It will drag America into another ditch if profits or prices forge ahead of industrial wages and farm income so far that the masses are left without buying power enough to take industry’s goods from warehouses and shelves. 3 Private industry, going natural, is likely to charge all the traffic will bear. Organized labor, going natural, will do the same. Unorganized labor and the unorganized consumers, including the millions of relief families, look for protection to their only spokesman, Government. And, as Secretary Wallace says, the Government today lacks enough power to cope with the wide swings of the business cycle.

THE STORK SITS DOWN VEN from the lands of the dictators, where everyone 1s supposed to snap into action at the bark of the Big Boss’ command, comes news of -another sit-down strike. That faithful old bird, the stork, is taking her own sweet time about fetching in the bambini, kinder, kodomos and the other types of babies required for cannon fodder. Italy’s Fascist Grand Council has met and solemnly approved a sweeping seven-point program to increase Italy’s population. All sorts of threats and cajoleries—promotions for fathers, marriage loans, state dowries, big family bonuses and whatnot—are to be used to break the sit-down. Italy, like all western nations since the war, faces a declining birth rate. declined from 28 in 1922 to 18.9 in 1935. Even Japan is worried over a 10 per cent drop since 1922. Only in wussia, among the important dictatorships, is a different story told. For ourselves let the stork loaf a bit. When we have provided security and happiness for that lower one-third of our population that President Roosevelt talks about, our birth rate probably will start going up again. We want better babies, not necessarily more of them.

Association, that while employing |

In Germany the birth rate has steadily

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Man, the Conqueror—By Talburt

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SATURDAY, MAY 8 1937 |

Passions Unleashed—By Herblock

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Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

N.Y. Legislature Reported Intending To Pass Law to Impose Income Tax on Salaries of State Officers EW YORK, May 8.—The news from Albany has it that the New York Legis-

"lature in its closing hours will pass a meas-

ure to impose the state income tax on a large group of state officers drawing from $2500 to $28,500 a year. These officers, ‘including the Governor, have been considered exempt from both Federal and state income taxes, but Governor Lehman recently dis-

covered, to his surprise, that the state exemption was based on mere” opinions by two attorneys general, whose own salaries were involved in their judgment, and not any decision by the Court of Appeals. Up to this time it has just been assumed that the pay for these jobs, including many political judgeships at from $18,000 to $25,~ 000 a year, was expected. That was merely a tradition, however, and the Governor, .on learning - this, recommended a . specific measure to remove all doubt and impose the state tax. If and when it is decided to collect the state income tax on these salaries, however, the question of arrears and penalties naturally will follow, It appears that the so-called constitutional officers of the state government have been tax-dodgers for many vears, and, even granting that they were honestly mistaken, the law is plain on the matter of arrears and penalties. A citizen in private business or private employ who honestly neglects to return certain income is hit with a 6 per cent penalty immediately, and the rate rises briskly thereafter. If, after years of honest error, his mistake is discovered he receives no discount on account of his good intentions and it 1s assumed, of course, that the same method will be used in dealing with constitutional officers. " ” " ND even though the Legislature, in the press of business toward closing time, should forget to pass the law, that would hardly preclude the imposition of the tax. The present law is plain enough for the Governor’s understanding, and the tax department could proceed on its own initiative to collect the money, including the arrears and penalties. Of course, the revenue which might be derived from this tax on these salaries, and the arrears and penalties, will be almost negligible in a state which spends more than a million dollars a day to exist. But the case is the first gain in the effort to make all public employees tax conscious. True, this small group and the rest of the five million parasites employed by the states, counties and cities, will still be exempt from the Federal income tax, and the Federal employees will still be exempt from the state tax in states which have that tax. n ” n i; UT there arc two measures before Congress now and a third is being prepared, which would extend the Federal tax to state, county and city employees, and this one, when passed, will draw retaliatory state laws imposing the state taxes on the Federal people. There is still some patriotic protest from the taxexempt on the ground that if the Federal Government is permitted’ to tax state, county and city salaries, the states will lose their independence. That alarm is late, however, considering that the states, counties and cities have been using Federal money to pay their expenses, and, in a not very remote way, have been paying their help with Federal cash.

Mr. Pegler

I university | latter

The Hoosier Forum I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

ADVISES DR. DEERY TO GET A SOAP BOX By Bull Mooser, Crawfordsville The Rev. P. A. Deery, Bloomington, seems to be on a crusade to oust Prof. Rey from Indiana University. His complaint against the instructor is that the vors the Spanish Loyalist cause. He infers that no one favoring ‘the Loyalist cause should be

{ allowed public employment.

I have no objection to Mr. Deery crusading for the German and Itallian cause in Spain, even though he does seem to be- ill-informed concerning the history and present facts. In America, the ill-informed as well as the well-informed, have themselves freedom of speech. . i. But I do object when Mr. Deery denies to Mr. Rey the right which he assumes himself—the right to freedom of expression. If Mr. Deery wishes to continue this type of crusading, I would say to him, “Get a soap box.”

through

2 2 nn DOUBTS MANKIND'S CLAIM TO CIVILIZATION By W. P. 8.

Future historians, says Rep. Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, will chuckle at the Congress that voted to keep the United States out of war and appropriated a billion dollars for a defense establishment for use if it got into war. The gentleman from Illinois is right, That is, what he says is true, but it is only half the story. Future historians are going to have many a laugh over what we call our “civilization,” but the biggest laugh of all will be ‘over our thinking we are civlized. The Washington Monument is 555 feet high. If we think of that as representing the age of the earth on which we live, a penny placed on top of it would represent the age of man. And if on top of the penny we balanced a thin bit of tissue paper, the thickness of that would about represent the age of our so-called civilization.

We think we are smart. On some

{vther planet at this moment there

may be beings so smart, so far beyond our own development, that they are now looking at us as we look at microbes under a magnitying glass. They may be laughing at our antics as we laugh at the antics of white mice chasing each other round and round in a revolving cage—little creatures too dumb to stop stepping on one another, Yes, the gentleman from Illinois is pretty nearly right. We haven't sense enough to stop murdering one another, either in war or in peace. There is no such thing as “civilized warfare,” yet people who boast of their “ancient” civilization still use war as an instrument of national policy.- They still contemplate wholesale, horrible slaughter as a

the right to make a nuisance out of |

~ (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.)

means to getting something they want. So, for the present, there is not the slightest inconsistency between the effort of Congress to keep us out of war and a billion-dollar appropriation to save us from extinction in case we are dragged in anyway. _The aim of every city is to make its buildings as fireproof as possible.

But. no one thinks it inconsistent | when it taxes its citizens to provide

an expensive fire department for use if and when fire breaks out. Thus, while future historians unquestionably will have many a belly-laugh at mankind's expense, we seriously doubt whether this particular growing pain of ours will afford them much merriment. Our bet is they'll cry.

£4 n 2 CALLS WPA SETUP UNFAIR, WASTEFUL By a WPA Worker, Boggstown ccc work is of such an outstanding nature that it will undoubtedly be made a permanent proposition because men of character, honor and impartiality have directed it. WPA work has never been above

criticism. It has been wasteful, inefficient, unfair, and partiality has been shown. : Men who are not in need, who have drawn corn and hog money and who are property owners with incomes from other sources are still on WPA work in this county. Many men who have no property, no income, no chance to get other employment and who have four to eight children to feed, clothe and keep in school are fired. This, in the face of Mr. Hopkins’ many statements to the public that none

“I LOVE YOU”

By VIRGINIA POTTER “I love you” is a simple phrase, And often used by all— But often it is said in fun, Without a thought of sorrow That it may bring to someone—When left alone-—tcmorrow. Be careful when you say it, Lest you should break a heart, "And use it only with the one— From whom you'll never part!

DAILY THOUGHT

By the breath of God frost is given; and the breath of the waters is strained.—Job 37:10.

ATURE is but a name for an effect whose cause is God.— Cowper.

‘Government.

who is in need will be dropped. How can he get back? Many of those in official positions threaten the: “reliefers” that “It won't do you a bit of good .to take it higher up. It will only be referred back to this office anyhow.” Wno can we look to for justice? Some who hold supervisory positions here are almost absolute in authority. There are many here who are qualified to handle almost any project without excessive salaries being paid out to those not needing |. them. You can hear much about WPA workers leahing on their shovels but very little about officials riding arcund in fine cars. We have asked for an fnvestinator to eome here and interview workers to get the facts about a condition that should no longer be tolerated. It would be better to stop WPA activities entirely than to permit

them to continue under the present setup. ” un u GOVERNMENT BY BULLETS IS HELD UNDEMOCRATIC By “Friend of World Democracy” The Rev. Mr. Deery’s recent Forum letter claimed that one of the Indiana University professors. as head of the Friends of Spanish Democracy, is supporting communism in Spain. It is an easy matter to call anything we do not agree with by names that are malodorous. Franco has already proclaimed a dictatorship in parts of Spain where he has overthrown the duly elected The Spanish people put their Government in power by the baliot. Franco has partly upset its power by the bullet. Bullets are not a democratic process. They are being used to maintain by force the feudal system in Spain. The privileged classes never surrender by democratic processes any of their power over the masses. ” 7 ” DEFENDS KERN AGAINST PARTIALITY CHARGE By William Lemon A gentleman who signed his name “One Who Thinks He Knows” in the Forum and accuses Mayor Kern

of showing partiality with regard to the police and firemen Merit Bill | must be a dissatisfied customer. | Mayor Kern is known for id honesty and his justice. I believe that the writer should try .some | Kentucky or Tennessee city to show | his police ability. Of course our Mayor could have missed a future Nick Carter or Sherlock Holmes. The police and fire departments

‘are supposed to be half Democrats

and half Republicans. But the Republicans left office with these departments overloaded and lopsided with Republicans, so it may take time to balance them up.

It Seems to Me

‘By Heywood Broun

Pulitzer Prize Awards Are O. K,, But Columnist Wonders Just Why Unemployment Went Unnoticed.

EW YORK, May 8.—All columnists should love the Pulitzer Prize Committee, because once a year it gives them a chance to lambast the selections of the judges. But this time 1 cannot very well cut

loose in condemnation. If I were still a dramatic critic I would have voted for “You Can't Take It With You” rather than “High Tor.” And all the various awards go to pieces of work.which are

worthy. If I want the Justices of the Supreme Court to follow the election returns ‘I cannot very well bawl out the Pulitzer Committee for doing the same thing in choos= ing “Gone With the Wind” as the most notable novel of the year. I do not think it an enduring work of literature. Still, as I see it, the function of the Pulitzer judges is not to choose for all time but to consider the factor of immediacy. However, if their work is judged : from this point of view I am left a little bewildered, although not terribly hurt. It has not been my good fortune to become acquainted with all the specimens offered for the various awards,

Mr. Broun

and yet I am distinctly puzzled to learn that nobody

did anything noteworthy on the. stage, in a novel, in history, biography or journalism remotely: touching the most important issue of the day.

I'am assuming that if you stopped that old friend |

“the man in the street” and asked him to name the mest pressing problem with which America has to al at the present He would answer, “Unemployment.” »

” ” ”

ERHAPS the Pulitzer Prize Committee is right. may be that no series of stories, cartoons or editorials dealt adequately with the question of unemployment and its ‘corollary, the growth of labor organization. If this is true it is an indictment of our national journalism. Several papers were honored for making courageous and effective fights against local rackets of one sort or another. But I want to call attention to the final judgment of Lincoln Steffens, who was the greatest of all American muckrakers. Before he died Mr. Steffens came to the belief that he had more or less wasted his time in exposing “the shame of the cities” and in similar researches. The first attack upon the problem of unemployment ought to be a survey of its cause, extent and geographical distribution. Three Administrations .in a row, counting Mr. Roosevelt's second term, have failed to tackle this task. That is where the newspapers of America ought to step in.

» ” 2

{ is not an easy job. But by co-operative effort, it

you please, an association of papers ought.to be able to get reliable figures and not remain dependent upon the guesses of Secretary Perkins, William Green or Senator Vandenberg. »A great deal has been said from time to time by publishers about their function of service. It would be captious to contend that they| fail wholly in this function. Possibly there might be a little more teamwork Detween the newspaper boys and the Pulitzer pundits. And until the laurel wreaths go for something more than good local police work I intend to hold to -the opinion that something is wrong with the committee or the newspapers of the nation.

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Only About 58 Per Cent of Billions Spent for Relief Trickles Down To Reliefees; Rest Goes for 'Overhead,’ Materials and Equipment

ASHINGTON, May 8.—Harry Hopkins is reported to have said that a cut of $500,000,000 in relief appropriations will fire 400,000 relief workers. That figures up $1250 per worker on relief. According to the most reliable current estimates, 32 per cent of all. American families (averaging a little over four people per family) in 1929 were living on incomes of less than $1250 per year. This would indicate that relief living is at least as fat as that of one-third of our employed population. Indeed it would indicate that it is a lot fatter because the $1250 relief figure is the income of an individual who may or not be the sole support of a family of four, which in turn may or may not have other breadwinners, while the estimate of family income is total intake of an entire family of four. The error in this is that the whole $1250 doesn't go to the relief worker. Only about $720, as an average, goes to him. Accurate figures are not available, but it is generous to say that only about 58 per cent of the billions spent on relief trickles down to those on relief. Where does the rest go?

# 8 ”

ME HOPKINS says the total overhead is only 4.7 per cent and adds that 10 per cent is considered good administration in business management. It all depends on what you call overhead. I know of a i in which overhead was “reduced” by just transfefring the cost of clerical force from

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Key Pittman, Senior Senator From Nevada, Presides Over. Senats | Most of the Time and Is One of Most Powerful Men in Upper House

» the general office to a bunch of projects. kins’ boys roll their own as far as accounting is concerned. It would be interesting to see an independent audit of the seven billions or so dollars they have broadcast. I know that it would show no dishonesty or graft, but it would disclose much on which to plan ways for preventing the loss of the 42 per cent. ” ” ” F course, a very large part of the lost 42 per cent goes for. material and equipment. The rule at starting was that no more than 30 per cent should go for this. On any worthwhile construction that is impossible. The rule was evaded, in some cases, by simply employing a lot more people than were necessary to doc the job. That satisfied the percentage rule but it inflated the cost of the finished projects. If part of these billions went to provide permanent, - necessary improvements at reasonable cost, it might be better defended. Some of it does, but most of it doesn’t. If we could afford to spend these diverted billions that also would be another story. But, while we must maintain relief, we must also preserve the Federal credit. Only 58 per cent of all those billions reaching the destitute! Seven billions spent to see that “nobody is going to starve in this country,” and three billions

diverted from that purpose! Tf

Mr. Hop-

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, May 8—The man who has presided over the United States Senate longer than anyone else during recent years is not the Vice President, whose job it is, but the senior Senator from Nevada, Key Pittman. Senator Pittman is thin-faced, slender, mild-man-nered in speech, but He maintains better order in the Senate than any other of its presiding officers. Ruling debate in the Senate is no child’s play. The officer in the chair must recognize every Senator immediately. He must have parliamentary rules at his finger-tips. He must be quick. He can make no mistakes. Senator Pittman fulfills. all of these requirements. Key Pittman is one of the most powerful men in the Senate. This is partly due to seniority—he has been in the Senate 24 years—and partly due to his chairmanship of the important Foreign Relations Committee. But more than anything else it is due to a slow, steady persistence. Senator Pittman doesn’t wan! very much, but when he goes after it, he usually gets it. ” » » ENATOR PITTMAN works hard while in Washington, but every summer he likes to get ouf lin his car and drive through the West. He never stops at hotels, never lets his office know where he is.

Rising -every morning at 9 he drives about 400 miles,

gets into a tourist camp about 4 p.. m,, and lounges there the rest of the evening. He likes to get into camp early in order to get the pick of the cabins. Once last summer, however, Pittman stopped at a hotel in Pocatello, Ida. He was recognized and immediately “sought out by newspaper reporters, who wanted to know where he was going He told them he was going to Yellowstone to fish. . “That’s where Herbert Hoover went, just yesterday,” he was informed. “What do you think of Hoover, Senator?” “We're spill fishing in different waters,” Pittman replied. 8 8 nn ENATOR PITTMAN approaches. being one of the - economic royalists his chief in the White House is always berating. He was born of wealthy parents and educated by private tutors. But he goes down the line for Roosevelt almost 100 per cent. : His handling of the Neutrality Bill was a masters ful piece of legislative engineering. Pittman managed it simply by holding up the bill until just before the old Neutrality Law was about to expire. With only two days left, he brought otit a secret draft which he had worked out in committee: and which was exactly what Roosevelt wanted. | Thanks to Senator Pittman’s skilful handling, the

measure shot through Congress in. one afternoon,

thereby giging Roosevelt the greatest power for peace or war ever extended to a President.

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