Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 May 1937 — Page 10

"PACE 10

_- The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE Editor Business Manager

i ROY W. HOWARD : President

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Give Light and the Peoples Will Find Thetr Own Way

MONDAY, MAY 17, 1937

ALL HAIL TO JOE LTOGETHER apart from the issue involved in the Supreme Court question we desire to congratulate Senator Robinson (D. Ark.) for doing a remarkable thing. Upon the President’s return from Texas the majority leader was among the first to confer with him. Following the meeting the Senator, speaking of the court controversy “which has split the Senate as wide open as an alligator pear, said that while the battle will go on, nevertheless the vote will be close, and that the packing proposition has a “fair prospect” of passage. Now, in light of all our past observation of political claiming we submit that as something that classifies as first time in history. * For it has been the hitherto unalterable custom of political leaders to claim everything, high, low, “jack and the game, five honors, or what have you, and then let the burden of proof fall where it may. It is only necessary to recall the “in-the-bag” prophe“cies of John Hamilton et al. to refresh the memory of how the claiming technique has operated in matters political. But now comes one who for rugged honesty and selfrestraint is entitled to medals and memorials such as sel‘dom have honored either the living or the dead. Uncle Joe faces the realities. His Arkansas objectiv‘ity appraises the situation. And, answering to a higher impulse than is customary in public affairs, he abandons the ‘landslide strategy and frankly admits that the cause of the Administration for which he is spokesman has a real fight on its hands—that it's close and that prospects for victory are only fair. ar Refreshing, this, as a sunrise in the Ozarks. And we say, all hail to this breaker of precedents.

»wHAVE A HEART" ; T TP to now we've always had a cheer ready for Mrs. Roose- ; velt’s tireless crusades for human rights and things. But ‘when she advocates regular salaries for housewives, as she ‘did in New York the other day, we begin to suspect her of dangerous and subversive radicalism. 2 - Here we are doing our best to make the Little Woman happy and contented. Unstinted praise of her biscuits and beet stews. The benefit of all our accumulated wisdom. Free advice on all subjects. The movies once a week, radio programs in the evenings, a cabaret dinner on her birthday ‘and flowers on Mother's Day. At least two new hats and outfits a years And a judicious bit of spending money to ‘boot. And all she’s got to do is to have and raise the children, cook, wash, iron, run the home and entertain the “boys and their wives! : Next we'll hear that Mrs. R. and John L. Lewis have organized a Housewives’ Union. And then, naturally, a strike for higher salaries, shorter hours and better working conditions. We once read about a Greek lady named Lysistrata, who organized all the fellow-wives of her ‘country into a strike (or was it a lockout?) to stop the war with Sparta. Well, those ladies had enough power to stop “the war. lmagine what a union of American housewives “could do! : Husbands, whither are we drifting?

“ACTIONS SPEAK !

SENATOR BORALL sees fascism growing in this country but he dogsn’t “specify wherein.” . So we will have to look for ourselves, keeping in mind that actions speak more loudly than words. For instance, there is the action of Supreme Court Justice Manser of Maine, who jailed C. I. O. organizers for six months’ and offered them freedom only if they would promise to leave the state. : There is also the Federal judge in Illinois who refused ‘naturalization to applicants unless they would pledge themselves against sit-down strikes. : And Pearl Bassham, Harlan County coal operator whose hired thugs forced his workers to buy lottery tickets and barred them from union meetings at the point of a gun. As we lose our freedom, we move toward fascism.

OUR HATS ARE OFF WHATEVER is said in ‘criticism of our, do-nothing Congress cannot be said of Senators La Follette of Wisconsin and Thomas of Utah, now resting for a few weeks from their useful labors as niembers of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee. These Senators and their investigators have earned the gratitude of every American. Hampered by insufficient funds and obstructed at every turn by the devices of “men who are masters of trickery and evasion, they have exposed industrial practices that make America gasp and blush. : ; How many of us realized before this that certain respectable industries were carrying on private wars against their workers, maintaining munitions caches, spy systems, muscle men,” sluggers, bribers and agents provocateur in violation of law and decency? ; How many of us realized that within the confines of continental United States there exists such a feudal principality ag Harlan County, Kentucky, where private gang law is supreme over all statutes, where slugging, dynamit“ing and Killing are routine to the business of crushing “unions in the coal fields, where the High Sheriff is little more than a boss gunman for mine operators, where every artifice of exploitation and intimidation is openly practiced? How many of us ever had met such fellow-Americans as “Chowderhead” Cohen, “Thug” Johnson, Merle Middleton or little Pearl Bassham? It isn’t a pleasant chore to search these back alleys of industry<and drag to light such practices and such humans. Muckraking reformers do not court popularity or achieve contentment. But if someone doesn’t turn the light into ‘the dark corners the social evils that breed there will thrive .and spread. Whether or not curative legislation grows “from these exposures the very airing of the evils will prove “tonic, a X . 5 Senators La Follette and Thomas are giving the people light, and the people somehow will find.a way. |

| THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES | ~ While Off in the Chateau de Cande—By Kirby

= da SRR RE

Design for a Pair of Bookends—By

MONDAY, MAY 17,1987 | Herblock

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

N." Y. Dog Racing Law Improves Even on Bootleg Setup, for Promoters Legally Can Grab All They Can Get

EW YORK, May 17.—Although dog racing is generally known to be a racket it does not follow that the horse racing industry is conducted solely by chivalrous sportsmen with no motive but to impaove the breed and provide innocent amusement for their fellow-citizens. ‘The truth is that some of the horse parks are operated by known racketeers

and it is further true that the mere presence of

state inspectors in the partimutuel rooms is no guaranty against larceny on a grand scale. The inspector is a political appointee drawing a comparatively small salary. The mutuel room is a mysterious place in which lightning calculators do tricks with figures and, after all, the state inspector - has done -his principal duty when he has certified the total amount wagered so that the State Treasury may collect its legal percentage. It is really no fuzz off the state's peach if the inspector, in return for a cash present from the known racketeers who run the place, looks out the window while they calculate the odds which they will pay the customers after the state has been paid. Our citizens, notwithstanding expensive experi= ence, still have .a childish faith .in machinery and state inspectors however, -and there, is a general belief that the mutuels, under state supertision, are incapable of sin. They forget that the machine is no more honest than the man who runs it and the man who watches over "him. . ° As to that, one of the most austere gentlemen sportsmen in the horse park business admitted in a public hearing a few years ago that he had given bribes to certain officials for permission to run his

Mr. Pegler

plant contrary to law.

: oan T is true that he did not initiate the bribery, for he is known to be no philanthropist, and gave up only in response to severe pressure. The ideal condition for the operator is the hootleg system. For several years the horse tracks in several states were strictly bootleg. This is the system which has been applied to the dog tracks in New York State up to now and, allled it ideal, I must add that the improved in the law passed by the ature to permit dog racing with mutuels but withodt any state control or any provision for a state percentage.

” " 2 HAT plan improves on perfection for it gives the racket legal status and protection against the police while permitting the racksteers to hold back for themselves as much as they think the customers can spare. The New York law which comes before Governor Lehman for approval or veto does not even go through the motions of demanding that the odds be based on the usual factors. Massachusetts dog tracks, with supervised mutuels, handled $15,458,000 in 1935, but New York, under the proposed law, might have 50 tracks scattered about the city and state and might handle easily 10 times the Massachusetts total. And, for all that the law says to the contrary, the racketeers and the politicians might help themselves to half the money, or all of it.

HOOSIER QUIXOTE IN FULL ACTION, WRITER SAYS By N. G., Clinton County Due to radio and extensive reading I have become so worried about the future of my ‘country that I cannot, sleep well. Zealous patriots tell me that the underground is full of reds ready

to come forth and seize the country; that printing presses ar¢ soon to flood the country with fiat money so that my savings will go with the wind; that Europe will soon be butchering itself and we will not be able to stay out of the blood puddle; that Roosevelt wishes to become a dictator, and that our sacred Constitution is to be no more. Woe is me! \ But rescue is at hand, for 4a new Don Quixote has come cut of Indiana and in shining armor bravely goes forth to battle all enemies of the republic, both real and imaginary. Even now this hero is engaged in the battle of the windmills. With a hero- like him, who should we or the Supreme Court fear? Last October “I saw our champion stand before a large audience and pledge his support to the Administration in its fight for economic justice. But he is now willing to sacrifice all to save us from the ignorance of President Roosevelt. And naturally, no such patriotism could -be overlooked by the Liberty League, D. A. R,, Hearst, etc. As a fitting reward, Mark Sullivan has suggested that all good Hoosier Republicans send the new Quixote back to the Senate in 1938. My frightened friends, brace up, and let us reward our little rescuer properly in the 1938 election.

" n ”

EMPLOYMENT ORDER NEEDED FROM GOVERNMENT, VIEW

By H. L. S. The Times editorial, “Another Three-Horse Teoms pointed out that industry and organized labor are likely to charge all the traffic will bear and thus leave the masses without. buying power, which is bound to repeat the collapse of 1929. However, one thing that Mr. Wallace says, that the “Government lacks power to cope with wide swings of the business cycle” is only true in part.

tried to employ man power to provide relief from this condition of buying power collapse. That, of all things, is the worst the Government can do except doing nothing, as Mr. Hoover did. The Government does have the power to control the business cycle swing. In fact, it .could abolish it

completely. Instead of dabbling in

The Government, to date, has only’

The Hoosier Forum

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

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

“made” work, PWA and CCC, the Government can set up full production schedules for all available production equipment in every essential industry. It could provide orders for employing every machine at full capacity. What we lack is the will of the Government to exercise its power to insist on full production in every industry. Relief work is stabilizing poverty. Let the Government order full capacity “ employment. » ” ” ADDRESSES LETTER TO SENATOR VANNUYS By Hiram Lackey An open letter to Senator VanNuys: a : You advocate reducing Federal relief appropriations one-third. Your excuse is the threat of inflation resulting from increasing our large national debt. This is poor politics and worse statesmanship. : Is the plan to throw the burden

of relief on local governments original with you? - For a few months you should live on relief as it is administered by local governments. Thousands of Indiana WPA workers who voted for you wish to remind you that between paydays they do not have so much as a quarter in their homes. Can't you see that if you stop the

THE OPEN GATE

By POLLY LOIS NORTON When I go home : And with world-weary feet draw near the open gate, I think my steps will quicken if I see Along the path blue iris swaying the dance— Gladly step through If I smell lilacs on the breeze!

DAILY THOUGHT

And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment.— I Kings 3:11. : :

VERYONE complains of the badness of his memory, but nobody of his judgment.—Rochefoucauld.

asked

860 million dollars of annual in- :

terest on our national debt you could balance your budget and successfully halt the danger of inflation? You easily could save the above amount by paying the national debt with money backed by the same security that now makes ‘bonds good. Then if you would intelligently tax idle money you could soon pay our national debt. Your work is going to be difficult. People shall learn that children need well-balanced diets more than bankers need millions of dollars they can never spend. : : ‘® nN RESENTS USE OF SIGNATURE “BULL MOOSER” By Ex-Bull Mooser, Richmond In a New Deal newspaper we should expect to read expressions, both by editors and readers, that are prejudiced in favor of the New Deal. Should the reverse be true, the articles are generally reversed in viewpoint and no matter what signature or name adorns -it, the column is its true picture. Bull-Mooser, in print only, exposes himself as an impure propagandist. because of his support of Senator Minton and because he is so terribly concerned about the Republican Party and its treachery. The man that originated the Bull Moose died a Republican and as a Teddy Roosevelt. follower, I resent the use of that signature to such letters. Feeling as he does, he should try to show his colors and realize that he is fooling no one. ” n ” DOUBLE SPENDING NEEDED, WRITER DECLARES

By S. L. The budget is out of balance be-

spending’ power to provide industry with buyers who could otherwise not buy. i : Maybe business would like to cut off these customers and let nature take its course. These persons are

it won't matter if business goes down—just so we balance the budget. We are juggling it now by borrowing from banks, giving them IL. O. Us just like the war debt I. 0. Us, » Business is not able to supply these customers with goods without these I. O. Us, so the price will have to be paid some other way—if not with Government collapse, then with business collapse. What we need is double spending to enable more immediate consumption. But, as usual, we advocate less spending.

cause the Government is furnishing.

consumers who need the goods, but.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun Visitor From Mars Disgusted by

Cosmetic Incident at Coronation “And Decides This Was Last One

EW YORK, May 17.—Canterbury put the crown on just a little bit askew, according to the cables, but it was still another fac--tor which moved me to the grave suspicion that perhaps this was the coronation to end

all regal ritual. Without doubt there was brave display in this show- of little tsars and monstrous Zulus, Probably. it was fashioned rather for the seeing eye than jor the listening ear, since as a radio program it hardly matched up with the performance put on by Jack Benny or Burns and Allen, Yet it was neither the Qroadcast nor a news flash which filled me with concern, if you could call it that, but an advertisement based upon the current: ceremonies.” Naturally I believe nearly all that I read in the paid-up notices, .and this one had a reminiscent, almost a Marie Antoinettish, ring. We will call the London house in question Blank Brothers and the product which it sought to celebrate Ipswich, since neither name is anything like - the genuine article. However, what I read with peiturbation ran as follows: “Paint your face at night—— you'll see a difference in the morhing. . . . For 40 years great English beauties have gone to Blank’s in London for treatments just like this. YesterdayBlank experts were granted special permits to geé: through the traffic lines to make up society women: and court ladies for the coronation.” Since celebrities were present from all the corners of the earth, I haven't a doubt that the familiar Messenger from Mars, the most persistent of all inquiring reporters, was poking about somewhere in the opovd trying to ascertain what all the shooting was about. . T

Mr. Broun

” 4 ” A '* FIRE, I presume,” remarks the Messenger, “and this would be the apparatus to nip the cone flagration in the bud.” : ' “There is no fire,” replies the police bobby strate-_ gically set to answer the fool questions of visitors to London town. ; “Ah, then,” continues the ‘Man from Mars, “I take it that the vehicle is an ambulance intent upon. some errand of mercy. Some. one of the commoners has fainted in the crush, and the surgeons speed to resuscitate her.” » | . “That,” explains the policeman. “was neither engine nor ambulance but the mind-the-paint man dispatched in his wagon to make up the faces of society women and court ladies for the coronation.” | ” n 2 ATES a moment's startled surprise I rather think . that the Messenger from Mars, the plenipotentiary: from .a higher civilization than our own, may have set up a raucous cry of protest, shduting in chipped tones above the edckney cheers and the blare of bands “Let ’em eat soap!” And when he landed lightly upon the coast of his home planet scarcely an hour later I rather think) that he reported to the syndicate which sent him, * “I have seen the last and final coronation. It is the end. The stroke of midnight is at hand, and the golden coach, the tsars and Zulus are about to dis-| appear, as I have done, into that thin air from: which there is no returning.” -

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Pershing Was Panned Unfairly for Designing Fancy Coronation Uniform; He Was Responsible for Making Uniform of Army More Comfortable

ASHINGTON. May 17.—It's a pity to pan Jack y Pershing for designing a Pooh-Bah suit of soldier clothes. He tried to explain that it was just the old general’s uniform with the insignia of rank added. He couldn't get it across. It was too good a story. It is a curious fact that every real advance in uniform came in this country, Frederick the Great invented the German goose-step and every conceivable device to make a soldier uncomfortable. The idea was about the same as the divine plan that put fleas on a dog—to keep him so busy scratching that he would forget he is just a dog. The gorgeousness was on a little different idea. Napoleon once said somewhere that it is easy enough to run away if you are garbed as a jackal but an entirely different matter if you are maned like a lion. There is a lot in that. If a man is ‘all fussed up

in featlrers, hraid and medals for bravery, he does

look to himself and everybody else. more of a heel if he wilts before danger than if he is dressed in drooping drawers at the outset, : # #

Nf itany customs survive long after the reasons for them have vanished—for example, the West Point uniform. They say it is differenti now but yao this writer was a cadet it took the assistance of a roommate and a couple of pl into a full dress coat. P esse The assistance was -necessary to’ squeeze : your entrails up in jour®ribs sufficiently to swagger forth

in a 22-inch bell-buttoned waist.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

It seems to me

Fireworks in Federal

Communications

System Are Predicted:

Justice Van Devanter Expected to Retire After Present Term

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

incredible when I reflect that mine is now just double that. The bright buttons on the sleeve were for a far

literal fact that they were put there for both British and Prussian grenadiers to keep them from wiping their noses on their cuffs and thus getting them all shiny. That's why you have buttons on your sleeve— oh yes, you have; look and see. To

#2 #2 8

AUR Civil War brought a revolution in soldier suits which, unfortunately, did not last. The Confederacy adopted gray instead of gaudy uniforms —with exactly the same idea of the “horizon blue” ‘of Germany and France—low visibility. Both sides threw away the awful choker, strangler and bellypincher coats and collars of Frederick the Great. The influence of the Franco-Prussian War brought them back. Our uniforms again became straitjackets. But not for generals. The collar closed up but didn’t become a choker, : : Gen. Pershing’s coronation uniform was no inno-

of all officers from brigadier general up. But Jack Pershing’ was responsible for making the uniform of the whole Army half-way livable after the war. He gave the boys air by opening their collars, invented the Pershing cap, and took the drab

out of the olive with brass and shoulder badges, fe . Jr: =

more utilitarian, if still ornamental, purpose. It is a |

vation at all—it is the traditional design for clothes

ASHINGTON, May 17.—Watch for some fireworks within the Federal Communications Commission within the near future. For a long time thé FCC has’ been one of the most haphazard and politically minded institutions in Washington, and now some of the practices below its surface are coming to the top. : " One of these is the custom certain radio lawyers have of corralling a bevy of commission stenographers to entertain their visiting clients on dull Washington evenings. ” Another is the substitution of papers in the Commission’s files, accomplished by certain radio lawyers through the co-operation of friendly FCC stenographers. : Another is the setting up of duminy companies in order .to secure or oppose the granting of wavelength licenses. i : A group of righteous FCC Commissioners, irate at what has been going on under their own noses, are now investigating the latter practice. They will soon expose the fact that a Washington law firm set up a corporation composed of three stenographers in order to file petitions with the Commigsion regarding radio licenses at Cheyenne, Wyo., Fortland and Aroostook, Me. Fd » HE system is very simple, The dum _ tion applies for a license in order to

other company from obtaining it. 7 .

” my corporaprevent anagain the

41 may get their wish.

dummy may get a license, then turn around and sell = it to. a bona fide company. Or a dummy may operate on behalf of the company which already owns a wave-length, and by applying for an additional channel, keep .a competitor out. ; Another FCC development attracting attention is | the sudden reversal of Examiner John P. Bramhall | in favor of increased power for the Boston station WMEX, in which ex-Governor Curley is reported to be interested. Mr. Bramhall had expressed opposi= tion to upping the station in February. There has been a lot of internal rowing among FCC Commissioners regarding a cleanup. Old-line Democrats in the FCC fear a Congressional investigation. Progressive Commissioners welcome it. They n

” ”

HE current term will be the last that Justice Willis Van Devanter serves on the Supreme Court. : ¢ : He has definitely decided to retire. Justice Van, Devanter is 79 years old and in poor health. His 27 years on the bench are weighing heavily on him, and he will take advantage of the new Supreme Court pension law and return to private life. : Whether Justice Van Devanter will announce his resignation when the Court quits for the summer, or: wait until the President’s Judiciary Bill has been acted on by Congress, still is in doubt. Opponents of the measure are eager for him to make his decision known immediately.