Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 May 1937 — Page 14

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The Indianapolis Times

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

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{ SCRIPPS — HOWARD § Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1937

"MRS. OVID BUTLER JAMESON HE death of Mrs, Ovid Butler Janleson has taken from = Indianapolis one of its most distinguished personalities. Sister of Booth Tarkington, Mrs. Jameson was not obscured by her brother's genius but was noted in her own right as author, hostess, patron of the arts and political figure. . ; Her diversified activities brought her in contact with statesmen and artists who prized her friendship. Her hospitality to visiting celebrities at her home, Barley Bright I1, brought her recognition abroad. Her generosity and encouragement to young artists made her beloved by them. Indianapolis, we fear, will not soon see Mrs. Jameson's like again and will be much the poorer for it.

TURN LIGHT ON RELIEF ONGRESSMEN, arguing over the amount of the next Federal relief appropriation, are like blind men groping in a fog. For four years they have let the President lead them. The President has taken advice as to direction from Administrator Hopkins. And Mr. Hopkins, whose theory is that prosperity depends on a constant redistribution of wealth from the bottom upward through big relief spending, has conducted an encrmously expensive program. But now the President demands economy in government. The country grows jittery over the unbalanced budcet. Congress, beginning to realize that big spending can’t go on much longer without big tax increases, eyes the relief program more critically than ever before. Maybe, it is uggested, there ought to be economy in relief. The trouble is that Congress has no reliable facts upon which to base independent action. The $1,500,000,000 “asked by the President is obviously an arbitrary figure. it ‘is merely what Mr. Yoosevelt estimated, last winter, would be available if the 1238 budget achieved a technical balance. He stuck to that amount after it became clear that even a technical budget balance would not be achieved by 1938. The $1,000,000,000 which Congressional economizers talk of appropriating is also an arbitrary figure. Those who advocate it do not know, they do not even hope, that it will meet the needs. Certainly it will ~ot adequately finance 12 months of WPA work relief. Nor, probably, will §1,--500,000,000. Indeed, Mr. Hopkins could cheerfully spend $2,000,000;000 or more on work relief, ‘as demanded by the Mayors and by some Congressmen. n 2 2 = " ” T has not been proved that ‘work relief is indispensable or even that continued work relief is desirable. We go on with work relief because Mr. Roosevelt—and Mr. Hopkins—say we rust. Many Congressmen believe that direct relief would be better, reaching more needy people at less cost. But on that point, again, they have no reliable facts, unless they wish to rely upon such facts as Mr. Hopkins sees fit to give them. So Congress, whether it appropriates a billion or a billion and a half, will be acting blindly. That can’t be helped this time. But Cengress should determine now not to be caught in such a pinch another time. A pending resolution, by Senators Murray of Montana and Hatch of ‘New Mexico, proposes appointment of an executive commission to get reliable relief facts and to evolve a long-range program. Under this resolution, the President would be asked to name from five to 15 “wellqualified and distinguished citizens,” arm them with factfinding powers and require them to report back to Congress next January. : It is hardly possible that the President would refuse to co-operate with Congress to the extent of naming an able commission which would approach the subject with open minds and develop accurate information to be used in shaping future relief policies. Congress, more than Mr. oosevelt, will be blamed if suffering comes from inadequate relief appropriations or if fiscal disaster comes from wasteful relief spending. Congress is entitled to see its own way through this problem. : ;

THE ACORN AND THE OAK HE Social Security Board's announcement that 323,684 persons or their estates will be eligible this year for lump-sum or death payments under the Federal old-age benefits plan will remind us again that America is undergoing profound changes while hardly being aware of it. These payments from the Federal thrift fund now being fattened by payroll taxes represent our first fundamental attack on insecure old age as symbolized by that vanishing institution, the poorhouse. ; This year’s benefits will be small, to be sure, ranging from a few dollars to about $105 each and totaling not ‘more than $6,000,000. They are not regular annuities— these begin in 1942—but special benefits payable to workers in ‘‘covered” industries who reach 65 this year, or to the heirs of workers who died this year. They total 314 per cent of such workers’ earnings since January, 1937. In less than five years the fund will begin paying out annuities to those among some 26 millions of ‘‘covered” wage and salary workers who reach 65. In about 40 years, when the fund is in full flower, benefits will range from $10 a month to $85, and will average around $50 monthly. Of course this part of the act is not perfect. It leaves out about 23 million ineligible workers—domestics, farm hands, employees of public institutions, and others. The fund to be carried by the Government is too large for social safety. And the Supreme Court has yet to say whether the whole thing 1s constitutional. “ Today this ambitious thrift scheme is an acorn of accemplishment. Given certaih amendments making it economically sound and court approval on its constitutional validity, it should in a few years become a gigantic oak

covering the bulk of our gainfully employed from fear of |

actual want in old age.

WwW ho’s Afraid ?—-By Herblock

on WA qd WEEK ¢» |

THE

oH, IS THA HA &y

‘TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1937

‘It’s 161 Years Since the Revolution ’—By Kirby

Toa

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Columnist, Feeling Liberal, Admits Argument That Dog Tracks Entice Money From Poor Is Not Valid

EW YORK, May 18.—This is one of my liberal days, and in that mood I have to admit that one of the principal arguments against dog racing is no argument at all. I refer to the contention that the dog tracks entice the poor and absorb money which

It is true that the casual and intimate atinosphers of the dog tracks attracts a class of people who some-

how feel outclassed and unwelcome at the horse rings. It is true, also, that tiie dog tracks operate at night when people with work-ing-class jobs and women with household responsibilities = have time to take the air and gamble whereas the horse plants do business only in the afternoon. I will grant that fakery is a little more rife and ribald, if that is possible, in dog racing than in horse racing, and that the dog people are more intimately connected with the underworld of crime. . However, the horse people should have the decency to blush prettily when they decry the presence of racketeers in the dog business, because everybody in the sport industry knows that certain horse tracks are owned and operated by felonious characters. And every community which has been host to a horse track knows that race meetings, even of the best, attract swindlers, pickpockets and free-style thieves in large numbers. The matter with which I quarrel is the assumption thatthe workingstiff and his wife have not the same right to throw away their money that other people have and need big-brothering from a class of citizens who are held to be superior, including the grocer and the installment man.

s Ed n

F a poor man likes to watch the dogs run at night that should be his privilege as long as wealthier people are allowed to watch the horses go. If he wants to bet on the dogs in the same way that others pet on the steeds, that should be his privilege, too, and the interests of the tradesmen who claim a sort of prior lien on his earnings are of no importance, for many superior citizens also frivol away money on the horses which, by the same reasoning should be earmarked for their creditors. The owners of moving picture theaters, the merchants and others who deplore dog racing because it diverts people’s money to the mutuel booths have no legitimate voice in the question. If you argue that the dog tracks should be rigidly supervised and heavily taxed you are on different ground, for they handle millions of dollars and the practice of taxing gambling is accepted wherever racing is allowed, except in New York and New Orleans. T 2 7 » N° that many communities have compromised their principles, waiving a little morality for the sake of the revenue, it is wrong to discriminate against the dogs in favor of the horses, for no man can prove that a horse race is better entertainment or necessarily any more honest. In fact, the opposition to the dogs almost invariably rests on the contention that the poor man can't afford his losings, which is true, but immaterial. Nobody at a horse race is required to give a financial statement and prove that he can stand a loss, as a prior condition to a bet. Mr. La Guardia of New York has unwittingly in-

Mr. Pegler

tle pleasure and the poor what takes the blame.

ASHINGTON, May 18.—The President's court proposal has 42 dependable favorable votes— plus the old V. P. in cas2 of a tie. The outcome rests on whether pressure or persuasion can swing five of the 15 Senators who have not crawled so far ig a limb either way that there is no'crawling ac : All the talk here is that compromise is impossible. Why wotildn’t that be the talk- at this stage of the game, whether compromise is possible or not?

Gen. Grant's youthful horse-trading offer is the only case I know where a trader tipped his harfd at the offset. The General loved to tell on himself that being sent as a boy by his father to buy a man’s horse, he started out by saying: “My father told rhe to offer you $100, but if you won't take that, to go as high as $150.” Mr. Roosevelt is not so simple. Of course it isn’t time that no compromise is possible.

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UT it is being whispered around that the President’s view is that adding two judges would be a real packing of the Court. If that were spoken openly, there could hardly be a compromise because the whole Administration argument is that the President’s plan is merely needed reorganization and not packing at all—which is a negative way of condemning court packing as vicious. Several Senators, who are up for re-election in

4 1939, are almost eg. “If I vote against the Ad-

otherwise might be spent for milk, meat and clothing. $

dorsed the principle that it’s the rich what gets:

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Outcome of President's Court Proposal Depends on Whether Five Of I5 Fence-Straddling Senators Can Be Persuaded to Vote for It

The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly

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

NATIONAL DEBT IS HELD CAUSE FOR CONCERN By A. J. McKinnon

Recently, M. H., Fairmont, stated in a Forum letter that very few people know what they are talking about on the Court plan, and that the country is sound.

If he is so sure that our country is sound, let him send a letter to the Hon. Robert F. Rich, Washington, for his address on the floor of the House, about how the Federal Government is going in the red at the rate of $7,935,000 a day or $546,000 more per day this year than in 1936.

Then Hiram Lackey tells us that it. does not matter who owes our country as long as we demand justice, that our national debt is only a dream and the people really owe the debt to themselves.

If that is not putting the cart before the horse, then I am a dummy. The fact is that the people | are the Government and about one in a thousand knows what representative government is about. And Mrs. E. C. writes that food prices are too high and she asks how. it is possible for families to buy their own homes. There is one 8.8 2 consolation for her. The Home Own-; MOVIES DID STRIKE IN ers Loan Corporation is to launch) ggppy, STYLE, BELIEF foreclosure proceedings against 160,- B Critic 000 of its borrowers. It might be| > * : Pi well for Mrs. E. C. to write the cor-| A real bang-up movie must poration’s real estate department for | hav. a hero, love interest, a plot, their list of rentals: she might get| Plenty of suspense and a happy a real nice home for less than $22 a | Kiss-and-make-up - ending. And month. If she would like to take the | fer be it from Hollywood to stage risk of foreclosure she might make a | anything but a bang-up show. The latest piece~was what the

small down payment on a home. So Take it from me, Mrs. E. C. it|DPress agent calls stupendous. It was will pay to write now to the HOLC, from real life, lasted a Feoek al I feel th h h my of | a cast of 4000 acters and ended in py I a ramshackle Hollywood fight stad-

lawyers start to take handsprings x : d i , prop- | ium with cheers that the dispatches Sround Ameria You san buy pop said “could be heard for blocks.”

erty cheaper than you can shake a : ; € 2 stick at. The sad thing about it| This ovis Mug br £oliog Sau i ing into and | for One, an ne for ; evm ne pen cently the Screen Actors Guild

where are we going? LET IT RAIN

If we stay asleep at the switch much longer we may wake up with By ELIZABETH JOHNSON If my soul in some small obscure

a cyclone, not a nightmare. way

2 ” ” REPORT TWISTS FACTS ON Is like the end of a sultry day Without peace, that must have a

JOBLESS, IS CLAIM storm with which tc clear

By del Mundo A careful analysis of a recent Ie- |, p,qened, feverish and surcharged atmosphere—

port by the National Industrial Conference Board on Employment | is interesting. The report states: “Total employment: in all industries and occupations for March (1937) was 45,311,000 .compared with 47,276,000 in 1929, or a decrease of approximately 4 per cent.” This would lead one to believe that employment is now 96 per cent of that in 1929. Such false propaganda as this is a plain misstatement of fact. ‘The same report also states: ‘However, there was an estimated increase of about 4,566,000 persons to the total of the nation's labor force.” : If we add the 47,276,000 employed in 1929 to the 4,566,000 increase of

(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.)

the labor force since 1929, we have a total of 51,842,000. This is about the number of people now available for employment. Of this number 45311,000 are employed. This. is 87.4 per cent of the total number of people available for employment. This shows that at least 12.6 per cent of those available for employment are unemployed. Including their dependents, this represents more than 20 million ‘people who have earned purchasing power. In addition to these, there are millions whose income is so small that they are a very sthall market for the products of labor. Twisted interpretations of facts will not bring prosperity. Prosperity can be brought about only by an adequate distribution of purchasing power so that there will be a 100 per cent market for the products of labor. 2

If that is what I feel, why I'm torn and sore— If it means this to me—“after calm” —let it roar! If it would ease the pain Let it rain! Let it rain!

DAILY THOUGHT

And he said 1 am God, the God of thy Father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will be . there to make of thee a great nation,—Genesis 46:3.

XOD is great, and therefore He will be sought: He is good, and therefore He will be found.—John Jay.

ministration on this, I can’t be renominated. vote for this, I can’t be re-elected.” This column thinks the latter half of that is

Ir 1

threatened to strike and tie up all the Hollywood studios. As in all good pictures, the hero was fighting for the under-dog. Although the Guild is led by President Robert Montgomery and other glamorous actors and actresses with salaries that run into five and six figures, its strike demands were for minimum working standards for the lowpaid stand-ins, “bit” players and extras, some of whom get as little as $19 a week. The nine major stuadios granted the Guild’s chief demands, and at the last minute the strike was called off. The only thing the piece lacked was a creditable villain. The bosses utterly failed to live up to the role, and outside of the fact that the technicians were angry because the artists hadn't joined their strike, there wasn't a hiss in the whole performance. The final touch to the reconciliation scene was that of Producer Samuel Goldwyn, who blew up because his name was left off the list of signers to the agreement. “I am shocked,” he said ‘as the soft music began to play, “that my name was not included. I have never and will never be an enemy of the fair demands of labor.” Which makes one think there must be something in what Gradwell Sears of Warner Brothers told a New York sales convention the other day about the role of .the movie in modern life. It keeps the world “in love with love.” | ” ”n 2 BACKS LUDLOW ON WAR VOTE PLAN By Bull-Mooser, Crawfordsville

In general, I look upon Rep. Ludlow as an opportunist who is more

a representative of the money-

bags” than of the people. ‘But I am with Mr. Ludlow on his proposed amendment to require a vote of the people before Congress can declare war. We Americans pride ourselves that we have a representative government. Then why not make it as representative as possible? When do wq more need the blessing of representation than when it is a matter of declaring war? Why should the President or a handful of men in Congress have the right to plunge the nation into war? We might use the same line of reasoning on the Court issue. Why should nine men have the right to declare a law, passed by representatives of the people, unconstitutional? Why not require a vote of the people before a law is declared unconstitutional? Some day we will learn that the only way to maintain a representative democracy is to delegate as little power as possible to representatives and to maintain as much as possible with the people. Then we will get back to the old townmeeting way of settling national problems, and we will eliminate some of the so-called curse of politics. _s

| It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun Events Since G. M.- Strike Have Proved Michigan's Governor Murphy Took Right Course in Avoiding Force

NEY YORK, May 18.— Frank Murphy, the Governor of Michigan, made one ot the most eloquent speeches I have ever heard hefore the Consumers’ League of New York at the Hotel Pennsylvania last week. In part the Governor dealt with the sitdown strikes in Flint and Detroit and explained and developed his attitude in that difficult situation. It seems to me that time has worked on the side of the man who stood firm and refused to shoot it out. It is curious that this should ever have been criti- > cized as a sign of weakness. Machine guns are the last refuge of the impotent official in time of industrial disputes. Governor Murphy could have started a bloody civil war in Mich- " igan with all the ease of a man opening a world’s fair. It would have been necessary to do no more than press a button. And the role of the belligerent editorial writers "was even more ; simple. Surely no courage is required to sit in a distant office and type out a call to carnage upon the typewriter at your elbow. Patience and tolerance nearly always require more nerve than that sort of bloody blundering which goes by the name of “action.” > j But though the progress of events: has justified Frank Murphy, so that he was able to report to his audience without assuining any portion of a defensive attitude,.I am afraid that many still read current history without much comprehension. Misconceptions still exist. ‘To my mind the most dangerous of these is the opinion which many pretend to hold that the march of labor 1s a regimented movement whipped up wholly by the great driving force of a single leader.

There are still mutterings about the “loyal” worker who is coerced against his will by the union leader to embark upon the dangerous enterprise of strikes. It was quite a different picture which Frank Murphy drew of the doings in Detroit, and, after all, he was not only there but in the center of all the negotiations, 8 a " - ORKERS very seldom take up the strike weapon lightly. Even the most eloquent leaders cannot stampede masses of men into such action. When hundreds of thousands go out in any industry it is safe to say that they are men and women convinced of the justice of their cause. Indeed, I rather imagine that leaders of C. I. O. may very well have stopped more strikes than they have started in recent months. It seems to be evident beyond argument that America has entered upon a period of radical industrial readjustment. Those who dread chance ought to be thankful that really basic upheavals have been taking place with almost no violence. ; : = zn " >

Mr. Broun

URELY parleys of the interested parties offer a better solution than the test of tear gas and bullets. The very persons who snipe at Murphy ought to applaud him for his services to the cause of peace. To be sure, the period of readjustment is by no means finished. Wages are still less than sustaining in many basic industries: Labor leaders would be derelict in their duty if they called any present holiday along all sectors of the industrial front. Indeed, if they did they would and should be promptly deposed py their followers. - . 1 think that John L. Lewis has proved to be a master strategist for his cause. I think the best quality in his leadership lies in the fact that he realizes that his strength and his: course must always be dependent upon the will of the men behind him.

|The Washingtén Merry-Go-Round

State Department Boys Find Enforcement of Neutrality Bill, Which They Wrote, Headache, Particularly in Regard to War Collections

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, May 18.—Almost every day new

wrong. It believes that all the possible political harm of the manner of proposing the court bill has already been done and that passing the bill or voting for the bill can’t do any more. The opposition has been furnished ‘with all the mud-balls and dead-cats for the next campaign that the incident affords and they will be equally effective for whatever they are worth, whether the bill passes or not. In fact, they might be more effective if the President is licked. Then the opposition could claim that they had saved mother, home and flag. # a = 3 FP the bill passes and the Administration doesn’t come forward with a mess of cockeyed, longhaired legislation to have validated, the tumult and the shouting is likely to die away and the tempest in so many teapots be stilled long before election. My observation in traveling hither and yon is that people are getting pretty sick of hearing about it already. It is also true that while the President has lost the support of some leaders who were with him, while he has lost whatever benefit there was in the air of hopeless resignation among his opponents and also some people who voted for him with their fingers crossed, he has not lost the support of the great mass of people who elected him, iad

gray hairs appear in-the heads of the State Department boys as a result of the new Neutrality act. They have taken over its enforcement from Attorney General Cummings, and they certainly wish they hadn't.

Chief headache is the collection of funds for the Spanish war by various organizations. This can be regulated under the Neutrdlity act, but Spanish sympathizers have posed some stiff problems. One is the query on what the State Department would do if a labor union dipped into its reserve funds and sent money to aid the Spanish Government. This would not be “collection” of funds, since they would be already collected. . : Another is the inquiry of the State Department’s position in case a collection shoyld be taken up for the Spanish Government during a church service. Would the ‘State Department rush in and arrest the pastor and deacons? ” n »

S a matter of fact, one group friendly to Spain is maneuvering to force the State Department to arrest a prominent bishop, rabbi, or labor leader in order to create a test case on the collection of funds. They know that public opinion would boomerang against the career boys. The law requires that in “order to collect funds

. for either side in the Spanish war, you must have a

license from the State Department. Any brother caught collecting funds from his sister. without a license is subject to five years imprisonment. Be Funniest angle is that the law was written in the State Department. : z 2 u »

HOSE guest speakers sharing John Hamilton’s Sunday night radio programs are not voluntary additions. They are forced on the G. O. P. national chairman. :

When Hamilton arranged the four weekly broad-

~casts (without consulting or notifying other Re-

publican leaders), he announced that he would ‘be the only speaker. The first Sunday night this was true. But thereafter, Hamilton divided his time with others. =,

The second week he divided with House Leader Bert Snell and Rep. Charles A. Halleck of Indiana: last week with Senator Bridges of New Hampshire and Rep. Francis H. Case of South Dakota. Reason for this change in plans was undercover pressure by the Congressional leaders. Hamilton is far from popular with this group. They not only dislike him personally but they have a low regard for his political talents. So when he sprang his broadcasting plan they went into a cold

sweat for fear he would loose an attack on thes #™

President’s gourt bill, |