Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 May 1937 — Page 18

PAGE 18

The Indianapolis Times

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1937

TEN YEARS AFTER. :

“LTE ran into a storm of snow and sleet soon after leaving Newfoundland. He flew at 10 feet and 10,000 feet and was unable to get around it. He thought of turning back, but decided there were as many perils behind as ahead.”

That was 10 years ago today. Perhaps it was well for the young man, alone in the cockpit of the silver monoplane, that he saw only the sleet and the snow, only the immediate hazards of the storm, and could not see what waited far beyond them. : For he might have turned back. He might have retraced his course to safety and obscurity, and watched some other pilot start and win the race he almost—but not quite—had dared to win. And then he never would have circled down from the darkness of a May night to the wild welcome at Le Bourget Field in Paris. He never would have come home, a shy, embarrassed hero, to be worshiped like a youthful god and almost overwhelmed with honors and riches. He never would have been sent, a winged Ambassador of Good Will, to visit other lands. - He never would have met and married the daughter of Dwight Morrow. But also, he never would have suffered the cruel kindness which we Americans heap upon our temporary idols. He never would have known the terror of that other dark night when his first-born son was kidnaped and murdered in the Sourland Hills, or the lone anguish of the weeks and months that followed. He never would have found it necessary to become an exile seeking security and peace for those he loves. Surely it is well for us that the young aviator did not know all that lay before as he battled in the storm beyond Newfoundland. For he flew on to find fame—and sorrow— and he met them both bravely and with dignity. America is richer by the inspiration of a fine example of courage ‘because Lindbergh did not turn back 10 years ago today.

LIFE INSURANCE WEEK : EEKS of various sorts come and go with startling rapidity, but few can be of more importance to the ordinary citizen than the current National Life Insurance Week. A speaker at an insurance luncheon here said that it is now the business of life underwriters to supplement old-age benefits supplied under the Social Security Act with additional security through the medium of insurance. Proper insurance, along with old-age benefits, should operate- to give the ordinary worker that peace of mind which 5 the prerogative of the elderly.

BACK TO THE OLD GAME DISPATCHES from Europe sound a strikingly reminis- : cent note.

The ‘much-discussed Rome-Berlin “axis,” envisioning a blocked-off eastern Europe dominated by the two Fascist dictatorships—what ‘is that but a postwar revival of the old prewar concert of Central Powers? And the British-approved French-Russian pact, cutting across that “axis”—what is it but a rebirth of the old 'I'riple Entente idea? s High in the Alps, beside Lake Geneva, nestles Woodrow Wilson's dream palace of the League of Nations. The palace and the dream are there, but what of the fulfillment ? Elder Statesman Stanley Baldwin, Britain's retiring Prime Minister, addresses an Empire Youth rally in London. The League and the Versailles Treaty, he says, “have belied the hopes of mankind and they have given way to disillusion.” And because of that disillusionment the old balance-of-power game is being played all over again with all the old trimmings of secret diplomacy.

OUTSIDE HELP : r ECENTLY the English Government has been calling

in expert and distinguished citizens to help solve some of its more baffling problems. Royal commissions on monetary policy, coal, the fishing industry and other matters have given valuable light on conditions and counsel on public policy. Now our own Government, in naming an advisory council to study proposed revisions of the Social Security Act, is taking the same rational course. A storm of controversy rages about those features of the security law that relate to earned old-age annuities. Should the insurance idea be abandoned and the risks be spread over all of society? Should the fast-accumulating reserve fund, due to swell into a gigantic total of 47 billions in 1980, be liquidated in favor of a pay-as-you-go system ? Should the Government contribute and eventually lift the pension burden from industry? Should the payroll-wage taxes be kept from rising as rapidly as they do in the act? Should the coverage be broadened to include farm labor, domestics and other classes now exempted ? Should monthly payments begin earlier than 1942? These and other questions are disturbing. On the right answers depend other major policies, such as general taxation and the whole question of spending and saving. In answering them, all possible outside help should be sought. Fortunately there is no need to rush through amendments at this session of Congress. For the present, industry and labor can afford the current payroll-wage tax of 2 per cent, and this rate will remain the same for three years. The Supreme Court has not yet declared the act constitutional. We can take time to think out the answers. There are other Government problems that need the help of outsiders—chiefly the problems of unemployment and relief—and on these also Congress would do well to seek ‘expert advice. : Some of the country’s economic riddles are getting beyond the power of any one group of humans to solve. They cannot safely be left either to partisan politics or to a handful of Presidential assistants, no matter how clever

these are.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

That Stuff From the Basement—By Herblock

No)

OH, ABOUT $25,000,000 WORTH

SIR? os ALL | wRAP Tr uP? pi 1 you WANT ir

NOU TAKE 4 {

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THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1037

A Crack Appears on the Summit—By Kirby

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Washington City Fathers Anticipate Big Deficit and Local Income Tax Has Been Proposed to Help Cut It.

VV ASHINGTON , May 20.—A tragic situation has arisen in the national Capital. The city fathers anticipate a deficit of $6,000,000 for the coming year and a local income tax has been proposed. If that plan-is adopted, those who are privately employed in Washington or engaged in private business here but live in Maryland or Virginia, may be run over for the third time, which would constitute a,

new record for this event. These individuals are now subject to the Federal and State income taxes and the new levy would permit them to put up a third wound' stripe regardless of

the fact that the triple tax might

reduce their income below the normal level of eligibility. The Federal Government, of course, takes first cut, as a matter of courtesy. The State of Maryland or Virginia, as the case may be, then taxes their income, wherever earned, because they are residents of Maryland or Virginia. The proposed District income tax would then be imposed on the ground that their income was derived from Washington. ‘ If these taxes follow the accepted model for state income taxes, then Maryland and Virginia would tax money already paid to the Federal and District treasuries. And the District would tax the money paid the Gevernment and State. This small group thus would become the corps d’elite of the little army of income taxpayers who now number only a little more than two million in a nation of 120,000,000. ” is o HE entire strength of the little army, incidentally, is only about half that of the army of taxexempt state, county and municipal employees scattered about the country, who pay no Federal tax at all, and, in 15 of the states, are immune from the state tax as well, because there is none, The Federal employees would seem to be the lucky ones in the present distressing situation. They are immune from the state in Maryland or Virginia if they live outside the District. And the District of Columbia probably will be recognized as an independent subdivision, too, and thus forbidden to tax Federal hands living in the Capital. Thus they would pay one tax where others may pay three. .

2 ® ” DISTRICT income tax would be a great scourge to many socially refined dowagers, wealthy divorcees and lobbyists who settled in Washington to enjoy the peculiar atmosphere and, incidentally,

escape state income taxes in New .York and other states among the 33 which have adopted this metho of persecution. . . The free territory is diminishing rapidly, although it must be noted that the 15 states which have no income tax also are the citadels of great fortunes and may be able to hold out indefinitely. It may be shocking information, but good authority reports that next to the high-priced judges, scheol teachers and political appointees .in New York and a few other rich states, the most dogged exemptees under the Federal income tax are prosperous farmers who somehow cannot get the idea that the tax was meant to apply to them.

Mr. Pegler

The Hoosier Forum

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

BRANDS CONGRESSMEN PARTISAN POLITICIANS By del Mundo

A recent Times eéditorial, “The Congressional Sit-Down,” was certainly to the point: It stated, in part: “The public is not particularly interested in academic questions of Congressional prerogatives. It is interested in results.” Some politicians are statesmen and some are not. A statesman is a person skilled in government and public affairs. He is always willing to learn something from others. He is willing to hear the opinions of many and learn thereby, but in the final analysis he always uses his own Judgment. ! He will not shun praise when it is due him, and he will take the blame when he is wrong. He realizes that the most honorable thing he can do is fight against that which is wrong and in favor of that which is right He is always on the side of the oppressed and the underprivileged and against tyrants, both political and economic. He never will turn against his principles or surrender his honor, although to do so would save his own life. Most Congressmen, however, are just partisan politicians. The greatest ability is to get enough votes to be elected. At election time they respect everybody, but after the election they respect no one except those who hold positions, political or financial, equal or superior to their own. They think little of the welfare of the nation but much of the welfare of their party and their own re-election. 2 8 8 READER URGES TAXING OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS

By Ward B. Hiner How long are citizens and taxpayers going to carry the burden of taxation, honor, obey and accept without criticism laws made by men who are protecting themselves instead of humanity? Where in the Bible or the Constitution do you find that an officeholder is immune from taxation? Yet, the Supreme Court justices to the lowest City or State official are immune from a large portion of taxes. Why doesn’t someone explain why - Congressmen, Cabinet members or even Judges of the Su-

from paying taxes on their incomes? : We have two or three millions of these high-powered office-hold-ing employees—servants who tell their masters: “We will not pay any taxes. We must enjoy the good of this Government, protection of the police, schools, roads, etc., but those excessive taxes that our Government demands must be paid by other workers, not by us servants.” "If Congress would have the cour-

preme Court should be immune |

(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.)

age of its convictions instead of being frightened by office-holding | politicians and would bring two or three million officeholders (who are receiving more money than average workers) into a taxpaying scheme, that wouid balance the budget quickly. Certainly the time when public officials assume the attitude of dictators to their masters should end. Let them pay taxes the same as the workmen of the nation who earn their taxes by the sweat of their brows—taxes that are at this time breaking the backs of a majority. = on. ” DOG OWNER URGES POISONER BE PUNISHED

By Henry S. Osgood

There happened recently in a highly respectable East Side neighborhood, one of the periodical events that illustrates the heartlessness of someone who, probably to satisfy some personal grudge, scattered poisoned food that would appeal to any dog or cat which might be compelled to hunt food. The “unknown person by this means brought grief to no less than a dozen homes in which he may be admitted as a friend. The police should bring to justice

HO HUM!

By 0. C. WEATHERBY

I toil thru the years For wisdom and sense, ‘Midst laughter and tears And problems immense. I strive all the days Till I'm called old man To build honest ways For a whole life’s span.

I gather thru life The laws that I need, And learn through strife The ways to succeed; And then when I die My wisdom dies, too. My son has to try All the problems anew.

DAILY THOUGHT

And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David ‘the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, anid Davigl his ten thousands?—I Samuel 21:11.

E who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than

| th World War. [now a treaty that the American

vicious.—Machiavelli. «

the individual who was responsible. The writer, who owned a widely known. and kindly disposed dog named Topsy, was one on whom the

ax fell without reason or justifica- |

tion. To one who lives alone at an advanced age, even a dumb animal is a friend that no one should begrudge or interfere with. This is a protest to any person who imagines that there are too many dogs at large and who gratifies an abnormal passion for a fancied wrong by the slaughter of innocent victims.

2 nn = FISHERMAN WANTS POOR SPORTSMEN FINED

By an Honest Fisherman

Do we have any game wardens in Indiana? In all my fishing trips I have never met one. I spend many days along White River, Eagle Creek, Fall Creek and the Canal. Any day one can see fishermen taking undersized game fish. Even now, one can see them, although the season on game fish is closed. I doubt if these same poor sportsmen own fishing licenses.

A few arrests and stiff fines would correct this evil, but I doubt that any arrests will be made. This is a bad condition, but not as bad as the poisoning of fish by our manufacturers. Although the wardens cannot touch the big offenders, they could at least make a few arrests among the fishermen.

#2 nn » U. S. FOREIGN POLICY CALLED PRO-BRITISH By L. L.

Perhaps there wasn't a secret treaty between the United States and Great Britain that drew us into Perhaps there isn’t

people know nothing of that would draw us into war again if Britain got over her head in trouble. But no one can witness the antics of our State Department as evidenced by the so-called Neutrality Law and new foreign policy without knowing there might as well be such a treaty.

American foreign policy has become nothing more or less than a satellite of the British foreign policy. America is building warships and neutrality laws not for the protection of our people, but for the protection of the British crown. Americans should know this.

Then. I believe, they would join with Rep. Ludlow in demanding a vote of the people before America again is plunged into war.

P. S.: The Times being pro-Brit-tish, = will couldn't resist the temptation of again reminding you how I feel about the American foreign policy. It is something that very few Americans think anything about until the dead and wounded begin coming back from the front. : i

not print this, but 1.

Nature Seems to Use a Little, Too Heavy a Hand in Providing Colors and Smells Occasionally.

TAMFORD, Conn., May 20.—By now it probably is {oo late, and so it seems a tragic pity that no competent art commission was called into consultation during creation week. The assertion that the earth is good probably can be sustained, but some errors

in taste might have been avoided. . For instance, you can drop ‘a landscape painter into any meadow and he will come out with a better picture on his canvas than the one which was set before him. And I am not speaking of such mucker= ing up of ‘the countryside as man himself has done, but of more fundamenta} and ancient breaches of good taste. Even insensitive souls have sometimes looked at certain sunsets with arched eyebrows and been forced to exclaim, “Isn't that pink against that particular shade of green just a little too too? I mean it’s sentimental!” I have seen color schemes set in the sky over Hunting Ridge which would be discarded as much too gaudy for the wall of a cocktail lounge. And as I write I am facing a lilac bush which grows just outside the window of this room, which is somewhat generously known as “the study.” When lilacs first proffer their timid incense in the spring one sniffs with appreciation. But after the first three or four days vou don’t have to sniff any more, The scent has become pervasive and has turned to flagrance. Even the sweet aroma of roast meat and garlic is flooded under.

Nature has never learned that enough is as good as a feast. If any debutante came to a ball reeking as the lilacs do, the hostess would have a right to send her home and advise a treatment of Kitchen soap. Besides, I don't think that particular purple goes with that kind of green. There ought to be at least a tube of light chrome yellow in the leaves..

Mr.. Broun

” n ” HAVE always thought that one of the silliest things in Kilmer’s overly familiar poem is the expression of rapt admiration for any tree. And esthete’s answer to the question, “Do you like trees?” ought to be the same as the one which he should give to the query, “Do you like dogs?” “Yes and no,” is the only reasonable reply. The fact that a mighty maple is a magnificent sight does not bring the pitiful palms of Miami under the wire. I WOULD put birds and race horses close to the top of the list of achievements, although the running horse, of course, is not a product of natural selection. And, at that, he ‘isn’t graceful in all postures, The race horse is just about the most beautiful object in the world as he comes tearing down the stretch at 10 to 1. : Walt Whitman, a city chap, quite properly went off his nut in watching eagles in the air, but that same bird is an abject object when seated on a perch.

” " 8

_And even when not caged the birds of the air often

choose to make themselves ridiculous in hopping across & lawn. They love to do it.. Probably it gives them a thrill of danger and adventure, and when they get back to the humdrum business of flying they can afford to laugh at their fine-feathered reactionary friends who say, “If, God had meant us to walk He would have given us roller skates.”

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Some Utility Firms Claim TVA Does Not Deliver Power to Consumers At Less Cost Than Privately Owned Systems and That It 'Fudges' Figures.

* values of $100,000,000 on which its.private competitors would have had to pay taxes of $2,750,000; that the TVA low rates are achieved through these and other , | The charge goes to! .the extent’ of saying, “given all of the subsidies enjoyed by TVA these (private) companies could cut their rates more than 25 per cent below the present

ASHINGTON, May 20.—Some public utilities claim that TVA really does not deliver power to the ,consumer at less cost than privately owned systems and that it fudges every figure which it advances to prove to the contsary. They say that the Wilson Dam cost $60,000,000, that the power companies offered to pay for the power generated by it -at a rate which would be equivalent to the present value of $60,000,000 but that TVA carries the dam, for the purpose of computing cost for rate-making purposes, at only $19,000,000. The Wilson Dam was a World War fantasy—put there to produce nitrate for explosives. New nitrate processes and sources rendered it obsolete. It kicked around in the Congressional ash can for years and was completed by fits and starts. Doubtless a lot of that $60,000,000 represents delays and dead horses. TVA says it cost only $47,000,000. It allocated $11,500,000 of its cost to ‘navigation and defense,” depreciated it and carries it for rate-making purposes at $19,000,000. : i 8 9 Of ECOGNIZING the obvious bunk there is in appropriating economically Yulugiinable amounts for navigation and using them ffor power, there is justification in scaling down the cost of the Wilson Dam. The fairness of the TVA capital charges will be known when ‘it discloses what it is going to charge to power and what to the bunk items on other installations. The other charges against TVA are: shows no

That it arge ifor interest on power-producing

facilities; - t last gear it paid taxes of $45,000 on

Federal subsidies and loans.

TVA levels.”

» » »

petition at the taxpayers’ expense.”

far?” This column will take

To all this TVA answers principally with the chafge against private companies, that their high rates are due to $1,400,000,000 of “watered” securiv” tigs, costly attempts to: influence legislation, excessive fees ‘and “tremendous salaries.” .

HE principal ox now being gored by TVA is Commonwealth & Southern which, up of six subsidiaries without any such complicated capital structure or maze of intercompany accounts as many other holding companies have. It is between this relatively kosher company and TVA that most of the present war of words and fig-ures.-rages, and it is this company’s network of power plants, transmission lines and distributing systems that TVA is threatening with what the company fears is “complete duplication and thereafter subsidized com-

.is a simple set-

However innocent, Commonwealth & Southern is the inheritor of the iniquities of its contemporaries. Some correction and control was necessary and this company happened to be in the path of its application. The question is, “Does the Government go too |

Washington, but

ticn lawyer and

power, has risen

politics. From a town, N. Y. he

time.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Robert H. Jackson, Senior Assistant Attorney General Who Filed Aluminum Suit, Has Risen High in New Deal by Sheer Brilliance.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, May 20.—There are many paradoxes in the New Deal, but none more extraordinary than Robert Houghwout Jackson. Neither a college man nor a professor, he has fathered more of the Administration’s innovations than the famed Brain Trusters. most advanced economic and social thinkers

He is one of the in has somehow escaped the fire and

fury of the opposition while much less Leftist figures have been hounded and blasted. A former corpora-

utility director, as a Government

attorney has been one of the most aggressive and effective foes of these interests in the country. And finally Jackson, devoid of political pull or

in three years through sheer bril-

liance of ability in an atmosphere surchagged with

modest private practice in Jamesrose to senior Assistant Attorney

General, third in rank in the Justice Department. In the next three years he will go much farther Governor of New York, Cabinet member, Justice of the Supreme Court—any one of them is a good bet.

2 = 2

TT capital has just begun to realize how good a

man Jackson is. tary Henry Morgenthau have known it for a long

President Roosevelt and Secre-

He had an important part in the drafting of the at that next, x | violently opposed S

Exchange Regulation and

land.

Holding Company Acts, and in the 1935 and 1936 tax. laws. When the fight over the first two measures shifted to the courts, he bécame the Government's ace sharp-shooter on that firing line.

Ip lower Federal courts in Baltimore, New York and Washington, and before the Supreme Court, he battled thé market operators and utilities to a standstill in their desperate efforts to tie up the enforcement of the statutes. 2. nn : ACKSON’S advancement in rank kept pace with the enlargement of his activities. From the Internal Revenue Bureau he was elevated to Assistant Attorney General in charge of the tax division. Last’ winter he was promoted to senior Assistant Attorney General in command of the antitrust division. In this position Jackson cracked down on “Uncle Andy” Mellon, this time with an antitrust prosecution against the Aluminum Co. of America. In the intervals between handling the trial work on this case and another big -antitrust suit in Wisconsin against a number of oil companies, Jackson has argued the Government's case before the Supreme Court on the Social Security Law and several other acts. : j There is nothing of the wild-eyed radical about Jackson. - . Of middle height, slender and good-looking, he dresses well, is an excellent dancer and an accome plished horseman. With his wife, son and daughter, he lives on a Jovely country estate in nearby Marye 2 : wy

7 J -

Seems to Me |

‘By Heywood Broun