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

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times v (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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Give Light. and the People Will Find Their Own Way

SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1937

THE LEGION AND THE LAW

ANK and file veterans will welcome the clear expression : of policy by Harry W. Colmery, American Legion national commander, against civilian usurpation of police authority. The misguided attitude of some in upholding a false concept of Americanism was putting the Legion in what Mr. Colmery recognized as unfavorable light in many current labor disputes. Public officials, he said, were making repeated statements that Legionnaires would be “put under arms” for strike duty in certain localities. To correct this impression, he-announced: “The American Legion is not a strike-breaking organization. Its policy always has been, and still remains, one of strict neutrality. As an organization, it has never arrogated to itself police authority, or any other authority which is reserved to officials under our democratic form of government; and if there have been isolated violations of this sound American principle they are to be deplored. . . . “The American Legion is pledged to maintain law and order. lt‘is neither lawful nor orderly for private citizens, in or out of the Legion, to usurp powers that are reserved to the police and militia. ...” This tolerant and progressive statement, which frowns on any efforts to deny to others their rights under the law, referred directly to labor controversies. In effect, however, Mr. Colmery deplored such “isolated violations of this sound American principle” as occurred in Angola, Ind., a year ago when red-baiting patriots took it upon themselves to build up a case of criminal syndicalism against a magazine salesman, Paul Butash. This man’s appeal is now befere the Indiana Supreme Court, but the record shows that those who helped convict him did the things which the national commander of the American

Legion denounces.

WELCOME, KIWANIANS! NE of the country’s biggest civic club meetings comes to Indianapolis tomorrow when Kiwanis International opens its 21st annual convention. A staft of executives has been here the last few days working with local committees on arrangements. The vanguard of 6000 expected visitors already is arriving. A ‘splendid feature of the program is that members of all Indianapolis luncheon clubs have been invited to attend some of the sessions. These include the religious musicale Sunday evening, the All-Kiwanis night Monday, the “Pageant of Speed” Wednesday afternoon at the Speedway, and the “Kivanities of 1937” Wednesday evening. Indianapolis, accustomed to entertaining and enjoying about 300 conventions a year, takes particular pleasure in welcoming Kiwanis International.

ONE REASON HE way Indiana police chiefs skipped over the traffic accident problem in their convention Here this week was a disappointment. Safety received only minor attention compared with the latest styles in gas bombs. Ways "to reduce the state’s shameful automobile fatality list received but casual interest. One of the few discussions of the subject was a warning that too rigid enforcement of traffic laws might bring a political kickback. If this be the attitude of enforcement officers, why plead with the public to become “aroused.” Last year’s traffic death record in Indiana was the worst in Hy We begin to [see more reasons why. 1937 fatalities are 17

per cent higher.

BOOMERANG? OT to be cynical but rather to be just realistic we ‘ifeel that, human nature being what it is, the Government on lose in revenue, not gain, by its tax avoid-ance-evasion hunt. That is, unless it is extremely careful about applying the cure after the diagnosis is completed. It’s all a proposition not unlike that of the person who - took his first cocktail and then exclaimed, “Why don't people do more of this?” We are still operating on what we consider to be a very gommon-sense contention, hitherto expressed—that people don’t pay any more taxes than they have to. So, we wonder what a lot of nondevious citizens who have paid all the fine type called for are likely to do in view of what the Treasury Department’s campaign has brought forth in the way of suggestion. Will they take a lesson out of this book of revelations and indulge themselves in foreign holding companies, pension trusts, incorporated cousins, and those forms of " the multiple personality which lend themselves to less for Uncle Sam; the spirit of evasion, avoidance, dodging, or what-have-you being stimulated by the spectacle of lawmakers who themselves live in loopholes and gag at the very thought of taxation that would tax the taxers. ~ We wonder, for example, how many other movie actors of foreign origin are now sorry they didn’t translate themselves into a cold, inanimate, legal fiction as Charles Laughton did. Moviegoers who saw him in the role of Henry VIII, . making love and devouring roast fowl and draining off beakers of wine—and as Ruggles of Red Gap, eloquently reciting the Gettysburg address—may regard Charles Laughton as a real breathing ie To our Federal Hn bureau he is. no thing of flesh and blood and passion but just a British corporation. 2% : We believe a mistake was made in mixing morals and taxes. We think taxation is as much a matter of rules as is football. - The Government has elected use publicity to close - the loopholes that its revenue agents have been unable to plug. In so doing it has departed upon an expedition . that seems to have little regard as to whether the rain falls upon the just or the unjust. However, since the party is on, we go all the way with Robert M. La Follette when he says it is unfair to give only a few persons publicity when many are engaged in the same prachess,

- THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ° Think You Understand the Russian Mind ?—By Kirhy -

SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1937 |

1

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Use of Word 'War' in Steel Dispute Merely a Handy Figure of Speech

To Justify Outrage, Writer Claims.

VV ASHINGTON, June 19. —Quite a few

of our heavy-duty philosophers have

been saying lately that the steel trouble is

not a mere dispute, but a war, and in that case the Army and Navy should be notified

at once, because war is supposed to be their business and not an affair for the cops, the Elks and

the Parent-Teacher Association. War should be a national affair, not a private

enterprise, and it is against the safety of the country to permit an independent war to proceed within its borders, scuffing up the countryside and interfering with the innocent activities of the citizens. However, the term war in this case seems to be merely a convenient figure of speech selected to justify outrage, accidental damage and violations incidental to a fight which has gone out of control. It is, rather oddly, the

pet alibi of some of our liberals Mr. Pegler -

‘who are all for law and order, and

who can bleed for the civil rights of the Puerto Ricans, but in the event of excessive conduct comMite during labor disputes, say, “Too bad. It's war!” : It is my rather juvenile belief that a violation of law or a denial of civil liberties is as bad on one side as on another, and there I see no choice between coercion by Henry Ford and coercion by some one from Union Square. . 2 4 2 GREED that no employer has a right to punish a man for joining a union, it follows that nobody, else has a right to tell him that he must, and that if he doesn’t join and pay dues out of his earnings, he won't be allowed to work at all. If the employer has no right—and the law says he has no right—to snoop and spy on the man’s private affairs and harass him and his wife, then neither has anyone else that right, and he deserves the same protection from both sources of danger. Unfortunately, however, it ‘is coming to be said by some who claim to sorrow for the toiler that if an employer resorts to abuse that is-an outrage, as it is by unanimous consent: but that if a man is blacklisted, starved and pushed around in the name of progress and labor organization, his civil liberties are unimportant against the desires of so many. The desires of the many may be more accurately described in some cases as the personal ambitions of a few, but in any event the sole individual workman's civil liberty has not yet been written out of the Constitution and is not to be legislated out of existence by anyone's claim that a state of lawlessness constitutes war. I may be a little ahead of my time in.proposing that the Government, when it gets through protecting the individual from the abuse and exactions, espionage and coercive pressure of the boss, then should turn its attention to similar safeguards against unions. ’ : ” n ”n HAT time must come, however, because otherwise the labor organization may become a free-lance dictatorship operated within the Government and under its protection, but without the responsibility of government. The enormous treasury which labor organization will amass is likely to become a great

‘political force whose effect might wipe out the liberty

of those from whom it was exacted through a private taxing authority. But my topic is the utler cynicism of men who protest their respect for human rights and for the law as it affects their opponents in thought and action, but waive all this| when consistency would be inconvenient. This is of the Soviets and Hitler and the Duce, whose morals and honesty are indistinguishable. and whose method and temperament are so much alike that they would save lives and trouble by getting together. But we have been viewing the affairs of the crazy countries so long that a slight infection has set in in our own country. And it is worst in, of all people, an element who profess to be liberal or progressive, ahd, anyway, human.

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

SAYS MANY WOULD REACT AS AL DID IN EUROPE

By Danjel Francis Clancy, Logansport

at oné timé, would sit on a swivel throne in the White House, crowned with a brown derby, and sign the historic- bill which designated “The Sidewalks of New York” the national anthem), upon being shown the sights of Europe recently admitted that words failed him for the first time in his life. And, say I, a lot of other chaps who sound off so bombastically here in the Republic would find little to say if they were dumped down on the Continent. . . . My reputation as a poet, I'm afraid,- has been irreparably damaged. Kismet has been most unkind. Summoned to .appear before a gathering of minstrels, I couldn't find a Windsor tie in town—and had had my hair cut only a week before. . What is American art coming to? I recently heard “triolet” pronounced by a poet as “tree-o-let.”

8 LJ ®

PEOPLE'S LOBBY URGES TAX LAW REVISION

By Benjamin C. Marsh, Executive Secretary, The People’s Lobby, ‘Washington, D. C.

Will you give space to the inclosed statement urging genuine tax

revision now?

The necessity for such revision is emphasized by the introduction py Chairman Doughton of H. J. Res. 375, extending nuisance taxes for two years, to 1939. These taxes reduce the consuming power of the masses by at least 15 billion dollars a year. They are a direct violation of the pledge of the Democratic platform in 1932. The statement, signed by leaders in church, education, labor, farm and consumers’ organizations follows: “The repeal or heavy reduction of taxes on consumption, and heavier taxation of personal and corporate income, of estates and gifts, and of land values, is an immediate imperative method of redistributing the national income and increasing the lagging purchasing power of the masses. “This is one of the urgent issues of the present Congress, in which efforts will almost certainly be made to reduce standards of relief, and to turn many thousands of destitute people off the relief rolls. “The Foderal Government should not only substitute increased taxes upon ability to pay and values created socially, for consumption taxes, but should make grants for relief and extension of Federal ‘credit to State and local governments, contingent upon their adopting similar principles in their taxation systems. “The U. S. Department of Commerce (“National Income of the U. Ss. 1929-35”) states the national income paid out in 1935 was $53,875,000,000. © “The Bureau of Internal Revenue in its preliminary report, “Statistics of Income for 1935,” states that the total income of the 480,799 persons reporting net incomes in 1935 of over $5000 was $7,005,671,000, of which $2,618,901, 000—37.4 per cent, was from ownership or control of property. “This income class was subject to Federal income taxes and surtaxes on this income, of only $609,353,000 —or 10.2 per cent of their net income, direct taxes,

“After paying all

General Hugh Whnson Says —

Roosevelt Erred in Letting Legislative Advisers Get Out of Control | But Doesn't Merit Shellacking Given Him by Senate Court Plan Report. |

ASHINGTON, June 19.—This :column has no sympathy with any such personal shellacking as was given the President of the United States by the Senate majority committee report on the Court reqrganization plan. It reeked with enmity, spleen and contempt. It would have been enough to set forth the logic of the adverse vote. The problem is too serious to be decided by emotion. A sorely beset President is entitled to more consideration. Any President is entitled to more respect. But as a thermometer plunged into the heat of the seething cauldron of revolt in the Senate, the passion of this diatribe was informative. Seven revolutionary communications have gone to the Hill—the Court plan, the executive reorganization plan, the farm plan, the Norris TVA proposal, the new NRA Wages-and-Hours Bill, the tax evasion correspondence, and the Relief Bill with its lump sum provisions and proposals for executive shifting of a part of all appropriations.

They are all in danger of completely collapsing

or being so churned up and whittled down that even

their own brilliant young synthetic fathers: in .the new brain trust won't know them. Because of the too-adroit manner of their preparation and presentation, the hitherto soft Congressional rubber-stamp is being vulcanized by the heat of an intense rebellion and resentment within the Democratic Party.

i” » ” y HERE is more than figurative heat. This writer

has lived under the equator and through a Yuma summer, but never has he so suffered from

summer heat and ‘humidity as in this blistering .

Bagdad. Many of these harried statesmen, now being Tongue]

Alfred E. Smith (who, it seemed |

should be stopped, and income from

‘tion of those with low incomes.”

- of thy father; fear not to go

(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.)

these families had left $5,332,000,000. “Admirable as is the principle of taxing corporation profits progressively and taxing undistributed corporation surpluses to encourage distribution of profits, the largest reve~

nue will be obtained for the Federal | at

Government, and the principle of progressive taxation will be best served, only by progressive personal income taxes. “We believe that with the reduction or elimination of Federal taxes on consumption, such as excise, gasoline and admission taxes, the exemption for the income tax should be reduced, and that surtaxes should start at not over $3000 and be .rapidly progressive. “Issuance of tax-exempt bonds

such Federal bonds outstanding, should. be taxed as part of all income received. “The exemption for the inheritance tax should be reduced. “The chief reliance of the Federal Government for revenue should be upon direct taxes—that is, on personal and corporation income taxes, including taxes on excess profits, gifts and estates. “These ‘taxes can be increased to permit a fiscal policy ‘which safeguards the Government's credit, and still permits a large cxtension of expenditures for social services, relief and education, without undue taxa-

£ a 9» ASKS IMPROVEMENT OF MUD ROADS By George O, Davis, Coal City

It costs the same amount of money to get auto plates in one part of the state as it does in another. A person pays as much tax per gallon of gasoline and oil in one district of Indiana as he does in another. Drivers’ or chauffeurs’ license fees are the same all over the state, and a person can't get a truck license for the same kind of truck any cheaper in one part of the state than another. So far it sounds O. K. But now listen. In some sections the Highway Department builds pavements or very elaborate highways. There are many: people who live ox mud roads or very poor gravel roads. These people pay as much to operate their

- ANTICIPATION By RUTH FOLAND

More than a word for all our acts— Expecting, all participating, | Our life, each moment, deep excitement, | Calm, and yet—anticipating. etter. |

DAILY THOUGHT |

And he said, I am God, the God own into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation, yenesis 46:3,

it {

HE demand .of the human understanding for causation re-

quires but the one old and only an-

swer, God: ~—Dexter.

cars and trucks as those who live on good roads. Why cah’'t they get an equal share of work done on their roads? Why can’t the State Highway Department take over all the roads in the State instead of making such elaborate roads in some places? Why don't they make moderately good gravel roads everywhere, then let their graders ‘drag all the roads in the State? Then as they get more money in the highway fund, they can make roads more elaborate. I think it’s about time the people who live on mud roads begin to get more benefit from the taxes and license fees it has cost them to opertheir trucks and cars. Surely the ones in office who were partly elected by people who live on mud roads haven't forgotten the poor mud-road sufferers since they got in office. If so, I hope this will be a reminder. ” on ” CLAIMS SUCKERS HELPED

BY MASSACHUSETTS LAW

By B. C. The great race of suckers ought to render a vote of thanks to the Massachusetts Senate, which recently approved a bill that would compel hotels and night clubs to post signs if their hat check and cigaret girls were not allowed to keep their tips. That subterranean diversion of tips is one of the most annoying of all the little rackets that are worked on American suckers. Tipping in itself is enough of an annoyance, of course; but the custom whereby concessionnaires pocket all of the tips, and forcs the girls who receive the tips to get along on an unadorned weekly wage, is about twice as bad. The man who goes to a night club an expect to be gypped, of course and his expectations seldom will be disappointed. But it would help a little if this pettiest and meanest of gyps could somehow be outlawed. ” ” os

ATTACKS USE OF FORCE IN EMPIRE BUILDING

By H. 8. What Mussolini fails to realize is that conquest of other nations does not bring the friendly relations necessary to achieve real co-opera-tion. Conquest of the minds of victims is more consequential than conquest of their land and persons. This conquest of the mind can only be achieved by friendly gestures, never by force of arms. Rome in- its glory of empire never had the good will of its subjects. Palestine, under the Roman heel at the time of Christ, chafed at the chains and looked for a déliverer from the bondage of the conquerors. Goodwill would build a better Roman empire than all the Black Shirt legions could ever dream of, Force always fails in the end. . s 2 2 : ERNIE PYLE’'S ARTICLES BRING PRAISE

By A. T. Souder, Greenfield There is much of great interest in every issue of The Times. One's mentality should be profitably stirred to read the sayings of any one of your regular correspondents, but none is more interesting than Ernie Pyle, who writes abéut things in such a human fashion, so colorful, so descriptive of small details that one can fully enjoy every event without the hardship of travel. . Any copy would be worth buying even if he were the only correspondent.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Opponents of Court Plan, Enjoying Its Setbacks, Warned Progressive Forces Are Just Beginning to Fight.

NEY YORK, June 19.—In chortling over the setback suffered by the plan to liberalize the court the Herald Tribune captions its comment “Never Again!” “Never is a long word. It is well to remember that

the progressive forces of America not in< frequently lose every battle but the last one.” They have just begun to fight. : The issue is broader than ever before, No longez

does it lie as some quarrel hee tween Franklin Roosevelt and the Senate. Clearly the struggle lies between those who would go for= ward and those who are determined to go back. Many of thefalse fronts have been stripped away. In the beginning there were those who - said that they were wholeheartedly in favor of ending Judicial oligarchy but that the proper method was to present an amendment. Nothing has been heard about any amendment in many weeks. Such moves were al! obstructionist. Moreover, Mr. Roosevelt has proved his point about the practical difficulty of such a movement because of the probability that powerful interests could seize upon the smaller states. Senator Gerry's dinner parties indicate that there is a bottle neck, and it is significant that the Senators from the “rotten boroughs” have been the ones to perform a suaden right-about. 2 ” »

B Ao of the self-called liberals have now dropped the mask. Senator Burke of Nebraska, who opposed the fight against the Supreme Court oligarchy from the beginning, always insisted that he did so bocause the proposal did not conform with his progressive principles. But at a dinner of the American Defense Society, hardly known as a liberal organization, he declared blandly that the people are “willing to proceed with less haste” and that “the pressing need for speed is np longer essential.” On the same day that Senator Burke expressed this opinion Rep. Hoffman sent a telegram labeled “Official Business” in which he offered to .rzise a force of 100 vigilantes to end peaceful picketing in Michigan. And on that same day George C. Chandler, secretary of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, told [the Black-Connery Wage and Hour Committee, “South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter for a far less pretext hia this bill affords.”

» ”

HE issue is industrial slavery. | The record of the Supreme Court on slavery is| not a pretty one, More than half a century ago a reactionary Supreme Court precipitated a civil war, and there are those now who weuld like to see this same body, which has fallen out of balance, do so again. Mark Sullivan in high ecstasy asks America to re= member these names in 1938’ in [1940 and in 1942-— King. McCarran, VanNuys, Hatch, Burke, Connally and O'Mahoney. He need not worry. They will be remembered in the years he mentioned and in all the years to come up to the very day of death. They will be remembered by all organized progressive groups who believe in democratic courts subject to the will of the people. They will be remembered by school teachers, stevedores, writers, miners and the millions of others who are solidly lined up behind Roosevelt's proposals.

Once upon a time there was an army of the Lord. which was trapped in a narrow valley by the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Ishmaelites and other reactionaries of the day. The army of the Lord was sore beset, and some of its ostensible members deserted and soughf caves in the. hills and holes in the ground, which did not make it any easier for the army of the Lord. But at that moment there began to appear, coming over the top of the mountains, the hosts of heaven, horseman and fooimen wifhout number. “ And they routed the Hittites and the Canaanites and all the forces of reaction. And now the armies of labor can be seen along thepeaks, and answer can be made to those who skulk or run or turncoat. The answer will be. “Seek caverns in the hills or holes in the ground if you will, since for

Mr. Broun

every one who quits the good fight we can get 10,-20

or a thousand to take your place.”

‘Washington Merry}Go-Round

William Allen White, 50 Years a Newspaperman Today, Is Singled Out as Important Leader Because He Is Spokesman for American Farm Belt,

afiod and booted through the hoops

by these selfless young top sergeants, are elderly. One outspoken threat now is that, if they don’t o. k. the White House bills quickly, they will be kept here on the jump all summer. Considering everything that is a bold and brazen third degree of ‘the sweat-box variety. ‘Has this brilliant strategy of these clever young synthesists since Jan. 1 worked? The Court reorganization bombshell so thoroughly paralyzed Congress through the first two-thirds of the session that practically nothing was done. The sudden switch to a high-pressure demand to do everything at once on the brink of a sweltering summer now threatens to split the Democratic Party in wrath and bitterness—and in the process to frustrate the: Administration’s ‘Whole legislative Program ; 82 =» 0, the strategy hasn't worked. It is a stupid mess, leaving the Administration no alternative but to be content. with a mess of face-saving crow’s meat and to get the threatening tribes of angry hillmen out of here as quick as possible. It proves again that there is such a thing as being too clever. Right here is the whole point of this piece. In four years as Governar and four years as President, Franklin Roosevelt proved himself the greatest executive genius in “getting along” with a legislature that this country ever produced. This strategy of slickness and eoercion doesn’t bear the tool marks of his talents. It is the work of other hands—the first time he ever

delegated such a task to the palace Janissaries, and

allowed himself to be cut off from contact with the result by an ambitious general Saf and | look at. the

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

MPOR A, Kas., June 19.—The story of William Allen | White is an American success story—in reverse. | The usual hero leaves the farm, wins fame and fortune in the big city, and returns to be welcomed by the home-town band. Bill White, who celebrates 50 years in journalism today, upset this tradition. He turned down tempting offers to go to the big city, and hewed out his considerable niche ii the Hall of Fame in a typical, small Western town. Emporia, Kas., has a Popiiayion of 14,000 now, but when Bill White bought The Gazette in’ 1895, its residents were numbered in the hundreds. . Bill White is a significant and vital American leader because he is an enlightened, vibrant spokesman of the great farm belt of the nation, because he is an unrelenting foe of provincialism, and because he keeps Main Street alert,

” # »

T was very characteristic that one of the earliest advocates of U. S. recognition of Soviet Russia was this small-town Kansas editor. White had gone to Russia as a delegate to the Prinkipo Conference in 1919, and came back to challenge the Red- baiters in the U. S As 3 result, he was blacklisted by the D. A. R. One of the Daughters wrote him a caustic letter, denouncing him as a Bolshevist and a isiior to his country. White replied, editorially: “Mrs. Brousseau is a lovely lady with many beautiful qualities of heart and mind. But in her enthu-

siasm she has allowed several .lengths of Ku-Klux |

nightie to show under her red, white and blue.” : White's sitise. with the; Klan enrolled him in his

only attempt for public office. He has always held that an editor should never run for public office. But when, in 1924 it appeared that the Klan would seize control of Kansas, White quit his editorial sanctum and entered the political arena as a candidate for Gove ernor on a straight-out, anti-Klan platform. When the votes were counted, he had received one out of every three cast, not enough to elect him, but enough to smash the Kian.

» » 2

N a book published last winter. White listed a nume ber of judgments which he regrets having made during his life. Among them he recorded his char acterizing Eugene Debs as a charlatan, advocating the Spanish-American and World Wars, and asserting that Sacco and Vanzetti deserved their death sentences. Thus White again reverses the normal by becoming more liberal and tolerant the older he i He calls himself “a decayed conservative.”

. White got started in journalism. by sheer chance, Shortly after he entered the University of Kansas, his father died. Unknown to Bill, his mother opened a boarding-house to keep him in school. When ha heard of this, he wrote three job-hunting letters—one to a grocer, one to a butcher, and one to a printer. The printer replied and White's newspaper career

gof under way. Bill White at 69 is still going strong. . The Emporia

Gazette, which had only 450 circulation in 1895, now

has 6000, and it continues to run such quaint items as this—which are as important to the picture of William Allen White as his editorials: “The counter-boy at the Santa Fe depot says the

‘prettiest woman in the world will flirt with you if you

start EUREWIh Ler JUN, 85 ihe train pulls out.