Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 June 1937 — Page 14

PAGE 14 :

- The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Timés Publishing Co. 214 W. Maryland st.

Price in Marion County, 3 cents a copy; delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week.

Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month.

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

when i RlIley 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1937

BEFORE DIVORCES INJEARLY 400 divorce cases are on the court dockets in® Marion County for hearing this week. As many as 76 cases are set for trial in one court for one day. A sermon might be ‘preached about the sociological and other effects of this unenviable record. About one marriage in six now fails to take. And it is estimated that if the divorce rate continues to increase as uniformly as in the past, the majority of marriages will end in divorce within 30 years. : But we wish here to stress only one point: Indiana and many other states are helping to accelerate this divorce rate by making a farce of marriage laws. The recent Legislature refused to provide adequate matrimonial health standards or the needed time lapse requirement between the license application and ceremony. Oregon and Illinois have just passed bills requiring a physician's test and health certificate, before filing for a marriage license. Other progressive legislation this year is aimed at “first impulse” marriages. Maryland provided a 48-hour notice of intention to wed; New York a 72-hour wait, and Tennessee, for girls under 18, a 3-day notice. Indiana, which has won widespread notoriety for its quick and easy marriages, may have fewer “record divorce weeks” when it raises the present low standards for matrimony. -

DARK SECRETS

R OBERT IRWIN, eccentric young sculptor, went to Bellevue Hospital in’ New York City four years ago and .asked that he be psychoanalyzed. Physicians found that he was suffering from “depression and mental conflicts” and persuaded him to enter the Rockland State Hospital for the Insane.

There, on several occasions, Irwin flew into violent fits of rage and struck other patients. These emotional disturbances always left him meek, brooding and remorseful. After a few months he was released, but twice in the next two years he returned for further treatment, his most recent discharge having been last July. Everyone knows, now, that Robert Irwin was too dangerous a man to be at liberty, for he confessed killing three persons. The circumstances, as related in his confession, are convincing evidence that his is not a normal mind. The natural question is why the specialists at Rockland, who had him under observation most of the time for three years, did not perceive his murderous tendencies and keep him there. And, apparently, the only answer is that those who know most about the dark secrets of the human mind really know very little.

MUSICAL NOTES

IGHER education is wonderful. Dr. W. F. G. Swann, conductor of the Swarthmore College Symphony Orchestra, has invented an electrical gas-discharge oscillator which imitates perfectly the tone of a bass clarinet. And John Barrows, a student at the Yale Music School, has found

a way to produce from the French horn “an entirely new

and hitherto unused sound suggesting a distant flute of large bore, but with an unclassified brassy note of considerable body and high range.” Splendid! We can hardly wait for the news that some professor or student has developed something to m=ke the noise of a saxophone suggest music.

TAXES—AND WHAT THEY BUY

NE reason, we believe, why nobody ‘has even found a way to make taxes popular is that Government as such has never been able to prove its competency and to sell its wares to those who have to pay. : After all we get a lot from Government. Particularly is that clear in the visible services, police, fire protection, garbage collection, postal delivery—the things we personally can see. /

But, generally speaking, where the vast sums go— those astronomical expenditures we read about, a billion here and a billion there—isn’t discernible to the naked eye.

So we think we are just helping fill a bottomless pit, and -

that most of the outgo must be wasted in patronage, pork barrels, graft and political privilege. Hence, nobody ever is cheerful about taxes, and nobody pays more than he has to.

But while inefficiency is chargeable to Government, so too, it enters into private affairs. Perhaps we get as much for our money in the taxes we pay as for any of the other dollars we spend. We rather doubt that, because there is not the same incentive for self-inspection and personal advancement through expense-control in public business as in’ private. But certainly we can’t count taxes as all loss— since, with all its faults, Government is what holds us together as a community, a state and a nation. One of the greatest moves toward a better state of mind on the part of all taxpayers toward their Government would be for Government to convince its financial supporters—the taxpayers—that it is useful, rathér than a necessary evil to which no one contributes willingly. :When and if such a state of mind is achieved the age-old hunt, as yet unsuccessful, for an equitable system of taxation may come somewhere near its objective. But until, it will still be a case of “trying times” —everybody trying to pay exactly no more than he has to, under the law. A general renovation of the Federal tax system has long been overdue. We have found many reasons to criticize the Federal Government's failure to face that primary problem. While we also find many reasons to criticize the technique of a Government which makes a law and then smears citizens who follow the law, nevertheless we hope that out of all the present activity may come a more. equitable system of raising Government revenue,

Looks Like Smallpox

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1937

Can You Beat That One?

| INTERNATIONAL _. COMMITTEE ON

- NTION. 5 \NONINTERVERTIO!

\

Q

Washington

By Raymond Clapper

Judging From Current Events Here And in Europe, Heat Waves Appear To Be a Big Handicap to Democracy.

VV ASHINGTON, June 29.—It’s the heat

wave. Everyone is mad or scared or

both. : John Lewis says Tom Girdler is a “heavily armed monomaniac who has gone ber-

serk.” terrorist. He calls the Taft mediation board “incompetent and unfair” and says the National Labor Relations Board holds elections unfair to manage-

ment. Lady Astor marvels that a man s6 hated as Roosevelt “can keep from hating back.” Bernard Shaw says Congress needs ‘drastic lynching.” He probably would compromise on mere lynching. Stanley Baldwin—The thing has spread all over the world— urges a fight to the death against extremists in Great Britain. . The medical adviser to the Japanese Foreign Office recommends that the Government pick its officials by wplood type—men with O-type blood are the best. “We no longer want pale, anemic, genius-type fellows in the Government but robust chaps who are vigorous and full-blooded.” : :

What the human race neecs, apparently, is a.vacation, preferably with pay. From this kind of news one escapes gladly to any place he can go. One comforting place to turn is into a little book, “A Good Word for Democracy,” written by S. E. Forman, a sage teacher about Government.

£

Mr. Clapper

2 ” f3 . AJORITY RULE,” he says, “is resorted to because it is a practical way of getting things done. It is resorted to in a democracy not in order that ‘right reason and the will of God’ may prevail, but in order that Government-may go ahead with its business. . . . The minority acquiesces not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it has discovered that it is in fact a minority. With its numerical inferiority ascertained and staring it in the face it decides that acquiescence is the way of prudence and peace.

“No sensible man ever said that the will of the majority makes a thing right. ‘All will pear in mind, says Jefferson, ‘that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights which equal laws must protect and to violate which would be oppression.’ “So the minority has the right to expect that the rule of the majority will be the rule of wisdom, moderation and justice. Democracy postulates that men at bottom have a decent respect for the rights of others.” ; ” ” ”

ONALD RICHBERG is discussing the effort to establish higher labor standards by collective bargaining and the associated efforts of Government to eliminate oppressive conditions.

“The political economic issues of the modern world are too complex to justify any arrogance of opinion,” he says “We have not yet had sufficient experience in the effectiveness of these efforts to know whether they will enable us to adjust conflicts of interest in an industrial civilization by democratic processes. But we have ample evidence from the. experience of other nations, that, if such evolutionary, democratic methods do not succeed and we empower the Government to fix wages and hours of work, and thereby necessarily fix prices, we shail find that democratic government is an inefficient instrument for the making and enforcement of dogmatic laws.” : Democratic methods will work only when persons in private positions of responsibility make them work. It is the private citizen, not the public official, who in the last analysis determines by his conduct whether you can have democracy. He either makes it or breaks it. Heat waves are hard on democracy.

Girdler says Lewis is a‘ communistic

The Hoosier Forum

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

W. C. T. U. PRESIDENT DENIES HITLER STATEMENT

By. Mrs. Ella A, Boole, President, World’s Woman's Christian Temperance Union

Your paper carried a story during the World's W. C. T. U. Convention in Washington to the effect that as World's President I had extolled Mr. Hitler. ; : The statement had no basis in fact. I did not mention Mr. Hitler during the convention and if his name was mentioned by anyone else it was simply a statement of the fact that he is a total abstainer. I did not hear anyone mention his name. There was no praise or inferred praise ol him or his policies. I feel that a great injustice has been done by your publishing this false statement and accompanied by a picture of Hitler. That you may have positive proof of the statement, I am sending you a copy of my address given at the convention. I feel that retraction of the statement is due. I do not know how far it has gone, but if sent out by some Scripps-Howard reporter, the matter should be investigated and general retraction made.

(The story was based on Washington press association dispatches, The quotation published by The Times was not accompanied by a picture of Hitler. The Times gladly publishes Mrs. Boole’s denial.—THE EDITOR.)

s ” n COMPANIES HAVE ROUTINE STRIKE STRATEGY, IS CLAIM By PUR,

By a careful study of the present steel strike and methods used by the steel companies to break it, one will see clearly how closely the companies are following the formula laid by a big Eastern corporation, as it was disclosed by the National Labor Relations Board. ? The NLRB found lewing to be facts: 1. When a strike threatened, label the union leaders as agitators to discredit them with the public and their own followers. In the plant, conduct a forced balloting under the direction of foremen in an attempt to ascertain the strength of the union and to make possible misrepresentation of the strikers as a small minority imposing their will upon the majority. At the same time, disseminate propaganda by means of press releases, advertisements, and the activities of missionaries, such propaganda falsely stating the issue involved in the strike so that the strikers appear to be making arbitrary demands, and the real issues, such as the employer's refusal to bargain collectively, are obscured. Concurrently with these moves, by exerting economic pressure through threats to move the plant, align the influential members of the community into a cohesive group opposed to the strike, usually designated a Citizens Committee, 2. When the strike is called, raise high the banner of law and order! 3. Call a mass meeting of the citizens to co-ordinate public sentiment against the strike and to strengthen the power of the Citizens Committee. 4, Bring about the formation ot a large armed police force to intimidate the strikers and to .exert a

the fol-

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Visiting Home State of Oklahoma, Where Good Times Are in Evidence, It Is Relief to Find Apprehension Slight Over Washington's Big Problems.

T= Okla., June 29.—Visiting here my home state of Oklahoma after weeks in the welter of gossip in Washington, the wrangling of the strike situation, and the general intellectual writing on the Eastern Seaboard, it is a relief to be where these things are heard only as echoes.

Oklahoma is husy moving a bumper crop of 98 per cent wheat out of the fields and into the elevators. The price of oil is up and going higher. The refiners are drawing on storage of crude and the oil industry is about to plunge into a boom of wildcatting, discovery and promotion. People are making money—they are no longer nursing disaster. There are only little islands and blots of gloom, jitters -and forebodings that lower over Wall Street —from whence I came directly here. These dark spots, as there, are among the Roosevelt haters— the brevet captains of Oklahoma industry reduced to corporals in the disaster in 1933, but now restored to rank and pay. Then they were down in Washington begging Roosevelt to save them and wailing along the waste, “like a woman wailing for her demon lover,” that the very foundations of the republic had crumbled. Soe ; Rs 8 ” : OW they are not only rescued, they are restored. Oil is around $1.22 a barrel, as against 10 cents in 1933, and most of them are as rich as ever. These —and they almost alone—are the :Roosevelt haters. Whenever they hear his name they spit. Where it strikes the earth there is a sulphurous flash, a puff of blue smoke and on that spot grass never grows again. : . These are the Tom Girdlers of these high dry plains and incipient bayous. There are not so many of them here as in the Northeast, but it wasn’t so long ago that most of them were drillers, tool-dressers and wildcattera¢themselves and many of them could

(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.)

psychological effect upon the citizens. 5. And perhaps most important, ‘heighten the demoralizing effect of the above measures—all designed to convince the strikers that their | cause is hopeless—by a back-to-work movement, operated by a puppet association of so-called loyal employees secretly organized by the employer. 6. Stage the opening, theatrically throwing open the gates at the propitious moment and having the employees march into the grounds in a massed group protected by squads of armed police, so as to give te the opening dramatic and exaggerated quality and thus heighten its demoralizing effect. This should be an answer to those who think - that union organizers and reds are the sole cause for all the disorders that happen in connection with a strike for higher wages and better working conditions. 5 ” ” ” HOLDS TRAMP DOG IS REAL SUMMER MENACE

By H. V. Allison Getting the dogs off the streets before dog days is all a myth, as dog days have nothing to do with rabies or causing dogs to go mad. I believe the dogs are not all mad that bite people. Children playing on the sidewalk with the family dog are the cause of many pegple getting bitten. The dog tries to protect the children. Anything said in disfavor of the dog is sure to bring rebuff. : I love children and like a valuable dog. On the street where I live there are a dozen children in one square, ranging from 2 to 6 years, all taught not to cross the street. I never see them cross the street without their parents. The dogs are also taught to stay on the premises. If this plan were in use over the city, it would prevent many accidents. A tramp dog is a menace in the city and good for nothing in the

VOICES IN MY GARDEN

By EDNA JETT CROSLEY

He passed the lily bed, the rose, and smiled into each tiny heart. They caught the breath of him who knows, : Each one of them apart.

They quickly answered with a smile, and whisper of his love undying. I breathe his message all the while, Their perfumed soul is sighing.

DAILY THOUGHT

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Isaiah 66:13.

F all created comforts, God is the leader; you are the borrower, not the owner.—Rutherford.

country. I have no respect for a vicious dog. It will bite your neighbor and sleep while a thief steals your chickens.

I favor protecting the children by doing away with the tramp dog, and no fair-minded person will object.

o s 2 WONDERS HOW LONG NEW TRAFFIC ‘SNARE’ WILL LAST By Bruce Catton

There is nothing startling in a picture of a motorcycle . officer standing beside a motorist’'s car writing .out a traffic violation ticket. But put that policeman in a straw hat, a turtle-necked sweater, and a pair of overalls, and you have a situation loaded with dynamite. Atlanta is trying out the plan of having traffic policemen. discard uniforms for civilian clothes, the better to apprehend «+ wayward motorists. So far, it is reported, the plan is a success. Anything that stems traffic violations and reduces the chance for accidents has some big points in its favor. : But this plan, unfortunately, runs counter to the American idea for fair play, “even breaks,” and hatred of any form of spying. It is a national habit to crack down on snoopers and meddlers, even unto lurking guardians of the law. For this reason alone, it will be interesting to see how long Atlanta’s experiment will last.

s ” ” CATTLE BEAUTY TREATMENT IS NEW TREND By B. C.

Evidence that even the lowing herd is not immune to the current

beauty vogue comes steadily from

the nation’s livestock shows. One exhibitor at a recent Alabama stock show reported 65 entries there with finger waves, many cattle with curled hair and waxed horns and hoofs. : There was a day when to describe a bull as “beautiful” would have exposed a pathetic unwareness of fine barnyard proprieties. And to those who always believed the brush and curry comb were equipment enough for the bullpen boudoir, finger waves and manicures will seem uncalled for.

Doubtless any ‘number of 4-H

youths and professional stockmen could defend the new trend, and actually there is no reason why prospective royalty should not be crowned in coronation attire. But, supposing a curly cow does win more prizes, there remains the pertinent and hard-to-answer question: How much does a finger wave help a beefsteak?

yn 2 LAUDS EDITORIAL ON COMMUNITY FUND By “Indianapolis”

I should like to comment on the editorial which you carried in The Times on June ‘18 in regard to the

- Indianapolis Community Fund. You

have sold me all over again on the need of supporting the fund. Being'a civic-minded persoi, I appreciate your keen insight and your ability to present so clearly, matters of importance to Indianapolis citizens through your columns.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Covering Tom Girdler Hearing as a Drama Reviewer, Columnist Finds Productions Star Is a Ham Actor,

A7ASHINGTON, June 29.—“You can’t know Tom Girdler and not like him,” writes General Johnson. Hugh Johnson is a forthright person who should never admit that there is such a word as ‘“‘can’t.” Moreover, at least one commentator of my ace quaintance feels that disliking Tom Mercer Girdler is just about as easy as rolling off a well-greased log. He speaks, I believe, from the purely objective point of view of a veteran dra=matic critic. . As a matter of fact, most Cone gressional hearings are shows ese sentially, and it might not be a bad idea to have them covered by reviewers rather than reporters. Let's try. I arise to a point of personal privilege and ask permission to submit a short critie cism of Mr. Girdler in his recent efforts as an actor. This is not unfair, since a con= siderable effort has already been made to build the Republic chaire man up for the role of the hard, tough guy who is always candid and unafraid. I fear that Girdler is not that type.

# 8 8 vi ENERAL JOHNSON speaks reverentially of Girde ler’s gift for picturesque profanity and seems to think that this aptitude. necessarily implies a cer= tain ruggedness. Old Iron Pants ought to know better than that. Cursing can be protective coloration. I suspect that swearing is sometimes the first refuge of a craven. After 48 years of observation .I timidly submit the report that the finest artist in black and blue phrases whom I ever heard. was by coincidence a well-known female impersonator. It

Mr. Broun

" has been said that you cannot make a silk purse out

of a sow’s ear, and I doubt whether any other portion of the pig can be fabricated into a kind of Captain Flagg of financial capital. But to get back to Tom Mercer Girdler. It seems to me that ne lacks the physical attributes of the matinee wonder man. It is quite true that at the end of his first session of testimony in Washington a lady rushed up and exclaimed, “Thank God, there is still one real American.” But she was fat and 50.

It is also a fact that Mr. Girdler made his star in what was then the roughest school of steel production. He was associated for a while with the man= agement of Colorado Fuel & Iron, and nobody whe remembers Ludlow will deny that at one time that company had the shortest possible way with dis« senters among it laboring forces. 3 ” 2 ” UT, speaking again from the point of view of a dramatic critic, I must regretfully report that in physique Tom Mercer Girdler does not suggest the dashing captain of cavalry who arrives in the middle - of the third act just in time to rescue little Nell or even Little Steel. ; He is not big enough, and, although recent months have provided good growing weather, Tom Girdler - is not likely to add a cubit to his stature. Indeed, I fear that if his name is retained in the annals of our time it will be as a man who was never more than four or five feet tall. Of course, a gorilla could lick him, but, for that matter, so could a marmoset. Accordingly, when he did his Spartacus stuff for the Senate Postoffice Committee all the poor actors I have ever seen marched in single file before my eyes. From the point of view of a dramatic reviewer the gentleman is a ham. When Tom Girdler finished his performance at the morning session I thought to myself, “This is the worst actor I have ever seen ‘on - any stage.” When he returned for an encore in the afternoon 1 was obliged to add, “This time he is net’ quite up to his usual standard.”

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Justice Roberts Reverses Court Decision Effect by Granting Stay: New Measure Would Supply U. S. Cash Free to Building-Loan Associations.

give Tom a lead of three full breaths in a cussing contest and still make his line look like a Sunday School text. Their words wilt weeds at 40 yards. That's a small percentage of the population. Nobody pays much attention except to admire the craftsmanship.. There is a slight air of apprehension—“Say what's really going on in Washington?” This was started by the court reorganization plan and continued by rumors of a split between the old Southern Democracy and the New Deal. . This state is normally Democratic and of the Southern persuasion. But it’s like Kansas in the old Bryan days when William Allen White said she should raise more corn and less hell. Oklahoma is always ready to raise political hell.

” » ” 2 UT there are no real prophets of disaster. Mr.

Roosevelt may have lost a little ground, especially.

in popular confidence, but he could still beat any old deal, or fake New Deal, as badly as he beat Landon so far as this state is concerned. On the astonishing position of the steel barons, that they will bargain with labor but won’t agree to sign, oldtimers are reviving a story I used to hear as

-a boy in the Indian Territory.

The Dawes Commission on Italian Affairs was insisting on negotiating another treaty with the Greeks. Through a century that had meant to the Indians just another trimming. The commission wanted their lands. The Indians were sure of a trimming at this time. They knew that no delegation could protect them as ambassadors and wouldn't authorize any. They twisted and squirmed and evaded and delayed. The Great White Father insisted. So, in a solemn meeting of the “House of Warriors and of Kings,” they authorized an embassy to go to Washington and “monkey with the Dawes Commission but to not sign

nothing.” : 3

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, June 29.—Much will be said dur‘ing the forthcoming Senate debate.on the Supreme Court issue about the extraordinary reeord of somersaults executed by Justice Owen J. Roberts. Most of his reversals are well known, but perhaps the most remarkable of them all has escaped attention. . : It occurred a few hours before Roberts and his colleagues departed on a four-month summer vacation. Here is the background: : On May 17 the Supreme Court handed down an 8-to-1 decision in favor of the Government in the American Sheet & Tin Co. case. The lone dissenter. was Justice Pierce Butler. The majority opinion was written by Justice Roberts. - The decree, eliminating a form of railroad favoritism to big shippers, was a smashing victory for the Government and for hundreds of small manufacturers who have to compete against larger rivals. » ” » BE although they won at the hands of the full Court, they lost in Justice Roberts’ chambers. It was Roberts himself who had written the Court's decision, but two weeks later, at the behest of the losers, he issued a stay of mandate suspending the judgment until Court reconvenes; in October. Thus, for a period of four months, Roberts in effect reversed not only himself but the entire Court. The case grew out of an inquiry conducted several years ago by ‘the Interstate Commerce Commission into the business practices of railroads. One thing discovered was the practice of the roads giving large shippers—steel, packers, glass, etc.—big rebates for so-called “terminal allowances.” The ICC ordered the payments discontinued on the ground that they were unfair to small shippers and at the same time deprived the railroads of legitimate income. oY, big shippers promptly fi :

The Government won in Federal courts in Kane sas City, Milwaukee and South Bend, Ind. But. & court in Pittsburgh held in favor of the shippers. If was this case, appealed by the Government which the Supreme Court decided in favor of the Governe ment—with Roberts writing the opinion.

” "8

OR free and fancy Treasury raiding, a bill offered by Rep. Michael Reilly, is one of the baldest seen on Capitol Hill in a long time. In the noise and clatter over relief, the Supreme Court and tax-loophole issues, the Wisconsin Demo= crat’s measure has escaped attention. It proposes, in effect, to make a gift to building and loan associations of the carrying charges on $153,000,000 worth of Government loans—money that is costing the taxpayer from 212 to 3 per cent interest a year. + Under the Home Owners Loan Corporation Act, $300,000,000 was earmarked for the purchase of stock in building and loan associations hit by the depression. The object was to supply them with funds to get them back on their feet. The HOLC invested $153,000,000 in these companies under this provision of the law. The Government receives no interest on this money, It draws dividends on its shares, like the other stocke holders. These dividends average around 3 per cent. Right at this point 1s where Mr. Reilly proposes enter= ing the picture, Under his bill (H. R. 3420) the requirement to pay these dividends to the HOLC would be wiped out. In other words, the building and loan associations would be given free use of $153,000,000 of taxpayers’ money, which they lend to home owners at interest rates ranging from 5 to 8 per cent. : > Chief lobbyist for the Reilly measure is Morton Rodfish, $25,000-a-year vice president of the Building an Leas hing of the Federal Hom®

wl