Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 July 1937 — Page 12

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PAGE 12 . The Indianapolis Times

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ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Business Manager

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TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1937

INDEPENDENCE PART from the skill with which he as leader of the Senate opposition conducted the Court fight, Senator Wheeler's influence against the packing plan involved a background which should not be overlooked in an appraisal of a controversy which has been called the greatest since slavery. Here was an issue, dramatized soon after inauguration by a President elected by a tremendous majority following a bitter campaign between reactionaries and progressives; a President possessed of a party dominance in both houses of Congress that seemed to say “write your own ticket.” At first flush it appeared that opposition could only fall into a Liberty League classification; that anyone who would join must necessarily be tarred as among the Tories.

That same alignment, and a battle along the same old front, |

was assumed in the strategy of those who sought to correct an unbalance in favor of the judiciary by writing a blank check for the Executive. Had the opposition found its source in a Hamilton or a Shouse or a du Pont, the force which determined the November 1936 election might have been re-formed, with results approximately the same. But instead of a Tory leaping into the breach, who should appear but Senator Wheeler, ; Our generation had seen Senator Wheeler become a symbol of liberalism. And not merely in the academic, or parlor, sense. He had been put on the spot by the reactionaries as perhaps no other man in our times. To know that, it is necessary only to reread the story of Teapot Dome, of Harry Daugherty and William J. Burns, of the effort to “get Wheeler,” of the Wheeler defense fund headed by President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, of Roxie Stimson and Jesse Smith and the Ohio gang and the “Little Green House on K. Street,” and of Senator Wheeler's colleague Tom Walsh and of Mr. Wheeler's campaign as Vice Presidential candidate with the elder Bob La Follette. To “big business” and “the interests” this man Wheeler had been anathema, any way you looked at it, from the “marked man” time when they tried to frame him, on to the “corporation curb” headlines for which he was responsible in the New Deal. And yet this was the one who, along with the brilliant O'Mahoney and others who were classed as liberals, so quickly sensed the danger of the packing plan, split away and “took the ball.” Had there not been such an opposition leadership, developing very early after the proposal was so suddenly “sprung”; had the forces of resistance centered in the Hamiltons and the Shouses, had the lines of the 1936 campaign prevailed, the results might have been different and this nation of supposedly three equal and co-ordinate branches might now be under a “your own ticket” one-man control, In paying tribute to Mr. Wheeler we desire to philosophize for a moment on the subject of labels. We have referred to him as a liberal. But rather we should like to pick another designation, and call him an independent. There's a vast difference, we believe, whether the field be statesmanship or journalism. Mark Twain said: “Irreverence is disrespect for the other man’s god.” Liberalism, like morals, is something you have to define for yourself. But independence is just being yourself, without being like the fellow we heard say after a long argument with four other travelers in a Pullman smoker—*“Not one of them agreed with me. They were the four most unreasonable men I ever met.” Out of the intolerance of professional liberalism you have a Heywood Broun condemning an Oswald Garrison Villard. “They all get out of step but Jim.” We choose therefore in appraising Senator Wheeler to refer to him as an independent and to quote a bit from Cyrano: “To walk in my own way and be alone, Free, with an eye to see things as they are . To say: ‘My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own.” We may and probably will be scrapping with him about this or that, as we have before. But we will never accuse him of wearing anybody’s collar except that which is owned in fee simple by Burton K. Wheeler.

WEEDS AND LITTER

OST parts of Indianapolis are beautiful and green as a result of the excellent growing season. But there is one drawback. Weeds have flourished along with trees and grass and shrubbery. Left uncut, they hide dangerous intersections, detract from surrounding property and are unsightly. A 7-year-old boy was critically injured this week in an auto accident at an intersection obstructed by tall weeds. The City is authorized to cut the weeds and charge the cost to property owners if the owners fail to destroy them. Like the problem of rubbish ‘and litter, however, the most effective way to keep yards and streets and sidewalks clean is through a preventive campaign enlisting the co-operation of all citizens. The law must be enforced strictly as a spur to the minority, but cleanliness and civic beauty depend more on a voluntary year-round battle against rubbish, weeds and other evidences of slovenliness.

“FIFTY MILLION MILES OF SAFETY”

ANOTHER example of what we mean when we say that traffic safety is purchasable is supplied by Indiana school busses, which have transported 215,000 children daily for the last two years without a fatality. A total of 7224 drivers averaged an aggregate of about 150,000 miles a day to set this record, according to the Journal of the State Medical Association. There were but three serious injuries. This enviable record is a tribute to the drivers and to the safety program’ designed by the State Board of Education. Safety classes now are required courses in Hoosier high schools. The same careful planning and education can reduce the accident and death rates for the

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Not Interested in the Other Side?—By Herblock

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TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1937

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Stemming the Flood !—By Talburt

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NOW DON'T YOU WORRY- | AINT GONNA LET YOU GET, SOAKED:

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Tax Inquiry Held a Bust as a Show, But Columnist Believes It Was Tops As Exhibition of Special Privilege.

EW YORK, July 27.—Mr. Roosevelt's tax inquiry has been a bust in some respects, but at least it has served to show that special privilege is not confined to his political opponents, and that for ways that

are dark, members of the Liberty League have nothing on the U. S. Department of Internal Revenue. The show would have played to much better business but for the unfortunate intervention

of the C. I. O. trouble in the stecl country, and the final defeat of the plan to pack the Supreme Court with political ringers. Poor showmanship was to blame for this. But that the management may now be glad to have been crowded out of prominence, because, actually, the investigation took a bad hop and embarrassed the prosecution as badly as the defendants. The law itself was shown to be at fault, and the personal dis- FRR cretionary power of the reviewing agents to persecute reasonably Mr. Pegler decent citizens for political or other reasons was clearly disclosed—not that it needed revelation at this late date. Moreover, someone dug up and presented to Congressman Ham Fish an old newspaper reporting that Mr. Roosevelt himself once admitted that he took advantage of a little scheme having the color of legality, to claim depreciation on a barn which had stood for more than a hundred years. = " =»

M*® FISH is still a Harvard sophomore in some respects, and nobody takes him very seriously, but the opposition made him look good when the committee laid down the condition that he must not refer to this or any other phase of Mr. Roosevelt's own income taxes before permitting himself to horn his A in a meeting. The committee showed no such tender regard for the privacy of other Americans, and the protection for the citizen Roosevelt constituted a privilege somewhat more special than most.

Personal authority of Treasury politicians to grant or withhold to individuals under the present law was never presented more clearly than in the case of Mrs. Roosevelt's contributions which were bypassed direct

. from her employers to her pet charity on official ad- | vice given by Robert Jackson, now Assistant Attorney

General, when he was chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Bureau. : ” = ” r Mr. Jackson is unable to justify to the committee the advice by which the Treasury lost a robust chunk of money, maybe his chivalry will impel him to dig up the amount himself and toss it on the blanket. I read somewhere in the discussion of Mrs. Roosevelt’s case. that her friend, Miss Nancy Cook, personally received $400 out of the price of each broadcast for charity. I have been wondering if Miss Cook is an organized charity, an employee, or what, in Mr. Jackson’s understanding of the act. We can't all get individual advice from the chief counsel of the Internal Revenue. Just what does the law mean in these blurred spots, and why is it okay to expose the affairs of certain individuals who complied with the act but unpatriotic and indecent to ask a few questions of these others?

The Hoosier Forum

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

CHARGES “UNFAIRNESS” BY SUPREME COURT By Walter F. Smith, Cambridge City The Supreme Court in the days of the Civil War was, I think, always against the Government, which got mighty little satisfaction from the Court until Gen. Grant was called by bankers to pack the Court, which he had to do, as Jay Gould was rigging up a big corner on gold. I think that the action of the Supreme Court was the cause of those changes. I was past 8 years of age when the war began; in 1863 I paid bus fare in Portland with a brown 5-cent stamp and I used shin plasters for money in 1865. The Supreme Court in politics is unfair to the people and the Government. There's hair-splitting about words in the Court. When they go to England for laws to copy, they don’t copy the 3i-cent limit on the price of electricity. There’s something rotten, and I think the Government should be able to correct it. I am for F. D. R., but I think that politics should be left out. It's a mean court system, anyhow, and in a civil case, the plaintiff is broke before a judgment is obtained. » ” »

ASKS DETAILED RESULTS

OF EDICT TO LOAFERS By E. A. E.

In the town of Milan, Ga. (population, 800), Mayor D. R. Newton posted a proclamation the other day, warning all loafers to “go to work or move on.”

Now, we are told, Mayor Newton is viewing with satisfaction the result of his manifesto. The main street of Milan is busier—or at least it appears so—for the whittlers, to-bacco-chewers and yarn-swappers have disappeared from their old places in front of the stores. But I crave further information.

Did the loafers go to work? If so, perhaps Mayor Newton has proved that every man who looks for one can find a job, thus solving the problem of unemployment. Did they move on? If so, it may be that Mayor Newton has merely shifted Milan’s share of the unemployment problem to other communities. Or are they loafing now, whittling, chewing and yarn-swapping, behind the stores instead of in front of them? Somehow, I suspect the latter. ” » » SUCCESSFUL SAFETY DRIVE CITED By B. C. Beleaguered traffic experts and some individual motorists sometimes must wonder at the slow progress they are making in teaching the nation to drive safely. Then, occasionally, even when prospects look worst, along comes a city like

(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.)

Beaumont, Tex., to show how traf-

fic safety actually is being accom- |

plished.

For the first six months of 1937, as compared with the same period in 1936, Beaumont shows an accident reduction of 18.1 per cent; fewer injuries by 28.7 per cent, and a death rate cut of 75 per cent. Factors back of these tremendous accomplishments included tighter enforcement of ordinances, a ‘no exception” rule in trial court, widespread interest of citizens, and “S” men to observe and report, but not arrest violators.

This formula seems simple enough, and might well serve as a model for Indianapolis or any other city trying to promote safe and sane driving. There is no secret maze leading to the traffic safety goal. It is within reach of every community and every driver, and Beaumont has shown that it can be won. v ” td » ENTERS PLEA FOR EDUCATED JOBLESS By a Reader

A great deal has been said about the sad plight of the poor factory laborer out of employment; but no one has tried to interpret the problems of the million educated men, now unemploved, who were

HOMING BIRD

(Amelia Earhart Putnam) By KEN HUGHES We remember valiant words But none could tell her deed Through channels of the air. She learned the sky as mother bird Learned wings to curve for speed Above strange, corrugated fields.

She will return in greater fame Or leave her seal—a wreath of wing. She knew her plane for imagery Might be a cross . . . Yet would it crucify a woman Born for height? Yet would a homing bird Fail hope?

DAILY THOUGHT

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.—Matthew 11:28.

To will what God doth will, is the only science that gives us rest. Longfellow.

formerly subexecutives in business and industry. The problem of this educated class is all the more intense in that they are educated and had at one time forged ahead to a position of some importance. So much more is expected of them than of the uneducated man, and the horizon

of their opportunity is so “much |

more narrow. We have all heard it said of this type of man: “With all his educution and experience, if he can’t find a job, it’s because he doesn’t want one!” However, let the man take the only job he can find— some menial, low-paying task—and the whole community with diabolical enthusiasm brands him: “A man with all his education and experience—taking a job like that!” It’s a perilous ladder of success the educated man climbs. Let him slip, and he will find the whole American public enjoying the spectacle of his slide down. He is just an educated flop—another case to prove that education is a farce. And there is nothing Americans enjoy so much as proving education is a failure. But let the educated man accept the humiliation from the public, forget the comforts of his middleclass existence and go out in search of an ordinary laboring job. Here again he meets a problem. Who wants to hire such a man for a laborer? As one large industrialist said: “We don’t want educated men for laborers. They would be discontented. We won’t hire them.”

: 2 ” o SUGGESTS FACTORY SIGHTSEEING By Bruce Catton

There are always otner details to be settled, but the big problem st vacation time always seeras to simmer down to “Where shall we go?” For families debating this question, John T. Flynn, Times columnist and noted economist, has an answer in a recent issue of Collier's magazine. He suggests that an American steel or textile mill, automobile plant or any other modern factory within walking or motoring distance of most homes affords sights more thrilling than foreign art galleries or museums. Americans buy goods across store counters so easily it is no wonder they have overlooked the breathtaking wizardry by which those goods are made. The magic processes of manufacturing a pair of shoes, a handkerchief or a tin can, for instance, are unknown to most people. There is vastly more than smoking stacks and machinery’s hum to industry these days. And probing into the arts and sciences of bigscale precision production makes an exciting holiday. Besides, a tour of this kind is certain not to be adulterated with the propaganda that awaits a vacationer abroad.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Relief From Hard-Boiled World— And Philosophy Lesson—Found in Taking Youngster to See the Zoo,

NEW YORK, July 27.—Whenever life gets very real and earnest—or, in other words, tough—I seek relief by visiting the zoo in Central Park. But the last time my experiment didn’t work very well. It’s no fun to go and see the animals all by yourself, and so I borrowed Charlie, the 4 or 5-year-old son of a neighbor. Some persons believe that it is best to withhold

from children certain facts of life ‘which are sordid and uzly, but when we got to the zoo 1 took Charlie directly to the tank and said, “There’s the hippopote 1 us.” It may be that his parents w uld have preferred to break the nows themselves, but I knew that su ner . or later Charlie would have to “. meet a hippopotamus. As the : poet has said, “Into each .ife some hippopotamus must fall.” Charlie stood the encounter pretty well, for nothing showed above the water but a pair of ears and the rather blunt tip of a nose. Suddenly there was a violent commotion, and the hippopotamus, all 20 tons of him or her, heaved up out of the water and glared at us. There was more to the animal than Charlie had bargained for, and he clutched me convulsively. Then he scowled at the beast in the cage and said, “He's pretty big.” That seemed to me a pretty silly sort of eriticism, and so I said, “Charlie, there’s nothing wrong in being big. Your Uncle Heywood is no gazelle himself, When you get to studying history you will hear, though not very much, about a President of the United States who was called Big Bill Taft. If your father goes through with his iniquitous purpose of sending you to Princeton you will hear a lot about Big Bill Edwards, and if your Sunday school is any good they have already told you about Goliath, who was 10 or 12 cubits tall.”

” on o

HARLIE didn't answer my argument, but merely said, “I don’t like the hippopotamus.” And so I took him to the next cage, where they have another which is several tons smaller, The little boy studied the smaller, or runabout, type intently, and then he

Mr. Broun

said again, “I don’t like the hippopotamus.” That was all right by me. I figured that we could take a quick look at the lions, give a passing glance to the tigers, watch the monkeys for a minute, ahd I would still have time to make the first race at Empire City. But Charlie set up a holler. “I want to see the first hippopotamus again.” And there I was, with a fine tip on Bien Joli in the first race, being whipsawed between a couple of hippopotami.

# 8 un

HE man who stood next to us with his small son outside the llama’s cage seemed to be having mare difficulty. “What does the llama do?” the boy asked him. Apparently the man had been in the zoo a good many hours, and there was a weariness in his voice as he replied, “Oh, I guess he just sort of hangs around.” I missed the first race at Empire City, but Bien Joli was only three to two, and I had learned a great philosophic truth which I wouldn't swap for anything less than a 10-to-1 shot. Here on God's footstool

all living creatures, the llama or the columnist, more or less tend just to hang around.

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Recapitulation of Recent Events in Congress Shows That Discord in New Deal Ranks Was Result of Tendencies Toward One-Man Government.

EW YORK, July 27.—The 38-t0-37 vote on the Democratic Senate leadership shows up a condition of which Senator Vandenberg truly said, “To paraphrase Jim Farley, the Democratic leadership isn’t in the bag. It's in two bags.” The 70-t0-20 court vote shows something else— that cne bag was crammed by strong-arm pressure. When the heat was on there were 47 votes for court-

packing. It looks as though all but 20 of those were hi-jacked votes presumably cast against convictions. That may be democracy at work in the land of the free gnd the home of the brave, but it looks more like a shotgun wedding, a Soviet confession or a goosestepped Nazi election. When this Congress met there never was a more loyal and enthusiastic unity n in the liberal forces that had just swept Mr. It back to power. What causes could possibly have changed that harmony within seven months into a snarling discord?

HE causes were the unexpected, explosive and revolutionary utterances and proposals that came from the White House with machine-gun rapidity as soon as Congress had convened. They were hot in accordance with the platform and campaign. They were crammed with legislative jokers and “clever little schemes.” They came with such

no

That is bad business, especially with an American

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Garner Openly Pleaded for Party Harmony at Judiciary Meeting; Group That Defeated Court Bill Now Fearing Tribunal Will Boomerang.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

audience. The cleverness affronts their intelligence. It arouses the “show me” instinct—pride in being too smart to be taken in. Everybody is on the lookout for tricks, and even perfectly candid proposals are suspected. Also, strong-arm stuff is particularly hateful to the average American. Finally, when all the separately proposed pieces of legislation were put together they seemed to disclose a pattern—a new form of government to be built around the peculiar genius of a single brilliant figure, whose own plans, purposes and ideas were, by that pattern, given greatly enlarged control of Congress and the courts. » » » LL this strongly suggested perpetuation of the President and it more than suggested one-man government within at least the appearance of consti-

tutional forms. It makes no difference whether you call one-man government a dictatorship or not. If it exists, to the extent that it exists the result is the same. The conscious dictator bugaboo is baloney. But as soon as the tendencies just described clearly appeared, the President’s following split. It will stay split as long as such trends continue. When they are reversed it will reunite as strong as ever. After all, he is the most bril-

ASHINGTON, July 27.—To those who sat in the secret Senate Judiciary Committee meeting which finally buried the Supreme Court Bill, it was one of the most dramatic sessions ever held on Capitol Hill. Republican members of the committee looked on with ill concealed delight while Democrats, completely unabashed, openly pleaded for party harmony.

Vice President Garner was the chief pleader. He told his Democratic colleagues, in effect, that it was a question of the party or the bill, and let's stand by the party. “I want to do anything that can be done to help the country,” Mr. Garner told the Judiciary Committee, “but I also want to save the Democratic Party from a bustup. ‘That isn’t going to do any of us Democrats any good. The President is licked and he knows it. But don’t let's bloody his nose.”

A n ”

HIS remark was directed at Senator Burke. The irreconcilable Nebraskan, who three years ago was elected as a “100 per cent Roosevelt supporter,” wanted the opposition to fight to the last ditch against any kind of a judicial measwre, even one relating to lower court procedure. “We can work out a bill that IL Sausy every-

the Administration means it. Let's get together and stop all this fighting. We want to be brothers once more.” “What about political reprisals?” demanded Senator Pat McCarran, who must run for re-election next year and is under hot fire in Nevada. “There will be none of that so far as my .influence can prevent it,” Mr. Garner replied. “We don't want war; we want peace.” “I am sure we Republicans will be glad to help you, Mr. Vice President,” observed Senator Barah with a wide grin. = » » WO reasons underlie the apprehension of the anti-Court Bill crowd: 1. Fear that the Supreme Court next term may go Old Guard again and throw out important liberal measures. ; Invalidation of the Holding Company Act, or denial of the Government's right to lend money to states and communities to build power plants, would be certain to boomerang aghinst the oppositionists. Either would give Mr. Roosevelt a powerful weapon against the group that has now defeated him. 2. The bitter attacks of the antis against -the President may encourage rivals to take the field against them using these personal slams as'an issue. Some of the antis now wish privately that they Dadi ben

so vituperative against Mr. Roosevelt. For

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