Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 August 1937 — Page 17

PAGE 16

The Indianapolis Times

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THURSDAY, AUG. 12, 1937

THE POSTMAN RINGS TWICE “Of making many books there is no end.” UST when the Democratic National Committee's book peddlers are dumping their $250 campaign books onto corporations in bulk lots, along comes the Indiana Democratic organization with a campaign fund-raising volume. The Party's efficient Two Per Cent Club, which has perfected other ways of making reluctant contributors kick in, is sponsoring a 400-page “Official Indiana Review, Pictorial, Political and Historical.” It will publish “industrial articles” for a tentative price of $500 a page, $300 a half page and $200 a quarter page. Certain ambitious individuals and corporations have been buying the Philadelphia convention “souvenir books” as an “investment in good will” in the Administration. This Indiana enterprise may be still another instance where, to reverse the old saying, a book that isn't worth reading may be worth buying!

MORE POLICEMEN NEEDED

CHIEF MORRISSEY'’S request for 50 additional policemen is a reasonable one and should be granted. His force is undermanned compared with several cities in the same population class. Milwaukee, with 44 square miles of area against our 55, has two policemen for each 1000 inhabitants, while Indianapolis’ ratio is 1.5. Baltimore's ratio is 2.4, Albany’s 2.8. Others are lower. A Department of Commerce tabulation showed Indianapolis sixth from the bottom in its population group in per capita police costs in 1934. The motorcycle force, which must carry the brunt of traffic safety enforcement, is pitifully understaffed. Our 26 motorcycle policemen, divided into three shifts, cannot give adequate protection, especially during the morning when many of them must appear in court with their cases. Twenty-four of the additional men would be used for motorcycle duty. If the safety campaign is to be permanent, and if the alibis are to be removed, this request should be allowed.

HEADACHES COMING UP LOT of employers dislike dealing with labor unions. They consider collective-bargaining conferences a nuisance, and resent being required to dicker with a walking delegate over employment conditions in their plants.

But just wait until they have done business awhile |

under the Federal bureaucracy to be set up by the projected Wages-and-Hours measure. We predict that many a corporation head will be so eager to get rid of the rules, regulations and red tape that he would willingly consent to have John L. Lewis sit on his board of directors instead. Among other things, the Wages-and-Hours bill says, “The presence of any employee at the place of employment at any other hours than those stated in the schedule applying to him shall be deemed prima-facie evidence of violation of such order, unless such employee is receiving the overtime rate provided in Section 6 (B). In other words, any employee who walks out of the door when the quitting whistle blows and returns to his bench to pick up his pipe had better be careful or he will get his boss into trouble. Or, consider the wording of Section 23 (C), dealing with penalties: “Any employer who willfully discharges or in any other manner discriminates against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted any investigation or proceeding under or related to this act, or has testified or is about to testify in any such investigation or proceeding, or has served or is about to serve on an advisory committee, or because such employer believes that such employee has done or may do any of said acts, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not more than $1000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.” Don’t fail to note the phrase—"or because such employer believes that such employee has done or may do any of said acts.” How would you like to defend yourself on that charge?

JOHN W. CRAVENS JOHN W. CRAVENS was as much a part of Indiana University as Jordan River or the trees that adorn its campus. Choice of the Union Building, center of student activity, as the site of his funeral today is most appropriate. For 41 years Mr. Cravens served the university as registrar. Since 1915 he had been secretary. Ill health forced his retirement last year, but he still retained the title of secretary-emeritus. He had held an executive office longer than any other school official. Thousands of I. U. students knew Mr. Cravens. He signed their diplomas. His pleasant manner and ready sympathy with their problems had endeared him to many of them. Newspaperman, State legislator and schoolteacher, Mr. Cravens led an active life capped by his long and meritorious service to the university. His death costs his community, his employer and his State a loss they can ill afford.

SPEAKING OF PROPHETS

POSTMASTER GENERAL FARLEY predicts that Senator Vandenberg of Michigan will be the Republican nominee for President in 1940, and that there will be no third party. We wish Jim would get back into the field where he has had most startling success as a predicter, and _ tell us who will be the Democratic nominee and whether there will be a third term.

PRICE RULES i [=> 31] Aha Py Lal ATE

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

And Reds Say About One Another, Pegler Finds; That's Dictatorship.

EW YORK, Aug. 12.—The easiest way to annoy a Communist or a Fascist is to say that one is as bad as the other and that they have so many identical vices as to be generally alike. Yet both deny freedom of speech and of the press to prevent their subjects from learning about or even giving consideration to any other system. Both find it necessary to govern by terror and espionage. Both are highly militaristic and both believe that honor is served by an act, however vile, which can be construed as an act in the service of the cause. It is impossible to trust either on oath. The Communists loathe the slave press of Italy and Germany, and have little more ailection for ours, but it is crazy to imagine an article in a Moscow paper even hinting that fascism or the American system might have some merit. An Italian or German who attempted to deliver 2 public speech in praise of communism would be executed or exiled. The same risks exist for the Russian under communism, so the ordinary citizen is no better off in one country than in another, Private industry was protected in Italy and Germany in the beginning, but after a while it began to lose its rights asthe Government was forced to assume control. Meanwhile, in Russia, according to the Trotsky Communists, a great betrayal has taken place | and the present regime represents nothing but capitalism,

Mr. Pegler

5 ” » HE really hot Communists turn out copy in which Josef Stalin appears to be no better than a Tom Girdler or a J. P. Morgan, while the Moscow Communists insist that the Trotsky Communists are no better than Adolf Hitler and are, in fact. plotting with him to overthrow the perfect state and deliver the spoils to the capitalistic oppressors. Mussolini will not permit a man to quit a job to loat or look for another, because that would be sabotage, but the same is true in Russia and, of course, strikes are absolutely out under both systems on the ground of national welfare. In neither country does the workman have the right to strip the gears, pour ink or acid over cloth in work or mucilage and sand into the machines and then walk out to enforce a demand for more pay or shorter hours. It is said in Italy and Germany the middie class is protected, but that is just sales talk. After the middle

class got dictators it found it was taxed and pushed around by party oflicials. ” ” ” Toe Italian or German taxes and compulsory contributions would drive an American middleclasser crazy and Americans are so indignant at officious Government intrusion in private affairs that a lot of our people would punch some bum in uniform right on the nose—and then get executed, under fascism, It was the same in Italy and Germany in the early days, but the power of the dictators was so great that the middle-class surrendered. You don’t have to take any outsider’s word as to the Communists. Just listen to the Trotsky Communists ‘working out on the Moscow Communists and Joe Stalin, and then listen to the Moscow Communists on the subject of the Trotsky type. Then add them

up, divide by two and see if fascism, naziism and communism don’t give the same result.

ETHANY. BEACH, Del., Aug. 12.—Here's a chance for cheap cat-meat. Government Form No. 215 advertises for sale to the highect bidder: Pewee, gray gelding of 20 years, “tender-footed and stiff in Joints”; Dick, 18, “weak tendon, drags leg’; Boot legger, gray gelding of 20, still “too fast for ordinary farm work”; Joe, aged 21, bay gelding “becomes lame when used reularly.” A horse at 20 is the equivalent in old age of a man of between 80 and 90. All Government horses are well cared for while they serve, but what do you suppose will happen to these decrepit veterans after the auction, and how much will they bring to help Mr. Roosevelt balance his budget? What will happen to them is a few final months of cruel service in starvation. They won't bring enough to pay the expenses of sale and cost of keep to date of delivery. The transaction would be much more creditable to Uncle Sam, economically and ethically, if it consisted simply of a merciful 45 bullet. More merciful and creditable still would be to pension off such veterans on a Government farm with grazing space in summer and a little fodder in winter, * » = T is easy to become sentimentally mawkish about these animal affairs. The practical and frugal French would: slaughter these old servants and peddle their flesh as a secondary meat ration—a procedure,

It's All True What Fascists, Nazis |

| {

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES a Wrong —By Kirby

THURSDAY, AUG. 12, 1937

‘Wake Up and Live’—By Herblock

NRT Ie AE ‘ A fy ~ os

The Hoosier Forum

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

PROFESSOR HITS FORUM ‘GRAPHOMANIACS'

By Prof. W. C. Middleton, Greencastle I would like to voice a word of criticism against the graphomaniacs who monopolize “The Hoosier Forum,” I have read Forum letters for several years, but I must say that I am getting thoroughly bored by having to see the names of cer-

tain contributors two or three times | each week, Just offhand, the fol-|

lowing names immediately come to my mind: E. F. Maddox, Mable German, Lester Gaylor, A. J. McKinnon, Daniel Francis Clancy and John L. Niblack. The first gentleman is perhaps the chief offender. Why docs he not edit his own newspaper instead of taking advantage of the generosity of The Times?

These individuals appear to be possessed by a peculiar authorship mania, a pathological passion for writing which the psychologist oud analyze as mental exhibitionsm,

These literary behemoths of In-

the least, a well-developed sense of their importance. They set themselves up as miracles of learning, but it is easy to detect evidences of their inflated self-esteem. They impress one as trying to appear as self-appointed guides to rule over the affairs of men. They bask in

the brilliant sunlight of free pub- |

licity, although their contributions to the Forum are usually inappropriate and fantastic.

What is their trouble? Well, the psychologist would diagnose it as an insatiable mania for the smell of printer's ink—an uncontrollable impulse to get something published. In short, they have a compulsion neurosis. They have a nose for publicity—an incurable itch for expressing themselves too frequently in print. and

strange miscellany of truth

sloppy palaver. What can we do to help these graphomaniacs? I have a suggestion. I would like to see The Times limit every contributor to the Forum to one letter every six months. Such a policy would not only restrain the unfortunate graphomaniacs, but it would give the Forum more variety. I suggest that you change your motto to read: “I wholly disagree

| with what you say, but will defend

to the death your right to say it” (once or twice). This is my first and last letter to the Forum,

“ 4% » WORTHINGTON MAN TELLS “STAND-PAT” FABLE By Henry M. Calvert, Worthington

Quite frequently there appears in this column letters of stanch standpattism presumably written by an old man of fortune. (A younger mind could see progress in the scheme of things.) He rants against the New Deal; he growls at organized labor; he bares his teeth, so to speak, at anything so “radical” as to mention the unfair status of the laboring masses. To him President Roosevelt is a dangerous “Red” of the first waters. Apparently, all the

readers of this column will recog-’

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Uncle Sam Sells Old Faithful Horses Down River of Starvation; How About Giving Aged Dobbin a Break As a Government Pensioner?

after all, far more merciful than this sale of faithful equine Uncle Toms to unidentified Simon Legrees

down the river of starvation.

The Blue Cross, the S. P. C. A. or somebody, ought Even in the hard-boiled Army,

to get after this.

(on, . |by the change of things has become diana of whom I speak have, to say |

Their pens are indefatigable |

and their minds are clogged with a | | locals.

| horse sense.

(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.)

nize the point in my fable of barnyard wit: Once upon a time there was an old-dumb-ox who grew fat back in the days of ox-power. His prestige was great as he pulled the clumsy ox-cart over the muddy roads. By and by the roads were improved, the old-dumb-ox with his clumsy ox-cart was too slow. He was chagrined at the new mode of travel, and being an old-dumb-ox he could not change his ideas. With his prestige slipping, he became obsessed with hatred for the new scheme of things. The world moved but the old-dumb-ox obsessed

a mad ox. Now every time a new vehicle moves past his barn-yard, the old-dumb-ox stamps and bellows, bellows and stamps. This is all that he can do. This fable has a moral, easy to see for those whe will.

” os ” C. I. 0. WARNED TO END ‘OUTLAW’ STRIKES By William Lemon I believe that in the future the C. I. O. under the guiding hand of John L. Lewis will become a factor

to be reckoned with, especially in the political field. If it wishes to

| keep the respect and sympathy of

the public it must refrain from costly unwarranted strikes and settle grievances by arbitration. Furthermore, it must keep radicals from controlling the various This can be done by using The strong back and weak-minded idea attributed to labor can be eliminated by sane ideas, Also it should not forget that President Roosevelt made it possible for them to organize legally, and should not by silly methods place him in an embarrassing position. Americanism will not tolerate

NEW GRASS

By FLORENCE M'DONALD

With bare feet I waik on the virgin grass, Whose tender green blades beckon all who pass To rest tired feet on the healing 500 — And know pause from the bedlam to commune with God;

DAILY THOUGHT

Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.—Ezra 7:27.

ELIGION is a process of turning your skull into a taber=nacle, not of going up to Jerusalem once a year.—Austin O’'Mal-

ley.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, Aug. 12.—~The skids are under John Hamilton as chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is almost sure to go. Plan is to replace him by the first of the year,

radicalism. ‘That's the reason for the failure of prohibition and for capitalism's being placed on the spot. Sometimes a strike is a necessily, | but labor usually comes out at the | “little end of the horn”—a case of “heads they win and tails you lose.” ” n ” DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM CALLED INCONSISTENT By Robert Berling After I read in The Hoosier | Forum a letter defending com- | munism with seemingly no facts

but only false statements, I de-

cided to show the inconsistencies |

of some of these statements made by Communists themselves. First, the Communists Americans advocating communism

the workers of every country have only one flag and that is the Red flag.” Secondly, democracy. Dictator Stalin, and only two million out of 160 million in Russia today are Communists. Also, here the dictatorship of the Proletariat “means nothing more nor less than power which directly rests on violence which is not limited by any laws or restricted by any absolute rules.” (Problems of Leninism. J. Stalin, Page 25.) Is this a democracy? Third, the Communists claim that the Red flag means peace. But Dictator Stalin at the All-Union Congress of Soviets said, “The Soviet Union should have the greatest military machine in the world. Soviet Russia already rejoices in the possession of 7000 war planes and 100,000 airmen alone.” Is Stalin for peace, building up his army while millions in his country starve and while many thousands of others are working much longer hours and receiving much less pay than the poorest farmers and unskilled laborers in America? Finally, the freedom in Russia. There everything belongs to the State including the people themselves. Since any act is ethical which aids the U. S. 8. R,, the State can and does force injustices on the people, for example, the many secret trials and the few public trials which are carefully rehearsed beforehand with trained prisoners, as written by Eugene Lyons in the Reader's Digest. Is freedom the restricting of the press and the denying of the right to personal religion? I am not a Fascist. Usually when a person criticizes the idea of comnmunism, he is called a Fascist and that is all that is said by the slanderous Communists. However, I believe that fascism is just as great an evil as communism. As for me, I'll take good old America with

the Reds

neither, and long may she remain the land of the free!

Hamilton Reported on the

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Scales of Justice Must Be Put on A More Even Keel to Make Capital and Labor Balance, Broun Asserts.

NEW YORK, Aug. 12.—Recently I thought that I was losing a lot of weight, but to my disappointment I found that the scales themselves were out of kilter and did not balance even when at rest. This is not ine troduced as the beginning of an autobiographical essay, but is cited as a sort of text in an« swer to the “plague on both your houses” school of thought. Many seem to think that they have made a great contribution toward eco= nomic peace and prosperity when they say that the rights of capital and the rights of labor should be evenly balanced. This generally introduces a dis= course in which it is stated that once capital went too far and that, now labor is going too far. And there may even be an attempt to solve deep-rooted social problems in no other terms than a recital of atrocity stories, In the long history of conflict there has been much violence, but any examination of the casualty lists in any year will find that tha

Mr. Broun

| dead of the strikers far outnumber the casualties

preach | 4, ong police, company guards and strikebreakers. But

But Russia is ruled by |

even this is not the fundamental point. People who ask labor to seek its objectives without any form of force whatsoever should be equally insistent that the courts ought to be absolutely impartial in handling cases between employers and employees. ” " ” HE courts are not impartial. In Maine a judge * issued an injunction forbidding a union to go on strike and gave sentences of six months in jail when the order was disobeyed. In Jersey a Vice Chancellor held that the closed shop was illegal, and another Jersey judge a few years ago issued an injunction in which he ruled that no union member could go on the radio to state the union’s side in a Newark controversy. In Brooklyn a Judge undertook to make a defense of craft unionism against industrial unionism from the bench. : A few days ago I saw Edward Lamb, general coune sel for C. I. O, in Ohio. Mr, Lamb told me that he went to a U. 8. Attorney, on June 1, and made tha charge that Republic Steel had stored large quantitieg of unregistered arms. Mr. Lamb presented evidence in support of his contention. The only reply from the U. 8. Attorney was, according to Mr. Lamb, “I will have to act cautiously in investigating the matter.” There is noth ing on the record to show that any action has been taken, ” $i {A ZOCKHROLDERS' suit asking an injunction ta prevent Republic from hiring strikebreakers op buying guns came into court on the same day the Re= public filed a suit to restrain picketing. It was the same court. Immediate trial was ordered in the case brought by the company, and the case instituted by the union was postponed one month in Youngstown, The prosecutor is the brother and law partner of the leader of the “back-to-work” movement. In a Michigan case a judge who issued an injunce tion against a union was a heavy stockholder in the company which asked for the order. The District Ate torney of Dearborn, where Mr. Ford has a large plant, has refused to provide police protection for a C. I. O, meeting on the ground that the C. I. O. has no legal existence.

Balance will never be possible in America until the scales of justice themselves are set on even keel.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Skids as G. O. P. Prepares for Campaign;

Pay-Hour Bill Held in Committee While O'Connor Takes Son to Camp.

where cavalry and artillery horses have to be ine spected, condemned and sold when they are no longer young and vigorous, the veterans manage mer cifully to end those cases where the cast-offs haven't got enough left to give to insure fair treatment in ordinary frugal management by their prospective civilian purchasers. » » o ORSES, which, by some fluke, have served so long and so faithfully as these are pensioned off by

a variation of the old Army game to some green pastures to the end of their days. Yet some of the most

touching happenings I have seen were separations, by inexorable decrees of narrow-headed inspector-gen-erals, of old cavalry soldiers from mounts they had ridden and loved for years. If a private owner of a horse that had served him faithfully for 15 years sold its aching body off for a couple of dollars, to pull a rag-picker’s cart on a diet of shavings, he wouldn't be popular with the neighbors. He couldn't belong to any clubs, except

perhaps to the Amalgamated Association of Stealers’

of Pennies off the Eyes of Dead Blind Beggars. But it's o. k. for the Federal Government,

Something ought to be done about this,

so that his successor will have ample time to get ready for a revival of G, O. P. activity in next spring's crucial Congressional primaries, Leaders in the ouster drive are Alf Landon, who originally selected Mr. Hamilton for the post, and Joe Pew, Pennsylvania oil magnate and a heavy contributor. Also opposed are several other veteran party chiefs. “ A group of the latter held a secret meeting in New York recently at which they discussed ways and means of getting rid of John. All were optimistic about the chances of the Republican Party staging a strong comeback in Congress next year, but all agreed it could not be done effectively under John Hamilton. ” » »

[I OSTRATIVE of the hollowness of the Congressional clamor for adjournment is the inside story of why it took so long to bring the Wage<Hour bill before the House. The fact that John O'Connor was busy taking his son to camp was one reason. Southern opposition was another. The House Labor Committee reported the measure out a week ago (Tuesday. It was expected that the

Rules Committee would meet the next day, decide on

the number of hours of debate, and begin that debate on Thursday. Instead, a full week went by before the Rules Come mittee met on the question. Reason: Of the 10 Demoe crats on the Committee, the five Southern members had evinced marked hostility to the bill. Fearing that they would vote with the Republicans to shelve it, Administration leaders wanted to be sure of the presence of Rep. O'Connor, hard-boiled Committee chairman. He, however, had other plans. He was taking his young son to a summer camp and could nou be bothe ered. So the works had to be shut down until Rep. O'Connor got back. on n n

T= bill, incidentally, faces just as rough going in the House as it experienced in the Senate. The Southern contigent, including several Admine istration leaders, are planning to assault it with ime portant restrictive amendments, chiefly one to exemphb all plants employing 20, or fewer, workers. : Another serious handicap to the bill is the fact that its floor leader is Mrs. Mary Norton, Labor Come mittee chairman.

Unlike Senator Black, the bill's manager in the

Senate, who is wholeheartedly for the legislation and is an extremely able parliamentarian, Mrs. Norton is neither. The Administration is leaning heavily on Rep. Robert Ramspeck, Georgia liberal and next in rank tp Mrs. Norton on the Committee, to push the bill through. : fis