Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 August 1937 — Page 11
PAGE 10
The Indianapolis Times
NEWSPAPER)
MARK FERREE Business Manager
(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD
ROY W.:rHOWARD LUDWELL DENNY President
Price in Marion County, 3 cents a copy; delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week.
Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co. 214 W. Maryland St. Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month.
Eo RlIley 5551
Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way
Membe: of United Press Scrinps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bu-
vreau of Circulations. AER ;
SATURDAY, AUG. 28, 1937
WALTER N. CARPENTER HE tribute being paid to a court reporter today might be unusual if it were anyone except Walter N. Carpenter. Few men attain the standing and respect in their professions that Mr. Carpenter did in his. For 35 of his 72 vears in Indianapolis he was Federal District Court reporter. Honorable, able, fair, accurate, reliable, industrious, incorruptible, impartial—these are among the words of praise paid him as judges, lawyers and laymen mourn his
death. With the advancing years, friends and family had
urged him to retire. He declined. Seven weeks ago he collapsed during the fraud trial of former Governor C. J. Morley of Colorado. The trial was halted. Mr. Carpenter was taken to his Woodruff Place home, where he had lived for 43 years, but he did not recover. There are many fine memories of this man, but we like to think of him in the courtroom, kindly, genial, dignified as a judge, faithfully performing his task. He asked no favors, but one could not sit in court without seeing the unusual deference shown him by judge, attorneys and litigants. No higher tribute could be paid him now than that which he received daily while he lived.
“THERE’S MUCH TO BE SAID...” HE five operating railroad brotherhoods, whose demands for a 20 per cent wage increase were turned down by the carriers, have voted to strike. If such a thing actually took place it would mean a walkout of 350,000 men, a complete tie-up of the nation’s rail system, millions of dollars in losses to commerce. It sounds alarming. But “there’s much to be said ere it comes to that!” Fortunately the labor-management relations on America’s railways are under a law that minimizes strikes by a series of statutory brakes. Under this law strikes may occur, but only when all the stipulated efforts to avert them have failed. In other. industries strikes usually come first and peace efforts afterward; on the railroads the order is more logical. In 11 years’ operation of this law only five minor rail strikes have taken place. We gravely doubt if a strike will occur now, for surely somewhere along this stop-look-listen procedure the employers and employees will compose their differences.
Some day, when management and workers generally have developed group responsibility comparable with that of the rail carriers and unions, we shall have mediation machinery like this for the whole of industry.
MOB MURDERS N Covington, Tenn., six masked night-riders seized an accused Negro from a sheriff, hanged him to a tree and riddled his dying body with bullets. When the sheriff urged them to let the law take its course, one of the lynchers shouted: “To hell with law!” Tennessee is aroused over the crime, rare in her latterday annals, and Circuit Judge R. B. Baptist has ordered a thorough grand jury inquiry, to be followed by first degree murder charges if the lynchers are caught. If this Tennessee community punishes these lawless citizens it will offer an argument against a Federal antilynching law. If it lets the affair die down, it will provide another argument for passage. The record favors the lynchers, for of 5108 lynchings since 1882 in the United States the lynchers have escaped punishment in 99.2 per cent of the cases, and virtually all the penalties that were imposed were slight. : By a big majority the House has passed the Gavagan Antilynching Bill, and the Senate leaders have agreed to take up the Wagner-VanNuys companion bill as soon as Congress reconvenes. Such a measure may not stamp out lynching, but we believe that under it fewer night-riders will engage in mob murders and shout: “To hell with law!”
HURRAH FOR NEGATIVE INTEREST!
F all the monetary panaceas that have been offered, we see the most interesting and far-reaching possibilities in the one proposed by James H. R. Cromwell. Mr. Cromwell qualifies as an authority on money. Ie married Doris Duke, the wealthiest young woman in the world. And he qualifies as an economist. He has published a book, “In Defense of Capitalism.” Mr. Cromwell led up to his great idea by explaining that, among other things, defense of American capitalism requires that the Federal Reserve Board shall make *““inducement loans” to farmers and industrialists who are willing to increase production. But, inquired Senator Frazier of North Dakota, how could the farmers and industrialists afford to pay interest on this borrowed money ? Aha! Mr. Cromwell had the perfect answer for that one. The farmers and industrialists wouldn't have to pay interest. Still better, the Federal Reserve would pay them interest—"negative interest,” as Mr. Cromwell calls it. Say a farmer obtained a $10,000 “inducement loan,” at 6 per cent. At the end of 10 years, negative interest payments would reduce his debt to $4000. Then, beyond doubt, the obliging Federal Reserve Board would renew the loan for 10 years more, and so on and on, with negative interest getting in its good work all the time and eventually reducing the debt to practically nothing. No lending plan, we say without hesitation, could possibly be made more attractive than that. The Townsend plan, the Huey Long share-the-wealth plan, the Alberta social-credit plan, are niggling palliatives. The Cromwell plan opens the door to that happy day when every loan will be its own self-liquidating security, when the more you owe the richer you'll be, and when each American citizen can live in luxury off the interest on his debts. The line of borrowers is already [forming at the right! £1 D :
“Okay, Toots!” —By Talburt
& oc onLy WAY THIS COUNTRY EVERCAN
GET BACK Sous
A PROSPERITY ISTO ELECT ; REPUBLICAN PRESIDEN AND GIVE RIM
H A MAJORITY IN BOT HOUSES OF CONGRESS
areal” tA ABORT
THE
INDIANAPOLIS TIMES |
tt
i. a dl
>
SATURDAY, AUG. 28, 1937
What Kind of a Jinni Would Come Forth ?—py Herblock-
THE FISHERMAN AND THE BOTTLE OR ALADDIN AND THE LAMP?
Copyright, 1987, NEA
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
'Wrongheadedness' of Lawyers Held Basis of Presidential Complaint Directed Against Their Natures.
EW YORK, Aug. 28.—It seems to President Roosevelt that a veritable conspiracy has existed on the part of some of the most gifted members of the legal profession to take advantage of the technicalities of
the law and the conservatism of the courts to render measures of social and economic reform sterile or abortive. But is Mr. Roosevelt just discovering this? he known for many years that some lawyers practice dragging litigants through wearisome and expensive proceedings; suppressing or shading testimony; sending witnesses cut of town or out of the country; attacking indictments on trivial grounds; using, in fact, every means of defeating the law which they are sworn to uphold? Haven't many counselors placed the interests of their clients above those of the community? Naturally, if it serves the interests of their clients, some gifted members of the legal profession will employ technicalities and impose on the conservatism of the courts *o thwart measures of social or economic reform or any other measures, for that matter. That is part of what they deem to be their solemn duty, and their mentality is such that any intentional failure to do so would be regarded as a breach of trust.
= # ”
ELAY in the courts? Why, delay is a recognized weapon, and lawyers speak of it with no more: sense of shame or guilt than a prize fighter feels in speaking of a jab. It gives time for the heat to cool off or the opposing side to lose interest or get so hard up for a settlement that a compromise may be had. In a case of personal injury it either stalls off the trial until the victim dies, in which case his estate will present a much less convincing appearance to the jury, or until he recovers appreciably, in which case it may be hard to persuade the 12 good men, and true, that he really was hurt as badly as his doctors say he was. In big litigation involving public interest in utilities, delay may pad the fees of special counsel on the public payroll at a rate to shame a crooner, Out of his long experience in the law and with lawyers, surely the President has advanced beyond that stage at which it “seems” that a conspiracy exists to take advantage of technicalities. And it may be said, too, that Government lawyers are no less alert to take advantage of them than counsel for private clients.
Hasn't
Mr. Pegler
” a sn
]. ums write the laws, and many of those which they have written in the last few years are so complex and long-winded that the great social and political reforms of the New Deal may be said to benefit lawyers more directly than any other class. A man can’t plow a field, hire a hand or fire a cook but that he may be violating some law and should make sure. It is hard to see how Mr. Roosevelt or anyone else can correct the nature of some lawyers, but it does seem that the principal complaint is not against their nature but against the wrongheadedness of those who will not see as reforms all those measures which the New Deal desires. If counsel were to resort to technicalities and take advantage of the radicalism of new, radical judges would the Administration still complain or would
that be hokey-doke?
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
\ | f { |
PROTESTS WORKING CONDITIONS AT JULIETTA By “One Who Knows” We hear a lot about how the Democrats help the working man
and woman and how human they: |
are. Well, I wish you would print these facts: Out at the Julietta Insane Asylum the county has employed attendants for $30 and $40 per month (not week), and they work for 17 hours a day and get one-half day off a week. The conditions at this institution are so miserable that the State Board of Charities should take a hand and vestigate. . The employees demand better working conditions and more humane treatment for the patients.
DECLARES STATEMENTS ABOUT HOSPITAL UNTRUE
By John Newhouse, Marion County Commissioner
1 i r bu | 1 The Sisiemenis In sie above Jet | cerned about getting a run for his |
ter which purport to be facts are grossly untrue.
The wages are the customary |
wages paid to employees of the Julietta Insane Hospital, but it must be borne in mind that the employees board and room at the Hospital. Concerning working hours, the statement that employees work 17 hours a day is erroneous. And the conditions at the institution can be testified to by members of the Board of Charities as “excellent.” Investigation by the County Grand Jury showed that the Hospital is one of the most efficiently run institutions in Indiana. Furthermore, it is clean. :
u » ”
PLATO'S IDEAL CALLED ORIGINAL COMMUNIST
By R. L.
If Mr. Lackey has read Plato's “Republic,” an idea from which he cites, it is obvious why he subscribes to a Platonic idealism which refuses to grapple with the problems of life as they are. But he should have cited a little more, Plato’s ideal state is ruled only by the most intelligent who have been selected in youth and have received rigorous training all their lives for the job of governing. Plato's ideal public official, furthermore, is a
Communist in the original sense of | “Why I'd have known you any-|
the word, for he must call nothing his own, must not touch silver or gold and live like a Spartan till his death, or pay the penalty. If we could get only the most intelligent of our population into office and then get them to submit to Plato's illiberal and lifelong discipline, I for one would be willing to let them have the keys to the public treasury.
Idea Didn't Work
I agree that it is impossible to say how much a good man is worth, but I do know that a bad one is too
General Hugh Johnson Says—
President Seems Set to Gamble His Program on Issue of Whether He Can Pull a Knute Rockne, and Send in a New Backfield of Hugo Blacks.
ETHANY BEACH, Del, Aug. 28.—It appears that the President is still going to gamble his whole program on the single issue of whether he can make his opponents eat dirt on his original Court proposal— to shoot the works on a single pass. It seems to make no difference that he has already won many of his main judicial objectives and undoubtedly will win all the rest except a right to pull a Knute Rockne on the Supreme Bench and send in a whole new backfield of Hugo Blacks. He is right that the work of the lower courts should be speeded up and a better business system used in the judiciary. He will get that—but probably not on any plan to permit the Administration to send flying squadrons of hand-picked judges into any districts where it- has law suits. That he ought not to get. He has no more right to pick his own judges than a heavyweight prize fighter has to pick his own referee. It is probable that the President will get as much judicial reform as he ought to get and no more. But it now appears that this won't be enough--that nothing will do but the very pound of flesh he stipulated in the January bond. = EJ » HE people don’t want a whole new backfield of Blacks on Supreme Court and the President
though the people don’t want it, they will stand for it
because he wants it.
(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.) | | : : | costly if we paid him nothing in of- | fice. For every Lincoln we have | hundreds of ineffectual Polks, { Buchanans and Hoovers, self-seek- | ing Hardings, Falls, Watsons and Robinsons, to name only a few. | As some writer pointed out, there | is practically no other tribe which | runs to baldness, belly, and bottom | as politicians. The average man | looks a good deal like Talburt’s cartoon of Johnny Q. Public. One notes the difference and may legitimately wonder if the poor politi-cian-office-holder needs the raise. I wonder if Mr. Lackey is a taxpayer. If he had to shell out annually for taxes, he'd be more con-
| money. sy, | If I recall, Plato’s idea didn’t work in ancient Greece, either, 2 = | RACKETEERS INVADE | SOCIAL SECURITY
|
By Bruce Catton | The meanest racket has cropped up again, as it has several times bhe- | fore in various places. This time it | is in Knoxville, Tenn., that an old [ lady called the State Department of | Institutions and Public Welfare,
and wanted to know why she hadn't
| received her pension check ‘“‘as the!
| man had promised.” She had paid
| someone a dollar on his promise to | speed up granting of her oid-age
pension. This contemptible racket must be smeared quickly every time it lifts its head. For the law prohibits taking of any “compensation directly or indirectly” for helping people to get their old-age benefits. It is worth a
LITTLE WHITE LIES By PATRICIA BANNER
“My dear, you haven't changed one bit—
You're really looking awfully fit.” I answered back politely:
where,” But ‘neath my broad-brimmed hat I offered up a little prayer: “Lord help me! Who is that?”
DAILY THOUGHT
Where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work.—James 3, 16.
E cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a god life enables us to disregard them.— Cato.
Your hair was grayed but slightly; | gress on the relief basket.
year in jail or $1000 fine, or both, to take money for aiding or pretending to aid any old person to apply for the pension. This rigid rule is necessary to prevent opening up humanitarian law to the most contemptible of racketeers. Every suspected case ought to be promptly reported to the proper authorities and just as promptly squelched.
” " ”
CRITICIZES PATRONAGE IN NEW DEAL By E. P. G. . The merit system, which the |
League of Women Voters has been working so hard to put into effect in government, has not only made no progress, but has received a setback. The Administration now has more patronage to dispense than ever before. No doubt it is all designed to perpetuate the party in office.
Gen. Johnson's project for counting the unemployed cheaply, swiftly and regularly has been “torpedoed” principally because it tcok away power from the politically patronized. Political prima donnas fight bitterly and continually over the matter of patronage. Such bitter fights are reported in the papers | one wonders if the fighters have time to get their regular jobs done, | not to mention whether they do it efficiently.
As a stanch supporter of the New Deal, I deplore the patronage racket. It may keep the Democrats in office for a time, but in the end it may strangle the party simply because it is blind to progress that interferes with its selfish interests and because it is unwilling or incapable of self-criticism. The New | Deal, to keep on serving, must have | officeholders and jobholders imbued with the same spirit as its great leader. But we've got the same type of political self-seekers under the New Deal as under the old. n ” ” CONTROLLED PRODUCTION THEORY CONDEMNED By S. H. The only solution for unemployment coming from the New Deal brain dusters is leaf raking, shovel leaning, piddling work and relief baskets. We might get somewhere if we could put members of Con-
| |
Cutting expense in the Federal | budget and putting orphans of capitalism on taxpaying farmers, | who are also on soil control relief, | is the height of irony. That budges | the balance of the burden to local government; it does not solve anything. The brain dusters insist on keeping more than eight million | people idle to permit scarcity in| production so profits may come to | a few. Finally when the wash up| comes, we will put these people in | production for use. But first the | washup. We fiddle while Rome | burns. |
Washington
By Raymond Clapper
Farley's Advice to Party Against Reprisals Held Hopeful Sign, for Words From Him Do Carry Weight,
(Heywood Broun is on vacation)
ASHINGTON, Aug. 28.— Concerning threats of a purge made by some Administration spokesmen, Postmaster General
| Farley gives his party this advice:
“You never get anywhere in politics try-
| ing to get even.”
He said this at a press conference, the first he has held in many months. Two hours before, he had luncheon privately with President Roosevelt. The presumption is thai he spoke with the consent and approval ef the President. Mr. Farley was discussing the recent speech of Senator Guftey of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Democratic senatorial campaign committee, who called for reprisals against Senators Wheeler, O'Mahoney, VanNuys and Holt, for their opposition to the Roosevelt Court program. Mr. Farley said that every Sena- & tor had the right to express himself on any subject. But he said Mr. Clapper that Mr. Guffey spoke only for himself and not for the Admine istration. : “It is entirely up to the voters to say whether they will return a Senator or a Representative,” Mr. Far= ley said. “Don’t take this reprisal talk too seriously. Every man nominated by the Democrats in 1238 will have the heartiest support of the Democratic National Committee.” As to primary or convention fights for Demo= cratic nominations, Mr. Farley said the National Committee had no right to interfere.
" bd "
HERE are a number of extreme New Dealers who favor taking a more aggressive position and rooting out the conservative Democrats with every means of pressure at the Administration's command, The President himself is understood to feel strongly concerning those Democrats who blocked him on the Court Bill and wages-and-hours legislation particularly. His statement in signing the Lower-Court Reform Bill indicated that he still believes action is necessary to infuse new blood into the judiciary from top to bottom. To pursue this fight effectively, a purge of those opposing the court plan is almost essential, That, coupled with his understandable indignation at the defeat of the measure, is what causes many in Washington still to think that despite Mr, Farley's + advice there may be others in the Administration who will take the initiative in trying to force a purge and that the President will throw no diffis culties in their way. n n ” R. ROOSEVELT has ducked the question in his press conferences. He said this week that he had not read Mr. Guffey’s speech calling for re= prisals, nor Mr, Farley's of the same day opposing such tactics. When Mr. Farley says you never get anywhere in politics trying to get even, he speaks as the man who managed both of Mr. Roosevelt's Presidential campaigns. That ought to qualify him as an expert. Of course the fact that advice is sound does not guarantee that it will be accepted. But it is a hopeful sign that the advice this time comes from Mr, Farley. They do listen to Jim around here,
The Washington Merry-Go-Round
Japanese Ambassador Retains Oriental Calm as Far East War Rages; Knows United States Thoroughly, and Isn't Upset by Public Opinion.
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ASHINGTON, Aug. 28.—With Oriental calm,
being elevated to this prize post he was jumped over 20 seniors in the Japanese diplomatic service.
Is too smart nofst~ know that, His gamble is even |
Unnecessary, unwanted and unwise—yet we are going to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer— no matter what it does to party, to progressive program, to the underprivileged or to loyal partisans whose political fortunes are dangerously involved. Is this thoughtful politics, thoughtful policy, or warm consideration of the ill-fed, ill-clothed and ill-housed third? No, gentle reader, this isn’t thoughtful at all, it is just the famous Dutch stubbornness and pride being given an airing. » ” ” T is too bad. It pains the President's friends and delights his enemies, but that’s the way he is sometimes and we must take the bitter with the sweet and hope for a change of heart. That is no desperate hope. The President knows better than most popular leaders how to adjust himself to both disappointment and superior force—once he is really convinced that he is up against the genuine article. He squanders the old Dutch stuff only when he is sure his political budget can afford it. When it couldn’t he was often so cautious at Albany that the sole expressed fear of some of his 1932 supporters was: “We may get him into the White House and have him go Governor on us.” _
Hirosi Saito, dapper little Japanese Ambassador to the United States, sits in his ornate private sanctum reading confidential dispatches from Tokyo, listening to the mounting roar of anti-Japanese sentiment in this country, and diverting himself by composing Chinese poetry. Saito is in the toughest spot, at the moment, of any foreign emissary in Washington. To cope with his great responsibilities, he is equipped with a suave sense of humor, an unquestioning belief in the might and destiny of his country, and an unusual knowledge of the United States and its people.
American and is never perturbed by any turn which putlic opinion may take.
ROM the day that Japanese troops marched into what is now Manchukuo, Saito knew what Americans would say about his countrymen. He is not disturbed. He first came to this country at the age of 25. He has lived here 17 years in all, more of his adult life than in any other country, including his own. Saito was 47 years old when appointed Ambassador to Washington in 1934. He was the youngest Am-
| bassador Japan had" ever sent to this country, and in
He knows this country far better than the average |
| His youth is accentuated by his youthful appears i ance. Asked once for the secret of his boyish appears | ance, he replied with a grin: “I dissipate, have done | so all my life. Whisky and soda every af‘ernoon—all afternoon.” ' ” ” »
Prose he arrived in Washington from his last post as Minister to the Hague, the embassy staff here received a cable from Saito in Paris. It consisted of three words: “How is cave?” The cryptic message puzzled the secretaries, until they realized that “cave™ referred to the embassy’s wine cellar and Saito was preparing to stock it, if need be, with famed French | wines. When he arrived in New York, reporters went aboard the ship to meet him. He greeted them core dially and invited them to the bar for drinks. He re= sponded to all questions with the smooth adroitness of which he is a past master. Asked about Japan's
What would we want with that frozen country?” Asked about possible war between Japan and the United States, he replied, “That's poppycock.” " Of the post he was entering upon in Washington, Job said, “Ji's a great responsibility, but a cinch of & 0! a
, 8
ul
4 4 H i
3
alleged desire to seize Alaska, he said, “What for? Fo