Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 September 1937 — Page 14

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TUESDAY, SEPT. 28, 19317

MONEY FROM WASHINGTON

HAT enthusiasm for more money from Washington which President Roosevelt is reported to be finding in the West is easy to understand. : The nine states traversed by the President's route from the Mississippi to the Pacific and back have benefited greatly from Federal spending in the last four years. At the same time, comparatively few of their citizens have been forcibly impressed, through having to pay Federal income taxes, with the fact that money from Washington has to be collected sooner or later from the pockets of the people. In these nine states, at the time when Federal spending was helping them most, less than 240,000 persons filed income tax returns—40,329 in Iowa, 24,939 in Nebraska, 6603 in Wyoming, 11,511 in Montana, 6072 in Idaho, 27,572 in Oregon, 54,539 in Washington, 8359 in North Dakota and 59,803 in Minnesota. Many who filed returns did not actually pay taxes. The total population of the nine states is more than 11,000,000. But the single state of Massachusetts, with a population of about 4,425,000 filed 231,960 income tax returns—almost as many as the nine Western States combined. : "Those States with 824 per cent of the country’s total population, paid less than 314; per cent of all Federal income taxes collected in the last fiscal year. Massachusetts, with less than 314% per cent of the country’s population, paid well over 4 per cent of the income taxes. We aren’t trying to argue that states like those Mr. Roosevelt is visiting have been benefited unfairly at the expense of richer states like Massachusetts. It is sound policy for the Government to tax wealth where wealth is. But we think the time has come when Mr. Roosevelt wants and needs, in all the states, not unrestrained enthusiasm for more money from Washington, but sober realization of the truth that the flow of money from Washington must be held within bounds. The way to curb enthusiasm for Government spending . and to create énthusiasm for sensible Government economy,’ of course, is to increase the proportion of the population which does understand that it is being taxed to provide “money from Washington.” That means that income taxes should be collected from more people—East and West; that, income tax rates should be increased, to make Government income balance Government outgo and begin to cut down the public debt, and that the hidden Federal taxes which all Americans pay and few really realize should be abolished.

BREATH TESTS

HE “breath test,” developed by Dr. R. N. Harger of the Indiana School of Medicine to determine how intoxicated a drunken driver really is, attracts increasing attention among police as the campaign for traffic safety spreads. Dr. Harger is to demonstrate the test Oct. 6 at the annual convention of the Interndtional Association of Chiefs of Police in Baltimore. Already adopted as standard. procedure by the Indiana State Police and the Berkeley, Cal., Police Department, this scientific device tests drunkenness by analyzing the alcoholic content of a sample of the subject’s breath. Proponents hope it will simplify the problem of determining when a driver is drunk. When the facts can be established the law can deal with drunken drivers, as Municipal Judge Karabell showed yesterday when he sentenced three such offenders to a total of nearly a year in jail and fined them $400. Fe Better methods are needed to get evidence that will convict drunken drivers, but the best safety rule is that even one or two drinks may make an unsafe driver.

UNHEALTHY BUSINESS

HE kidnaping of rich and elderly Charles C. Ross of Chicago—the first major crime of its kind in nearly a year—should remind Americans that law, if vigorously enforced, can down its enemies. The Lindbergh kidnaping thoroughly aroused this country. Sweeping aside all cavil about states’ rights and acknowledging the 1eality that crime today is largely an interstate industry, Congress passed the Lindbergh Law on June 22, 1932. J. Edgar Hoover's men thereupon set about their work in co-operation with local peace officers. Result: Out of 106 actual kidnapings investigated they have solved all but one—the Charles Mattson case in Tacoma, Wash., of last Dec. 27. Mr. Hoover's office announces that 233 persons have been convicted under that law; sentences aggregating 3080 years are being served; 38 men are doing life; six received death sentences; five have committed suicide; six have been killed ; six others murdered. Thanks to realistic and energetic law enforcement, kidnaping is a vanishing crime in this country. The Ross kidnaping is the exception that proves this rule: No crime can flourish if the people pass effective laws and see that they have honest and vigilant enforcement.

AMONG THE LEADERS

JE, FIDEMICS of infantile paralysis in Chicago and some 7 other cities which caused a delay in the opening of schools are subsiding with the coming of colder weather. The action of some health officers in closing schools has been criticized by the Journal of the American Medical Association as creating rather than allaying panic. For-

\

tunately, Indianapolis and State health authorities have

followed a sane policy of seeking strict control of the disease without exciting widespread fear. The epidemics have served to focus new attention on the national campaign against infantile paralysis. Indianapolis may be proud of its part in this fight, according to an announcement just made by the National Committee for the President’s Birthday Ball. The report shows Indianapolis “outstanding in its population group” for increasing its contribution to the crusade against infantile paralysis. The community’s 1937 contribution was $4740.94, compared with $2414.93 last year. That is a fine record of unselfish service. ¥ :

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Meeting of Duce and Der Fuehrer Recalls Conflict in Programs, But These Points Will Be Avoided.

NEW YORK, Sept. 28.—The state visit of the Italian Duce to the German Fuehrer cannot fail to remind outsiders of certain points of conflict and insult contained in their respective programs. These matters will be tactfully avoided by the two rivals for

the title of greatest man in the world. Mussolini will hear many questions from the philosophy of the Fuehrer during his tour, but it may be

flatly predicted that these gems will not include that portion of the Nazi belief which deals with the preservation of the Aryan purity. min “Every Aryan hero should marry only a blond Aryan woman with blue, wide-open eyes, a long . oval face, a pink and white satin skin, a narrow nose and a small mouth,” says the Nazi instruction. “A blond, blue-eyed man must marry no brunet, no Mediterranean type woman with short legs, black “hair, hooked nose, full lips, a large mouth and an inclination to plumpness.”

Now these be fighting words to Benito Mussolini, for he is the leader of many brunet Mediterraneans with short legs and an inclination to plumpness, and the hooked nose is the pride of his Romans. So this gratuitous bust on the Roman beezer by the Nazi regime, although intended strictly for the guidance of the blue-eyed Aryans, cannot be interpreted otherwise than a gratuitous bust on the Roman beezer. ” ” ” S for: the brunet, short-legged Mediterranean - types, including no few with an inclination to plumpness, the slur is equally inescapable. The entire south of the Duce’s country is peopled with brunet, Mediterranean types with short legs, and the ladies run to plumpness. After a brunet, short-legged, Mediterranean type Italian lady has given four or five little ballila to the babies’ corps of the invincible legions and, maybe a couple of future mothers of further ballila to the Duce’s reserve of milifary. brood-stock, it is not only ungentlemanly but an insult to the motherhood of Italy to refer slightingly to the fact that she has taken on heft and width. It seems to be the lot of ladies everywhere to tend

Mr. Pegler

to plumpness as the years advance, and the children

increase, and the German hausfrau herself has traditionally been represented as completely resigned to outside measurements. 2 2 = N the other hand, we know that Mussolini has often expressed a very low opinion of bachelors and has faxed them- heavily as slackers for avoiding their patriotic manly duty to produce ballila for his invincible legions. A prolific man himself, he has set a conspicuous example to his followers. : Yes, if Hitler's regime has spoken ill of the Duce’s brunet, short-legged Mediterraneans, the Duce himself has said plenty back about bachelors, of whom Der

Feuhrer is the most prominent in the world at present. So if anyone cracks wise about the Mediter= raneans while the Duce is in Germany, and he cracks back with his well-known opinion of manliness of bachelors there will go your Rome-Berlin axis in a swirl of insult. Unhappily nobody will.

ETHANY BEACH, Del, Sept. 28.—Some things about big public debts—our national debt is 37 billion dollars—are pretty plain. When we came into the World War, England and France were licked because they had no more money to carry, on the war and their debt was so big they couldn't borrow any more. We had no debt. So we could and did pay part of their debts, loan them more money and win the war. We couldn’t do that now. . When the country had a small debt it could promise to pay it all in gold. Your banked money

was loaned to.other people, but to secure your money the bank took a lien -on somebody's property. If

as part of your security, they were payable in gold. There was always some value behind your banked savings. ia 8 & =» 3 / Ween the debt got bigger, the Government could no longer promise to pay in gold—or in any value except a new promise to pay. It put out so many I. O. U.’s that there were not enough people willing to buy such bonds to carry the terrific debt. The only way to “borrow” was to tap the accumulated savings of all the people—bank deposits— to force’ Government bonds on the people through

| their banks wliether they were wanted or not.

Veto.”

The Hoosier Forum

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

F. D. R’S CRITICS SUSPECT, SAYS SYRACUSE WRITER By W. L. Ballard, Syracuse ] One does not have to be proRoosevelt to hold suspect his critics, who apparently are endeavoring to revive “The Liberum veto.” We thought the press was man’s “Mutual Information Bureau,” developed through the years as a precious social tool for the ultimate good of all. It never would have occurred toc us that the press was so largely a lobby used for private ends, opposing the main axis of social progress; or that it would “bite the hand that fed it” in order to get more feed. But Mr. Roosevelt’s newspaper critics, especially, are doing just that. The President’s critics recently led the move to scripturalize the Constitution as its 66th Book. They wanted added security for their property; they may have fooled themselvés in this! Now they have begun to utilize such added security. For instance, an editorial recently in a leading Cincinnati paper, says: “The Supreme Court is the guardian (not “a” guardian) of the rights of minorities, and. these rights are set forth in the Constitution.” That is their single-minded theory—minority; minority united only in the seeking of money and other power. According to the critics everything is done only for the minority they belong to. Cites Polish History The critics want continued security; that is, they want continued arrested development! They say the Constitution set up “the” form of democracy, not “a” form that we might change. Any change, any amendment, would be unconstitutional if any minority disapproved and had “friendly” judges. All their criticism sounds strangely familiar, historically. It forcibly reminds me of Poland’s history and of its “liberum veto.” The Polish monarchy, was overthrown and a republican-democracy was established—democracy in government only. Such a democracy 1s palpably a compromise, “its antagonistic forces intact and biding their time. So, about 1652 (Believe it or Not), the Polish critics, with religious backing, forced into the Poiish Constitution the provision that

any one legislator could veto and

thus defeat any legislation he did not like, by his one vote, even if every other legislator voted for it— a minority of one lone man beats the whole! That is “The Liberum What F. D. R.’s critics want is substantially the same thing for the same reasons. Encyclopedia Britannica tells the rest of the short history of Poland: “The revolution of 1791 converted Poland into a monarchy.” She slipped into monarchy, as the exponents of liberum veto intended she should. Are we to suffer that horror here? ' yy -n PRAISES MR. PEGLER FOR COLUMN ON PERSHING By Daniel Francis Clancy, Logansport To Mr. E. F. Maddox, who says that all of the Forum contributors without exception, unless it be Mr. Clancy, have consistently written in opposition to alienisms—the accused

General Hugh Johnson Says— Our Big National Debt Is Forcing the Nation on Printing Press Money; Value of Wages, Savings and All Kinds of Insurance Would Be Risked.

(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.)

offers no denial. America, compared to the rest of the civilized globe, being very small, it does not seem illogical that the great majority of good ideas should have a foreign source. To Mrs. R. C. James, who says that I joined in the “concerted attack” on Westbrook Pegler—a plea of not guilty. Contrary to attacking Pegler, I approve of him—being of the opinion, however, that he lacks profundity. His column the day he ticked off John J. Pershing —Iloaded down with scorn, irony and pungency—was his high-water mark.

#2 8 PEGLER’S BLACK ACCUSATION CONTEMPTIBLE, WRITER SAYS ‘By Hiram Lackey . Of all deceptions of paid propa-

‘gandists, of all cowardly brands of

legalized slander, of all contemptible appeals to prejudice of ignorant people, Westbrook Pegler’s veiled accusation that Hugo Black fights to defeat Negroes in their struggle for economic justice is the most odious to decency. Referring to Justice Black as “a great liberalizing influence,” Mr. Pegler sneakingly accuses him of laboring to reduce Negro. wages from 75 cents to 50 cents per day. Fortunately, the day before, The Merry-Go-Round revealed how Senator Black, according to his own political foes, went out of his way to secure economic justice for Negroes in the Wages and Hours Bill. It further revealed that the alleged report of Mr. Black's Klan membership -was given newspapermen by Southern antilabor Klansmen. But the unfortunate thing about any printed deception is that regardless of how many times it may be disproved, its effects can seldom

FRIENDLY COMPANY By MAUD COURTNEY WADDELL There are changing pictures in the sky, ; Through the seasons marching by. There is music in the wind and : streams, Song of birds to fill long dreams. I have love of beauty for my own— Never think of me alone. 2

DAILY THOUGHT

Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction; and many there be which go in thereat.—Matthew 7:13.

OD gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste that lifts him into life, and

‘lets him fall in just the niche he

was ordained to fill.

be entirely erased. Some people who read Mr. Pegler’s slander shall probably never read the truth about Mr. Black’s crusade for Negro workers. Mrs. R. C. James protests bitterly against my attacks on Mr. Pegler. I'm sorry. Perhaps I am too severe. To all who enjoy his deceptions I have nothing more to say. The truth is not in him. Sa

” 8 8 WANTS ENLIGHTENMENT ON WPA ‘PREFERRED LIST’ By Peaceful Henry

I wish someone please would tell me why soldiers and office girls may be employed by the WPA and other persons cannot get a job until all soldiers are employed? This information came from a clerk .at Washington, D. C., when the soldiers got their bonus. I would like to know if other citizens and taxpayers who did not get a bonus are supposed to wait until they are re-employed. I am a daily reader of The Times.

ADMINISTRATOR EXPLAINS .WPA POLICIES

By John K. Jennings, State Administrator, Works Progress Administration of Indiana In answer to the question of “Peaceful Henry,” I wish to say that Public Resolution No. 47, entitled Public Works Administration Extension Act of 1937 and approved June 29, 1937, provides that: “Veterans of the World War and Spanish American War who are in need of relief shall be given preference for employment by the Works Progress Administration.” According: to provisions outlined above, the Indiana WPA is granting preference to World War and Span-ish-American War veterans. In answer to the second half of his question, very few relief reassignments have been made to the works program and no. nonrelief supervisory or administrative employees have been added to the program since April.

"2 TOO MUCH PRICE-PEGGING, WRITER ARGUES

By H. S. L.

‘New Deal big shots in Washington are said to be worrying about rising prices and increasing rents. There are only tw, s in which capital can contin to operate industry. One is increasing production rapidly so that prices may remain fixed or drop slightly from lowered unit cost. The other is to curtail production and raise prices. /It is a cinch that the Government will not permit cotton producers to lower cotton prices to the world price. It proposes to peg the price on cotton with loans about 100 per cent above the world cotton price. That shuts us out of the world market We are living in an era of pegged prices. For this we both thank and blame the Government. Nobody worried about the landlords during the years 1930-36 when they lost their shirts due to low rent, so why fuss about them getting a new shirt now with rising rents. Rising prices always find a ceiling; when they hit it, we have a crash and unemployment.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

. Mr. Roosevelt Versus La Guardia In Presidential Election of 1940— That's the Bet of This Columnist.

NEW YORK, Sept. 28.—Political prognostication for the long pull is always fun, because by the time your guess turns out to be completely wrong everybody has forgotten that you ever made it. But if by any

chance your prediction clicks, you can turn the pages back and point with pride. All right, then—I will make a small wager at suit able odds that in the national election of 1940 Fiorello La Guardia will be the candidate of the Republican Party and that Franklin Roosevelt will. be his Democratic opponent. I think the drift lies in the direc= tion which I have indicated, and that several recent events lend support to my theory. First of all, the original La Guardia man has already bobbed up and he is an individual who speaks as an authority on the psychology of the Middle: West. I refer to William Allen White, who has gone on record as hailing Mr. La Guardia as another - * Lincoln.

Mr. Broun

#2 ‘5 8 AM also struck by the fact that Mr. La Guardia has indorsed George Harvey for re-election as president of the Borough of Queens. I will be told that this is merely local politics, and that the Mayor has swallowed one of the most reactionary of Repubs lican officials simply to insure the full sweep of city< wide victory in the coming November election. But it seems to me that if Mr. La Guardia is willing to play ball with at least one member of the Old Guard in a local election, he has already indicated that he might be induced to make certain concessions for the sake of national preferment. : I must admit that up-state Republicans do not see it that way at the moment, and still regard Fi« orello as far too radical to be recognized as an aus thentic member of the G. O. P. Even in the city itself there are diehards who insist that Mr. La Guardia is not really a Republican at all. But in 1940 anybody who has a chance to win will be accepted as a Republican. Moreover, it is my impression that the Republican Party will swing a little to the left by 1940, and that Fiorello will move right, so that a rendezvous. can readily be arranged. 2 2 ” URELY the minority party will not again make the political blunder of choosing a man “from a typi cal prairie state.” Strategy will demand the choice of someone who is a vote-getter in the large industrial centers. I am, of course, assuming that Mr. La Guardia will not only be re-elected in New York, but by a huge majority. That will set him up as kingpin in the matter of appeal to the urban communities, and Mr. White has already indicated a belief that he . might well have an appeal to the farmers. faa Objection will still be made that the Republicans would never choose Mr. La Guardia as a Presidential’ candidate on account of his labor affiliations. That. can be knocked down. Republican strategists will: eagerly leap to take advantage of the split in tha: trades union forces. There is nothing in the progr of William Green which is not highly comforting to:

the conservatives. If my guess is correct, Mr. La< Guardia in the days to come will break with the CG. 1. O. forces and tie himself closer to the A. F. of L.:

The Washington Merry- Go-Round

Utilities Due for Shock When’ They Learn of Electric Power Pool Plan; : Bonneville Dam Administrator Would Combine U. S.-Owned Plants, ::

the bank held a small per cent of Government bonds

Next by several devices, it forced banks to loan your savings to the Government to spend. It cranmimed the banks with Government bonds. To the extent that this has heen done, security behind savings and bank deposits is the Government's promise to pay— not in anything of value but in more promises to pay. So much of this has been done that if Government bonds went down again to say, 75, if would break every bank in the country. That won’t happen because, before it does, the New Deal will prevent it by making every dollar of the 37 billion dollar debt redeemable at par. In what? In more irredeemable promises to pay. : ” ® 2 uT isn’t that printing press money? : You're darned tooting, We're already on printing press money, but it has been done so cleverly the public doesn’t realize it. Well, what’s the matter with that so long as no harm has been done? Only that in the whole experience of the human race such a wholesale, open and plain printing of money would be worth little or nothing. It will be money, but it won't buy anything—or very little. It will have destroyed the value of wages, salaries, savings, social security and all other kinds of insurance—the accumulated values of savings and security of generntions. ee

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

N ROUTE WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, Sept. 28.—The big utility boys are going to weep copious tears at the mere appointment of J. D. Ross as administrator and distributor of Bonneville’s 580,000 electric horse power, but when they hear about Mr. Ross’ plans for the future they are going to faint. For Mr. Ross is working on a plan to build up a giant power ‘pool of government-ownad plants, including Grand Coulee, Bonneville, Klamath Falls, Central Valley of California project, and finally Boulder Dam. : Reaching from Canada .to the Mexican border, it would be the largest power pool in the world, and eventually would squeeze out most private companies in the Far West. In Seattle, Mr. Ross is not only superintendent of

.the city’s power system, but also a tireless salesman

of the policy of municipal ownership. He has built a park around his power plant above Seattle, illuminates the water-falls with colored lights, has a lodge to which he invites friends on week-end parties. 2s & > R. ROSS was brought to Washington by Harry Slattery, power expert for ex-Governor Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania. His first job was as power

adviser of the PWA. Mr. Roosevelt got to know him,

later appointed him to the Securities and Exchange

Here he was a well-meaning misfit, knew almost nothing about stocks and bonds, dozed through se- :

curities hearings. : But at Bonneville Dam he will be back in his own element. And if he retains the management : of his Seattle plant, later aids in the distribution of power from Grand Coulee, Mr. Ross will be the most powerful distributor of power in the world. Mil: Administrator Ross is not supposed to know anything about fish, but he may have to learn. For the potential destruction of Columbia River salmon fishing threatens to be one of Bonneville’s chief wore ries. : Ee How to give a lift to a salmon has been argued -. . back and forth ever since Bonneville was started, and the machinery finally evolved has cost one-eighth -° as much as the dam itself. The total fish bill is- . $6,553,000. r : = 2 28 2 HIS is for a series of fish elevators and “ladders™ to lift the annual migration of salmon, desper- : ately swimming upstream from the ocean up the : 50-foot height of the dam and into the headwaters of the river, where they spawn their young and die. = It took four years of wrangling among the Army Engineers, the Bureau of Fisheries and the Oregon: Fish Commission to de Bonneville’s elaborate fish protective system, and now that it is finished, no -- one actually knows whether it will work at all. fi

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