Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 October 1937 — Page 2

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The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE Editor Business Manager

WwW. HOWARD President

ROY

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cS» Rlley 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bu-

reau of Circulations. "

TUESDAY, OCT. 12, 1937

‘WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE’

EATH sentences should be commuted for the 30 or more persons now doomed to die in Marion County traffic before the year is out. That is the aim of Accident Prevention Week being observed here this week. Even partial success will not be easy. In the absence of a comprehensive safety program, the most effective weapon so far has been strict enforcement. Four months ago The Times began a detailed survey of what happened to traffic offenders brought into Municipal Court. When the check for May and June showed fines were low, that costs were suspended in most cases and that a high percentage of convicted persons escaped through judgments withheld or suspended, the public was aroused and the courts began to crack down. time the accident curve began to decline.

At about the same

The average traffic fine for September was $10.03,

highest since the campaign began and probably the highest in the city’s history. It was more than four times the June figure. Compared with the May figure of costs suspended in 52 per cent of the cases, only 13 per cent escaped court costs in September. And auto fatalities were proportionately lowered.

One tangible result is that the Indianapolis traffic |

toll stands at 79 for 1937, a decrease of 11 under last year’s figure at this time. In the county, 116 have been killed, one less than at this time last year, which means increase in the accident death rate outside the city. Safety Week is a reminder that we must soon come to grips realistically with the problem of keeping Ameri-

cans from killing or injuring themselves accidentally at |

the rate of 11 million a year.

MR. BLACK’S BURDEN OF PROOF HOSE who believe there is Mr. Justice Black's title to a seat on the Supreme Court bench may remain of the same opinion still. itself, however, has refused to examine that title, and Mr. Justice Black apparently is in his seat to stay.

Therefore, the question of Mr. Black's fitness as a |

judge is one that can be answered only by the record Mr. Black makes upon the nation’s highest bench.

a constitutional cloud on |

The Court | | everywhere outside Washington.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

T'UESDAY, OCT. 12, 1987"

Not Much Change Since Columbus’ Time—By Herblock

SE a

ENTIRELY VISIONARY AND IMPRACTICAL = IN FACT, SCREWY

The Blind Leading

the

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Untidiness of Public Buildings Is Common to All Parts of Country; It's 100 Per Cent American Custom.

EW YORK, Oct. 12.—Anyone having occasional business in public buildings in this country is certain to be impressed by the soiled and frowsy state of these temples of government which are pretty much alike In the na-

| tional capital, it must be admitted, they do things

much better. But our city halls and county couri houses and the public office buildings in our state capitals as well as postoffices and

{ Federal court houses are of a de-

We can only hope that the record may prove so flawless |

in defense of human rights and civil liberties, and so free from the taint of prejudice with which the Ku-Klux Klan was smeared, that all doubt concerning him w¥l, in the fullness of time, be cleared away. But this is a case where, all circumstances considered, the burden of proof, as the lawyers say, is distinctly on Mr. Justice Black.

OGDEN MILLS

“RN E must face the facts and either tax for revenue or confiscate capital and invest it in public enterprises. “If 1 were not satisfied with the present order, if 1 were not convinced that the capitalistic system is the best

man can devise, then I'd face the facts and go openly to |

the other extreme.

{ traditional marks of untidiness.

“To demobilize capital in a time of economic depression

is like demobilizing an army in time of war. thousand men and vou have a thousand individuals. you don’t have an army. “Whatever is to be said of the so-called rich men of the country, they created wealth for themselves and in

But

Demobilize a |

pressing sameness as to dirt, dust, tobacco stains and smell. Just as Jails, poorhouses and asylums have a distinctive odor, as of misery and disinfectant, those others possess an atmosphere more readily sensed by the spirit than the nose.

The Chicago City Hall and County Building, and the New York Municipal Building are alike in this respect, and the new palace of justice hard by the Tombs, though dedicated it seems but yesterday, already has acquired its layer of grime inside and out. It seems that holders of public office and those having regular business in such structures have somewhat the same feeling about them that little boys have about new football pants. Little boys believe that new football pants should be smeared with mud and grass stains without delay, and a new public building remains new no longer than it takes the occupants and regular frequenters to foul it with the That is almost no time at all. n un 5

BUILDING ownod by private capital, though handling much greater traffic, may be kept in geod order for many years, and with no greater and probably much smaller staff. But turn over a court house or city hall to a lot of judges and other poli-

| ticians, and inside two years it will have deteriorated

doing so created wealth for millions of others in developing |

the resources of this great country.” It was Ogden Livingston Mills speaking—Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of Herbert Hoover—in April, 1932, before the Senate Finance Committee, denouncing proposed upper-bracket tax rates that were mild compared to those in effect today. That was a time when the “capitalistic system” and ‘rich men” generally were in bad political repute. And it was in the teeth of a Presidential election, when other like-minded public men sang low in their creed of conservatism. Jut Ogden Mills didn’t object to being called a Tory. He was belligerently and aggressively conservative.

Born wealthy, educated at Harvard, poised for a digni- |

fied career at the bar in New York and in the inner financial | | and ‘detect no difference, although you will be in-

circles of Wall Street, Ogden Mills ran out on the social tradition of his class. Ile entered the hurly-burly of public life. In Congress, and later as Undersecretary and Secretary of the Treasury, he won respect for his mastery of fiscal, tax and financial problems. (Incidentally, Ogden Mills was the first outstanding advocate of abolition of taxexempt Government bonds. Tax-exemption and a graduated income tax, he said, could not exist side by side.) With few public men has this newspaper disagreed more frequently or more vigorously than with Ogden Mills. Yet for few men did it have greater respect. He was able, intelligent, hard-hitting, honest in his convictions. Thinking over the whole list of Republican conservatives still alive, we can’t off-hand name one of the caliber of Ogden Mills. That there were not more of his capacity goes a long way toward explaining why ours is now a oneparty Government, and why a heady Democratic majority in power gets away with so many blunders.

A CURE FOR WAR

MONG the fine ideas that have come to the world from China is one from Chang I-lin, 72-year-old ex-minister of education for the Chinese Republic. Chang proposed an army of oldsters, with none of the fighting men under 50 years of age. . This, he argued, would conserve the nation's youth. Unfortunately, when he went to Nanking to sell his plan to Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek he was turned down. ; If those who make wars had to fight them, they would find some way of getting along without wars,

| stantly

to the level of all the other buildings of like character. There will be tobacco juice on the tiles and around the feet of the columns, cigaret butts flattened and frayed in all the corridors and greasy dust in the elevator cages and on the walls of the shafts. Doors will be blocked off, makeshift partitions erected and furniture stowed in the halls. And over all there will be an air of frowsiness difficult to describe but easily perceived and recognized as typical, for it is not te be found in any other buildings. It is the spirit of the public service, thie feeling that because the place belongs to the public nobody has any obligations to respect it. = = ”

T= architecture has changed, and now runs pretty much to the boxcar simplicity, which is suppesed to combine efficiency with charm. Older ideas always called for a billowy female holding a shock of wheat in one hand and a sickle in the other and a big muscular guy holding a sledge hammer and a geared wheel carved out of Indiana limestone. But the difference is only superficial, and you may enter a new edifice or an old one wearing a blindfold

aware that you are in a public building.

The Hoosier Forum

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

| | |

| PRAISES RECORD OF

| NEW JUSTICE

| By John E. James | You and other papers have made |

to express

troversies | much to do about Justice Black having joined the K.-K. K. clagi®ing prejudice and bigotry as the | reason he should not be seated. You

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conexcluded. your letter short, so all can x x = have a chance. be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

met with court injunctions. Farmers remember 3-cent hogs fed on 10-cent corn, and we all remember when we asked “for bread (and were given stones.”

views in

Make

Letters must | REDUCED SPEED TRAFFIC | RULES ATTACKED

By W. L.

| say little about his ability or fitness ( for the position. I have read a { number of editorials in papers all {Sver the country and ail are the | same trend. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has belied its name. It says “The public will not forget it.” Is that plain dealing? Why does it not tell us |

|you find one

item purely Rooseveltian to his credit? { The man is a showman, an actor, [that's all, a pretender. Everything [he has undertaken in public behalf, |or so alleged, has the earmarks of | impracticability and no indication | that he has the mentality to ex-

What is the matter with some | people? Anybody with an ounce | | of brains knows you can get more | | cars through a certain point at 50 { miles an hour than at 25 miles an | | hour, Why is it other cities that | would make Indianapolis look like | a county fair have speed limits |

| who they are and who controls their | utterances. Who do the public is? Riff-raff, cheap politicians and job holders? They all play up this element of hate, I say shame on them, they are unAmerican when they say that 60

are bigots, prejudiced and hate the Negro, Jew and Catholic. Many Klan leaders did not care a button about race or religion. Their great aim was to get control of and rule America. There is no doubt Mr. Black never knew very much of the inside workings of the Xlan. joined it, like many other good people at the time, because it was popular and might get him a few votes. He does not now, and never did, discriminate between race or religion, as shown by the fact that his secretary of many years is a Catholic and in selecting his staff now he has a Negro-Catholic and Jew. Not one Protestant. I have looked up Mr. Black's record and I firmly believe he will make a fine Justice,

» ” nN ROOSEVELT CONSERVATION CALLED INSINCERE By C. W. Smith, Evansville

they think |

or 70 million good Christian people

He |

| question.

By William Lemon

Roosevelt's trip West has proved

[that he is more popular today than |

lever before, Yet his opponents tried to convince the masses his Supreme [Court packing plan and appointment of Senator Black to the bench had ruined his political career, A man of the people and for the | people and not for the special privileged few, he has built himself a | foundation like the strength of | Gibraltar and is trusted by the people. Farmers have not forgotten their mortgages, nor Labor the bread lines. Labor still remembers when it asked for a living wage and was

[amine but one side of a subject or |

Those of the public now sick of | tlie Roosevelt myth, are going to be |

much higher? If it takes a car longer to stop at a higher rate of speed than at a | slow speed, is no reason to say traffic doesn’t move faster. If I'm following 5 feet behind a man doing 50 miles an hour, I'll still be 5 feat béhind him when he stops. It doesn’t make any difference if it takes him 2 feet or a 1000 feet to stop. Half the people in town do not know how to drive to start with, or the police don't know how to handle traffic. Why does the Chief of Police have to spend the taxpayers’ money to have a traffic expert come from another state to tell him how to do it? There are signs all | over town 10, 20 and 30 miles per | hour, If that doesn’t cause congestion what would? Why is it you can | always find traffic jammed up | around stop signs? Here is a tip for the Chief. Make | all motorists learn and give proper signals. Stop before crossing through streets, Persons walking should cross at intersections and look before crossing—not afterward. Do not always blame the driver, Speed is a part of the auto for the same | reason we are living in 1937 and not in 1837.

" un on

What's the idea of particularly | praising President Roosevelt because | he deplores the wastes of the coun- | try? spring;

ways have been going on. They |

my recollection. All decent people | with fright, were against them. Can you find anything in the Roosevelt career, elected President,

right; that sets

Mark 3:25.

in Washington, can!

COURAGE By TONI These wastes of natural re-| Courage is that inner thing sources, and in other respects, al-| That makes one at the danger were in public eyes 40 years ago, to | That makes one stand, tho weok And face the world with what is

before he was|It is the faith and trust im God him | Which makes one rise above the sod above millions of other men in con-| And care not what the otaers say So long as he does his best each day.

DAILY THOUGHT

If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.—St,

sailing under the banners of | JY UNITING we stand; by dividing we fall.—John Dickinson,

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Columnist Asserts His Criticism Against Administration Will Continue; Denies Opposition to Certain New Deal Policies Has Political Motives.

ASHINGTON, Oct. 12—I have been increasingly critical of some of the proposals of the Administration since the first of the year. 1 was critical of some before the last election. But when the quadrennial choice was presented between these proposals, including what had been criticized, and the proposals and the man of the opposition, under our two-party system you had to choose. I chose the former and supported it as hard as I could. I carefully warned that, as a newspaper critic, I had criticized before and would continue to criticize after the election. This Administration knowing that, accepted that support and used it. Now that the criticisms continue, I am told by some New Dealers that it is partisan, turn-coat, Al Smith, Liberty League disgruntled, sour grapes and intended to reverse all policies I have supported and support all policies I have opposed. o » » Y faith was well known, I was an ardent supporter of the first New Deal which was: Labor must have an unhampered right of organization and representation, free from employer domination. It must be protected by real and effective legislation outlawing child labor, sweat shops and controlling maximum hours and minimum wages. In industry and commerce some means must be found to pro

oye dlige He

tect the 90 per cent of decency against the 10 per cent chiseling fringe. Agriculture must be given a price benefit, up to prewar price parity, on domestic consumption to offset the tariff benefits to industry. The old abuses in banking and the Securities and Commodities Exchange must be eliminated and they must never return. Big business must have justice, but it must never again aspire to a dominating voice in Government. No class must aspire to such a voice. That was my faith then. It is my faith now. What I have criticized has been in addition to or departure from those principles. What gets me is the assertion that I do this as a politician. In which party? » ” n F, In a new election, this Administration stood for the things stated as my faith and, as I thought in the last election, its adversary should be controlled by men who in their hearts oppose them, I would not support that opposition. But that would not be as a politician. It would be as a newspaper commentator with a professional duty, as I think, to state opinions and take positions regardless of party or persons. That is my job. I am neither sour nor disgruntled about anything

—except the way I think Government is going,

BELIEVES VANNUYS CONTRADICTED HIMSELF By Reader, Frankfort

Almost simultaneously with his | arrival from Washington after Congress adjourned, Senator VanNuys made the statement through the press that he thought the people were against the President's Court plan; that he judged so from the letters received on the subject. Later (in his Anderson speech, I believe) he stated that he knew he was committing political suicide when he voted as he did. Certainly the Senator doesn’t mean that he

| thinks it suicide to act in accordance with the wishes of the | people. The Senator or some of his | followers should reconcile these two |

statements.

The Washington

Blind By Talburt

ot Te 3

By Heywood Broun

Scientists Are Revolutionaries Who Are on Threshold of Giving Men Secret of Electronic Power,

EW YORK, Oct. 12.—The world is our house and it must be put in order, Nor can there be any great delay, because an aga of renovation is upon us. I have been reade ing the page proofs of a hook about electrons, The author, Raymond F. Yates, argues with

a high degree of conviction that the real revolutions aries of our day are the research men in the physical

| and chemical laboratories.

Itt is the electron which will make all of us or most of us slaves. Apparently the electronic experi« menters are on the very threshold of discoveries which will loose energy in quantities hereto undreamed of save in some Wellsian vision of the new world, Norris and the other great dams would be dwarfed, for I read, “the atomic enargy avail« able in a single glass of water would be sufficient to supply the needs of a community of 25,000 for a whole year.” It may be argued that this still needs quite a bit of doing, but the pace of discovery among the physicists grows faster. Theories may become accomplished facts almost overnight, and, indeed, already many practical applications of electronic control are being employed by industry.

Mr. Broun

» » ”

ND the death ray, which was once little more than a good story for a Sunday magazine, now exists in a miniature. The seal upon the bottle where the genie dwells has already been cracked. And once he has been released there will be no putting him back again into captivity. But if tonight some scientist finds the answer to the practical problems lying between fact and theory he will do well to keep the secret. Indeed, if he has a strong social conscience he may be moved to shoot himself and let the discovery also die, There is knowledge too heady and fare reaching for the world to handle. The social and political estate of the world is such that truth would be corrupted into damnation for the many and salvation for the few. Surely it would not be a present hoon if means were found whereby a robot could do the work of 10,000 men in industry and agriculture, And such possibilities are no longer fantastic.

” n x

8S Mr. Yates points out, there is no longer ang cogency in the old argument that men who are replaced by the machine find re-employment in the making of the machine itself. In the new day it will be a machine which makes the machine, There are robots to the right of us and robots to the left of us. The forces of life can just as easily becoms the forces of death. Surely it would be the final tragedy if anybody put into the hands of Hitler or any of his kind that knowledge which would make him the master of the world. Indeed, the power would be too great to be= long to any individual or private corporation. Even if the ultimate potentialities of electronic control are a long way off, it is a good bet that the industrial aspect of the world will change more radically in the next 25 years than it has in the last 200. Natural forces belong to all mankind. Before the latent power of the world is loosed we must ourselves be free.

—— — —————

Merry-Go-Round :

State Department Note, Stimson Letter Timed to Trail F. D. R.'s Speech: Secretary of Labor Perkins Vainly Sought A. F. of L. Guest Invitation.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, Oct. 12.—The State Department | did a remarkable piece of timing in laying down its barrage against Japan, It was no accident that the President’s speech at Chicago was followed one day later by Secretary Hull's note to the League condemning Japan. Mr. Roosevelt's speech had been written in the State Department, sent to his train by airmail. It was no accident also that Henry L. Stimson, former Secretary of State, made public his statement praising China and condemning Japan simultaneously with Mr. Hull's emphatic note to the League. Norman Davis, Ambassador under both Mr. Hull and Mr. Stimson, had tipped him off that the President's “quarantine” speech and the Hull note were in the works. Mr. Stimson did not know the exact day on which they were to explode, but he knew approximately and threw his weight behind the Roosevelt-Hull protest. ” un " R. STIMSON is a stanch Republican, served in | the Teddy Roosevelt, Taft and Hoover Adminis- | trations, but he sees eye-to-eye with Franklin Roosevelt when it comes to the Far East. After Mr. Roosevelt was elected, Mr. Stimson went | to see him, emphasized the importance of not recog- | nizing Japan's conquest of Manchuria. Mr. Roose- | velt agreed. A few months later, Viscount Ishii came | to the United States for a conference with Mr. Roose- | velt. Mr. Stimson, worried that the new President might change his mind about Manchurian recognition, hur-

ried to the White House. elated. Note—American policy toward Japan in the Far East has been reasonably consistent regardless of Democratic or Republican Administration.

n ”n n

« F. of L. failure to invite Madame Secretary Pers kins to its Denver convention hurt more than anyone suspected. Few knew the length to which Miss Perkins went to wangle an invitation after the guest list, without her name, was made public. Actually, every official of the Labor Department believed to have any influence in A. F. of L. circles was asked to contact his friends and get Madame Secretary a belated bid. Where Secretary Perkins slipped was in assuming that she would be invited automatically, When the list came out it was too late.

J. Warren Madden, chairman of the National Lae bor Relations Board, was smarter. Repeated attacks by the A. F. of L. on him and on the Board for ale leged C. I. O. leanings had convinced him that he didn’t have a chance of receiving an impromptu invitation. So he went to William Green in advance and asked for a chance to appear at the eérivention and defend NLRB policy. The Federation hardly could turn down this request, so he appeared, while Miss Perkins did not. Chief calise of the break with Madame Perkins is the Federation belief that she is biased in favor of C. 1. O, and has been influencing the Administration in general and the Labor Relations Board in pare ticular in that direetion.

He emerged later, much

} {

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