Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 November 1937 — Page 14

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The Indianapolis Time

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

Price in Marion County, 3 cents a copy; deliv ered 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.

ER RlIley 5551

Give Light and the Pcople Wilt Find Their Own Way

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THURSDAY, NOV. 4, 1937

JUVENILE HOME ACTION NEEDED HE troublesome Juvenile Detention Ilome problem cannot be kicked around much longer. The seriousness of the situation was underscored yesterday when the State Fire Marshal described the present building as a firetrap, “inadequate and unsafe.” A proposal to lease an 80-year-old building on New York St. near Military Park, formerly the Governor's mansion, also is challenged by many as an unsatisfactory, stopgap procedure. This is typical of the approach to the problem over a long period. Quibbling over a site and over technicalities last year lost to the County a large PWA grant which could have assured construction of a new Detention Home. County officials have failed to see the urgency of spending the money themselves. The situation has grown progressively worse, until the Fire Marshal warns of a possible horrible tragedy. Meanwhile, innocent child victims of broken homes are thrown together with juvenile delinquents. The problem deserves the immediate attention of citizens and responsible officials. Why should not the Mayor and County Commissioners name a committee of leading citizens to study the question thoroughly and suggest a workable solution?

SHORTAGE AND GROWTH HE acute Indianapolis housing shortage is pinching thousands of families. Surveys show virtually every suitable dwelling occupied. Realtors estimate a present shortage of 3000 dwelling units, with an imminent increase in the number because of the city’s rapid industrial expansion. The housing deficiency obviously has some effect on normal community growth, And yet, as Joe Collier's story on Page One of this issue shows, the picture contains elements of an extremely optimistic forecast for Indianapolis. Current new construction here is well ahead of the national average. The building slump has not affected us to the extent that it has most cities. The city’s residential building for the first nine months of 1937 is 45 per cent greater than for the same period of 1936. The average gain for 37 states in the eastern part of the country was only 25 per cent, A long-range view gives important perspective to the local situation. Indianapolis construction, delayed by the World War, reached a peak in 1925 of $21,505,000 worth of building. It leveled off to a still-high $15,500,000 in 1929 and slumped to $2,100,000 in 1933. The uptrend came again with recovery, and last year the total was $7,417,546. The first 10 months of 1937 nearly equaled the twelve months’ total of 1936, so the year should show a good gain. This is encouraging in view of the depressed condition of the building industry in many other cities, but clearly there is no building boom yet. The conditions are present, however, for a steady acceleration to take care of the housing shortage. R. Earl Peters, Indiana Administrator for the Federal Housing Authority, foresees a winter of residential building activity here. Others predict increasing activity over a period of years. Reports that the Administration may make energetic efforts to speed up construction activity on a national scale lend additional hope to the prospect of sound community growth.

THE FARMER'S CUSTOMERS CONOMISTS of the Agriculture Department, having analyzed the business and industrial situation, report

that “the demand for farm products probably will not be as favorable in 1938 as in 1937.”

Why?

Chiefly because industrial activity and consumer in-

comes threaten to decline. In other words, because city people are likely to have less money to spend for farm products. Is that unavoidable ? We think not. The business cycle is now headed downward. But we believe its sinking spell can be stopped and its trend started up again. How? By action—now—to cure the creeping paralysis of capital from which the country is suffering. The chief cause of that paralysis is the Government’s tax policy. Specifically, the undistributed-profits tax and the capital-gains tax are freezing capital. The failure of private business to take up more of the slack as public spending slows down is due, largely, to these taxes. Today a House of Representatives subcommittee meets in Washington to study tax revision. Another subcommittee is attempting to draft a new farm-relief bill. If, as a result of the Tax Subcommittee’s efforts, Congress corrects the undistributed-profits and capital-gains taxes, the Farm Subcommittee’s task will be very much easier. For if it is made possible for business to go ahead —for industrial activity to increase, making jobs for more people and creating more consumer buying power—the demand for farm products will become more favorable. And the farmers, in turn, will be able to buy more of the products of industry. tJ ” EJ "THOUSANDS of small business enterprises throughout the country can tell the Tax Subcommittee how the un-distributed-profits tax is working to make the gloomy prediction of the Agriculture Department’s economists come true, That the present tax policy should be modified is admitted, within and without the Administration. It should be modified now, at the special session of Congress which convenes Nov. 15, so that the changes can apply to 1937 business. That will mean more business, §. more jobs, more buying power and more demand for farm * broducts in 1938.

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Incautious 1870 Prophet Called Most Political Events Wrongly, But Guessed Judicial Strength.

NEW YORK, Nov. 4.—A book called “One Hundred Years of Progress of the United States,” published in Hartford, Conn., in 1870, ventures some interesting predictions as to the developments of the next century. The chapter on prophecy was written by L. P. Brockett, M. D., who was described as an editorial contributor to Appleton’s Cyclopedia, and whatever may be said of the good doctor’s opinion, it cannot be

charged that he was afraid to go out on a limb,

“There is a strong probability, almost a certainty,” he wrote “of the annexation of British Columbia, Canada and probably also a part or the whole of Mexico, Central America and the most important islands of the West Indies before the close of the present century.”

He predicted that by 1890 50 million Chinese, Japanese and other Orientals would immigrate

£i¥t, to these shores, and said that if

another civil war should come it Mr. Pegler would be due to the discontent of those people over the denial of suffrage and other political rights or to the proclivity of the Latin Americans for revolutions.

® uw = “ A NCEE reasonable cause for concern in regard to the stability of our form of government,” the doctor wrote, “may be found in the tendency of an oligarchy of wealth and political power in our great cities and the fearful corruption of the ballot which now exists. “Our greatest danger as a nation is to be found in the knavery of those railroad kings and chiefs of rings who will employ money to secure irresponsible power. Yet the checks and balances of our system are so admirable that we may fairly hope that our present form of government may be continued for a hundred years. The President then will have a hundred states under his sway. The cares will be ‘such as few men will be able to endure, and the cabinet officers must

| be more fully responsible to the national legislature.”

Dr. Brockett then said that unless there was some change in the method of selecting Senators eventually there would be enacted on the floor the scenes of folly, depravity and brutality which previously had been confined to the lower house.

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HE judiciary probably will undergo less change than any other department, he said. It would be a sad thing if the Supreme Court justices should ever come to be brawling political partisans and demagogs or bribe-takers or degrade their position by unworthy motive or act. Dr. Brockett envisioned a great increase in the use of petroleum for lighting, lubrication and engine fuel, but his imagination didn't quite picture the automobile and airplane. And, oh yes, Dr. Brockett thought that the advocates of women’s suffrage would overdo their campaign and cause a reaction which for at least a hundred years would stand off the menace of this social and political degradation. Otherwise, he thought, young men would lose their reverence for their mothers and political bickerings in the family circle would become intolerable.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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Purrrr! —By Herblock

The Hoosier Forum

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

JUVENILE COURT REPORTS SHOCKING TO CITIZENS

By Mrs. L. P.

Some of us have been shocked by | the stories printed recently in the | three Indianapolis newspapers concerning the treatment of children, who for Various reasons, have been brought before the judge of the Marion County Juvenile Court. One child was reported slapped and another ordered locked up for a week to repent a display of stoicism on his part in failing to shed tears after receiving a one-year probation sentence. If these are examples of methods regularly employed in the Marion County Juvenile Court where 4073 cases involving juvenile misdemeanors including both boys and girls were disposed of during the year of 1935, the condition is deplorable and one which we as citiZens, taxpayers and voters can remedy. Marion County can be proud of the fact that it was one of the first communities to recognize the need for a children’s court. This was accomplished under the leadership of George W. Stubbs, who, on account of his outstanding qualifications, was elected Police Judge of Indianapolis in 1901, Aside from his excellent legal training, Judge Stubbs was sincerely interested in the social problems of this community and had such a broad understanding of child psychology that one of the Indianapolis newspapers was able to say of his Court: “Here is a Court wherein a child's accuser is his sole accuser, and where the Court, through its paid probation officer, defends.”

Cites Low National Ranking

According to very recent reports, it would seem that the present court has fallen from the high standards set by Judge Stubbs from 1901 to 1911. Upon investigation, these local reports are verified by records compiled by the National Probation Association which ranks the Marion County Juvenile Court alarmingly low in respect to standards set up for Juvenile Courts by the United | States Children’s Bureau. In other words, at a time when crime and juvenile delinquency is increasing at a frightening pace, the standards of our children’s Court rapidily are going down. This unpleasant situation might more easily be explained if it weren't for the fact that the Judge of the Marion County Juvenile Court is receiving a salary of $10,000, of which $5800 is paid by the County and $4200 by the State—one of the highest salaries that is paid to any Juvenile Court Judge outside the State of New York—with the reasonable expectation on the part of the citizens that standards will be kept high. It also is interesting to note that within a radius of less than 100 miles to the south and 300 miles to the north there are located two of the most outstanding successful juvenile courts of the entire country

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Cushman Coyle Theory of Government Regulates Business by High Taxes, Seeks to Penalize Mere Bigness Regardless of Return on Investment.

ASHINGTON, Nov. 4—Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen dig up more pay dirt from the mammoth gossip mine here than most delvers at the job. Recently they named Cushman Coyle as the high priest of the present dogma of our Government. They recommended his recent book, “Why Pay Taxes?” So do I—but for a different reason. You can find more argument there for astonishing things that have been recently said and done by leading Administration figures than anywhere. Mr. Coyle wants a very large Federal debt to be held in bonds by banks. The present debt, relative to cthers, is a trifle. The proposed mammoth debt is to act as a control of economic forces. But yon must have a big budget of spending—about .10 billion dollars is suggested. # ” #

THEN depressions come you borrow billions and force them on the banks. This increases the amount of money the banks can lend to start business. When booms come you increase taxes and take the bonds back from the banks. This restricts credit and throttles business down. High taxes are not just for revenue. Their beneficent uses are to take from the “haves” to give to the “have-nots” and to punish wealth, break up large business enterprise and generally to regulate everything and everykody, . % Ms

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I these fellows assume that they owe

(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.)

from which constructive help is always available,

Says Toleration “Unbelievable”

To those of us who are aware of the grave and serious problems confronting any juvenile court, $10,000 in salary is not too much, perhaps not enough, for a judge whose court finds its place with reference to the other children’s and social agencies in the community in an effort to rehabilitate more families and to actually take a constructive part in

the program for the prevention of |

crime and juvenile delinquency. But it is certainly not justified if the methods resemble the ancient practice of browbeating persons into a temporary obedience, a practice which ultimately ends in tragic results.

To one who for sometime has hung his head low in shame over | conditions existing in the Marion County Juvenile Court, it is unbelievable that the citizens, taxpayers and voters of this community will tolerate a court which for 26 years has gradually been degenerating instead of making any effort to more nearly reach the standards set by the successful juvenile courts of our United States. #4 8 8 URGES FURTHER PROBE OF COURT CASES By a Taxpaying Citizen Your editorial “You Don't Shed Enough Tears,” should be commended by all citizens who have any ideals as to what a judge should consider proper court conduct. What sort of “legal lights” are Indianapolis people tolerating in the positions of judges in this city? Do

no consideration to the pubic? I have heard the head of one of our grade schools condemn our Juvenile Court most severely for the treatment of children in several

FAITH

By FLORENCE M. TAYLOR Faith is a star— Unwavering light Transfiguring Life's darkest night.

DAILY THOUGHT

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.—Psalms 9:9.

OD’S thoughts, His will, His

love, His judgments are all man’s home.—George Macdonald.

cases that have occurred lately. Possibly more publicity and a thorough investigation as to the truth of the “slapping episode,” in spite of the Judge's denial, might be advisable.

#8 8 3% JUDGE GECKLER REPLIES TO CRITICISM

By John F. Geckler,

Judge of The Marion County Juvenile Court

You very kindly gave me copies | of two letters whose authors are]

hidden under the names of “Taxpaying Citizens and “Mrs. L. P.” and invited a reply. In connection with the charges and inferences placed upon statements made by certain people regarding the mistreatment of children, or the conduct of the Juvenile Court, permit me to say, as I have said on many occasions and repeat now, that I have tried approximately 7000 delinquent boys and girls, and in no instance have I ever

mistreated any child that has come |

into this Court. During the nearly seven years that I have been Judge of the Court, I have had the active and sincere cooperation of many organizations including the Boys Club, the Department of Public Welfare, Board of Children’s Guardians, Indianapolis Orphans Home, Jewish Family Service Society, Catholic, Charities Bureau, Colored Orphans Home, Family Welfare Society, Public Schools of Marion County, and various other organizations, and to my knowledge no representative of any of these organizations has ever accused me of mistreating any child. The representatives of these organizations are frequent attendants at sessions of the Juvenile Court. They know how the Court is conducted and how children are treated, and I certainly

resent these comments based upon |

hearsay coming from irresponsible persons, I certainly shall not sit by quietly and submit to these unv.arranted attocks made upon me as a public official and as a citizen of Marion County for more than 60 years. ” = n DECLARES DICTATORS CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN By D. A. Sommer

Every day is Halloween with the dictators and many diplomats, for they are always wearing “false” faces. Indiana 1s said to have about the best State Fair in the Union, but its loose matrimonial “union” of “fair” ones is in a bad “state.” In the “world series” in Spain. Germany's “nine” played so strong against some of Mussolini's moves, that the Italian pitcher dropped his arm for a time. If we could oil our little wagons with tempers “mellowed by a hundred million years,” they might run more smoothly. He is a small man who is a “hypocrite in a church,” but one must be still “smaller” to be able to hide behind such a hypocrite.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun yl

Connecticut Climate Is Betier: Than Metropolitan Public Knows: Radish Gardener at Last Learns.

TAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 4.—The man who: talks about the weather is set down as a: dolt. That seems to me unfair. Climate ought to retain its place as the main topic: of casual conversation. The person who terri: fies me is the strange young lady at your. right who begins, “What do you think of the stocks market?” And if you turn to the left you are likely to?

| run into the young intellectual who raises the curtain:

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with, “Don’t you think Hemingways: is too divine!” : The conventional opening of the: “Nice day today” is still preferableto the modern gambits. Why ons earth should we be snobbish about. the weather? We live with it and breathe it, and it has more effect on 2 the life of the average person than. ¢ a slump in steel or a rise in the he-: : man school of literature. : With this brief apology I woulds “+ like to say a few words about thes climate of Connecticut, which is for: eight months of the year the best: the world affords. I speak as one who came to Eden late in life with all the parochial prejudices of half a century of residence in Manhattan. Skepticism sat upon my shoulders when first I. set foot upon the promised land. The nearest race: track is almost an hour’s drive from my house, and I felt as if I were leaving civilization behind me and

going on the ice with Admiral Byrd.

Mr. Broun

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NE did conversion come suddenly with any blind ing light. Six or seven years elapsed before I became an addict to agriculture. In the beginning T grew nothing. Now I have a radish patch. New Eng« land must be seen to be appreciated. On the whole it has had a poor press. In school the. little tots have Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier dished out to them, and for the most part they say, “Phooey,” and plant their feet more firmly in home soil.

My complaint is that they have celebrated the’ wrong seasons. I don’t want to be snowbound, nos have I any ambition to become a barefoot boy with cheek of tan. Moreover, there never was a day in June so close to perfection as late October along the Ridge. I'll match Nov. 1, 1937, in Connecticut with any challenger which the most enthusiastic Florida or California booster cares to set against it.

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SUPPOSE that other sections of this country have approximately the same stars, but: they twinkld more for us Puritans. I was out doing my road work along about midnight, when the heavens began to put on the most thrilling show I've ever witnessed. The stars were shooting all over the sky, leaving a wake of brillant fire behind them. I'm a little confused as to what you are supposed to do when a star shoots. It's either that you make a wish or kiss somebody. Everybody else along ths Ridge was asleep, and so I made wishes. “Just let; it stay like this,” I suggested. :

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

White House Intervenes in Dispute on National Coal Commissions Pleas Greenlee Votes With Minority in Patronage-Furniture Row.

We should also have a graduated corporate income tax—penalizing mere size regardless of the return on investment or to stockholders. This may pinch some poor widows, but poor widows have no business to invest in such “a dangerous enterprise.” Business, lawyers and the rich are the criminals in his dog-house. All high personal tax returns should be examined with “the loving care that was used in examining those of Al Capone.” = = n TEs is the thinnest kind of sample—but it echoes recent policy perfectly. It is a frank book that discloses face-to-face much of what we have recently seen through a glass darkly. Its dogma is theoretical, contrary to all human experience, never yet tried without disaster, and now advanced solely on the authority of a purely speculative radical theorist. But on such sweeping tangents toward the infinite unknown we move in our quarterback theory of Government. At intervals, some new familiar spirit must perch on the shoulder of supreme

authority with a complete new formula. : The starting Carter Glass principle of budget balancing lasted four months. The Warren heresy of tinkering with gold lived a year. The Keynes dogma > up ) tarried shortly and then blazed up

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, Nov. 4—The White House has taken a long time to get moving, but it has finally put a hand into the row which has stymied the National Bituminous Coal Commission. Yesterday C. F. Hosford, Commission chairman, announced he will retire Jan. 1. The seven-man Commission, appointed under the Guffey Coal Act to fix prices and stabilize production in the long-chaotic soft coal fields, chiefly has been engaged in such absorbing work as selecting office furniture and rowing over patronage. Not long ago Commissioner C. E. Smith of West Virginia, who has his eye on the governorship of that State, wanted to dismiss 117 civil service employees and replace them with 117 political appointees from West Virginia. Gus Martin, Secretary Ickes’ representative on the Board, said the transfer could not be made under the Act. “I want it done anyway,” fumed Commissioner Smith. Commissioner Martin resigned.

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O far Commissioners Smith and Hosford have controlled most of the patronage. They have even refused to permit Commissioners representing the miners to know what personnel has been appointed, gespue the fact that any citizen has the right to ow it.

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tronage, chief jealousy within the Commission is ove ‘fixtures, One Commissioner has

has |

four are doing on patronage and other matters,

given blanket orders that whenever one of his cole leagues gets a new inkwell or piece of office furniture, he is to have the same thing. When one Commissioner adds an extra room to his suite, his colleagues demand a similar addition. Their offices are now bigger than those of Cabinet mem bers. Commissioner Smith's suite will be more ornate than the President's. : # 8 = : HE three men.who dominate the Coal Commis« sion are: Mr. Hosford, a Pennsylvania coal operator, appointed through Senator Guffey; Mr. Smith, a West Virginia newspaper publisher, appointed through Senator Neely, and Thomas Haymond, a Kentucky coal operator, appointed through Senator Barkley. : When it comes to opposition from the miners’ representatives, the three stick together. The Commis< sion is composed of two operator representatives, twa miners, and three representing the public. . Commissioner Smith is one of the latter. Another of the public representatives, Walter Maloney, an as sociate of Thomas J. Pendergast of Kansas City, also’ sides with them, making a vote of 4 to 3. In the minority are: Pleas Greenlee, former sece retary of ex-Governor McNutt of Indiana, and a rep=resentative of the public; John D. Lewis (no relation: to John L.), an Iowa miner, appointed through Sena-' tor Herring, and Percy Tetlow, a mining protege of: John L. Lewis. These three have had little idea of what the othem

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