Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 November 1937 — Page 16

PAGE 16

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

FRIDAY, NOV. 5, 1937

RESTORE THE SCHOOL LEVY ; CHOOL officials are justified in asking the State Tax Board to restore 4 cents to the 1938 School City tax levy so a $200,000 Crispus Attucks High School building program can be completed without a bond issue. Bonds can be issued for the building, but if the exist-

ing bonding margin is reduced that much, needed additions | and improvements at Arsenal Technical and Broad Ripple |

High Schools cannot be made next year without heavier

taxes. No one has challenged the urgency of these needs.

They were included in the emergency building program

some time ago. At Tech, for example, 30 classrooms now are housed mm temporary wooden portable buildings. It would seem folly, then, to issue bonds that must be paid back with interest for projects that should be done now on a pay-as-you-go basis. And even if the State Board approves the 4-cent item, the School City levy will be 3 cents under last year’s $1.07 rate. We hope the State Tax Board will see the wisdom, as well as the immediate necessity, of granting the school request.

THE LA GUARDIA TYPE

N Chicago today, the Republican National Committee is considering whether to call a midterm party convention next year in advance of the Congressional elections. Herbert Hoover has been the chief advocate of that idea, and most committee members have inclined to favor it. Alf M. Landon opposes it. So do Senator Borah and most Republicans in Congress. Chairman Hamilton now wants to delay a decision. All the argument among the old Republican leaders seems, somehow, very academic and uninteresting—chiefly

because of the fine fresh breeze blowing over the-country | | ate this article of the creed and | scoff away the right to work on

le aren't TR i resi i for Fiorello | th .We aren’t proposing a Presidential boom | Girdler once indicated the same

since New York City’s election Tuesday. La Guardia or for Thomas E. Dewey. Both are Republicans party’s consideration.

we hope they will concentrate on that.

We do say that the Republican Party needs—more |

than a struggle for control among those who have been term convention, more even than a new declaration of prin-

La Guardia and Mr. Dewey stand for in the minds of the American neople today.

With that, the party can regain strength, become

effective in the role of opposition and possibly return to |

power. The Republicans at Chicago, no matter what they do about calling a midterm convention, might wisely resolve to start calling earnestly for men of the La Guardia type.

ANOTHER JOB FOR JAMES

UCH and varied has been the comment on the appointment of son James as the President’s co-ordinator. Under the plan the son will deal with the heads of 18 important Government agencies and through him will be sieved the chaff of triviality from the wheat of importance.

trative detail which now swamps the President himself. A worthy purpose if there ever was one. Criticism about this being another and unusually conspicuous example of nepotism has been aroused; it is contended that the son must necessarily be an amateur, incapable of deciding what is wheat and what is chaff in such agencies as the Interstate Commerce Commission, the

Federal Trade Commission, and the like; and it is even

alleged that this is another move in the buildup of the Roosevelts as the nation’s ruling family.

Apart from the opinion one may have as to all that, we |

desire to offer what we consider a pertinent and a helpful suggestion: Instead of using James as the filter through which the Governmental experts must route their intricate problems —admittedly a monumental job for a young man not endowed either with omniscience or omnipotence—why not save the President’s time by placing James in another spot ? Admittedly the President’s job is man-killing labor. But it has always seemed to us that a great part of the burden runs to the social side. So—what if James were given the task of conducting all the receptions, dedicating all the monuments, officiating at all the anniversaries and egg rollings, greeting all the movie actors, pressing all the electric buttons that touch off all the dams and camps and bridges, shaking all the hands of those who doll up annually in their coats of many colors for the diplomatic receptions ? » ”n » »

8 »

ND the time that would be saved for the President!

Enough would be released for dealing with the heads of the actual operating departments of the Government—

those now involved directly in the co-ordination scheme— -

so that such duty would seem by comparison a vacation rivaling Aransas Pass or Astor's yacht. As someone once said in the days of Jimmy Walker, what New York needs is a day Mayor and a night Mayor. What Washington needs is someone to take on the Presidents night work, the gladhand and greeter business, and such other of that sort of thing as may slop over between sunup and sundown, ; We feel in offering this proposition not unlike Sam Goldwyn must have felt after an exciting staff meeting when he told the assembled movie stars and directors that there had been developed the mucus of a great idea.

In the Words

| belief it can’t be good. + . . y Akin : 2 en : g . ec and both, in time, may present impressive claims to th Ne Wh oes wen: Just now, however, they have a |

tremendous job on hand in New York, and for the present |

| the official position on the right . ; nit i ‘Or 5 idprominent in ils councils heretofore, more than a mid | man of the last vestige of decency, by what pro- | cess do such labor politicians go about the enforce-

‘ .. ip . .. lu . | i 2 ciples—an infusion of new spirit of the brand that Mayor | ment of this verboten:?

| own.

| gardless of their own beliefs.

ie t 3

§ GrowiNG TNTHE.

L’

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES of the Prophet !—By Talburt

FRIDAY, NOV. 5, 1937

And Don’t Forget—It’s a Rush Order!—By Talburt

LESSEE NOWAoW DO | MAKE AN OMELET WITHOUT CRACKING: ANY EGGS.

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

C. I. O. Leaders and Pickets Deny Right to Work, Although Official Statements Strongly Uphold It.

NEW YORK, Nov. 5.—Some of our ambitious Mahatmas of the C. I. O. appear to have two sets of principles, one for the record and another for practical, everyday, domination of the rank and file. Thus the

' C. I. 0. in an official statement of its pur- | poses, upholds the right of every man te work for a | living, adding that to deny a man that right is to strip | him of the last vestige of decency.

Unofficially some of the C. I. O.’s leaders repudi-

the ground that because Tom By the

same process Mr. Girdler might

program, although, in that case his indorsement probably would be rejected on a charge of dishonesty, which is a two-edged word.

Having unofficially repudiated

to work, denial of which strips a Mr. Pegler

The customary way is to surround the plant with a picket line with the potentialities of a mob and to disavow violent inten-

| tions while railing at the police or soldiers, as the | case may be, for preventing or suppressing terrorism.

” un ” HE right to work is then maintained only by the

local or state government, whose obligation to

protect the citizen from slugging or assassination is

not qualified by any proviso that he must join a union or a strike. Nevertheless, some strike leaders will accuse the government, local or state, of betraying its trust in refusing to connive at the violation of a legal and human right. The workmen, in conspicuous cases, have been neither indifferent opportunists, raked up just anywhere to fill the jobs temporarily, nor mercenary terrorists of the special deputy type, but old hands who merely wanted to continue at their places. In some instances they have been in the majority, but never

| theless, they were to be stripped of the last vestige

The device is intended to cut down the mass of admijnis- | of 36cency. to use a window dressing phrase of the

C. L O., on the order of a minority group and at the instigation of strangers come to town to lead them to the more abundant life, though it were necessary to terrorize their families in the process. Minorities who remained at their jobs have been in even worse position.

” » u

T= somewhat Hitleresque reasoning rejects the possibility that an individual or even a majority may honestly resent the formation by terroristic methods of a huge political bloc under the domination of a few leaders whose politics are opposed to their

It aspires to control the Mederal Government and impose on reluctant members an Administration which would be in some respect as far ieii as Moscow re- : It undertakes to flog Republicans into a political group which the Communists, with crafty patience, have accepted as the best available means to their ends and to make them pay tribute out of their wages toward the financing of a movement which they may conscientiously regard as a menace. It prates- of democracy, while expert political organizers, schooled in the technique of confusing an inexperienced rank and file, use the forms of democracy to defeat the purpose.

The Hoosier Forum

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

LINDBERGH IS LAUDED FOR REMAINING CITIZEN By B. C. Announcement that Col. Charles A. Lindbergh has applied for renewal of his commission in the Army Air Corps Reserve sets at rest rumors that he might relinquish his American citizenship and

reside permanently in England. That such a move has not been the intention of one of modern aviation’s outstanding heroes is now apparent. The more likely explanation that his residence abroad has been in the interests of American aviation in trans-Atlantic air lines now gains credence. Idol of thousands of American boys, his achievement in first flying the Atlantic alone dimmed. Even greater was his personal heroism in a tragedy that brought him the sympathy of a

| nation—the kidnap-murder of his | son.

“Lindy” is still a hero—and he!

still belongs to the United States. ”n ” ” F. D. R. FOREIGN POLICY

CALLED DUPLICITY By W. L. Ballard, Syracuse

What do we learn about the Pres- |

ident’s mind and foreign policy from

dresses?

be in session to declare war. I re-

gretfully think that the speeches | show we are now definitely linked to |

Fascist dictators and mentality. A diplomatic move gets its meaning from all the circumstances attending it. The world situation recently showed two sets of diplomatic affairs. First was the Spanish and Chinese wars. There democracies needed help but got none, even from Mr. Roosevelt. Second, the seeming break-down of the Rome-Berlin axis through partial exit of Hitler covered by boasts of loyalty, and the double threat arising consequently: namely, the projected opening of the French-Spanish and ChineseRussian borders for “volunteers,” etc. to help the democracies. Sig. Mussolini and his backers were plainly cornered by the British-French (or rather, French!) note on piracy and “volunteers” in Spain. He dared not answer it at all. But Tory England could no longer restrain France—so Roosevelt had to come into the open! If France could for a minute *“wishfully” interpret Roosevelt at Chicago, as we do, as friendly, nothing on earth could keep her Spanish border sealed. But that border is still closed. so is there any doubt France understands Roosevelt backs Fascist ideas as to what is war, peace, democracy and “nonintervention” (or quarantine, what's the difference) ? Those terms now mean all things to all men, depending on his interests. In China it is the same: Russia itches to see Japan's professional standing army destroyed in China and would send “volunteers” except

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Some Big Business Economists Now Argue Against Budget Balance, Asking Instead Government Spending to Aid Recovery of Heavy Industry.

TASHINGTON, Nov. 5.—Can you beat this? Some big business economists suddenly don’t want the budget balanced. Private capital is not flowing into the market to replace Government spending on the creation of heavy goods. It is true that, without sustained spending on heavy goods, activity in consumers goods alone can’t prevent a new depression. Since private money won't invest itself here, they want a new Federal spending spree on heavy goods. They suggest that the Army be motorized and mechanized. That would speed up metal manufacture. They propose Government lending for electrification and rehabilitation of railroads. They want a big Government push to a real housing boom. _ Many Administration economic medicine-men are now also for this. I should smile sardonically. Exactly and precisely that was what I thought I had sold this

Administration in the National Industrial Recovery Act. At least, I was ordered to set up both NRA and what later became PWA on precisely this prineiple before the act passed. "NRA was to activate consumers goods—PWA to activate heavy goods. They were to move together, =” " .»

N the day the act was signed, suddenly and without warning, the two programs were split. NRA

was to go ahead full steam, PWA was given to Secre-

Nii

(Times readers are invited to express their these columns, religious conexcluded. Make your letter short, so all can

views in

troversies

have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be

withheld on request.)

| Roosevelt's duplicity forbids. And | notice, Roosevelt spoke only after { Japan had pretty well attained her | announced objectives in North | China—oil, iron, coal, population, hegemony, and separation of effec- | tive boundaries with Russia.

The two speeches of Roosevelt,

only a week apart, were inconsist{ent and unrelated, one promising

remains un- | «gction,” the other “peace.” . . .

We are being taught to think | wishfully and that we are not en- | titled to longer concede Roosevelt lis “Leftist” or to be certain where | we stand in the Fascist vs. Communist matter. | » » | COMPLAINS OF RENT | AND MORTGAGE RATES By Citizen Recently a writer to the Forum, in answer to complaints about the | renting situation, said for renters to {try buying their own homes. Both

”

which 1s black and which is white; so much is intermediate gray. Complaining renters speak the truth: We ourselves have been unreasonably asked to move and have our rent increased when we put =n a flower garden. On the other hand, my father has had tenants who used a picket fence and the lath in the house for firewood, and one who grooved the floors so that the cleaning water ran off—down on the tenants below! So many ludicrous things are done that fine tenants are penalized for the tricks of others. The renting association recently announced members can no longer absorb the taxes and must raise rents. However, I believe they never have absorbed any taxes except during depression years when properties went tenantless. Now they are making up depression losses. According to one

QUESTION By DANIEL F. CLANCY

low-cost hous-

so low That he did not say, As I passed his way, “There the Markham of Tomorrow doth go.” 4

DAILY THOUGHT

He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.—Exodus 22:20.

== that deny a God, destroy man’s nobility; for clearly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.—Bacon.

renters and landlords have grounds | for complaint, and it is hard to say |

Was there ever a man with mind |

ing study, only 28 per cent of the people of Indianapolis own their homes. Although a small percentage find it inconvenient because of occupations, most people want a home of their own but find it too much of a high-finance problem for y the average wage earner. Mortgage rates, building materials and labor are too high.

Old-timers can see no profit in low-cost housing, but one of these days a bright young man with vis~ | sion will disregad the “you-can’t- | do-it” counsels and investigate low- | cost housing possibilities. It will be | possible and no doubt profitable. | Indianapolis needs such a man with | vision and courage.

| URGES CHECK ON STOCKS | AND POLITICIANS | By a Disgusted Republican

| eriticized for many acts of his Administration—especially such acts which help the masses. I heard exGovernor Landon recently take a few verbal shots at the New Deal as he did throughout his ’36 campaign, but he had no suggestions or proposals to substitute, interested as he says he is about the welfare of the country. President Roosevelt has been accused of being a dictator—not a leader. Some wish to take some power away from him. Yet, mind, you, when a storm breaks, such as a foolish stock market tailspin, some of his critics lay the problem on this so-called dictator's desk and run for the storm cellars. They don’t care what happens, so long as | it does not happen to them. . ® = = PROFITS DISCOUNTED AS SIGN OF GOOD TIMES By R. Sprunger May I present a list of a few befuddled critics? The one who thinks large profits a sign of good times but forgets there is a debt which society as a whole will have to pay the owner when he chooses. The one who mysteriously talks of “alien theory and isms” as a danger, but fails to point out the danger of private ownership and control of industries, distribution, press and radio, which might resort to fascism if threatened by an | aroused people. The one who confuses capital with the capitalist. Labor with the {aid of the gifts of nature produces |all wealth and capital. The capitalist adds little to the value of commodities by his ownership, and his capital is the fruit of past labor by the working class.

dent Roosevelt has been severely |

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

$5 Stock Safest Because It Can't Decline Far and Can Rise to Heights, Former Silver Mine Investor Says.

NEW YORK, Nov. 5.—What this country needs is a good $5 stock. Of late cer tain efforts have been made to turn the blue chips into white, but most of the gilt-edge securities are not yet down to the gingerbread levels where we commoners can eat our cake, Once I owned a hundred shares in a silver mine. They cost a dollar a share each at the time of my

purchase, and after going much lower, eventually disappeared. It seems the edition ran out and there was not sufficient demand for aneother printing. Still, T was never bitter at the evaportion of my investments, be= cause from the very beginning I had an inkling that some such thing might happen. My reasoning was, , “John Doe silver could go up a hundred points. It can go down only one. The percentage is entirely in my favor. This is an overlay.” And I still feel that there is more room at the top than at the bottom, and so I am about to buy a low-priced oil. The man tells me that although selling in the neighborhood of eight, we will make almost $5 a share this year. But he has warned me that, of course, we won't distribute all that.

Mr. Broun

» T seems that there is a thing called depreciation. The man also says that we must save some of our oil and some of our profits for posterity. I'm against that. Did these generations yet une born—your grandchildren and my grandchildren— fight the Indians, conquer the wilderness, raise up oil derricks on land which was once barren and hideous? You know that they did not. What right, then, have they to come around sniveling about depreciation? Let them dig their own oil wells. Moreover, I don’t know whether the president of our company is familiar with some recent figures issued by Harvard University in regard to the offspring of alumni. It seems the average graduate has

692 children. I think it is unreasonable that we should be called upon to stint ourselves much for children °* who are at best potential and also fractional. Our company is"not listed yet, but we have a nice roomy office with two stenographers who overlook Park Ave.

” » » BOVE the fireplace is a large photograph of the chairman of the board. He would be in his early 40s, and he is clean shaven. A very pleasant smile ani= mates his countenance. Apparently he is thinking of the $5 a share which we are almost certain to make this year. Our product is varied. In addition to oil three of our wells are bringing in salt water, We may decide to produce taffy as a sideline. The man says that if IT get in now on the ground floor I can come to the directors’ meeting and have a voice. He says the officers want to know the stockholders and that if the stockholders know the officers they would be surprised. We are much more clubby than U. S. Steel. Being

a member of that organization is about as exclusive as belonging to the Yale Club. You can't possibly know all the fellows. Our offices are also convenient to the station. The man says that the president of our oil company ale * wavs likes to have a railroad station handy just in case it becomes necessary for him to leave town in a hurry.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

Fire Industry Reported Chosen for First Legal Attack on Price Fixing; Survey Confirms SEC Suspicions of Short Selling in Stock Drop.

tary Ickes and put to sleep. The basic idea, now being advanced both in and out of Government, was killed. I walked out of that conference to resign because this principle underlying the whole recovery act had been scrapped. Like a sap I was persuaded to stick. But does that mean that this late revival of that 4-year-old corpse is right? No. That was in desperate 1933, before we had doubled our debt and when there was no possibility of private investment coming in to activate anything unless we could start recovery permanently and soundly from complete collapse. We proposed to do that by the formula just stated, but based on something far more important—restoring confidence through a balanced budget of ordinary spending. ® wn w VERYTHING is different today. No possible amount of Government spending can produce a fraction of the recovery that a restoration of investment, can. We never will have recovery until investment is restored. The precise reasons why investment won't resume are the crazy tax-structure and above all Government-spending, debts and deficits. The real cure lies in precisely the opposite direc-

tion. Repeal the taxes that restrict investment. Restore investment confidence by showing the way to reduced and a balanced budget.

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

ASHINGTON, Nov. 5~The tire industry has been secretly selected by the Justice Department as the first target in the drive against pricefixing which has been personally ordered by the President. Prosecutions shortly will be launched against 14 manufacturers who submitted identical bids to the Treasury. Basis of the action against the tire-makers is evidence obtained by a wily stratagem of Robert Jackson,

head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, and Herman Oliphant, chief Treasury counsel. The Treasury called for bids on a large order of tires and tubes. Fourteen were received, every one identical to the last fraction of a cent. Mr. Jackson advised Mr. Oliphant to reject the bids on the ground of “evidence of collusion” and to ask for a new set.

“We've got these firms over a barrel,” Mr. Jack- |

son said. “Whatever they do they are in hot water. If they submit identical bids again it will be a confirmation of their collusion. If they don’t it will be a confession that they got together the first time and are scared.” New bids were called for. Again they were identical. Mr. Jackson immediately started preparations for court action. Mr. Oliphant got the tires

| for 25 per cent less from a mail order firm,

of them it ran over 30 per cent.

I’ was the President himself who ordered a shipe ping line to dock three ships and equip them with fire prevention safeguards before again carrye ing passengers. Mr. Roosevelt issued his instructions after readeing a “Washington Merry-Go-Round” account of how the Commerce Department not only had exe empted the company from installing sprinkler systems, as required by a new law, but had given it an extension of time to put in less expensive “fire stops’-—-noncombustible cleats between floors and walls. The day after the President read the “Merry-Go-Round” disclosure, Government inspectors received telegraphic orders to dock the vessels. : w ” ”

EC suspicions that “bear raiding” (short selling) played a leading role in the recent stock market crash have been fully confirmed by a secret New York Stock Exchange report The survey, made at the request of the Commission, covered trading in five leading stocks for a period of three weeks. The SEC suspected that “bears” were short-circuiting prices, but when the exchange report was received, officials were agtounded.

’

A 10 per cent proportion of total transactions woulda #

be an unusually high short interest. But the report, disclosed that short sales were 22.7 per cent of the total volume of trading in the five stocks. In one