Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 November 1937 — Page 11

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Vagabond

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

Decides on Career of Party-Going: Gets Flying Start at Denver, and Guest List Includes Abbe Children.

ENVER. Nov. 15.—It has always been my ambition not to have to work for a living. Now I believe I have hit upon the right scheme. It's just to go around from city to city, get invited to a nice party in each city, and then write a column about the party. No effort at all. I'm starting right now. The party in Denver was a dandy. It was given by Mrs. William H. Downs and I think it entirely possible that Mrs. Downs gives the most interesting parties in Denver. Mr. and Mrs. Downs are rich, but you don’t have to be rich to be invited to their parties. You just have to be interesting. (How I got in is a trade secret between Mrs. Downs and me.) i Anyway I arrived, to find everybody in evening clothes except the doormaid and myself. But I didn’t mind, because it made me look eccentric, and a fellow can go a long way at a party just on a repu= tation for eccentricity. There must have been 50 people there. The place was just full of artists and poets and architects and sculptors and doctors and literary people. In fact, Anne Downs herself is one of Denver's best painters. Ordinarily I'm a round peg in a square hole at a literary party. These people were different. They would listen to something besides art. And when the word got around that I was the only person in the house who had been to Matanuska Colony in Alaska, I was practically the hero of the evening. People were asking me all kinds of questions, and did 1 pontificate! That went on all through dinner. After dinner Polly Abbe said she'd take me upstairs to see the kids. See, there's a surprise. I hadn't told you the Abbe children were there, the famous kids who wrote “Around the World in Eleven Years.”

Patience Grows Up

Well, they were. Richard and Johnny were asleep, go I didn’t get to see them. But Patience was still awake. so we went up to the little den where she was bedded down on a couch, and we sat around on the floor among sweaters and leather boots and things and kept her awake for half an hpur. Patience has grown up a lot (she’s past 14) and her face is beautiful and frail. I couldn't think of much to say to her. But I noticed she kept looking at me and laughing as though she would split, and finally I said “What are you laughing at?” She said: “You. You look so funny.” So I said: “Well, you don't look any too hot to me. And since youre so smart and don’t have any ash trays around here, I'll just put my ashes in your shoe, and then in the morning you'll have something to remember me by.” Which I did. At last everybody seemed to wind up in the basement. The Downs’ basement is an elegant place, full of clubrooms with fireplaces and immense chairs and divans all in white leather, and beautiful paintings all around, and very cozy. Down there, we got Gilda Gray to dance for us. When we were introduced I was sort of taken aback. It’s been close to 15 years since I saw her in the Follies, and I had supposed she would be old and fat by now. But she isn’t. She looks just as I remembered her.

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Reosevelt

Lauds Evansville Housing Project

After Day's Visit in Indiana Town.

ANSAS CITY, Mo, Sunday.—As I go through the country and look at one little village after another, it intrigues me greatly to watch the children who hang around stations to see the trains go by. 1 keep wondering about them and: try to piece together the kind of lives they lead in each of the little houses. We were on a very leisurely train Saturday morning. As we stopped at one little station, I saw a man in blue overalls get off carrying a basket: His skin was white and parchment-like. He looked old and walked bent over and, waiting for him, was a woman who looked almost as old. With her were four little children, not one of them over 8 or 10. They hardly greeted each other. He seemed to take their presence for granted. One of the children took his basket and they trudged down the dusty road toward a little row of houses set back from the railroad. What was their story? What was going to happen to them and to the children? As we came through Grayville, Ill, a little group of people came down to the station to greet us and I was Lappy in remembering my visit there a year ago with Mrs. Helm. They are so fond of her. They tock Mrs. Scheider and myself in as though we were old friends, just because we were friends of Mrs. Helm’'s.

Lays Wreath on Soldier's Tomb

Evansville. Ind, where I spoke last night, is beautifully situated on the Ohio River, but I can well imagine that during the flood last year when they tell me the water came over the parapet and up to the veranda of the hotel where we were staying and boats were in the streets through which we drove, that it was not so pleasant. Many people then must have wished the Ohio River was farther away. After the usual press conference, lunch and a hurried glimpse at the mail, I went out with the president of the Women's Rotary Club, Miss Jenner, the Mayor and Congressman Boehne. First we went to lay a wreath on the tomb of Private Gresham, who was the first soldier killed overseas during the World War, Then we looked at the slum clearance project in the Negro section of the city. This project is evidently a matter of great pride to the Mayor. He is very happy the former undesirable housing of this section has been wiped out. He told me the new houses would rent at approximately the same amount per room as the old ones, which had been extremely high considering what they were. This is one point in any slum clearance project which has to be watched, for there is no use in providing new housing at a cost beyond the incomes of the former residents of the neighborhood.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

T= Gulf Coast city in which Mrs. Florence Glass Palmer has laid the scene of LIFE AND MISS CELESTE (Bobbs-Merrill) is as gentle and refined as the little old maiden herself. Bach happening on Valencia St. Madrid Quadrangle, the Hill, Royal St. and the bay is treasured because these happenings are not frequent. In these sedate surroundings Miss Celeste Rochambeau and her sister, Miss Helene, live to see their family homestead become “decaying wood and crumbly plaster.” Left—are only the memory of a family whose intentions were honest and the neglected antiques once prized and protected. But out of the late, apparently uneventful years comes an appealing and genuine story, deep in plot and exciting as to its outcome.

Ae for anyone interested in the people of Scotland today is MODERN SCOTLAND (DutUnlike many writers who give us chiefly the romantic aspects of this country, Cicely Hamilton, an Englishwoman, has presented the conditions and problems of modern life, She has a great deal to say of the “lonely country” and “crowded town.” of the religious situation of contemporary Scotland, and of the Scottish Nationalist Movement, its origins, and the extent of its growth and influence. Cicely Hamilton has other books on European countries. It is particularly valuable, however, to read her impressions of her close neighbor, Scotland, which she has considered to be of significance to the ordinary uninformed English reader.

(Other Books, Page 13) “uty,

Mr. Pyle

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"The Indianapolis Times

Second Section

By Rodney Dutcher

year.

on Capitol Hill, the main features of the measure finally passed are fairly

sure to include:

1. Continuation of the present “soil conservation” program with its crop control program, payments to farmers for allocation of crop land to “soil-building” crops and base acreages for cotton wheat, corn, rice and tobacco. 2. Revival of the oid AAA voluntary adjustment programs, including the system of benefit payments, and production “goals.” 3. An ever-normal granary system under which farmers would store up enough in good crop years to carry the country through lean crop years, with farmers receiving commodity loans conditional on acreage reduction promises. This system would apply to cotton, wheat, corn, tobacco and rice and probably other crops. 4. A new policy of attempting to maintain “parity income” for farmers—an extension of the old AAA “parity price” policy. When it is impossible or seems inadvisable to push prices up to “parity.” benefit payments could be paid

with the aim of establishing farmA

Drifting By Science Service, Ine. OSCOW, Nov. 15—CircumAtlantic voyagings of a drifting buoy are described by Tass, official Soviet news service, on the basis of calculations of Russian oceanographers. A wooden buoy was picked up recently in the Bay of Biscay. It was identified as one set adrift in the Laptev Sea, in the Arctic, five years ago. To reach the Bay of Biscay it had to drift on currents that carried it

“first “north of Franz-Josef Land,

then past the southern end of Greenland and on the Labrador current to a point off Newfoundland. Thence it was carried across by the North Atlantic current to the Bay of Biscay. The total voyage is calculated at 8060 miles. The news agency reports that buoys have been picked up as long as 20 years after they have been set adrift. Many of these are reported to have traveled thousands of miles in the time of their drifting.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1937

Roosevelt's ‘Toughest Congress

Special Session Farm Program Expected to Cost Nearly Billion

(Third of a Series)

ASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (NEA).—Farm legislation is on the preferred list for the special session beginning today and a new, de luxe farm program—embodying the allegedly best features of previous programs plus certain new ones—will emerge before the 75th Congress marches home to the 1938 elections. Just as the new program will be fancier—and perhaps more effective, it also will be more expensive. yun all the way from $600,000,000 to a billion dollars a

Guesses

Although disputes may rage among Secretary Wallace, the farm organizations and farm-interested leaders

er incomes on a base comparable with the relation of farmer and nonfarmer incomes in the period 1909-14. 5. Revival of processing taxes, at least on cotton and wheat. President Roosevelt insists on new taxes to cover any added expense of the new farm program and the whole program's probable cost will be about 500 million dollars, plus the total revenue from processing taxes. ss 8 =»

HE most controversial aspect of current powwows over farm legislation concerns Secretary Wallace's desire that the evernormal granary be protected from disastrous experiences, such as the old Federal Farm Board's, by some form of compulsory control. His idea is to establish marketing quotas and Impose punitive fines, say of 50 per cent, on each bushel sold by an individual in excess of quota. Any time the granary began to bulge, Secretary Wallace contends, it would be essential to apply some instrument which will prevent the “sur=plus reserves” from becoming too topheavy. Other important figures among those framing legislation, including Chairman Marvin Jones (D. Tex.) of the House Agriculture Committee, feel that the old voluntary AAA system will take care of the situation and that compulsory control tends to encourage foreign competition with agricultural exports. Rep. Jones, how=ever, agrees that compulsory control is needed for tobacco, and Secretary Wallace is veering toward admission that it isn't necessary for all crops. So compromise is likely. But there is still a third group which seems to prefer unlimited production, with full subsidy and some arrangement to “dump” surpluses abroad.

HERE are other complicating factors in the background: No one in Congress or the Administration appears interested in the fact that measures planned will require a complete Supreme Court somersault if they are to be found constitutional. Political expediencies have become inextricably intertwined with farmer needs and problems and the nation's need for farmer purchasing power. Cotton brokerage houses and similar interests are more ef-

Among the busiest men in Washington as the special session of Congress begins today are Vice President John N. Garner and Senator Barkley (D. Ky.), majority floor leader in the upper house. Both of them come from agricultural states and will

(D. Tex.), Committee compulsory

Rep. Marvin Jones House Agricultural chairman, opposes crop control.

fective behind scenes than is ordinarily supposed. Conflicts of South and West, along with plans of Southern Democratic leaders to wrest party leadership from Mr. Roosevelt, are likely to gum some things up. And, regardless of the intent and content of whatever Congress may pass, pressure groups are almost sure to be able to influence administration of the new act in ways which will be of no benefit to consumers and taxpayers.

NEXT — Government Reorganization, If Any.

Sc

granary. ested

mitting himself.

in cotton provisions, will scan tobacco regulations carefully before com-

Entered

as Second-Class Matter

PAGE 11

at Postoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.

be vitally interested in the proposed ever-normal Mr. Garner, of course, will be most inter-

and Senator Barkley

Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace speaks at Tomlinson Hall here to solidify Midwestern sentiment for his ever-normal granary plan.

By E. R. R. ASHINGTON, Nov. 15.—Evidence multiplies that Congress is about to change the present tax on gains and losses from sales of capital assets. One change strongly advocated would allow a carryover for capital losses. That is, if losses in any one year were greater than gains for that year, the excess might be credited against any gains in the following year (or perhaps years.) Such carryover credit was in effect during 1933.

The main issue in capital gains and losses taxation really represents a conflict Yetween principle and reality. Consider the case of a man who makes $10,000 net from the sales of capital assets one year, but loses $10,000 from similar sales the following year. In the former year, he must include the net gains in his

income for the income tax. But in the latter year, he may deduct irom his income only $2000 of his net loss. Defenders of this system admit that it is wrong in principle, but point out the reality that the budget would be still further unbalanced if all net capital losses could be deducted. “ % &

PPONENTS of taxing capital gains and losses admit that it is proper in principle to tax a $10,000 income from purely speculative stock exchange transactions if a smaller income from a business or a salary is to be taxed. But in practice the system works out by giving the Treasury more income auring prosperity, when the budget problem is not serious, and less income during depression, when the budget problem is more acute. For instance, the Morgan partners paid heavy in-

come taxes In 1927-29, when the Treasury was in good shape, but none or little in 1930-32, when the Treasury was in dire difficulties. They had net capital gains in 192729, but net capital losses in 1929-32. If the gains had not been taxable and the losses not deductible, the Morgan partners would have paid less in 1927-29, but considerable in 1930-32. Undeniably, that would have helped the Treasury.

This camp alleges that the tax on capital gains makes for a runaway bull market, with an inevitable stock market crash to follow. The argument is that holders of stocks will not sell them when they have a profit, if much of the profit must go to the Treasury in income tax. The first camp maintains that this is theory rather than actuality, because a security holder, like every one else, takes half a loaf instead of no bread. Otherwise, this argu-

ment runs, men would get out of any business which paid a very high profit, and cease to work for very high salaries. The complexity of the subject and the perplexity it has caused are shown in the changes in capit# gains and losses taxes since an income tax was authorized by the 16th amendment.

HE 1913 law taxed capital gains like all other income, with no allowance for losses. The 1916 law made losses deductible against incomes. In the high-surtax act of 1918, capital losses were deductible against all income.

When the rates were reduced in 1921, the law provided that for assets held under two yeers, all gains were to be added all losses deductible. For assets held over two years, the taxpayer might make gains subject to 12'2 per cent tax, which was

Capital Gains Tax Dispute Held Conflict of Principle and Reality; Evidence Swells That Congress Will Make Changes in Setup

advantageous at higher income levels. In the 1924 act, for assets held over two years, reduction in tax from credit for losses was limited to 1214 per cent of the losses. » 8 2 HEN the rates were raised in 1932, capital losses on securities (only) held under two years were deductible only against gains from similar sales, but any losses disallowed could be applied against similar gains in the following year. In the 1934 act gains were treated like all other income, except that if the assets were held over a year only 80 per cent of the gain is taxable; if over two years, only 60 per cent; over five years, 40 per cent. over 10 years, 30 per cent. Similar percentages apply to losses, but total deduction for losses is limited to the amount of gains and $2000 additional.

Side Glances—By Clark

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“My boys were. ashamed of this old store until they tried their luck | in the big cities for a few years." wal

A WOMAN'S VIEW

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HE Toledo Woman's Educational Club has a fine motto, and after I had met many of its members I had a feeling that all of them had adopted it as a working slogan: “Use the talents you possess.” I like that sentiment. It's so much more sane than the flossy French, Latin or Italian lines one finds in the fiyleaf of many a yearbook. It has a feet-on-the-ground sound. It fits perfectly the group of women who are bent upon making the most of their opportunities as well as upon using the best of their talents for the general good. I am told the club has 700 members, including women of all ages, which is another evidence of their good sense. Most clubs are not quick enough to invite younger women into their ranks. Usually we desire to travel in the circle of our own age limit, and so often we forget how necessary it is for our organization to have new energy, inspiration and vision which must nearly always come from younger women. We older ones, firmly fixed in club routines, are apt to be a little set in our ways. For that reason I was glad to see so many youngish and oldish faces together in To-

ledo. Isn't it marvelous to think how many new friends there are waiting for us just around the corner of tomorrow? There is always a sense of adventure in contacts with people one Has never seen before because

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ur Town

By Anton Scherrer

Even Indianapolis Gives Chronicler Mental Indigestion Once in While; Here's What's on His Chest Today.

OODNESS knows I'm the last man to say that Indianapolis isn’t the nicest place in the world. That's no reason to say, however, that it couldn’t be made a nicer place to live in. Take our department stores, for instance, They could do a lot to increase the joy of living. To be sure, it was a nice gesture when they put in escala= tors and air-conditioning, but somehow it wasn't

enough. The seat of trouble lies deeper. As near as I can figure out, it lies somewhere around the irritating little books with the carbon paper the clerks carry around with them. To see a clerk take one of these irritating books, laboriously fix the carbon paper, and begin to describe a pair of garters as X46793201 is reason enough to let my socks stay just where they are. The delicatessen people have the right idea; you push your dime over the counter, and walk off with your supper. It's that way all along the line. The telephone people import a French fixture, teach us to call it a cradle phone, and sit back secure in the belief that they have contributed to my happiness. Shucks, they ought to be spending all their time figuring out a way of keeping my telephone cord from getting tangled up. Yours, too, probably. And while I'm on the subject, why is it that I so often get the Methodist Hospital when I want the Marott Hotel? On a manual-phone, too. Somehow, I resent the telephone people's solicitude for me. I'll call the hospital when I get good and ready.

Here Are Other Things, Too

You bet I'm mad today. Why is it that every time I go to University Park to have a look at the Depauw Fountain, it never plays for me? Or for any= body else. For that matter, why were the fountains in the Circle turned off when the teachers (15,000 of them) showed up for their recent convention? Why do the entrance doors of the Postoffice swing in? What's the reason for the steps in the aisles of the War Memorial's auditorium? Why does the ticket taker at the movies nip off a corner of my coupon before he hands it back to me? Come to think of it, why does he hand it back to me at all? Why do Indianapolis streetcar conductors ask me whether I want tokens when I hand them two dimes and a nickel? Why don’t our haberdashers keep their collar buttons where they keep their shirts? Why hasn't Indianapolis a lovers’ lane—a place to go, be alone, and get an even break? Why do I have to climb a chair, ladder fashion, every time I want to be served at a bar? Why don’t they depress the barkeepers’ platform, so I can use an easy chair? Come to think of it, why don't they let me stand at the bar? I feel better now.

Jane Jordan—

People Must Learn to Put Up With

Associates Who Don't Like Them, EAR JANE JORDAN-—I am a Junior in high school, 16 years old and very unhappy. I have a nice home and the nicest parents any girl could want, but still am unhappy. I like a buy in school and am quite sure he likes me. I've been going with him about seven weeks but not steady. There is another girl whom 1 shall call L. 5. I hate this girl; 1 have never been introduced to her and don’t want to be. For the last few days she has called me many unpleasant names. Why, I don't know. She likes the same boy I do but that should not lead her to say the things that she does. It may be jealousy

on each of our parts. She went down the hall one day and told me distinctly to leave “her Eugene” alone. She doesn't own him and neither do I, but she asked me to fight it out with her. I know it's not right to do that as we would both get in trouble over it. What would you do if you were me? ANIMAL.

Mr. Scherrer

ys =n Answer—The other girl is a common little thing, if that's any comfort to you. How do I know? Her atrocious manners give her away. Fancy walking down the hall muttering threats at a strange girl and inviting her to fight it out simply because she has dates with the same boy! What a fishwife she will turn out to be. It ought to be easy for you to feel superior to such a girl, She's no more civilized than a’wild cat. ‘She's not half as dangerous as the girl who has the same feelings plus self-control. Such a girl fights with concealed weapons without warning her rival of her intent to do battle. All you have to contend with is a loud-mouthed little vixen whom no boy of intelligence would touch with a 10-foot pole. You simply will have to iearn how to put up with people who do not like you, Nobody can get through life without making a few enemies. No matter what you do somebody will call you names for doing it and if you do nothing they will call you names for that, too. As long as you're able to make a larger percents age of friends than enemies you have nothing to worry about. Ignore the girl, but don't be obvious about it, Avoid her and refrain from knocking her, particularly in the presence of the boy. Keep calm and collected and courteous while she makes a holy show of her= self. It is hardly necessary to work against a girl so entirely capable of doing herself in.

DEAR JANE JORDAN—Thank you for answering my question. I think your advice was sensible but your side remark was that smoking has nothing to do with a girl's character. There you are simply kide ding yourself. If a girl smokes or drinks it shows she has a weak character. Girls who use tobacco and ale cohol are lacking in refinement. Anybody knows that, You can't deny it with logic. ” ” o

Answer—It is not true that a woman who smokes has a weak character or that she is lacking in refine ment. Many of our most distinguished women, ine cluding authors, artists, educators and mothers smoke, It is your privilege to disapprove and to choose none smokers for your friends, but sweeping statements about superior women based on your own personal prejudices carry no weight. JANE JORDAN,

Put your problems in a letter to Jane Jordan, who will answer your questions in this column daily. J

Walter O'Keefe—

T= management of the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington sent some flowers up to our suite last Friday and the whole mystery has been cleared up. I found out it was the bouquet that was schede uled to be given to a Baltimore girl named Wallie, who was due for a luncheon engagement. She married an English chap whose coming over here was slowed down by the “speedup” system. And here let me say we have not canceled our plans to sail abroad. We leave Wednesday on the Queen Mary to study housing conditions over there. We want to go to England for the golfing, to Swite gerland for the skiing and to Russia for the shooting, I doubt very much, though, whether we'll go to Spain. We wouldn't get on very well, there. You see, we .can't speak Italian or German,