Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 November 1937 — Page 13

i. Vagabond

From Indiana — Ernie Pyle Midget Racing Cars Scare Ernie

As Much as Those on Local Track; |

Roosevelt's ‘Toughest Congress

ENVER, Nov. 16.—We sat in the grand- |

Tiny Machines Can Go 100 m. p. h.

stand, in the cold wind, and watched a

dozen little autos tearing around a quartermile track built around the ball diamond. It was my first midget auto race. I have seen the great Indianapolis race probably 10 times; I've seen the big cars go at 140 miles an hour on the boards at Altoona, and the old

bowl at Laurel, Md, and Hammonton, N. J,, and in Los Angeles and Seattle and on numberless dirt tracks. But never have I seen such driving as at the midget track here in | Denver. The four leaders were almost perfectly matched—and they were driving with a desperateness that made me weak and trembling, even though I loved it. \ They slammed into the sharp . corners, bounced hideously, slid sideways scores of feet, locked wheels, threw tires into the air. There were wrecks. Some went

Mr. Pyle through the fence into the grand-

stand. Many spun on the track. They ran into each other. One driver went to the | hospital. It was a frightening thing. |

So after the race I decided to find about these little cars. | Midget racing has grown like a prairie fire in the last two years. It has even captured the East, which has had little feeling for auto racing. There are | hundreds of drivers and little cars in the country today, This summer was the first season for midget racing in Denver. There were two races a week. At | first the crowds were small. But enthusiasm grew, and on the last day thousands turned out. Drivers from as far away as Los Angeles and | Chicago came and spent the season here, although I don’t know why, for the purses are miserably small. They were crack drivers, so maybe they got a re- | tainer’s fee for appearing. The purse depends on how big the crowd is. The | day's program usually consists of eight or ten short races, winding up with a big final of 30 or 40 laps. This is the one the drivers fight so desperately for.

Risk Lives for $50

So this afternoon we saw men racing like madmen, elbowing death at every turn, driving with what to us was manical courage—and the winner got the immense sum of $50! These midgets: are marvelous little pieces of machinery. None of them would reach your hips. Yet on a straightaway they can do better than 100 m

out something

They dont’ have any gear shifts at all. The motor is hooked right up to the driving gears in the axle, | Some don't even have a clutch. Men push the car | to start the engine. i | They have no foot brake. But a hand-brake lever Is in easy reach outside, The drivers frequently slide the car around a corner by slamming the brakes. Midgets are hard to turn over, but they spin easily. | Most drivers consider them harder to handle than a big racing car. They are over-powered, and tricky.

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Thanks, Pleas and Some Advice

Are Mixed by Midwestern Friends. |

LEVELAND, O. Monday —Kansas City people | 4 have long memories and they welcome one with | great cordiality, so one cannot help but feel very much at home in their midst. As we walked into the hotel yesterday afternoon. a woman stopped me and handed me a box. In a hurried murmur she said something about my having written her story and that she was happy now. ! I was swept into the elevator and it was not until we got into our rooms that it dawned on me that she was probably the woman who had telephoned the | last time we were here to thank the President for the | fact that she had work and could meet her obligations. The cake which she made for me was a delicious one. I regretted there was not some way in which I could share it with my husband. A strange incident occurred at breakfast in the station at St. Louis the other day. A woman came up

to me and said she had written 16 letters to people |

in the White House and, while she had had answers, none of them brought about the result she desired. Finding herself near me in the station, she took the opportunity to tell me all about the problems of her locality because she said I was a woman and would understand. I do understand the difficulty, for it is one of those problems which don't exactly fit into the work of any Government agency. However, she had faith that to tell it to me would at least bring about an impartial investigation of conditions, and I sincerely hope that it will.

Another One Tells Troubles

Another incident concerns a letter delivered to me in a hotel. It was unsigned and begged me to praise all those in the country who had found jobs for themselves and stuck to them. Then, naively, came the personal touch. I was told there was a young man in my hotel who had done just this and was helping to support a widowed mother and several sisters with his earnings. The letter added: “All the praise he gets is advice to get married!” Quite evidently that advice was not considered good by the writer of the letter. Before our train left last night we drove past the new City Hall in Kansas City a simple, dignified structure. We then drove up near the memorial, from the top of which a burning fire always sends forth light and smoke. We passed through Chicago on our way to Cleveland and arrived here late today.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

IKE an hour at a play when a poighant drama is being enacted is an account of the life and love and work of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known to the world as Moliere. ¥ Mme. Beatrix Dussane of the Comedie Francaise, in a fictionized biography, AN ACTOR NAMED MOLIERE (Scribner), admits that her love for her hero “being unsated,” she undertook to put him in a novel “in order to know him better”; .and if she has committed the sin of filling in the gaps in her knowledge with her own dreams, it is a moving and lovely misdeed which she has perpetrated. Here is the fipwering of French drama in its Golden Age, when Moliere quarreled with Racine, fraternized with LaFontaine. collaborated with the great Corneille, and finally brought himself and his company of players, under the direct patronage of Louis XIV, the “dread lord” and sovereign majesty of that lusty and magnificent period. If Mme. Dussane chooses to disbelieve the documents regarding her hero's relations with Madeliene Bejart, who must have loved him. and with Armande, whom we know he loved, it is only to visualize more vividly her dream and to make more significant the story of a deathless work flawlessly done and of a great life abundantly lived. ss = =» OUNG Dr. Andrew Manson, newly graduated from school, found his first medical post in a little Welsh mining town. When, scrupulous, honest, ana enthusiastic as he was, he found himself involved in a losing fight against hypocrisy and inefficiency, he and his wife attempted a fresh start in another place. From this point the story which A. J. Cronin tells in THE CITADEL (Little) is of his successful research which. gaining him recognition, took him eventually to a successful London practice, of the gradual waning of his youthful ardor, and of his final realization, Jhrougn aay. of the mistak= which he had made n allow self to be drawn into the ~omfortable, padded which he led in Longton. |

The Indianapolis Times

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1937

Entered at Postoffice,

Patronage Price Tag Hangs on President’s Reorganization Plan

(Fourth in a Series)

By Rodney Dutcher ASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (NEA). — Reorganization of the Federal Government, for decades a diverting topic of conversation, seems likely to become a reality as the 76th Congress assembles to act or not to act on the Roosevelt program. The best reason for thinking so is the fact that reorganization bills designed to effect a portion of the recommendations of Roosevelt and his Brown-ing-Merriam-Gulick Committee of experts, carries an obvious price tag. The price, payable to Congress, would be the removal of a thousand or more Government career men -— bureau chiefs, division heads and so on—in a process which would lay their jobs open to patronage raids. The price may be raised before Congress gives the President some of the powers he wants for the purpose of “streamlining” the executive set-up. n » ” HE Administration, with reservations, backs the omnibus reorganization bill ‘which is being pushed by Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina. The bill provides Presidential authority to transfer, regroup or abolish bureaus, agencies, services and functions, except in the case of independent agencies such as the Interstate Commerce, Securities

Exchange and Federal Commissions. Congress would have 60 days to veto any change it didn't like. A 15-year term Civil Service Administrator would replace the present Civil Service Commission and would be charged with developing a Federal career service. The President would be authorized to bring about 300,000 nowexempt Federal employees into the Civil Service and to establish a new Department of Welfare under a Cabinet Secretary, who presumably would be Harry Hopkins of WPA. ” n n HE Controller General's office would be abolished and a General Auditing Department— under executive direction — be placed with the Budget Bureau, with preaudit functions plus a postaudit agency accountable to Congress and reporting to it on Government expenditures. The President would be given six administrative assistants. The name of the Interior Department would be changed to Department of Conservation and a National Resources Planning Board would be set up to study “development and utilization” of the nation's natural and human resources.

2 ” ” HE House has passed bills with more or less similar provisions as to Presidential reorganization powers and authorizing the six assistants. It has before it bills with more or less similar provisions as to civil service and the Controller General's office. The “price” referred to is a Byrnes bill provision permitting

the President to find that any office of the head of a bureau, agency, division or service is "policy determining in character,” whereafter he could name new appointees. They would require Senate confirmation. The net effect would be to make hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs now held

Harry Hopkins, Federal Relief Administrator,

WN

would ost

likely candidate for the office of Secretary of Public Welfare, which the

reorganization bill would create.

Such an office has long been desired

by President Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt has contended that revamping of the Executive Department would result in large economies.

by experienced career men an item of Senatorial patronage. = = = HIEF fight in the House, and probably the Senate, is expected to center on the provision

which would put nearly all Federal employees under civil service. Enactment of this proposal would be a remarkable renunciation of power (patronage power) by President and Congress.

Photos by Margaret Bourke-White; Copyright,

NEA Service, Inc.

If the special session of Congress passes the Byrnes Omnibus Government Reorganization Bill, Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes will be

due for a change in title.

Under present provisions of the bill, his office

would become Secretary of Conservation.

There is also sure to be a battle against abolition of the Controller General's office, formerly held by Republican John R. McCarl, who blocked expenditures as to whose ‘legality he and New Dealers disagreed. ” ® 2 ESPITE assurances from Administration sources that the ways are greased for passage, a long history of refusals by Congress to act on Presidential recommendations invites skepticism as

Has Better Plan in Collective Bargaining

By Raymond Clapper Times Special Writer | ARIS, Nov. 16.—France’s experi- ! ence with the 40-hour week | has demonstrated that attempts to ' make drastic economic changes by | blanket legislation are much less | satisfactory than to work them out | gradually by collective bargaining, {as we have been doing in the | | United States.

| The centerpiece of the Blum New | Deal reforms in France was the 40-hour-week law. It required all industry to go on a 40-hour week in place of the 48-hour week which had prevailed generally. Employers were forbidden to cut weekly wages. By a rapid-fire series of decrees, the Government within the space of a few months applied the law to the whole industrial and commercial life of the country. Even the small one-family businesses, where the owner was the sole employee, were brought under it, and these small establishments are numerous in France.

The result has been a sharp increase in production costs, reflected in rapid increases in prices and the cost of living, and in some industries a decline of output at the very time when an increase was essential. Employment has increased about 7 per cent in the last year. That is the sole claim in behalf of the legislation, but a claim which is clouded by the fact that employment already was increasing before the 40-hour-week was applied and also by the fact that France has a shortage instetd of a surplus of skilled workers. So that the ad-

vantages of the law as a re-employ-ment measure are somewhat in dispute. » ” ” OAL mining was the first industry to come under the 40-hour week. And_as it is almost entirely a hand-labor énterprise the effect of the 40-hour week is most clearly seen there. Ir the first nine months of this year coal imports into France were 22,600.000 tons, compared with 16,200,000 tons during the same period in 1936. Domestic production was 6 per cent below the same period for 1936. Meantime in September coal prices were increased as much as 12 per cent. The situation in this basic industry became so acute that labor forces, primarily responsible for the 40-hour week, agreed to a

( modification

which permits the mines to run longer hours. As a result of this and other difficulties with the law, the French Government has instituted a general economic survey of the effects of this legislation and is expected to recommend some modifications shortly, in order to overcome the dangers of declining production and rapidly rising prices. Offhand it might be inferred that this experience should warn the United States against going through with the 40-hour bill now pending in Congress. However, conditions are somewhat different. In the United States we have, by the more gradual processes of collective bargaining, brought most of our skilled crafts down to 40 hours. The pending legislation is aimed at

U. S. Finds Self Aiding in

Training Fascist Navy

Times Special ASHINGTON, Nov. 16.—Conversion of Brazil into a “corporate” state puts the United States in the position of training a “Fascist” Navy. Whether the Administration will withdraw its naval mission to Brazil was a question that neither the State Department nor the Navy would answer today, though the former indicated it could see no reason for doing so. Brazil's establishment of a total-

itarian state did, however, dispose of another problem that has created bitterness in South America. That problem arose from Secretary of State Hull's proposal to lease six U. 8. destroyers to Brazil. Bills were introduced in both House and Senate last session to permit this transfer of overage warships to Brazil, but Congress

failed to act. The new developments in Brazil are believed to have ended any possibility of action.

to the likelihood of an important reorganization act now. A combination of lobbies may block nearly everything proposed. But there are few who won't agree that Roosevelt never said a truer thing than his description of the Federal administrative setup as— “. .. a higgledy-piggledy patchwork of duplicating responsibilities and overlapping powers.”

NEXT—“Seven Tennessee Valleys.”

France's Failure With Labor Law Shows U. S.

the lower levels of workers and at wages below $16 a week. Above that collective bargaining would still be the method of determining hours and wages. France's experience shows it is more satisfactory to allow management and labor to work out their own problems wherever possible. Our pending measure 1s timed to fix a bottom for the low-est-paid, unorganized employees who have not been able to develop collective bargaining.

” o ”

HEREFORE, in its application the proposed American law would be infinitely less drastic and sweeping than the French law has been. Nevertheless France's experience stands as a warning against trying to do everything by law, and shows how easy it is, in setting about to cure an evil, to create new evils in its place. The more one sees of Europe’s experience with managed economy, the more it becomes clear that the greatest asset a nation can have is the motive power of individual enterprise, and that it is better to rely on this as far as is possible, reserving the power of the Government to deai with the maladjustments as they develop. In other words, Government seems to work better as a stabilizer and trouble-shooter than when it tries to take over the whole show and run it. And so far as I have observed it, that goes for communism, fascism aad democracy alike. For after all politicians and bureaucrats get to be very much the same regardless of the form of government.

Side Glances—By Clark

\

Sr—

HE

EB

"Your husband must be sleeping late. : : morning." : !

SN Xo

| haven't heard him gargle

A WOMAN'S VIEW

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson HE journalism students of one Toledo high school are, no doubt, like the journalism students of every other high school in the country. That is to say, they are bright-faced, quick-thinking, seri-ous-minded boys and girls dreaming of success yet prepared to meet failure. Our youngsters. are at last beginning to be taught that.it is not possible for every ambitious person to win fame. According to the law of averages and the rule of supply and demand, some of them are certain to see their air castles crumble and to know the sadness of hopes unrealized. However, they are growing up in an age when failure is no longer necessarily considered an evidence of individual shortcoming. It is a part of the general discomfiture, the result of economic mismanagement, and so they learn that they must know how to turn their hands to several jobs. Most of them are preparing to do just that. We talked for a while to these budding writers and publishers about their ambitions, and I was pleased to find that several of them had been thinking about newspaper careers in country towns. To be sure, the majority entertained scorn at the thought of spending their talents on anything smaller than a

| metropolitan daily with a vast cir- | culation, and perhaps that is as it : should be.

The country feeds the city and always must, and that goes for ideals as well as eatables. In the small town one learns not only the technical side of the publishing

es but, what is more - the hear ‘of ‘people. Wiese y

Jasper—By Frank Owen

RMATIRIRNNNR LS

Cope. 1937 by United Peature Syndiess me pi=ig

"Jasper's girl went around the block, so you can bring him out now,"

Noa alg

.

as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

Second Section

PAGE 13

Ind.

Qur Town

By Anton Scherrer

Symbolism Affected Paderewski's Performance on First Trip Here, But Big Crowd Watched Him Eat.

'M reasonably sure that Ignace Paderewski picked a Saturday in the winter of 1896 for his first visit to Indianapolis. It was winter all right, because I rememsber the big fur coat he wore when he ar .rived at the Bates House. Sure, I was there, What's more, I didn’t play hookey that day, which is why I know it was Saturday.

Mr. Paderewski also wore a silk plug hat, and I

remember how it impressed me at the time that a man with the mop of hair he had should pick the hardest kind of hat to wear. As a matter of fact, his hat did wobble a bit when he stepped down from the hack. It didn't worry him at all although it had me holding my breath.

I saw Mr. Paderewski again that night when he played at English’s. The stage, I remember, was one of the strangest sights I ever saw. It looked more like a church than a theater, Tall cathe= dral candles were standing around, mixed up with palms and rubber plants. The floor was strewn with Oriental rugs, and instead of having scenery, they had a kind of ‘curtain stretched across the back. The wemal: next to me said it was symbolism. Well, Mr. Paderewski came out finally and tackled Beethoven's Opus 53. I didn’t think it went any too well, and I guess he thought the same, because when the first movement was done, he got up and walked out. Acted kind of like he was mad. Immediately a crew of stage hands came on, and hauled off all the symbolism, leaving nothing but the piano.

Rivals Wrestling Match

After that Mr. Paderewski returned, looking like he felt better, and played like nobody's business. The concert ended, I remember, with Liszt's Twelfth Rhapsody, and the people yelled their heads off. The man next to me said it was the biggest noise since Schumacher, the wrestler, pinned down Hale's shoulders the year before. After the concert, a lot of people, mostly women, went over to the Bates House, and watched Mr. Paderewski eat his midnight meal. The late-comers had to use opera glasses. I don’t know whether Sarah S. Pratt of Logans= port was in the crowd that night or not, but the next week she came out with a poem which kind of explained the hysteria of the women that night. Poetess Pratt called her poem “a dithrambic ode,” more specifically “The Women of America to Paderewski.” “Oh, thou bright haired Cynosure Very true it is that you're a Living magnet, we a needle How you fascinate and wheedle Those poor souls of ours. ...” There was a lot more of it, and just as good, too. That's all I know about Mr. Paderewski’s first visit to Indianapolis, except that he cleaned up $2000. No wonder; first floor seats sold for $3; balcony, $2, and gallery, $1.50.

Jane Jordan—

Try Job Again to See If Marriage Can Succeed, 'Doormat’' Wife Told.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—I am considering leaving my husband. I am sure every friend and acquaintance I have would consider me insane for even uttering such a remark. I am the ordinary run-of-the-mill type, married three years to an extremely handsome husband. I am 35; he is 36; both of us have been married before. I was desperately in love with my husband when we married and expected to be the happiest woman on earth. Instead I am one of the most miserable. My husband makes a very adequate salary and we have a lovely home of which we are both very proud. He is very niggardly with household money and fusses incessantly about bills, although I have a small income of my own and he has not purchased my personal apparel at any time. He is very liberal on social occasions and to his credit I am always included. Here is the rub: He is extremely gallant and highly complimentary to all our feminine friends. A new gown, hairdress or a meal in a friend's home merits his highest praise, He is extremely critical of my meals, my demeanor, my clothes. Let me take my share of the blame. When I try to discuss these things he accuses me of being jealous and nagging Perhaps he is right. I can sincerely say that 1 have tried to make him a nice home, but am getting tired of being a doormat wife. My ardor is diminishing. Lately I cannot be so companionable. Whenewe married I had a very nice position. Circumstances in my former ofTice have made it possible for me to return to work. I can make myself a good living alone but I love my home and hate to break up and leave it RT ATK AND WHITE. ” ” “

Answer—Before you leave your hushand why not see how you get along with him after you go back to work. Sometimes a woman who has given up a gced job to get married suffers from the frustrations of her * own ambitions. Accustomed to spending money as sha chooses, she does not find it easy to play the infantils role which so many men require of their wives. Your husband has not treated vou as an equal in the business of marriage. If he had regarded you as a capeble adult he would have made a fair division of his income with you. Instead he has put you in the childish position of having to ask for every penny and played the stern father by scolding you for your expanditures. You admit a certain envy of your husband. You envy his good looks, his way with*women, his control of the purse-strings. Perhaps on the whole it is just his dominant masculinity which you envy. Since he allows you no successes of your own and accords you no praise in your role of wife, there is nothing in your life to compensate for the loss of your own impore tance. 1 am wondering if your return to your job won't help to restore that lost importance. Many times when a woman is able to enjoy a little success at the office she finds it easier to play second fiddle to her husband at home. But when she has no outlet whatever for her own powers, she may regard her husband as a competitor who has won at her expense. Is your husband niggardly because he wants to save his money or because he wants to spend it for self-aggrandizement? If financial security is his goal, he will appreciate the additional income your job brings. h I don’t know how it will turn out, but 1t is worth a trial. After all this is your second venture and when we see ourselves repeating failures instead of successes, it is cause for alarm. Why have you failed with two men? Could it be that you are lacking in that priceless feminine quality of letting the male steal the spotlight even though his excessive need for admira« tion and applause is a little ridiculous? JANE JORDAN,

Mr. Scherrer

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

Walter O'Keefe—

T was pretty smart of President Roosevelt to turn over the unemployment census to Jim Farley's Post« office boys. It’s debatable whether anyone has gotten more jobs for people since 1933 than Genial Jim. If the form of application is as complicated as any other Government blank, it'll put the unemployed back to work for months filling it out. The $hine Sveryboay hopes for is that the postman

can cq again on Dec. 24 with a job for every)