Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 November 1937 — Page 10
PAGE 10
The Indianapolis Time
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WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24, 1937
EXIT BUCK-PASSING? THE sins of one bureaucracy are being visited upon a child as vet unborn. That is the effect of William Green's condemnation of the Wages-and-Hours Bill. Last August the bill was O. K. with the A. F. of L. president. While it set up a bureaucracy to do a job Congress itself shunned, namely, defining minimum wages and maximum hours and fixing territorial differentials, nevertheless Mr. Green said it was satisfactory. But much water has gone over the dam since then. So now, having seen another bureaucracy works—the National Labor Relations Board—Mr. Green condemns the bureaucracy system as such, and thereby knocks the Black-Connery WageHour Bill in the head. Administration of the independent governmental agency (bureaucracy) idea, he says, with “trial and error a teacher,” has proved “fatally defective,” having “disrupted tried and tested principles of collective bargaining between capital and labor.” The result of the action of Mr. Green, who last summer saved the Black-Connery Bill, seems to be finis for that particular measure, and makes awkward indeed the cheerleading dramatics of Sam Rayburn in heading a lost cause of insufficient petition-signers down the aisle of defeat. All of which is quite within the trend of the times.
4 » ” » u o E believe the only way to the accomplishment of the excellent purpose involved in the wage-hour idea is for Congress to do its own spadework and quit passing the buck to another independent agency. The business of divorcing authority and responsibility is playing out. That the feeling about such procedure is spreading is strikingly evidenced by a speech which brought an ovation in the House of Representatives. The ovation went to a Democrat and a Texan—Rep. Martin Dies—after he declared as follows: “I can see no distinction—at least there is none in my mind—Dbetween the fascistic states of Italy and Germany and the condition in America where a large number of important functions of Government are wielded, not by Congress, not by any agency directly responsible to the will of the people, but functions of far-reaching importance are daily and hourly performed by men whose names are unknown, men who treat members of Congress with utter contempt, men who come into my district with an arrogance that is almost akin to autocracy and insult my constituency.
“There must come a time when you and I must assume
legislate, not by directing some agency or hoard to do something, as we do in this Wages-and-Hours Bill, but by saying to ourselves can we write a definite law? And if we can, then let us write it.” The gentleman from Texas, mouthful.
MR. MARTIN'S NEXT JOB OMER MARTIN, president of the United Automobile Workers, did a good job this week when he went into
we think, uttered a
| in mass production and for a time
our legislative responsibility under the. Constitution and | | as $25, one flight up. Latest fig-
scattered all over the country and were regarded as a mark of high social position.
lege life, corresponding increase in the num-
the Fisher Body Plant at Pontiac, Mich., and ended a “wild-. |
rat” sitdown strike. It was, of course, a job that Mr. Martin had to do—or ronfess himself unable to control his union. The sitdowners, fewer than 500 in number, had not only closed the Fisher Body Plant but also the Pontiac Motor Car Plant, throwing nearly 15,000 men out of work. Their strike was in violation of the U. A. W. agreement with General Motors and in defiance of their own leaders. They were so plainly in the ~wrong that Governor Murphy of Michigan, friend of labor, was threatening to use state troops to clear the Fisher plant. Now Mr. Martin has an even bigger job on his hands. That is to prevent future “wildcat” strikes and to demonstrate that the union is capable of living up to contracts with General Motors and other employers. Mr. Martin's success in ending the Pontiac strike is gratifying. His apparent determination to insist upon union responsibility is praiseworthy. But it is only fair to acknowledge that neither he nor any other leader can make the union accept a larger share of responsibility than is accepted by the employer. The country wants peace in industry, and has a right to expect equal efforts from labor and management in maintaining peace.
IS THE TIDE TURNING? THE announcement of Secretary Hull and Prime Minister Chamberlain that negotiations for a U. S.-British reciprocal trade agreement are “contemplated” may turn out to be an historic event. If these negotiations between the world’s leading democracies succeed—and they probably will, since a year of spadework already has been done— they might turn the tide away from Smoot-Hawleyism, empire preference, embargoes, quotas and all the other symptoms of crazy nationalism that grew out of the great war and helped plunge the world into depression. Secretary Hull is right in believing that a trade treaty with Britain is of tremendous importance. Since a free flow of trade is war's great deterrent, a general system of such “horse-trading” agreements would do more to bulwark the cause of peace than all your pacts, conferences, resolutions and other political maneuvers mgainst the war-makers.
JOB FOR THE CITY THAT unpleasant story of the smoke plague has been told again. In a series ending today in The Times, the menace 6f smoke to health and its cost to the community have been portrayed. Now that we know the story, what is to be done? Obviously, one immediate responsibility rests with
City Council in fortifying the smoke abatement code. Two |
months ago Council failed to adopt a much-needed amendment to the ordinance to fight the smoke nuisance. That amendment in rephrased form is expected to be introduced again shortly. This time the City Council should accept
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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
o Co-operate, T'00—By Herblock
(B11 KIN FIGGER wHY | DON'T GET ANY EGGS ANYMORE
burt
BRT APNEA
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ON THAT
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
We're All Too "High Society’ Now, And Tuxedo Started Whole Thing; But Scions Give Yokels New Goal.
NEW YORK, Nov. 24.—~According to the census figures for 1900, there were then
|
The Hoosier Forum
1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.=Voltaire. |
OBJECTS TO FUND FOR DOG HOUSE By Mrs. L. A. A. I have just heard an announcer on the radio say the Government |
to express
troversies
only 18,000 tuxedos, or dinner jackets, in the |
entire United States, 14,000 of which were | concentrated on the Eastern Seaboard between Bar Harbor and Washington.
They
included 322 at Yale, six at Princeton and one at The Yale football captain of that year,
Amherst. with four, owned more of these costumes than were
registered in the entire state of Minnesota.
The 4000 held elsewhere were
With the development of colhowever, there was a
ber of tuxedos. They were placed
in the 1930's were sold for as little
ures of the American Tuxedo Institute report there are more than 22 million suits on the active list, or less than five years old, including 185 at DePauw University, 40 at Texas A. & M. and a like number at the Colorado School of Mines. With these figures as an index, it is easy to understand the lust for information as to correct manners, which accounts for the rise of the many arbiters of the newspapers who daily solve social perplexities As Mrs. Emily Post says, fashionable society formerly consisted of a small group living within the walls of its own selection in a few Eastern cities. But, with the popularization of the tuxedo, fashionable society has expanded into millions.
Mr. Pegler
N fact, in the last few years the tuxedo has become so common that it is no longer correct to call it a tuxedo. The more sophisticated prefer the simpler form of “black tie.” And now the old-fashioned true aristocrats and their scions have started a movement away from correct dress and from correct manners, too, in order to preserve their identity. It just got so that everybody was correct and practiced good manners, with the result that a fashionable playboy scion and club man was indistinguishable from any janitor's or carpenter's son. So with every Joe Dokes and Mike Swift wearing a tuxedo and passing charming remarks at the ladies after the manner of the old-time Astors and Vanderbilts, the fashionable playboy scions and club men decided to go around looking like a lot of bums, and to act like bums by way of proving fhat they do not belong to the lower social orders. 3 ” ” OW they show up at the n'ght clubs and the debut parties in brown suits or sweaters and old golf shoes, worn, of course, with that soignee, I believe the word is, air by which you know that they have a dozen black tie suits and three or four white tie suits at home. And the black tie stiffs who think they are being socially hot because they dress and act as the books say don’t realize their dress and conduct mark them
as social inferiors, that a real society scion is more likely to slug his doll than pay her pretty compliments and leave her standing on the curb to find her own way home at 3 a. m, Wait until the masses catch up with society and start imitating the scions in this new mode of dress and conduct. Brother, there's going to be a run on old corduroys!
|
| have $50,000 homes? I believe chil-
was to let Indianapolis have $50,000 to build a dog pound. Why not take | that money and build a new deten- | tion home? How many children
(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious con- | excluded. your letter short, so all can have a chance. be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)
clothing, bedding and roofs are not | te fruits of the stock market, but
in | of soil and toil? How long peforo |
views | it realizes that the market is but | | the highway on which the children | | of labor are waylaid and hijacked | and the stock market is the gambling table on which the hijackers stake their loot? Lastly, how long yet before the world tumbles to the obvious truth that wealth, like fertilizer, is only
Make
Letters must
dren should come before dogs. Chil- |
good when spread out.
Merry-Go-Round
By Pearson & Allen
Wire-Tapping Charge Fizzles When Secretary Ickes Proves It's Dud; Then He Sets Mr. Straus Straight.
ASHINGTON, Nov. 24.=The inside story of Secretary Ickes’ tapped wire is much more ludicrous than anyone realized. It illustrates how every official listens for the tell-tale click whenever he picks up the receiver. Actual fact is that nobody's wire was tapped. But
\ | CLAIMS CONSUMERS s | PUNISHED BY TAX | 53 #4 [By R. G. L.
|
dren are a blessing and most dogs! are a nuisance. Gathering up dimes for unfor- | tunate children and spending $50,- | 000 on dogs doesn’t make sense to me. I think it is out of reason to|
{spend such a price for a dog home {and let little children live in hovels. !
I object to my tax money being used | for dog houses. |
I have noted all the editorial | | pleas for modification or complete | (repeal of the i936 revenue acts which include the capital stocks and excess profits tax. By now I am convinced that the tax is largely responsible for the 10 per cent jump in the cost of liv- | ling during the last year. The {wo | came up almost simultaneously. The | point I wish to make is that busi- | ness may have been punished as much as is claimed, but much of that punishment has been passed on to us, the consumers, in the in- | creased cost of foods, clothing, rents | and other commodities. Altogether I am still not sure that | capital is not taking a leaf out of | the book of labor, staging a sit-| down strike of its own and blaming | the results on the Government. Per- | haps it is not to be blamed for | that, but like all other rows between | Government, capital, labor, ete. the | consuming public is always the goat | and the wage earner gets it coming | and going. You say in your editorial to make
| a possibility of its being utilized to |
| conclusions:
| have no means of existence except sia in The Times, is palpable as a |
The problem of labor as|
|
profits. seen by the laborer, is how much | longer will he be allowed to earn a living? How soon will he be re-| placed by the machine? To destroy | the earnings of labor is to commit | economic suicide, because the mar- | kets of our country are based upon | the ability of labor to buy back) what it has produced. We do not | advocate the abolishment of the| machine, but we do believe there is
be a blessing rather than a curse. Co-operation Urged
To retain our present political and economic system, immediate | action is needed. The problem is gigantic, and its solution lies in the
| co-operation of all factions immedi-
ately affected. | We have reached the following |
approximately | earners who
Since there are 12 million wage
through direct charity or employ- |
| ment by the Government, the bur-
den of which must be borne by the | taxpayer, and since mechanized | private industry has failed to ab- | sorb even a small portion of the | unemployed, and since the future rests solely upon a solution of this | momentous problem, we ask a law providing that six hours shall constitute a day's labor in all basic industries, without decreasing the amount of wages now received for an eight-hour work day. ” 5 n
WEALTH MUST BE SPREAD
Undistributed wealth is the har- | un- | wages,
binger of under-consumption, employment, starvation paralyzing farm prices, depressions. wars and revolutions. In brief, the natural purpose of production is consumption. Whaoever is produced and not used is worse than wasted, because it only clogs trade. So if we don't like production for consumption, let's continue production to clog trade as we have been doing for the last
decade, which is exactly what we | have and a. will have under the
profit syste 4 Ld GIVES COMMENTS ON REPLY BY MR. MADDOX By H. W. Daacke The effort of Mr. Maddox to reply
| to my recent article in the Hoosier
Forum, by referring to and quoting | from a recent article on Soviet Rus- |
subterfuge to the subject under dis- |
cussion. . . . His efforts to evade the responsi-
bility of a clean cut statement, “the |
way to stop vigilantism is to quell and outlaw socialism,” by accusing
me of trying to create the impres- |
sion that he is an advocate of same,
justify a reply. td o o GROWING PERIL SEEN IN POLITICAL BUREAUCRACY
By G. W.
| is so ridiculous that it does not |
the excitement began when Charley West, hand-pump« ing Undersecretary of the Interior, came to his chief,
Secretary Ickes, and complained that his, West's, wire was tapped. Charley. an affable Ohio ex-college professor, married one of his pupils, and had to trade in his $3000 roadster because his wife felt it was risky to drive with collapsible top. Appointed to the Interior Department over Secre~ tary Ickes’ head, Charley spends most of his time steering stubborn Congress men for Mr. Roosevelt on Capitol Hill. Real No. 2 Man in the Interior Department is Ebert K. Burlew, efficient, night-and-day toiling Pennsylvania Dutchman. He and Secretary Ickes, also Penn-Dutch, pull together. Mr, Burlew and Mr. West do not. Therefore Mr. West suspected Mr. Burlew had tapped his wires. Secretary Ickes, to whom Charley West complained, pooh-poohed the idea, but called up the telephone company, asked them to examine the wires of all high officials of the Interior Department.
They found nothing. Still Mr. West wasn’t satis fied. So Secretary Ickes ordered another search. Result. Newspaper stories said Secretary Ickes’ wires were found tapped, but that no one dared tell him. Actually a dictaphone which Secretary Ickes uses for dictating letters was found in an office next to his. But that was all.
Drew Pearson
Robert Allen
* ® = Y this time, Mr. West had become so wire-tap cone scious that Secretary Ickes summoned a confer ence of his division chiefs, explaining this was not modern Russia, but modern America. At this point, Nathan Straus, bustling little chief ot the new Housing Administration, marched in at the head of a platoen of his assistants, sat in the front
the rectification in the tax law “as |
consumer gets it in the neck from | another direction and business can actually show a profit on the deal.
|of January, 1937.” If such a thing | TO DO GOOD, READER SAYS happens, it merely means that the By W. Williams, Columbus
| Oh, how long will it be before the | world learns that meat, bread, milk,
There seems to be a great deal of speculation in these days of undeclared wars as to what course the United States should take in |
We have paid part of these punitive taxes in a higher cost of live ing. If now business gets these taxes refunded, the best we can hope for is a slight decrease in the cost of commodities.
SEES ADVANTAGES IN SIX-HOUR DAY
By William Crouch. Chairman of Legisla. tive Committee Phoenix Lodge No. 1076, Elwood Our problem, as we see it, is not | the number of hours in a work| week, because Wwe cannot reduce] hours and raise wages without in-| creasing the cost of hand-made] products. The extremely low cost | of machine production as compared | with hand-made products has al-| ready caused a mad rush to mod- | ernize industry.
our present system of unrestricted | Emerson.
ON DINING
By MARY WARD Put the plates, blue as cobalt. On, shimmering, satiny white Porcelain with pepper and salt Put into the mellow light.
Bring goblets filled to the brim With aqua vitae shining, Then call the family ine—- | And a grace before dining.
DAILY THOUGHT
If ye forsake the Lord, serve strange gods, then He will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that He hath done you good.—Joshua 24:20.
IS heart was as great as the | world, but there was no room This is, of course, practical under | in it to hold the memory of a wrong.
case one should develop. To forestall such a calamity, I would counsel a strong movement directed
against the professional organizer, | who organizes for the almost sole | benefit of himself and his clique. President Taft said at one time that the two greatest menaces to the people, or the unorganized part, were “organized labor and organized capital.” I would include a third—political bureaucracy. Senator Wheeler of Montana re- | cently stated that “neither one of the old parties has any well-defined, | clear economic principles for the | other to choose from.” It is time | for the people to be protected from | aggressions of the political, industrial and financial cliques. Any protest on the part of the masses is promptly downed by the | outworn cry of efficiency of consolidation, which leads to dictatorship and regimentation. |
and
row. Immediately Mr. Straus jumped to his feet. “Wire-tapping?”’ he almost shouted. “But that's against the law. You have no right to tap my wires. I can get an opinion from the Attorney General on that!” o u nN ERE followed a knock-down, drag-out argument hetween the Secretary of the Interior and the housing chief whom Mr. Roosevelt appointed over his head. Secretary Ickes has a tongue whittled sharp by putting Senators in their places. And he let Mr. Straus have it. He left no doubt as to who was running the Interior Department and who, if anyone, was asking opinions of the Attorney General. ” # o How true the whispers are about a rift between Mr. Farley and Mr. Roosevelt can be shown by a remark the President made to Mr Farley several days atter the stock market crash: “Well,” he laughed, “there is one silver lining to the business situation, Jim. Maybe it will induce you to remain in the Cabinet.” During his illness last week, Mr. Farley was the only Cabinet member the President talked with.
General Hugh Johnson Says—
Simple Figures Show Monopoly Can't Be Blamed for Rising Living Cost; Furthermore, the Planners Themselves Used to Advocate Higher Prices.
ASHINGTON, Nov. 2¢.—~When the storm rose over the seating of Senator Black on the Supreme Court, the President pulled his magnificent Potemkin trip to the Pacific to turn all news from
that awful flop to a new brilliance in the Northwest. He wound it up in Chicago in a warlike blast at Japan. This was followed by a sonorous reverberation from the State Department. It declared Japan a malefactor of aggression. It started the wheels of the Brussels Nine-Power conference to determine whether Japan is a malefactor. It did the trick of taking Mr. Black off the front page. We are now to pull a new Potemkin. Congress came back with its hair in a braid because it had found that people on the firing line believe the business recession is principally due to the new Oliphantine ideas of using taxes, not for revenue but to regulate business and prevent its expansion—and the equally novel idea of turning the tempo of prosperity from horn-pipe to dirge by playing the keyboard of credit in the Federal Reserve.
" ” - AT kind of public conviction is worse than the Black reaction. So the President's newest PotemKin is the letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking it to inquire and determine whether new
It wasn't so very long ago that the planner’s plans were openly for high prices. Why was gold devalued? To boost prices to the 1926 level—80 to 40 per cent. Why were the pigs killed and the cotton and corn plowed up? To raise farm prices. For the proposition that high taxes increase living costs, Mr. Roosevelt is the leading authority. His taxes have been constantly increasing.
» » ”n LL these things raise prices and the cost of living. Many of them were intended so to do. “We planned it that way.” The steady upward march in labor costs couldn't have been without its effect on the cost of living. If “monopolistic practices” have increased living costs more and faster than labor costs increased, then we ought to be able to convict them from simple figures. From Dec. 15, 1936. to Sept. 15, 1937, living costs advanced 3.2 points. From September, 1936, to September 1957, commodity prices increased 6.3 points. Payrolls increased 1.5 points and average weekly earnings 6.2 points. The two principal ingredients of living
further than living costs. That is fairly good evidence, taken with the other causes of high prices just discussed that there is very little room left amoung the obvious crimes of so many contributing culprits
high prices are due to monopolized practices in busi-
to blame
costs—labor and raw materials—have advanced much
. Tue More WAS Wh
According to Heywood Broun—
Chinese Give Us Tip, Maybe Our National Sense of Humor Is at Fault: Even Lippmann Once Minted, ‘Perhaps the Whole System Is Wrong.'
EW YORK, Nov. 24.-Lin Yutang, the Chinese columnist, known as “The Chinese Westbrook Pegler,” gave a luncheon party for Dr. Wang, his country’s Ambassador, and a group of New York writing men Lin maintains that there is a far greater psychological difference between the Chinese and the Japanese than between the people of China ana America. And he holds that one of the basic gulfs between China and Japan is that the Japanese are utterly devoid of any sense of humor. The literature of China abounds with quips and gay sayings. Dr. Wang believes the people of China are instinctively in favor of the democratic forms of government. In his estimation the Chinese are the most individualistic of all people. But even more, he feels that the Chinese sense of humor is a bulwark against any permanent dictatorship. If there is soundness in this formula, I am afraid that there is actual need for worry about the preservation of our traditional institutions. For the thing that worries me is a rapid increase of blind spots in our national sense of humor, or sense of proportion, or whatever you mean to call it. These spots have more effect upon the lives of us all than the blemishes now to be noted on the surface of the sun.
# - » I particular I view with alarm the more recent reactions of writer, Mark Sullivan. Whatever I mafssay about him always will be
45%
conditioned by the fact that at the Liberty League din« ner he personally went out of his way to get me a seat right at the feet of Al Smith. And, so, when a
| man who is almost a journalistic institution begins to
look under the bed, even in broad daylight, there ia reason for widespread worry. I have in mind his most recent column, which ran under the headline, “Move Toward Revolution Seen,” and in the bank I found “White House counselors, une
der the guise of reforming capitalism, seek to substi« tute communism or fascism.” That seemed to me
| almost first page stuff until I*found that it was taken
from an editorial column by Arthur Krock who in turn, although not present at the conclave, had “reliably heard” the tale. » » o OREOVER, Mr. Krock was heartened because, on good authority he was informed that both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins had shouted down with great vehemence the two brash and wholly unidentified persons who had wildly hazarded the opinion that. maybe capitalism never would work, . I can testify that I have “reliably heard” that Wale ter Lippmann in a mellow mood once said. *
we are all wrong and the entire scheme of things is