Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 November 1937 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President 4 Business Manager

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

MONDAY, NOV. 29, 1937 ROOSEVELT REALISM ITHOUT in the slightest discounting the seriousness of the situation, we believe we are now witnessing a convergence of action that may turn the slump and bring a recovery on a pav-as-vou-go and long-haul basis. Events now happening are bringing a definite change in the nation’s state of mind. FIRST—The firm stand taken by the Secretary of the Treasury, whole-heartedly backed up by the President, has created assurance that deficit spending is not the permanent policy of the New Deal; that, instead, the hard and unpleasant but nevertheless necessary policy of living within your income is recognized; that overspending to meet an emergency is one thing, but that it won't work as a permanent proposition; that we don’t after all have in the White House a starrv-eved boot-strapper, but a very realistic man in matters of finance. SECOND-—The President’s recognition that we are in the economic downslide has been frank, prompt and vigorous. His has been no wish approach. There has been no just-around-the-corner stuff. Instead, there has been acceptance of the fact that the business of this country is business: that only through private industry can the slack created by cessation of deficit spending be taken up; that ours is a capitalistic order; and that it isn’t in the Presiden-

tial mind to change it. »

® ” MORE has ne wppendd psychologically than any of us yet fully realize. We believe, as the result of Mr. Roosevelt’s attitude toward tax revision, the utility problem, the cost of farm legislation as it relates to budget balancing, his housing plan, his annual wage idea to replace the inflated and illusory daily wage for building labor, other similar declarations, our fears. creeping paralysis of capital--a fear that the Government

was against business per se, that to make a profit was a | that the Government was out to change the whole | system and in the process to punish the just and the unjust |

sin,

alike. Much more is vet to be done to wipe out the cat-and-dog concept, ahead, that after all “that man” won't be waiting in an alley down the road with a blackjack. Franklin Roosevelt, in showing his practical side, in facing “the instant need of things,” is displaying that same streak which was so strong in Teddy in times of stress. Already in a few short

which if allowed to go on might have proved not only futile but fatal. Mr. Roosevelt's vast capacity for dramatizing his efforts, combined with his willingness to view a bad situation as bad, may have made the week we are now entering rival in importance if not in the spectacular elements that

week in early March 1933 when the nation was thrilled as |

it never had been thrilled before in our generation. Eg = 5 n n ” E believe there is one more thing at least that Mr. Roosevelt can and will do, soon. That is, to urge directly what he has given the go sign on indirectly—tax revision The course he is following calls for that. Revision of the undistributed-profits tax has become the symbol of what is needed to start the engine. A revision plan has already been approved by the subcommittee which does the spadework in tax matters. Congress as a whole is eager to act. The plan, according to the Committee itsel would neither increase nor diminish the revenue. Accordingly, its adoption would not affect the budget. But the psychological result, in terms of confidence and courage, would be incalculable replace public pump priming, in plant rehabilitation and expansion, stimulation of the heavy industries, employment and volume of taxable income would be tremendous. It wouldn't of course be a panacea, but it is likely that, along with the other things that are going on, it might be the one that would turn the trick. Despite all the statements on Capitol Hill on how it can’t be done, we believe the facts show that this action, on which both public and official sentiment has crystalized so unitedly, can be taken before this special session of Con-

gress.

Now.

‘THE INCIDENT’ SINCE neither Japan nor China has declared war and our State Department cannot refer to it as such by reason of the Neutrality Act, we have been somewhat at a loss to know what to call the affair that Col. C. E. DeWatteville of the International Red Cross reports has resulted in 800,000 Chinese casualties. The Oriental Economist, a Tokvo monthly, so kindly comes to the rescue. Reporting on business conditions in China it says: “Apparently no data have thus far been published on Shanghai's wholesale prices and foreign trade owing to the incident.” Ah, that’s it—the incident. How many Chinese, one wonders, would have been wounded and slaughtered if it had been a war?

LABOR’S SHARE HERE is food for optimism in the Commerce Department’s report that the country’s workers received 65.5 per cent of last year’s national income of 62 billion dollars and probably will receive a greater share of this year’s larger income of about 70 billions. This higher percentage of national income being poured into workers’ pockets through salary checks and wage envelopes means a fairer distribution of the nation’s wealth, a healthier economic condition and a degree of insurance against another depression. The figures appear to vindicate our new labor policies, and the boom these policies have given to unionization of the mass-production industries. However, we have far to go even to reach the workers’ well-being of 1929. There are still some 6,000,000 jobless. And the cost of living is reaching for more and more of the workers’ real wages.

and his various | what is occurring is quieting | And fear has been contributing intensely to the |

to make business feel that it's safe to go | : | contract by calling a strike on

| not “indulge singly or jointly with | others fn | making.”

| O. was all right.

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Douglas Aircraft Co. Employees

Sign Pacts Yielding Strike Right; Boss Gets Best of These Bargains.

EW YORK, Nov. 29.—Wherever it begins to seem the big employer has got

religion at last and is resolved to play nice |

henceforth, along comes something like a little brochure from the Douglas Aircraft Co.. and you have to penalize the boss half

the distance to the goal. Douglas had C. I. O. trouble at its Northrop plant, near Inglewood, Cal, and the company claims the union, a local of the United Automobile Workers, violated a

Sept. 2. The strike was broken

| and the plant was reopened,

The men who returned to work

were required to sign individual contracts with the company, | it is in some of the terms of that | contract that the company reveals days he has gone a long distance toward ending a feud |

and

self. The first article savs, “I agree that I will not go on strike” and

Mr. Pegler

slow-down or paceand that “if I do, the commission of any of these acts

| will be an agreed cause of discharge.”

So right at the start the employee must surrender his most reliable economic weapon, the right to strike. He also promises not to take part in a slowdown or pace-making movement, while the company, on its own part, makes no corresponding agreement to avoid the speed-up in any of its guises. And the employee gives the company the right to serve as complainant, prosecutor, judge and jury in an action involving his job. The emplovee promises he will not in any way molest, intimidate or coerce any other employee to join or refrain from joining any union. On behalf

of labor it has been held that intimidation may |

consist of nothing more than an honest remark by the boss to an old friend in his employ that, in his opinion, the union is the bunk. n ” » UT now, by a similar interpretation of the same words, a Douglas employee can be fired on the mere charge that he passed a remark that the C. I.

employees’ treedom of speech and right to organize. There follow then two articles promising to refrain from violence or threats of violence to other employees and the company’s property. These are still. subject to the objection that the company is the court in matteys involving its own interest. 2 = 2 BY: you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. The kicker is a provision in Article 4 that in the event of an employ ee’s discharge for violation of any of the promises he will forfeit $15 of his last pay to the employvees’ welfare fund. And, finally, for irony, is the statement, “I hereby voluntarily accept these and all other conditions of employment.” Mr. Douglas refers to all these as “Fair and reasonable requirements of the company,” and worst of all, he undoubtedly believes them to be so. having learned no more than that from his experience with some of the similarly arrogant though, in detail, different tactics of the C. I. O.'s professional bulldozers.

- — THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES The Wolf Where the Doorstep Ought to Be—By Herblock

MONDAY, NOV. 29, 1937

BLS\NESS RECES

The Hoosier Forum

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

G. 0. P. FUNDAMENTALISTS CALLED RANK AND FILE

By Wesley T. Wilson, Chairman of Republican Fundamentalists Mr. Milton Siegel's letter a lished in The Times of Nov. 17 | sounded like an excerpt from one | ‘of President Roosevelt's “fireside | | chats,” but of course that cannot

| be, for Mr. Siegel says he is a Re- |

to express

troversies

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conexcluded. your letter short, so all can have a chance. be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

idea is the simple but old one that all human progress and its {fruils amount only to the mythical communism and is to be destroyed in

| the name of God. We won't fall {or Make it.

views in

| ” on ” URGES UNITY OF ALL LABOR GROUPS By William Lemon The fathers of families should re-

Letters must

{ publican. | He refers in rabble-rousing fashjon to “the group that has fattened | {on {ll-paid labor and social in-| justice in order to gain and main- | tain its power, using every device of law and propaganda to terrorize, | belittle and betray the common people.” Such an expression is { wholly inapplicable to our move- | ment, for our ranks are filled with | the so-called “common people.” He says, “Labor wants security.” | Perhaps. But, more than security, intelligent labor wants liberty, for, without liberty, security will not

By W. L. Ballard

the price, peace. Recall | mountain,

| PEACE-AT-ANY-PRICE | PHILOSOPHY CRITICIZED

Most people who think they want | “peace at any price” time to consider either the peace or Jesus could have had the and who offered Significant I think. He preferred to carry the war on to Calvary. If you on whom it wants by a majority | found thugs in your home mistreat- | ing your women, would you measure |

ceive a wage sufficient for ordinary domestic needs; distribution of wages, salaries and prices should be so arranged as to keep employment steady; both capital and labor are entitled to a just share in produced | goods, the State maintaining a just | balance between them. That is the theory upheld by our | President. Labor got its break, then cont. leaving the rank and file holding | the bag. | Let each craft use its own ideas |

do not take

the it?

story—on

| vote; then let Mr. Lewis and Mr. | | Green shake hands and get together. On Oct. 1, 1936, I joined a labor union. In March, 1937, the charter

The charge may be false or a de-*

; ' ‘ $a | liberat > : And the effect in private pump priming to | ate dodge to get rid of a man. So there goes the

| long endure—unless it be the sort of |

Besides, what has deluded Mr. Sie- | gel into thinking that the Wagner | act offers security? The recent

security that every slave possesses. |

| decision of the National Labor Re- |

| lations Board in abrogating

the |

| closed shop agreement of the Con- |

| solidated Edison Co. | blow to that security. lican Fundamentalists protect such contracts.

Seek Fairness to Labor

propose to

| He refers irrelevantly to the | clubbing and arrest of strikers and | pickets (I presume he means | peaceful pickets) and to the injus- | tice accorded labor in the courts. The Wagner act does not strike at these evils. On the other hand, the Republican Fundamentalist platform calls for definite restraints on the power of the militia and legislation providing for the fair and impartial enforcement of labor contracts in the courts. Our platform, if carried out, will adequately meet all the labor problems confronting

| us.

Nor are we “ill-advised and misinformed about labor conditions.” We are in close contact with a number of conservative labor leaders. Since the New Deal Party has arrogated to itself the principles of liberalism, the Republican Party has no excuse for continuance, except as the exponent of conservatism.

Function of Party

The Republican Party can perform a useful function in American politics as the spokesman for the conservative element among our citizens. The fact that that element may be df it really is) in the minority at present makes no difference. Even a minority group is entitled to be heard. Such is the essence of true democracy. Then, too, minority groups are quite often

the shift of public opinion.

is certainly a | The Repub- |

converted into majority groups by | The |

peace or price? We have precious | social things that no-war, as well as | a lost war, can take from us. Are | we society-conscious enough to see this ere it reaches our door? Why not say, “If it is my own war, I will fight it anywhere.” And how are we to know it is our own war? | Our method of thinking should be | democratic. Democratic philosophy | never loses sight of our own families | when discussing society. The family is the last and highest work of creation, so any decent society exists to help our families function as such.

Attacks Fascist

Fascists justify their expansion on the theory that they need room and raw materials. That this was another fiction was piain even before land-poor Brazil joined the bloc, showing Fascist ideology to be mere bias against progress. Room and raw materials for whom? For the families of their countrymen? No, to conserve power by keeping under their thumb emigrants who try to escape to other lands! And the forms of Fascist government strictly preclude participation therein by commoners, who again are ruled by “their betters” as of yore. “New| Holy Alliance” is right! The main fundamental

Bias

Fascist

WINTER SUNSET By BERNICE DUNCAN

Sky with a streak of clear red, Trees whose bare branches now stand Back against the sun's bed. Air with an icy caress, Snow, soft and white on dark land, Cradling blue shadows to rest.

DAILY THOUGHT

For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. —Psalms 73:3.

F adversity hath killed his thousands, prosperity hath killed

his 10 thousands; therefore ad-

|C. 1. O. gave us a charter then, and

lout that unless there is a revision

and officials blew up. We were] affiliated with the A. F. of L. The

today honesty and “square shooting,” is soon to make us 100 per | cent organized. If we only gain | fraternal friendship, that is better | than gold. The A. F. of L. has always main- | tained nonpartisan politics and craft unionism, but we “pick and shovel artists” are in politics because all we possess is a “strong back and weak mind.” We will stick with the A. F. of L. politically pro- | viding it will stick with us, for ours | is a family fight, and we believe our enemy is the enemy of our President, the “economic royalists.” The working bees must eliminate the drones or we will soon bear an European label. In the lower ani- | mal life the workers are the ones | entitled to existence. ” " on

PROPOSES GOVERNMENT GET OUT OF BUSINESS By Edward F. Maddox Your editorial, “When,”

pointing

of tax policy, there is small hope for business recovery, is right, but | you don't go far enough. You came mighty close to putting your finger on the real cause of our present d.fficulties some (ime ago when you sought to remind the Administration in Washington that we were operating under the capitalist system. Capitalism may be sick, and getting sicker all the time, so to find the cause is the first job. Is that not so? All right, there are so many indications that the advocates of a new social order have injected so much of the views of socialism into our economic system, that the only way to save capitalism is to perform a major operation. Take the Government out of business. Government has assumed too many of the functions of the individual and has passed too many

Republican Party must be conserva- |

tive. NL

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Why Does Federal Government Duplicate Community Chest Relief? U. S. Role of Protector of the Poor Often Is Mere Play for Votes.

ASHINGTON, Nov. 20.—The Community Chest plan is the best relief idea ever invented. Help of the underpriviledged is an art. The ancient oriental sultans—commanders of the faithful and protectors of the poor—who rode through the streets scattering largesse of gold and silver coins to the mobs were doing no favor to the poor.

No individual, no matter how generous, can have the time, the skill, or the information to know where the need for relief is greatest. That requires not only an organization, with feelers always out into each area of distress, but it also requires sympathetic expert knowledge of what is needed most and quickest. No individual can possibly do that—and neither can any remote political government. It is a great vote-getter to be able to say to the receivers of the bounty, “Varlet, wouldst bite the hand that feeds thee?” Just that was said politically in New rk the other day when some Tammany sachem omitted to distribute his usual dole of turkey. ““Would you rather have Tammany give you a turkey once a year o have Mayor La Guardia bring you relief every ay?” = ” = ES, it is a great vote-getter and political perpetuator to be able to take other people's money by taxation, broadcast it unthriftily and then receive Thanksgiving due a AT ORce eR of the poor as though the money camg from you.

5 s 2 ¢ 3

I would be willing to wager that a Community Chest dollar goes at least three times as far as a WPA dollar. Ill bet a Salvation Army dollar goes five times as far.

Why should the Federal Government reach into communities organized through these great aid-sys-tems and parallel them with a more or less politically controlled WPA organization? The latter may spend unthriftily the money taken out of those same communities by taxation. This practice leaves existing and far more efficient organizations to get along as best they can on what they can wring back by appeals to the little mercy of man—bled white already by taxation for the former. ” ” ”

HY, through its own representation of these Community Chest committees can’t the Federal Government dispense what relief it has to give, through these proved, all-inclusive, expert organizations? I'll tell you why—votes—patronage. Such a change had better be given the promptest kind of consideration. The relief load is rising like a tide. Revenue is falling just as fast. Maybe it wasn't necessary earlier to consider whether a dollar could be made to go three to five times as far in the relief

people most interested in doing that are not the economic royalists, but the underpriviledged who are going to suffer worse than ever if it isn’t done at once.

versity is to be preferred.—Burton.

of human suffering—but it is necessary now. The .

hampering tax and other laws. . . .

——— Lr TAK ALBURT Sta : th i ins

reas an

By Pearson & Allen

A. F. L. Is Seeking to Turn Recession Against C. |. O. as Layoffs Occur; Sioux Are Really Champion Suers.

ASHINGTON, Nov. 29.—The A. F. of L.-C. I. O. peace negotiations are as sour as the economic situation—and for that very

reason. Two months ago most of the Federation

strategists favored making concessions and coming to terms with their rivals. This was the ate mosphere in which the parleying began. But since then, the industrial pace has slackened appreciably,

Result has been a marked stiffening of the Federationists’' attitude. They figure that the stronghold of the C. I. O.—the mass production industries—is hit first and hardest by. a slump. This reasoning is well founded. Tens. of thousands of steel, auto, rubber, textile and glass workers have been laid off in the last few weeks. his means stoppage of dues payments, dis« integration of union ties. All of which is water for the Federation's mill race, So the earlier peace enthusiasm of A. F. of L. leaders has cooled consider«, ably, and they are assuming a watche' ful-waiting policy in the hope fhat the recession will crimp the insurgents so badly that they will either fold up or sue for harmony. Federationists admit that their ranks also are being hit by the rising tide of unemployment. But they coif« tend their lines are not as overextended as the C. I, O. and that the A. F. of L., financially and in morale, is better equipped to weather an economic upset. o un u ENDING unnoticed in the U. 8. Court of Claims is the biggest suit ever filed in the history of the country. It has been brought by the Sioux Indians who seek to collect the colossal sum of $882,457,345.51" from the Government, The suit embodies claims for loss growing out of alleged treaty violations. Biggest item is valuable mineral rights in the Black Hills country of South Dakota, richest U. S. gold producing section. Another is a $71,700,000 claim for “destruction of game by whites,” and a third for $1,000,000 for “failure to fur«nish cows and oxen stipulated in the treaty.” The Sioux are the nation's largest suers. Of the more than $2.000.000.000 in claims for redress from the Government pending before the Claims Court, $1,200,000,000 are Sioux cases. in n ” UMMONED by the President for a conference the other day, Senators Barkley and Pittman arrived at the White House in a taxicab. But they encoun, tered fiscal troubles even before they crossed the threshold. Senator Barkley produced a $5 bill to pay the are, put tne driver couldn't change it. Senator Pittman, the Nevada silver expert, proe duced a quarter. But the fare was 40 cents. Meanwhile news photographers gathered to take shots and finally Jack Wilson, one of the cameramen, stepped up and proffered a half dollar. The Senators accepted it, paid their fare and entered the White House. Note: Wilson is still waiting to get back his 50 cents.

Robert Allen

n n o Plain-talking Jack Garner is against a third term for his “boss” and he makes no bones about it. Discussing the matter with a group of Senate cronies in his office, the Vice President remarked: “If the President runs for a third term I'll stump the country against him and split the party wide open. And, what's more, he knows that, too.”

According to Heywood Broun—

Professor Won the Battle of Words, but F. D. R. Muffed His Chance: Grammar Ain't the Thing That Puts the Punch in Wyoming Speeches.

EW YORK, Nov. 20.—In the controversy between the President and the Professor it seems to me the lady is right only in theory, while the substance of the argument lies with Mr. Roosevelt. The lady who trumped up the charges is Prof. Janet R. Aiken of Columbia University. And in her indictment she asserts that, speaking from the back of a train at Cheyenne, Wyo., Franklin Delano Roosevelt did say, "Engineers are human just like I am.” According to press reports from the nation’s capital, the Chief Executive sought '‘smilingly” to pin the blame upon the reporters. But in this case he was tripped by the official transcript. According to the stenographic record, he was not misquoted. It seems to me the President chose low grounds for his defense. He should have entered a demurrer in the first place. If my legal advice is competent I understand that when one demurs he admits the facts but adds as questioning, “So what?” But if the court of public opinion supported Professor Aiken® then the President should have come forward with a plea for freedom in rear platform speeches. | : » a n ‘ ANGUAGE dwindles and dies unless a comfortable gulf is to be set between written and spoken English. This is no artificial distinction but an instinet in all living kind. Try it on your dog. Under oath I am willing to testify that it is all but Jmpesaible : to teach a , Sop to Jie down." approach is

easier if at the very beginning you use the common “Lay down.” The dog will respect the master whé uses the incorrect form and continue to despise and disobey the precisionist. I don’t know why, but it seems to be true that no pedant is a hero to his pet. And in purely human | relationships I trust that the Blue Stockings have abandoned the attempts to make the twist itself into the awkwardness of “It is I.” “It's me” is icke euphonious and gets to the point in shorter e, n niin trad HERE used to be a wholly unfounded anecdote in Cambridge concerning A. Lawrence Lowell and a freshman beer. night. According to the legend, president of the university was wal a ; hoary a

college dormitory late one night when terrific racket in one of the rooms. Ra pn PEA out, “ diately,” and an undergraduate who?” “It’s me—President Lowel snswerey’ the guished historian. we aed “Get away from that door or m Knock yaw dof row of ashcans,” came back a voice not yet guite