Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 November 1937 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, NOV. 30, 1937

800,000 HOUSES HOUSE-BUILDING boom is President Roosevelt's prescription for the business slump. Under his plan the Government— 1. Will encourage lenders by insuring mortgages up to 90 per cent of the appraised value, and 2. Will encourage borrowers by making possible a down-payment of only 10 per cent and an over-all carrying charge of 5 per cent. That will reduce sharply one item in housing—the cost of financing. The President appeals to those in the building industry to get together and reduce the two other important items in housing—the cost of materials and the cost of labor. Will it make a boom? We don’t know. Congress undoubtedly will pass the laws the President has asked for, and thereby put the Government in a position to do its part. It remains to be seen whether producers of materials will cut prices in a bid for greater volume, and whether building-trades workers will sacrifice high hourly wage scales to get higher annual wages. But if these two groups do co-operate, so bringing new homes within the range of ordinary pocketbooks, there may be a boom. z n 3 " = ” AN D it is pleasant to contemplate what that would mean. We need 800,000 new homes a year for the next five years, the President estimates, just to catch up on the nation’s housing shortage. He fixes the average at $4000 for each new home. And surely, at the low financing cost which the Government will make possible, there are at least 800,000 families which can afford to buy or rent such homes next year. Eight hundred thousand homes, at $4000 each, would mean a capital expenditure of $3,200,000,000. Of that, about one-third, or more than a billion dollars, would be paid in wages to carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, painters, et al, who would work at the building sites. As a pump-priming proposition, that is as much in real wages for real work as WPA is spending for made work. We don’t

need to trace here what the billion dollars in purchasing | Li | 000 other Government units the remaining

power would mean to the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who sell to the building-trades workers. But that is only a beginning. Eight hundred thousand homes, at $4000 each, would require— Six billion board feet of lumber, and 120 million manhours of work for loggers, mill workers, salesmen, clerks

barge workers. Thirty-six million barrels of cement, meaning 16,198,000 man-hours of labor in quarrying and manufacturing, plus 2,318,400 man-hours of transportation labor. Five hundred ten million pounds of nails, meaning 13,525,600 man-hours of employment to produce and 2,103,000 man-hours to transport. =n ” " ” = a k don’t want to swamp you with statistics, but let your imagination play on a few of the other items that would be needed in the building of 800,000 homes: 22 400,000 cubic yards of stone or gravel. 1,520,000,000 linear feet of molding. 1,816,000,000 square feet of insulation. 4,800,000 barrels of lime. 27,200,000 gallons of paint and varnish. 10,400,000 sets of locks. 16,000,000 window and sash frames. 4,800,000 electric switches. 19,200,000 wall plugs. 9,600,000 light fixtures. 800,000 bathtubs. 800,000 medicine cabinets. 800,000 kitchen stoves. 800,000 water heaters. And those are only a few of the scores of things that go into house-building, and provide jobs for people who spend their wages cleaning out the shelves of merchants, who in turn refill their shelves by giving orders to factories and providing more jobs and more wages. All of us, although we may not wield hammers and saws, have a big stake in the success of the President’s plan.

STATESMANSHIP NY lingering doubts as to the Administration's real intention toward undistributed-profits and capitalgains taxation were dispelled completely last night by Senator Harrison (D. Miss.). We have never seen a finer job of “coming clean” in admitting a mistake than what he had to say on the profits tax which he, as chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, helped create, but which after experience he now condemns. Such ability to disregard face-saving, to cast aside pride of authorship, is almost an unknown quality in peliticians but a necessary one in statesmen. Senator Harrison rose above politics. His address was an act of true statesmanship.

THE WAR DEBTS

FROM Washington and London comes word that part of Secretary of State Hull's plan for world trade, world peace and world recovery is a settlement of Europe’s twelvebillion dollar war debt to this country. We sincerely hope this is true. Nevertheless, we foresee a considerable outcry on the part of those who will discern in this a first step toward American involvement in another European war. The truth is that the international atmosphere has been and still is suffering slow poisoning as a result of the impasse into which the war debts issue has drifted. : If Secretary Hull can push through his announced program of trade revival, monetary stabilization, arms reduction and war debts settlement, far from heading us toward ‘war he will deserve the Nobel Peage Prize for leading us 9 and the world in the opposite di ! adil! 3% i

| sions,

and others, and 48 million man-hours for railroad, truck and | | eral Government, with the result

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

TUESDAY, NOV. 30, 1937

The House That Cost Too Much Jack to Build —By Herblock

HIS IS THE HOUSE THAT WASN'T BUILT,

OHS IS THE MAN WHO DOESN'T LIVE

IN THE HOUSE THAT WASN'T BUILT.

HIS IS THE CONTRACTOR WHO WAS NOT ENGAGED BY THE MAN WHO DOESN'T LIVE IN THE HOUSE THAT

QoHESE ARE THE MATERIALS WHICH WERE NOT PURCHASED BY THE CONTRACTOR WHO WAS NOT ENGAGED BY THE MAN WHO DOESN'T LIVE IN THE HOUSE THAT WASN'T BUILT.

WASN'T SULT

ese ARE THE LABORERS WHO WERE NOT EMPLOYED TO WORK WITH THE MATERIALS WHICH WERE NOT PURCHASED

THE CONTRACTOR WHO WAS NOT

ENGAGED BY THE MAN WHO DOESN'T LIVE IN THE HOUSE THAT WASN'T BUILT,

QOHESE ARE THE WAGES THAT WERE NOT PAID TO THE LABORERS WHO WERE NOT EMPLOYED TO WORK WITH THE MATERIALS THAT WERE NOT PURCHASED BY THE CONTRACTOR WHO WAS AIOT ENGAGED BY THE MAN WHO DOESN'T LIVE IN

THE HOUSE THAT WASN'T BUILT.

AND SOME PEOPLE THINK THEY'RE

A LITTLE TOO HIGH.

The Emergency Case!—By Talburt

Tau

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Why Holler About State Rights When We Let Uncle Sam Shoulder

The Big Load? Columnist Inquires. |

NEW YORK, Nov. 30.—This month’s issue of Fortune reports that, of the annual tax bill of 12 billion dollars in this country,

. the Federal kitty gets five billion dollars, the

states two and one-half billion, and 175,-

$4,500,000.000. Meanwhile, however, the states and all the little political organisms entangled in the nation’s fur are yielding their duties to the national Government, but without any surrender of their taxing authority. States, as well as their subdivihave defaulted many ot their expensive duties to the Fed-

that all now are engaged in a scramble for money out of the

| Federal grab-bag, hoping to take | out more than they put in.

So, instead of backing into the

| | idea with stealthy proposals such

as the seven TVAs and a lot of other legislative things intended to trick the customers, wouldn't it be better if someone, preferably No. 1 himself, should lay it on the line that this Is no longer a loose and mutually parasitic social club of paper republics, but a nation? I know the stock answer about state rights and the danger of a dictatorship after authority has been concentrated in the national capital. But if the states really cherished their rights they couldn’t have compromised them for handouts from the national Treasury and internal service and locai improvements. Your rights are proportionate to your

duties. I CAN smell a dictator as far as I can hear one over the air, but it does not follow that the Federal Government must be a dictatorship. Othér countries have succeeded under national governments without sacrifice of democracy, and, moreover, this Government, which we still fondly regard as a union of sovereign states, has already encroached so far on the original rights of the states, that a states-righter of a hundred years ago wouldn't recognize it now. I hear suckers and jayhawks who live and thrive in New York boasting of their undying sentiment and of their clannishness in business, a spirit not entirely unlike that of the race-true, immigrant Nazi, but I notice they never go back to Illinois or Kansas, and that they vote in the New York elections and make themselves thoroughly at home. The truth is that any American may be at home in any state, and that state lines and rights are both an illusion and an obstruction, and certainly not worth the expense in cost or progress. EJ ”n = T = exist to preserve political organizations, multiple jobs, often graft and inefficiency, and in some cases to provide sanctuaries for taxdodgers. But when it comes time to bridge Goose Creek or build a high school, or make houses wholesale for Mr. Roosevelt's submerged third, all domestic obligations by any honest concept of the states’ right to exist, they are entirely willing to let Uncle Sam do it. New York, Connecticut and a few other good states: would gain little and might lose a little under Federal administration, but in general the Federal Government is much better than that of the states and incomparably more honest. Ana, anyway, we have been backing into this change for years. I suggest the advisability of facing the entire question.

Mr. Pegler

2 # »

The Hoosier Forum

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

| |

ADEQUATE EQUIPMENT CALLED NEED AT SCHOOL By E. Louis Moore In an article, A. B. Good, School Board business director, refers to an | troversies addition to Crispus Attucks High| School at a cost of $200,000, and | says: “bond issue will be sold to | finance an addition, to Crispus At-| tucks High School as soon as plans |

to express

(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.)

| other kind. We need law enforce- | ment with teeth in it. State Police {should have cars that cannot be outdistanced.

views in |

Make

Criticizes Inspection |

We should have qualified men for the different departments pertaining to traffic in our state also. There is one department in our | political setup for bus inspection. | It is the duty of the inspectors of |

Letters must

for the proposed $275,000 building | are compieted.” This plan of meeting mediate necessity of

noble, the

equal ed-|

school laws do not anticipate that|oddly enough

schools” for colored pupils

underprivileged children.

but what we need is conim- | certed action from all individuals. In our cities motorists are govucational opportunities for Attucks’ |erned by laws of parking, speeding, pupils is rather remote. The State | reckless and drunken driving, but we have no even though there “may be separate | against jaywalking to an untimely | they | death. On our highways you can'! shall be inadequate for the so-called drive as fast as you care to as long

this department to make sure that | our interstate busses are properly |

equipped to safely transport pasThere are to my iE | |

sengers. edge, two inspectors who are in- | adequate. I would hate to think that my life depended on such Inspection of public carriers. I am not adverse to this Administration. I have been a Democrat all my life, but such departments should be manned by experts, espe-

laws

Merry-Go-Round

By Pearson & Allen

Roosevelt Plays Smart Poker in Utility Talks and Stakes Nothing; Willkie Risks Chips on Two Pleas.

VV ASHINGTON, Nov. 30.—As business confidence restorers, those two fanfared utility conferences held by the President were an interesting brace of poker games. Mr. Roosevelt played an absolutely dead hand. Not only had he no thought of mak-

ing concessions on his power policies, but when concessions were suggested he bristled resentfully. His opening cards were the “prudent investment” rate-making theory, which he enunciated several weeks ago. But beyond starting the play, he didn’t turn a chip. Floyd L. Carlisle, suave head of the Morgan-controlled Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, was just as canny. He stayed in the game on the opening bet, as-

What the pupils at Attucks High | School actually need is a full lime | | high school system with adequate equipment, which they do not have,! nor have they had it since the establishment of such separate high | schools. It may be interesting to] know that during educational week, Friday Nov. 12, 1937, I called at Crispus Attucks High School, and

las you obey the occasional speed

a car uncontrollable in case of blowouts or mechanical failures. Cites Crash Case Recently The Times carried an

cially where human lives are concerned. | We can create an efficient, mili- | | tant safety league through civic co-

| conscious people interested in | Pledge yourself to safety. You may | be next. | n " =

SMOKE-CONSUMER

| requested permission to “see the de- account of the State Police being ppLAN SUGGESTED

I was refused |

| partments at work.” the School

| and was referred Board. It seems obvious that school of- | ficials realize that the pupils at At- | tucks High School are being under- | | trained. The Indiana high school | system has been dropped from rank | | 3, in 1907 to rank 23, in 1937. Attucks high school pupils are not | provided with vocational training, | | nor have they the duplication of) | the equipment system as provided | |for the white pupils. It appears | that any Negro principal that requests the same subjects and duplication of equipment in proportion to the Negro attendance will meet | with disfavor of the School Board. | For 10 years, the children at] Crispus Attucks High School have] | been sleeping the sleep of “Rip Van | Winkle,” in that they have no idea | of what they have missed by being put in a dual system.

(Principal Russell A. Lane of Crispus Attucks High School declined to comment on Mr. Moore's letter.) = ” = ASKS ENFORCEMENT OF TRAFFIC LAWS By 4. F LL

The death toll from traffic fatalities in our state is reaching an unmerciful high. Death lurks on every highway. at each intersection, and our children are not safe any more at play.

outdistanced by a car only to be sent later by radio to pick up what

was left of its occupants after it |

had crashed, killing one person outright and injuring four others seriously. I believe the State Police

should have shot the tires off this |

car. The driver of this car was fully conscious of what he was doing, and murder with an automobile is certainly no different from any

SEE AMERICA FIRST By O. C. WEATHERBY

Some folks will leave the U. S. A. Who've barely left their home; Who'll go ten thousand miles away To China, Greece or Rome. Who'll sail to ancient foreign ports Before they've seen one state; Before they've left their own back porch, Or seen beyond front gate.

They scratch the earth in Holy Land, Sip water from the Rhine, Before they cross the western sand Or the Mason-Dixon line. "Tis true there's wealth of ancient lore In countries far away; But first let's claim the richer store Of facts in U. S. A.

DAILY THOUGHT

These things I command you, that ye love one another.—John

By M. KR. R. | The Indianapolis smoke nuisance | {is about to get me down. Accord- | | ing to the numerous articles in your | | paper, I presume that others share | in my emotions. | When health officers talk of using | coke exclusively in firing furnaces, | do they take into consideration the | fact that a great many furnaces | | are not constructed to continuous- | ly burn coke. Now my idea is this. Already there are many men on our WPA | and other relief payrolls doing work that does not have nearly the signifigance for public good that abatement of the smoke nuisance would have. Why couldn't some abandoned factory be put to use in which only | relief workers would work? There- | fore, the work of manufacturing | sn.oke-consumers would be done at | no more additional cost to the home | owner than materials used. Also | these public paid workers (workers | already on relief rolls) could install | these consumers at no extra cost to the public than what they are already paying for their keep. This new industry could in no way conflict with any private concern. Of course, there would be the actual | cost of materials. Then, when the cost had been | made negligible, each factory and | home owner could be compelled 10 | have one installed or to use coke. |

Safety crusaders are working dili-| 15:17. gently in civic bodies; an attempt is being made to establish a central clearing house for suggestions from

the public. All of these efforts are

cus Antoninus.

General Hugh Johnson Says—

Only Thing That's Needed in Any Farm Bill Is One Simple Point; Differential Payment Between Actual Market and Determined Price.

OVER, Del, Nov. 30.—The new Farm Bill is an appalling thing—complex, obscure and incredibly incomplete. The Senate Agricultural Committee had a gun pointed at its head and was told to produce overnight a complete plan to reorient an economic universe. The idea was that since something had to come out by a fixed date, and the committee couldn’t produce anything practical, it would dump this undigested mess on the Senate floor in the hope that what couldn’t be produced by a small group of Senate specialists in committee, might be produced by all members of the greatest “deliberative body in the world” in open debate. Of course that is utterly absurd. Why can’t a simple, workable farm bill be written and given to the public in terms that at least Albert Einstein could understand? I'll tell you why—because the effect sought to be reached by this bill is itself so complex that even Dr. Einstein would have difficulty in defining it. 8's»

HERE are somewhere around six million farms in this country and this is a bill, first, to direct the operation of a goodly fraction of them all, and next to manage the storage and sale of their output. The test of any project is: Why do it at all? h do it nowp, Why do it his way?” i

cent cotton, 9 cent corn and 30 cent wheat.” O. K. Almost everybody agrees. The answer to No. 2 is: “Because impending surpluses now threaten exactly those prices.” But every argument in the book answers: “Don’t” to No. 3. There is only one single honest object in this bill —protection against uneconomic farm prices. There is no excuse for taking that honest object as a cloak for imposing an impossible domination of agriculture. = o ” HE consumer is going to pay for whatever is done. He could pay for it without this abortive monstrosity threatening farmers as well as consumers. All that is necessary is a bill authorizing, as a tax on consumption, the difference between farm prices as determined by free farm marketing 4nd free farm production and some guaranteed, fair farm price for each crop. The bill should then authorize benefit payments to farmers of this difference between actual market price and determined fair price. These benefits would be paid only on so much of any farmer's marketed crop as corresponds to the part of the whole national crop which is consumed in the domestic market. That is all that is

a a Amal eels SL that is justified, stia

T is the duty of men to love those who injure them.—Mar-

Policemen on their beats could | check up on excessive smoke coming from chimneys. Wouldn't this be a solution of our | problem?

suring the President he saw eye to eye with him on his rate views. But after that he played his cards just as close to his chest as Mr. Roosevelt. Result was that not a word was said about TVA, the Holding Company Act, the Norris “little TVA’s” bill, or any of the other New Deal power bugaboos. Mr. Roosevelt smiled and chatted ingratiatingly and Mr. Carlisle matched him coo for coo. The President had better luck with Wendell L. Willkie, head of the Commonwealth & Southern Corp. A direct competitor of TVA, Mr. Willkie rose to the President's come-on opener by tossing in a stack of chips in the form of a Robert Allen memorandum proposing modification of the “death sentence” provision of the Holding Company Act, and that the Government pay a “fair price” when it buys out a pri=vate utility. In exchange for these concessions, Mr. Willkie offered: (1) to accept “prudent investment” as a rate base; (2) to throw out all the valuation “writeups” disclosed several years ago by the Federal Trade Commission.

Drew Pearson

2 # u

R. WILLKIE turned the conversation to the “fear” which New Deal policies has created in the power industry. As long as this apprehension exists, Mr. Willkie declared, expansion and development will not be forthcoraing. “What do you mean, fear?” shot back the Presi dent. “How do you explain the fact that the Tennessee Electric Power Co., one of your subsidiaries that operates in the shadow of TVA, has increased its sales 40 per cent since 1933, its gross revenue 23 per cent and its net revenue 9 per cent? That doesn’t look like fear to me.” Mr. Willkie dropped the subject. ” " ” HILE the Farm Security Administration begins to wrestle with the problem of farm tenancy, surveys show that many tenants are going down, rather than up, on the “agricultural ladder.” Agriculture officials recently made a survey of farm labor conditions in a winter wheat-growing section of Kansas. Twenty-three per cent of the farm laborers they interviewed once had been tenants, but now had slid down the ladder.

According to Heywood Broun—

Any Sunday Paper Will Do in Pinch, but There's One Best Fire-Starter; Maybe Some Fellow Columnist Has Something to Do With Combustion,

TAMFORD, Conn. Nov. 30.—Walter Pritchard | Eaton used to say that his mother always insisted | on subscribing to the Boston Transcript because “it | sets so well on the pantry shelves” In the same sort of generous spirit I want to pay a tribute to the New York Herald Tribune. Of all the newspapers which I have tried it is far the best for starting a fire. I don’t know why, but up to date I have used the Nashville Banner, the Daily Worker, the Stamford Advocate, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. None of these compares with the Herald Tribune. It will do the trick even When there is little kindling and all the logs are wet and green. This may not seem important to you city dwellers who can have your heat merely by turning a little knob on the wall. Here along tHe frontier we must learn how to get an open fire going, and how to get it quickly. » # " F course, the entire credit does not belong to New York’s most inflammable paper. To some extent I have improved my own technique of fire making. A month ago I could hardly start a decent blaze with anything less than all the Sunday sections. Now simply by twisting the editorial page a little I can create a conflagration fit to set Nero to fiddling.

Al 3 5 2 4 ’ an laa 4 :

}

However, it is more fun 1

and even a hint of red upon occasions. Then will come a loud pop like the sound of a bandit’s gun. This I explain upon the theory that one of the paper's many gifted columnists is exploding under fire. Of course, I will have to do a great deal more before I am prepared to hazard even a theory as to which of the features burns the fastest and the hot test. Visitors who sit about the open fireplace are .nclined to say when some part of the kindling merely smolders, “You've either struck a knothole or Walter Lippmann.” » td n UT 1 tind no evidence to prove that a flame which dances now this way and now that can certainly be identified as the combustion product of Dorothy Thompson's “Let There Be Light—Installment Ten.” No, it is my belief that the Herald Tribune burns as an entity and not primarily because of the carbon content of any of its individual contributions. Still, I will admit that in touching a match to the bait I generally try to ignite one corner of Mark Sullivan’s alarm from Washington, as this part of the paper actually seems to burn at a somewhat lower temperature than the rest. Before discarding the Times as useless, save as a journal of record, I shall have to give it one more t might do ever so much better in a co

EB ns b= oa p i