Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 December 1937 — Page 10

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‘AGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Business Manager

Price in Marion County. 3 cents a copy; deliv. ered by carrier, 12 cents a week.

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co., 214 W. Maryland St. Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month.

Riley 5551 SCRIPPS — NOWARD So y

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bue E reau of Circulations.

SATURDAY, DEC. 4, 1937

THIS BORDERS ON GENIUS

HATEVER else you say about the National Labor Relations Board, you must admit that it is giving a superb exhibition of knocking itself out. Conceived as a court, it became a special pleader. In a few short months it gained a reputation for bias such as would have been impossible had the men directing it been of different caliber. Not only in Washington but across the country, with strikingly few exceptions, it has been able to maintain its capacity for bringing about the exact opposite of what the law it is administering intended. That Senator Wagner, the author of the law, should blush about what his own act has done, that he should feel sorrowful that trouble instead of peace, bitterness instead of good feeling, have been the fruit—all that is beside the point in appraising the remarkable ineptitude of this Governmental agency. Now, the master stroke. Having achieved certainty in the mind of the public that the deck it deals is marked till you can tell it with boxing gloves on, does the National Labor Relations Board let up? Does it get soft? Is its geal reduced? No. It steps onward, boldly and unafraid. It tackles none other than Article 1 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States. It orders a critic to bring forth all the processes by which his criticism was prepared, published and circulated —“copies of all letters, memoranda, telegrams, cables, radiograms, reports and other communications,” proofs of the article and corrections, ‘notations of telephone communications,” ete. tory, because of a piece written by the editor, Hartley W. Barclay, razzing the Labor Board. Nothing could have been more ingenious, . This move will stimulate tremendously that unfavorable public feeling about the National Labor Relations Board which the Board itself in so comparatively brief a time had already been able to create. Just how long it will take for the present NLRB personnel to work itself out of a job so that another personnel may go in and administer the Labor Act as the lawmakers intended—we don’t like to say, because we are timid about indulging in prophecy. But we will say that it won't be long, that no other group of men could have made faster progress backward, and that an all-time high for unsuitahleness and failure of purpose is being registered, right before our eyes.

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"LUNGS, SMOKE AND INERTIA THE most compelling argument for smoke abatement that we've seen yet was the Page One photograph in

The Times yesterday of a typical Indianapolis lung. black- | EE od DUSITESS,

ened by smoke. In the same exhibit, prepared by Dr. Her-

man Morgan, City Health Board secretary, was shown a |

normal, pink lung. The contrast was devastating.

Almost as unbelievable as this photo were statements | by some city councilmen on the smoke issue, published in | an adjoining column. Councilman William Oren apparently | looks upon the smoke plague as a necessary evil. He said |

he “never would spend” $30,000 to eradicate a nuisance

which now costs Indianapolis an estimated $6,500,000 a

year.

City Council recently made the expensive mistake of | ; ‘ | you go over Henry's returns. It's one thing to throw

| down a lot of papers like an inventory of the Penn-

rejecting an amendment to tighten antismoke laws. A similar proposal may be presented again Monday. It should be passed.

WE SEE PLENTY

GENATOR HARRISON (D. Miss.), chairman of the |

Senate Finance Committee, says he can “see no objections” to a Federal sales tax if a serious need for new revenue should develop. We hope the Senator wili look again, and more closely. A sales tax would be another hidden tax. (Hidden taxes now produce about 60 per cent of all Federal revenue). It would bear most heavily on those least able to pay. It would soak the poor. It would duplicate other sales taxes already in effect in many states. We could fill a column with objections to a Federal sales tax. There are, says Senator Harrison, only two practical ways of raising additional revenue: 1. Broadening the income-tax base. 2. A sales tax.

There is, it seems to us, only one wise and just choice between those alternatives. It is to broaden the incometax base. That would increase the number of people who know that they are being taxed to support the Government. It would decrease the number who don’t object to Government extravagance because they don't realize that they have to help foot the hill. It would not—like a sales tax— take buying power away from those who already have the least buying power. A broadened tax base could be made to fit within the sound principle of ability to pay. A sales tax would run directly counter to that principle.

REMINDERS

Dow NTOWN streets are crowded. Santa Claus is at the stores. The Times Clothe-A-Child headquarters is busy. Windows are full of holiday goods and yule decorations. Christmas trees are beginning to arrive. And this week 21,860 Marion County residents had another reminder tha Christmas is only three weeks away. That many thrifty citizens received checks for a total of $720,800—the money they have been putting aside in Christmas Savings Clubs of local banks. These thousands have an added incentive to avoid the last-minute shopping rush.

India is treating roads with molasses, but here we are still sticking to blood.

Europe is a land filled we, tran

The action is directed at Mill and Fac- |

Topsy By Talburt

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

RA GP SUA bait

SATURDAY, DEC. 4, 1937

The Administration—on Land, at Sea and in the Air

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Tax Agent—How Come That $57? Pegler (Alias Mr. Spelvinj}—Never Mind, I'll Ask the Questions Now.

EW YORK, Dec. 4.—The income tax reviewer called on George. Spelvin, American, today to go over his return for 1036, and ask some questions, but he met a strange rebuff, “Nothing doing,” Mr. Spelvin said. am sore.” “What are you sore about?” the reviewer asked. “I'm sore about this: ‘Where did you get that $52 and ‘What did you do with that four bits?’ when Jimmy Roosevelt and the boss himself and Henry Morgenthau get special treatment.” “But they have to pay income tax.” the reviewer said. “yes, and so do 1,” said Mr. Spelvin, “and I have paid it, but now you want to take up my time asking a lot of questions that are Moreover, I don't like the way they acted down in Washington when they were combing a lot of other peo-

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0 so Mr. Pegler ple but refused to go into Jimmy's return or the President's or Henry's. That Republican Congressman said he had trustworthy reports that Jimmy made a big income selling insurance to peopie, but when he wanted to put an expert to work on Jimmy's returns, the way you want to pry into mine, the committee said, ‘nothing doing.’ Well, then, noth= ing doing on mine.” 2 2 «“qP UT.” the reviewer said, “Henry Morgenthau is my boss.” “Henry ain't my boss,” said Mr. Spelvin. “I only know the committee refused to let an expert like

sylvania Railroad and say, ‘There it is’ But it's something else to turn loose an expert to see what the figures mean. Henry said people had established losses by exchanging stocks, and he said this was unethical. And the record says Ham Fish charged before the committee that Henry did it himself before the law was changed. Well, did he or didn't he?”

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» UT surely you don't think there's anything funny about the President's returns,” the reviewer said. “Well, what makes you guys always think mine are so funny, then?” Mr. Spelvin demanded. “You seem to get a lot of laughs out of me. Well, I've got the same kind of a sense of humor, and I want a couple of laughs.” “What have you got against Jimmy, anyway?” the agent asked. “Nothipg,” said Mr. Spelvin. “I don’t even know the guy. ut 1'll ask you one: What have you mugs got against me and a lot of other suckers? Always nosing around, asking trick questions. I don’t like that way of doing. You tell them for me it's unethical.”

The Hoosier Forum

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

| ADEQUATE LAW URGED | TO FIGHT SMOKE PLAGUE | By F. W. Cornelius We note the constant mention in | our local newspapers of the great

| amount of smoke with which the |city has been plagued in recent

to express

troversies

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conexcluded. your letter short, so all can

is calling attention to this feature by designating the week of Dec. 1218 as Boys’ Life Week. The Handbook for Boys which Dr. West has created is one of the most widely read books in modern history, more than 5,700,000 copies having beer distributed since it was first

views in

Make

| times. We also note constant refer|ences to the unreasonable coke | prices as produced by the Citizens | Gas & Coke Utility. A large portion of this smoke is due to the large amount of poor coal which is being trucked into Indianapolis from “gopher” mines (surface mines). This trucked-in coal usually is not sold on weight basis, but is measured out so many wheelbarrow loads to the ton, which is bound to be a guessing process. This has been going on for a number of years and is a traffic which is a great injustice to the consuming public and the retail dealers | who maintain stocks of quality coal from deep shaft mines to protect the public. This retail dealer, a citizen of Indianapelis, maintains scales, weighs | his own coal, which is accompanied | by a delivery ticket showing gross

have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

very best coal to make high quality |coke. Increased cost in coal 1s due to increased mining costs. Coke 1s |a splendid fuel and very popular | with many consumers. At the same |time there are many consumers who will not burn coke since they feel they get better results with other fuel. This may be due in some cases to heating plant conditions. | We are much of the opinion that lif a constructive ordinance is passed py our City Council and enforced a large portion of the difficulties and | labors will be lifted from the shoul|ders of the Smoke Abateincent League and a great service will be rendered to the public in Indianapolis, and we shall have a more

printed in 1910. Also familiar to al Scouts is the magazine, Boys’ Life, which Dr. West edits. Following these, there is a whole host of wholesome, stimulating books available to boys in the bookstores and libraries. “No entertainment is so inexpensive as reading; no pleasure so lasting,” says Dr. West. “No one thing, in my judgment, is so much a factor for influencing the attitude of mind and habits of conduct.” True enough; and parents generally should do all they can to help the Boy Scouts of America in its effort to establish the ‘reading habit” in growing boys.

8 » " FARMER SUGGESTS GUARANTEED CROPS Bs H. C., Morristown I notice by the press that the

Adequate Fund Needed

Such an ordinance would be a long step in the direction of elim- | inating the distressing and un{healthful atmospheric conditions. | By all means an ordinance of this | kind should be passed and there | should be sufficient funds from some license on the retail coal dealer to | create and maintain a department | | whose sole business it should be to police this injustice. We have no brief to offer for our local coke utility, but in fairness must state its product is equal to {uie best coke obtainable, and so far |as we can learn the market price on this product in Indianapolis is-con-sistent and in some cases lower than that in other cities. We must be | fair enough to realize that it is cost|ing our utility more money to pro-| | duce coke due to higher costs of coal | than it has in the past. It is generally known that it requires the

| the Boy

smphasis which

| for boys.

thorns

healthful and cleaner city.

yy 8 8 | BOY SCOUTS’ EMPHASIS ON READING PRAISED

One of the soundest features of Scouts’ it puts on good | reading as a leisure time activity Dr. James E. West, chief | scout executive of the Boy Scouts, |

ONWARD GRACE | Let Onward be your password to

The Land of Heart's Desire, | Though doomed to tread the road of

That leads through scorching fire.

The soul that has done battles and Yet won through weal or woe, Knows nothing is impossible But thinking makes it so.

DAILY THOUGHT

A woman when she is in travail, hath sorrow because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more of the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.—John 16:21.

TEAVEN lies about us in our infancy.—Wordsworth.

latest child of the brain-trusters is

the guarantee of an annual minimum wage to the workers in the building trades in consideration of their acceptance of a lower hourly wage in order that home building may be stimulated. As a farmer I suggest that if this is done we farmers demand that the | Federal Government in consideration of our adherence to the soil conservation plans of the Agriculture Department be guaranteed a minimum production of crops—say 50 bushels of corn or 25 bushels of wheat per acre. Is there not some merchant who will demand that the Government guarantee the merchants a minimum return on the capital they have invested?

8 = 8 ONE DAY WEEK OFF SEEN AS JOB AID PLAN By E. D. C.

5 $0 many young men are out of employment I think it would be a very good idea for someone in authority to take an inventory of how many of the stores are hiring young men for steady employment at as much as $80 a month with Satur-

program is the

M. COOK

days off. There would not be so many in need if those boys wilo | work every day would let the boys | who have no work get at least one | day's work.

MeiryGoRounds

By Pearson & Allen

Roosevelt Maps New Spending Plan With Ickes and Hopkins on Cruise; Two Ex-New Dealers Get Legal Jobs.

VV ASHINGTON, Dec. 4.—The presence of Secretary Ickes and Relief Administrator Hopkins in the President's fishing party was a last-minute decision. The reason behind it was a new spending program partly being deliberated in the inner council. Secretary Ickes and Mr. Hopkins are the hig spending authorities of the New Deal. Five years’

experience ladling out billions have taught them what can and cannot be done. So if a new “shot in the arm” is undertaken, it will be their job to do the shooting. Further, both are strong advocates of the view that more spending is necessary to combat the business slump. ° While they were taken cruise ing, Secretary Morgenthau, No. 1 economizer, was left behind with the budget balancing. It reveals how far along the way toward new pump-priming Mr. Roosevelt has gone. He has not entirely made up his mind yet that additional spending is required. But he definitely does not intend to take any chances with letting the recession plummet into a full blown depression. If by March conditions show no signs of bettering, he will be ready to unlock the Treaswy again—Mr. Morgenthau notwithstanding. Meanwhile he is getting ready for fast spending action if it has to be taken. That was what was discussed between bites off the Florida Keys.

Drew Pearson

7 » Fo ¥ IB : 2 J £8 2 £n

Robert Allen

2 ” o Donald R. Richberg, one-time NRA boss and as= sistant president, together with William Stanley, ex Assistant Attorney General, have fallen into unique and highly important legal lobbying jobs. They are representing General Motors, Chrysler and Ford in discussions with the Justice Department. = o ”

NCE a labor lawyer and a partner of Secretary Ickes, Mr. Richberg has gone in for corporation practice in a big way since leaving the New Deal. He is now a partner in the law firm of Joseph Davies, U. 8S. Ambassadpr to Russia. Bill Stanley 1s in an even stranger position. While engaged in private practice, he still draws $10,000 a year from the Government as special assistant to the Attorney General. This extraordinary status results from a special act of Congress. While Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Stanley handled the fight against the late William Waldorf Astor estate to recover 20 million dollars in inheritance taxes.

U. S. Goebbels’ and ‘Old Iron Pants’ Say It With Brickbats—

The General's 'Downcracks' Are Funny Even if They're Wet, Says Charlie; But His Growl's Worse Than His Bite, and His Looks Are Worst of All.

By Charles Michelson A letter from the Publicity Director of the Democratic National Committee. I’ seems strange that some Americans should have apprehensions as to the trend of national economic affairs when we have in our midst so many people who know the answers to all the questions. According to one group the circumstance that everything has not been solved is due to the errors of the first brain trust. Therefore all that is required to send stocks up, end unemployment, balance the budget and a few other things is for the President to call in a few newspaper columnists, In the interest of economy, he might call in just one columnist, to my mind the best of the lot, and let him do the job. The man I have in mind is, of course, my old friend Gen. Hugh Johnson. Just now, the General's concern is the centralization of Government in Washington, the peril to states’ rights, and the imminence of dictatorship. We have only to refer back to Gen. Johnson's meteoric career as Administrator of NRA to realize his authority to hold forth on this subject. He cracked down on all lines of business. Perhaps that is an overstatement, for, though I recall the disciplining of some individuals, I cannot bring to mind any cracking down on such units of the economic system as the Steel Trust, or Henry Ford, or, in fact, any of the great corporations. It is true that he made faces at some of these, and when the General makes a face, mothers put bandages over their children's eyes and everybody shudders.

2 = 2 HE inference from all of the General's writings is that had he had charge of the agricultural problem instead of Secretary Wallace, crops would never have failed and prices would never have instead of Harty Hopkins, had the unemployed would

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Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, had direction of the fiscal affairs of the Government, unbalanced budgets would by this time be only an archaic expression. A sample instance of his vigor, vitality and versatility concerns the census of the unemployed. His suggestion was to do the thing the way he did the draft at the beginning of the war. That is to put the burden of registering on the unemployed themselves; to issue a law ordering registration on a certain day. Naturally such a process involves the finger-printing of all the jobless and the imposition of military penalities such as applied to draft dodgers, and a few little matters of that sort, that have never been gone into except in war time. True, Americans whose only offense is being poor might be discommoded or distressed by some of these processes and some might even think they smacked of such dictatorship as the General now deplores.

GS JOHNSON has felt it part of his duty to his public—to the great relief of newspaper readers, incidentally—of gracing his column and his comments with real salty, husky aphorisms that stick in the minds of people. He may be wrong—perhaps he is wrong most of the time—but he is never dull. Perhaps the General's present attitude of fierce denunciation is due to the same logic that makes a professional humorist feel that he always has to be funny. The General made his fame and received his highest distinction when he scowled at employers and felt that bulldozing was the only way to handie people. Now that he has turned to what used to be the gentler art of literature, he very naturally follows his old bent. However fantastic his contemporary proclamations may be, I, for one, am glad that Hugh Johnson is in the column business. Any man who could give the world such a mouth-filling and significant phrase as

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: | | “Ants in his pants” justifies literary existence at’ i bad be, instesd of | least. ie Sistas

As for My Looks, Says Hugh, I'm Going to Tell What | Think of Yours; You May Be A-No. | Smearer, but | Can Paste Some Mudballs Myself.

By Gen. Hugh Johnson Times Columnist and Former NRA Administrator ASHINGTON, Dec. 4—Somebody in the Democratic National Committee gave the office to the American Goebbels, Charlie Michelson, Third New Deal “minister of propaganda,” to smear this columh by smearing this writer. He sent out a printed committee smear release to all papers. They should have used one of their other literary assassins. To smear somebody else, Charlie is the champion smearer of all time. But he can't smear me. He is the old maestro who taught me nearly all I know about needling a stuffed shirt. Also. as old soldiers say, Charlie and I have “slept under the same blanket” in the same campaigns. He could smear, like a muddauber, Johnny Raskob, who enabled him to become Smear-Chief No. 1 in literary history in the great off-season smear-Hoover campaign that made both Mr. Roosevelt's election and Charlie's smearish perpetuation. But Charlie couldnt smear me. While he tried feebly to drip the old poison, he balanced each kick with a lick and the net result was a great boost, for which—thanks. #” ” 8 HO ordered Charlie to this attempted fratrismear? A year ago, you could have said, “Why, Jim Farley is the elected head of the Democratic Committee.” But now you don’t go to Jim Farley any more than you would go to the King, if you wanted anything in Italy. Mussolini is your man in Rome. In Washington, you go to Tommy Corcoran—chairman of the Third New Deal. And so do both poor old Charlie and poor old Jim. In addition to saying how ugly my face is, one

of Charlie’s hottest commanded razzberries is that I think I could run the jobs of each Henry Wallace, Henry Morgenthau and Harry Hopkins better than they. Sure I could. Almost anybody could. Charlie Michelson could do it better, and Charlie McCarthy could do it as well because he would have to do it in exactly their way. : Hard-boiled, old newsman Charlie knows this. He has not even as high an opinion as I have of some of this bunch. I know my face would stop a clock, but would the faces of Henry, Henry and Harry stop a Follies girl? And that beloved sour old puss of Charlie’s—he could rent it out for a gargoyle over a Chinese joss-house to scare the devil away. What public issues are faces, anyway? . " 2 8 KNOW who gave this gentler Goebbels his smear orders. Jim Farley has a fair Irish conception that, just because you hire a man you don't buy his heart, soul and conscience. He would have asked somebody else. The standards of these gazabos don’t measure up to those of an ex-boxing commissioner. They could either, themselves, have discussed my criticisms or had Charlie do it. But their chivalrous and intellectual idea is to use other people’s money to hire a professional smearer—not to debate the allegation but to smear the “allegator.” O. K. I'm ready. But I couldnt crack Charlie, Besides being my buddy, he’s just their hired man, Any such unlovely contest—if contest it must be—

will be between principals so far as I am concerned, But w ’t it be a much more constructive thought to stick to the issue? “3 Fo