Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 December 1937 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Business Manager

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ies . ‘RTley 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

Member of Urited Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

MONDAY, DEC. 6, 1937

THE BEER RAKE-OFF HE fourth anniversary of repeal finds the State of Indi“ana officially sponsoring the kind of practice that encouraged adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment 18 years ago. : That practice is to permit greedy politicians to pocket a rake-off on every gallon of beer brought into Indiana. It is a practice which—in all its varied forms—is causing people in many parts of the country to turn again toward prohibition. Many leaders in the brewing and liquor industries, worried over the number of American communities that have gone dry by local option in the last four years, have started a commendable fight to eliminate the “black sheep” from their ranks. In Pennsylvania, lowa and other states, they have warned particularly against abuses in taprooms and taverns. That will help. But the industry cannot itself end the abuses. If we are to have honest and rational regulation of the liquor traffic, State and local authorities must do the job. - =

= #

=” o ® E believe the Indiana liquor setup is undermining proper control through a political plander system— the monopolistic ports of entry. Some of the worst aspects of the system have been made clear during the last few weeks. Redistributing these rich financial plums, the Townsend Administration boldly announced that “entry

permits were given to friends of the Administration.” It has been charged that politicians share the proceeds from some of the 13 corporations granted entry permits last month. The real owners of ports of entry are not known in some cases, as public records do not reveal the names. pe The excuse for these monopolies, written into the law, is that they collect the State tax on beer brought into Indiana. Obviously this tax could be collected efficiently by a small staff of State employees, the same as other taxes. The effect of the system is to force brewers to pay partisan tribute. As a result, Missouri has. started retaliation. Michigan has threatened to ban Hoosier beer. The entry permit holders do not have to help distribute the beer. They may not even see it. Theirs is a bookkeeping function. How much they make is not known, but the spoils are so rich that lesser politicos now are scrambling for a slice of the take. reshuffled this year to meet the heavy demands. And even so, a fourteenth port of entry was created only a few days ago in Lake County where the pickings are especially lucrative. Political turmoil has followed. ® HE importing rake-off is another form of the patronage racket that has beset the Townsend Administration. In the long run the public will revolt.

= = = ® #”

The same State Government which sanctions pavment | | to the private employers whose employees have been

| paying the tax for years. Politics and liquor did not mix | ¥

of political debts through beer commissions must control the beer and liquor traffic. before prohibition. They do not mix now. The political importer rake-off system must go.;

HOUSE-CLEANING TIME

HE anything but admirable performance of the Na- | | ernment does not touch that government itselt but

tional Labor Relations Board in trying to crawl out

of the predicament it had created for itself is now further |

illuminated by another case in which this Federal agency is caught sucking eggs.

Having been “called” in the matter of Editor Hartley |

W. Barclay, it sought to explain that it wasn’t Article 1 of the Bill of Rights it was attacking at all, but the nature

of the distribution of the critical piece which Mr. Barclay '

had written—as if distribution as well as writing is not in itself a part of the right of free expression. “letters, memoranda, telegrams, cables, radiograms, reports and other communications” used in the preparation of the article had been subpenaed. : It now develops that, in the other case, the distribution alibi does not appear. Instead it goes directly to the matter of preparation. sylvania, St. Mary’s. The editor of the local paper was harassed, put on the witness stand, and generally given the inquisitorial works, because what he had published had displeased the NLRB. The story about it appears on Page 1 of The Times today. Just how the NLRB will try to backtrack on this one is yet to be seen. But certain it is that here is a case of bureaucracy run rampant, of a quasi-judicial agency doing what no court would even dare do, and therefore another striking example of the ineptitude of a Government body bloated with new-found authority, acting under a law the purpose of which is good but the execution of which from the start has been generally high-handed and biased. We don’t believe that the public sentiment against the Wagner Act which has been mounting steadily since enforcement was first started is due to the act itself but rather to the ones who have been appointed to execute it. We believe further that the most friendly move Franklin Roosevelt couid make in behalf of both labor and industry would be a house-cleaning of the present NLRB personnel, to the end that what the law intended might be accomplished—a labor court, not a partisan crusade, peace and progress under collective bargaining, not bitterness, jurisdictional disruption and industrial chaos.

BEFORE IT HAPPENS Cl Da AFTER hit-and-run motorists killed four persons within 24 hours, local officials became righteously indignant. They should. Everyone will approve the stern ‘penalties promised. at ALR But the public would be much more convinced if the responsible officials would provide the money and manpower needed to prevent the slaughter in the first place.

Copies of all |

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ‘Better Quit Kickin’ That Dog Around P—sy Reichhold

ia —] I ry

MONDAY, DEC. &, 1937

The Fisherman Who Stayed Home—By Talburt

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Only Theory and Not Law Prevents Federal Tax on State Employees, Says Columnist Urging Test Action.

: NEW YORK, Dec. 6.—On the basis of an

old Supreme Court decision in a totally different kind of case, it is still held that the Federal Government has no right to levy an income tax on the pay of almost five million officials and employees of the states and their subdivisions. The payroll for this horde of deadheads, who have been getting their civilization at reduced rates at

the expense of their neighbors, is estimated at three billion dollars a year, but the Treasury has taken only a half-hearted interest in the case, because the return would be petty by comparison with

| that which might be derived from

an income tax on tax-exempt

> : | bonds, Federal, state and various. The ports of entry and their territories were | . remark by Justice Marshall, who | said the “power to tax was the {| power to destroy,” but he was dis-

The exemption goes back to a

cussing a case in which the State of Maryland was attempting to impose a prohibitive tax to prevent an agency of the Federal Government from operating in Maryland. The imposition of the Federal

Mr. Pegler

income tax on

the salaries of Governors, judges, state, county and | city attorneys, teachers, engineers and commission-

ers by the hundred thousand would be no more destructive to the Governmental body by which they are emplcyed than the imposition of the same tax is

" =

F this taxing power is destructive, then the private employer must be well-nigh indestructible, for it never has occurred to the most artful tax-dodger among them to raise the point. The truth is that when the taxing power is used to the point of destruction there comes first a squawk and then, if the pressure isn't lifted, a fight. Also a tax collected from an employee of a gov-

only the individual. New York State has just upheld a law passed by the last Legislature suspending an old, traditional exemption whereby 300 state's officers and employees, mostly professional politicians, were excused irom the state income tax as well as the Federal. They

now have to pay the state tax and the gain to the |

state will be about $275,000 a year. The exemption never did exist in law, but only in opinions of two former attorneys general whose own immunities were affected by their decisions, and it crumbled like cigaret ash the first time it was attacked.

HE contention that to tax the legally established salary for a political job is to reduce the salary

, and thereby violate the law is no longer heard with

patience, in view of the fact that a private employee with & salary contract has always been subject to In his case it is held that after the money is passed to him it is his income, and nobody has been able to justify the claim that any different process exists in the public service. The point is that any employee of any branch of the Government is a private individual in his private affairs. The state has no responsibility for a burglary committed by a cop or a judge, and the cop or judge is a citizen and should be a taxpayer the minute he signs the payroll and sticks the money in his pocket.

The Hoosier Forum

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

CRITICIZES OPPOSITION TO ANTILYNCHING BILL

| By Walter White, Secretary National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Gen. Hugh Johnson, Mark Sullivan, Senator Connally and other | gentlemen of their persuasion do i not like the Antilynching Bill. They see in it the destruction of our dual system of Federal and State governments, and ask by what authority the Federal Government

by the people of a state and sworn | to uphold the State Constitution,

whea he violates a state law. The fundamental error in their argument lies in the fact they do not recognize any duty on the part of the state officer beyond the State Constitution. But every state officer takes an oath to support not only the State Constitution but the Federal Constitution as well.

Supreme Law of Land

| The people have ordained that the Federal Constitution, its amend- , ments, and the laws enacted pur- { suant thereto are the supreme law | of the land. Under the Antilynch- | ing Bill, the state officer failing to exercise his powers or do his duty to | protect his prisoner from lynching is not punished for violating a state | law. He is punished for violating | the Federal Constitution which he | has sworn to uphold—in that, as | the embodiment of the authority oi the state in the premises, he has failed, and through him the state

has failed, to accord the lynched !

victim the due process and equal protection of the laws | him by the 14th Amendment to the | Federal Constitution. The state officer cannot claim | the majestic protection of state au- | thority in placing his victim under | arrest, then repudiate the equal | protection clause of the | Amendment in supinely surrendering his victim to the nearest lynch- | ing mob. The gentlemen in question | see the bill as a New Deal tactic to { vote. It is a grudging tribute they pay the Ncgro vote when they recognize it as the pivotal factor in

support for the Antilynching Bill | cannot be dismissed on any trite

can punish a state officer elected |

guaranteed

14th |

purchase in perpetuity the Negro |

any close national election. But the |

(Times readers are invited to express their | these columns, religious con- | troversies excluded. Make | your letter short, so ail can | have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be

| withheld on request.)

views in

| have expressed themselves in favor of the bill. The truth is that support for the | Antilynching Bill comes from the aroused moral sentiments of the | American people, as illustrated re- { peatedly in the results of the Gallup polls. More than 150 organizations with a total membership of 45 million (a large majority of which is white, and a considerable portion | Southern) are co-operating in sup- | port of the Antilynching Bill. Gen. Johnson says lynching is a | | “fake” issue because it is dying out. | The curve of the number of lynch- | lings is not consistently downward. | Sharp declines have been followed by sharp increases in succeeding | years. Every time agitation for an antilynching bill has become active, the number of lynchings has declined, to be followed by an increase in the lynching rate just as soon as it became certain a bill would | not be passed. Gen. Johnson fails | to recognize the fact that much of the sentiment which 1s helping to reduce the gross total of lynchings is due to the very publicity generated by repeated attempts to enact Federal antilynching legislation.

Threat Is Present

Furthermore the test of the ne- | cessity of an antilynching law is not |

DEATH By MRS. HELEN M. ECK

| Men, in their wretched state, as pawns for lords,

| Fling themselves fondly toward you, { Knowing in the end, you, alone, as | friend.

also |

Why fear you? They who have | tread the tortuous path of life, | Begun with fervor, grew to apathy, | closed with strife, | Relax in your embrace.

' To the wicked and the good, | You come, and without distinction,

the number of lynchings, but the | ever present threat of lynching in | the light of the demonstrated re- | fusal or inability of the states to | cope with the evil. A physician

| might just as well refuse to treat a | patient because he does not have a |

lot of smallpox, merely a little of it. The same answer may be made to th argument there is no emergent necessity for the passage of the bill. There is no necessity other than the threatened death of the lynch vietim, the collapse of law and order, and the abasement of the moral sense of the community. It is lynching and the ever-pres-ent threat of physical terrorism which has helped perpetuate moral, political and economic blight on the South, giving it the worst schools in the nation, the highest illiteracy rate, and such general disfranchisement of both poor whites and Negrozs that congressmen in Miss

| issippi can be elected with less than

4000 votes cast in an entire congressional district. The plight of the sharecrooper in the South is a national disgrace, and it is the fear of terrorism which keeps these American land slaves! from demanding fair settlements | from the plantation landlords. The | entire political and economic sys-

| tems of the South are fundamental-

lv based on repression and suppression, backed up by the threat of | the rope, gun, faggot and blow | torches of lynching mobs, with or without the benefit of Klan rega- |

| lia.

Blow at Terrorism The Antilynching Bill aims at

putting pressure on the states to remove this terrorism and permit humble pzople to petition for better schools, better wages, the right | to vote, without the fear of sudden | death or violence.

Lay your cool

ground of partisan political expediency. Had G. O. P. Support

The original fight for the Dyer Antilynching Bill in 1922 was Republican sponsored and engineered, ! with generous support from Demo- | | crats of the North and West. When | the Democratic Gavagan bill was | passed by the House of Representa- | tives in 1937, all but four Republican | Representatives voted for the bill. In the Senate all of the Republican Senators (except

General Hugh Johnson Says—

There's No Real Democracy in National Labor Board Type of Election; And Secretary Wallace Is Trying to Work Same Thing on the Farmers.

(Celcann, Ill, Dec. 6.—A strange rule is being oozed into the Third New Deal “economic democracy.” It is that any goosestepping ot a particular group, such as farmers or workers, is binding on every single individual in the group, if it is approved by a majority of those voting in the group. Thus, suppose there are 9000 workers in a plant. Two unions—union “A” and union “B” are represented. The Labor Relations Board holds an election. The question on the ballot is: “Do you want union ‘A’

or union ‘B’ as your sole representative for collective | bargaining?” Let's suppose these particular workers |

are not union-minded and don’t want any union at

all. The final vote stands at 1600 for ‘union “A.” 1400 |

for union “B,” 6000 don't want any union and so don’t vote.

What do you think the NLRB will do? It will cer- | tity union “A” as the sole agency to bargain for all

8000 workers and after that none but union “A” can bargain or be recognized at all—notwithstanding that

fewer than 18 per cent (1600 workers) wanted it and |

7400 or 82 per cent didn’t want any part of it. ” = ” Ir vou examine Secretary Wallace's argument for his

farm program you will find that no compulsory |

control goes into effect without approval of two-thirds of the “farmers voting.” That, so the argument runs, removes from the bill any aspect of regimentation or farm fascism. Yet, under the rule as proposed to be written into the law, as few as 1 per cent of the farmers affected could be “two-thirds of the farmers voting” and one-

tenth of 1 per cent of the farmlands affected could give Secretary Wallace the whip to crack over the rest. Thus Comrade Commissar Wallace could sit at the center of a far more pervasive O. G. P. U. than Comrade Stalin. Every farm township in the country would be in this web. The truth is that the seemingly guileless Secretary Wallace and his plans are just about the most threavening and dangerous leaven in our present national 1oaf. = = » HERE do they get this “majority of those voting” racket? They say, “Why that’s exactly the way we elect a governor—that is the very essence

of democracy. If you don't vote ‘no,’ you are assumed |

to assent by not voting.” As in the labor example, you are frequently foreclosed from the opportunity to say: “I don’t want ' any union” by the form of the ballot. Let's pass that. When you vote for a governor there must, under the Constitution, be some governor. You merely express a selection in the inevitable. You are giving up no Constitutional right when you don’t vote. But constitutionally vou don't have to

Wallace run your farm. It is just like saying: “If you don't say ‘no,’ you're married to Calamity Jane. | If you don't say ‘no,’ 1 per cent of your neighbors can take your property.” It’s the first time in our history that, without his own assent, a man has had to surrender a right guaranteed by the Constitution because a minority of his neighbors may think it would be nice.

hand upon each fevered brow, And bring peace, now.

DAILY THOUGHT

| | And it shall be our righteous ness, if we observe to do all these |zine article, “Dixie Rejects Lynch- | commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath commanded us.—Deuteronomy 6:25.

N¢S principle is more noble, as | there is none more holy, than Senator Borah) | that of true obedience.—H. Giles.

| much the same way that Charlie McCarthy has suc-

| ventea a character who portrayed all the folly of slo-

' body 1s | possible.

join a union and you don't have to let Secrstary |

ling”: “Since so many Southerners | | have awakened at last to the true nature of lynching, the Federal bill | is expected not only to pass, but to | | achieve a great reduction in the | | number of these crimes below the Potomac and the Ohio.”

Merry-Go-Round

By Pearson & Allen

New Housing Drive Fresh Assault On Unsolved Roosevelt Problem: FHA Program Proved Inadequate.

ASHINGTON, Dec. 6.—The problem of housing has been approached from many different directions by the New Deal, but still remains unsolved. There have heen three different approaches to the housing problem:

1. The Home Owners’ Loan Corp. (HOLC) inauge urated under Hoover to handle mortgages on homes already constructed which the banks considered poor risks. 2. The Federal Housing Ade ministration (FHA) inaugurate ed by Mr. Roosevelt to financa the building of new houses and repairs on old ones. 3. The Housing Division of the Public Works Administration also inaugurated by Mr. Roose= velt to erect large scale aparte ments or community centers as an effort at slum clearance. These are intended for the lower income groups. Recently this work has been taken over by the Housing Authority set up under the Wagner Act.

The Federal Housing Admineistration was established by Congress in 1934 and had the mis« fortune to be placed in charge of James A. Moffett, who probably did as much to retard housing as anyone—with the possible exception of some building and loan associations, In September, resigned and was replaced as housing administrator by Stew art McDonald, former St. Louis Police Commissioner, Jimmy Moffett had devoted most of his efforts to ballyhoo. This was not entirely a bad idea, since it was necessary to show the man in the street how he could now borrow money from his own bank to

Drew Pearson

1935, Jimmy

Robert Allen

| build a home.

# ” a

HE result of the publicity campaign was that thousands of letters asking for loans poured into the FHA. A lot of people wrote in who had no possiple chance of repaying mortgages and some of them borrowed money from the banks on the Government guarantee of repayment. But in 1935, the first full-year of operation (the FHA act was passed by Congress in June, 1934), only 42,147 mortgages were issued. Next year this figure went up to 109.611 mortgages issued, of which one-half again were new homes and the other half for repairs. Figures are not complete for this year. but during the first 10 months, FHA issued 94,642 mortgages.

HESE figures mean very little unless compared with predepression building. During the six years from 1920 through 1926, the country built an average of 550,000 houses a year. Against this, the largest number of houses constructed through FHA financing in any one year was only about 55,000. This does not include privately financed building, but this was negligible. In other words, with all the ballyhoo of Jimmy Moffett and all the stimulus of Government guarantees, housing had diminished to only one-tenth of what it was before the depression.

n »

According to Heywood Broun—

Sinclair Lewis Belies Early Character and Turns to Red Baiting; He Is Another Creator Who Has Been Destroyed by His Own Monster,

EW YORK, Dec. 6.—History lists three tragic figures who were destroyed by their own creations. Each made, in a manner of speaking, & monster through which he was obliterated. I refer, naturally, to Fygmalion, Frankenstein and Edgar Bergen. And possibly I should add a fourth, since Sinclair (Whitey) Lewis has been chewed up by Babbitt in

ceeded in overshadowing Mr, Bergen, Mr. Lewis in-

gan thinking. His realtor was a man who knew that a gorilla could lick them both, and that every radical | wore long whiskers and carried a bomb. But the Nobel Prize winner put so much of himself into his work that he and George Babbitt went down for the third time with their arms interlocked, and if either ever recovered identification will be im-

Today the casual reader is often surprised in reading some fugitive red baiting essay to find that it was not written by Ham Fish, after all, but sponsored by Sinclair Lewis. = 5 » N a recent magazine homily entitled “Seeing Red’ (though “Seeing Through ‘Red’ ” might have been even better) Mr. Lewis laments the innocence of those who lend themselves as fronts for radical movements. He speaks of Donald Ogden Stewart, Ernest Hemingway and Archibald McLeish as among those taken in by the Communists in the American Writers Congress of last year and adds, “It’s an old trick of the Commu-

x 2

nists, and a good one, to coax an illustrious innocent to serve as show-window dummy, They were able to use Dreiser so, until he murmured, with unexpected sincerity, that he disliked the Jews, whereupon he was heaved out of Zion.” Just why an anti-Semite should be welcome in Zion or any other civilized citadel Sinclair Lewis does not explain. He is severe in criticizing American radicals whom he accuses, on the authority of Fred Beal, of going to Moscow ‘on vodka-jazzed junkets—at the expense of American workers.”