Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 January 1938 — Page 10

a ——_m—.. a. ¢ o § io

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

Price in Marion Couns ty, 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.

ee RIley 5551

Qive Lioht and the People Will Find Their Own Way

Member of United Press, Scripps «= Howard News= paper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

MONDAY, JAN. 17, 1938

STANLEY REED TANLEY REED of Kentucky had been widely discussed as a possible appointee to the United States Supreme

Court, so his nomination by President Roosevelt surprised nobody, while it seems to please almost everybody. Mr. Reed is recommended by his record, which, both before and during his service as Solicitor General of the United States, has been one of honest and diligent devotion to duty. He is an able lawyer and a hard worker, and the Court urgently needs working members. He has argued in defense of many New Deal laws before the Supreme Court, and has won some notable victories, vet he is not an extremist. His first job in Washington was under the Hoover Farm Board, yet he displayed liberal sympathies long before he became the New Deal's attorney. More than 20 years ago, in the Kentucky Legislature, he fathered that state's first child-labor and workmen’s-com-pensation laws. He has a vigorous, fact-searching mind, and we believe the great majority of Americans agree with his concept of the Constitution as “a living, vital institution whose funection is to guide and not to curb necessary Governmental powers.” He has been an advocate—a special pleader— but not a judge, and so only time can tell whether his is a judicial temperament.

BETTER COUNTY JAILS

HE Grand Jury's criticism of the Marion County jail is in line with a widespread indictment of American jails that has been growing in recent years. Sheriff Ray denies that the men’s section is insanitary, but admits that bath facilities are obsolete and overcrowded. The lack of facilities cannot be charged against the Sheriff, and one dispute does not alter the fact that a great many jails are ill-regulated, filthy breeders of crime. Speakers at the National Conference on Social Work here last year advocated abolition of the county jail system, condemning it as wasteful, obsolete and inefficient. Attorney General Cummings calls the nation’s jails the “worst blot on the American penal system.”

The Wickersham Commission described county jails as “medieval.” It said most of them were indecently" crowded, ill-ventilated, morally degrading and unbelievably dirty. “Iniquitous pesthouses,” is the condemnation by Joseph F. Fishman, former Justice Department inspector of jails. He would abolish the present county jail system and substitute centralized prisons administered by trained officers and maintained by groups of counties. Penologists blame many of the ills of the present system on the fee system of feeding prisoners and maintaining jails. Clearly there is no easy solution. We know that standards must be graded up tremendously if jails are to provide proper ventilation, food, exercise, sanitation and bathing facilities, segregation of women and youths, and a just regard for the rights of persons awaiting trial. And with the Department of Justice branding 2300 of the 3000 jails in the country as unfit for Federal prisoners, the job cannot be done without fundamental reforms.

ABOUT SNOOPING ELEPHONE wires in the Interior Department were tapped for “some three or four months,” according to the testimony of E. K. Burlew, administrative assistant to Secretary Ickes. Mr. Burlew, whose nomination as First Assistant Secretary is before the Senate, placed all blame for the wiretapping on Luis R. Glavis, former head of the Department’s Bureau of Investigation. He said Mr. Ickes “stopped the practice as soon as he heard of it.” We hope it was stopped. Wire-tapping is indefensible from the viewpoint of public policy. Peeping toms and eavesdroppers are public enemies, whether they are in the Government or emploved by corporations or just take it upon themselves to police community morals. When one snooper snoops, two other snoopers invariably begin snooping on him, and soon everyone is so busy spying on everyone else that no one has time for his regular work. Senator La Follette’'s Civil Liberties Committee has shown how labor spies stir up labor troubles for the corporations that hire them. The Senate’s Public Lands Committee should find exactly what Government spies have done in the Interior Department, and whether Secretary Ickes’ order really stopped wire-tapping.

TEN MILLION $50 CARS

EN MILLION people in this country, says the American Petroleum Institute, are driving automobiles which have an average value of only $50. They pay in automotive taxes every year, chiefly in state and Federal taxes on gasoline, as much as their cars are worth. The A. P. IL cites its figures as evidence that gasoline taxes are too high, and that they fall most heavily on those least able to pay them. Both points, it seems to us, are indisputable. But the figures also suggest some additional thoughts: 1. What remarkably good cars are built by American manufacturers—cars that continue to run, and give reasonably good service, even after they're so old as to be worth only $50 each. 2. What a remarkable country this is, in which 10 million families with incomes ranging downward from $25 a week can own any sort of automobile. 3. What a remarkable market there would be for new cars and better used cars if the buying power of each of these 10 million families—more than one-third of all the ¢ountry’s automobile owners—could

dollars a week, |

”

lh Bea AT

be, increased by a few |

Imagine His Surp rise |—By Talburt

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Disney's New Picture Really Gives Americans Something to Acclaim; ‘Greatest Ever Made," Writer Says.

NEW YORK, Jan. 17.—You may think it an extravagant opinion, but I will say that Walt Disney's new film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” is the happiest thing that has happened in this world since the

Armistice and stand on that. There are no words on my keyboard capable of appreciating, much less exaggerating, the beauty of this great artist's achievement in a work which took three years.

And it would be futile to try to communicate in print the enchantment which, for an hour and a half, soothes the souls of those who go to the theater confidently expecting to be entertained, of course, for this is Mr. Disney who never fails, and presently find themselves disembodied and adventuring in a realm that never did exist before, Not even the great authors of fairy tales could have visualized anything like this, and the imagination of children could not hear the songs of the dwarfs or see the fawns and chipmonks, the rabbits and the squirrels tidying up the little house deep in the enchanted forest. ’ When the play was over and the rather hardboiled professional audience in the balcony reluctantly stirred to go, slowly as if loath ..o return to reality, there were some who made to effort to conceal the moisture in their eyes. & & =» R. DISNEY had made these characters real while retaining the lovely unreality of fancy which may have the sound of a laborious paradox, but is only an apologetic attempt to describe a miracle. It seems to me that if Mr. Disney and those who worked with him do not mind our muscling in to that extent we- all should claim and acclaim this moving picture film as a national achievement, because no other country omearth has produced anything that is even comparable, and any other country that did would be busting its buttons with national pride. When Mussolini's son thought of entering the movie business his career was hailed in Italy as an accomplished fact and another triumph of Fascism, and the Nazis have been eating their heart out waiting for Max Schmeling to win the heavyweight championship so that the title may be claimed as a national treasure,

4 ; A

Mr. Pegler

LENA

4 & y Yr Hollywood, however, the most ordinary producers turn out as routine jobs films which would call for national honors and some more ribbons for the tunic of the Duce’s kid if done by him in Italy. And the heavyweight championship—which has always lived here except. briefly, when Carnera and Schmeling dubiously held the title—has never been an article of national pride with us. I am not overtelling you of the splendor of “Snow White and the Séven Dwarfs.” The whole country will be gasping over it soon, but it is an achievement which seems to justify some strutting. Yet when it happened in New York in thé Radio City Music Hall— a theater which in any other land would be a clamorous national boast—how did it happen? THis is how it happened: At 11 o'clock in the morning a movie operator slipped the first spool on the axle, snapped on the switch ahd let it run. And that was the premier of the greatest moving picture ever made.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES =

ssi re vB ER

sas a

MONDAY, JAN. 17, 1938

——

a fi W eS 1]

The Hoosier Forum

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

SEES NO MENACE IN COMMUNISM

By Ira E. Cramer, Connersville

Referring to an article in the Forum by W. L. Ballard, in which he says communism must be destroyed or it will destroy Christian civilization, I wish to assure him Christian civilization is indestructible, and its final triumph is certain,

Modern civilization contains much dross, which is sure to be destroyed, and needs to be. Then true civilization will remain and be better and stronger than ever,

I see no menace in communism. It is not a system of government at all, only an economic adjustment which any form of government could use if selfishness and money did not rule, or if human values were above money. Italy and Germany, with their state socialism, practice at present more communism than England, France or the United States. The final form of government on this earth will be a great theocracy which will function in and through a pure, perfect and complete democracy. I am not a Communist, but the unfair and anti-Christian manner in which it is being misrepresented and persecuted would make me a Communist if anything could.

5 5 » THINKS NORTHWEST TREK TRIBUTE TO PIONEERS By E. M. H.

The Northwest Territory Caravan, now recreating the trek of the pioneers to the “Ohio Country,” is a lesson in the courage of those men and women who, a century and a half ago, planted the seed of our nation, Leaving Ipswich, Mass., on Dec. 3, in the dead of winter, the small band of hardy Continentals set out through trackless forests, across snow-blocked mountain passes, to found America’s first colony—her first step toward the other sea. The party wended its way tediously Westward by ox team and Conestoga wagon to Sumerill's Ferry (now West Newton, Penn.). There boats were built on the banks of the Youghiogheny River and on the crest of a springtime flood they rode these boats to the predetermined site of their settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum (now Marietta, O.). Here, in the unprotectiveness of the wilderness, land was cleared, crops were planted, cabins built, in preparation for the coming of families later in the year. Caravan Leaves Fortitude, yes; but why? These farsighted, dourageous men knew well that if crops were not planted in the spring the new colohy might, during the next winter, be¢ome another Jamestown—a starving band easy prey for the warlike Indian

Business—By John T. Flynn

Consolidation

EW YORK, Jan. 17.—Here are three points everybody will agree on: No. 1 is that the country needs the investment of money tied up in sterile, idle savings. No. 2 is that the railroads desperately are in need of new equipment and road beds. - No. 3 is that there is laying around the country an fimon inexhaustible supply of funds for investment. , Then Why cannot these three facts be put together and made to Work? Why don’t the people who have all the money to invest lend it to the railroads to buy new equipment and new railway trackage? That's an obvious question. quite as obvious.

But the answer is

’ 9 5

T= investor won't lend because he wants a safe investment and he doesn’t think a loan to most of our railroads is safe. The railroads don't buy the equipment because nobody wants to make loans to them in the first place, and because many of them have a hard enough time making enough to pay interest on existing loans, This brings us to the big question. Why cannot the railroads earn enough? The railroad men say it is because they are forced to pay more for labor than is fair and because they are not per

and Reorganization Such Action Would Mean New Investment and Consequent Employment.

Urged for

if they could charge more for services and pay less

for labor?

Railroads’

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious con. troversies_ excluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

tribes on every side. No roads existed—the new land was further away from the established colonies than Alaska would be today—and adequate time for the tedious journey had to be allowed. There was no alternative—they had to leave in the dead of winter, they had to cross the, Alleghenies at a perilous season, they had to arrive in time for spring planting. On Dec. 3 of this year, another caravan left Ipswich to recreate the journey of the pioneers to the Northwest Territory. Authentically costumed and following an historically accurate itinerary, these “modern pioneers” are bringing to us the story of perhaps the most important expedition in American history.

Growing Soft

What if it is winter? Conforming as closely as possible to actual history, the modern party likewise left in the dead of winter. Besides the commemorative program will be of 4 year’s duration and it would be most difficult to have 11 consecutive months in this climate without involving a winter. What is the matter? Are we get-

LIVING By ANNA E. YOUNG

I think as we each grow older It is then we learn to live. We have found that our many pleasures Are measured by—what we give,

That the pain or the sorrow we suffer And the trials we have as—Man Work out and repay in gladness By that Great Eternal Plan.

So as we are speeding onward Count all with which we are blessed For our Father knows. in His Mercy Whatever is—is best.

DAILY THOUGHT

Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.—Luke 19:46,

N the boat coming from Amer= ica a man said to me: “My church is The Church.” I replied: “Go fill your bathtub with salt watér and say, ‘This is the ocean.” —QGypsy Smith,

Plight;

EW YORK, newspapers

ting soft? We all seem inclined to settle comfortably in a fireside chair and wish and worry our way through our short existence in a world which has nearly forgotten individual initiative and the golden rule. It would be well for all of us to reflect in our own minds again

the courage and sacrifices of the pioneers, If the celebration this year of the 150th anniversary of America’s first colony, the Northwest Territory, and the dramatic caravan travelling across-country to the “land beyond the Ohio,” does no more than awaken us to a new recognition of how America was really made, to suggest that if we show similar determination and willingness to endure, we might accomplish our modern objective more certainly.

# # =« DECLARES BEAUTY SPOT ISOLATED BY POLITICIANS By Charles L. Blume Jr. Down in Greene County and halfway between Worthington and Bloomfield, is rustic, beautiful, un-

sung Friendly Valley. During certain seasons of the year, its one dirt road is impassable, practically isolating the Valley's inhabitants, keeping those who would view the beauties of nature away, just because of certain politicians of that county. Here in this valley the weary may find peace and rest. Here one can find wholesome people connected with early Indiana history. Here is a gold mine for artists and writers. These people are really contented, uncomplaining, quiet spoken, while they practice farming with direct and honest methods.’ The county is little publicized, but it is as full of surprises as Aladdin’s lamp. The public will not enjoy them until men dull in vision are removed from charge of the public improvements.

8 » 8 WPA COULD BE MADE MORE VALUABLE, READER SAYS By WPA Worker

In my opinion WPA would pay big dividends to our nation and be a blessing to men doing the job if money were used intelligently and successfully as it was appropriated. I often wonder what would have happened if Washington, Lincoln or Grant had spent billions of dollars. For my part I have collected about $1000 and have done no one any good. The work could have been done for less than $100 by any contractor. The situation is pitiful, degrading, and is a big load on our State and taxpayers, besides being in competition with labor, et’'s hope for the unseen power to help make WPA of value. We could raise berries, orchards and truck gardens. We are valuable citizens needing co-operation.

OI WER 1

The January Industrial Curve—By Herblock

— Sh

age

=

deagrotey

Gen. Johnson Says—

Government Cannot Solve Problem

Of Recessions by Laws to Control Production and Prohibit Trusts.

VV ASHINGTON, Jan, 17.—Day by day in every way it becomes clearer that the idea of this Administration is to put the Federal Government in charge of the “regulation” of all production—which

means, to a greater or lesser extent, “runs ning” all farming and all business. Not content with running every one of our 6,000,« 000 farms with his ever-normal granary and produc tion quotas, Mr. Wallace in his annual report, and several times since, has recommended something similar for all industry. As long as it was only Mr. Wallace who was saying it, it seemed only" a personal opinion. But now the President, in his conferences with industrialists, is talking about regulating and controlling the flow of industrial production to take out its peaks and valleys. Pronouncements of Mr, Wallace and, to an extent, of Mr. Eccles, about regulating the amount of debt are entirely consistent with the statements of New Deal publicists. They indicate that a great Government debt, for example, $100,000,000,000, if held by the banks under Government control, can be used like a spigot to turn prosperity off and on. The idea is that this is a great reservoir of credit which can be expanded and contracted, What is completely overlooked is that this is only potential credit—which will be used or not only as there is confidence in being able to use credit as a profit. It is existent—and idle—now, The information and experience upon which these theories rest is often absolute zero. The President used an example of the need for regulating industrial production the assertion that all the railroads had insisted on ordering all their steel at one time in the year with the implication that this required production and delivery all at one time of the year.

Hugh Johnson

> 8 8 HE implication is absolutely incorrect. It is true that tonnage in several industries—railroads and farm implements particularly, is contracted for at one time of the year. But it is not true that it is de livered or produced all at one time, The order is for

the purpose of establishing priority in future rollings. Does anybody suppose that it is to the advantage. of any manufacturer to have avoidable peaks and valleys in his production curve? The effect to smooth them out proceeds under force of the single and greatest incentive there is in the capitalist system-— lower costs and increased profits. There is no possi« ble pressure of Fascist control that could produce a greater incentive. ” ” ” T is true that part of the extremities of production or lack of production is due to the theory of wholly unchecked competition, regardless of the public interest. But exactly that is the essential prin ciple of the antitrust acts which this administration proposes to enforce to the hilt. You can't. deal with this problem by saying that, on the one hand, we will enforce the antitrust acts to the limit, but on the other we will permit industrial combination to regulate production, The policy must be either to enforce them or to revise the principle on which they are based.

According to Heywood Broun—

Because of the Contest Between Newspapers and Radio, Reporters Must Remember Also to Give a Phonetic Record of Public Speakers,

Jan, 17.—<In the contest between and radio for public attention as

Of course if they could pay less for labor and still do the same amount of business they could earn more. But that alone would not be sufficient. Could they earn more if they charged more? They think they could. But, without being a railroad man, I think it is pretty clear that they could not, * 8 » HE first result of higher freight and passenger rates would be less traffic and lower earnings. And this would mean less earnings in other industries * which would be reflected in the railroads. May there not be a better way? Is not our railroad system obsolete? Should not the Government take a strong hand to compel a consolidation based entirely upon considerations of public interest and efficient operation? Are not our railroads hopelessly over-capitalized? The answer is yes. These two points alone—a wide drastic and complete consolidation based entirely on efficiency and public service and a reorganization to wring out the crazy capital structures alone would enable the rail roads to modernize themselves so that they could render better service at even less money, That in turn would mean investment, new equipment with conse-

ermitted to charge enough for the services 0

A ad 4

ent employment in the rai ) in-

disseminators of information I am naturally on the side of the newspapers. I'm on a paper. But beyond that I think that important utterances can be more carefully evalued if they are set down in type for mature consideration. Over the air inaccurate and siliy remarks sweep by bécause the listener may say to himself, “Maybe he didn’t really say what I thought he said. I'll have to get my ears blown out.” ) On the other hand, I think that newspapermen and publishers should be mindful of certain natural advantages which adhere to the ethereal waves. It seems to me that perhaps journalistic tradition has been too kindly to certain public men. If I mention Mayor Hague I am selecting him not so much as an individual but as a specific and convenient guinea pig. And the fact remains that those who were interested in the Mayor's remarks at a recent rally in Jersey City got two wholly different versions. The report over the air was not the same as that which appeared in all the newspapers of the nation next morning, s 8 =»

RANK HAGUE gave to the press a prepared copy

forces arrayed against me is animated by the Come munists.” This quarrel with standard speech he developed on several occasions. Whether his errors were purposeful or inadvertent I do not know. There are commuse nities in which bad grammar is a political advantage. Be that as it may, Mayor Hague appealed to his radio audience, for good or ill, in many sentences which did not parse and which abounded in errors of enunciation and grammar. But the kindly gentlemen and ladies at the press table followed the form of hig official printed speech and saved him from all slips. ” s ” HE question is a difficult one. It seems to me that every working newspaperman hates té make the press too punishing. : But I think that increasingly reporters must ree member the radio and give not only a factual but a phonetic record of our public speakers. The late John Hylan had his speeches written for him, and the tougher words were spelled out so that he should not trip upon them. Once in a patriotic address he fol lowed his printed notes too zealously and said dise tinctly: ‘What this country needs is more of the spirit of one seven—seven six.” He had mistaken &

JLLIS Speen: When he stood up before the mi- | much,

® \] 3 Fines a al

i

Y

eC

S