Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 January 1938 — Page 14
PAGE 14 The Indianapolis Times
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TUESDAY, JAN. 18, 1938
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GOOD NEWS! WHEN, for the first time in many months, no week-end traffic deaths are reported on Indiana streets and highways—as was the case yesterday—that is good news and important news. It was particularly encouraging because the first half of January was one of the bloodiest traffic accident periods in local history.
WE, OF LITTLE FAITH? SPEAKING of this being a seven-billion-dollar country, with a national debt of 37 billions, and of how do we come out:
In a previous editorial we dealt with the historical fact |
that the trend is ever-upward, both in volume and expense;
as, quoting Macaulay, “though a single breaker may recede, |
the tide is coming in.”
Because we can stand some reassurances in days like |
these, though not to justify arbitrarily all raises regardless in Government costs, it is interesting to turn again to what
Macaulay wrote in England a century and eight years ago. |
Those, too, were trying times. We pick a few sentences from his theme: “History is full of the natural progress of society.
see in almost every part of the annals of mankind how the
industry of individuals, struggling up against wars, taxes, |
famines, conflagrations, mischievous prohibitions and more mischievous protections, creates faster than governments can squander, and repairs whatever invaders can destroy. “The present moment is one of great distress. But
how small will that distress appear when we think over the |
history of the last 40 years—a war, compared with which all other wars sink into insignificance; taxation, such as the most heavily taxed people of former times could not have conceived ; a debt larger than all the debts that ever existed in the world added together. “Yet is this country poorer than in 1790? “If we were to prophesy that in the year 1930 a population of 50 millions, better fed, clad and lodged than the English of our times, will cover these islands . . . that machines constructed on principles yet undiscovered will be in every home . .. that our debt, vast as it seems to us, will appear to our grandchildren a trifling encumbrance, which might easily be paid off in a year or two—many people would think us insane. “We prophesy nothing; but this we say—if any person had told the Parliament which met in perplexity and terror after the crash of 1720 that in 1830 the wealth of England would surpass all their wildest dreams, that the annual revenue would equal the principal of that debt which they considered an intolerable burden . . . that the postoffice
would bring more into the exchequer than the excise and customs had brought in together under Charles II—that
stagecoaches would run from London to York in 24 hours | | which lives by make-believe and therefore seems un-
—that men would sail without wind, and would be begin-
ning to ride without horses—our ancestors would have | | like jurors in a murder trial, then dashed away to | mark their ballots “guilty” or “guilty with a recom- | mendation of mercy.”
given as much credit to the prediction as they gave to Gulliver's Travels. Yet the prediction would have been true.”
case of “oh, ye, of little faith!”
SELLING THE CONSTITUTION EP. SOL BLOOM of New York, as director-general of the United States Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission, has sponsored some very silly activities, at great expense to the taxpayers. But now investigation by The New York World-Telegram reveals other activities, carried on by friends and political allies of Mr. Bloom, that are shabby and sordid. Tammany supporters of Rep. Bloom have been given opportunity to profit on the commission’s sales of “Shrines of the Constitution” to schools and libraries. York friend of the Congressman organized the Sesquicentennial Merchandise Corp., and published a catalog inviting “stores everywhere” to join in the celebration with special sales of flags, desk sets, balloons and other merchandise bearing the commission's official copyrighted insignia. We do not know how much honey has been made by those who have exploited the Constitution’s anniversary for private profit. There should be a prompt investigation. But first, Congress should end the commission and stop the “patriotic” activities of Mr. Bloom's friends.
Last Sept. 17 was the 150th anniversary of the Con-
stitution’s signing. Before that date, Mr. Bloom had spent most of a $260,000 appropriation by Congress. He has now spent most of another $100,000 appropriation. There is neither reason nor excuse for dragging the celebration out. Stop it now. Save the money. And save the Constitution from being sold.
CLAUER AND THE LIQUOR SETUP HE Indiana liquor setup under which certain favored politicians get a legalized rakeoff on imported beer has made the public conscious of the increased mixing of politics and liquor. : William E. Clauer, one of the importers, has been under fire on this score since his election as Marion County Democratic Chairman. So his statement that because of his beer connections he will retire as chairman when his term ends May 7 will be hailed as a party service. The Townsend Administration could do the people of Indiana a much greater service by purging the system of politics and then fighting for repeal of the law which makes the system possible.
JUSTICE TRIUMPHS N behalf of the apartment-house dwellers of America we rise to nominate for a prominent niche in the Hall of Fame the Hon. Mervin Herzfeld, acting recorder of the police-court at Union City, N. J. Acting Recorder Herzfeld has just sentenced to 90 days in jail an apartment-house manager who failed to ¢brovide proper heat for the building.
We |
It is, we think, good for the soul, in a season when the soul is torn by doubt, to reread that, and to think that | maybe after all our predicament today would be another |
Another New
Tah
Patriotism, Inc.—By Kirby
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
CONSTITUTION CENTENNIA! | 1 PATRIOTIC + BUILD GOOD WILL
MAKE A Brorym SESE Ul SHRINES,
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Kirkland Should Remember Success |
Of 'Tobacco Road’ and Drop Protest Against Review of 'Tortilla Flat.'
NEW YORK, Jan. 18 —Friend though I be of Jack Kirkland and have been since he worked on the rim of the St. Louis Times and I ran the little U. P. bureau in the same plant more than 20 years ago, I have to
deplore the method of his artistic dispute with Dick Watts, the Herald Tribune's play reviewer, pursuant to which he was photographed in bed. Mr. Watts saw Mr. Kirkland's stage version of John Steinbeck’s “Tortilla Flat,” thought it pretty bad, and said so in kinder words than I would have been likely to use for the same duty. Thereafter, it appears, Mr. Kirkland encountered Mr. Watts in a popular pub, took a sock at him, and, in the ensuing debate, finished second. May I suggest, however, that this neither confirms nor condemns Mr. Watts’ opinion that the play was bad and that it has no bearing on merit of the critic's TAN criticism? Otherwise, our papers will be forced to hire professional Yr Pegler prizefighters to review the drama, and in that case Mr. Hearst will have a continuing claim on the services of the ablest critics in the land by reason of his contracts for the journalistic by-products of the successive heavyweight champions.
Often I have felt sorry for the playwrights and backers and the unhappy members of a profession
£ RA
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
| CRITICIZE TERM GIVEN FIRST OFFENDER | By WwW. WwW.
It doesn’t seem fair toc me the way Judge Baker put a heavy sentence on young Arthur Stepp for participating in a holdup the other day. It seems 10 to 25 years is a pretiy heavy sentence for such a case. I have known of cases where the same judge has let worse criminals
to express
troversies
(Times readers are invited their these columns, excluded. your letter short, so all can have a chance. be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)
power to prove yourself a man worthy to be the chief executive of a great State by anticipating the action of the Supreme Court and
views in
religious con-
Make ren K, Billings a full and unconditional pardon. ” n ” SEES SHOP UNION AS LABOR SOLUTION
By Pat Hogan, Columbus
Letters must
off with less.
State Labor Commissioner Thomas
granting to Tom Mooney and War- |
fit to cope with the realities of a harsh world when, |
on opening nights in New York, the critics have sat
2 » o
HE playwright works hard for many months, the little woman fetches him coffee to keep him at his toil at 2 a. m., or scours the town saloons to rescue him from despair when his second act has bogged. The actors, some of whom have been out of work for months or years, have been rehearsing for weeks and dreaming of success, the price of a few necessities. and even, in their moments of greatest optimism, thinking of being tapped for the movies. Then comes opening night and the eritics, and when the returns begin to arrive in the morning papers all this worried company discovers is that the play is bad and the actors worse, if possible, and there is always a feeling that if the critics would have been barred and the public permitted to form its own judgment the verdict might have been overwhelmingly reversed.
2 " =
HE case of “Abie’s Irish Rose,” which ran five
years in defiance of the unanimous opinion of the |
reviewers, will never be forgotten by those who have felt that their livelihood was wronged by newspapermen with steady employment who built up their own reputations with flippant but merciless remarks better for their own vanity than for justice. Such critics there have been, and a few such still sit in judgment. Mr. Watts, however, distinctly is not one of them, and, considering the result as seen on the stage, Mr. Kirkland’s protest that he had worked nine months dramatizing “Tortilla Flat” seems inadmissible.
No critic with a human heart can develop a free |
opinion under these conditions, and it is moved that Mr. Kirkland withdraw his protest and buy Mr. Watts a drink out of the fabulous profits of a happier venture, the endless, though who would say deathless, “Tobacco Road.”
READER URGES |
|
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time, and if more are invented to lighten human labor, so much the better. We can then have time to enjoy our hobbies. We all know that there is an abundance of everything in the world, and when the profit is taken out of production and distribution, we will have that abundance. Cooperation is what does the trick now and always.
By H. D. W. I read about a young man who was sentenced to 10 to 25 years for a holdup. This was his first offense. What is Judge Baker trying to do? A young man put away for so long may become well acquainted with the real crooks and learn to hate the outer world, maybe start another gang. Personally, I think we could stand a more reasonable judge. We need more modern men in offices.
® ” » ASKS PARDON FOR MOONEY IN OPEN LETTER By Jasper Douglas An open letter to the Governor of California: For more than 21 Mooney has been suffering a live
By Harry F. Yarbrough
Although I am not a sympathizer for criminals, I do believe that Judge Baker is very unfair to sen-
: years Tom tence a boy to 10 to 25 years in
| prison for his first offense. This boy | jng death behind prison bars, | would not have a chance of a nor-! mal life if he were to serve such a
; though all the world knows that he | has been proven innocent of the charge on which he was convicted. | The jury that convicted him and | the judge who sentenced him have all signed statements that in their opinion he was falsely convicted on perjured evidence. Thousands of dollars, perhaps a million, have been contributed in an effort to free him, being chiefly made up of dimes and nickels from poor working people who badly need the nickels and dimes themselves. That money has mostly gone to lawyers,
sentence. I think the sentence should by all means be shortened.
> =» 9 ELIMINATE PROFIT,
By Charlotte Huston Former President Hoover told an audience in California that “if we had just one generation of properly born, adequately educated, healthy
R. Hutson says: “There remains a small minority which denies the necessity of a workable relationship between industry and labor.”
Mr. Hutson is still living in 1888 or is too prejudiced to face the facts. There are approximately 26 million enrolled under the Social Security Act, and there are 15 million other employees not listed. The two dominant unions claim a membership of 5 million, but it is doubtful it half that number are paying dues. In reality the Wagner act led a minority to believe they could write their own ticket; and although the act deplores coercion on the part of the employer, it would allow the coercion in the hands of these irresponsible zealots who clamor for the “closed shop.” A shining example was when two dozen milk wagon drivers choked off the milk supply in Indianapolis. Thus we have a small minority taking orders from dictators in Washington, making a fatuous and futile attempt to coerce 80 per cent of the workers in this nation. And still the blind Chauvinists hope for peace between the American Federation of Labor and the Committee for Industrial Organization. It is time for thinking people to
| children, developed in character, we { would have Utopia itself—even if | we don't have a planned economy.” | I wonder how he plans to have chil- | dren brought up under those condi- | tions when their parents, many { times, are so poor that they haven't | enough food, not taking into con- , sideration the rest of it. He has | his cart before the horse. Another person who seems to be | wrong in his reasoning is one who] i wrote an article in this column |
| about there being too many ma-
| Court.
who may not be over-zealous in having Mooney set free. Mooney is now an old man, sick and growing weaker. been bandied about from court to court, until now, having tried every avenue that was open in California, it is going to the U. S. Supreme
It is confidently hoped that tribunal will command the release of the martyr to labor’s cause, but you |as Governor have it now in your
wake up and discard these warring factions. Employees in every industry, in every shop, in every city, know the conditions in their individual shops better than a highsalaried director a thousand miles away, and the shop union is the only hope of a mutual understanding and agreement. Every shop has men intelligent enough to manage the situation agreeably to all. Employers today are not fools; they are anxious to pay a man what he earns and thus make him satis-
His case has
| chines, and another who wrote he wanted to share his job and income | with someone less fortunate. How | about the money? Would there be | any more? Mr. Jennings, Indiana WPA administrator, is on the right track but has not gone far enough. The profit system is the cause of our trouble and has brought about the | world crisis, also. If Mr. Jennings had suggested | that all of us work to produce for | {use and not for profit, he really { would be pointing out the way. He realizes in his wark that it is okeh, | why can’t it be everywhere? We would then have an abun- | dance of everything and all be em- | ployed—perhaps not for long hours, | but long enough to produce every- | GRACEFUL thing for everyone. All the ma-|
Winter shines
In a glory Born of old. All the world Is glad today
in a coffin in
50:26.
Business—By John T. Flynn
Belgian Premier Sees Solution to World's Financial Troubles in Economic Council Which Would Seek to Manage Currencies and Trade.
EW YORK, Jan. 18.—The world is blossoming with all sorts of plans for international action
to stem the tide which seems to be washing the world along to bankruptcy and war. One of the interesting and visionary plans is that of the young premier of Belgium, Paul Van Zeeland. Mr. Van Zeeland is essentially a financier. He is the premier of a small country which, lacking material
resources, has made much of its wealth by the bank- |
ing technique Not unlike our Mr. Hull, he sees much of the world’s woe flowing from the lack of international trade. Mr. Hull, of course, thinks he can straighten all this out through international reciprocity agreements. Mr. Van Zeeland, being a banker, sees the problem as one of international currencies and exchange. Mr Van Zeeland, knowing a good deal more about the subject than Mr. Hull, is nearer to the truth. But his plan is more difficult and more visionary. » » » IRST he wants an international economic council set up representing England, France, United States. Germany, Italy and, I assume, some other countries. Its function would be to seek to manage currencies and trade. Then there would be a pooling of all stabilization funds, a suppression of all exchange control quotas and trade control restrictions. At the very outset, Mr. Van Zeeland proposes that each nation in the council shall surrender certain of its powers ov: its economic affairs,
Also he proposes that they shall surrender a large portion of their power over their currencies. If the United States joined we would have to do the following: 1. We would promptly turn over to the administration of the council our gold equalization fund which amounts at the present time to around two billion dollars. All other nations would do the same. 2 ”
UT unfortunately most other nations do not have any too much gold in their equalization fund. We would thus supply most of the gold of the international fund and it would then be used to support an international situation of which we are but. a small part. 2. We would then have to permit this international council to regulate our exchange, which might be well enough, but also our trade regulations with other peoples. To state such a scheme is to make the most complete argument against it, since it must be perfectly plain that no American Government could ever go into such an agreement. The people would not per-
mit it. And to discuss it, therefore, is largely a waste of time and valuable only insofar as it supplies a text for debating the international situation. The chief aim of this scheme is to aid Germany any Italy financially. Mr. Van Zeeland beljeves the whole drive of Italy and Germany toward war grows out of their financial situation—a part of their general economic situation. He thinks, therefore, that
|
the way to avert war is to take the pressure off Germany and Italy y
WINTER SHINES By MARY P. DENNY
In snow and cold
In the shining winter way.
DAILY THOUGHT
So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put
and honorable old age is the childhood chines we have can work all the| mortality.—Pindar,
| groups and
fied as well as reliable, but you cannot force him to hire and keep rad-
any more than you can force a woman to buy 7 rotten eggs with her dozen. 2 nn =» LET RAILROADS PASS ON, READER DECLARES By Frank Walton, Campbellsburg
In reply to A. M. S. in the Forum, when the railroads put the ox yoke and teams out of business, people thought that was all right. It was better to take care of the people. We know that trucks take care of business better than the railroads. Let railroads pass on with the ox yoke and teams and swivel chair government, so that business and enterprise can take care of our people.
Egypt.—Genesis
of im-
icals, time-killers and irresponsibles’
|
| |
|
Gen. Johnson
Says— President Underestimates Effect
Of Such Threats as Declaration Against All Holding’ Companies.
VV ASHINGTON, Jan. 18.—Suppose the President were to be taken at his word and all the holding companies were to he abolished. It would mean the dissolution of practically every great employing unit in the United States-—the taking apart of 90 per cent of the American business structure. Of course, the President means no sucia thing. As much as anybody, he is interested in business stability and improvement. He just loves to say astonishing things and, since he was consorting with wicked business at the time, he had to reassure his radical friends that, although he is sitting with these swabs, it is no more than a cat-and-mouse act. This has been going on for a year. First, we were going to have an era of good feeling and all business beamed. Then socko! The Administration kicked confidence in the pants with the court plan. Sic ’em! Beginning in April, it turned Mr. Eccles, Mr. Wallace and several others loose to warn the upturn in busi ness was going too fast. The Administration practically ordered Government employees to stay out of the markets and there began thunders on the left about monopoly and the antitrust acts and threats to stop the advance with confiscatory taxes on “excess” profits it might show,
” ” n HE Administration underestimated its influence and the disturbing effect on confidence everywhere of such assaults. Their efforts did not merely halt the advance. They changed it into the sharpest deciine in our history. I think the President again underestimates the effect of such threats as his illconsidered or unintended declaration against all holde ing companies. Two small conferences—the Sloan-Weir party and the Young-Lewis confab—were not of themselves very impomant, But they were symptoms of a hope that
business and Government could again find a common ground for the restoration of confidence. But of what weight are they in the face of a threat to take all business apart and put it together again? What's going on here anyway? All commentators are trying to read some sense into it. Here is my cons-
struction: \ HEN Alice entered, “the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool . . . nursing a baby.” The baby was sneezing and crying because they had sprinkled it with pepper. .. . “The cook at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby. . . . ‘Oh please mind what you're doing,’ cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror, ‘Ch there goes his precious nose.’ . . While tha Duchess sang . . . she kept tossing the baby violently up and down and the poor thing howled so that Alice could hardly hear the words. ~ “I speak severely to my boy, I beat him when he sneezes; For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases!” The baby, you remember, turned into a pig. “‘Did you say pig or fig?’ said the cat. “I said pig,’ replied Alice, ‘and I wish you wouldn's keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly. You make one quite giddy.” That's as much sense as I can see in it.
Hugh Johnson
8 » »
According to Heywood Broun
Political and Economic Issues Should Be Debated on Their Merits And Not Be Rejected Because of Dislike for Their Supporters.
EW YORK, Jan. 18.—Some of my liberal friends —and I am cultivating a pair for scientic purposes—assert that American radicals are demanding a special immunity. The complaint runs that no progressive can criticize even a minor point in any leftwing program without being smeared as a “Red baiter.” If that were true I think it would be unfortunate and wholly unfair. But I don’t think it is true. I am not going to assert that every radical leader in this country welcomes criticism. But for that matter, who does? Col. Roosevelt once said, and with facetious intent, “Mr. Simeon Strunsky writes so well and thinks so clearly that I never can understand why he is not on my side.” It may be set down almost axiomatically that the statement “I welcome criticism” is always uttered through clenched teeth by all persons of whatever political position. Even Voltaire in his famous free speech lak did not go beyond urging that there should a toleration of dissenting opinion.
T any rate, it seems to me that radicals in this country are not saying “A murrain on all who differ from us by a hair’s breadth.” Or if any radical has ever said that I am not the particular radical. But it does seem to me (and the last municipal election in New York was a laboratory test) that it is no argument at all to say, “This cause must ipso facto be wrong because ‘the Reds’ support it.” Judge Jeremiah Mahoney undertook to campaign against Mayor La Guardia on the broad general theory that it was not necessary for him to discuss either the personality or the policies ¢f his opponent. He thought it would be sufficient to assert that if labor 1s in favor of La Guardia the
Republican and A. L. P. candidate must be wrong. The voters of the city decided against Mahoney. Some moderately rock-ribbed conservatives cast their ballot for Fiorello, saying in effect, “I don’t mind going along with the radicals or having them go along with me, because this time they happen to be right.
” ” Ld NUMBER of people have opposed the drive of the C. I. O. for industrial unionism on the ground that if Communists favor this particular form of organization all non-Marxists should be against it.
"Of course, that’s silly. The issue of industrial union-
ism was current in America long before the word “Communist” was current. Indeed, I am asserting that each political and economic issue ought to be debated on its merits and that no cause can be thrown out the window merely because the debater happens to dislike some of the people who support it. I am thinking of Ben= jamin Stolberg’s apparent contention that it is ime possible to dislike Homer Martin of the Automobile Workers’ Union unless that dislike stems from a party “line.” I know a number of people who find the task of disliking Homer Martin at least two and onehalf times as easy as falling off a log. I ought to be candid enough to admit past sins, Once I wrote a column in which I said that I lived by a simple rule in regard to public controversies, I asserted that I saved a lot of home work and face tual research by merely waiting until Bishop Mane * ning declared himself and then taking the opposite‘ side. But I was only kidding. If we live long enough I will eventually find the good Bishop on the right side of some question just through accident and the pressure of the law of averages.