Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 January 1938 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Business Manager

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FH Rlley 555 U SCRIPPS ~ NOWARD | y 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Thelr Own Way

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

SATURDAY, JAN. 22, 1938

THE WASTE OF CONGESTION AYOR BOETCHER'S proposal of a 30-year plan of street development touches one of the greatest of modern municipal problems—the waste of traffic tieups.

Effects of the present congestion have tremendous significance for our future living. The staggering auto toll—40,000 killed, 125,000 permanently disabled and more than a million injured last yvear— is retarding the beneficial use of man's automotive servant. And the utterly inadequate street system here which the Mayor hopes to correct with a long-range program contributes both to congestion and accidents. Automobiles today are built to travel safely-—under proper conditions—at speeds of 50 or 60 miles an hour, Yet the over-all operating speed for auto traffic in the typical American city for average trips, including central districts, radiating streets and outlying areas, is about 17 miles an hour. This isn't to argue that high speeds should be permitted in city traffic, or that present Indianapolis speed restrictions ave too rigid. They are not, under present conditions. But it does mean that all automobile owners, and particularly city dwellers, are getting only a small return on their investment. Over-all operating speeds of five or six miles an hour are not uncommon in many congested downtown areas. Even these costly low efficiencies are achieved under hazardous conditions that produce a ghastly accident record. 8 oy » oy 5 8 IRTUAL traffic stagnation already is bringing terrific pressure in most cities for decentralization of city functions. Mayor Boetcher hopes to plan the community's growth so that downtown Indianapolis will always be the geographical center. That logical aim will be defeated unless more arterial routes can be opened, other streets widened, through traffic—especially trucks—routed around central districts, and the whole flow safely speeded up. Dr. Miller McClintock, director of the Harvard Bureau of Traffic Research, predicts that unless congestion is conquered “there will be a radical and highly uneconomic decentralization of urban activities which will distort property values and which will, in the long run, result in far greater traffic problems than those which the decentralization is seeking to avoid.” He also estimates there is now “a submerged market for five or six million automobiles that are not purchased and used because the potential owners do not find in the automobile sufficient convenience to warrant the purchase.” The economic effects of this on the auto industry as well as on all its related industries are obvious. The economic loss to the 28 million present car owners, who do not get full value from their investment, cannot be estimated. The Mayor's suggestions are only a beginning. Any such long-range program will require exhaustive research and careful planning. It will be expensive. But it is not too soon to make a start.

HAGUE'S MAN

JOHN MILTON, a Jersey City lawyer, will appear in Washington Monday asking to be seated as a member of the United States Senate. For 25 years Milton has been the “brains” behind many of the activities of the labor-baiting Mayor and dictator of Jersey City, Frank Hague. Governor Moore of New Jersey had the effrontery to offer the Senatorial appointment to Hague, who declined it. The appointment was then given to Milton. Every one of the many reasons why Hague's presence as a member of the Senate would have been an affront to the American people applies with equal force to Hague's man, Milton. No wonder that Labor's Nonpartisan League of New Jersey is circulating petitions asking the Senate to investigate Milton and to refuse to seat him until the investigation has been made. The Senate should grant this proper and reasonable request. The investigation should go into the financial relations between Hague and Milton. Part of the story is in the records of a New Jersey legislative committee which attempted in 1928-29 to find the sources of Mayor Hague's great wealth. Although Hague's official salary had never been more than $8000 a year, and although he testified that he had no other gainful occupation, he had bought hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of real estate. Most of the transactions were through John Milton. Milton, who once balked another inquiry by destroying his books and records, now says laughingly; “I ain’t never been arrested. 1 ain't never been indicted. I ain't never been convicted . . . I know all about keeping people out of trouble. I certainly know enough to keep myself out of trouble.” Whether John Milton keeps himself and Mayor Hague out of trouble is, perhaps, of concern only to the people of New Jersey, but that John Milton be kept out of the United States Senate, until or unless his dealings with Mayor Hague are thoroughly explained, is of concern to the people of the whole United States.

BRIDGES AND DAMS

ENATOR BRIDGES, New Hampshire Republican, broke the monotony of the Senate's antilynching bill filibuster long ¥nough to attack the Tennessee Valley Authority. The gist of his hour-long speech was that TVA has betrayed the people and the Government by contracting to sell power to several large industrial corporations and to an Arkansas public utility. He said four times as much TVA power is being sold to these concerns as to small users of electricity. So what? The power is there, and why shouldn't it be sold? Under the law, TVA is required to sell it, the only reservation being that municipal distribution systems shall be given first right to buy. Has Senator Bridges ever heard BE1IVA quing Suwh ny Mpg costae} §,

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Culture in a Vacuum—By Kirby

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SATURDAY, JAN. 22, 1938

The Light That Must Not Fail—sy Kirby

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

t's the Desk's Order, 'Keep It To a Hundred," Which Makes Lonely Newspaper Assignments Worse.

NEW YORK, Jan. 22.—The sight of dark stretches of undeveloped land which still exist in some parts of New York City where the street lights are far apart, houses are isolated and the snow freezes in irregular ripples on the sidewalks, reminds me of a phase of the newspaper business which is seldom mentioned. I mean the ordinary, routine, city side assignment which takes a reporter 'way out to hell-

and-gone in pursuit of an angle of a big story which is centered at police headquarters or one of those two-headed calf . items known as a feature. } 3 The reature story may be some- - \

thing about some frowsy and v 3 dirty-handed old derelict living on A! the edge of a dump who claims to ¥ AN be a fallen star at the Milan Opera oF 3 or an aide-de-camp of the Tsar 3 or some goofy hermit who lives A § on goat's milk and has notified Lo Sf 5 RRS NE come to an end at 9:15 p. m. Tuesday. hat type of Ping. Mr. Pegler It isn't the quality of the story, anyway. It is the drudgery of going after it in a strange part of town out at the end of the line, where it always turns out that the street in question is about a mile over that it will be necessary to go back down to 147th St. and change over and come up again. So the quickest thing to do is walk, and at the end of the walk some suspicious person, probably a foreigner, takes the reporter for a Bill collector or subpena server and refuses to open the door or listen to reason,

the city desk that the world will way and that to reach it by subway, “IL” or streetcar u » n O back to the subway and down to the shop with nothing accomplished by a job that took the better part of a day. Nothing but a long ride, a long, cold walk across lots in the dark and perhaps a slightly skinned knee from tripping over a lot of cans in a dump and a report to the desk, who

had forgotten all about it, anyway.

One of my first assignments in New York was to camp on the front stoop of somebody on Fifth Ave. to get a statement from Lindley Garrison, who had just quit his job-as Wilson's Secretary of War. He holed up at this Fifth Ave. house and for two days refused to say “aye,” “yes” or “no” while 20 reporters picketed the place to be there when he should decide to chirp. It was a bitter winter, with a cold wind sweeping across the park, and that Garrison host wouldn't even let us into his coal hole to warm up. Early on the third day Mr. Garrison handed us little slips containing about 30 words, which we phoned downtown, and that was the story. By that time his say didn't matter, so for all our patience all we got was about a No. 1 head, back near the Bulgarian communique, via Berlin (delayed).

ROOKLYN is a terrible maze. Once Rodney Dutcher and I went to Brooklyn at 9 in the morning after working until 4 a. m. to attend the funeral of a fellow worker. We gave ourselves plenty of time, but we were shuttled around by policemen and natives until about 1 o'clock we finally found the cemetery ana our friend's grave, The family were gone, and they probably think to this day that nobody among his friends in the shop turned out. But it isn't the work, the cold and the uncertainty that make these assignments to the way-off goat barrens so depressing; the worst of it is when the guy on the desk says, “Keep it to a hundred. Tight

paper.”

The Hoosier Forum

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

PRAISE AND PROTEST STOLBERG SERIES

By P. K. Your editorial disassociated you in advance from the strictures on Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, made by Benjamin Stolberg in his C. I. O. series in The Times. That gave an inkling of what to expect, but I had not looked for anything as raw, I hope it will not bruise or bother Mr. Hillman at a time when he is regaining his strength after a serious illness. Mr, Stolberg could not blink the former's extraordinary accomplishments in textiles, though he high-hatted the labor standards in the new collective agreements before he noted the low level upon which the organizing campaign has had to build in the South. For the rest, even shouting dis= paragement through a string of newspapers will not dislodge the regard in which Mr. Hillman is held. ® ® Ww By F. A. H. I congratulate you on publishing the brilliant and thorough series of articles on the C. I. O. by Benjamin Stolberg. These articles are causing a great deal of discussion,

By S. F. 8S. Thanks for the excellent series of articles on the C. I. O. by Benjamin Stolberg. As a liberal publication you are to be congratulated for opening your columns to a profound student of the labor movement who is one of the few intellectually independent radicals in this country. Many of your readers, I feel, will appreciate this enlightened contribution.

By A M. I protest against the series of articles by Benjamin Stolberg. These articles are an example of the concerted efforts by big business, allied with many of its agents, to attack organized labor. These articles are a subtle attempt by one who appears to be a friend of labor and who has been associated from time to time with the labor movement—one who uses his knowledge of the labor movement in alliance with big business to attack labor from the rear, ” » ”

AGREES WITH FORD ON RECOVERY PLAN By W. Scott Taylor

It is time that the people begin to question the right of any stockselling promoter to plaster the earnings of the people with a perpetually wunpayable mortgage. It won't be long now before the voters will be told in “storms of comment” that sweep the country from coast to coast, that it is their sacred duty to pay high rates for light and power, and high prices for monopoly-produced goods, in order to make good the promises of highpressure stock salesmen, on ace count of the widows and orphans. No mention will be made of the widows and orphans dependent on the rents or profits of other forms

Business—By John T. Flynn

Roosevelt Was Brought Up When Idea of Voluntary Benevolence Was Prevalent, Which Partly Explains His Bold Statements and Surrenders.

ers like Al Smith and rich men like Pranklin D. Roosevelt, the New York Legislature enacted work-

EW YORK, Jan. 22.—Many contradictory pronouncements of the President have led both friends and critics to ask of late—just where and for what does Mr. Roosevelt stand? Someone ought to answer the question, since the President himself won't. Maybe it cannot be answered. But it is at least worth trying to answer. So we can attempt a guess at the President's objectives and his underlying philosophy, but it will take more than'’one installment and this is just the first. First, let us separate Roosevelt the man and his beliefs, from Roosevelt the politician. His political maneuvering is usually obvious. His philosophy seldom is. Franklin D. Roosevelt was brought up in what might be called the democratic welfare tradition of the early part of this century. New York-—particular-ly its wealthy satellite counties—always has been filled with wealthy families engaged in benevolent enterprises for the poor. CI

T the bottom of their creed was the feeling that this was the best of all societies, but that it had its imperfections. One of these was its inability to rid society of poverty and disease. Therefore it was the duty of the rich to be good to the poor. After the turn of the century and particularly after the war, the well-to-do reform groups began to go a little further. From the belief that the rich should be good to the poor they moved on to the conviction that the rich should be compelled to be good to

the poor. With this new movement, which embraced liberal pregressive Republicans, proletarian

lead |

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(Times readers are invited to express their | these columns, religious con- | troversies excluded. Make your letter short, so all can Letters must

views in

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

of investment, It is their duty as consumers to pay the high rates and prices in order to guarantee the investments of others, "This is implied, not said. The buyer of corporate stock buys it with the knowledge that the Government has the power to control monopolies doing business in interstate commerce and to tax holding companies out of existence, He buys it with the knowledge that the people have the right to vote and elect representatives who will reject the theory that the con=suming public can be denied a share in the benefits that result from improved methods and machines, just because of some promoter. The representative may have some doubt of the worth of the perpetually unpayable mortgage. People still continue to pay high rates and prices as long as they can be deceived into thinking that one form of investment is more sacréd than another and can be induced to submit to the power of taxation exerted by private monopolies. The philosophy of bottomless wages and topless price fixing

SOME MOTHER'S SON By FREDERICK O. RUSHER If you should chance to meet A vagabond on the street Just pity him and smile. “Perhaps he used to be As fine as you and me And the things in life lost their worth-the-while,

But today fate dealt a hand To this unfortunate man, | And left him to roam the world alone, To the joy of life he's blind, Childhood pleasures left behind, And he doesn’t know the comfort of a home,

As he wanders night and day To places unknown along the way, His life just seems to be an empty one. So remember should you meet This unfortunate on the street Just show a smile upon some mother's son.

DAILY THOUGHT

And immediately he received his sight, and he followed him, glorifying God: and all the people when they saw it, gave praise unto God.—Luke 18:43.

MIRACLE is a work exceeding the power of any created agent, consequently being an effect of the divine omnipotence.—South.

never will produce recovery, On this point Henry Ford is absolutely right: Higher wages, lower prices is the answer, The choice lies between the stock-selling promoters and the good of the people, n “ ” RATLROADS ARE VITAL TO COUNTRY, READER SAYS By Kenneth Van Cleave

In reply to Frank Walton's letter in the Forum entitled “Let the Railroads Pass On,” I wonder if he ever saw the U. 8. Steel Corp. advertisement, “Life Itself Depends Upon Them,” referring to trains. Stop the freight trains of the country and chaos would result-—darkened cities, stagnation of business, famine! Despite cold and darkness, heat and storm, freight goes through. An army of loyal men set themselves doggedly to the task of putting it through, no matter what the difficulties—trained men, whose lives are devoted to their jobs. Imagine the truckers transporting all the coal the railroads transport, or all the fruit from California to New York. It would be impossible. The railroads furnish employment to millions of workers; if they pass

on, think of the men added to the |

unemployed army. Railroads are also big consumers of steel. The majority of goods transported by truck is at one time or another transported by freight train due to the fact that many buyers order in carload lots. The railroads pay taxes on every foot of their routes, We do not need interstate trucks, There are so many of them now that they have to cut one another's throat to get business. The railroads are still the backbone of the nation's transportation system. ” ” ” FAN PROTESTS LETTER AGAINST RAILROADS

By Edwin P. Bolknap, Vice President, Indianapolis Railroad Fans Association In reply to Frank Walton of Campbellsburg in the Forum against railroads, Mr. Walton must be a truck owner, Trucks can handle a certain amount of goods, but until I see a truck or trucks handle a thousand tons of coal or other commodities at once over our already battered highways, I'll boost the railroads. Take the railroads away for a few days and let the trucks carry onha, ha, ha.

» 9 Ww ASHAMED TO SHOW TITLE HOLDER OUTSIDE STATE By H. B., Ben Davis

I am 10 years old, and when I bought my car license, I had to get one of those title holders. It wasn’t because I wanted to have 25 cents taken from me for those little things the public knows or never will know about. When I travel in other states this summer, I am removing the 3 cents’ worth of celluloid from my windshield, because I will be ashamed to display it in other states. I give an arm signal when I want to, also.

Gen. Johnson Says—

His Colleagues Are Invaluable in

Keeping Him Informed on the Mass Of News One Man Can't Cover,

(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla., Jan. 22.-~This is a piece about my colleagues—the columnists. Westbrook Pegler said not long ago that it is a frightful piece of brass even to hold out to be one of what the Gridiron Club satirized as the seven pillars of wisdom and I agreed with him. But, on second thought, IT dunno. In my own work of attempting to study and digest the torrent of news that streams across the ticker, a short cut is the columns ists. I try to keep myself ine formed directly but I must cone fess I read them all, Godfrey Nelson has a piece on Mr, Vinson's report on revising the undistributed profits tax. It is a terribly complex report, I know that he has sweated for hours to simplify it. That, checked against my own dope, saves hours for me, Some columnists are intimates and advocates of the third New Deal. I find difficulty in agreeing with much that Mr. Jay Franklin savs but I know his contacts. If I want to guess what new white rabbit 1s being prepared in the pinkest purlieus of Washington, I feel pretty sure that Mr. Franklin's writings reflect it,

Hugh Johnson

® » @» FIam a long way from New York and haven't had a chance to see how the modern Lord Mae caulays and economic royalists are taking it, it is easy to supply the lack by reading Dorothy Thompson. A painstaking analyst with a slightly royalist slant on every development, is David Lawrence. The columnist with perhaps the most complete background of political memories with which to measure new developments is Mark Sullivan, Among the best listeners in the Washington whise pering gallery of rumor or better, are Drew Pearson and Bobbie Allen. While the “grapevine” doesn't ale ways register right, these gossip-gleaners dig up a surprising lot of correct undercover dope. ” ” ” BOUT the most engaging writer of all, when he wants to be, is Heywood Broun. He can be exactly as engaging about nothing whatever as about something important. I read several others whom I can't afford to miss, like Raymond Clapper and straight reporters who add a dash of editorial writing like Turner Catledge and Tom Stokes. Eleanor Roosevelt rarely risks political comment but many of her paragraphs have proved highly revealing. To my mind the cream of the class are Westbrook Pegler and Frank Kent—Peg on every subject under the sun and Frank on politics, The whole bunch taken together represent a group of painstakingly informed opinions from almost every conceivable angle. When you have read them all, you may not flush the cover of truth, but you cere tainly have covered the pasture with about a dozen of the busiest bird dogs in any man’s hunting preserves, The mass of news and the avalanche of develop« ments is too great for any man, even with a harde working staff to sift it all.

According to Heywood Broun—

Success of Democracy Depends on Free Vote as Well as Free Speech;

men's compensation laws, factory inspection laws, laws to protect women and children in industry, mothers’ pensions, antisweat shop laws. And thus out of a mixture of constructive selfish benevolent attitudes and some radical pressure this liberal school of welfare Democrats arose. They achieved many splendid reforms, but it never occurred to them that they ought to change the society or economic system in which they lived. » ” »

HEN, following the crash in 1929, a more positive group of reformers began to be heard, mostly younger men. Instead of making the rich be kind to the poor they proposed to enable the poor to be kind to themselves and to cease being poor. It was easy for men like Mr. Roosevelt to subscribe to all this. But many of them did not pause to analyze the essence of this new movement, for unlike the old welfare movement, it involves drastic changes in the economic system. But the President is not an analyst; he is not a student. Hence without having much understanding of the profound implications of his utterances we found him, in his first Administration, proclaiming intentions which were, so far as he was concerned, merely an extension of the old idea of voluntary benevolence, but which in fact involved radical rearrangement of the system which he had not the slightest intention of indorsing. This, I suggest, explains his bold pronouncements; also his sudden surrenders. But this is only part of the explanation. To harmonize his seemingly radical philosophies with his seemingly reactionary ones it is necessary to look another de

Opponents of Antilynching

EW YORK, Jan. 22.—Persons who command large N audiences through the spoken or the written word are seldom utterly consistent. Offhand I cannot think of one who meets that requirement in my estimation. And if somebody can suggest an individual who has never contradicted himself at any time I doubt that I would like either the suggestor or the candidate. The completely consistent person would be either a god or a devil, and more likely the latter. In the give-and-take of battle changes of strategy are expedient. Those who hew to the line are apt to die in the same way and ineffectually, which is the tragic element. I am not willing to bind myself to a declaration that every Congressional filibuster is an immoral procedure. Senator Norris, who seems to me the greatest man in the National Legislature, is an old filibustering statesman himself. And I will grant the obvious emotional appeal of a devoted minority fighting for a good cause and delaying the steamroller in its progress. ww w

UT right here I am prepared to make my stand. Champions of a lost or a losing cause have every right to try to hold off a vote until the nation knows the inwardness of the issue. But I think that no group, right or wrong, should ever undertake to dilly and dally with the hope of actually defeating a show of hands. Democracy cannot endure unless there is agreement that sooner or later the vote must be taken. I am for the Wagner-VanNuys Antilynching Bill and against the Ludlow amendment for a referendum on a declaration of war. The cases are not quite analogous, because it was not technically a filibuster which took the Ludlow proposal out of the picture.

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Bil Admit They Cannot Defeat Measure.

That was the old familiar dodge of sending the matter back to committee, which in Washington is a synoenym for cemetery. Of course, my mind dwells chiefly on the anti lynching measure, Perhaps it will be declared unconstitutional if it passes. I wouldn't know. But I think that in our constitutional scheme the strict constructionists should never be allowed more than one bite at a law, if as much as that. If straw Supreme Court Justices are to arise in the House and Senate and argue legal points regardless of popular necessi= ties, then the balance of power is destroyed. " ” ou HE antilynching bill may be a disappointment in its practical result if it is passed and sustained. That's a good debate, but let us waive it for the moe ment. I think the measure is sound in its purpose and potentially highly valuable, but I want to shift the issue, At this moment a minority is balking a decision, The minority rather candidly admits that it has not sufficient votes to defeat the proposal. This minority is not even pretending that it seeks delay in order that the rank and file of the country may have a chance to be heard. It is cynically playing on nuie sance value and saying in effect, “We intend to kill this proposal by talking it to death.” Free speech is a cornerstone of democracy. But 80 is free vote. If hands are to be tied in such a way that they may not indicate “aye” or “nay,” then treason is being committed to the whole theory of majority rule. And without majority rule where does democracy get off? ip

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