Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 January 1938 — Page 10

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PAGE 10

The India napolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

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

TUESDAY, JAN, 25, 1938

TVA, THE UTILITIES—AND THE FUTURE

VERY old subject, not a new one, is being revitalized by the recent court decisions relating to the utilities.

When the Supreme Court put its O. K. on Federal loans and grants to municipalities, and the three-judge court ruled against the 18 companies in the Tennessee Valley, Government ownership as an issue was thrown once more into the arena of public discussion. It may seem hot at the moment, but it is no hotter than it was back in the days of William Jennings Bryan when Government ownership of what then was the transportation monopoly was the blazing issue. Tennessee's Governor, Gordon Browning, will confer this week with the President on a plan for the nation and the state to take over the Tennessee power companies at a price appraised by arbitration. Wendell Willkie, head of the largest Southern operation, already has offered to sell out. And so what is up is a question of policy—shall Government go into ownership, with the private utilities in the TVA region retiring completely from the business? This, we say, is no new question, but an old one, here and abroad. We don’t think the nation will go to pot if the decision is in behalf of Government ownership. But we do believe that Federal victory in its long fight against the rear-guard action of the utilities carries the great responsibility that victory always entails. The Government must now decide whether it wants to go into the utility business whole-hog, or whether it wants to reach some sort of working agreement with the private utilities by which the Government will know where it stands, and the utilities know where they stand, the cost of uncertainty already having been much too much. If the decision is for Government ownership, the course will be clear. The deal would involve the bikgest test, outside the Postoffice. In case of the other alternative, we would advise the utilities to quit their squawking and devote their energies in the future to the hiring of linemen instead of lawyers.

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PEAKING of Government ownership—had Mr. Bryan won, in that time when if you wanted to get anywhere except by horse and buggy you had to go by railroad; when some railroads were so’ arrogant that if you desired a ticket or to send some freight you had to apologize for being alive—we wonder what would have happened if Government ownership had come to pass? Would the Government have permitted the competition, unseen by Mr. Bryan, to arise that would have threatened the Government’s stake in transportation as did the internal-combus-tion engine, the hard-surfaced highway and the rubber tire threaten and subdue the privately owned railroads? Or would it have found ways to protect its investment by law-making? Or would it have had the vision, which the railroads did not have, to take over and adapt to the uses of transportation that new and more modern thing? We think one of the best arguments against Government ownership is that it tends to the status quo, to dull incentive, and is therefore essentially reactionary, not progressive. Galileo, for example, didn’t thrive so well among the powers that be. But that’s just an argument. We do know, however, that as an historical fact the thing which breaks up concentration of power is usually not lawmaking, but a force arising entirely outside the zone of statecraft. The inventors of the automobile—not Mr. Bryan—brought the railways to their present humble estate. And so to the Government, considering going into ownership of electric utilities, and to the privately owned utilities themselves, we would suggest that a more impoztant pronouncement last week than the court decision was the one from Charles F. Kettering, General Motors scientist in charge of research, of a new factory for the production of diesel engines, with the largest laboratories in the world. *“Packaged power units” in portable models which can be set up with no more trouble than is required to plug in a radio are going to be put into mass production. Without elaborating on the detail, it doesn’t take much imagination to conceive of a little TVA in every home, the cheap-fueled diesel being the real yardstick of kilowatt cost, applicable to any other seller, whether private or Government. Or, to put it another way, that because of what has come from the brain and the laboratory of Mr. Kettering, the little diesel down in the basement may do to all those vast operations, the grids, the high-lines and the dams, what the internal-combustion engine did to the railroads.

“SHOCKING”

VERY few readers—including the one whose letter appears in the Hoosier Forum today-—question the propriety of The Times printing recently the stories of the Linton child-mother. We welcome this criticism, for it gives us an opportunity to explain this newspaper’s policy, which is already clear to the overwhelming majority of readers. This distasteful story was not published because of its sensational aspects, but for its basic sociological importance. The very existence of the Linton incident, as well as of the many child marriages that have plagued Indiana for a long time, is an indictment of our social structure. But social ills have never been cured by the ostrich policy of ignoring their existence. Some persons have always objected to publicity on every disagreeable fact of life. They argue that such facts should be censored rather than offend some readers.

It is true that the Linton stories shocked public conscience. And by doing so they have been responsible already, at least in part, for launching a reform movement to end such abuses. We hope the public remains sufficiently shocked to push these reforms through the next Legis-

Death Valley! —By Talburt

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

SPECIAL Ti

DISTRICT COURT DECISION

MUM SIZE BUsiNgss

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TUESDAY, JAN. 25, 1938

Outside the President’s Office—By Herblock

DON'T PUSH! STAY WITHIN THE ROPES! KEEP YOUR PLACE IN LINE, PLEASE! HOLD ON TO YOUR TICKET stues!

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Writer Is Not One to Knock Own Store, but He Thinks Press Should Admit That It Deserves No Subsidy.

EW YORK, Jan. 25.—The fuss between the Postoffice Department and the newspapers over the cost of toting press matter through the mails is still unsettled, and should be settled by some verdict more con-

vincing than flat, unqualified name-calling by each side. As matters stand, the Postoffice Department still claims that in 1937 the cost of handling newspapers and other publications was almost $90,000,000 more than the postage paid on them. The Department is a little unfair in referring to this baggage as ‘newspapers and other publications,” because, by the specific mention of newspapers and the rather general reference to L magazines as “other publications” % rr it bears down on the daily press, iY whereas much of the daily press Bs avoids the mails. On the other A hand, some of the big, slick-paper magazines which ride the mails at second-class rates are so, heavy they ought to have wheels under them. In this the Department is consistent with the Administration’s policy of trying to discredit newspaper criticism of the New Deal. Some people, particularly publishers, believe that Mr. Roosevelt, by his own speeches and the inspired or needled orations of Harold Ickes and Mr. Farley, is trying to impair the freedom of the press. I doubt that the President's purpose is as evil as that and incline to the belief that he merely wants to dispel the superhuman, lamalike illusion of the word “press,” just as he commonized the Supreme Court by a course of propaganda. o ” ”

HE Tulsa Tribune runs a very high-sounding editorial on this dispute in which David Lawrence is credited with having refuted by statistics the $90,000,000 deficit advanced by Mr. Farley. I started to read Mr. Lawrence's piece, but he was so fast on the turns that I was flung off into a gully. My last recollection was that if a below-cost service were suddenly abolished the Postoffice deficit would be worse than ever, and this led me to suspect that the New Deal economies had got Dave at last and that he was about to come out for the theory that it is possible to spend one's way out of debt. But a little further on the Tulsa Tribune comes to the point of saying that even if there were a deficit that would be all right, because America was made possible only through the dissemination of news from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and because the papers are an equcational institution, telling the people how to vote.

i Mr. Pegler

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ELL, now, never me to knock my own store, hut I think the interests of the press are best served by the avoidance of any such sanctimonious wordage unless it be carried among the funnies and not on the editorial page. Because newspapers are business institutions and the most conscientious and ethical of them are in business for profit, as every stockholder and every advertising man knows. Wouldn't it be not only more honest but wiser to admit that the press deserves no subsidy from the Government in any guise and can’t afford to accept a subsidy or even to permit any department of a hostile Administration to contend by any interpretation of figures that the press enjoys the status of a guest of the taxpayers?

The Hoosier Forum

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

PROTESTS PUBLICITY GIVEN LINTON CHILD-MOTHER By Mrs. G. F. Gerlach, Greenfield I am writing to protest against the recent publicity given to the little 13-year-old Linton mother and her baby. What about the days, months and years coming, after the ballyhoo has died down? Can she return to her studies, take her place among her friends as she did before? Will her friends ignore this unfortunate happening, and treat her as before? Not if I am any judge of the youngsters of today. Will other 14-year-old girls and boys decide to emulate young Tommy and Betty and get a little publicity for themselves? For myself, I think the less publicity given to these undesirable happenings, the better off our young people will be. I have no doubt other mothers will think as I do. (See today’s editorial, “Shocking”.) = a ” CONTENDS LABOR REALLY EMPLOYS CAPITAL By Chalmer Fisher In the study of political economy, we find the terms we use follow each other in harmonious order. The term wealth is defined thus: All the material things produced by human labor, having exchange value. This definition may seem ambiguous until logically analyzed. Trees planted by man for his y future use are wealth. Trees growing in a natural state are not wealth, but are the offerings and opportunities of nature. As soon as man fells one of nature's trees, he immediately creates wealth. As long as he only uses it for himself it is only wealth, but as soon as he offers it in exchange, in addition to being wealth, it attaches to itself the term capital. During all the changes and exchanges this tree goes through, it retains the term capital and only loses this term when it reaches the consumer. To nim it is merely wealth. I own an automboile. As long as I use it only for pleasure, it is merely wealth, but as soon as I start using it to assist me in my business, it is classed as wealth and capital. Therefore, all capital is wealth, but all wealth is not capital. By this reasoning we see that no wealth was here before labor created it. All the great wealth we see about us was created by labor. It would be foolish to think otherwise. It is then erroneous to say ‘hat wealth or capital employs labor, It is the reverse. Labor employs capital. If men did not labor,

they could not produce wealth.

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

SEES U. S. AS LOGICAL LEADER FOR PEACE

By L. 8S. Farmer, Anderson The able article by John T. Flynn

recently in The Times, in which he says that Americans to stay out of war must exercise power over state

policy now, before war has been cooked up to a point where it cannot be avoided, started these thoughts regarding American foreign policy. The Constitution of the United States permits national politicians to play a secret hand in the game of international politics and use the nation’s military forces to bluff or call the hand of other nations as they see fit. Other nations permit their politicians to do the same thing, with the result that the game of international politics threatens to wind up in an international brawl which may destroy civilization. Such a deplorable situation is inconsistent with international peace and security. The United States, having successfully pioneered into the field of large scale democratic government, is the logical nation to take the lead into peace. Achievement of that end calls for a Constitutional amendment which will make it obligatory upon the President and Congress to assure that all agreements between this and other nations shall be obligatory only so long as signatory nations deem them of mutual benefit to themselves, plus a specified period of time necessary for contracts previously entered into under

HOMAGE

By JOSEPHINE D. MOTLEY Not many kings exact such bows and smiles And honest homage, that is keen and frank, As any motorist today beguiles, Who asks the gas boy, “Please fill up my tank.”

DAILY THOUGHT Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.—Psalms 2:12.

N undivided neart, which worships God alone, and trusts

Him as it should, is raised above.

all anxiety for earthly wants.— Geikie.

such agreements to be compiled with or canceled, and that all agreements entered into between this and other nations be published and made available to the people. With national agreements resting upon mutual benefit and voluntary consent, military force no longer will be necessary to secure or enforce foreign agreements, Hence no part of the nation’s military forces would depart from the country without a majority approval through a national referendum. Yet they could defend national territory without referendum approval. Such an amendment almost completely would disarm international politics and force a foreign policy consistent with peace and security. Of course there is a possibility that a peace-promoting policy might precipitate the nation into an equally disastrous internal conflict, since special foreign privileges of minorities would be effected.

# 8 » PROTESTS DISTRIBUTION OF RAILROADERS’ WORK

By Locomotive Fireman I am a married man with a wife and three children. I am a locomotive fireman able and willing to work but cannot, because senior engineers and firemen on the railroad where I work get from 34 to 58 ‘days’ work” per calendar month. When business gets such that they don’t get it, they have the younger men furloughed. Each 100 miles on all railroads constitute one days work. I don't know why the officials of the company allow this. Most of the senior men have grown children married and providing for themselves, yet they keep a big number of young able-bodied qualified men out of work and on the streets or on relief. a When the weather gets bad, the senior men lay off and one of us furloughed men makes a day or two until the sun shines; then the old heads report for their jobs again, For the sake of the younger generation, why can't the senior railroad men recognize that the world was made with rest on {he seventh day? Then the railroad companies would have no furloughed firemen and brakemen. If I could be permitted to work six days a week, or 26 days a month, I could buy my wife and children some good food and clothes and send them to school and have some extra money to catch up with my debts and taxes and buy a home and save money, too. The senior men could do the same on 26 days a month, as they are a well paid body of men.

Gen. Johnson Says—

Oil Case Is Just Another Example

Of the Government's Uncertainty In Its Attitude Toward Business,

ULSA, Okla.,, Jan. 25.—The President's recent little industrial playmates had better beware how they make business bargains with the boss. The oil men did that once. Now a court has convicted them of a crime and the court in practically ordering their convictions said it didn't make any difference “whether some Government officials knew of or acquiesced” in what they did. “Acquiesced!” In 1933 one of the sickest pups in the depression was the oil industry. The east Texas field was a new Niagara vomiting such wasteful torrents of an irreplacable natural resource that oil was selling as low as 10 cents a barrel. At that price we were not only giving away to the world the life-blood of industry and national defense but other fields could not compete. The whole vast midcontinent oil country was in a worse collapse of bankruptcy and unemployment than any other region. Frantic efforts have been made by state laws and industrial agreements to control this situation but while, as usual, the 90 per cent of decency complied, the 10 per cent of chiselers crabbed their act and drowned them in bootlegged ox “hot” oil. For every reason of conservation and desperately needed relief, it was the policy of Gov= ernment backed by public opinion to control this disaster with an NRA code. But codes had to be agreed. The industry was split 10 ways. We locked the warring factions in committee rooms and wouldn't let them come out to sleep until we got that agreement. That's how much “Government officials acquiesced” in the beginning of this conspiracy.

Hugh Johnson

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T is true the code was later invalidated and did not then have any price-fixing provisions. NRA held that production control was sufficient without fiat price-fixing, but when Mr. Ickes got the code to administer he put in price-fixing. It was the policy of all Government from the President down, not only through that code, but otherwise, to get prices up to about where they were in 1935. This agreement was designed principally to save little fellows and some will be slaughtered by this verdict. The producers’ price, which is now and was then, the lowest in the world, was affected by other Government policies besides this. But the Court told the jury to disregard that.

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LMOST every contract restrains trade. The quese tion of criminality is whether it is a reasonable restraint in the public interest. Whether or not the code was invalidated, the fact that Government practically stood on its head to get this agreement and supervised it throughout, is certainly evidence of whether it was reasonable and in the public ine terest. But not according to this court. vet What you have here is an infirmity that has afe fected the New Deal since its beginning. It can’t make up its mind whether it wants, as the President now proposes and as he had in this case, to encourage business to restore prosperity and supervise it to prevent abuses or whether, as Mr. Jackson proposes, it wants to batter and break business as political fireworks for the proletariat.

Business—By John T. Flynn

F. D. R's Political Philosophy Has a Part in Explaining His Actions; He Believes an Issue Is a Question on Which Two or More Disagree.

EW YORK, Jan. 25.—In order to guess at what President Roosevelt is driving we have been trying to get a measure of his underlying philosophy. In preceding articles we have decided that he embraced the social objectives of the new liberals without asking too closely how they are to be achieved, and the reactionary objectives of the conservatives who favored the idea of an economic world ruled by organized business groups, without any suspicion of the contradiction involved. Before trying to guess where these views are leading him, it is necessary to look at Roosevelt, the politician. The President's talents are exercised largely in his relationships with other political leaders. This talent leads him to think of all problems in terms of politics rather than in terms of social and economic values. An issue he believes to be a question about which two or more men disagree. The way" to settle an issue is to bring the disputants together and get them to drop the discussion. The fact that the problem persists does not seem to occur to him.

HUS in 1933 various groups demanded various kinds of inflation and still other groups bitterly opposed it. The President put all kinds of possible inflation into the Thomas amendment. That pleased the inflationists. Then he refrained from using the powers conferred. That pleased the antiinflationists. He settled the question of inflation by making all sides happy. But meanwhile we drifted into inflation.

According to Heywood Broun—

Enlisted Man Should Constantly Bear in Mind That the Cause in Which He Believes Is of More Importance Than Any of Its Leaders.

EW YORK, Jan. 25.—When a leader is lost the

they do not play too important a part in the formation of his policies. The important objective is almost invariably a political objective and involves getting along as well as possible with men of every shade of opinion. The New Deal is referred to as a plan. Of course it is no such thing. It is an effort to give every group what it wants without asking whether the demand fits into a consistent plan or not. Thus the NRA went careering for nationalism while Mr. Hull was sent to London to re-establish international trade. The AAA included almost every kind of farm relief proposed in the last twb decades. The Utility Holding Company Act has a death sentence in it, but no execution. The examples are endless.

HE President’s technique has been to adopt vigorous laws or to utter bold threats to please the liberals and to have weak enforcement to please conservatives. He has pleased the liberals, but he has failed completely with the conservatives, who are far more discerning and practical than their liberal opponents. In the meantime the greatest failure has been in achieving solid, effective economic reforms. But these failures have been obscured by the recovery. People attributed the recovery to New Deal reform measures, but actually it was due to only a single measure—the spending of borrowed money. For that reason the recovery wasn’t sound and now it has failed. One more point remains to be cleared before atJenne to gauge the President's course, and that

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fault lies in part with his followers. Many men in history have fallen shamefully, but it seems to me that these unfortunates should have the right to cry out to their critics, “Why did you raise me up so high?” It must be apparent that there is a grave tendency to confuse principles and personalities. Scripture advises us not to put our trust in princes. I think the

same thing holds true of political and economic leaders. Captains are necessary, and no cause can get far unless there are those who are willing to go along with some person or set of persons who seem to be moving in the desired direction. Just the same, even in the heat of battle it is well for the enlisted man to keep his fingers crossed. He should constantly bear in mind that the cause in which he believes is of far greater importance than any single individual. This is not merely the counsel of captious suspicion; it is common sense. There is a thing called death. Even the finest leader is mortal. Man should never hang his hat upon a heartbeat.

UT short of dissolution, accident or change of mind, it is silly to try to evaluate important tides merely in little profiles of the men or women currently in the headlines. There are newspaper readers who have been led to believe that “New Deal” and “Roosevelt” are synonyms, and that the Committee for Industrial Organiza be spelled out more simply

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I mention two individuals who seem to me to give brilliant service to the causes which they represent, but they are fractions in the complete scope of the objectives to which they have dedicated themselves. I must confess that I am a little worried because recently a piece was “called to my attention,” as the phrase goes, in which a man accused me of being “given to periodic crushes on strong men and move= ments.” ” ” ” rr this is true it is a grievous fault and I must do something about it. But the same commentator then went on to attack an organization in which I take part on no better grounds than his estimate of my own infirmities of character. It was, on the whole, a somewhat charitable pore trait. I could a tale unfold which would be far more horrendous. I am not attacking the amiability of my opponent, but his logic. I thoroughly agree with him that no cause should stand or fall upon the fact that it is led by some strong man of winning personality. But the converse is true. No cause should be chucked out of the window simply on the ground that any one of its proponents happens to be an idle fellow, unlettered in anything save cafe economics. When such a criticism is raised the answer might well be, “So what?” It could be even shorter, but in that case I would be compelled to plagiarize from the famous epigram which a fellow newspaperman threw in the face of Mayor Frank Hague of City,

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