Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 February 1938 — Page 10

PAGE 10

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Ep Rlley 5551

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TUESDAY, FEB. 8, 1938

ENOUGH : | HE A. F. of L. executive council at Miami considered expelling 10 unions which had been suspended for joining the C. I. O., but acted against only three—the United Mine Workers, Flat Glass Workers and Mine, Mill & Smelter

Workers. That, according to President William Green, was decided to be “encugh at present.” The mine workers’ convention at Washington last week, with John L. Lewis presiding, struck from their constitution all reference to A. F. of L. affiliation and talked of trying Mr. Green on charges of encouraging dual unionism. So it was logical for the A. F. of L. to even the score by expelling three C. I. O. unions, and it was logical for Mr. Green to resign from the Mine Workers, of which he had been a member for 48 years. But we think the country is getting pretty tired of the brand of logic which moves the leaders of organized labor's two big factions to exchange public insults at every opportunity. We agree with Mr. Green that the A. F. of L. has done “enough at present.” And the C. I. O., also, has done enough. Obviously Mr. Green and Mr. Lewis aren't interested in making peace. But surely it isn't too much to ask that they should drop doing things to make peace impossible.

WHITHER HITLER? HE “superconcentration of all power of the nation in the hands of Der Fuehrer—that is to say, the unification of its military, political and economic strength,” as Nazi spokesmen phrase the latest coup in Germany, may

vet rock the world. Precisely what this means no outsider can now say. Only time and events can tell. In Germany all news is completely controlled. Nowhere on earth save in Soviet Russia are speech and press so completely muzzled. Even foreign correspondents—and some of the best are stationed in Berlin—are only too obviously groping for the answer. But one thing, at least, is certain. No matter how much camouflage the official explainers may employ to conceal it, the shake-up is a sign of division, therefore of weakness, rather than of unity and strength. The Reichswehr, or Regular Army, is now pretty much back on the prewar basis. As reconstructed, it is approximately 700,000 strong. Its leaders are mostly from the old Army, schooled in the tradition which produced soldiers of the type of Field Marshal von Hindenburg. Between soldiers like these and the cocky Nazi upstarts of whom Herr Hitler himself is one, there cannot possibly be much love. Even if the Fuehrer has come out on top in the present bloodless purge, and even if the disciplined officers’ corps stays put for the time being, pent-up resentment will likely grow with repression rather than disappear. In other words, while the crisis of the past few days may have passed, the underlying causes remain. Thus instead of sitting on top of the world, as the Nazi strong man may fancy himself at the moment, it may turn out that he is perched on the edge of a volcano. If Herr Hitler, on the other hand, has finally and definitely put the Germany Army in his pocket, Europe had better look sharp. For trouble very likely is ahead. The peace of Europe, strangely enough, is safer in the hands of Germany’s goose-stepping military men than in the hands of an undependable fanatic. After all, the generals are a hardheaded lot given to figuring out their chances mathematically with pencil and paper. Whereas the Fuehrer, who retires to his mountain to commune with the Teutonic gods, is perfectly capable of plunging the world into a new sea of blood on a whim. A week from next Sunday—on Feb. 20—the Reichsfuehrer is scheduled to address the German Reichstag. The Reichstag is a dummy parliament whose only job is to meet and listen to the Fuehrer. And he calls it together only when he needs a sounding-board for some pronouncement. The world, therefore, will await the next meeting of the Reichstag with more than a touch of anxiety. And with reason.

THE COURT SERVES WELL BY holding that decisions of the National Labor Relations Board must be based upon “adequate” evidence, the U. S. Supreme Court seems to have eased the pressure on one of the sorest spots which has developed in administering the Wagner Act. This has been the acceptance by some trial examiners of evidence which could not possibly pass muster in any court—hearsay and opinion and rumor and fancy and what-have-you. The Wagner Act holds that testimony need not be governed by the rules of evidence, but the Supreme Court declared that the Board's eventual findings shall be based on “adequate” evidence and that the Circuit Court of Appeals shall determine such adequacy. This may mean a ~ great change in the conduct of Labor Board hearings. The character of evidence acceptable in ‘a hearing has heretofore depended too often on the individual whims or opinions of the trial examiner, and in some cases it has run almost the complete gamut of opinion, belief, supposition and rumor. There ‘has been a feeling that the Labor Board, alone of all American Governmental agencies, approached the tactics of foreign espionage services, in that almost anybody could go to it and whisper evil about an employer and have it seriously accepted—and that when the issue came to trial the defendant was denied legal safeguards recognized in other types of hearings. Therefore, we think the Supreme Court has again performed valuable service in behalf of the Wagner Act by defining the kind of evidence upon which Labor Board ‘decisions can be based, and by providing that the Circuit

Court of Appeals shall determine whether or not it is 4 I aitane te i : j tmout eal

uate.

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

A Gentleman Operator in St. Paul Gets Thanked for the Telegraphy He Once Taught an lowa Beginner.

HICAGO, Feb. 8.—The Morse telegraph operators are a noble but vanishing breed done out of their jobs by the coffee grinders which can push copy along at an average rate of 45 to 50 words a minute.

The coffee grinder falters at nothing, where Morsemen dropped their average through necessary pauses for unusual words or combination of figures requiring special care. Not many years ago

the only mechanical telegraph device in the United Press office in Chicago was the ticker, a nervous contrivance of buzzing gears and rubber letters and numerals inclosed under an inverted gold fish bowl, which supplied the stock quotations and, along in the afternoon, the baseball scores. It was an evil gadget and it sired the suave, cold-blooded teletypes of the present day which N have all but extinguished a trade A 8 : which, at its best, was something REN of an art and mystery. The Morsemen sitting around the Mr. Pegler outside of the rim, jiggling their bugs on the West wire or catching the report off the East, were oblivious of the fish bowl and unaware of any omen in its waspish buzz and rasp. » » »

ODAY, in the office of the U. P, there are only three Morse men left and only one working a wire. He is the Postal man. The other two are Roscoe Johnson, the chief operator and former president of the union, whose job is executive and technical, and Tom Curran, in the business end. Mr. Curran was picked green in 1917 when many of the grown men, including Mr. Johnson, who had soldiered in 98, rushed into the signal corps and away. Although still a novice he was thrown into a job as a fully qualified Morse man in Charles City, Iowa, a busy wire because the Hart-Parr Tractor Co. was beating plowshares into swords for the Government. He faltered badly, and one day the man who was sending from St. Paul broke into an army blurt of those vivid consonant groups with which Morse men can insult one another over long distances. “You are no gentleman,” Mr. Curran replied. “Oh, you are a lady?” the man in St. Paul asked. “Excuse me. I will go slowly and carefully.”

HE gentleman in St. Paul—for he was indeed a gentleman—thereafter sent only nice round dots and nice long dashes, and Mr. Curran was really learning telegraphy. He refused to answer Chicago or Sioux City, forcing them to route their stuff through the gentleman in St. Paul. The gentleman asked the lady's name and was told that it was Miss Dorcas Wing. He wrote and Miss Wing wrote back. He asked for her picture and pes, Der failed to answer. ventuaily the gentleman in St. Paul he had been drafted and was on his IR ig Boney used to write and failed to answer even s lone etters fro i uh AIRE y m France signed “Your Mr. Curran hopes that the Gentleman in St. came back and thanks him for his patient Hd in telegraphy and hopes that he will forgive all. He was really up against it,

The Hoosier Forum

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

*

ANTILYNCHING BILL SEEN AS VITAL NEED By M. B. Why talk about Americanism when those who talk about it don’t practice what they preach, as, in my opinion, those who were opposed to the Antilynching Bill. We Negroes of America are just as much Americans as the whites of the South. Their forefathers were immigrants and ours were brought here by some slave-trading forefathers. The Constitution guarantees every citizen a citizen's rights. Then if the whites of the South deny the Negroes their rights they are violating the very thing they swore to uphold. The Negroes always have answered their country’s call nobly. They have bled ahd died for a country which allows a few degenerates to burn, to mutilate and hang certain of her citizens who happen to be of a darker hue. We Americans should not spend money sending missionaries to foreign countries to promote civilization. What we need to do is to send them down South. The Negroes only want that to which every man is entitled: a right to work at the trade for which he is best fitted and to receive the same decent treatment any other man desires. We realize that we have some of our own race who are criminals just like any other race. But they should be dealt with as criminals by the laws of the land. A nation divided cannot stand. Other countries know what is going on here. If an American citizen is insulted in a foreign country, some of us want to start a war. Just look what they do to Americans in America. So we of the Negro race think the Antilynching Bill is very vital for the good ot America.

» » ” READER CITES GROWTH OF ‘ANTIDICTIONARY’ MEANINGS By W. L. Ballard, Syracuse, Ind.

For years diplomats, statesmen and others (hereinafter called “they”) have experienced "difficulty in agreeing on the meaning of even staid old words like Americanism, democracy, peace, war and .neutrality. Now come Dorothy Thompson, Stuart Chase and the British monarchist, Aldous Huxley, with studies calculated to straighten things out, or else to wreck the whole dictionary, making all word meanings debatable again despite usage. It all began with Einstein's “relativity” and his curved-straight world. Or take the Russian Revolution. We might have called the Russians “Socialists.” “They” taught us the untranslated “Bolshevist” instead of majority-Socialist as opposed to Menshevist, or minoritySocialist party. Did “they” intend

Business—By John T. Flynn

Economist Sees Good Reason for the Selling of Dollars in Europe Since Neither Government Nor Business Mas Any Recovery Plans.

EW YORK, Feb. 8—It is always a pretty good hunch that in times of stress, when statesmen and businessmen reveal no real specific plan against the continuance of depression, the money theorist will come forward with the never-failing remedy. Those who speculate in money, as others do in stocks, have had their eyes peeled for this phenomenon lately and this is the reason, of course, for the selling-of dollars which has been going on more or less quietly in Europe, where there is always much more gambling in currencies than here, A glance at the general situation seems to indicate very plainly that the Government has not only no program ‘whatever respecting the depression, but not even a vague suspicion of which way it ought to go. There is not the slightest doubt that Washington is in a complete drift. = = = is also true that business is without any recovery program. There is an immense pother about the capital-gains tax and the undistributed-profits tax. But this is merely the clamor of tax-conscious groups to free themselves from some uncomfortable levies. Whether the undistributed-profits tax is a sound tax or noi may be debated with something to be said on both sides. But that its repeal will have any effect whatever upon recovery is simply a childish

hope. \ + ‘With the Government and business seemingly both programs, with unemployment mounting and it is inevitable that

(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.)

to tell us the Bolshevist were free-

lovers and traded wives? If Russians were Socialists we might recall Gene Debs, dnd disbelieve! Then “they” searched to see who here was Bolshevist, who Menshevist, exposing the “parlor pinks,” remember? Then “they” tried to make morality mean “prude”; immorality “liberal”; they preferred flaming youth to thoughtful youth; footballers to instructors; pugilists to preachers. Thus “antidictionary” meanings multiplied, Came the Ethiopian adventure. Mussolini “defended” himself, and defined democracy as “any old government the people support” — Machiavelism. “They” changed ‘freedom of the seas” to “abandon the seas”; neutrality to “helping certain kinds of rebel aggressors,’ “peace” to “certain kinds of aggression.” Britain and all Scandinavia became “democratic,” though Tory. Co-operation between Britain and the United States ‘became “abandon our past.” So the process grew from a few words to many words and ideas introducing complete changes of front, strange ways of life. The small cloud now nearly obscures the sky!

It is time to crystallize it all into a “philosophy of change”? The Thompson-Chase-Huxley treatises factually pave the way for converting the process from a possibly conventional evolution into a conscious, systematic revision of all our vocabulary and ideas; a definition to end all definitions. “They” let the cat out of the bag when they said they seek continu-

ON CONGRESSMEN By R. M. L.

If those we ballot Congressmen To sit on Capitol benches, Could go equipped with statesmanship Instead of monkey wrenches, "Twould grease the wheels of Government, Save the taxpayers’ credit, But smooth and slick, they “politic” And say the public wants it!

DAILY THOUGHT OD is a sure paymaster. He may not pay at the end of every week, or month, or year; but

remember He pays at the end. — Anne of Austria,

ance of “world civilization” and “settled civilization.” That means, “continuance of the civilization we have been having.” It rejects all else, as “aggressive.” We have had “a settled civilization” for a thousand: years. It underlies nearly all our thought and action but repels “the more abundant life.” And now that new civilization threatens to liquidate the old civilization. Supporters of the old way of life, unable at once to openly avow their cause, slyly induce the changes in meaning of words and jdeas, and then utilize execrated methods of martial procedure; all to “preserve peace” and to “repel the aggressor,” Communist and otherwise. Is that the proper way for “they” to “save civilization?” And is it worth saving at such a price? LJ ” ” ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF LUDLOW CITED By Ludlow Supporter Friends of Rep. Louis Ludlow of Indianapolis may propose him as a compromise choice for the Democratic nomination for United States

Senator. The 12th District Congressman

now is serving his fifth term. In 1028 when Marion County first elected him to that office, he carried the county by a plurality of 6380 votes, while at the same time Herbert Hoover carried it by 36,000. His subsequent majorities have ranged as high as 32,000. In the last election he received more votes than President Roosevelt received in the same district. In a district normally Republican by an overwhelming majority no party lines are drawn when he is a candidate.

His political philosophy is Jeffersonian, and he has a strong flair for economy. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee in charge of the largest supply bill, he co-operated at the present session with President Roosevelt's economy program by reducing next year’s Treasury and Postoffice supply measure $175,000,000 below the appriations for the current fiscal year.

Ludlow’s friends say that if nominated he would be a sure winner and that his nomination would remove all doubt in advance about the result of the fall election. Ie introduced in Congress the first bill for loans to industries and he has a powerful support among businessmen. His efforts for peace have brought an amazing response from ‘the women of Indiana and the people in general. His relations with the others who are mentioned as candidates for the Senatorial nomination are friendly.

Gen. Johnson Says—

Gen. Benedict, Once an Average

Cadet at West Point, Should Make An Excellent Head for the School,

EW YORK, Feb. 8 -—“Mis-ter Benedict! Gitchachinin! Wipe that smile offya face! Gitcha shoulders back and make a collection uv yaself!” Something like that was among my first bits of table-talk with the new superintendent of West Point, Brig. Gen. Jay L. Benedict, and he was on the receiving end. He was my rear-rank file, which means he always marched behind me and stepped on my heels and that was customary conversation between an upperclassman and a plebe. Fourthclassman Benedict was a blue-eyed Nebraska farm boy with a perpetual smile on his face. He was an average officer. By “avers age,” I mean that there was noth= ing spectacular about him. In every West Point class there is a brilliant, well disciplined group that usually comes out at the top. They used to be called “the nice boys.” There is another Bolshevik group--sometimes brilliant and sometimes not — that usually comes out “goats” and were called and liked to be called, “toughs.” In between is a solid hard-working group for which there is no better word than “average” cadets, Gens. Robert B. Lee, George B. McClellan, P. T, Beauregard and Douglas MacArthur were “nice boys.” Gens. U. 8. Grant, George A. Custer, Malin Craig and Hugh S. Johnson were ‘‘toughs.” Gens. Stonewall Jackson, W. T. Sherman, John J. Pershing and Jay L. Benedict were “average cadets.”

Hugh Johnson

” » ” GREAT many people were surprised that Gen. Benedict was jumped over the heads of many older men of longer service, especially as he has no combat record. Even more were astonished to learn that he was made superintendent of the military academy, especially as he has no shining scholastic attainments. Nobody would have been surprised, who had stopped to consider the homely philosophy of the chief of staff, Gen. Malin Craig. Throughout his whole service he has shown a preference for this type of soldier and officer. None of his own spectaclar success ever went to Gen. Craig's head. I have known him to prefer some sergeants to some field officers. None of his selections for the staff and command of our Army have been of the sky-rocket

type. ” ” ”

E believes that the personality of the superine tendent sinks deep into the forming personalities of undergraduate cadets. Gen. Benedict has done well every job that he had to do. There is not the slightest smirch on his record of almost 40 years service. He is a kindly and considerate man of sweet and even temper without the slightest side, strut, pretense, or brass-hat and fuss-and-feathers traits of soldiering. Both officers and men are going to like Gen. Benedict and the graduates he produces will bear the print of his simplicity and thoroughness. I am glad he has announced he does not feel himself anointed to make the academy over. For its particular purpose, it has proved itself fhe greatest educational institution in the world.

According to Heywood Broun—

As Yet There Is No Long List of Trailer Poets, Novelists or Artists, But Sooner or Later a Longfellow Is Going to Step Out of a Sedan.

ARASOTA, Fla., Feb. 8.—The cities of Florida once

the clamor for expanded Government spending is going to be too powerful to be resisted. And it is also inevitable that the present Government will refuse to raise funds by taxation. It is also clear that the Administration is afraid of increasing the deficit. This points to a steady drift in the direction of any kind of money policy which will supply some easy method of getting funds. = = = is therefore a very fair suspicion that the Administration will yield first to those who want to spend the sterilized gold and then to those who want to spend the gold profit. The next phase will be the move to make the 59-cent dollar effective in our domestic economy. It is just a question, some think, of when the

pressure will start. At the moment we are in a deflationary movement. This is a perfectly natural phase of the highly unintelligent little inflation we have had and it is the phase which so many economists predicted would come when the Government credit inflation collapsed. Now, before long, the ery for more inflation will get under way. Farmers will resist falling prices. Labor is determined to make a death stand against wage reductions. The President likes the idea of higher prices. He has aban‘doned his “low price” war and now says he is for his original objective of the 1926 level. There is, there-

fore, good reason for the speculation of those who dollars, |

been selling

looked upon trailer tourists as a nuisance, but nov they are accepted as a boon. Of course, this mew feeling of friendliness has not yet hit the hotel men; with the possible exception of a bad check there id nothing a hotel man hates as much as a trailer. But the other merchants of the town are reconciled, and, indeed, Sarasota boasts that it has the largest trailer camp in the state. Nine hundred cars are assembled in one spot and they contain something like 2000 persons. A few years ago the folks who came from the North in trailers were regarded as mechanized hoboes. Their philosophy and economic status were misunderstood. Florida has come to realize that trailer tourists represent purchasing power. Not only do they come on and spend, but with very few exceptions they are not competitors in the labor market.

® = =»

Es little ambling homes are inhabited by the most conservative group in America, for the trailer owner generally is a small businessman or white collar worker who has found it possible to retire through a pension or accumulated savings. He is not young and he is not rich or anything like it, but he has reached a blessed estate in which he feels security. A good trailer may cost around $2000, but after that capital expenditure the rest is cheap and easy. It will be well for America if the trailer tribe increases. This is a new leisure class of folk who have worked hard to earn their peace of mind. As yet there is no long list of trailer poets, novel-

ists or artists. It may be that the contraption itself

‘escape, so that the ‘impulse is dulled

by too much satisfaction. And yet I think that sooner or later some Longfellow will step out of a sedan and give to the world quiet songs of contentment, There are certainly plenty of old gentlemen around trailer camps who look exactly like him. Indeed, one of the chief functions of the trailer seems to be the preserva= tion of the American beard and whiskers. This is not the life for the youthful. Out of 2000 persons at the camp here there are hardly more than two dozen children. Personally, I would like a trailer for my old age, but I don’t want to be compelled to carry a house upon my back for at least another two years.

» n »

Jr now my notion of a good life would be to travel with a circus. And so after inspecting the trailer camp I went over to say goodby to the elephants in winter quarters. I realize that they will not remember me when I return next year, but I was concerned about Clara. Clara was very ill yesterday and could scarcely stand up. But this morning there she was splitting a bale of hay with Liz and acting as chipper as usual. When I expressed surprise to Larry Davis, the head man, he said, “It was simple enough. I cured Clara with an old circus remedy. You remember how weak she was at noon and she wouldn't eat anything. Well, I gave her two quarts of whisky and two gallons of mineral oil around 1 o'clock. And for her supper I gave her one gallon of mineral oil and one quart of whisky. And now you can see she's just as well as ever.” I ‘don’t see how even an elephant could take all . No