Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 April 1938 — Page 14

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ROY. W, HOWARD

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Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1938

OUR YOUTH MOVEMENT

N° certain European countries youth. movements mean

+ young men and girls tor's big bass drum.

in uniform marching to some dictaOur own youth movement appears

to be a milling about in search of jobs and careers in a land short of both. : : ; The American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education gives the results of interviews with

. 18,628 young people

between 16 and 24. Although all were

residents of Maryland, the commission considers them typical of the 20,000,000 persons of that age in the United States. ’ |

An overwhelming majority were in making a satisfactory living. Mos

primarily interested

were dissatisfied with their wages and the type of work they were doing. Less than 47 per cent had full-time jobs, and many had given up the search for employment. More than one-half who had not gone ‘beyond the eighth grade

said it was because of economic difficulties. every five lived with their parents or relatives.

Four out of Almost

half of the 3000 who were married lived with parents or

relatives.

Most of the unmarrie

raise small families. “If there is anything at which to wonder,” says the report, but that they are not a good deal more befuddled and bewildered than they are.” To answer American youth’s bewilderment, of course, is to make ours once more a land of opportunity for those of all ages. We cannot afford to delay in this task. A great mass of jobless and thwarted young people is an open invitation to demagogs of the right or left to try to exploit their fears and hopes and mobilize them into moyements with sinister designs on democracy.

TAXES ARE STILL LIKE TOPSY : THERE are honorable precedents for the letter which or Governor Lehman of New York wrote to the Senate Finance Committee, in protest against the Federal Govern-

ment gobbling up all the tax revenues in sight. In January 1932 the then Governor, of

“it is

not that they are befuddled and bewildered,

New York,

Franklin D. Roosevelt, said: “Today . . . everywhere the executive and legislative officials are seeking new sources of revenue and to nearly all of them is being brought home the forgotten fact that sources of taxation are not without limit and that these sources of taxation cannot with impunity be tapped simultaneously by every kind-of government.” Complaining that Federal, state and local governments, at the same time, were taxing incomes, inheritances, commodities, corporations and property, Governor Roosevelt concluded: “The result is confusion; the result is bitterness; the result is unfairness. We have no system; we have no de-

~limitation.

Federal and state governments vie with each

other in taxing the same source. . . . The whole taxing system of America must be put on a business basis.” And in November 1935 President Roosevelt told the U. S. Conference of Mayors, at Washington: “Taxes have grown up like Topsy in this country. There have béen a great many efforts to simplify taxatiop, to establish lines of demarcation between the different types of $axation, giving certain types to localities, others to the states, and still others to the Federal Government. “We are stepping on each other’s toes, especially in the past five, 10 or 15 years. In fact, virtually since the beginning of the World War the general tax situation in the United States has become not only more complicated but has called for revision. We haven't had a revision and I think the time is coming, not this coming session of Congress, but the following year, when all of us can get to-

\ gether and sit around a table and work out a better system | of taxation, state, municipal and Federal.

Late this_winter

. we are going to ask you to come down and talk about that subject around a table.” : If the round-table conference ever was called, it escaped our attention. Certainly nothing has been done to eliminate overlapping taxes. : And now Governor Lehman justly complains that al- : though state governments have essential functions to perform they are precluded from exercising their independent taxing powers. One result is that state governments have to depend upon the Federal ‘Government to perform what formerly were congidered state functions. - :

Obviously the states cannot reassume

their responsi-

bilities so long ‘as the Federal Government continues to poach on the states’ tax preserves.: And the Federal Government cannot return to its former limited sphere of activity until the state and local governments do reassume their responsibilities. x And that’s a pretty sorry picture, considering the time “hat has been spent in Washington studying and legislating taxes.

DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT

HREE years ago a new method of treating cancer was announced in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association. The Scripps-Howard Newspapers at once sent their science editor, David Dietz, to talk with the inventers of the treatment. Mr. Dietz was unimpressed by the gew discovery and so reported. pit Today, five investigations by as many Government agencies are under way as the result of the deaths of 11

patients in Orlando, Fla., after receiving this treatment.

r. Dietz,

three years ago, expressed the opinion that

the new method needed much more investigation than it had been given, that further experiments were advisable before the treatment of human patients was carried on. During the last three years he has frequently emphasized that ‘surgery, X-rays and radium were the only proved

treatments for cancer. ~~ No ~~, Barly diagnosis and treatment byone or of th g ¥ Sok % at the ve

a combination

t of those with jobs |

d wanted to marry and"

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Nearly 400 Questions About the Robinson-Patman Act Are Answered By Patman Himself in a $4.50 Book.

EW YORK, April 7.—Dun’s review for the month of March contained a column advertisement of a book by the Hon. Wright Patman, member of Congress from Texas and author of a law whose ambiguities seem to spring from the very soil of his s» homeland. Mr. Patman comes from Texarkana, Texark, which has—or used to have—two city halls, one on each side of the Texas-Arkansas boundary and a Federal postoffice balanced nicely astride it. In the terms of the too-ofttold definition of the Wash ington banquet orators, Mr. Patman’s home town is a civic mugwump, with her first syllable on one side of the border and her second on the other, and his * avorite law, by his naive admission in a magazine for businessmen, teeters in the same manner. “The Robinson-Patman Act,” the advertisement

b by Wright Patman, member of Congress. : «This first-hand authority deals with "questions arising under the act from the standpoint of those who must do business in accordance with it. Answers nearly 400 questions as to the effect of the law on specific trade practices, covering all sorts of distributing arrangements, setting of prices and discounts, fixing sales territories, location of warehouses, selection of wholesalers versus your own salesmen, etc.

8 8 = ; ANY questions go into complex, difficult points, 4 involving nice interpretations and consideration of the extent of the law. On all Mr. Patman gives his opinion on how to operate legally and advantageously under the act’s provisions.” : Much more wordage is required to describe a book

which men and companies endeavoring to sell a pair

of overalls or a package Of prunes are required to do or refrain from doing certain things ‘under various

"penalties, including imprisonment, possibly, at the dis-

cretion of the director of prisons, in Aleatraz. I have seen Alcatraz from a safe distance in the last few weeks, and it does seem a trifle extreme to threaten men with immurement there for violation of an act one of whose parents admits that it is capable of “nice interpretations” but would induce his customers to operate “advantageously” within its provisions as he perceives them. ” ” »

O longer ago than last June Mr. Roosevelt passed some rather harsh remarks about citizens who operate within the provisions of the income tax law, but “advantageously.” He took the position that it was immoral and unethical to operate “advantageous ly,” and here now. is Mr. Patman counseling the citizens, at $4.50 per copy, to take advantage of his law according to his interpretation. Yet he offers no guarantee that the advantages which he points out for $4.50 will be upheld by the courts. Naturally I have not read the Robinson-Paiman Act, but in view of Mr, Patman’s venture into the ever more popular Washington field of commercial litérature I am curious regarding one specific question. In tliat section of his law governing the book trade did Mr. Patman make it a criminal offense for anyone having bought a $4.50 book to lend that book to a friend, thus doing the deserving author out of his royalty of 671% cents? :

Business By John T. Flynn

‘A Continuous Flow of Inventions Is Necessary for Vast Investment.

EW YORK, April 7—Oneé of the phenomena which has most baffled the spectators of these last 10 years is the gradual tapering off of investment practically continuously during the entire period. The Administration has an explanation handy— the rich are trying to discredit the Democrats; the banks won't lend; capital is on strike. That is sheer nonsense,

Business has an explanation equally ready. The Democrats have destroyed the confidence of the people; they have dried up the sources of investment by their laws. - That also is sheer nonsense.

Maybe the trouble lies elsewhere. Maybe there are no investments. Of course I do not mean that there is arr utter lack of investment. I mean that maybe here are not actually available sufficient investments. 3

In this country investments are of two kinds. There are those investments which are made in the mere replacement of existing plant or in the normal development of existing plant. Then there are those investments which are made in entirely new industries.

Of these {atter—investments in entirely new industries—there are two kinds. There are, from an économic standpoint, two kinds of industries. There are those which offer new services but do not require or create very much new capital investments. There are those, however, which, in addition to the inveéstment necessary: to them, create new and many ‘flelds for capital investment.

Radio Required Little Investment

The radio and the automobile are cases in point. The radio is certainly an epoch-making invention, But it has not required much capital investment. The automobile, however, was different. It was a huge industry in itself, employing vast numbers of people. But it was more important in the industrial and economic consequences it produced. Can it'be that we have made a mistake to assume that inventions will continue to flow along as regularly as the seasons—not only inventions but invest=ment—and employment-making inveritions? It begins to look that way. There is plenty of place for new investment now. But what we overlook is that the maintenance of our general standard of prices and wages required not merely investment. but vast investment. And this requires new investment-mak-ing inventions and a continuous flow of them. If this is true we had better begin to adjust ourselves to this possibility.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson :

HE best argument against the super-Navy bill, . recently passed by the House of Representatives and now pending in the Senate, comes from Europe. Those who can write and speak with authority say that a general war is not likely to break out soon because nobody over there is prepared to fight. It is assumed that if the nations already depleted by the last militaristic stampede can get their finances strengthened, the continents of Europe and Asia will plunge pellmell into another war. . One of the best means of committing suicide is to have your pistols primed. It is not enough for us to hate war. We must look at it realistically as a means of defeat for everything worth while in civilization. It is no longer possible to win anything with armaments or even to depend upon them for defense,

which rides Europe's rules as they contemplate a other war interlude. They are all shivering in inal

So long as our statesmen refused to co-operate: to preserve world peace after the Versailles Treaty, and were Too much in favor of isolation to belong to the League of Nations, they'd better think twice before they strap on their guns now. Everybody said then that we ought to mind our own business and let Europe look after itself. If that was good advice in 1920 it’s better advice today. And we don’t need a super-Navy to protect ourselves at hone. SE

SO THEY SAY

War is the eternal enemy of democracy, the friend

selling at $4.50, which is required to explain a law by

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIM

Oh Yeah By Talburt

egins. “What you can and cannot do under thislaw, | :

P0SS-THERE AINT NOBODY | = HERE BJT US CHICKE NS

The Hoosier For 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—V oltaire.

E/KIRK MKINNEY SAYS NAMES CONFUSED By E. Kirk McKinney Since the publication of the

“Machine Busters, Inc.” advertise-

ment, I gather from what a number of persons have said to me that I have been confused with the Frank E. McKinney who was mentioned in the advertisement. This mistake has been due, probably, to. my association. with the former administration of Reginald H. Sullivan, under whom I served as President of the Board of Public Works.. I am proud of this association, 4m an ardent admirer of Mr. Sullivan, and intend to do everything I can to help re-elect him as Mayor of Indianapolis. Frank E. McKinney and I are not associated, either in business or in politics, and we are not in any way related. : ” ” s 8 URGES SMALL BUSINESS NOT FIGHT SHAKEUP BILL By W. 8S. T. Former President Hoover, returning from Europe, admits in effect, that the full employment of capital and labor is no longer possible on account of the destruction of international commerce by trade barriers. : There are now four possible ways to meet existing conditions: First—~Conquest of rich, new territory for development and exploitation, if such could be found; or its equivalent in subject populations, like India, or in overseas dominions. This, . Mr. Hoover naturally rejects. Second—By Government taxing and spending to employ the idle in public works or preparation for war. Third—By a better distribution of the national income so that the nation can consume what it produces when it employs the idle. Fourth—Preserving the present system based on monopolistic profits

and sweat-shop wages, with the].

is curious | that the middle class, the small |’ businessmen and property owners|

bayonets of fascism.

In view of the fact, it

are again trying to telegraph and letter-write themselves out of existence, as many of them did on the holding company bill, to promote the further centralization of finance and | industry. It is curious that the small businessman is unable to see that it is concentrated economic power that has been destroying him-—not cone centrated political power. Political power now seeks to reverse the

(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.)

process by which small business has been almost exterminated. Yet small business is joining in the cry of “dictator” to keep political power paralyzed by division into 49 im-

potent parts so that it will be unable to curb the rapacity of some nationally operating corporations. Small business should be the first

to resist the return of control of

American Government to men who are not elected by, who are not responsible to, and who cannot be removed from power By the votes of the people.2 8 » READER GIVES DEFINITION OF INDEPENDENCE By Another Reader A Frankfort reader says that voters are nob attracted by mere Jndependence. He is quite right, but I think his statement brings up a very interesting question. Just what is meant by independence? Particularly independence in a gov‘ernment officeholder? Definitions vary: For the Frankfort reader it means to “do as you please irrespective of its effect upon others.” 80 construed the word is narrowly personal and selfish. If it has reference to any officeholder, he is not worthy of his trust. A ‘better term would be headstrong, unruly, or self-willed. is narrow definition cannot and

APRIL DAWN By M. P. D. A gleam of light Across the .sky. . CGHlory of dawn Uplifted high. Colors of gold and rose From starry night unclose.. The Pageant of light : In heavenly flight.

nih

DAILY THOUGH And he withdrew himself into Sue wilderness and prayed.—-Luke :16. .

HE deepest wishes of the heart find expression in secret prayer. —George Rees.

should not .be applicable to any holder of public office. A man elected to an office has a duty to perform and must have a ‘loyalty toward his constituents. That née essarily ‘comes first. S80 what we mean by independence of an officeholder is an independence in the discharge of his duties in the public interest. Senator Norris is one of the inde-pendent-minded statesmen, Yet no one can say that at any time he has not acted for the public welfare, or that he has “done as he pleased irrespective of ‘its effect upon others.” }

charged his duties to Indiana citizens and the nation. Before you can display the “courage of your convictions” you must

edge to develop somé convictions. Also the term includes a personal integrity which is based on.strong character. fay . Independence = means, too, the mental ability to perceive the excel« lence or dangers of the sponsor. Independence is now cowed into submission by threats of defeat, unpopularity, or reprisals against its honest and studied conception of good and truth. .

2 2 2 : SEES LITTLE. BENEFIT IN JOBLESS COMPENSATION By Gene Scott, Newcastle In reply to your article “Business and Labor Praise Jobless Law,” I wish to state that it may be highly. regarded by big business, but I

don’t believe it is supported by small business, and I know it doesn’t have

to think its great feature is its failure to pay the present jobless, and its promise to pay the man who may lose his job in the future. I think

weeks and months is the person who needs the benefit. This would be welcomed by the merchants and would relieve welfare agencies: Mr. Jackson's investigators said they couldn’t find an instance where employers were laying off men to avoid their becoming eligible for unemployment inSurance. He should have sent them over to his old home town where one corporation laid off 406 men an March 31. The men who were ot laid off asked: to lose the time which these men needed to qualify, but the management would not agree to anything. - In my opinion this is another law which was intended to help the laboring man, but due to the 810 clause, it has injured rather than helped. : :

and nothing provés the point more than the fear |

beds, no matter how they strut in the streets. A

of communism and the father of fascism.—Senator| A

Ep 1 “wou |

YOUR OPINION

By DR. ALBERT EDW.

nt 3

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

ARD WIGGAM

your: are; but in choosing a vocation both you and your employer want to find out what. you are now and what you can do, not what your ancestors were or did. :

» » ”

| » JOHNSON O'CONNOR, “hue

~man engineer,” has designed a test of “finger dexterity.”. It consists of a short board with 100 small holes, and a shallow tray at one end containing 300 pins. The test is to

see How. quickly one can pick the pins up, three at a time, and fil

{hem into the 100 holes. More wom-

3 en than men do this test well and

‘experience has proved that these

* | women, as a rule, make better filing | clerks than men.

2 a 8

: A IT HINDERS recall, according |

' to Dr. Knight Dunlap, Johns

: Hopkins psychologist, in his impor-

tant book on “Habits—Their Making and Unmaking.” He points out that the effort to remember sets up inhibitions and, so to speak, hide currents of hight that positively 1

block the d ‘item from

| ine | Jittery, we would be free of debt.

‘there would

Senator VanNuys, tod, in being | independent minded, has better dis- |:

have the brains and a broad knowl-f. .. 2% $ the br al : “miraculous ‘and supernatural. I remembered that for

the approval of labor. 4 Mr. Jackson and Mr. Clive seem |

the man who hasn't worked for |

_be preferred, whereas in:

ively | into consciousness. He advises. i

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1988 ,

Gen. Johnson

N= ‘YORK, April 7.—The next Washington

miracle with arithmetic is the startling discovery that, although we have been running into debt for seven years and borrowing by billions—presto! we nave no debt at all. zo a The argument is that if a commercial corporation borrows a million dollars and buys a million dollar fagtory—while it writes the million dollar debt down on its balance sheet as such—it also writés its new million ‘dollar plant down as an asset. One cancels out

‘| the other and so there is no “net” debt.

* But when the Government borrows a million dollars to build a dam across Sk ;

that debt but not the dam and so shows a million dollars in the red where a private corporation. would show no debt at all. If, then, the Government would merely tise accepted business bookkeeping, instead of showa 40 billion dollar debt which has all of business

Furthermore, the Government has vast possessions, battleships, fortresses, national parks, great public buildings, millions of acres of land, a lot of monéy owing to it from private debtors. If all these wete set up on its books as assets tomorrow, instead of a debt 1 be a colossal credit—maybe as much as 50 billions. : : eT : : 2.8 8 “a T= merry conclusion should be warbled with a “hey-nonny-nonny- and a hot-cha-cha.” With all our extravagant spending we don't spend half enough! We should get busy dishing out the billions twice as generously. It is like a very ancient Louisiana Negro chant: “And when ah wants some money, ah runs up in my writin’ desk.” What's the matter with it? Property is no asset unless it earns or is salable. Otherwise it is just the reverse of an asset. It is a liability. ; This is true of neariy all Government property. Uncle Sam couldn’t sell a battleship to pay off a bank and. the bank couldn't foreclose. What would a bank do with a battleship? That is. equally true in busi-

ness. Many companies carry millions of dollars in gainst fewer millions of debt—and

bricks and mortar are dismally busted. Their assets dont earn. railroads are a pesfect example,

The

1 T {sn’t the nuinber of ciphers on the debt that make

it bad and dangerous. It is the difficulty of paying

"installments when dine and the growing burden of | colossal charges in interest and hence in terribly bure

densome taxes that break down confidence and reduce buying power. . : It is true that thé Government has some liquid assets like well-secured interest-bearing loans that could be written' bff against the gross figure in cof sidering the debt. But it also has contingent liabils ities: and commitments in even greater amount. We can’t “run ‘up in our writin’ desk” and escape our ‘debt and money problem by juggling figures in a balance sheet. Based on the whole of financial history, our debt is dangerously expanded and should be reduced by economy and prudent government,

lt Seems to Me By Heywood. Broun

Mooney's 22 Years Behind Prison Walls: Have Not Caged His Spirit.

EW YORK, April 7—Coming back from the city of sleep, oné passes through: a little death of dreams before reaching reality. ‘And this time the dust of the dream was heavy upon me. 2

But presently it was easy enough to put aside th:

‘almost a Week I had been carrying in my pocket a letter from Tom Mooney. j . The letter from San Quentin said, “The case represents things bigger than any one individual, and certainly the casé has greater and more far-reaching significance than my own weltare as one man.” -It was sighed, “Tom Mooney—31021.”

No. 31921 was right. P i» 2

But it is also true that Mooney remains an individual as well as a symbol. They have pinned a nume ber upon him, but he is still a man. I choose to discuss things which may not be relevant. There is a school of thought which seeks to. justify a great injustice by the use of the angler’s apology. Spokesmen for this side admit that the prisoner is not guilty, but they add that he has been in jail so long that he really doesn’t mind it. So why worry about the whole affair? Sanh _ He has now served 22 years, and it has been said, with what seems to me a perverted pride, that the old man is no longer set at hard labor. And, again, an

‘ effort has been made to celebrate the generosity of

Ameriéan justice by asserting that special privileges aré accorded to him in the prison. Sometimes he is allowed to leave his cell and walk the entire length of the corridor. an J

Me Is in There Fighting :

It may even be that his feet have worn a pathway in the stone. And so, if I understand this theory, while justice has not beén done. it has been approxi mated and everything is fine and dandy. : . The only trouble with this doctrine lies ih the fact that it simply is hot true. Mooney has flung himself against. the bars for 22 years. All sorts and conditions of men have fought for his freedom. As conservative a gentleman as -George Wickersham drew up an eloquent plea in his defense. Radicals, liberals, progressives and phonies have had their say. But the leadership of the fight for Mooney always has been in the hands of Tom Mooney. They have not caged his spirit. _- ; Fr u No man is more passionate for freedom. - Here is a general who has kept at the head of his forces although locked in a cell. To the authorities of San Quentin he may be 31921, but no American is better known to the workers of the world. And they know him as Tom Mooney. Yi People who think he should have accepted the boon of parole do not. understand the quality of this man. When he comes out of jail it will not be on his hands and knees. ‘He has kept his head up.

Watching Your Health By Dr. Morris Fishbein Seg |

LTHOUGH the League of Nations may have failed in many of its other activi health organization has made some fundamental reports. that have been of the Syeagest value thr ut the. world in disseminating information and in estab. lishing standards. FE A In order to establish particularly the important teria on the hygiene of housing, eommitteés were: up in all of the co-operating nations. These committees sent scientific di jo the central organiza tion and there are now available some_scientific reports which indicate the fundamental factors in establishing hygienic housing: = .. - ; One of the main purposes of housing is to protect

seem to 5, the

‘the human being from discomforts and danger due to

The human being is sensitive to sudin temperature. The condipose obviously vary in difis good for the northern parts of the United States is not at all suitable for the southern portions. Furthermore, in different parts of the world people become accustomed to different standards. . : With the temperature, however, it is important to recognize the fact that air movement is essential. In the United States, very slight air movement seems to : there must not be any

heat ahd cold. den and serious changes tions necessary for p ferent parts of the werld.

air movement at all in ti

England, the experts : not to exceed 80 feet differ as to:h recent aspect of me

3 developed for messuring

Sy of 10

Creek, it writes down

vicinity of the human