Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 May 1938 — Page 18

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PAGE 18

~ The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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reau of Circulations. RIley 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Thelr Own Way

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1938

AS GOES FLORIDA ...? FFORTS to interpret the Indiana local primaries in terms of national significance seem rather weak. Certainly there was nothing in the results as a whole to indicate any swing away from the New Deal. But, on the other hand, they do not indicate a definite New Deal mandate, for several of the Democratic Representatives who won easy renomination have conflicting records in recent New Deal votes in Congress. The case of Florida, however, is different. There the senatorial primary result was a clear Rooseveltian victory. Senator Claude Pepper stands by everything the President has done and has tried to do. He won by a wide margin over the combined vote for four other candidates. Rep. Mark Wilcox, who has opposed the New Deal almost as consistently as Senator Pepper has supported it, was a poor second. So Florida will return a 100 per cent New Dealer to the Senate. Administration Congressmen also won most of the contests in Alabama. Only in South Dakota, where Republican voting was heavier than Democratic, was there anything that might indicate a shift in sentiment. Democratic Chairman Farley is, we suspect, a trifle premature with his boast that the President's prestige, in his party and in the country, is shown to be as great as ever. This political year is still young. But we think it's not too early to venture a few opinions. For instance: That chances for passage of the Wages-Hour Bill have been greatly improved. Senator Pepper has fought for wages-hours legislation, Rep. Wilcox against it. Some other Southern Congressmen may take a hint from what happened in Florida. That candidates running for Congress on platforms of opposition to the New Deal need something more than that. They'll have to convince the voters that it's not Mr. Roosevelt's objectives, but his methods, that they're against. And they'll have to offer better methods of reaching those objectives. That those who, going to the opposite extreme from Mr. Farley, keep trying to count President Roosevelt out as the leader of his party and of the country, are deceiving themselves and making a serious mistake,

FRANCE TIGHTENS HER BELT BEC AUSE of widespread unemployment, stagnated trade, a stalled industry, an unbalanced budget, an overload of taxes, mounting expenses and the growing danger of war, France has found it necessary again to devalue the franc. This time the drop is from about 32 to the dollar to 35.80. The Government nets a paper profit of about $750,000,000. But that will not be enough. An additional $450,000,000 will have to be borrowed for national defense. Premier Daladier says this devaluation is definitely the last. We hope his optimism is well-founded. For a strong prosperous France is vital to the world’s future. But it will take more than franc devaluation to restore France. Her ailments are more than monetary. “The truth is,” said Premier Daladier, “our economy is deeply shaken. Legitimate profit is tending to disappear. Unemployment is increasing. Our unfavorable trade balance is impoverishing us, and our production statistics remain a humiliation for all Frenchmen.” In all this, perhaps, there is a lesson for America. Behind France's difficulties lies political and social unrest. Industry and labor are not pulling together. Labor groups are at odds among themselves. Production costs mount as home consumption decreases and exports fall. And so on. Americans will watch developments in France, hopeful that her chief troubles will soon be overcome. For any weakening in the lineup of world democracy in these critical times will imperil the entire front.

A WISE INVESTMENT

T is impossible to put a cash value on what the Civil Liberties Committee of the U. S. Senate has done in the last two years. The committee, headed by Senator La Follette of Wisconsin, has spent $90,000. Looking back over its record, it seems to us this has been one of the wisest, most profitable investments of public money. The worth of the returns on it, those already visible and those certain to come, must be measured in terms of great gains for those freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution but, in fact, denied to many Americans by vicious practices that have grown up within the nation’s industrial and political systems. Much is said about the rights of free speech, free press, free assembly. The committee has worked intelligently and effectively to restore and protect such rights, not for newspaper publishers and others who are reasonably able to defend themselves, but for citizens and groups which have been most in need of defense. It has exposed illegal and dangerous strikebreaking practices; the violence-breeding professional labor-spy racket ; police brutality in strikes; the shocking alliance between industrial feudalism and official lawlessness in Harlan County, Kentucky. The La Follette Committee is now asking the Senate for $60,000 to continue its investigations and to prepare reports and recommendations for legislation. Certainly that is not too much. There is an immense amount of work that the committee should do, in and beyond the field to which most of its efforts have been devoted. We believe, for instance, that it should go into the wholesale assaults upon constitutional rights under Mayor Hague in Jersey City, and that it should examine the terroristic activities of labor racketeers. Hard times breed intolerance, suppression, violence. The rights and liberties of citizens are under attack on many fronts. The country cannot afford to let the La Follette Committee's spotlight be turned off for lack of

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Washington

By Raymond Clapper

Wise New Dealers Won't Feel Too Smug Over the Victory of Pepper, Whe Cheered for the Townsend Plan.

ASHINGTON, May 6.—Both Democrats and Republicans were surprised—each in a different way of course—by the spectacular vote-pulling magic which Roosevelt's name carried in the Florida Senatorial primary. Those much-worn Roosevelt coattails were still strong enough, after five years of hard service, to pull young Senator Claude Pepper through with a clear and handsome majority over the com-

bined vote of his four opponents. Senator Pepper, who was for Mr. Roosevelt, right or wrong, 100 per cent, received more than 200,000 votes. Rep. Mark Wilcox, who opposed the Court plan, wages-and-hours and reorganization, who said he was for Mr. Roosevelt only when Mr. Roosevelt was right, received about 105,000 votes. Senator Pepper's majority over the combined opposition was about 45,000. td » ” VEN the optimistic Democrats had doubted if Senator Pepper could win a clear majority and they were fearful that in the runoff Mr. Wilcox and the others would combine and beat him. Imagine their relief to discover that Senator Pepper doesn't have to go through a runoff. Republicans were left practically speechless. About all that they could salvage was put into a phrase by Senator Vandenberg, who said that Mr. Roosevelt and Dr. Townsend would have to shake dice to see which won. That crack was based on the fact that Senator Pepper, in addition to taking a firm stand on the Roosevelt coattails, also thought it advisable to take oui extra insurance so he made a special appeal to the old folks, who are particularly numerous in Florida, by cheering for the Townsend Plan. He didn't need that extra insurance and it is a pity that he climbed out on that limb. Nevertheless, even if you make large allowance for the votes which his Townsendite views gave him, still his majority was too overwhelming to be explained by that alone, After all Roosevelt was the real issue.

“- &» = UT wise New Dealers won't feel too smug over

the Florida result. The spectacle of Senator Pepper lauding the Townsend Plan is not any too reassuring. There is a strong “gimme” influence at work in American politics today and it is not One official estimates that Government checks are going into 20,000,000 homes. Considering | the families and relatives affected, that is a tre- | mendous portion of the population, a vast group of | direct beneficiaries. Gimme appetites grow bigger. There is no point of satiation, no natural brake against the competitive bidding of politicians who seek votes by offering to enlarge Government favors. It is not current spending that presents the problem so much as the future and permanent political effect of candidates trying to outbid each other with Government checks. There's an opportunity for conservatives here. but they haven't been able to see it. They are so busy hating Mr. Roosevelt that they can't see what makes him tick politically. British conservatives have found the technique for dealing with exactly this kind of situation. But our fellows over here are so convinced that theyre right that they won't take the trouble to find out whether they really are. Consequently they take a beating year after year.

Business By John T. Flynn

It Is Only the Lucky Speculator! Who Can Profit From Inflation. |

EW YORK, May 6.—Many readers have asked for | a fuller statement of a comment which appeared | here a week ago about the stock market and infla- | tion. That comment was “to let the stock market | play its own games with inflation. The reader should | keep away from the market.” One letter puts the matter this way: “I always thought that the only way to safeguard one's savings in the event of inflation was to put them into sound equities. Where are these to be bought save in the stock market? If I do not do that what can I do | with my savings?” Now of course if we are threatened with inflation and an investor can buy a stock for $50 which, when the dollar is devalued and multiplied, may go to $150 or even $200, he can not only preserve his equity but actually increase it. This seems so eminently a wise thing to do that readers wonder why anyone should | caution them against it. The whole idea is founded on the assumption that with inflation money values will increase. And this is true. The difficulty arises entirely out of the ordinary man’s inability to know what equities to buy.

What is generally overlooked is that while the ! property money values of a corporation may be greatly increased by inflation, the corporation may also be wiped out. Inflation not only reduces the purchasing power of bonds, but it also entirely ruins the business of many enterprises.

Business Not Stimulated

It all comes down to this, that a man can save his equity best by speculation. But does he know how to speculate? In a period of inflation and threatened inflation the game of speculation is more baffling than ever. Thus, for instance, great numbers of people swarmed into the stock market in the latter part of 1936 and the early part of 1937 to buy stocks on a rising market because they were told inflation was near. Great numbers have already lost the savings they were trying to protect against inflation even before the inflation has arrived. Inflation—-once it begins to spark vigorously—does not stimulate business. It tends to stimulate only certain kinds of business—consumers’ goods. Capitalgoods industries are flattened out because money is not available for loans. Such industries are usually wiped out. Inflation is a bad thing—bad for everybody, worker, investor, manager. Only the lucky speculator makes anything out of it.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Sry per cent of the country’s wealth is now in the hands of women, although you'd never guess it from a visit to Congress or any state legislature. Although the most stubborn male tories believe

that special legal privileges should accompany massed wealth, they are not fair enough to apply the principle when women have the money. Without doubt they will continue to play their petty political games while the roof is falling upon the heads of all of us. If they run true to form, they won't be satisfied until the whole structure has been wrecked; and as usual they will then expect the women to behave nobly and pick up the pieces. Women actually pay 80 per cent of the nation’s inheritance taxes, which recalls that grand old slogan so beloved of all patriots, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Can the men be so brash as to insist that our sex now has adequate representation either in Congress or the legislatures? In this respect our claims of being a democracy do not hold water. It’s all a bit ironic. Especially when you remember that a large part of such riches has been signed over to us because a good many men didn't want to pay their honest debts and so put laws upon the statute books which exempt them from doing so when they

can prove that they've given their property to their wives. In reality some of the best of men, those who have slaved to safeguard their families financially and have walked uprightly all their days, are victims of a | childlike faith that everybody can get ahead of | everybody by grabbing a major share of goods which are needed by all, and that if one business concern succeeds in wrecking another business concern it will be money in the wrecker's pocket. Anyway, Honorable Sirs, how about giving us legal ‘rights to match dir financial powers?

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Taking Him for

NE we

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1988

a Ride P—By Talburt ¥ PO gros

The Hoosier Forum

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

CRITICIZES BAN ON SUNDAY CIRCUS By William W. Garstang

Seldom, if ever, have supposedly well meant efforts gone so ilar

astray as in the action of the Board |

of Safety in barring the perform-

ance of Cole Bros. circus on Sun- |

day. Unquestionably, there are sands of mothers and grandmothers

who would like nothing better than |

to take their children and grandchildren to the circus on this coming Mother's Day.

It seems aiso very regrettable that |

a group of earnest young women, the Auxiliary to the Indianapolis Orphans Home, should find their efforts of three or four months swept away by the act of a narrowminded group of ministers and members of a Board of Safety. The Auxiliary to the Indianapolis Orphans Home is a group that provides for the recreation of the orphans in the Orphans Home. The sponsoring of the circus each year furnishes the money for worthy undertaking. In all fairness the work of these young women should not be in vain this year and if definite action relative to the

{ future performance of the circus is

to be taken, it should be postponed until the coming year so that adequate advance notice could be given. Cole Bros. Circus is managed by a group of sincere and competent businessmen and certainly there can be no reason why baseball games and motion picture theaters should be permitted to operate on Easter, Mother's Day and other Sundays and yet their business enterprise be barred. The above opinions are given by an impartial observer who dislikes to see a minority group actuated by selfish and narrowminded motives completely dominate plastic city officials to the extent of wiping out the entire year’s income of a conscientious social organization which in turn definitely will hamper the well being and happiness of the children at the Indianapolis Orphanage, ” 5 » SCORES RESURFACING OF CLIFTON ST. By P. 0. B. Why did the City push so tenaciously the widening, resurfacing and street railway track reconstruction of Clifton St.? This was a once-paid-for, paved street, in good condition, 10 squares long—leading from nowhere to nowhere in particular. Of those 10 squares, the

City was interested only in seven— |

the exact route of the trackless trolley from 34th St. to 27th St. It won't do to hide behind that one abutting property owner's pe-

thou- |

this |

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conMake

your letter short, so all can

to express views in

| . 1 1 | troversies excluded. | have a chance. Letters must

| be signed, but names will be

| withheld on request.)

| tition. The opposition, inquiry and | remonstrance by affected proverty owners met with no response, scant | civility but plenty of evasion. The Acts of 1937 (pp. 924-925) ac|cord owners of abutting, affected | property voice in these matters— | yet the Works Board refused such | persons voice at the | Brandt enjoining silence from such legal protestees, citing they did not reside therein, making them spec- | Sators only at their own hearing. The Act does not specify ‘resident’ owners. Ignorance of the law ex- | cuses no man—certainly not a pub- | lic board. | The joke is on the property own- | ers who get to pay approximately | $3 per lineal foot for this uglifica- | tion and damage—the price, possi- | bly, of their own defeat and finan- | cial disaster, What does our fair city want—more charity cases? on » » ‘THESE ARE TRYING TIMES, | READER SAYS [By F. R. | Three officials of the Port of New York Authority, whose salaries | range from $8500 to $14625 a vear,

| are before the U. S. Supreme Court |

| trying to get out of paying Federal | income taxes. | Also before the Supreme Court {are the University of Georgia and [the Georgia Institute of Technol{0gY, trying to keep the Federal [Government from collecting taxes on their football-game receipts. Even the Federal Government it-

TO MOTHER By ROBERT O. LEVELL This day as all the other days, We think of dear Mother today. For all your love in many ways We now and forever repay.

In thoughts of you we love so well, In our message so deep and so true Right from the heart, so we can tell For how much we really love you.

DAILY THOUGHT

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. —Psalms 71:1,

E trust as we love, and where we love. If we love Christ much, surely we shall trust Him much.—T. Brooks.

hearing; |

self is trying to pull a fast one on its own tax collector. A committee of conferees, representing the Sen{ate and the House, will soon under- | take to draft the big tax-revision | bill into final form. The bill passed | by the Senate contains an amendment inserted by Senator Borah, forbidding the Federal Government to issue any more tax-exempt se- | CH. But Administration lead|ers are trying to kill the amend- | ment, apparently because it would | mean that the Government might

'Gen. Johnson Says

The 'Conservatives'' Course Was

Successful for 140 Years, and the '‘Liberals'' Has Failed for Five.

ASHINGTON, May 6.--As official streamlined trust-buster and business-baiter, Prof. Arnold, insists, one of our greatest sources of error is that we think in symbols. A man is a “liberal.” That is Newdealese for “fricd of the people,” “enemy of monopoly,” and “pathfinder to prosperity for the underprivileged.” We have a symbol called “business” and that means the same as “intrenched greed.” “selfish profit-seek « ing” and “utter indifference to the welfare of the whole people.” The reverse of “liberal” is “cone servative,” which stands for “political tools of privie lege” and “minions and mercenaries of ravening wealth.” The symbol “consumer” doesn’t mean all of us who consume—which is everybody. It means the “one-third of us who are ill-fed, ill-housed and ille clothed.”

our new

" % ® E this symbolism, our principal political and eco nomic problem is never primarily to restore our economic system (business) to such prosperity, ree employment, comfort and health as would make this country a decent place in which to live. No! Oh, no, It is a symbolic battle of virtue against vice, It is a drama in which the “liberals” fight the “conserva« tives” to strike “business” to the earth so that it can no longer take its terrible toll from the “consumer.” We are not like the principal European and Asiatie countries, We have everything. We normally not only make, but also consume, per person, from 5 to 10 times what they enjoy, Yet. Just now we are sufferIng as much or more than they. There is some exe cuse for their paralysis. There is none whatever for ours. It is now directly traceable to just one thing--the crazy svmbolice mummery with which this piece began, We have a prosperity machine here. Its name is business. What is the duty of government to try to make it work by releasing to it its accustomed Juice and fuel? Or is it, first, symbolically to dramatize it as a curse and then take it apart and put it together again, or seize and try to run it?

» 5 ” INCE Jan. 1, 1937, this Administration has elected the latter course. This depression is the result, | That is clear beyond question, But it is now said that | a recent softening in the hostile “liberal” attitude toe [ ward “business” should make everything all right. The President's “monopoly” message is cited because he did not recommend that “business” be torn limb from limb. He didn't. He only suggested that a couple of bureaus be authorized to study how best to tear it limb from limb, Can it be possible that the “conservatives” who

want to release “business” to its proved and normal functions, and who know how to do so because they have done it, are 10 to a thousand times better friends of “consumers,” the “unemployed” and the “submerged third,” than the “liberals” who thus far have nearly ruined them? At least their prescription worked for 140 years and the new dispensation has failed for five. As a statesman and politician, Mr. Roosevelt is without a peer. As an economic leader, the world has never seen a worse,

| have to pay higher interest on fu- |

ture borrowings. All of which recalls made many years ago by | Leeper. old-time Oklahoma {and politician: “These are trying times. Everybody's trying to beat his taxes.”

” ” n COUNTRY NEEDS RECEIVER, READER DECLARES

By H. L. 8. What this country needs is a receiver to liquidate our wild oat debts. Governor La Follette launches a new party to give us a Governmentowned banking system. Heaven help us if it does banking like the RFC, which tossed billions of dollars out of the window to bankrupt borrowers. The private banking system is bad enough in its operation in regard to losses, but what could be worse than Government loans to | corporations and individuals that cannot qualify for credit with private banking. Seemingly the Govarnment only lends on dead horses.

a remark

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Of course our whole credit struc- | ture is cockeved. Our gold base for | credit is buried in Kentucky. The | Government guards it zealously for | the privately owned Federal Reserve | Bank. The manufacture of credit does not come under the blue sky law. Yet this very thing is more important than all the gold buried in Kentucky. Credit money had a circulation of 1100 billioh dollars in the trade of 1929. However, the total of real money in circulation that year was only five and one-half billion. Business is done with only a small volume of real money. Over 90 per cent of all trade is carried on with bookkeeping credits, checks, notes and drafts. Credit has become our real currency. It has of course been overextended to enable consumption of goods before the buyer has earned the credits to receive the goods. We have written consumption on the cuff. That is as bad as pyramid holding corporations that toppled on Samuel Insull. Much of this is still to be written off before we can have recovery.

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM ] and that most city occupations re-

THE STORY OF

CEE IE es Ta on ) ) C Ie fab AY ON MY Pedr IN THE 6TORE

"WELL, DAD, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE ©OT THEM

COULD PUT YOUR FEET UPON THE DESK LIKE THE

MANAGER." YOUR OPINION ______

COPYRIGNT PBF JON FILLE co

1 This question illustrates nicely how heredity and environment always work together to cause any inherited tendency to show itself. The tendency for the bones of the arch to give way seems clearly inherited but the defect is brought out by & great deal of standing.

PyecuoLosisr save YOU CANNOT FORGET YOUR DEFEATS AND UNPLEASANT

MEMORIES.

YOUR OPINION css 2

WRITES, NX INO MATTER HOW MUCH INTELLIGENCE -

WOMAN HAS,

SHE 16 NOT E TO USE~ IT MUCK AFTE " YOUR, OPINION IA oF

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For example, the English Army records show about six times as many Jewish as non-Jewish soldiers have fallen arches. It would stretch scientific credulity to believe the Jewish people inherit this tendency more than other races; but we do

know they are mostly city dwellers

J

quire much standing. This would surely be the most promising theory {o explore, before ascribing it entirely to heredity. " » »

THIS QUESTION goes so deep into the problem of how we learn and how we forget that I truly hesitate to discuss it so briefly. In a general way probably all psychologists would agree with the above opinion, yet, so good a psychologist as Knight Dunlap says we can help ourselves forget things by making a strong effort. Also, as the Freudians say, we can “sublimate” unhappy memories—that is plunge into experiences and interests so that we at least shut them out of our conscious minds, although the Freudians claim they are still kicking around in our “unconscious” minds, and trying always to make trouble. I'm not much sold on the latter theory.

» » ¥ THE VERY IDEA, Mrs. W.M.! Why, unless a man beats his wife too often, nothing stimulates her intelligence as does a nice, live husband. He acts as a pacemaker to her intelligence. Of course, she can't hope to keep up with him, but her efforts to do so keep all

her mental cylinders clicking as

Graves |

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

What on Earth Does Mr. Aldrich Think Congress Has Been Doing?

EW YORK, May 6—Winthrop W. Aldrich runs the bank where I trade, and so I wouldn't like to offend him. It's a nice bank and everybody is very polite, particularly the young lady at the window where you go to ask, “Have I still got any money in this institution?” Nevertheless, I am not for the two or three-year “breathing spell” for business which Mr. Aldrich ads vocated in his speech before the Washington meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. It seems to be Mr. Aldrich's idea that reforms have come too rapidly and that there ought to be a long holiday for assimie lation, modification and consolidation But I wonder just what reforms the chairman of my bank has in mind. Surely he cannot refer to any legisiation passed by the present Congress now sitting in cold molasses session. Its record is entirely bare of any constructive move whatever, Indeed, in many cases it hasn't even been able to summon sufficient energy or courage to take a vote. Mr. Aldrich wants “a period of pause and quiet. ™ What on earth does he think Congress is doing right now? If he had ventured into the visitors’ gallery during the so-called debate on the antilynching bill, the distinguished chairman of the board of the Chase National Bank would have seen a chamber quiet as a lonely grove after the mob has gone. It was more than a pause. The democratic proce esses of the American Government had come to a complete stop. I wonder what our Representatives do at night which makes them sleep so soundly during sessions.

Danger of a Coma

But how about the submerged third of the nation? It is nonsense to talk of a breathing spell of two or three years when so many are engulfed by the waters of depression. Two or three minutes are a long time to stay under. It has been said that a physician who prescribes for himself has a foel for a patient, I wonder whether this may not be true of certain business leaders as well. Every time a New Deal proposal has been killed upon the floor or quietly strangled up an alley, conservative commentators have hailed it as a great

victory for business. If the various blows which Congress has heaped upon reform measures are really encouraging to busi ness, why doesn't business quit moaning and climb out of bed? It is my notion that a few more victories such as the stoppage of the Wages and Hours Bill will send industry into a coma.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

UR attitudes toward teachers depend naturally on the kind of teachers with whom we wers associated in our youth, There seems to be a sort of general point of view that teachers are weaklings suffering with headaches, irritability, nervousness, dyspepsia, sex complexes and premature old age, Mod« ern teachers have become seriously concerned about this point of view, The National Education Association has ‘made available a consideration of the health of teachers, It provides the results of investigations and examse inations made in various places to answer some of the questions that naturally arise. The leading causes of poor health among teachers are like those among people in general. They include incorrect habits of personal health, physical handie caps and weaknesses, excessive work, improper facili ties in schools, diseases caught from pupils, accidents and unfavorable environment and relationships, Based on a record of the absences of teachers over a period of two years, it is found that influenza, tonsilitis, colds, nervous troubles and disorders of the female functions are chiefly responsible for absences, There seems to be some evidence that teachers’ health is improving regularly along with that of the

health of the rest of our people. They are losing iess time regularly from their work because of illness, Nevertheless from 15 to 20 per cent of teachers lack the kind of vigorous health that is needed to make them good examples for the children and to give them the kind of complete efficiency in their work that comes with really good health, y : Some improvement is desirable if simply to prove the lack truth in the statement that they do nos

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