Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 May 1938 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1938

A TOO-COLD RECEPTION HE U. S. Chamber of Commerce convention this week had a fine opportunity to make a generous gesture toward organized labor, thereby helping to allay the bitterness of management-worker relations in many sections. But, as all too often, the U. S. C. of C. muffed the ball. The American Federation of Labor had just issued a friendly statement, reaffirming faith in our system of “private ownership, private initiative and the protection of private property,” and petitioning industry for “teamwork” and “understanding.” It acknowledged freely that “the right to own and manage property must be conceded and safeguarded’—that investors in private industry are entitled to a fair return—that labor's contracts “must be religiously observed’—that “the real remedy for unemployment” is the revival of private industry. It invited industry to “discard the weapons of industrial warfare” and pledged labor's co-operation for peace. But the U. S. Chamber, claiming to speak for American industry, responded with a cold, standoffish, ambiguous

little resolution saying that “management and labor should

work together without recourse to the Federal Government on these things of common concern,” ete., ete. No mention of organized labor, unionism, collective bargaining. No mention of past mistakes by managements. Nothing about labor spies, strikebreaking thugs, tear gas and terrorism by private police—despite the shocking revelations of the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee. No promise to stamp out those vicious, trouble-breeding

practices. In companion resolutions, the Chamber opposed any national wage-hour legislation whatever and, after calling for a Congressional investigation of the Wagner Act, prejudged the investigation by advocating complete repeal of the Act. It might have done some good by confining its criticism to the Labor Board's lopsided administration of the Act and recommending specific reforms—for instance, giving employers the right to call for elections to determine which union represents the majority of their workers. But the Chamber has a way of being all thumbs in such matters.

” Ld 5 = = »

ORTUNATELY for the country, the die-hards on the resolutions committees of such organizations as the U. S. Chamber and the National Association of Manufacturers are not the real spokesmen for American industry. Other men, who stay home and keep their factories going, have long since recognized that organized labor, on a national scale, is here to stay and grow. And most of them have found that labor unions, when dealt with fairly and with confidence, can help work out industry's problems. In essence, the country’s management-labor problem is one of a state of mind. It cannot be solved in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. The A. F. of L. tried to clear the atmosphere; the U. S. C. of C. refused to help. When sit-downers and stay-inners at Bay City, Mich., and elsewhere defy their union leaders, break union contracts, disregard property rights; when agents of the National Labor Board show bias, as many have done; when uncompromising attitudes prevail on either side or both, the atmosphere thickens. Labor racketeering and jurisdictional strikes thrive, and violente and lawlessness make employers more adamant.

The one way out is the way already being taken by:

many farsighted employers who admit that organized labor must and can be dealt with harmoniously and understandingly. On labor's part, it is the way pointed in the A. F. of L.'s bid for peace. On Government's part, it is the way of recognition that Government can best serve all as an impartial arbiter and a helpful conciliator. England doesn’t have sit-downs, stay-ins and die-hard resoluting. The English learned long ago to adjust their “state of mind” to realities and necessities. There, management, labor and Government work together with mutual respect for separate interests and mutual concern for the common good. In our country, in one great industry-—the railroads— we have a working pattern of that state of mind. Why not follow that pattern in all industry?

FAST—AND GOOD—WORK

HERE was fast work in Congress yesterday. In two hours and 23 minutes 218 Representatives—a majority of the House membership—signed the petition to force the Wage-Hour Bill out for a vote. The record-breaking speed with which the petition was completed is gratifying. It emphasizes a thoroughly deserved rebuke to the eight members of the House Rules Committee who had attempted to thwart Democratic processes by keeping the bill from debate and action on the floor. Unless opponents resort to filibustering tactics, there should be adequate time for debate and action in both branches of Congress before adjournment. The bill, which will now come before the House on May 23, may not be perfect. But, unlike the Senate bill which the House killed last winter, it sticks to one simple objective and makes no attempt to put the country’s whole industrial system under bureaucratic control. It proposes a uniform standard of minimum wages and maximum working hours in interstate industries starting at 25 cents an hour and 44 hours a week and stepping in three years to 40 cents and 40 hours. Such a standard will not hurt business. It will help the whole country. It is needed now as a protection to lowerpay workers against the depression’s downward spiral of wage-cutting. The House, we judge, is practically sure to pass this bill. It should do that, taking enough time to debate and amend if amendments are shown to be necessary. And the Senate should then follow suit, so that the New Deal's promise of wage-hour legislation may be kept without more delay. : .

o ee ara pot un i

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Some People Are So Hungry for an Investment They Are Almost Ready To Wager on Automobile Numbers.

EW YORK, May 7~—I wish I knew something about money, banking and credit so that I could agree with Jesse Jones, or dispute him just as noisily, on his warning that the banks had better let a few bills into circulation if they don't want to be taken over. But all I know is that the banks have got so much “scratch,” as they call it around the horse yards, that a man who wants to squirrel away a little money for safe keeping these days is

treated like a customer at the peephole of an oldtime speakeasy. They want to know where he got it, why he doesn’t spend it, how long he expects to store it and how long it has been sinee his last deposit. They limit the amount he may keep in a savings account, and, further to discourage the fine old virtue of thrift, they pay less than he could earn by betting on a favorite in a New York handbook.

ND when they print their totals these figures read like the score by innings of a 17-inning game called on account of darkness. Yet, as Mr. Jones says and as Harold Ickes complained a few months ago, if a man wants to borrow a double saw to pay his alimony or dpen a new store they bar the doors and man the peepholes. Meanwhile, through Jim Farley's postoffices all over the country, Henry Morgenthau is shoving out Government bonds on the credit of an institution which some people say is practically in the hands of the sheriff right now, and people regard these bonds as gilt-edge investments. People who would storm the doors of a private corporation to demand a reorganization if they saw the chairman bite the end off a quarter cigar have complete confidence in the I. O. U's of a concern which, under their own eyes, has built boulevards leading to nowhere and in Florida recently pays $150 a month to a woman to supervise a “survey” of the value of the tourist trade, although the woman's family income is around $200 a week.

5 &% u

EY do this in the spirit of the gambler who played the gimmick wheel because it was the only wheel in town. What else is there to do with money? Put it in insurance, maybe? Then what are the insurance companies going to do for income with so much money around that the banks are almost on the point of charging a fee for dead storage? Put it into action in business investments? All right, what investments, with businessmen all singing the blues and the Administration threatening to use the borrowed money to start a subsidized rival peanut stand to undersell every private peanut stand. I just wish Mr. Jones or Mr. Hopkins would tell us some day about some good private industries in which an investment would pay a safe 5 or 6 per cent. Some people who do have any money haven't had any action for so long that they are almost ready to bet on automobile numbers. I had some money last year and bought some of Henry Morgenthau's mavourneens through Jim Farley even knowing that the boys would then turn around and give it away. But that's me. I even play slot machines, although I once saw an autopsy on one.

Business

By John T. Flynn

La Guardia Wisely Recognizes That

A Slump Can't Be Cured Overnight.

EW YORK, May T7T—Two proposals about our present difficulties were aired on the same day —one by Mr. Winthrop Aldrich, speaking the mind of business, one by Mayor [La Guardia, speaking for himself. Mr. Aldrich said that there should be a breathing spell for two or three years in which Government and business would recognize a sort of moratorium on reforms. Mr. La Guardia said that there should be named a committee of leading members of the great committees of Congress to sit during the recess and prepare a program for the next session for dealing with the depression. Businessmen have a sort of notion that our trouble can be settled, as Dr. Cameron of the Ford organization put it, by the Government's “withdrawing itself” from the business scene. This, they imagine, is a Government-made depression as the 1929 depression was a business-made depression. And since the depression was made by the Government it can be remedied by the simple expedient of the Government retiring from the picture. Mayor La Guardia takes the position that, as the country now faces a profoundly dangerous period of unemployment and as millions are being added to the ranks of the idle, there can be no question of discontinuing Government expenditures. But he adds that it is a great mistake to suppose that this is in a sense a cure. It is also a mistake to suppose that these expenditures should be continued with any view to priming the pump since they do not prime it. They should be made merely because they are grimly necessary, to avoid starvation to so many millions. But he cone tends that the limitations upon the utility and significance of expenditures should be courageously faced and that the Government should recognize that some positive measures must be undertaken to bring about a cure, if one is to be found.

Where the New Deal Erred

He wisely recognizes that the cure is not something which can be discovered and organized swiftly. This was the terrible mistake of the Roosevelt Administration as it came into power. Therefore the New York Mayor urges that Congress, in the long vacation interval, sit down calmly, quietly, but seriously with the problem, hear experts (not quacks), informed witnesses and authorities and work out, as far as their wisdom will permit, some constructive program for meeting this great crisis. This seems as wise a course as Congress and the Government can take. It is surely safer than abandoning the country to the vague hopes of business that if the Government leaves it alone prosperity will “rise like a new sun,” as one of them puts it.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

CCORDING to reports made public at its latest general convention, the D. A. R. is a multimillionaire organization. It's a big business first and a woman's club afterward and, as would follow, its membership is falling off, Unless drastic changes are made in organization principles, it will continue to do so, as a natural consequence of the changing times. A wide chasm separates the woman who once proudly donned her emblem from today's young matron, who takes all women's clubs rather as a matter of course and sometimes even considers them a bother. Her education has trained her to look for truth behind platifudes. College has endowed her with the faculty of getting straight to thé point of a question, and while she may join the D. A. R., you can be sure that she will not give it her whole al legiance. That is to say, she will also belong to several other groups. Worse still, the adolescent group now beginning college will be even harder to impress. They're a

bunch of realists who might all have been born in Missouri so far as their demand to get proof is concerned. The organization that holds them will have to move with more spryness than many of our present ones display. For these young women will want to live in the present and not linger in a remote past. Even a minor prophet may venture a guess that all women’s clubs will have to lay aside their bustles if they want to keep their membership rolls full. Perhaps it would be a good ghing for all to disband —dissolve—quit. We could gin over again then with less creaky constitutions and more determination to know where were going and to be on.our way. ; H ge ;

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ‘Some More Radical Stuff, Chief’—By Herblock 4 = i

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1938

The Hoosier Forum

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

HOLDS GRANDFATHER WAS LET DOWN By W. T. The Daughters of the American Revolution, having gotten back their breath after the dash of realism which President Roosevelt tossed at them the other day, are reported to be downright indignant over it. The President, speaking at their annual congress in Washington, gave them this text: “Remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” The Daughters, it seems, have been so busy remembering how long a time it 1s back to the Revolution that they've entirely forgotten that their ancestors were revolutionists. “Many of our members resented his remarks,” a convention delegate now reports. “We have been taught that our ancestors were pioneers and came to build up a good Government and not to destroy it.” Instead of getting all a-twitter, the Daughters might profit from the President's instruction. Great-great-grandfather Hezekiah may be a hero and patriarch from here, but to the British he was merely a ragtag troublemaker, ripe for the gallows. And how those old boys would be bored by some of their prim and housebroken descendants!

#2 » CLAIMS WAGE-HOUR BILL WOULD BE HARDSHIP ON POOR

By Voice in the Crowd Contrary to your editorial opinion, I wish to state that Federal reguiation of wages and hours would work a hardship on the poor and middle classes, and that it is destructive to democracy. Such legislation is the plowing under of human effort. It would add to the unit cost of goods produced, and thereby decrease the amount of goods consumed and hence decrease employment. This bill would put the available jobs in ‘the hands of the most efficient, and make beginners, low skilled and slightly physically defective men less attractive for hire. It would place on the jobholders the burden of supporting a people who should at least partially support themselves. No matter how earnest our sympathy may be, our feelings must be tempered by common sense. Rates per hour are naturally set by the price that customers will pay for the goods they consume, and hours of labor are set by the number of hours required by a man to earn his standard of living at the hourly

(Times readers are invited to express their 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.)

views in

rate which the customer is willing

to pay. Some men are worth more for six hours per day than others are worth for 10 hours per day. Tough as it may seem, every man should carry his own load. Nature has made differences in men exactly as it has in everything that it has created. Law cannot change this, but patience and education can. Whether or not a man works for a concern doing interstate business, his community status and requirements are the same, and it is not the duty of the national Administration to tell a man in Marion County how long he can work, or set his rate of pay. Our awakened Congress rejected this bill before and they should not be heckled with it now. If this bill ever does pass it will stand as an indictment against a once great people defeated by the political theory that by working less and paying more taxes they would have a “more abundant life.”

» ” ” PUZZLED BY SCARCITY OF WOMAN OFFICEHOLDERS By a Reader The coming thing is something

that is just beginning to arrive. It becomes definite that the coming

THE MAN IN OVERALLS

By VIRGINIA POTTER I like the man in overalls With a look of honest work; I never could admire the rich, Or the suave white-collared clerk; I like a smudge of grease or dirt Spread lightly on his chin. It really seems to symbolize Real work that will begin!

DAILY THOUGHT So they hanged Haman on the gallows they had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified.—Esther 7:10,

OD’S mill grinds slow but sure. —Herbert.

thing has arrived when people stop remarking about the fact that it's here. That it's here to stay, beyond any shadow of a doubt, becomes definite when people start remarking about instances of its absence. That makes it difficult to be certain just what conclusions to draw from the appearance of the story about woman officeholders in Berk-

shire County, Massachusetts. It seems that in eight of the 30 towns in the county there are no women who hold public office. Should this occasion surprise, or should the surprise be occasioned by the fact that the absence of woman officeholders in eight towns is considered an extraordinary enough situation to remark about? A few years back the notion of government by mother, wife, and sweetheart was simply comic-art material. But now look, look! When it's news that certain towns have no woman officeholders, it's going to be news before long when a mere man does hold office. It's enough to make the males throw their knitting through the window, ” ” ” COMES TO DEFENSE OF WOMEN’S HATS By E. W, More and more people are getting more and more tired of women’s hats as a subject for public comment, but the talk made at Colorado Springs by Frank Lloyd Wright does demand brief attention. The substance of Mr. Wright's remarks about women’s hats was that they were terrible. The word he used was “monstrosities.” Mr. Wright's name is probably the most familiar in the world of architecture to people who are not themselves architects. His contributions to the field have been great. Numerous of his ideas have become architectural truisms. But only a little while ago he was too much for the conservatives to stomach. He was ahead of the rest. People called some of his buildings ‘monstrosities.” The field of female hattery, Mr. Wright, is like any other field. Monstrosities do bob up, but sometimes it turns out that they weren't monswrosities at all, but a little ahead of their time. Now certainly you wouldn't want the art of hat design to become static, any more than architecture. Once it's static, it's

dead. Let's not have any more about it.

SO BETTE DAVIS, screen star, says in a recent magazine article. She says if she had been beautiful she would not have made the supreme efforts to do real acting that

actresses—Rachel,

she has. Few of the immortal ga

)

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGA

‘ Aa WRITER GAYE PEOPLE N INGECORITY,

70 DO THEIR BEST WORK. TRUE Pa

— FACE cn

4 [Louie ANGPACHER, DRAMATIST, HAYS SOME PARENTS THN THEY EXIST FOR THEIR CHILD= REN'S BENEFIT, OTHERS THAT THE CHILDREN EXIST FOR THEIR BENEFIT. WHICH |1© THE BEST PARENTAL IDEA?

Siddons—were beautiful in the ordinary sense, although probably all had that distinguished type of beauty that appeals to the artist. All artists, for example, consider Abraham Lincoln as one of the most

Duse, Bernhardt, beautiful men that ever lived, I. child

MIND

certainly do. Flagstadt does not appeal to me as beautiful—until she begins to sing—and then you forget everything this side of heaven. And Bette Davis’ acting affects me—and I think everyone else—in much * same way. I rather think she. feminine beauty would detract from her great personality. 8o with many women.

” » » I WONDER when people will get over the fool notion that worry, anxiety, fear of the future

and general emotional turmoil are the best conditions for mental activity. Nothing paralyzes one’s mental powers as does insecurity. True, one can whip himself into line but he does so at immense physical and mental strain. The idea is psychological tommyrot. Some types of distractions, such as noise, slight punishment, etc., are suspected by psychologists as stimulants to mental effort, but general insecurity is not one of them.

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BOTH are sheer nonsense and exaggerated sentimentalism, as Doctor Anspacher would agree. The first plan makes the children cowards, afraid to face life, and the second makes them either egotistical and dominating or childishly dependent. -Apron strings that stretch either way are detrimental to good training.

Gen. Johnson Says—

Communications Commission Hasn'f

The Job of Passing on the Quality Of the Nation's Radio Programs.

ASHINGTON, May 7.—At the Town Hall ree cently, Mr, David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America, stuck his neck out, protesting any tendency toward Federal censorship of radio programs as a dangerous interference with the constitutional guaranty. of free press and free speech, just as Mr. William Paley, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System, had done some weeks before. He cited the fact that whether it be the great radio chains or small individual radio stations, they must go before the Federal Communications Commission to have their licenses renewed every six months. If that means that when these great public conveniences come to that dreadful bar of justice, they can be wiped out of existence merely because that body hasn't approved of something said or sung in the preceding half year, what becomes of freedom of speech in one of the most effective media of speech invented since the printing press? Mr. Sarnoff was not as emphatic as this but I'll tell you what becomes of it. It goes with the wind. For saying what he did say, Mr. Payne excoriated Mr, Sarnoff. ” » ” DON'T agree with those who say that the radio is a competitor of newspapers. I think it is a feeder of newspapers and greatly increases their prestige, advertisement and circulation. Against any such regimentation of a flow of facts and comment to the American public, it seems to me that the newspapers should be as aggressive as against any regimentation of their own news and editorial columns, Of all the commissioners, my sympathy has been with Mr. Payne. It pains me to crack him. But apparently when a man gets tarred with the stick of bureaucratic impudence, nothing can tame him, Mr. Sarnoff didn't accuse anybody of attempting to censor programs. He merely quoted the law that the Commission is sworn to enforce specifically with holding from them any power of censorship whatever, » ” n R. PAYNE seems to plead guilty. to an intent te exercise censorship. He attacks Mr. Sarnoff for not apologizing for the Mae West-Charlie McCarthy program and of “arrogance” in protesting against radio censorship. His whole attack is centered on his dissatisfaction with the quality of radio programs. I hold no brief for many radio programs. Jazz, swing and such seem to me as moronic as they do to Mr. Payne. Many other features nauseate me. But I know plenty of intelligent young people who seem to eat up that kind of stuff. What I like or what Mr, Payne likes, is of no im= portance. The public at large approves the diversity and excellence that is made possible only by public patronage through the three big radio chains. If the public did not like it, those chains could not exist. The laws against lewdness and libel sufficiently take care of really objectionable publications as they do in the newspapers. The rest is a matter of taste, Nobody has yet been anointed as arbiter elegantiarum on that subject. Certainly the board which Mr. Payne adorns has not been set up for this purpose. If it has any uncertainty on this point, it is up to Congress to set it straight.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Love-Making Just Hasn't a Chance In This Hectic Era of Machines,

EW YORK, May 7.—With regret and almost consternation I learn that the new type of Fifth Ave. bus is to have a roof at the top of its second story. This is going to play havoc with love=making, which has been on a rapid decline in recent years. Some of my younger friends assure me that it still goes on in a sporadic way, but there is scant evidence to support this contention. Here is May, and all the freshets of lyric poetry which used to come tumbling down are dwindling. A veteran hacker says that in more than two years he hasn't heard the direction, “Twice around the park slowly.” He blames it on international politics. According to him, the modern boy and girl sit on opposite ends of the seat and debate collective se= curity. One of the prettiest girls: he ever saw discussed the TVA with her young man all the way from Times Square to 139th St. Surely this is no time to be putting a roof on the busses. There is certainly something in what the taxi driver says. The new generation is certainly more serious-minded than the ones to which you and I belonged. It is too much to hope that they will ever be as gay and larky as we were. But there are mitigating circumstances. It isn't Just international politics, The machine age and modern city planning are deterrents. When transportation went under ground love flew out the window. There is no courtship of any consequence in the subway. No man can whisper soft nothings on a Bronx express.

You Couldn't Blame Her

I even think I see a decline in sentimental inter= est around the city rooms of newspapers. Thirty years ago the woman reporter was a shy and frightened little creature who did society news and garden notes. Possibly my memory deceives me, but I seem to see her as wearing gingham and putting up her hair on the top of her head in a bun. It is not so today. The last time I took a lady reporter out to dinner was some years ago. I had a corner table in a little French restaurant in the Vilage. She took a Martini instead of the tomato juice which I suggested, but she apologized by saying: “I had a pretty tough assignment today.” “And what event did you cover, my dear?” I asked with elderly benevolence. “They sent me up to Sing Sing to do the electrocution of the four gunmen,” she responded. We are still good friends, but the acquaintanceship has never ripened into romance,

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

N a study of the health conditions among teachers in the United States, the National Education Azsociation has given special attention to the health practices which teachers follow as a means of maine taining their health in the best possible condition. Investigators went at the subject from a lot of dif ferent points of view. They issued a questionnaire asking the teachers to indicate which one of these habits they themselves followed. Here are the health habits about which the inquiry was made: 1. Do you follow a regular daily routine in work, play and sleep? = 2. Do you select foods to obtain a balanced diet? 3. Do you get plenty of sleep? 4, Do you eat meals with regularity? 5. Do you clean your teeth regularly? 6. Do you call a doctor promptly if the need arises? 7. Do you spend considerable time outdoors? 8. Do you drink plenty of water? 9. Do you take daily exercise? 10. Do you always wash your hands before eating? 11. Do you allow for a period of relaxation during the day? 12. Do you allow sufficient time for eating? 13. Do you avoid haste and hurry? The 10 errors most commonly rooted in health prage tices among 5000 teachers were the following: . Insufficient drinking water, . Insufficient exercise. . Insufficient fresh air. . Habitual use of patent medicines. Excess sugars in the diet. Use of tobacco. . Insufficient or disturbed sleep. . Unsatisfactory conditions of employment. . Insufficient recreation. . Rapid eating.