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

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

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

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Give Light and the Peopte Will Fina Their Own Way

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1938

THE SAFE ROAD IS UPHILL

HIS week Congress starts debate on a recovery and relief bill which will enormously increase Government spending. This week, also, Congress probably will pass a new revenue bill which, regardless of its obvious merit, will not increase Government revenue. So the public debt will grow—by $3,722,000,000 in the fiscal year beginning July 1, according to Budget Director Bell, if all the spending plans are carried through. And it may grow more than that. For Mr. Bell was counting on only $2,400,000,000 for work relief. But Harry Hopkins says the amount actually needed will be three billion dollars—three times as much as President Roosevelt estimated last January. The public debt has grown by about 20 billion dollars in the last eight years. The Government has to pay nearly a billien a year in interest—a little more than half of this on the depression debt, and a little less than half on the World War debt. Incidentally, those who receive this interest pay no income taxes on it. We must spend what is necessary to maintain the essential functions of Government, care for the unemployed and provide for our national defense. Doing that is made more difficult for us because we must also carry a fixed

burden of interest inherited from a war that was fought on |

borrowed money.

Yet we continue to operate on the cuff. Having added

an even larger fixed burden of interest in the last eight | We will plaster a | bigger mortgage on ourselves and our children, proceeding |

years, we will now increase it further.

as if we and they will have no future depressions to fight, no unemployed to care for, no need to finance national defense in years to come. 5 » un » n 2 VEN Mr. Hopkins, stout exponent of the “spend to save”

theory, admits that the huge Government outlays of

borrowed money will not alone produce recovery. “The expenditures by themselves,” he said, “will not hy any means provide the total increase in private employment which is essential in our economy.

American people can be obtained only

vestment—invested because people think they can make a profit.” But what chance is there of investment” in the face of a mounting debt burden? vestors know that continued borrowing can lead only to an

ever increasing outgo in taxes and a corresponding decrease

in return on investment: or to eventual Government insolvency and inflation.

make a profit.”

To us, it looks very much like a case of the Administra- | tion defeating its own objectives. The best the Government | can do with the most it can borrow and spend is to provide | short-term jobs for a fraction of the unemployed, and most Real jobs at real wages for all the | unemployed can be provided only by persuading private |

of these at relief wages.

capital to go back to work. Billions upon billions of capital,

will not arrive, we fear, until the people can foresee an end to Government borrowing. » n » ” » 4

OW can we bring that day nearer? In our opinion the

most practical program is to summon the courage to |

tax ourselves to pay our own way and thereby eliminate the pyramiding threats of future taxes still higher—and to lay those as-we-go taxes direct, against as many citizens as practicable, taking from each according to his ability to pay.

Senator La Follette tried to take a step in that dirvec- | tion when the pending tax bill was before the Senate. But | he was blocked. He proposed a broadening of the income- | tax base which would have added approximately 1,000,000 | He |

“ Tu . | system? His immediate |

persons to the 2,800,000 now paving income taxes. propesed also a boost in income-tax rates. objective was more revenue. But a by-product of such a step would have been even more important—an increase in public awareness of an resistance to excessive Government spending. Under the present law the number of income-tax payers represents only about 5 per cent of the adult population. True, the other 9 Government collects—but the taxes they pay are hidden

spent. The La Follette proposal probably would not have

raised the proportion of income-tax payers to higher than | That would not be high enough. We should like | to see 20 per cent, or 30 per cent, or better still 50 per cent | And we |

8 per cent,

or more of all eligible voters paying income taxes. should like to see all hidden sales and nuisance taxes abolished. Such a tax system would hasten the balancing of the Government's receipts and expenditures, stop the increase to the mortgage on the future, advance the day when private investors may “think they can make a profit.” It’s a hard uphill road to take. But we've been coasting downgrade for several years now, and getting nowhere fast.

SIGN IN THE SKY T dusk on Saturday evening and for the first time in this century, Venus and Mars were so near each other in the western sky as to appear from a wide section of the United States one great star blazing with extraordinary brilliance. : Our remote ancestors would have taken this conjunction of the planets for a heavenly omen to mankind. We, being So much wiser, know it for nothing more than an interesting but natural astronomical event. And yet, somehow, we would like to believe that the gentle Venus had exerted a sobering influence on the fiery Mars—that the war

god will be calmer and less mengacipg for a time as a result |

a Te

of this rendesvous in the \ LR

Skating the same.

Obviously a nation- | al income which means a decent standard of living for all | if, along with this | Government action, there is a great increase in private in-

'N;

| issued a statement defending the high old-age pen-

a great increase in private | sion tax. This tax up to date has amounted to more

In- | | take care of the old-age requirements.

Either prospect is enough to wilt the | courage of investors who otherwise might “think they can

o per cent pay the bulk of the taxes the | A Woman's Viewpoint

levies, and arouse little or no interest in how the money is |

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

A Terrible Poker Player, a Poor Fisherman and a Dub on the Golf Links—That's Westbrook Pegler.

EW YORK, May 10.—Every man to his own run, but I once took a little whirl at that deep sea, or dipsey, fishing, as they call it, and if there are any of those St. Bernard or Great Dane fish allotted to me in those waters down off Florida Mr. Roosevelt may have them. I got caught up on that kind of fishing for all time in the space of about three days several years ago. We went out in a couple of little party boats and all the way down to the fishing place Charlie Canoy, the press agent for Henry Doherty’s hotels, was telling us abofit the fish we were going to catch. We were going after tarpon, for choice, but the water was supposed to be absolutely reeking of all kinds of fish. The guides in no time got to arguing whether the shark was more dangerous than the barracuda. One said he would slap a shark in the face but couldn't be bribed to go overboard where barracuda were about. The other one said just the opposite. They always do. It is an act. We got to the place, anchored in the barley water beside a channel, rigged up a lot of tackle with hooks the size of those on which they hang half-cows in butcher shops, and went out trolling in small launches. We didn't catch any fish but Charlie said they would probably be running next day. " Ww % HEY weren’t, or the third day, either. By that time we dudes, or tourists, in the party were burned as red as fire engines and the mosquitoes were coming out in absolute clouds. Charlie did catch a little shark about 4 feet long on a small rod one night and it wrestled him all over the adory. He flopped among the seats, got tangled up in a lot of rope and fish line, feli on his face, skinned up his nose, elbows and shins and looked like a preliminary boy by the time one of the guides reached over the side, grabbed the shark with his hands, slit it along the keel with the bread knife and tossed it back in the water. . I don’t know; maybe it's just me. Other people catch fish, but I never can. I like to fish for trouts and basses in little streams and lakes, but I never catch any. ” » ” CAN'T play golf, either. I started trying 15 years ago, and you would think I would be getting hot by now. But I'm worse than ever. I have had dozens of lessons, and from good instructors, too. Pull in your necky keep your ears well apart, swivel on your back spin, turn your hand further over. Nuts. If I haul off and give it, the ball does an outcurve and comes back like a boomerang. If I baby it to prevent hook, it goes pt-pt-pt three vards and stops. own goal line and have to punt. Some days I can sock all right, but those days I can’t hit irons or putt. When I was a kid I was a punk ball player. I liked to, but I just wasn't any good. Football the same. I play a little poker, but I always lose. Same story Always. I try to live right and follow the instructions, it never makes any difference. Maybe this is what makes me so mean, .

Business

By John T. Flynn

Social Security Board Head Errs In His Plan to Pay National Debt.

CW YORK, May 10.—Arthur J. Altmeyver is chairman of the Social Security Board. He has just

than 600 million dollars more than is necessary to Next year the surplus will pass the billion mark. The Government cheerfully borrows all this money from the old-age assistance fund, pays interest on it and borrows that interest and proposes to continue this for another 40 years. It is this Mr. so he utters a sentence which is calculated to make one open his eyes in pop-eyed wonder. Mr. ment's budget is unbalanced the Government will borrow these moneys from the Old-Age Account instead of from banks and private individuals. But when the Government's budget is balanced and it does not have to borrow any more, the moneys in this fund will be used to reduce the national debt. Now consider that statement for a moment in all

its implications. When the Government quits borrow- | ing—if it ever does—these old-age taxes as fast as | Mein Te . ‘ 4 | they come in will be invested in Government bonds. now lying idle in banks and insurance companies, can be | coaxed back to work only when the day arrives that owners |

of the capital “think they can make a profit.” And that day |

But instead of issuing new bonds the Treasury will go out into the market and buy existing bonds. There are outstanding about 38 billions in Government bonds and Treasury obligations now.

If the Government keeps up this plan over the |

course of 46 years the Government will collect more than 40 biiiijon dollars in such taxes over and above the costs of the old-age pension system. Suppose it uses all this money, as it must, to buy Government bonds, At the end of 40 years, according to Mr. Altmeyer, the Government debt will be paid.

Sinister Meaning in This Slip

But of course that cannot possibly be true. For a trust fund—the Old-Age Account—and the money in the fund is used by the Government to buy Government bonds. But to whom does the bond belong when the Government buys it? Does it not belong to the Old-Age Account? In other words, will not the Government still owe all these billions to the Old-Age Account, which is another way of saving that it will owe it to the members of the pension If these moneys are invested in Government bonds, the bonds will have to be still outstanding. How then can Mr. Altmeyer say the national debt will be paid or reduced? But there is a sinister meaning in this slip. These gentlemen actually do believe that they can use these trust funds raised by taxes to pay off the national debt. How they arrive at this confused thinking I do not know, but Congress should ask them to explain.

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

LOVE Mrs. Roosevelt for the way she gats herself

into hot water. Every time she makes a public statement, some individual or group is sure to go on record as seeing danger to the nation in the fact that a President's wife should make pronouncements tinged with political or even with intelligent opinion. This seems to me an utterly ridiculous attitude, and I am even glad that the First Lady can no longer qualify as 100 per cent charming. For that generally means that the individual hopes to please everybody. Mrs. Roosevelt is a great person because she doesn’t care to please everybody. The wife of a President is obliged to bridle her tongue at times but this does not necessitate a complete surrender to platitudes, as has been the case in the past. And what if Eleanor Roosevelt should be wrong, according to your standards or mine? That's all the more reason why we should uphold her right to speak the truth as she sees it. This freedom of the boudoir, so to speak, which is so important a part of the New Deal, is the best thing that ever happened for American women. We should be eternally grateful to the individual who was brave enough to ride roughshod over conventions and precedents and who has made the position of First Lady a real influence in the land. Nobody, man or woman, ever had a conviction worth carrying around who did not encounter opposition, backbiting and slander. In fact, no convietion is worth carrying unless it calls forth all of these reactions. Mrs. Roosevelt is one woman who believes in the force of the feminine tongue-~more power to hers! and whether we agree with what she says or not,

should be to i re, lng 0. "UY, te Goats or

After three strokes I am still on my |

but | Sid Glotter

|a collection of cards | would be: Altmeyer defends and in doing |

Altmeyer points out that while the Govern-

| selfish political

| the common man is a myth. | condemn the [ has { plished so little. | forget that it [years of Republican control. | remember Harding and the Teapot | | Dome; {and the beginning of the great era | [of profitless prosperity;

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Heigh- ho, Ott to w ork We Go !—By Talburt

ade Sl los i

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1998

You FEEL A LITTLE

suUMP?

RE Cov ERY: ROAD

PROJECT NR ;

The Hoosier Forum

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

| SUGGESTS CARDS FOR |

in the life expectancy of his vocal | cords.

There is a definite place in the

| daily life of every talk-weary man | for Sid's idea. | tional nonessentials

If all the conversa- | in the world were laid end to end it would cer-

{ tainly be a humiliating sight to 160k | upon.

Cards, Sid has shown, are the answer. Or, rather, the answers are in the cards. Think how much easier life with like these

“It always looks like this when I|

| wash it.”

Or: “You dope, a man's bound to put on a little weight as the years go by.” ” » » SAYS NATION MUST LEARN TO ELECT, NOT DEFEAT By Otto N. Moore It looks as though the poor old New Deal is taking a licking nowadays, and orators of the Republican |

| Party are lambasting it right and | left.

One of them warns us against | the dictatorship of the New Deal. | This same man was once known as |

| the whip of the House of Represen- | | tatives.

The whip, in his day, played exactly the same part in|

[supporting the Administration as | | the House leaders are doing in sup-

porling it today. But he says noth- | ing about that today, knowing that |

| the political mind of the people is | [not retrospective. these funds are allocated by Congress each vear to | |in a bad way.

terests and that

spent

keeping cool with Coolidge

| without

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conexcluded. Make short, so all

Letters must

to express views in troversies

your letter can have a chance. be signed, but names will be

* withheld on request.)

[country were scrambled like eggs, |

of the New Deal

not

and five prosperity them. The Republicans say, “Repeal the undivided profit tax—give the businessman a chance.” There was no undivided profit tax in 1929. They say, “stop excessive spending.” There was no excessive

years has

spending under the Republican con- |

trol. They say, “Do away with the WPA, the AAA and all the other excessive baggage of the New Deal

| and prosperity will come back.” But | with 12 years of Republican control |

all of these burdens, we skyrocketed and tailspun anyway.

The probabilities are, however,

| that we will vote as we did in 1932—

to get someone out of office with an utter disregard as to whom or what we are putting in office. When will we learn to elect rather than to defeat? ” ”n ” SAYS BREAD NEEDED, NOT BATTLESHIPS By H. S. What we need is bread, tleships.

y EARNING By ALBERTA DUNCAN STIER

My heart is yearning for days long | ago, Happiness beckons from out the years; Childhood is calling me to come | back, where Mother is waiting to brush away my tears. Peace at the eventide in days long since past, From out her rest Mother beckons me come With her to find in that serene Peace that we knew in the years long since gone.

DAILY THOUGHT

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.—I Peter 2:11.

not bat-

GAINST diseases the strongest fence is the defensive virtue, abstinence —Herrick.

unscrambled |

Government |

The Sheppard- May bill § is |

| place so |

still lurking on the doorstep of Congress, If only some witty Congressman would introduce a bill for the mobilization of our men and re- [ sources on a given day to protect us | from our most deadly enemies from | within, namely unemployment and | waste of time and idle machinery! Why not have a peace-time mobili- | zation of all our man power and re-

| sources to attack the wanton waste: |

Gen. Johnson Says—

Is It Possible for Business, Labor

And Government to Work Together2 + They Did Once Under the Old NRA,

TLANTIC CITY, N. J, May 10.—Mr. Hanes of the SEC who herded the 16 captains of industry into a helpful huddle offering peace to the President, insists that there is no hostility in Goverhment to= ward business. He wants people to stop saying that there is, or that there is any hostility in business toward Government, From Mr, Hanes’ purpose none can dissent. But to say that there is no hostility on either side is simply silly, This Administration is shot through with business-haters. On the other hand, many if not most men in business fear and hate the Administration business-haters and their business-baiting policies, In Sunday's New York Times, Secretary Wallace has a defendant's brief, It is full of digs at the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It is about the recent decision in the stockyards case. The Court dis« cussed the Nazified third New Deal business-regu-lating bureaus which are partly legislative, partly executive and partly judicial in that they in part make the law, prosecute its violators and judge their own prosecution, The Court said that, in performing these functions there should be at least rudimentary fair play and that the accused must be informed A the ruling against him, u ” ” R. WALLACE probably alibis himself, the Secretary of Agriculture whom the Court scolded. But the brief he writes to do it, is so clearly revealing of a common Administration state of mind that it is worth examining, Lawyers representing the accused in these inquisttions become, “old deal lawyers” or “corporation ate torneys.” Courts who intervene to require rudimen= tary fair play become “reactionary judges.” The prisoner at the bar is called by Mr, Wallace “busi nessmen and corporations.” This Supreme Court rule ing does a “definite injustice to the public” because the case was so long delayed and higher rates were validated. The purpose of the Court, Mr, Wallace charges, was not to decide the case at bar, but to “flash a warning to quasi-judicial agencies”—not to do “justice as between farmers and commission men” but to publicize “a statement encouraging lower courts to attack and delay the actions of quasi-judicial agencies.”

He wasn't

» ” »

li Court decision did “flash a warning” and the warning was that business, under bureaucratie

| regulations, does not surrender all human rights.

The point is that Mr, Wallace's terminology and testy reaction indicates the sentiment toward business of one important Administration figure. This mental

| attitude is characteristic in many parts of the third

of the nation's wealth and morals? We could set such a mobilization |

day to start every wheel in industry |

turning. If it is necessary the bugles and beat the drums, or fly the colors, let us add that also to the detlaration of internal war

be a day of reconstruction, We are our

to blow |

| | |

on national economic suicide, Let it |

own worst enemies. |

We have lost our place in the sun|

as a vital factor in international trade, and degenerated into almstaking peasants and merchants.

» ” » GREED BLAMED FOR COUNTRY’S CONDITION By C. 8S. Once upon a time there was a glass factory which was the very life-blood of a certain little town in the way of employment, ness conditions got bad, but the day | was saved by a large out-of-town automobile plant, which placed an | order with this little factory to sup‘ply the auto company with windshield glass. This furnished con- | tinuous work for almost every soul in the small town, and the workers | were prosperous and happy, living in blissful contentment, But one day, out of a clear sky, | the little glass company closed com- | pletely, shutting its doors forever more! The reason was this: The [large auto plant had conceived the | idea of making its own glass! Why? (To save money. Why this sudden [desire to save money? Ah, there's the rub, and there is where the | arguments enter. The auto plant | said it could produce a car that everybody could afford to buy (by | saving on their glass cost and other | similar costs) and made it appear as |a favor to the public. But we suspect that they had no such humanitarian views in mind. | Wasn't it the old, old story of greed? | What happened to the people in the small town? Well, what do you think? What could they do? They went on relief, provided by our noble President (may God bless him abundantly and give him strength I to subdue his vicious enemies!)

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

| DO OME WOMEN WANT LR | KilL THEIR HUSBANDS E

CERTAINLY. There seems little doubt that Mrs. Patricia Ryan, the woman who, in a fit of anger, shot and killed her policeman husband in New York last Shomer,

“Rrra Rsbands "too — she

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

GAN THE QUESTION, fy Ey iso’

EVER BE DEFINITE. SETTLED 2 VES OR NO ca

PO MOET PEOPLE THINK THEY HAVE A- KEEN

SENGE oF JyuoR?

NES OR NO ca &

doubtless had moments of anger when she felt she would “just like to kill him,” and in this case, as her husband's pistol was right at her hand, her reason, love and common sense for a moment gave way. I it it were not it Yeu, ‘conscience,

common sense, and eapacity to

analyze consequences, we all angry enough at times to wish we could kill even those we love, ” ” »

IT NEVER CAN, because one person is old at 20 and another is young at 80. Last week I attended the 80th birthday dinner given to a friend of mine who plays 36 holes of golf and wears out many men in the twenties and thirties and is still looking for some young squirt to play him nine more. The old lady who, on her one hundredth birthday, ascribed her long life to “vittles” probably had the best method yet devised to put yourself in either her or my friend's class. > Ww Ww

IN A RESEARCH by Louise Omwake, related in Applied | Psychology, she had 400 students | rank themselves on their “posses- | ston of a good sense of humor.” All but 14 per cent ranked themselves “above average” and one-fourth ranked themselves “very superior.” It's about as risky as kicking a man's dog to hint that he (that is the man) hasn't a sense of humor, If he has he'll laugh, but if he hasn't, he'll likely sock you in the jaw. We aL see in a day or two

n sense of hum.

Busi-

get | | out the country,

i |

New Deal. Is it possible for Government, business and labor in this country actually and honestly to co-operate to fight off the depression? The answer is: “They did it once.” No President ever had the universal, sincere, wholehearted and complete co-operation from busi ness that Mr. Roosevelt had in the early months of NRA. Mr. Wallace and others of like mind in the Administration just couldn't stand it. The breach ha widened constantly for four years and it is stil widening. It is a tragic shame because the sufferers are the public and especially the one-third ill-fed, ille clothed and ill-housed.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Mixing the Yale Influence With The Harvard Should Aid New Deal,

EW YORK, May 10.—-It is reported that Yale men are beginning to move into key positions in the New Deal. In certain posts they have even supplanted Harvard incumbents, But that is not nearly as discouraging as it might seem on the surface. Only the bigoted maintain that no good thing can come out of New Haven, and an infusion of “Boola” hoys into executive positions may merely mean a broadening of the base. There is such a thing as having too intellectualized a group of advisers, and if Yale and Harvard are to co-operate now the admixture of bulldog brawn and Harvard intelligence may constitute just the proper elements to bring about a popular front,

If there is a difficult task to be accomplished, some one of the Harvard coterie in Washington can figure out the way in which it should be done and then press a button for a Yale man and tell him to go out and do it. And right now I think that the quarterback in the White House may be glad to have the services of men of sinew, He needs line-smashers, and while Harvard undoubtedly excels in trick plays and passes, the fellow who can lower a bullet head and plow through for a necessary two yards may be indise pensable,

How About a Son of Old Nassau?

It wouldn't even be a good idea to take on a Princeton man just to establish the democratic prine ciple. One naturally would be plenty, and there might be some difficulty in making the selection, since everys body seems to have his pet Princeton man, The outer aspects of New Deal executive offices

will change enormously through the new influx. This has been very largely a cigaret administration, Bis black cigars went out pretty much with Harding Gen. Johnson was the last of the Roosevelt key men who enveloped himself in smoke and flames while carrying on a conference. But now we are going to get the old chummy pipe. The outer offices in State, War and Navy Departments will increasingly become fragrant, Many a Washington correspondent will be com pelled to dictate his stuff because of being maimed through the unaccustomed bone-breaking handshake And in those paneled rooms where once the news gatherers said, “Good morning, Mr. Third Assistant, erry, ” the newer form will be, "How are you pal? "What's the lowdown this mor Is morning, Spike?”

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

INCE outbreaks of epidemic diarrhea have occurred in a good many hospital nurseries throughhealth officers have been concerning themselves particularly with the means of regulating conditions in hospitals in such a way that future out breaks may not occur, It seems fairly reasonable to believe that these epidemics are spread by the handling of the infants and by contact of sick babies with well babies. and that the problem is obviously one of the prevention of contacts, either direct or indirect, between the sick child and the well one, One of the first steps, of course, is to make certain that the room in which the child is born be as far as possible in its location from other rooms in the hospital in which infection may be present. Indeed there seems to be reason to believe that In large hospitals there ought to be three nurseries available—one for infants that are well, ene for those that are infected, and the third for those that have been exposed but are not yet infected. It is customary in large hospitals to take the baby from the nursery to the mother when it is to receive its food, provided the baby is being fed by the mothe: In some places these babies are carried on carriers so that several nurses may take a number of babieosa! once down the corridors, leaving them with the mong, ers and collecting them after the feeding is completed. In other places the babies are brought indie vidually to their mothers, There are regulations now established regarding the sterilization of bottles that are used for water or for the infant's artificial food. Means are provided for sterilizing all apparatus and instruments used in connection with the care of the babies. In addition, it is required that all people attending the newhorn infant have frequent physical examina-