Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 May 1938 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

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

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Give Linht and the People Wil: Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1938

NEWS ABOUT INCOMES : HE Attorneys General of 25 states said the Federal tax collector couldn't do that. But the U. S. Supreme Court said he could. Thus was decided—and decided right—another celebrated tax test case. It concerned the salaries, ranging from SR000 to $15,000, of three officials of the New York port authority. The authority was created by New York and New Jersey to build and operate tunnels, bridges,

wharves and ferries. The three officials contended the

Federal Governm)>nt had no right to tax their salaries on |

the same basis as it taxes the salaries of private citizens. The 25 Attornevs General got excited and intervened against the Government because they feared the Supreme Court might hand down a decision so sweeping as to open the way for Congress to lay income taxes on the salaries of hundreds of thousands of other state officials and employees —including the Attorney General. That is just what the Court did. Although the decision involved what lawyers like to call a fine legal point, Justice Stone, speaking for the Court majority, used plain language. He said a citizen is not excused from his duty to pay taxes merely because he is on the payroll of a local governmental agency. Congress is thinking of appointing a committee to study ways by which Congress might end the tax-exemption of public salaries and stop the issuance of tax-exempt ublic securities. Let the committee read this decision, and it should be able by tomorrow to recommend a “short and simple statute,” such as President Roosevelt has asked. And Congress could pass that statute before adjournment. But that won't happen. Congressmen like to move

slowly on a measure which will make their own salaries | discussion, and in some instances legislative action, in

subject to state income taxes.

x 5 » ”

® OWEVER, Congress is getting busy on a measure de-

signed to help a great many people whose incomes -

far too small to be subject to any income tax, Federal or |

local.

speed. A different type of wage-hour bill already has passed the Senate. So the big fight will be in a conference commitiee—with the Senate insisting on a bill that will give a Federal bureau power to fix minimum wages and maximum hours, and to allow differentials between North and South and between large cities and small; and with the House holding out for a nation-wide wage minimum, starting at 25 cents an hour and rising in three years to 40 cents. We like the House approach to the problem. Grant that living costs are lower in the South and in small communities, and that freight rates discriminate. Still there must be a limit below which wages should not drop if some semblance of what is called the American standard of living is to be maintained. It’s up to Congress to find and fix that limit. It may be 25 cents an hour, or 30 cents, or more, or less. But workers in interstate industries need a definite wage floor. Labor unions can be depended upon to see what proper differentials are established above that minimum level.

WORTH A TRIAL HE public utility industry has taken many beatings from the New Deal—and, for its arrogance and its abuses, has deserved most of them. As one consequence, the utilities are falling into line with Government policy. The big holding companies are at last registering with the SEC and moving toward compliance with the law which requires a breakdown of their topheavy structures. The TVA and cities in its area are getting along in negotiations for purchase of private electric distribution systems. That is all to the ¢ood. But, as another consequence, expansion of power plants has slowed down almost to a stop. The privately owned utilities say that fast-growing public competition and the threat of more of it—especially when financed by gifts and easy loans from the Federal Government—frightens investors and prevents the raising of new capital for private expansions and improvements. And that can hardly be denied. So the private companies make this proposal: Let the

private

plants to duplicate and compete with plants. Then the industry will raise hundreds of millions of dollars of new capital from the public and will undertake a great expansion program, creating new jobs, building new purchasing power, and boosting the country toward recovery. Taking the private companies at their word, the Senate

Appropriations Committee has written into the big spend- |

ing-lending bill a prohibition against new grants and loans for competitive public power projects. The Committee's pian needs study. There may be cities which, dissatisfied with present utility service and balked in good-faith efforts to buy private plants at a fair price, are counting on Government help to remedy their situations. Provision might be made for such cases, possibly along the lines of the amendment suggested by Senator Barkley after talking with President Roosevelt. Properly safeguarded, however, the plan deserves careful consideration by the Administration and Congress. The utility industry is the largest single field in which a big private spending program might be organized quickly. A big, quick, private spending program is what the country most needs, and a reasonable compromise that would get one started would be welcome. Utility spokesmen say their industry could profitably spend $3,600,000,000 in one year, just to catch up with its construction lag and provide a year’s normal expansion. That would be more pump-priming than is contemplated in the lending-spending bill. 3 ‘We think the Government can well afford to give the pNivate utilities a chance to make

)

‘Washington

| protect the health of the wage-earner’s family and

The wage-hour bill is going through the House at high |

on their promise.

By Raymond Clapper

International Report Shows That This Country's New Deal Is Only A Part of a World-Wide Movement.

ASHINGTON, May 24.—As most speeches by Republicans show, there are still many people in this country who believe that if we could just get Roosevelt out of the White House and repeal the New Deal laws, everything would be all right. In answer to this argument William Allen White recently said that if Roosevelt, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin all were removed from the earthly scene, the problems would still remain and somebody else would have to struggle with them. What we call the New Deal is a world-wide phenomenon, part of a ferment and struggle, part of an effort to use government to improve the social and economic welfare in almost every country all over the globe. This is shown in the comprehensive report of the director of the International Labor Office at Geneva, wherein a significant collection of data is assembled. ” » EFORE the war most countries were on a laissezfaire basis, says Harold Butler, director of the I. L. O, one and all working on a system based essentially upon private enterprise and free competition with social progress more or less of a by-product. That is no longer true. “Countries are no longer working on a system based on the principle of laissez-faire,” Director Butler says. “To varying extents governments are now deliberately intervening in the economic sphere. . . . A second major change, which is to some extent an idealogical consequence of the abandonment of laissezfaire, is that social progress is no longer looked upon as incidental to the economic system, but as its primary objective.” No country, he says, now considers that its duty has been discharged if it takes measures to prevent the more extreme forms of exploitation. The aim has been enlarged to include the maintenance of an adequate standard of living for the whole people. His report roams around the world, citing country after country which is experimenting with wages-and-hours regulation, protection against industrial accidents, health insurance, unemployment and old-age benefits, care of women and children, nutrition and housing.

HIS report describes activities in one or more of . these ficlds in many countries. Unemployment insurance, now coming into effect in the United States, has just been inaugurated in South Africa. Australia is preparing a plan. In Belgium legislation is under consideration. Canada is wrestling with the idea. The increase in well-being is sought, this report points out, not so much by raising wages as by providing a network of social services which tends to

maintain its standard of living. Housing has been a subject of investigation and

a dozen Latin American countries, Even in the Far East these tendencies are felt; in the midst of the war with China, Japan has set up a new Ministry of Welfare to administer new social legislation. Many of the instances cited are little more than gestures—but when a Government makes even a gesture, it is significant of pressure underneath.

In Washington By Rodney Dutcher

Radio Commentators Likely to Be Early Target of Administration.

ASHINGTON, May 24 —Radio commentators are likely to be an early target of Roosevelt and the New Dealers, who lately have been taking the warpath again on various fronts. White House resentment against certain newspaper columnists, accused in very high places of misrepresentation, has been extended to include persons who appear on hired radio time to attack the Administration and its policies. The grudge against hostile radio speakers has been growing steadily and more than one Federal agency is now engaged in studying the “problem” on the theory that the ether belongs to the people and that the interests of the people, as represented by Government, should not be attacked except through regular political channels. No specific plan of censorship appears to have been evolved. But threats are being made that “paid propaganda” on sponsored programs “has got to stop.” n n ” A recurrent Washington rumor insists that the Government Printing Office has been secretly printing conscription questionnaire blanks for a draft army to fight the next war. This may possibly be true, but in the opinion of many who have tried to confirm the yarn, it isn't. Those who circulate the rumor cite the fact that such blanks certainly would be printed ahead of time without legal authorization or declaration of war—as they were before the United States entered the World War,

When Is a Mule Old?

Should Army horses and mules becoming crippled or unfit for service, be sold to end their careers in harness with some junk dealer or other person under conditions likely to be less than humane? That was the issue in a bill by Congressman Harlan of Ken-

| men’s letters free,

tucky, introduced with the suppcrt of humane societies and temporarily blocked by Crawford of Michigan, which would require that such animals be shot or put to pasture. “I want to sce these mules and horses properly taken care of in their old age Just as members of Congress should be taken care of in their old age.”

| argued Congressman Wolcott of Michigan.

Rep. Maury Maverick of Texas argued that to re-

| tire a mule “because of military service” would “retire | half of us { dence that Army mules were retired at an average | age of 11, he declared:

soldiers here in Congress.” Citing evi-

“The gentleman states that an age of 11 years

. : | in a mule’s life is © ‘able 70 vears i Government stop making grants and loans for public power | ; 2 ompaalie th 90 Yous In & man,

existing private |

We have put Justice Van Devanter to work since he passed that age and quit the Supreme Court. He does light work in lower courts. The Army has a right to use its discretion now and I see no reason for this bill.”

‘A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HARLES LINDBERGH, shut up ii his seeking to discover the secret of keeping a heart alive, seems to me a less admirable figure than our Viking of 1927, riding the air to universal acclaim and

lauoratory

bitter tragedy. Indeed all the scientists who labor to prolong man's life would do better to turn their attention to making his short mortal span more endurable.

I've never yet met a person who wanted to live forever in a world like ours. The length of a man’s days cannot be computed entirely by clock ticks nor the rising of the sun. Slaves have been known to endure enough misery to make a day lengthen to a month, and it is well known that a week when we are accompanied by happiness can seem as brief as an hour. A good many scientists, it appears, are concerned only with the question of how long the human heart can beat, and not at all with how greatly it can suffer. That is why one who has endured more than most men from crime might very well have dedicated part of his efforts to a study of our penal system and its method of creating criminals. : : The scientists who promise us more decades to live, and greater resistance to disease, and perhaps release from fear of cancer, are strangely insensitive to the fact that what they save at such arduous cost may be snuffed out in a second by the discovery of a brother professor delving into the chemical secrets of poison gas. What's the use of getting rid of diabetes for men who may end their days in dugouts? Why stamp out tuberculosis unless we have first stamped out war? With airplanes man has conquer~g space, but Vela wo W0 vevUoaiug in

in \

\

| duty, or more than a small part of | gle occasion.

| every day is Citizens’ Day.

| she

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

GO OUT AN'GET A VOB -JUST 5115 AROUND AN’ COMPLAINS ABOUT

SOMETHING OR OTHER = - -

TW a

Nps Ve

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1938

Se Ve

The Hoosier Forum

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

365 ‘CITIZENS’ DAYS’ BELIEVED NEEDED From The Baltimore Evening Sun The President's idea of setting aside a “Citizens’ Day,” on Mirch the ordinary man would discharge | at once all his civic obligations, is | fine as regards voting, making cen- | sus returns, and even as regards | paying income tax. But when the | citizen has done all that, he has | only made a start toward squaring | his accounts with the Government. | By far the greater part of his con- | tributions simply cannot be made all in one day: The cigaret tax for a year. The theater ticket tax for a year. | The excise tax on liquor. The gasoline tax. The tax on playing cards. The automobile purchase tax. The tax on stock transfers. The tax on cigars. The tax on cosmetics. The tax on smoking tobacco. The State tax on gasoline. The State tax on cosmetics. The State tax on property trans- | fers. The floor tax on liquor. | The import duty on beer, wine and liquor, The import duty on silk. The import duty on wool, woolen | cloth and suits. The import duty on shoes and | leather. The tax on oleomargarine. The liquor dealers’ license tax. The tax on safe-deposit boxes. The tax on club dues. The tax on telegrams. The tax on long-distance tele- |

| phone calls.

The old-age pension tax. i The unemployment-insurance tax. | The tax on opiates and narcotics | used in medicines. The inspection taxes on meat and other foods.

That part of postage which is | used to pay for carrying Congress-

The tax on taxes, such as this year's income tax on that part of your income which you paid last year to the Government. All of these the average citizen pays, directly or indirectly, but none of them can he pay on any one day simply because nobody can calculate the amount. Hence it is impossible for the citizen to do his full

| NRA and the like. It employs chil- | [dren and women at lower

| THINKS ‘FOOL’ APT TERM FOR RECKLESS DRIVER

the paying he has to do, on a sin- | If the payment of | taxes is to be the criterion, then |

” THINKS QUALITY OF BUSINESS | PERSONNEL DECREASING By W. L. B. What has the depression done to the quality of the personnel of the business world? Perhaps nothing. But an old story comes to mind illustrating the stress all businessmen have been under and the nature of this change in character. Once two dairymen monopolized

n »

| And sing on, though care and tears

(Times readers are invited to express their views 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.)

in

the business of a nearby town. Came a great drought. One man had too little milk and lost his | customers and business to his rival, who had plenty of milk. Was that the result of efficiency? Was it “survival of the fittest at the point of contact?” It might have been and many thought it was until the survivor, long after the stress of the drought had passed, was caught watering his milk (after it had | been tested) at a convenient creck. The fittest had perished because of | his fitness and because of the nature | of the contact with the unfit.

Our business world rejected the

wages | than men when it can and pays them only what the employer's wisdom enables him to afford, regardless of any standard of “a living wage.” The “fitter” men drop out to an appreciable extent, whereby the average quality is lowered until, with the gradual disappearance of the social middle classes, there remains a business personnel ready to follow dictatorship if it promises them continued individual survival. Thus are the halls of time peopled with decaying cities and fallen | civilizations. ”

By M. P.

“Fool” is a rough word. But it's a good one for describing a reckless

I MUST SING

By E. S. L. THOMPSON

I must sing! Though drearily Sighs the wind and sobs the rain, Falling, falling on the pane; Joy must march more cheerily Till the sun shall bloom again! So my heart doth say, “Not vain Is the rain!” I must sing! Though stars are hid From the eye that scans the sky! Lift, O heart, Fate's coffin-lid; Fold its shroud most tenderly

Trail the pathway of the years, Yea, sing on!

DAILY THOUGHT

Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted Him in Massah.—Deuteronomy 6:16.

VERY temptation is great or small according as the man is. —Jeremy Taylor,

| drive just as well with a couple of {drinks in you.

| vived only by private capital through | expansion and new enterprises. Here

driver. Employed dramatically, it won $1000 for Keith Shaw of New York in competition with 3026 “Drive Safely” posters entered in a national contest, The winning poster shows the skeleton hand of death holding over the rear license plate of a speeding car the placard with the one word: “FOOL.” Gets the idea across, doesn’t it? The old arguments against wild and senseless driving have been pounded and pounded against the cold wall of human apathy—and with little success, if one is to judge by statistics on traffic fatalities. This poster might do more. Try to remember it the next time you feel like a bit of speed or think you can

» w = SEES NECESSITY FOR NEW BUSINESSES AND EXPANSION By K. V. C. We hear numerous discussions of the present economic slump and its cause. One man’s guess is as good

as another. Now and then some big businessman says the policies of the Government, have caused it. Then we have the optimist that will tell you business will be booming soon, but this is all false propaganda to keep the people's spirit high. Yet how can business ever get to a state that we call prosperity when the buying power of the people is decreasing all the time? New enterprises and expansion of established business are the life blood of the capitalistic profit system. When these cease the capitalist system is dead and can be re-

is the cause of our present state of

affairs. Private capital has no ground on which to expand or no new enterprises of any importance. The profit system has been wonderful in its time but that was before the machine age. Government spending cannot create prosperity. Prosperity has to come from private capital if we are to keep the capitalistic profit system. If private enterprises cannot do this, then it is time for the Government to step in and run the factories for the good of the people. o n » SCORES TAXING FOR RELIEF By J. B. P.

Hew times do change! A few years ago a man was paid for wha, | he did and what he was worth to | humanity. But today the man who tries to | work and earn a living is taxed to | death in order to support some who wouldn't work if they had work and who make it their business to become a menace to themselves and everyone else. And Roosevelt wciders what is wrong!

WOMAN EXECUTIVE SAYS "WOMEN

BOSSES

OVER WOMEN MOET BE MORE DOMINATING THAN MEN BOSSES TO SUCCEED."

YOUR OPINION

UNLESS a woman boss is pretty positive with women under Rer donjt think she means wiht But if she is very

<

the

DOES A PEREGON WHO OVER~ ESTIMATES " OTHER PEOPLE USUALLY ROR, UNDER-ESTIMATE~

NE \ HIMSELF 2

YOUR OPINION

NG)

wen PARENT: GAY: "WE TREAT ALL OUR ~ CHILDREN EXACTLY ALIKE", DO THEY? YES ORNO eee 3 Tr a

unless she is extraordinarily tact ful, the women dislike her which is

bad for business. Partly for these |

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

have shown, are usually abler persons with higher intelligence than men executives in positions of the same grades. They have to be very highly qualified to get by. » 2 HE UNDERESTIMATES himself. This is the origin of the feeling of inferiority, As soon as you begin to doubt your personal value you will find you are overestimating the capacities of other people. Your own feeling about yourself—whether you feel inferior, equal or superior to others—is a poor index of your real value. So, when you feel inferior it is not the

slightest indication that you are inferior,

» ” ”

NOT BY A JUGFUL. Because «7 at every moment your conduct is affected by the other person's reactions. Of course you can buy two boys or girls the same clothes, give them the same spending money and the same chores to do, but you can’t even speak in the same tone of voice to Robert that you do to James. Tell Robert to eat his spinach and he rebels while James swallows his No

without a word. two are Jf —

Gen. Johnson Says

Now Might Be a Good Time for a

Nonpartisan Re-examination of the Suggestion for Unified Air Force,

ASHINGTON, May 24-—Echoes from the big Army air show are rumored complaints from Army air officers that their true excellence is sup= pressed by “War Department orders.” The idea is that if the public were informed of the accuracy and striking power of recent aircraft, it would put all other forms of defense into relative disfavor. According to this view the Navy wouldn't get its great increase in fighting ships, the Army would have trouble with its supply program and the air force might become a separate Cabinet department. There is no doubt that Army air corps progress has been marvelous—in range, speed and carrying capacity of ships as well as almost unbelievable accur= acy in bombing practice at great altitudes-—even at 20,000 feet. It seems incredible that the War Department would suppress news of any of these achievements, except such as might reveal secret methods or, in particular cases, to check up on results of an experi= ment before releasing it in fragments. » » » PART from whatever remaining reluctance there may be in the general stafl to a separate air corps, it is no profound secret, that the Army believes its air progress to be superior to that of the Navy. It can see no reason why the Navy should be favored in air appropriations and number of planes. It is pretty hard to believe, as is now suggested, that if Army air exercises demonstrated that their flying fortresses could dispose of hattleships like swatting flies, the Army would conceal it out of respect for tender sensibilities of their sister service, This post-maneuver gossip and rumor is important only on the rebound it may take to hamper an ade~ quate defense program. Congress is always full of what the President calls amateur strategists. The idea of some new magic instrument which will “change the face of war” has haunted the whole of history. Propaganda to the effect that we can rely solely on airplane defense can be very persuasive and spectacue lar—and very dangerous. »

HE greatest possible aid to such propaganda would be secrecy—an air of suppression or mys= tery about what military aircraft can and cannot do. The consensus of the best military and naval thought has been that aircraft is indispensible, but

| far from being exclusively so or even, as yet, stable

and dependable enough in all weather for reliance on either sea or land. If these recent maneuvers have shown anvthing to modify that view, the worst thing the War Department or any other Government department could do would be to suppress it. It might be a good time now, at the beginning of a very large defense program, to explode this subject and re-examine the late General Billy Mitchell's plea for one unified air force. If such a study is made, it should be an independent body such as Mr. Coolidge appointed in the Morrow Commission Army and Navy officers of the general staff and general board are among the most devoted public servants we have, but it is bred in their bone to become partisan to their own service,

It Seems to M

By Heywood Broun

Moves for a Third Party Threaten Success of Progressive Leadership.

One of the most intereste

EW YORK, May 24 light in the recent

ing things which came to inferno in the Keystone State is the indication that Pennsylvania again has a lot of Republicans- and reactionary ones at that. For a time the species seemed to be extinct or, at any rate, under But now the bison of privilege have replenished themselves and the herd is on the rampage. As far as surface figures go, Pennsylvania is again rock-ribbed and Republican, Nor is there any comfort for the small progres= sive group in the primary figures. On the other hand, there is the bare possibility that success will go to the head of the Old Guard, which has been on the rations of abstinence so long.

The bosses of Pennsylvania and other leaders of the ancient order may overplay their hand. A swing from the theories of the New Deal need not carry all the way back to the political habits of a Harding. The Republicans in their 1940 convention might pick

cover,

| a man who would be too tough even for those voters

who may be in revolt against the Roosevelt theories.

That is the bright side of the picture. The gloomy side is that any split among the liberals will make it comparatively easy for the reactionaries to walk in, Some have argued that it is unfair to say that a third party would split the forces of progressivism, since they are already far from being united. That is in a measure true, but there can be no question of the solidarity of the conservative groups at the moment, A Prophet Begins to Hedge I have said before that Fiorello La Guardia is by all odds the most able candidate of those who have any claim at all to the Republican label. But some time ago, I expressed grave doubts as to any dim possibility of his obtaining a Republican nomination for the Presidency. If the Pennsylvania results are any criterion he simply isn't Of late I have begun fo weaken in my belief that Franklin D. Roosevelt will be a candidate to succeed himself. All the available evidence seems to point to the fact that he does not want to run again. And this, I think, shortens the odds against Harry Hopkins in the winter books. In my opinion, Mr. Hopkins would make an excellent President. I am not so sure that he would make a strong candidate. But, at any rate, I hold strongly to the belief that moves for a third party at this time do threaten the success of present progressive leadership and serve to encourage the gathering and emboldening of reactionary forces.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

UBERCULOSIS, once the captain of the men of death, is now controlled to such an extent that it is no longer our leading problem We have learned much about the important face tors that help to develop tuberculosis. Among such factors is particularly malnutrition, which affects young women who diet too severely. Once the patient with tuberculosis comes into the hospital or sanatorium for care, it becomes possible to arrest the disease or to bring about healing. In the treatment, such methods as artificial pneumo=thorax, cutting of the phrenic nerve, or operations on the chest are combined with rest, diet and suitable hygiene. Sometimes within a year or two the patient is able to leave the institution and to take up again a useful occupation, It is important to select an occupation in which the hazard will not be increased. There are seve eral factors to be considered in selecting such occupations. It is important, first, to find work that the individual is capable of doing: second, work that is suitable to his condition of health. Obviously, it is necessary for the person who has been affected by tuberculosis, and who has returned to work, to have examinations at least once every six weeks and later every three months, to make cer tain that the disease is not again progressive. In such an examination, the use of the X-Ray is essential. In the adjustment of the tuberculous worker or the one who has recovered from this disease to a vocational occupation and the training of workers for occupations which they can fill satisfactorily, somedicing finds one of the most suitable outlets

in the picture.