Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 June 1938 — Page 10

PAGE. 10

~ The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Business Manager

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Give Light and the People Willi Fina Their Own Way

SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1938

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bu-

reau of Circulations, RIley 5551

TO GET WORK STARTED HE Roosevelt Administration has gone far toward giving the utility industry the assurance it says it must have in order to undertake a big job-creating program of expansion, That is, the President has authorized Senator Barkley to say that Government money won’t be used to subsidize public competition with privately owned utilities, except where the private companies refuse to sell their plants at a fair price. That policy, if maintained, is all that the utility industry should ask. But will that policy be maintained? “fair price” be determined? The utilities, in effect, had’ asked that the policy be written into law, with a method provided for arbitrating “fair price.” But the Administration opposed, and the Senate killed, proposals along that line, fearing that smart utility lawyers would grab them as an excuse for more litigation to obstruct and delay Government aid for construction of public plants even where such aid is clearly justified. It must be said that the utilities have overlooked few opportunities for obstructive litigation in the past. So the Administration, through Secretary Ickes as head of PWA, is left to be judge, jury and court of last resort on “fair price.” We don’t know whether the utility managements will trust Secretary Ickes, and anyway the question is not quite so simple as that. For, if the utilities start an expansion program, they will have to borrow the money. And the private investors who have money to lend are the ones who need assurance against indiscriminate public competition, Government subsidized. Without such assurance, they're not likely to risk their money and the expansion program is not likely to materialize. But we believe Mr. Roosevelt sincerely wants the utility industry to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to improve its present plants and build new ones. He should. That is by far the best prospect now in sight for largescale private spending. And unless large-scale private spending begins soon, the Administration’s huge pumppriming expenditures won't accomplish their purpose. We think that the Administration, having gone so far in the Barkley statement, ought to do all it can to make possible full benefit from the policy set forth. We won’t presume to offer a specific formula. But we believe the President and the heads of the utility industry could get together on a treaty along some such line as this: That the Administration will agree to submit disputed questions of “fair price” to arbitration if the utilities will agree to accept the arbitrators’ verdict without litigation, It would require a much greater degree of mutual trust than has existed in the past. But each side would lose more by breaking such a treaty than by observing it, and the whole country would have much to gain if such a treaty were made and observed.

$11 AND 4—AND THE SOUTH

O frequently the thing deeply feared and strenuously opposed turns out to be a blessing when it finally happens. Just for example, recall the predictions of disaster that accompanied the militant resistance from the bankers to the Federal Reserve Act, back in Woodrow Wilson's day. Not one of those bankers, if he could, would have reverted to the old system, after the new was fairly under way. So, we predict, will the South welcome a reasouable minimum on wages and maximum on hours when wagehour legislation is fairly worked out, as surely it will be. For the South can prosper only as the nation as a whole prospers. And any sort of sustained prosperity can never be, so long as industry can shuttle around in answer to the low-wage lure and by such a process create more and more weak links in the economic chain.

The importance of purchasing power in an age of machines and mass manufacture—productive capacity such as this world has never before seen and growing with every new invention—is nevet envisioned by the chiseler. That small, shert-sighted, but potent, minority which starts all the trouble will keep. the trouble going and growing untii it is brought up short by a law that will check the chiseler. We believe that $11 a week for 44 hours’ work is not by any means too high a standard, even for the poorest industrial sections, South, North, East or West. And that with such a “floor” established, as it would be under the proposal now before the House-Senate conference, the immediate result would be an industrial stability such as this nation never yet has known. : There has been much talk of confidence, in these years of great stress, as the one factor most needed to take us upward. What could add more to confidence than for a manufacturer to know that subcellar competition no longer could undercut him and either break him or drag him down to the level of his chiseling opponent ? Until what Gen. Johnson in NRA days used to call Marquis of Queensberry rules are established in industry there can be no long-haul confidence. So we think the wage-hour question boils down to— Is $11 for 44 hours too much for this richest nation in the world—anywhere in the nation? We believe not, and we believe further that the South will so say, after such a standard is put into effect.

“POSTMISTRESSES INCE the New Deal began, 30,469 postmasters have been appointed, of whom 8229—about 27 per cent—were women. So reports Postmaster General Farley. We don’t have the figures for the five years before the New Deal, but we expect a comparison would show that President Roosevelt has named more women postmasters than Presidents Coolidge and Hoover. That 27 per cent figure, however, is still a long way from representing equality of opportunity between the sexes. Perhaps time will remedy this situation. Perhaps, also, time would be assisted if there were as many active politicians among women as are amdpg men, 5

And how shall

- ie

id

tion—since

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Behind Those Awful Whiskers of Man-Mountain Dean Beats the Heart Of a Patriot and Devoted Husband.

EW YORK, June 4—With the campaign slogan “I may look nuts and act nuts, but I don’t think nuts,” Mr. Man-Mountain Dean is seeking a career in statesmanship as a candidate for the lower house of the Georgia Legislature for Gwinnett County. Mr. Dean is known to thousands of lovers of clean sport in this country and the capitals of the old world, and he writes your correspondent that he decided to court the people’s favor because he has nothing else to do. To his many admirers it will not be necessary to recall that Mr. Dean was the one with the whiskers and the bulbous abdomen, who used to engage in desperate wrestling contests with assorted Russian Lions, German Barons and Masked Marvels. His contests with the Masked Marvels were his best. Mr. Dean, large and of forbidding mien, with his tangled foliage, which gave him the appearance of a burst horsehair sofa, would attack the Masked Marvel with a great show of savagery. The Masked Marvel usually was smaller by several inches and perhaps 50 pounds lighter and would suffer deep indignities at the hands of the Man-Mountain for perhaps 15 minutes. Mr. Dean would clout him on the back of the neck with vicious blows of his clenched fists, throw him over the ropes into the spectators’ laps, twist his ears and sit on him. EJ ” i ” TT would enrage some of the customers, and there would be loud cries of “boo!” “foul!” Always some of them would resolve to wait outside the actors’ entrance and gang the Man-Mountain if he should win. But the scenario obviated that. For after the first phase of the struggle the Masked Marvel would haul off and fetch Mr. Dean a swift kick right in his middle and flee to a corner of the ropes. Mr, Dean would take after him, and the Masked Marvel would seize the top rope, swing both feet off the floor and kick the Man-Mountain flush in the whiskers. Sometimes it took three such kicks, sometimes as many as four, to send the Mountain crashing backward to the floor, where he would lie like a beached whale, while the Masked Marvel, with a scream of triumph, pinned his shoulders. ” » ” OMETIMES, when they had to catch a train, they would abbreviate the opus, but even in its curtailed state it was full of drama, strife and violence. Few if any of the spectators could have known that behind the rather awful exterior of Man-Moun-tain Dean, there beats the heart of a simple American patriot, a home-loving citizen and devoted and faithful husband. Such, however, was the case, for Mr. Dean, whose true name is Frank S. Leavitt, boasts of 17 years with the colors, including the period of the war, and he writes of Mrs. Dean as “my wife and pal.” He served as a traffic cop in Miami during the great boom and, on losing this honored post, was guided back to wrestling by Mrs. Dean, to whom he owes his whiskers. For it was Mrs. Dean who urged him to grow them and to change his name by way of disguise. Mr. Dean, if elected, will preserve the whiskers and the United States Constitution, and from his acres in Norcross, Ga., this audacious Yankee invites old colleagues of the game in which he looked and acted but didn’t think nuts to stop in when passing for a word.

Business By John T. Flynn

Bill Compelling Loans to U. S. in

War Would Bring Only Inflation.

EW YORK, June 4—The Senate Military Affairs Committee apparently believes that it has struck a great blow against war by approval of a bill to compel every citizen to lend money to the Government in time of war at 1 per cent interest. The proposal has about it all the earmarks of a well-intended feeling that the man with money must be made to do his part as well as the man without money who is put into a uniform and into a trench. But apparently its author did not sit down and think it through very carefully. First of all, the bill is founded upon the assumption that our next war—if we have one—should be paid for with borrowed funds like the last war. This is a fundamental and even a fatal flaw. The very greatest blunder—the most terribly tragic blunder this nation can commit—is to fight another war with borrowed funds. There is only one way to protect the economic system from utter demoralization in the event of war and that is to pay for the war with taxes. If that is so one may well see that this plan would look magnificent to the wealthy. It proposes a plan to borrcw money from them at 1 per cent rather than taking the money away from them in taxes. The second error in the plan arises out of a failure to understand the manner in which this will work in practice. It imposes upon all the liability to be compelled to lend money to the Government. But it seems to run on the further assumption that the people who will make these loans will have the money handy and ready in the bank. Of course that is not true.

Clamor to Refund Loan

Practically all of the monev raised for the Government by this means will be produced by bank loans and will resuit in the very inflation which is so fatal to economic societies after the war is over. But when the war is over what will happen to the loan? As every man’s credit, even beyond the limit of safe credit, will be in hock in the bank, no man will have any funds at all with which to carry on the ordinary activities of business, The first thing that will happen will be a clamor for a refunding of the war loan. It will have to be refunded. All that the adventure will have produced will have been an easy and deadly inflation at a saving to the Government of a few million dollars in interest. It is one of those things which sounds very noble, but really means nothing,

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

T= charitable experience of an Indianapolis housewife touches upon a question of moment. “Your article about the strawberry shortcake losing some of its flavor when you saw the ragged children interested me,” she writes, “for I feit the same way about the children living next door. My husband and I have three children of high school age, but manage on a small income of a factory worker. Every summer I can about 500 quarts ‘of jams, jellies and vegetables. Last year I gave nearly 50 quarts to different families in need, most of it to the people next door. They have seven. children, plus a dog. Their income is $18 per week and they are making down payments of $20 a month on their home. I begged my friends for baby clothes for the last child, gave them all my leftovers and helped in every way I cou . Sita So he the husband was usually drunk on yn , and imagine my cons I found that both of th y elton when in a nearby tavern. “Mrs. Ferguson, out of seven families I hel six did likewise. I'm becoming a hardhearted Bas and can eat my strawberry shortcake and relish it.” No matter how generous you may feel, there will always Pop up the “gimme folks,” who gobble your earnings as if they belonged to them by rights. And yet do we consider how plain day-in-and-day-out hopelessness can turn self-respecting individuals into lumps of unresponsive beggars? Charity is a two-edged sword, cutting both donor and recipient and breaking down the morale of both. I think we should not feel vain because we are a generous naice giving can be an emotional org

ue 1}

, THE. INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Looks Like the Cat’

SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1938

The Hoosier Forum

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

‘Gen. Johnson Says—

Midwest Should Understand That

The Proposed St. Lawrence Seaway is Just a New York Power Project.

ASHINGTON, June 4—The St. Lawrence seaway, or shipway or deep seaway has a lilting sound in whichever way it is spoken. Under the proposed treaty with Canada that our State Department has just prepared, the Middle West is led to believe that it will get an ocean frontage, A vision is cone jured of great ocean liners tying up at docks at Cleve= land, Chicago, Milwaukee and all points west as far as Duluth. Cheaper freight rates for wheat and all the products of our great “breadbasket” country to foreign ports is pure net gain for the farmer since the price is usually made abroad. Maybe an all-water passenger service to the seven seas will appear. Thus pretty general Midwestern support is being ballyhooed into rooting for what is in fact largely a local New York State power project. That part of the cost of this development which is necessary for power and would not be necessary for navigation will prove to be easily two-thirds of a total staggering cost. That would not be so bad if the cost for navigation for deep draft vessels would buy anything worth the money. The experts thought it would not,

» » ” 1 == are many reasons for this conclusion. One is the slow speed imposed on vessels of powerful propellers in canals and canalized waterways. That, plus the magnificent distances and delays and difficulties of passing locks makes the probable cost of either freight or passenger operation prohibitive in competition with other forms of I

Existing facilities for the transportation of the principal cargoes both up and down the lake are the finest and most economical in the world. The downlake rate for wheat is very low. It seems impossible that any ocean-going shipping, even without all the handicaps just mentioned, could ever compete, Legally, the Federal Government is not supposed to go into the manufacture of power, except as power is incidentally produced in its proper function of improving waters for navigation. That principle is developing a pious and very costly fraud—fake navie gation projects to permit the generation of power, There is something of that in this proposed St. Law rence shipway and that, plus the attraction of the fake for the Middle West, gives the whole project a phony sort of support without which it probably

SAYS FEDERAL STATUTE

CAN'T FOSTER ART By Layman The bill discussed in Congress to foster artists and art appreciation in the United States is splendid in its aim. Yet after reading both the pro of Heywood Broun and the con of Booth Tarkington, I trust it will not be passed. For wherever there is a concentration of power in the hands of one or several, there is “politics” and a tendency toward personal selfish administration. A concentration of power is not a bad thing if the hands that hold it are just. But human nature is partial, if not always selfish; partial to its own for emotional reasons. Art therefore, would not always be judged on its own merits. As Mr. Tarkington says, paraphrased, it is the may-

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

When earnings gre spent for goods, business and employment are good. When earnings go too much into taxes instead of goods, business is bad. Business first depends on customers. To put a “floor under wages” and then blow the roof off with taxes

or's nephew who would get to do is deceitful mockery.

the murals for the city hall. Politics probably could not be kept out of it, any more than it has been kept out of WPA. Much as one might like to see art disseminated and more widely appreciated, really to achieve the finest there must be free competitive enterprise. A Federal law cannot do the trick, any more than knowledge of the rules can make great art.

ASKS ‘BUSINESS’ BE DEFINED BEFORE IT IS ATTACKED

By Voice in the Crowd Your editorial, “The World Do Move,” failed to state that Fortune accused equally the New Deal ‘and business of letting each other down. It compared them to a mismated married couple. How can anyone accuse business of laissez faire, with no consideration of the improvement in working conditions, wages, hours and living conveniences that have come to us in the last 25 years? Is Fortune's editorial opinion at $1 per copy any more correct than that of a 3-cent daily that is awake? One of our ills today is that we berate certain portions of our people without definition of whom or what we mean. Thus, neither Fortune nor the New Deal defines “business” which they blame. Do they mean the men who come up from the ranks to establish enterprise in which wages can be earned? Do they mean institutions that meet the“payroll, pay their bills and their taxes, and now stand in fear of political fancy? Or do they mean international capital which cares not for Americanism? Good leadership should first be frank and specific. One understandable definition of business is that it is not a demon but that it is the method by which we exchange our earnings for things which we need or desire more than the earnings that we have to spend.

WOMAN TACK To SHOW dER HOW MUCH HE KNOWS?

All of the people are not out of work and if present earnings could go into consumers goods, employment would increase and so would wages. We made a date with depression when we inflated to fight a war. We make dates with more depressions every time we set false standards. This is not a “new era of an enlightened people.” It may be exactly opposite. ® 8 = ATTACKS SECTION OF

FOOD AND DRUG BILL By R. G. L. You are very neat about rebutting charges of suppressing news or conducting a mild but effective censor-

ship on certain taboo subjects. You'll print the charge, but you

NOSTALGIA IN JUNE By GENEVIEVE MITCHELL My heart is longing for the things

{Beyond the power of my recall;

An ink-stained book, a campus green,

A library, a study-hall.

I want to amble through the woods— White violets are thick again Upon the green walls of the brook— But it can never be the same.

All things must change; and men

don’t do anything about lifting your little ban. Possibly you hold that news regarding food and drug legislation is not important, yet you have editorially come out for the interest of the consumer. However only such food and drug information is given space as cannot be denied. Pertinent follow-up information is drastically edited, if given at all. An example to prove my point is the Wheeler-Lea bill which passed the Senate but is held in committee by the House because of the joker Section 701 (f). This section should be eliminated, for as Secretary Wallace says, it would hamstring the Food and Drug Administration so as to amount to a practical nullification of the substantial provisions of the bill, and that it would be better to continue the old law in effect than to enact Section 5 with this provision. The bill should be passed, jt is so badly needed, but properly flemed without this hamstringing provision. Newspapers openly discussing the bill and pointing out its danger

| could help the enactment of a good

bill, $y 8 » SAYS IT IS TIME FOR RADIO TO EXPRESS ITS MATURITY

must grow And put away the book and rule; But ah, there's such an aching | here | For the sweet comradeships of | school!

DAILY THOUGHT And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.—Luke 1:14. HE clew of our destiny, wander where we will, lies at the foot of the cradle.—Richter.

SCARING PEOPLE ABOUT por

H vy TEND TO MAKE SAFE DRIVERS ?

MRS KM. AGKS: IF A WIFE THINKS HER 16 ME sReA at

SHOULD SHE KEEP HIM EO OR NG upneren

golfer, swimmer, dancer,

lover and the like, it helps,

By Dorothy Wilkens If radio is ever to grow out of its knee-pants days it must adjust itself to the changing taste of its listeners. When commercial broadse casting was a novelty, simple humor, dance music and an occasional operatic selection were quite sufficient to appease the palate of the enthusiastic dialer. Why, even telegraphic code messages were received with welcome during the days of crystal sets and earphones, Today, however, the industry should demonstrate its maturity by letting go of the apron strings. Let's have more programs like Toscanini’s, like Jack Benny's and Lucile Manners! In short, let's stop marveling at the miracle of radio and try to put it to some use. But . .. let's pattern air entertainment after the legitimate theater, and not the movies. Wasn't it Browning who said, “Let thy reach exceed thy grasp . . . ete.”? n ” on AGREES THAT FIRST LADY'S COLUMN IS REFRESHING

By Maud Deimen I heartily agree with Sally Lee Saunder’s letter. Mrs. Roosevelt's column is indeed very refreshing. After reading some of the articles by other columnists, it's a relief to read something pleasant.

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

as J. B. Barrie said, “being kinder than necessary.” “ 8 »

SCARING drivers about dangers tends to make them nervous but scaring them about the certainty of punishment with fear of the law has an enormous effect. This is shown as related in Collier's —by the famous “week-end sentence,” established by Judge Jacob Gitelman of Rochester, With the certainty of gravitation he sentences traffic violators the limit of the law—usually a week-end in the penitentiary at hard work. The warning of drivers to each other is “He socks it to you all right,” and it has had great effect.

IT DEPENDS, Mrs. K. M,, on the type of husband. If he is an introvert, the oftener you tell him the better—the more it will bolster up his self-confidence. If he is an extrovert, just an occasional hint will be sufficient. If he is already a swell-head, it means he has an inferiority complex and is afraid he is not appreciated, so he does. the appreciating himself. A little soft soap given to him occasionally will help his inferiority and FU aown and

4

could not stand, LJ ” » 28304 doesn’t want this white elephant for many of the reasons here stated and because she | has an excess of power. Yet, it needs Canadian con sent, and so we now propose to pay all its tremendous

costs in the first years of construction and also to give them more water at Niagara Falls where they have more than their share already. It is true that some of the assertions here are engineering opinions. But it is also true that this subject has not been sufficiently aired for the public to make a judgment. Since the cost of it is almost sure to run above half a billion dollars, it certainly ought not to be bum-rushed through as the abortive Quoddy and the Florida ship canal were started. If we ralify that treaty we are obligated to spend a Juige treasure on what may prove another magnificent olly.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Columnists Have Learned to Dodge Brickbats Hurled by the Readers.

EW YORK, June 4.—The practice of writing let ters is on the increase in America. And so, of . course, is the habit of sending telegrams. Whether the quality improves I couldn't say. Naturally I am talking of letters to editors, Congressmen and pub-

licists of one sort or another. Those in the know inform me that columnar mail is at least twice or thrice as voluminous as it was a decade ago. Radio, with the various lures and gadgets which it offers, may have something to do with wearing away the inhibition of the average American against setting himself down on paper. And the autograph craze has made young America pen conscious. The interesting development is that John Q. Citi zen no longer is timid about sending his view to the White House or letting his Senator know just where he gets off. To be sure, not all these missives are based upon individual impulse. Organization of various kinds is rife, and group leaders offer set forms and urge their followers to memorialize in numbers the various interested parties.

Seabiscuit Attacks Shakeup Bill

It must be tiresome to get burning protests which are identical, and Congressmen may well grow fractious when they find advice on important topics signed “Seabiscuit” or “War Admiral,” as was the case in quite a few of the briefs filed during the

campaign against the Reorganization bill. But surely a private person has the privilege of bawling out a member of the House by special delivery or of sending his criticism to the White House. Such actions are part of the right of petition, and the practice is more open and honest than that of furtive lobbying. I do not even see any reason why columnists should be immune. And they are not. To be sure, the man or woman who shoots an arrow into the air in the hope of catching a col umnist in the neck aims at & moving target. It is a craft in which only the quick survive, and an ability to roll with the punch is essential. Quite often the reader who hurls the brick gets less than his 2 cents’ worth. The recipients have learned to dodge and to ski. It is the contention of a friend of mine in this business that only one type of letter can get his goat. “When somebody writes,” he says, “and complains. ‘You have bored me terribly for the last three months,’ I feel remorseful, and I want to make amends. But if the writer says, ‘You've bored me steadily for 10 years,’ I'm not sorry. That's his fault. He's a glutton for punishment.”

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

HE human being is constructed with a consider« able number of factors of safety. We have two kidneys, when one will do the work; seven times as much liver as is necessary for the ordinary functions of the body; a long gastro-intestinal tract, and several organs whose functions are duplicated. Few people have complete sets of sound teeth which would represent the normal as far as dentition is concerned, yet they manage to get along fairly well with the kind of teeth and the number that they have. Recently Dr. Richard C. Leonard has listed some of the don'ts involved in the care of the teeth. They constitute sound advice which everyone should keep in mind. They are: If a button pops off and you have to sew it on in a hurry (this applies to Scouts, young or old, masculine or feminine), or, if you have any other sewing to do, don’t bite your thread. Cut it. The habitual practice of biting threads will result eventually in nicking the biting edge of the teeth. Don’t bite hard-shelled nuts to crack them. Don’t place your dependence for the health of the mouth on any commercially advertised dental cureall. Dentifrices are intended only to help cleanse the teeth. They are not remedies for mouth diseases; neither will they prevent such diseases, and Don't expect a toothbrush to last forever, or for more than a few months. Don’t—and this is another importars one. Because the first or baby Ke come out, don't believe that these teeth should neglected. Baby teeth have a function to perform. Now as So the hinge shat, should be done. There are three particular: Eat proper food. Have a thorough examination and the necessary attention by