Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 June 1938 — Page 11

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times

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MONDAY, JUNE 6, 1938

“LOCAL” LIBERTIES FEW weeks ago President Roosevelt, declining to comment on Mayor Hague’s suppression of civil liberties in Jersey City, remarked that it was “purely a local matter.” What was “local” then to Jersey City has become “Jocal” now to neighboring Newark, scene of a week-end riot in which free speech was denied to Norman Thomas, three times the Socialist Party’s candidate for President. Newark mobsters, apparently including some imported toughs from Jersey City, drowned out Mr. Thomas’ words with a brass band and silenced him by pelting him with eggs and tomatoes. Intolerance, bigotry, repression—those words express the spirit of northern New Jersey’s mobs. The same spirit,

after the World War, revived the Ku-Klux Klan, which

started as a “local” movement in the South but spread until it scarred every state in the nation—just as the Jersey mob menace will spread unless it is quarantined. The outrages in Newark and Jersey City are a warning to every American community and to every minority group. Labor organizers and Communist agitators were the first victims of Jersey terrorism. Then liberal Congressmen who undertook to defy Mayor Hague were threatened and driven out. Now a man for whom hundreds of thousands of Americans have voted for President has been humiliated by a shower of tomatoes and eggs. Another man for whom 17,000,000 Americans voted—Alfred M. Landon—has publicly expressed sentiments like those Mr. Thomas tried to voice Saturday. If Mr. Landon ventured into northern New Jersey to repeat his words, he would be subject to the same menace. Unless the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all Americans are enforced for all, there is no guarantee that they can be preserved for any group or any citizen.

PERPETUAL MOTION, AT LAST? INCE the United States Senate thrice has refused to condemn the use of relief money for political purposes, and since therefore every henchman down the line by now has taken the cue, it might be well to envision again what a billion dollars really means. The best way we know is to bring up to date a computation published some years ago in these columns: If a billion dollars had been gathered together 500 years before the birth of Christ and had been spent at the rate of $1000 a day since then to now, there would still be (as of today) 109 million 746 thousand dollars left. Multiply by the number of billions in the relief spending program to get the full effect. Then let your imagination play on the power of that sum when parceled through channels into which the word has gone that the expenditures may be safely made where they will do the most good politically. This may mean that perpetual motion at last has been discovered; that those who conceived the system will be forever unbeatable. Or it may mean a public revulsion against what at this writing certainly looks like a sure thing. = un 2 (Editor's Note—In this general connection don’t miss the Thomas L. Stokes articles from Kentucky on what's going on in that state. They start today on Page One.)

KIDNAPING IN FLORIDA

THE front pages have been darkened of recent days with the terrible story of a Florida kidnaping—of a child stolen and held for a ransom that may have been paid in vain. Hence the mention of “kidnaping in Florida” evokes for most of us a picture of skulking outlaws, hiding from the G-Men. But other current news from Florida, concerning another kidnaping, is getting relatively little attention. And that is not particularly surprising, for the other kidnaping is an old story now. It was two years ago last Nov. 30 that three obscure radicals were arrested in Tampa, taken to the City Hall for questioning, and then released—but released into the waiting grasp of kidnapers who took them 14 miles into the country, beat them, smeared tar and feathers over their wounds, and left them in the darkness. Nine days later one of the men, Joseph A. Shoemaker, died after surgeons had tried to save him by amputating a leg. The law can move very slowly in Florida, but at least it moves. It has been more than two years since 10 men were indicted in Tampa on charges of murder, kidnaping and assault. Seven of them were policemen. Since then, a trial on the murder charge has resulted in an acquittal, and a conviction on the kidnaping charge has been reversed by a higher state court on a technicality. Just the other day five of the policemen went to trial once more on the kidnaping charge; a juror’s prejudicial remark

quickly forced a mistrial, but a new start was ordered. .

UNCLE SAM, RENTER RGUING that PWA money should be made available for Federal building projects in the City of Washington, as well as in the states, Secretary Ickes told a Senate committee: “I cannot see the economy in refusing to build buildings for Government purposes while in the District of Columbia today we are paying an annual rental of approximately $2,900,000.” The reason for that rental item is that the army of Federal employees, growing faster than the Government can put up new marble palaces, has overflowed into private office buildings and converted apartment houses. Assume that the army of Federal employees will continue to grow, and Mr. Ickes may be right. Of course, another way to save money—and to save much more money—would be to reduce the number of Federal employees, so that those left on the payroll could all find space in present Government buildings, That way,

apparently, doesn’t appeal to Mr. Ickes.

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Checking Over His Recollections, Columnist Finds He Didn't Have a Whole Lot Against the Old Deal.

EW YORK, June 6.—Next time Mr. Roosevelt or Ickes or Wallace or Jackson or any of those who swing towels in that corner of the ring sounds off in disrespect of the Old Deal I would appreciate it if somebody would refresh my memory on just what was wrong with it. Because, chums, checking over my recollections, that seems to have been a pretty fair sort of era, especially by comparison with this New Deal period, and if there was anything to be sore about I want to do my duty. Wasn't that the time when they were sticking up tall buildings in all the big towns and building swell new suburbs and kicking out new cars by the millions, including some which retailed for around $6000 and, what's more, selling them? Wasn't everybody working who could or would work? Weren't fight tickets selling for $55 a copy at the box office and $100 at the gyps, and weren't ordinary, forgotten men able to fish up the price of $25 seats a couple of times a year? Check the files and see. 5 ” ” ” EMEMBER how it was almost impossible to get a kid to run copy or get a can of coffee for you

because they were all over in the corner reading the tape? Not the baseball tape, either. They were reading that stock tape and forming little syndicates and buying stuff on margin and making money at it, too. The Iowa farmers were selling out and hauling away for Southern California and Florida.to take it easy, and ditch labor got $6 a day around here. And taxes! Friend, who ever mentioned taxes in those days? And if it’s a question of wage levels are you telling me that wages are higher under the New Deal after —how long is it—six years—than under the old?

o ” » DO remember being pretty sore about Prohibition, but, to be fair, it wasn't so bad after bootlegging got organized, and, moreover, we fostered a fine domestic skill in those days which is rapidly vanishing from our civilization now. I refer to the home manufacture of gin, beer and wine.

Yes, I know, the bankers and speculators and hustlers shoved us a lot of wall-paper stocks and bonds, and everybody was knocked in the creek when the wagon threw a wheel. But you wait and see what happens. I just don’t know, neighbor. For a long time when I would hear them say Old Deal in that curl-of-the-lip way I went along, too, feeeling that, yes, it certainly was terrible, but let me ask you this: How were you doing back in those terrible days, and if this New Deal is going to be so swell when are those boys going to get through that long windup and let us see what they've got on the ball?

Business By John T. Flynn

Lumber Association Points Way to A Solution of Housing Problems.

EW YORK, June 6.—Recently I reported the experiment of Purdue University in low-cost house building. Here is another experiment in the same direction. Of course nobody is more interested in house building than the makers of lumber. And, indeed, no one is more interested in very low-cost house building than they. The National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association has been making some researches in the direction of low-cost house construction. It has set up a laboratory community near Washington, D. C., where it has been building a group of houses ranging in price from $2260 to $3660, exclusive of the cost of the lot. The community is 60 per cent finished. It has been built not to sell but to show the way to builders who wish to invest in low-cost housing.

This is a move in the right direction. The association - has proceeded along those merchandising lines which makers of dresses have used for many years. Long decades of experience in selling garments to women have shown garment makers that there is a market for dresses of various price lines and these price lines or categories have become pretty well understood.

The dress manufacturer has got to shoot for these price lines. He knows there are several million women who can and will pay $56 for a dress, but no more. They, therefore, with this market in mind, plan to give as much dress as they can pack into a $5 package.

A Great Unexploited Market

The same thing is true of houses. There is this enormous market for $3000 houses. It is perhaps the biggest market in America and it is absolutely neglected. There is more business in it, more employment, more material sales, more potentialities for recovery than in a thousand reciprocity treaties by Mr. Hull. It is the great unexploited market of America. It will be opened up, developed and made into an immense source of employment only by continually experimenting with it, finding new and cheaper ways to build good small homes. The real solution, probably, will come when some construction company works out a carefully studied plan for continuous employment during the year for workmen, so thal labor may be employed on low-cost house building at stated, reasonable wages based on steady employment rather than on the occasional and seasonal employment of today. It will be worked out when architects and reformers realize that a man is morally, spiritually and socially better off living in a more modest house for which he pays, than in a much better one that has been built for him by a philanthropist or on which the rent is paid for him partly by the Government. The pressure of social need is now growing acute. Building has utterly failed to improve or to show any real signs of life. It is more lethargic now than it was last year. There is going to be no recovery until building recovers. Building is not going to recover much until someone solves this housing problem.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

T takes a long time to learn to talk about a personal sorrow without indulging in self-pity.

All my life I had heard that grief acts as a purge

to rid the individual of selfishness, intolerance and unkindness. Upon me it had the opposite effect. I envied happy people. There were moments when I was horrified to find myself wishing that the people around me, who seemed sunk in smug contentment, could feel for a day what I felt all the time; that I could force them to look at my despair and, whether they liked it or not, step into the empty chambers of my soul. Grief is a hard schoolmaster, as most of us find out sooner or later. But she will teach you two important lessons. Under her tutelage you will no longer worry over trivial things. The cold winds from the tomb sweep away your joy, but with it goes also the rubbish of petty frets and foolish fears which were once important enough to be thought of as troubles. The second lesson is even more valuable. You find out that a heart is as important an asset to a person as an intellect, and that a sense of humor is a weak weapon with which to parry sorrow. There come periods in every life when the ‘individual cannot laugh at himself and when intellectual companions have very little to say. They are tonguetied, while the simple good souls without cleverness are able to speak a language that can be understood. Suddenly you see, with extraordinary clearness, that a great deal of what you thought was wisdom is meaningless chatter and you know the time has come when you LIiist, eonsiae seriously the meaning of the words — the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thingslot seen.” ST

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INDIANAPC

Come and Get It!—By Talburt

MONDAY, JUNE 6, 1!

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\SHMENT

FoR POLITICAL USE

To BNE I ————

OF RELIEF

The Hoosier Forum

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

SUGGESTS WAY TO SHOW HORRORS OF WAR By F. R. Gas masks are chic. London society has taken them up, as the phrase goes, and everybody that really matters is attending gas-raid salons. The best-known leaders of the haut monde are holding smell-soirees. Vials of liquid that smell like the real gas are passed around and delicately sniffed, masks are worn, and classes in raid-be-havior—exclusive classes—are held. You can almost hear the screams of amusement clear over here. In Praha there's a boom in the gas mask trade. There are 20 smart shops that sell nothing else. You can scarcely tell them from hat shops. Pretty girls do the selling and demonstrating. There are plenty of mirrors, so that you can see how funny you look in them. What the world needs is more of this kind of thing. It would give the cause of peace an appreciable boost. The horrors of war can't be demonstrated in the flesh, but the horrors of tricking it out in fancy dress can. ” ” o PRAISES TLLINOIS CITY FOR HONORING CHICKENS

By B. C. The city of Springfield, Ill, had a community celebration awhile ago that was a honey. The Mayor proclaimed a special day, and everybody rolled up his sleeves and pitched in with the kind of civic spirit that builds mighty nations. They all had chicken for dinner. The occasion was “Chicken Dinner Day”—created by official proclamation and destined for annual observance henceforth. Think of Springfield observing a Chicken Dinner Day all by itself! Think of the hundreds of thousands of chickens all over the rest of this fair land! How do you suppose they feel? The turkey has his day, Thanksgiving; the goose, Christmas; the duck, New Year's. The chicken is about as American a bird as you could imagine, and here she is, quite Day-less everywhere but in Springfield. Of course Springfield has a special reason for celebrating. Hatching chicks is one of its major industries. But, still, it does bring to the attention a lamentable neglect of a highly popular national hero—or, rather, heroine. ” ” ” DEFENDS HOPKINS ON IOWA STATEMENT By Hiram Lackey What is wrong with Harry L. Hopkins exercising his constitutional right of telling the truth to the poor in Iowa? After you re-

(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.)

serve your license to publish all your vicious propaganda and at the same time profess to believe in the idealism of Voltaire, it certainly takes some gall to join Bruce Barton in his attempt to limit the freedom of speech of the Jrepresentatives of the poor. Sherman Minton offered you a dose of your own medicine. Did you take it? Oh, no, that was for WPA officials. But since then you have had nothing but abuse for Mr. Minton. ” s un

ASKS WHAT IS BEING DONE TO STOP FUTURE STRIFE By John Poda It is about time more of us persuade ourselves to talk and object to some of the discouraging and quite undemocratic things happening in America. Had many of those crimsoned, ugly things happened in Germany, Spain, Mexico, Russia, China—anywhere—they would have mattered and been regrettable news for conversation and grave public concern, but that they are also happening in America, makes them stand out as a target of condemnation, and somehow seems to make them matter all the more! Yes, makes them matter all the more—and yet, what are the people of the nation doing to see that these things do not occur again?

” » ” SAYS UNITY IS NECESSARY FOR NATION'S SUCCESS By F. E. Beagle

Today many of us are wondering if the tactics used by our national

JUNE NIGHT

By MAUD COURTNEY WADDELL Far down on the western sky A slender crescent, orange-gold—— Beside a silver-pointed star Adorns the velvet robe Of night.

DAILY THOUGHT He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.— Mark 16:16,

EMEMBER that what you believe will depend very much upon what you are.-—~Noah Porter.

leaders are in accord with the desires of the public as a whole, and if they are beneficial to the security of our present democratic state. As individuals we are more or less selfish. As a rule we are more interested in affairs that affect our group. Out of this selfish instinct certain groups have been able by various means to have a great amount of class legislation passed. The question is can class legislation be of benefit to the public as a whole? Is it expedient to suppress the activities of one class in order to benefit another class? If too much restriction is forced onto the producing class, will it have a good or bad affect on the consuming class? Success can only be achieved hy unity. Class legislation does not unify but separates. We are all consumers, and the majority of us are either direct producers or our combined physical and financial forces are allied in such a manner with production, that only equal and unbiased legislation will work to our mutual benefit. Regardless of our position, be it high or lowly, so long as honorable, we ‘are morally obligated to work for and with each other for our common good. And by so doing is the only way we can retain our democracy. " .» w SEES INCONSISTENCY IN REFUSAL TO SELL HELIUM By Tom Flynn I can’t see the wisdom of not selling helium to Germany on the grounds that it might be used for war, while at the same time selling shiploads of aerial bombs, of which there can be no doubt as to their use.

A shipment of 20,000 bombs, one of three, left Delaware the other day Pdr Germany. An economic Royalist who has been busy sniping at Roosevelt for spending money to save lives is willing to make fat profits selling the means to destroy life and scatlter the limbs of women and children over the landscape of Spain. on ” o

OPPOSES GOVERNMENT AID FOR BUSINESS By W. G. Nelson Mebbe I am crazy. 1 can see where it is sane to increase the national debt to keep people from starving, but. why “up it” more billions to hand out to the “small

businessmen,” the railroads and big corporations? Why tax the big bugs with one hand and hand it back with the other hand in the shape of “loans” which will never be collected?

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

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low feel he knows a lot too. Unless you are directly asked for informa-

are known as an authority, if you display a great deal of knowledge you are usually considered a bore. The worst bores I have ever met were the people who have given me the most information, but I got so bored I couldn't remember what they said. ’ ” " ” A STUDY of this was made on a large group of students by a psychologist, G. J. Dudycha, and he could find no difference in punctuality between the students with high grades and those with low, but as I said the other day, speaking of the same research, the women tended to be less punctual than the men. . =» ” IT'S THIS sort of thing that fools people about heredity. They do not understand that chil dren may be both like and unlike their parents, and yét both conditions be due to heredity. In this case the father evidently had one fair-haired, fair-skinned and blue

or t and is carrying these traits in one-half the. life

Gen. Johnson Says—

To Give Up the Capitalist System

When War Came Would Be to Drain The Gas From the Fighting Machine,

ASHINGTON, June 6-One of my home state of Oklahgma's gifts to the nation, Senator Josh Lee, has had the Senate Military Affairs Committee approve his bill which he says is intended to prevent war by a threat to conscript all wealth to finance any war that may descend upon us. The idea is that, as soon as war threatens, almost everybody who has a dollar shall be forced to file a schedule of his holdings and then be required to invest them in bonds to pro= vide money to fight the war at an infinitesimal rate of interest. This Senator's political standards may at least be considered in the light of what he promised my statemates in his pre-election campaigns—‘a farm for every farmer and a home for every worker.” It is a wonderful promise. But, as the Senator well knew, he had no more prospect of delivering than it he had promised every man a check for a million

dollars. ” ” ”

yyoar do we say about people in private life who, asking for a valuable prize, contract to give, in return for it, something much more valuable to the promise? The less sald about that the better, Only in politics, can you do it.

But there is a limit. I believe the limit is endangering the country in the face of war. Modern war is peculiarly a contest between economic systems. The nation that is able to make and hurl into the contest the greatest weight of steel propelled by the greatest volume of chemicals, or drench a battlefield with the deadliest and most pervasive fumes of poisonous gas for the longest time, will win. Especially is this certain if its ships on and under sea, and in air, and its steel ring on land can cut off its enemy's supplies, It is an ugly and contemptible picture. But it is the truth about war and it does not change it in the slightest to rail against it. The best friend of potential victims in any country is he who knows about it and is aware of the best way to prevent it. The worst enemy is he who, through his ignorance, invites it.

” ” ” HE greatest producing country in the world, and hence the most powerful in any war, is America, It has become so under the profits and capitalist system. Any law enacted In advance of war that sends it into communism immediately that the ene emy'’s guns begin to roar, risks our existence. Therese

fore, anybody who proposes any such change and is prepared with no bill of particulars as to how it will work and no experience to justify his proposal is playing politics with national destiny--and that puts it in its most charitable terms. That nobody in this country shall be permitted to make one cent more of profit in war than in peace has been proposed in a practical manner by men who have borne the heat and burden of the defense of this country in war. But to propose that, on the first far rumor of war, we shall drain the gas from the engine with which we fight a war comes close to treason.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Where Did Hague Get Permission To Sit With the Working Press?

EW YORK, June 6.--Not even the mauling of Norman Thomas or Jerry O'Connell has left me quite as hot at Hagye as a single line upon the sport pages. After the Ross-Armstrong fight I read, “Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City was in the Working Press section.” How did he get in? I do not altogether credit the rumor that Hague finds it necessary to have his signature ghost-written, but, at any rate, he is not a worker, a sports reporter, a boxing expert or a per« sonage whom newspaper men would delight to honor, As a simple gate-crasher he should have been hoisted out and laid upon one ear. I feel certain that neither the Baseball Writers Association nor the Turf Writers would permit such an invasion of their necessary privacy by a rank outsider,

To be sure, this is not the first time that some so-called big shot at a fight has undertaken to bother his betters by getting in the way while they were intent on serving wires with running stories. There is nothing quite so annoying to anybody in the throes of composition as the hot breath of a visiting fireman upon the back of his neck. There should be a concerted effort on the part of boxing writers to take the matter up with the come mission, the management of the Garden and the police of New York City. Things like this should not occur again.

Rally Tirade Recalled

Politicians from either side of the river are cere tainly alien agitators when they crowd in close to the ringside and get in the way of men who have a job to do. Aside from his lack of rights in the matter, Frank Hague is just about the last man in America who would have the gall to ask newspapermen and women for any special favors. The Jersey City Mayor has a record of being the foe of both free speech and free press. His courts have been cruel and stern in all cases affecting news« paper workers. At the big rally in the Jersey City Armory which Hague arrang»d for himself some weeks ago he went out of his way to go into an untruthful tirade against a large number of newspapermen and women. And when a lone visitor, who was not covering the story, ventured a mild rebuke Hague's cops swarmed down upon the reporter and warned him that in Jersey City it is not permitted for anybody to question the boss. And they stuck to that rule, for when Hague had finished and held a reception upon the platform the police shoved aside every reporter who wanted to come forward with any news query whatsoever, Again in Miami, Hague would not submit to interviews. He was surrounded by his bodyguard and stuck to hideaways and private pavilions. And this is the man who has the audacity to demand the courtesy of being allowed to rub elbows with the very workers he traduces.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

HIS is the time of the year when parents begin to get children ready for the summer camp. In selecting a camp, there are certain factors which every parent must bear in mind.

Most important of all is reasonable assurance that a competent doctor is available in the vicinity of the camp, if not actually on the staff of the camp itself. Instances have been reported in the past of children who have developed meningitis, sudden at=tacks of acute appendicitis, or serious injuries, and the time lost in securing a physician had been so great as to affect seriously the child's future health and life. From the point of view of hygiene, the water supply of the camp and the disposal of sewage are most important. If there is no sewer system, the septic tank is generally relied on for disposal of waste. The water should be from a source which has been examined by the health department of the state and found to be free from contamination. Most camps are provided with plenty of clean water or running water. Shower baths and tub baths are also a necessity for purposes of cleanliness. The shower bath is a frequent source of widespread in< fection with ringworm of the feet, and the necessary steps should be taken to make certain that such haze ards are eliminated. Since milk is the most nearly perfect food and most necessary for the growing child, every camp must be assured of a milk supply from a safe source, Moreover, the parents should be certain that the food in the camp is not only sufficient in amount, but also that it provides the necessary essentials in

the of leafy green vegetables, fruits,