Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 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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Their Own Way
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Give Light and the People Will Find
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1938
A GRAND JURY JOB HARGES of irregularities on the part of some precinct election officials in the recent primary have been made by a special recount commissioner. Those charges cannot be ignored. They merit the most thorough grand jury investigation following the recount. Of all the crimes against democratic government, election fraud is the most destructive. It saps the popular suffrage. It steals the rights of citizenship. It encourages the voter to feel that “politics are rotten anyway and nothing can be done about it.” Something can be done about it!
A PRISON WITHOUT WALLS
N view of an increasing penal population the State Welfare Department has proposed the construction of a prison without walls for rehabilitation of first-time offenders. Welfare officials recommend such a prison, similar to those in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, rather than construction of new cell blocks in present institutions. The 1939 Legislature is to be asked to appoint a commission to study the proposed plan. It is apparent that the success of such a project depends on two factors. First, as Thurman Gottschalk, State Welfare Director, explains, only those prisoners whose records indicate the possibility of rehabilitation should be transferred to the new institution. And second, the prison without walls must have the service of a qualified staff. The staff should include trained psychologists, sociologists, vocational and academic teachers and a supervisor of industries. Naturally the entire staff would have to operate under an effective merit system.
ONE MEMBER SPEAKS
T least one member of the Democratic National Committee has declared himself publicly on the anti-free-speech policies of the committee's vice chairman, Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City. Says Governor A. B. (Happy) Chandler of Kentucky: “Freedom of speech, of the press and the right to worship as we wish must be maintained in the United States . . . I am on the other side from Mayor Hague on that question.” Now, an obvious comment might be that the statement required no courage on the part of Governor Chandler. He is trying to capture a U. S. Senate seat from a favorite of the Roosevelt Administration, Senator Barkley. Being already at war with the Administration, he is not reluctant to embarrass it and he could speak without fear of reprisals. But no New Dealer, we think, is likely to accuse the Kentucky Governor of grandstanding in this matter. For that would leave the inference entirely too plain that other members of the Democratic National Committee, whose silence about Mayor Hague is almost deafening, are trying to spare the Administration embarrassment and do fear to incur its displeasure.
FREIGHT AND WAGES
F minimum wage standards are to be made national instead of regional, say Southerners and Westerners in Congress, then something should be done to make the freight-rate structure national instead of regional. The Southerners and Westerners, we think, have a good argument. And we are glad to note that their leaders in Congress have begun to place more emphasis on wiping out freight differentials and less on freezing wage differentials by law. The lawmakers of the South and West have made concessions to the point where the fight over the Wage-Hour Bill no longer revolves around the proposal to fix a national base pay at 25 cents an hour for the first year. Nor does there seem to be much opposition to the compromise suggestion of graduating the minimum up to 30 cents an hour in three years. But above the 30-cent level—and on up to the ultimate goal of a 40-cent national minimum— spokesmen for the South and West insist that they must have wage differentials operating in their favor until the freight differentials which operate against them are wiped out. Nor can they be blamed for their stand. For it is a fact that existing freight rates not only act as a barrier to the movement of Southern and Western products into the large markets of the North and East, but also give some Northern and Eastern competitors an advantage in tapping the markets of the South and West. A general overhauling of freight rates to wipe out inequalities and establish a national system of fixing transportation costs has long been overdue. It is something on which Congress and the Interstate Commerce Commission will have to do much work before we can ever hope to fix a minimum wage standard above the bare subsistence levels. That can’t be done overnight, but it must be done. For, to attain a national standard of living, we must have a transportation system which permits a national distribution of goods.
MAKE IT DR. DISNEY
WALT DISNEY, whose formal education ended in 1918 when he went to France as a Red Cross ambulance driver after one year in a Chicago high school, has just been awarded an honorary degree of Master of Science by the University of Southern California. None will quarrel with this award, which recognizes Mr. Disney's “distinguished achievements in cinematography.” Indeed, it seems to us, the new Master of Science deserves a higher degree. The artist who created Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Pluto the Pup, the genius who brought Snow White and her small friends to life, should be entitled to ecall himself Doctor of Philosophy—about the merriest, kindest, most encouraging philosophy now being spread over a « troubled world, - ;
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Lottery Conducted for the Benefit Of the U. S. Treasury Wouldn't Be The Cure-All That Some Predict.
EW YORK, June 8.—The recent distribution of easy money to a few Americans through the Irish Sweepstakes revives the yearnings of many citiwens for an official national lottery to be conducted for the benefit of the United States Treasury and the relief of the taxpayers. Proposals have been made in Congress to organize such a gamble, usually with a prediction that the Government would receive a billion a year on the basis of a 40 per cent take. That would mean a gross business of $2,500,000,000 a year. These predictions are all dream stuff, however. They are made of hope and conjecture, and they ignore the known facts. it is a known fact that in 1935. in the 18 American states which permitted and supervised racing by running and harness horses and dogs, the total amount gambled was only $257,562,000, a little more than a quarter of a billion dollars. This excludes the racing in New York State and New Orleans, on which there were no data because of the absence of official supervision. The total return to the 18 states was only $8,976,000. “ wu = HIS was open, legal gambling, and the figures would seem to embarrass the enormous estimates which the police and prosecutors place upon the penny-ante numbers racket, One reads of the millions handled by furtive, underworld creatures such as the late Dutch Schultz of New York and his political silent partners, but, com=paring the method and the average amount of the bets with the horse park traffic, one is compelled to doubt. : The British are great gamblers, but the Glasgow Herald, in a careful survey of the football pools, which roughly correspond to the numbers racket in this country, except that they are legal and widely advertised, found that the gross handle for a season of 36 weeks was not more than $200,000,000. The Irish Sweep conducts three pools a year, and it is understood that this country, Ireland's best cus= tomer since the British placed a legal boycott on the sweep, buys about 50 per cent of the tickets. It is hard to obtain true figures on the amount of the American trade, but it was announced that the Amer=icans last year had bought about $7,000,000 of an is= sue slightly less than $14,000,000.
» » »
F this figure may be taken as an index we buy $7,000,000 worth of Irish Sweep tickets three times a year, a total of $21,000,000, which looks very puny in comparison with the hundreds of millions which we are said to export to Ireland. Anyway, the real figures, whenever it is possible to dig them out, discourage the idea that this coun-
‘try gambles in billions or would gamble in billions if
we had a lottery. As to the morality of the sweep, there is little to be said in opposition when many of the states permit open gambling on the races and take a percentage. But it can be pointed out, in addition to the apparent overestimate of the probable profits, that we have one of the few countries on earth which have no national lottery and that those countries which do have them are not conspicuously happy. In theory lotteries may be very tempting, but in practice the nations which use them soon find themselves no better off.
Business By John T. Flynn
What Holds Up the Investigation Of the Communications Commission?
EW YORK, June 8.-—The effort to bring about an investigation of the Federal Communications Commission is again up in Congress. For two years now Congressmen ranging all the way from New Deal stalwarts to New England conservative Republicans have been demanding an investigation of this commission. But always some mysterious power, somewhere, blocks the investigation. Who is doing the blocking? Three men only can answer that question. They ought to be asked. They are Speaker Bankhead, Majority Leader Rayburn and Chairman of the Rules Committee John O'Connor. There is not in Washington now and there perhaps has never been a commission which was a more grotesque travesty on Government regulatic:: than the Communications Commission. One of its own members has roundly denounced it. Over a year ago its chairman made grave accusations against another one of its members. Washington seethes with rumors about its activities. It controls one of the most delicate and important forces in this country— the whole realm of interstate communications, cov=ering telephone, telegraph and radio. That Congress should refuse to investigate its performances in the face of so many serious accusations is almost a scandal in itself.
Major Charges Listed
The major charges against the commission are: 1. That it has permitted a variety of political abuses to creep into the business of licensing radio broadcasting stations and the transfer of licenses; 2. That it has neglected to deal with the program abuses of the troublesome minority; 3. That it has busied itself with the petty traffic in licenses and mere commercial elements of the industry while ignoring completely the many grave matters of policy which the state must settle as a basis for a sound regulation of programs; 4. That it has collaborated in the effort to center control of the air in the hands of a few large companies. These charges are too serious to be ignored. If they had been made during a Republican administra=tion the Democrats would have been up in arms. The President, awase of the pressure for an investigation about six months ago, named Mr. Frank R. McNinch, chairman of the Power Commission, as chairman of the Communications Commission. It was given out that Mr. McNinch was to clean up the commission. But that appointment was made, not primarily to clean up the commission, but to hush up an investigation. If Congress adjourns without ordering the probe it will be guilty of a shameful dereliction of duty.
A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“YF peace is ever to come to the world it will not come merely by joining peace societies. It will come by facing facts and accepting responsibilities.” So says Lady Nancy Astor, American-born English= woman, whose spectacular political career has greatly advanced the cause of feminine independence. Facing facts and accepting responsibilities is a grand idea, but I resent the slap at peace societies. Many people will leap upon the derogatory suggestion like hungry dogs after a bone, because they never overlook a chance to hint that any organization workIng for peace is a menace to the social order. Yet who teaches the individual to face facts and accept responsibility, if not the peace society? Even the most hide-bound devotee of bombs and battles for defense can hardly argue that a cause succeeds nowadays unless it has cohesive group backing. Wars have always been promoted and maintained by the use of organization methods. The advance guard of every army are the civilians who believe in the nobility of its purpose, and in all history no successful campaign has been waged without the help of men behind the scenes who kept the propaganda going and *‘he funds pouring in. When the money runs out and the organizations can no longer think up propaganda, the campaigns fail. Peace societies now present a formidable barrier to the promoters of war. They crystallize the common man’s opinions, interpret in plain terms the reasons why war does not pay, and ferret out the delusions. Perhaps our peace societies make mistakes. But no matter what their errors may be, they can never make 50 colossal a blunder as the groups that would
J
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIVES Quiet! The Master Mind Is Thinking—By Herblock
iN THe
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IT SAYS THAT DEMOCRACIES ARE WEAK, INEFFICIENT AND COWARDLY
—
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~The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
DEPLORES POLITICS IN RELIEF By R. C. On Feb. 4, 1936, with a Presidential election approaching, the Senate unanimously passed a bill introduced by Senator VanNuys prohibiting under penalty of fine or imprisonment any employer from trying to influence the vote of his
employees. The bill died in the House but the Senate's action in passing it was thought by Democrats to be a healthy gesture in the direction of preventing employers from using their influence to line up the help for the Republican ticket. Administration Democrats took gleeful delight in pushing the bill along. Now a year and a half later, with a general Congressional election approaching, another Democratic Senator, Hatch of New Mexico, has attempted to put the shoe on the other foot. He proposed an amendment to the Relief and Recovery Bill to forbid any administrative person employed under the relief program from trying to influence any primary or election. The amendment, in effect, applied to WPA the civil service rules against political activity. Was it passed unanimously? It was not. It wasn't passed at all. The fight against it was led by Senator Barkley, the Administration floor leader. Senator Barkley, in his impassioned speech against this proposal to take WPA out of politics, made it plain what the situation was. He is up for renomination in a stiff fight against Governor Happy Chandler in Kentucky. He explained that it wasn’t fair to hog-tie WPA workers this way when State Highway employees were free to play politics. “We all know,” Barkley said, “that there is not a state in the Union in which the political organization which is in control of the state does not prostitute for its own political purposes the employment of men and women on the highway, and within the offices constructing and conducting the highways.” He named other groups of state employees, such as the unemployment compensation services, which although supported by Federal funds, are free to engage in political activity. Thus the New Deal leader of the Senate, the official floor spokesman for this Administration, lays bare as cynical a picture of democracy as Hitler could paint, and makes a mockery out of five years of fireside chats. It was a disturbing speech, and those who will be most disturbed are the real friends of Roosevelt.
(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.)
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MACHINES BLAMED FOR UNEMPLOYMENT By Kenneth Van Cleve In answer to a Hoosier Forum letter by “Voice in the Crowd,” saying that blaming the machine age is political poppycock, it might be so to a theorist, but to the millions of men walking the streets looking for work it is not political poppycock. It is a cold fact that machines continually are eliminating a certain amount of manual labor—machines can do the work cheaper and faster. In some instances machines do make more work, but these machines are overshadowed by the other machines that eliminate jobs. He also says the American system always was all right for the man that was not afraid of work, as if no one realizes that. This has about as much sense as the statement of Henry Ford that what America needs is for everybody to go to work. Certainly the American system is all right as long as everyone can work and prosper. But there are so many not prospering 4nd that's why the American system is failing. Our
JUNE SMILES
By M. P, D.
June smiles In yellow rose And shining marigold. In lily white And in the light Of golder dandelion In glow of old. June Smiles In the green 2rass Where breezes pass Through day and night.
DAILY THOUGHT
Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dis mayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest. ~Joshua 1:9.
OD is a circle whose center is everywhere, and its circums=ference nowhere.—Empedocles.
laissez faire industrialists don’t seem to want to draft new policies which would benefit themselves and the people. Capitalism’s time is short under the present setup. » ” » y
POLICE DRIVE ON GAMBLING SOUGHT By Mrs. Broad Ripple What does the Indianapolis Police Department intend to do about the gambling in pool rooms? We thought it was against the law to gamble. Every day some man who is married and has a family loses his week's wages in these placee. Why doesn’t the Police Department give the wife and children of these men an even break. They're the ones who suffer. n u »
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM SCORED By A. J. McKinnon I wish to call attention to the fact that John T, Flynn did not let the cat out of the bag on business index charts when he said the New York Times gave the start of the business decline as April, 1937, while the New York Herald-Tribune gave January, 1937. The real cause of a depression is the expansion and
contraction of credit by the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. By the banking act of 1935 they control all other banks in the country as well as credit. January 1, 1937, the Federal Reserve System had 432 billion dollars of credit and currency in circulation. Between Jan. 1, 1937, and April 1, 1937, more than one and one-half billion was taken out of circulation, in all two and one-half billion during 1937. Since Jan. 1, 1938, more than another billion has been taken out of circulation. Now just what is this game of the Federal Reserve Banks. Just this: They control all your money, my money, the industries’ money, the farmers’ money, everything including the Government, Just what is the reason of this game to expand and contract credit —simply to have Congress issue four and one-half billion of bonds at 3 per cent interest and they take control of the bonds. There is nothing in the world the Federal Reserve bankers like better than pumppriming. The trouble .does not lie between Government and big business, the Government and industry or the Government and the farmer. It lies between the Government and {he Federal Reserve System, which controls the currency.
LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND
By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM
"TNE STORY OF HEREDITY... THE SA THE
GRANT WERE GREAT IRE A ST WEST POINT TRAINING. me "CERTAINLY, 1 CANT BELIEVE WI yy 16 INHERITED.
YOUR OPINION cee
EIOVRIGNT DBE SEEN PAL CO.
CERTAINLY both men inherited high executive abilities but whether military talents are ine herited is not known. The best
study of this problem is ntal 'and Moral Heredity in "by
MAL PERSON SESS THE ABILITY 10 RECOSNIZE OTHER PERSONS BY THEIR
FACES S255 APPEARANCE P YES OR NO eee
RUN LESS RI BEING IDENTIFIED By MAGS. THE Rh LOWER PART OF Hi® FACE P YOUR OPINION een ¥. A. Woods in which he shows the high degree of “ability for war and government” which ran in the descendants of William of Orange for
10 generations, culminating in Fred--
Henry—ptobably a greater military genius than Frederick. Lee was the culminating figure of a long line of brilliant ancestors in the First Families of Virginia. Grant's ancestry was “good but not eminent.”
NO. It is a strange thing that has come under the notice of psychologists that some people say they have almost no ability to recognize other people outside of their family and most intimate friends—perfectly normal people, too. While some have better memories than others for other people, most of us remember hosts of other people's faces and appearance automatically and, as one psychologist points out, it is only when we find people who scarcely possess this sense or ability at all that we recognize it is a very definite mental ability. » ” ¥ THOMAS W. HOWELLS, psychologist, found in an ex-
haustive test that when the upper parts of the faces of persons were covered observers could recognize
them more correctly than when the lower part was masked. So, when
you go burglaring again use the reg's disguise—the red ban-
‘WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1938
Gen. Johnson Says—
The U. S. Is in a Slump, but It Is
A Paradise Compared to Itself 50 Years Ago or to Other Countries.
ASHINGTON, June 8-Graduating classes are leaving high schools and colleges in brigades, divisions and army corps this month. Just before they go, they have to sit sweating, fidgeting and eager to get away to catch the first train home—being harangued mostly by smug old gentlemen who ade monish them to be good and they will be happy and who tell them how to succeed in a naughty world. This kind of ancient fare is now frequently being
seasoned with a new sauce. Some speakers, especially '
those with a political motive, have been weeping over them-—telling them what a God-forsaken country they are going into—how it got that way by the selfishness and dumbness of the speakers’ political opponents—how it can be fixed up only by being taken apart and put together again by his political friends. A catchword of this kind of oratory is to tell these kids they are “the lost generation,”
» 5 » 1 year’s college crop is going forth to pretty tough immediate pickings. Also, it is a true bill that ever since their predecessors got the country into the World War, this country, as a natural heritage of succeeding generations of youth has been pretty
badly hashed by all those who were doing the cooking from 1917 to 1938. It is being hashed up still worse right now. But to tell them on their commencement days what a rotten country this is and how badly they are abused, is a pain in the neck. As Mr, Baruch pointed out in a Commencement Day speech at the Citadel in South Carolina last year, there is a lost generation in this country all right, but it is not this younger one. It is the men over 50 years of age forced out of business or jobs by the depression and who have families to support. It is the more tragic because it is the older men who have a responsibility for more or less helpless dependents which these oncoming ranks of vouth have not yet acquired. The going for these derelicts of fortune is many times tougher than for these young people. If there is a lost generation, it is they and if there are tears to be shed it should be for them and not these children.
” » » LSO, as for bewailing the decline in opportunity of this group as against that of this older and true “lost generation” when it began years ago—that is also the bunk. Their average scale of education,
amusements, conveniences, food, shelter and clothing was much lower. The courage, effort, resourcefulness and ability necessary for them to get ahead was much greater and so were their deprivations and hardships. The plain hard truth is that these kids and our whole population now demand many times more of everything than they did and are not willing to work as hard or suffer as much for it. y Finally, while this country is in a temporary slump, yet, as compared with other countries or itself 50 years ago—from the angle of the living of its whole population—it is a paradise. The present fashion of going around this nation telling people how rotten their country is, what little opportunity they have to better themselves, and, therefore, what their Government ought to do for them, is no service either to those people or to the country.
It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun
Perhaps Dr. Freud Doesn't Realize How He Has Influenced Baseball.
EW YORK, June 8.-—The most famous man in Austria has left Vienna and entered into exile. At the age of 82 Dr. Sigmund Freud tears up his roots, but he is taking with him his notes and manuscripts so that he may go on with his work. It is said that London is his destination, and that later he may come to New York. There is no civilized country where Freud will be forlorn, for he is truly a citizen of the world. It is quite true that medical men still quarrel as to the lasting value of his theories. Still, it seems to me that psychiatrists who reject his teachings at the same time take on some of his phrases and borrow, unconsciously if you like, a little of his approach. It is quite possible that Dr. Freud himself may be both puzzled and perturbed by the fact that while he wrote for doctors, his most fervent acceptance has been at the hands of the lay public. And most of those whose way of thought and habit of speech have been affected by the great physician have never read a line he wrote and never will, Within the month I was talking to a big league baseball manager, and inquired with solicitude just what was wrong with his shortstop. The manager shifted his tobacco before he answered, “There's just one thing wrong with him. He ought to be the greatest infielder in the game. The only trouble is that he’s got an inferiority complex.”
A New School of Managers
I doubt gravely whether the manager had any knowledge of the source of his inspiration. When Bucky Harris was first managing the Senators a good many seasons back ‘he assured me that when one of his pitchers began to go sour he always tried to find out whether the player's home life was pleasant, and just what kind of trouble he was having with his wife. Some will say that such considerations were always part of good common sense, and that Freud did .no more than invent a terminology, and some high-falutin’ theories. But-as far as baseball managers go that isn't true, and I assert that a little man in Vienna who didn’t know the difference between a base hit and a fielder’s choice wrote finis to the school of McGraw and made the Vitts, McKechnies and Cochranes possible. There are those who find the concepts of Freud degrading. To me they seem to constitute an eagerness for that deepened comprehension which is thes death of prejudice. And when a man of 82 takes up his notes and papers and leaves his home for a free land in which to go on with his work it seems to me that in his own person that man proves the integrity
of his philosophy.
Watching Your Health
By Dr. Morris Fishbein
UBERCULOSIS is now diminished in its incie dence far below that of two previous generations; yet it still continues to attack mankind from youth to old age. The battle against its ravages goes on undiminished. Within recent years great progress has been made in the study of this disease and in the methods of attack upon it. The first steps have been concerned with the germ. It has been possible to derive from the germ the active toxic substance. The use of the X-ray has been greatly improved, for examination of the chest. Other studies have been made on the manner by which the body defends itself against the germs of tuberculosis and their poisons. Several new tests have been developed which indi cate the reaction of the body to the invasion by the germ of tuberculosis. It has been found, for example, that there is an increased rate of sedimentation, or settling of the red blood cells, in tuberculosis, Most significant in relationship to the spread of tuberculosis is the animal experimentation, which involves the elimination of tuberculosis from herds of cattle that have been tested. The periodic testing of herds of cattle and protection of herds against imported untested animals is one of the most important means for stopping the spread of tuberculosis of the bovine type. Much has been learned about the differentiation ot the types of tuberculosis. It has been found, for example, that the first infection type of tuberculosis usually does not kill infants, and that those who escape tubercle bacilli through childhood do not nec essarily develop a serious form of the disease if they become later infected. Most of the studies that have been made of late indicate that tuberculosis is’ a communicable disease
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