Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 June 1938 — Page 14

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THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1938

THE ELEPHANT LIMPS ALONG HE Republican State Convention was nothing to cheer about. A divided and leaderless party listened suspiciously to a brilliant keynote speech, then nominated only an average candidate for the U. S. Senate. And that is not enough for 1938. Certainly Candidate Willis is not the equal of Senator VanNuys, whom many Republicans wanted to nominate and will vote for in November. What's wrong with the Hoosier G. O. P. is no mystery. It still has Watsonitis. Old Jim was not strong enough vesterday to grab the senatorial nomination, but his reactionary henchmen have been able to date to block the progressives. The high points in the convention were the militant appeal of keynoter Barton for a cleansed liberal party, and some reform planks of the platform. The Democratic hosses can afford to take a good look at those planks. Especially significant are the Republican demands for correction of primary law corruption, Two Per Cent Club abuses, liquor-beer control rackets, and gross income tax inequities; and favoring the Child Labor Amendment, extension of the civil service merit system, and marriage law reform. Unfortunately the liberal planks and the Barton plea are over the heads of the Old Guard politicians who still control most of the county organizations in the state. The

vounger and progressive Republicans—and there are plenty |

in Indiana—will have to work longer and harder at the

job of organizing down in the precincts and wards before |

they can capture their party. That's a pity! For what Indiana needs in 1938 is a militant progressive Republican opposition to fight a Democratic administration that is getting entirely too fat. sn » = » 2 = BARTON'S COURAGEOUS KEYNOTE TRANGE as it may seem, it remained for a Republican— Rep. Bruce Barton of New York—to size up most concisely what Franklin D. Roosevelt symbolizes, to pay him one of the finest of tributes, and then to put a finger on his greatest weakness. Few have more of the gift of words than Barton. And unlike most men in public life he doesn't employ a ghost. He writes his own speeches. Speaking of Mr. Roosevelt, Rep. Barton, keynoting in the Republican State Convention, dealt with today’s

enigma—the fact that so many citizens who dislike the |

President's methods still like the President himself: “The answer is easy,” said Barton. women who have been most neglected in our American life believe they have found a friend . . . they say to themselves, ‘He cares.’ ”

Whether the faith ig well founded, or ill, Barton con- |

tinued, “The fact remains that this mass feeling toward the President is the controlling political influence of our day. To ignore it is blindness.”

Roosevelt as an executive—"The reforms he fights for and wins by his vision and his courage, he kills by his

inability to administer, The goal is ideal; the results are |

extravagance, inefficiency, and disillusionment. . . . The

Democrats have proved again and again that they can | conceive high ideals and enact far-reaching reforms. . . . |

Bryan had more ideas than McKinley. . . . They have ideas but they do not seem to be able to make them work. . , . They can enact reforms but they cannot give jobs.” = = » ® =n » O the Republicans assembled Barton assailed the Re-

publican trend—the trend that had made moribund a |

party which was born to give men hope and to make men free; a party which fought and licked the Democrats who

in pre-Civil War days were holding men enslaved, and then itself espoused privilege for the self-appointed better |

classes, “For more than half a century we had carried the hall of social progress. Then we fumbled the ball,” he said. “We grew soft . .. we lost touch with the common people .. « We began to put on weight.” The net effect of the Barton speech nationally was to

sound to the befuddled Republicans a call to the future such |

as we have not heard from anyone within that party since | bondholders and took care of the stockholders they

it inhaled the ether in 1932. We can imagine many a mutton-chop whisker quivering.angrily on many a reddened face over behind many a daily newspaper in many a well-stocked club, over this

bit of self-analysis and self-criticism, but we think the |

Barton address is good for the Republican soul. Ours is a two-party government. We have been trying of late to travel on one leg. It would be well if what Barton said would cause Republicans everywhere to realize that the world do move and that the only certain thing is change. ” ” » ® ” n HE Republican delegates at the convention also gave their party and the country reason to be thankful. They did not nominate, or come anywhere near nominating, Walter F. Bossert, once director of the Ku-Klux Klan in 18 states, who had bragged that use of the Indiana Klan's old membership rolls, still in his possession, would put him over as the Republican candidate for the U. 8. Senate. It is good to see an attempt to revive the fires of racial and religious bigotry, which: flamed in this state 15 years ago until the Klan had nearly half a million members and controlled the State Government, end thus in ignominious failure.

IT'S AN OUTRAGE

N the name of American manhood, we rise to protest the antisuspenders ukase just issued at Long Beach, N. Y,, by Mayor Louis F. Edwards of that Long Island resort. The time to crush tyranny is when it first rears its ugly head. What's wrong with suspenders? This nation was not _ made great by the sort of Nice Ngllyism that regards a * pair of honest braces as something {o be hidden.

rp asan en >"

“Those men and |

By Raymond Clapper

It Is Time the Hints Were Taken. WPA Has No More Business Being in Politics Than Other U. S. Agencies.

(Westbrook Pegler Is on Vacation)

ASHINGTON, June 30.—It is time WPA heads began to take the hint. i Less than a month ago Administrator Harry Hopkins stuck his neck into the Iowa primary and was roughly reprimanded in Senate debate. His action met with much criticism even among real friends of the New Deal. It caused Senator Hatch and others to try to insert a provision in the relief and recovery bill to forbid political activity by WPA. That was blocked by the Administration in a disgraceful scene in which Democratic Leader Barkley declared that because state employees played politics, WPA would be left free to retaliate, Barkley’s cynical plea killed the Hatch amendment. Yet sentiment was so strong that later the Senate did authorize its election investigating committee to watch for use of Federal funds for political purposes. That was a clear hint to WPA. It didn’t take, however, for now WPA's No. 2 man, Aubrey Williams, has stuck his neck out. In remarks to the Workers Alliance, a lobbying organization representing reliefers, Williams said: “We've got to keep our friends in power. . . . Just judge the folks who come and ask for your support by the crowd they run with.” FE & & HE Senate Campaign Expenditures Committee asked Williams for an explanation. He had only pointed out “that in a democracy it was important for them to keep in office those who had their points of view.” Williams said there was nothing political in that and that no political implication was intended. The Senate Committee “accepted” his explanation, but is investigating further. It said his remarks were “unfortunate.” That is another hint. How many more hints will be necessary remains to be seen. None should be necessary. WPA has no more business being in politics than the Census Bureau. It ought to be under civil service. Roosevelt's new civil service orders make it possible to bring WPA under the merit system. The sooner he completes that step the sooner he will draw a large vote of approval, not

alone from the conservatives, but from many friends | | of the New Deal.

= s 5

ILLIAMS, like his chief, Hopkins, is utterly sin- |

cere. He is as idealistic as any man in the Administration. His Youth Administration is one of the finest things ever undertaken by this Government.

His trouble is that his zeal sweeps him out of bounds. |

The deeper Government gets into the affairs of the average citizen, the more important it is to keep the administrative agencies out of politics. The Federal Power Commission, TVA, the labor board, the bureau

of standards, the steamboat inspection service—none | of these agencies has any business mixing in politics. |

Neither has WPA, Roosevelt is justified in fighting for his Administration and in going into the Democratic primaries to root out Democrats who ride under party colors and then vote with the Republicans against mest of the major policy measures which the Administration advocates. All politicians understand that. The place for politics is there, not in administrative work. But around here they can't be bothered with such fine distinctions.

Business By John T. Flynn

Solution of Rail Problem Lies in Making Most of Bonds Into Stock.

EW YORK, June 30.—A friendly critic writes to argue the question of Governor La Follette's plan for a moratorium on railroad debts. He agrees with me that bankruptcies would be the better way, but he thinks Governor La Follette's plan for a moratorium is a more feasible way. No one has more respect for Philip La Follette than I have. And I think he is on the right track

| in directing his first attention to the railroad snarl.

That leads him inevitably to its debts. What he is

i ; ibd v | after doubtless is to stimulate discussion of this railTurning to the political attack, Barton dealt with

road debt question. The more the proposal for a moratorium is subjected to analysis the less sound it seems and for that matter, the less feasible. It would probably be met by more opposition than the bankruptcy road. At present, beyond a doubt, the roads are weighed down by the debts. So far as the public is concerned the thing about all this which affects it is that the roads cannot buy any new equipment. They cannot do so because they have no credit left. But to declare a moratorium on the debts would strike at the most innocent of the roads’ creditors and leave that group of investors least entitled to consideration still in the saddle. That is the stockholders.

Bondholders Would Suffer

The owners of bonds have in almost all cases put up hard cash—cash out of savings—for their bonds. There is no telling what stockholders have put up. Many of them never put up anything. At least vast amounts of the stock were issued without a dollar being paid into the railroads for it. A moratorium would stop interest and payments to the bondholders. In the end it would wipe out most of the bonds, It weuld leave the stockholders sitting pretty. But these bondholders were by and large investors looking not for great profit but for safety and a moderate return. The stockholders, on the other hand, were most of the time speculators taking big risks to make big profits. To penalize the bondholders and let the stockholders grab the property would be indefensible. The chief objection to the bad reorganization schemes of the past is that the promoters soaked the

represented. What should be done is to wipe out most of the stock, convert most of the bonds into stock and set the roads off on another era of development,

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

OMANCE got a body blow from a Chicago jurist, who ruled that a girl may keep her engagement

ring and if necessary use it as collateral for a loan after she has married the donor's rival. This news may persuade us that women's rights are becoming mote substantial, but even so it has a doleful sound. For as in a good many other instances, a woman's right is a man's wrong, and this incident tells the tale of one more injustice piled upon the overburdened shoulders of the male.

The boys may figure they'd better be safe than sorry, saving their cash for the wedding band when the lady becomes theirs legally for keeps—or at least until the price of a divorce ean be raised. Do you blame them? When engagement rings were originated, the plighted troth of a couple was regarded as a sacred rite, which was to be consummated by the marriage ceremony. That, of course, was long before the day of the casual fraternity pin compact which now marks a girl as a boy's exclusive dating property for the time being. It will be sad to see the engagement ring vanish from the modern scene—as it already has in certain social groups in which the boys cannot afford diamonds. Many a girl will regret the custom, because it's a proud and happy day when she first sports a jewel on the third finget of her left hand. However, if the courts decree: that a diamond bought on the installment plan with painful economy becomes the property of the first woman who gets it into her clutches, regardless of future wedding plans, it's time for the boys to scatter their gifts with discretion. The melancholy part of the proceeding is that, as usual, the innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty. Sometimes it looks as if women were busily destroying her priv in an effort to establish their » \ ‘ i :

~ :

be wi ¥

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ___ |

THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1938 |

Another Sermon on Another Mount '—By Talburt

ER ADMINISTRATO AWS

7 oY AvBREY WS 3

The Hoosier Forum

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

BLAMES LENDERS FOR SLUMP | By Alfred Weller During recent years there has { been so much said and written on { what caused the depression that I | sometimes wonder where those | writers and speechmakers were in [ 1920-1921 and up to 1929. Don’t these people remember what happened to the farmer and the country banker in the late months of 1920 and all through 1921? Has everybody forgotten the “Back to Normaley” drive which started after the Republicans adopted those three words for their campaign slogan? Well, the Wall Street money changers thought the farmers were

for $2 and 10-cent steers, and the | farmers might pay off the mortgage | on their farms. Then, how were the money lenders going to live without loaning money? 8o in order to put the wooden shoe on the farmer they started to shear him by calling in his loans. And since millions of dollars of Federal Reserve notes were issued on farm cbllateral, the shearing was a very simple opgration. So the money lenders through the Federal Reserve banks called on the country bankers and withdrew from

lion dollars of Federal Reserve notes (cash) in the last four months of

| cents, and $2 wheat to 75 cents within a few months. Again in 1921 they called on the sheepmen along with other farmers for another half billion. Sheep in many cases did not pay freight to market. In 16 months the Federal Reserve banks withdrew and destroyed notes to the amount of a billion and a quarter dollars from a total of three and a quarter billion in circulation before deflation began. The original depression is still

money withdrawn since 1920 is put back into circulation. ” ” . SCORES INTERFERENCE IN STATE PRIMARIES By FE. A. L. The President's interference in state primaries strikes a direct blow

| picks out the members of the na- { tional legislature. Thus, by circumvention and by the use of public funds, the American people are being deprived sof their constitutional right to choose their own candidates for Congress. Mr. Roosevelt talks glibly of the

getting too prosperous, selling wheat |

those banks more than a half bil |

| 1920. Ten-cent steers dropped to 4

with us and will remain so until the |

at representetive government by introducing into our national political | | life the system used in Germany and Italy, where the head of the state |

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

views in

need for “social conscience,” but he ignores the shocking lack of personal conscience in Administration leaders. Does he interfere with the activities of the vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee in Jersey City? Certainly not, “my friends,” because Hague is a 100 per cent New Dealer, a pillar of the “new social order” and—he delivers the vote!

# 8 #8 LIKES FIGHTING SPIRIT DISPLAYED BY F. D. R. By a Voter Quite. a few people séem to object to the fighting spirit of President Roosevelt's latest fireside chat. I rather liked it. There is little to be gained by soft pedaling or frying to harmonize the widely divergent elements in the Democratic Party. A good offensive is often the

best defensive. Likewise the Republican Party

JUNE IN HOOSIERLAND

By RUTH SHELTON Sunrise . . . treetops stirring, swaying; Grape. perfume dream; Orange honeysuckle straying; Pink wild roses, dew-agleam,

like some lost

Noon . . . cud-chéwing cows, contented, ‘Neath the pawpaws in the dell; Sea-of-clover’s surge augmented By each breeze's scented swell.

robin’s lonely calling; fireflies, whipporwill's

Sundown . .. Dusk . . . tune; Nighttime . . . cool, moon-drenched dew falling . ..

DAILY THOUGHT

To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.—Luke 1:79.

Heaven in Hoosierland in June! |

HE preaching that comes from the soul, most works on the soul.—Fuller,

~ cannot hope satisfactorily to reconcile its liberals and conservatives. A new alignment between and within parties is necessary. I like, too, the President's statement that he would support his own in the primaries where the New Deal is at stake. As has been said, there is virtue in frankness. With that coupled with the orders to keep Federal agencies out of poitics and the increase of civil serv= ice in Government offices, there need be no danger that our democracy is being undermined. We citizens have a peculiar faculty for being able to take advice or leave it and use our own judgment anyway,

¥ #4 5 SEES CHANCE FOR DICTATORSHIP By C. M. M. Going back to the time when the NRA came into being, business was at such a low ebb straight dictatorship seemed to many of us as a | solution of our troubles. In the dictator nations of the old world the head of the government can and does control the votes of the people that his ideas may be perpetuated. These rulers were ele vated to power during a period of depression just as our President was elected during financial stress. If | we again sink low enough there will be a growing demand for regimentation with absolute control of the electorate. It is doubtful that it can be accomplished by political methods alone but can be done by the use of military powers. The steps to dictatorship imply a depression, theén dissension among the people followed by administra<

tive control of the electorate.

” ” ” Ld

OUR JOB IS HERE, READER DECLARES

By E. M. P. To have one-third of the nation ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-housed, isn’t making capitalism work, nor is havs ing 14 million men unemployed or the present trend of large scale employers with alleged enormous re« | serves to shave expenses to the bone and throw their employees out on | the street. Never mind Hitler and | Stalin, let's keep our nose out of | their internal affairs and put them | where they belong into our own American system. Let us strive to make our own American system work better than theirs in reasons able ‘economic security, in social | Lustive and fair dealing. Let's sweep our own house first!

1 THREE TIMES as many men as women risk crossing diagonally, as reported by A. R. Ellis, of the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory. They risk their lives to save just a fraction of one second! Just asgn

v + . 3

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

LS

WTER po6E To Power BECAUSE HE FELT PERSONALLY INSECURE," HAYS LEADING PSYCHOLOGHT, YOUR OPINION

NUTCRACKER FOR ARBUFYERS ¢ DO FIXED NA Ge NOARIES GAUGE

Yéé ORANG case

block jay walkers, although it takes four seconds to oross the street there than at the corner. As

| 2 DR. HAROLD LASSWELL, of the University of Chicago, says | that all dictators are characterized | by extreme anxiety, fear, feelings of insecurity and profound loneliness. To achieve security and break their

isolation, they strike their enemies right and left, and murder their way [to power. They strive to overcome | these feelings of anxiety by exacting slavish obedience from others, and punish disobedience with death. They sway multitudes by their ora tory because they fly into the pas sions that the crowd would like to indulge in and, by applauding the passions of the orator, the crowd and speaker go crazy together, Sounds just like 'em, doesn't it?

& o

80 TWO of our leading experts on population, Drs. Warren S. Thompson and P, K. Whelpton, argued in a recent address to the Américan Academy of Political and Social Science. As population increases the ple seek to break over their boundaries and claim other territories that have the resources they desire. This is especlally true when they enter on industrial development and need raw materials and markets. These students do not justify war from these causes but

Gen. Johnson Says—

Political Use of Relief Funds Is An Extravagance to Be Rebuked by Voter, Whether on WPA or Not,

ETHANY BEACH, Del, June 30—The ineffable Aubrey Williams, of WPA, tells relief workers that they should vote for “their friends.” What he meant was clear because he said it in applauding the President's fireside chat, which said the sama thing less directly. ; About the same time, WPA, which hasn't enough money to relieve one-third of the unemployed, made it harder to help the rest by restoring wage cuts and raising Southern relief wages. In the states of Okla= homa and Kentucky, where rubber-stamp Senators - Bre in danger, WPA wage increases were largest of all. : Thus it appears that the Administration doesn't conceal that it is using relief money for political slush at the expense of the unemployed. It seems to be boasting about it to make it more effective. If it were clear that this is Administration policy, more unfortunate people would be scared. :

” o ”

SAY “appears,” “seems” and “if,” befause maybe our Aubrey was just babbling. He holds that Gove ernment should hire all the unemployed at regular industrial wages. But his only suggestion of how Government is to get the money is to take it away from the “haves” to give it to the “have-nots.” The annual cost of all government is now above 16 billions. That is 262% per cent of the President's estimate of 60 billions of national income for this year, But we now collect only about 12 billions in taxes-—20 per cent of this year’s income, Studies hy the Twentieth Century Fund indicate that the total tax bill of a man with $1000 of income is about 20 per cent—mostly in hidden taxes. I have seen other careful separate studies of the tax element in the price of a set of cheap dining room furniture, 8 dollar-and-half shirt, a loaf of bread and a cheap automobile. Although each was an independent study, the result was remarkably constant—in each case approximately 10 per cent, . By far the bulk of Aubrey’s money is coming from the poor. Relief workers and unemployed themselves are paying their 20 per cent of whatever they get the very same 20 per cent that the total national income is nicked by the total tax hill,

” ” ”

HAT isn't taking away from the “haves” to give to the “have-nots.” It isn't “sharing our wealth.” It is simply assessing both “haves” and “have-nots” at an almost equal rate. It is distributing poverty-not wealth, : Rising debt and taxes should be the principal con= cern of people of every class. The unemployed must be relieved, but every bit of extravagance in their relief or in any other activity of Government, is a curse to the whole community, The recent political uses of relief funds discussed in the beginning of this piece is plainly such an exe travagance, Apart from its monstrous affront to de= cency and democracy, it adds to the rising burden of debt and taxes on all classes and deprives tens of thousands of necessary relief because it leaves less to go round. It should be rebuked by every voter, whether on relief or not. : This can be done without danger, When a voter goes into the election booth he can vote as he pleases, Nothing is now so important as to make that clear,

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

J. Weldon Johnson Was Small, but A Great Champion of His People.

EW YORK, June 30.—~The Negroes of America quite naturally take pride and joy in the vice tories of Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong. The race has almost a monopoly of the ring titles. And in track athletics, leadership in the dashes and the jumps has gone very largely to the darker-hued come petitors. But Negroes should join again in a mass demons stration for one of their own who could not fight with his fists or sprint or leap. But this man did more for his race than any athlete, however great, could possibly accomplish, James Weldon Johnson died on Sunday in Maine. He was Killed in an automobile accident. He was slight in stature, but here was the greatest fighter of them all. And when public tribute is paid to Jim all groups should join in the mourning. & You know him, although perhaps his name escapes you. At the moment this broad appeal rests largely on his lesser work. The songs which he and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, wrote, in collaboration with Robert Cole, are on your radio almost every night. Most of them go all the way back to the days . of the Klaw and Edlanger extravaganzas. But of late they have had a second blooming. Once again “Under the Bamboo Tree,” “Congo Love Song” and “In My Castle on the River Nile” are heard in the land. One of Anna Held's most successful songs, “The Maiden with the Dreamy Eyes,” was written for her by Cole and Johnson. They were the song-writing kings of Broadway at the turn of the century, .

He Kept His Feet on the Ground

J. Weldon Johnson was the lyricist and later on he published serious poetry of high merit, I have particularly in mind a lovely long poem called “God's Trombones.” Jim finally left off song writing to crue sade for his people us secretary for the National Assos ciation for the Advancement of the Colored People. When Jim was a Broadway song writer he never

merely point out that these

ecLious Qi ’

let success go to his head, and when he crusaded for

| the National Association he still kept his feet on the

ground. He had charm and humor, and in his own per= sonality and life he did a great deal to brush aside the words and thoughts of those who would minie mize the achievements and the potentialities of the Negro race, And so let “Clod’s Trombones” sound for James Weldon Johnson, a small man with a smile who was a great and true heavyweight champion in fighting for hic people,

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

N some families most of the members live to & ripe old age. In others, this is the exception. More and more experts have come to believe that the best way to live long is to follow thé advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “to select parents and grandparents who live long.” In other words, the tendency to live long is inherited. People who keep account of the statistics of life and death and disease as they affect human beings are called biometricians, In a series of studies of length of life of human beings recently made by a biometrician, Dr, Raymond Pearl, he established the fact that the expectation of life of the sons of fathers who are still living or who died at 80 years of age or over is greater by far than the expectation of life of the sons of fathers who died at ages between 50 and 79 years. On the basis of these studies of a considerable number of persons Dr. Pearl worked out a formula

for estimating the chances of living long. The formula involves the addition of the ages of both of the two parents and the four grandparents of a given person. The lowest figure found in a series of people who were studied was 254, which would give an average age of death for each ancestor of 42 years. For people who came from families which tend to live long, the figure was approximately 450, while the average was 380, It is impossible to say exactly how much of a part is played either by heredity or environment in prolonging life. Most of the prolongation of life that has occurred in recent years has been brought about

by improved living conditions and the control of ine i

than by any change in the |

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