Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 August 1938 — Page 10

- ROY W, HOWARD President

PAG

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1938 _

‘NO PRETENSE REMAINS

NOT often has the whole country centered as much attention on one state's primary as it does today on the balloting in Kentucky. ; In that connection we the two Senatorial candidates in paign: ra a Said Senator Alben W. Barkley: : “If you want to swap all you're getting now from the Federal Government for a set of balanced ‘budget Government books dgwn in Washington, then vote for Happy Chandler. “But if you want to keep on getting what you're getting, and get some more, too, then vote to keep me in the Senate.” ; Said Governor A. B. Chandler: © «pl get more for you in six years than or you in 26 years.” a. : Regardless of who wins, the country will have to pay for what the winner “gets” from Washington. Which is a very good reason for all of us to be interested in Kentucky

—and in what this campaign typifies.

quote from speeches made by the last week of the cam-

Alben got

. ONE HAPPY CONTRAST

“ing profits into deficits.

THIS has been no land of milk and honey since the second depression started throwing men out of work and turn-

tell us that this decline was with the sudden silencing the un-

Indeed the statisticians one of the sharpest in history, of looms and mills, the stoppage of assembly lines,

precedented expansion of public relief rolls. Yes, this depression which now happily shows signs

of having touched bottom and started upward, has been tough on a lot of people. But there is comfort to be drawn

from comparison. : Our recollections of another’ depression have been

stirred by a report which we have just read. It was from

~ $191,237,000. :

the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.—and the memories it has invoked are of clanging bank doors and panicky depositors storming from the outside, of life savings swept away in the whirlwinds of rumors and fears. In the first six months of 1930 the first depression was just getting started, but it gained in momentum because of the closing of 473 banks, with deposits aggregating

The first six months of 1938 was a darker period. The

"economic tobogganing was much steeper. Yet in that period only 42 banks were forced to close. There was no panic

any time, anywhere. The deposits of the closed banks aggregated $46,100,000, of which $45,952,000 or 99.7 per cent, were protected against loss. All depositors, except those who had more than $5000 in one account, have been paid off-in full, or have refrained from collecting, knowing that the money is there for them any time they want it. The FDIC has worked a miracle in the mass psychology of bank depositors. That fact perhaps has contributed as much as any other thing to the checking of the business decline. And the FDIC has weathered the emergency so successfully that it was able to close its books on that six months’ business with $17,407,164 added to its already large surplus reserves. The achievements of the FDIC stand out as one solid accomplishment of the New Deal.

MEXICO’S ‘ABILITY TO PAY’ T is one thing, says Mexico, for the United States to pay cash for lands which it takes over for Governmental purposes. But, says Mexico, her Government can’t be expected to follow the cash payment rule, because Mexico's “economic situation” has not been as good as ours. Such is the substance of Mexico’s diplomatic refusal to arbitrate U. Si gitizens’ claims on expropriated lands. In replying, Secretary Hull might well point out that sur Government’s “economic situation” has been such that it is now in its ninth consecutive year of operating on borrowed money. And our Government continues to be able ’ to pay cash for what it takes, because it continues to be able to borrow the money. And our Government is able to borrow the money|because it continues its policy of meeting all of its financial obligations. It’s barely possible that Mexico's “economic situation”

- might be improved by similar treatment of her creditors.

agement.

144 HOLES Si - J SMITH FEREBEE and Fred Tuerk, being joint owners of an old Virginia plantation, couldn’t agree on its manSo. Mr, Ferebee settled their differences on a Chicago golf course yesterday by playing eight rounds— 144 holes—between dawn and dark, each round in less than 95 strokes (less than 91, in fact). That won him Mr. Tuerk’s half of the plantation and $500 side bets. It exhausts us even to think of it, in such weather, but it inspires a thought: What a lot of bitterness and even

~ bloodshed might be prevented if some of the issues over

which individuals and nations are disagreeing throughout the world could be disposed of as simply and decisively. However, it probably wouldn't work. Our experience tells us that most golfers, in the course of eight rounds, would start enough arguments to bring on a war.

NOT YET GONE WITH THE WIND So Miss Norma Shearer has decided not to be Scarlett O'Hara in the movies of “Gone With the Wind.” Now the countyy faces a renewal of the controversy over who shall be Scarlett. That controversy has raged for 17 years, six méhths and 27 days—or maybe it only

. seems that long. :

The perfect solution, in our opinion, would be for Mr.

‘Clark Gable to announce that he won't play Rhett Butler. |

.And for Mr. David O. Selznick to announce that he has ‘abandoned all plans to film “Gone With the Wind.” And

turn it all into a WPA theater project, so we can see—by

Fair Enough

|-8y Westbrook Pegler

Your Correspondent Has an Offer Accepted, and Now He Is Prepared To Start Werking on His Statue. EW YORK, Aug. 6—Your correspondent has been taken up on his offer to sculp a better statue of

St. Francis ‘of Assisi than that with which it is proposed to deface Christmas Tree Hill in San Francisco

or forfeit $100 toward a fund to prevent the erection

of Benjamin Bufano's conventionalized drain pipe on one of the most majestic natural sites in urban Amer-

‘ica, Mr. Bufano, the author of the pipe design, wires that he ‘has posted $100 with the San Francisco Press:

Club, Your correspondent is sending $100 immediately to the barman of the same institution, and the con-

| test is on, although certain minor particulars remain . to be adjusted :

For one, it was not necessary for Mr. Bufano to post $100. The proposition was not a wager, but a public spirited offer tor start a fund to prevent an esthetic atrocity. This was plainly stated, but it seems only natural that a man who could spend a long time studying the life, times, work and appearance of St. Francis on his home grounds in Assisi and come up with a figure of a man from a culvert could miss the point. However, his $100 should be welcome, because the WPA seems to be financing the conspiracy against San Francisco's skyline, and it is well within the rules of civilized warfare to fire captured ammunition at the enemy. ; » # » R. BUFANO deviates in a more serious particular, YA nowever, when he proposes that the loser's taw be forfeited to an outing fund for San Francisco orphans—a worthy charity, to be sure, but no more

beneficial in the long run than the original purpose.

Outings are but momentary, and it should be consid-

ered that unless this fund prospers and the purpose be achieved, unborn generations of San Francisco children will return from outings in the hills and on the sea feverish, fretful and colicky from glimpsing a stack 180 feet high affronting St. Francis, The children's imagination will play with fearsome interpretations. Some will see it as a holdup victim standing in a barrel, others as Zacchini, the circus performer who is fired from a cannon, still others as a man falling down a cistern. : : 8

T= disposition of the money can be arranged by a

committee, and it seems best that your correspondent now give a general indication of the statue which he purposes to sculp. It will have sandals on the feet, of course, and wings—if wings are not too hard to do. There will also be a rather large fish, representing the sea, a wheat shock for agriculture, a geared wheel for industry, a sledge hammer for labor, a compass and a retort for science, a car wheel for transportation, a propeller for the merchant marine, a scythe or hourglass, or perhaps just a dollar watch, for the time element and a life preserver for the U.S. Coast Guard. Further details will occur as the work progresses, but this will provide a rough idea. It would be unfair to place a time limit on your correspondent, who has never had a lesson “in his life and hasn’t even yet found a suitable rock. Would six weeks be a reasonable period, considering that it took Mr. Bufano several years to design a drain pipe? There is only one fear in this competition. It seems impossible, but your correspondent might turn out a design more awful than Mr. Bufano'’s, and in that case the same jury might construe it as high art and place it on Christmas Tree Hill. -

Business

By John T. Flynn

s Congress Should Call a Halt on ~ Comedy in Yan Sweringen. Empire.

EW _ YORK, Aug. 6.—The mills of the gods keep grinding more or less pitilessly against the gentlemen who are trying to run the now ramshackle empire of the Van Sweringens with a little chicken feed. Ever since the present managers have taken hold they have been attacked by a series of law suits, assaults by rival financiers and investigations. the SEC drives once again fo the charge and summons the Alleghany Corp. to answer to charges of doctoring’ its financial statements. This looks like a prelude to knocking the stock off the Big Board. The fate of this strange railroad empire so laboriously assembled by the late Van Sweringen brothers, may be told in the following record of »ghifts of control in the last seven years. Lo 1. Control passes to the Guaranty Trust by reason of the decline in the value of the underlying securities of the Alleghany on one of its bond issues. 2. Control passes back to the Van Sweringens when an appraisal of the securities reveals that, with the Jnarket pickup, the value has risen to the proper evel. 3. Transfer of the Alleghany Corp. control to George A. Ball of Muncie, Ind. 4. Shift of control again back to the Van Swer-

ns. 5. Shift back to Ball on the death of O. P. Van Sweringen. : 6. Transfer of ‘the interests of Ball to the George and Frances Ball Foundation created by Ball for charitable purposes. . 7. Transfer by Ball Foundation to Young, Kirby and Kolbe, 8. Loss of control by Young, Kirby and Kolbe to

In the meantime a great railroad system, along with shipping lines, street railway lines, hotels, department stores, coal mines and trucking firms, is knocked about waiting for a final stable‘ ownership.

Playing With Small Coins

- ‘The only excuse and defense that can be made for the introduction of these promoters or any promoters into railroad control is that they supply the funds needed to keep the roads in health. But that excuse is not present here. These gentlemen are playing their game with a handful of small coins—a few petty millions—against the needs of a vast three-billion-dol-

lar investment. time to renew a suggestion made by

| the Guaranty Trust Company.

This is the writer aWear ago. Congress should step in and put an end to this comedy, set up a commission to take over control of these systems and reorganize them in the interest first of the public, then of the bondholders and then of the stockholders if the stockholders have any interest left by that time,

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

dateless ladies of leisure and working girls. hig for the firm, its owner is quoted as night spots and can see the in might as well be living in Great Bend.” Probably many a woman who fishes for change in her coin purse to pay for male company wishes she did live in Great Bend or points west where; al

“Unless the New York girl gets ey -

Now

places, she |

The Hoosier Forum

1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will

TTS Y—

CALLS DEMOCRATIC PARTY ‘GREATEST MONOPOLY’ By G. CO. W. ps Recent press dispatches state that the Administration Is planning an investigation of the American Medical Society to determine if that organization is violating any aftitrust laws. The New Deal has already done a pretty thorough job of hounding and destroying business and it is now: starting on the

professions from which much: oppo= |-

sition is still coming. The newspaper and legal professions have already been singled out for attack by men in the inner circle of the New Deal. Now it is the medical

profession which has incurred the

wrath of the Administration because it opposes the soc tion of medicine. The greatest monopoly within the United States today and the most powerful trust which has ever been created in this country is the Democratic Party itself. Our form of government has always. succeeded because it has always been a twoparty government and there has

always been a minority. party to

act as a check or balance on the majority. Today this minority party has been almost destroyed to' the detriment of good government. Through its control of billions of dollars of relief funds the Dermocratic Party has reached into every state and poli subdivision thereof and has formed a political monopoly. ; 8 tJ 2 HOLDS INCIDENTS . NEVER CAUSE WARS By BE. N. If you can make any particular sense out of the alarming and conflicting reports about the JapaneseRussian border clashes, and can satisfy yourself from them which

side is taking the aggressive, you will be doing a great deal betier than most of us, Nothing in the whole imbroglio seems to make sense. One side relates that the other has been committing wilful and unprovoked attacks; the ofher Senie e and says precisely the same about its opponent.

Whether war will actually de- | of

velop is beyond the power of human forecasting right now. But the

whole tragic business does provide a |

working illustration of the truth that the immediate cause of a war is never the real cause.

Japan and Russia may go to war

now and they may not; but their

real quarrel is not the brush between two groups of frontier guards, or the question of ownership of an

defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

(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.)

unimportant and doubtless unattractive little. Manchurian hill. The tragic, fundamental truth seems to be that Asia, huge as. it is, just isn’t big enough to hold both Japan and Russia—or not, at any rate, under the ideas which their respective governments hold. For it happens to be the aim of each government to dominate the

| whole_contineng. .... - .

A few men in the Kremlin have looked to the future and have seen a particular kind of world taking shape there. If their .visionis to come true, Russia must be mistress of Asia. Te ; A few other men in Tokyo have likewise looked to the future and have seen another kind of world

is to come true, Japan must be mistress of ‘Asia. ‘To understand the cause of this threatening war, it is these conflicting visions and schemes which must be studied, not the details of one isolated clash. They mean no more than did the pistol shot which killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, » 2 =» WHAT'S VALUABLE? READER ASKS By a Reader

A Chicago man who has just made a tour of the Southwest is back home now, waiting for blind-

THE SHUTTLE

By MAIDA LEAH STECKELMAN Lovely thoughts come and go,

Spun with tinkling laughter; Lovely thoughts sway and .dip Into the ether’s splendor, Weave a mystic tapestry Of moments hard and tender; In and out, through and through My being, to remember : That I hold now the silver key all to come hereafter.

DAILY THOUGHT Mine eye trickleth down, and

ceaseth not, without any inter-. mission.—Lamentations 3:49.

ORROWS humanize our race; tears are the showers that fer-

tilize the world, —Owen Meredith,

taking shape. And if their vision |p,

ness to come upon him. Seeing the Southwest was his life's ambition, and now that he has realized it he is ready, he says, for the fate which specialists have told him will over take him within a year’s time.

more than anything else, and when it: became clear to him suddenly how: little time was remaining to do it in he found a way to get it.done,

He was different from many men

in more than his accomplishment’

of the thin what he |

he was after

He knew ated. ss “ge

to what task would you eyes? Is it your chief ambition to see cer-

stain places in the earth? Are there | books you have always, looked for--ward to reading? Works of art you'|

always hoped some day to see? Imagining that your sight is only a temporary possession is a good way to discover exactly what it is your spirit holds valuable. And the terror of it ought to be sufficient to shock you into the determination to go after those experiences—instead of spending’ the rest of your days merely looking forward to em, Ett ; 3 5 8 SAYS NATION PAYS FOR WAR BEFORE IT BEGINS By B.C. : The British Parliament adjourned the other day, and a glance over the achievements of the nine-month session suddenly made plainer a particular truth about war. : The members of England's legislative body had been involved in discussions of rearmament almost every day on their calendar between November and the end of July. Threats of war and the problems of war preparation had occupied their

| attention almost uninterruptedly—

very nearly to the exclusion of any normal, peacetime social legislation whatsoever, : : Ministers who ‘would normally have been working on such problems as housing and public health found’ themselves forced to:cenfine

| their energies to the perfection of

air raid precautions and the protection of Britain’s food supply in war times. The Government's budget,

{as one published resume expressed

it, was a sign that “finances as well as almost every other aspect of national life was being twisted and strained to meet the threat of war.”

What the year’s activities suggest —and what is worth pasting in your hat—is that a nation pays for war in the interruption of its social progress not only while that war is

being waged, and afterward, but before it ever begins.

—

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

nL TRANG, 7 | Be y

Just so with worry— use energy for your d for doing your 3 about as limp

_} These : | man

‘away from them to spend in their behalf, the state

* He knew what he wanted to do|-

If you were told now that your sight would be gone in a year's time, |: set your | -

] * _.. Panhandling ls Essence of Realism.

PEA ANY BEACH, Del, Aug. 6.—Senator Barkley ‘and Happy Chandler are reported to have wound up their campeigns in a boasting contest about their

| relative abilities to get things out of Washington for "Kentucky. The Senator says that he knows his way | ‘around .that_snoety Jabyrinth so much better than | Happy that he can ‘bring home more bacon. -Even

‘the: President hinted at something of the same sort. Happy insists ‘tha Alben’s begging has been so bad that Kentucky is one. of .the few states that actually ‘pay into Washington more taxes than they take out

| in pork and further, that he, Happy, is 8 much better

are: both great guys and may the best This sdunds like pretty low stuff en which to: ask for votes, but it happens to be the grim, eandid truth of a principal issue, Under the pres ent system whereby the Federal Government has “80 much: power to ake the states’ money

that hasn’t excellent panhandlers as its representatives .is just: out of luck. Is money will be taken away in taxes but it won't be sent back. Other states

| with better gimmieguys in Congress will get it.

; Hoe J ; T is a true bill, tdo, that “knowing the way around® Washington is an absolute. essential to prevent this massive short-changing of timid states. It isn’t only : question of political and actual geography of that mystic maze of interlocking bureaucracies. It | consists also in being known favorably and sympathetically by tiny little despots of a hundred politica} principalities. . __Baby-kissing politicians who have continually to coo and woo the public for re-election have at least to keep their noses down and the-corners of their mouths up in their contacts and conduct of business with visitors. "This isn't so of appointed officials. Some lose sight altogether of ‘the fact that they are servants of the public, regard nearly all callers on official business as inferior nuisances and the time of their visitors as worthless, ’ . ® = @ | you are not somebody of sufficient importance te inspire a little: caution and, at least -ordinary. politeness, you are pretty apt to put your pride in your ket when you exercise your constitutional right to “visit the seat of the Government.” One of the hardest things about running NRA was to keep young deputies from treating even important labor and business leaders like applicants for a job as janitor. One got fired when it was shown that he customarily sat with his heels on his desk yawning or idly shooting paper clips at the hats of elderly visitors while he listened impatiently to their pleas. Similar cases are not exceptional. There are plenty of people in Washington who make a living in the fixer business. That doesn’t imply any graft. There - is little if any in the New Deal. It just means that they are hail-fellows with enough little tin bureau Dugdias to get at least respectfud consideration for a client, =

~ Yes, Albei’s and Happy’s contest in praising successful panhandling may sound sleazy but it is the ‘essense of realism. BY ee .

By Heywood Broun

* A

;

Your Columnist Nearly Persuades Producer Max Gordon to Go Left.

EW YORK, Aug. 6.—Good conduct has been with ...me-for-so long that Saratoga seems to be calling. And when I get to-the race track the first: man to greet - me will be Frank Stevens, and he will say, “Remember, Heywood, this isn’t your racket.” And, next, Max ‘Gordon will remark, “What are you doing here? I thought you were a radical,” . Naturally, by now, a formula of reply has been developed. ‘To Frank I answer, “I've found that out,” -and I tell: Max Gordon, ‘I hope to be when I grow

“V'But Max won't Jeb.1t go at that. He made a lot of money with- a play: called “The Women,” and he’s worried about the revolution. Just why he should

® . appeal to me for the exact date of its advent I'll never know. : 2 v

Max Gordon used to be my vaudeville agent. H§ . put me in vaudeville and snatched me out again in a week. And so I am very grateful. io 1 have a warmth for the good gray, imprésario, and I try to comfort him by saying, “At your age I wouldn't worry about the revolution if I were you. Youll be gone before it gets here.” i But that doesn’t seem to cheer him up as you might expect. He tries to solace himself with specious reasoning. “As long as I see radicals making bets at horse races I know that the institutions established by our forefathers will endure,” is the way Max puts it. Of course, he’s got it all wrong. He is under the impression that going out for a good time is an urge’ followed only by reactionaries. : He Max ‘himself is an arch conservative at the track’ and backs odds-on choices to show. I hate to knock” any props out from under him, but, according to my" argument, all of us long-shot players are essentially revolutionists, We want to knock the favorites down." Any time a hundred-to-one shot comes home almost

- anything can happen. The Russian Method Hi

Max was surprised to hear that they have h racing and betting in Russia. That has reconciled him: somewhat to the possibility of a social upheaval. “Tell me, Heywood,” he asked, “if they laid you even. ‘money, against a horse in. Moscow, about what price. could you get for show?” as . Still I hope he didn’t take me. literally in what I. told him about wagering under Socialism. GE “It's like this, Max,” I explained, “Instead of a Racing Commissioner like Herbert Bayard Swope they. have a Racing . After the third race any worker can go to the Commissar and say, ‘Comrade, I'm all out of money." Thereupon the Commissar - gives him $10 and a hot tip on a 50-to-1 shot in the. seventh.” = ¥ sw Max is almost persuaded to go left. He says thas1i- somes him like a good arrangement. I think.

Watching Your Health -

By Dr. Morris Fishbein :

| JUST as scientific medicine is learning -that it is

“impossible to separate the human being from his. heredity and environment, so also wé learn that anje-

mals which live with man and on which man lives

e extremely important in relationship to human

Such diseases as undulant fever, tularemia, p