Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 December 1938 — Page 16

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1938

“MASTER MIND” “RAFFLES,” and a long line of fictional characters before 2 him and since, have made the intelligent criminal a familiar figure. Gaston B. Means was such a figure in real life. He was smart. People in the North Carolina town “where he was born remember him as a brilliant boy of great promise. In the normal channels of business, professional “life, politics, he might have gone far. And the record does

not reveal him as one who, having started with every in- |

tention of going straight, turned crooked under sudden ' -temptation. : Rather, he was too smart to be honest. Some queer _twist in his mentality sent him into devious paths, seeking ‘what no doubt he conceived to be success. He thought, - “probably, that he could get wealth without working for it © and he worked hard at a long career of lying, scheming, plotting, bilking. It led him into prosecutions for swindling trusting ‘women, for forgery, for murder. He “beat the rap.” It led “him to national notoriety when, as a Justice Department agent, he figured in some of the most sordid scandals of the incredible Harding era. Caught taking bribes from boot‘leggers, practicing extortion, attempting to corrupt his : superiors, he spent four years in the Atlanta Prison. It ‘Jed him into the theft of $104,000 from Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, after he had convinced her that he could recover the kidnaped Lindbergh baby. For that he went back to prison. ; And when he died yesterday, in a prison hospital, Mrs. McLean’s money—all in marked bills—had never been recovered. The fact, it is easy to imagine, gave Gaston Means a sense of sinister satisfaction. He had been smart to the last—too smart to be honest even on his death bed—too smart to realize what a tragic mess his smartness had made of his life.

BOTH JOBS NEED DOING

SINCE 1934 the anniversary of the President’s birthday has been turned into a day on which special consideration is given the problem of fighting infantile paralysis. Such has been the response that last year 2300 of the nation’s 3000 counties held birthday parties. ~The dimes and dollars that rolled in from these celebrations have set up a National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, transformed the Warm Springs Foundation into one of the nation’s finest hydrotherapeutic centers, and * provided hundreds of local institutions with new resources to aid victims of this dreadful disease. . : ~The dual use of funds raised .by these celebrations has .created several perplexing problems. In Marion County, for .example, there are several institutions aiding paralysis victims which could easily absorb every dollar raised locally. Yet, under the terms by which the National Foundation was established, half of this money goes to the new body and half is retained for distribution in Marion County. This is as it should be. It would be an extremely shortsighted policy to insist on keeping most of the money for local treatment. Wider research and investigation into the causes and possible cure of this malady is the job of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. And that task, it seems to us, is fully as important as the one we have here at home. |

HOW HANDOUTS HAVE CHANGED

HE New Deal’s publicity men have a good eye for news values, and possibly for political values also. For instance, their blurb for a recent statistical study of consumer incomes started this way: { “One-third of all American families and individual consumers had incomes of less than $780 in the year 1935-36, one-half had less than $1070 and two-thirds less than $1450, according to a report of the National Resources Committee ! transmitted to President Roosevelt today.” : Suppose these publicity men had turned the thing around. How many people would have been impressed if the release haa read like this: “A third of the families in this country had incomes of $1450 or more three years ago, and fully half of them were _ receiving more than $1000.” Both stories would have been correct. The second is the way this report probably would have been heralded under Herbert Hoover, except that the figures would have been larger if they had come out early in his Administration.

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The greatest single difference between what the Government publicity men hand out in Washington these days and what they used to distribute seems to us to be this: Where formerly they glorified the age we lived in, today they lead us to be sorry for ourselves. We're not saying that we don’t have plenty of reason to be sorry for ourselves. change.

FORWARD, BARK! N° more frontiers? Well, here’s the self-heating hot- ~ © dog, which seems to us to open up some wide new ~~ vistas. : Carl Laemmle, the movie magnate, has imported a sample supply of them from Switzerland, together with young Mr. Leo Katz, inventor of the process by which they heat themselves. The wieners, as well as many other varieties of food, come in cans. Each can has a false bottom, _ containing mysterious chemicals. Punch a hole in the false bottom, let air get to the chemicals, and the food in the can becomes steaming hot in a hurry. Mr. Laemmle, proprietor of this invention for the western hemisphere, is sure there’s millions in it. : : . So this may be the foundation of a new industry. Next, we suppose, some genius will invent the self-opening can. We've heard talk of self-driving cars, controlled by radio from central stations. . Why not self-cooling highballs, selfgoaping. tubs, self-reading books—and even perhaps, some happy day, self-balancing budgets 7 :

We're only pointing to the.

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Dies Probe Has Struck Pay Dirt, But Value Is Imperiled by Attacks Such as That on Jimmy Roosevelt.

LX 7ASHINGTON, Dec, 13.—Nobody is going to defend the conduct of the Dies - committee in permitting a loose-lip person to run off at the face about Jimmy Roosevelt's contributions to churches. And Jimmy himself can be criticized in the matter only because he gave a soft answer, But to say that this testimony sounds a new low in personal abuse and in the misuse of authority is to forget that the Administration itself horned the pitch for this sort of scandal when it singled out opponents of the New Deal for smearing with insinuations of unethical and immoral conduct in their tax returns and again when the Senate Lobby Committee was authorized to investigate the tax returns of men who had lobbied against the reorganization bill. _ “There was a time,” Jimmy said, in his own story of his income and his tax published last August, “when I was childish enough to think that one’s personal income was more or less a personal matter to be revealed only if it became a question of whether one was a thief or something like that.”

2 » o ELL, so thought we all of us, but Jimmy, at least, was protected from an official inquiry which might have searched for bugs in his returns and publicly traced every dollar of his income to its

source and, when he did come through, enjoyed the services of a very sympathetic interpreter.. Other Americans, including a few as guiltless of fault as he claims to have been, were not that lucky. : And it made no difference whether they were having nervous indigestion or not, and if anyone had been fool enough to say that such an invasion of his pri-

‘vacy was making him sick the White House clique

would have set up a hilarious propaganda that the dirty economic royalist was suffering from too much caviar, champagne and heavy gravy. ; Because he was genuinely sick, he has been depicted as a martyr, although, in the course of his story, he did admit that he used a method having the earmarks of a clever little scheme to effect a saving in his Federal and State income taxes, even as other lawabiding citizens. . 2 8 @® . HE outrage against Jimmy points to the practice of using Congressional authority to bulldoze private citizens. It is a conspicuous case but typical of a method of inquiry which can make the sneering ex-

amination of a county seat shyster seem like coddling. The Dies committee undoubtedly has struck pay dirt in its inquiry into un-American activities, but it turns up so much muck for each trace of evidence that even those who hoped against hope that it would settle down and do business in an honorable way will be compelled’ to give up. The fact that the Communists and the Nazi-Fascists both have squawked in turn proves that the truth turned up occasionally in the course of the inept and incoherent investigation and nobody will be more pleased than they by the final and convincing act of stupidity which will discredit the committee for good. - They will deplore it as a shocking injustice to Jimmy Roosevelt and a symbolic violation of -the rights of 21 innocent private citizens, but they will be jubilant over the smearing of the committee itself by its own ignorant conduct, for every fact of genuine evidence brought out in all this time will be discounted by the public. : :

Business By John T. Flynn

Asset Bookkeeping Plan to Balance U. S. Budget Termed Disquieting.

EW YORK, Dec. 13—The President has cer- . % tainly struck a sound note in his statement that while he will press for a rearmament program he will not attempt to finance it with borrowed funds but will put it on a pay-as-you-go basis. The reports from Washington had indicated that armament production would be made part of the program of recovery and paying for armaments part of the pump-priming plan. The President puts these disquieting rumors at rest. But he introduces another disquieting proposal. It is the so-called asset plan of Treasury accounting under which the budget can be balanced by certain forms of trick hookkeeping—balanced without balancing it. The idea is that the Government should be treated like a private business. If a corporation spends several millions on erecting a new plant and gets the money for that purpose from a. bond issue—going into debt—that is not considered an unbalancing of its budget provided its ordinary operating budget is in balance. Why, then, should not a government operate the same way? The Government should raise cash to pay its running expenses but when it wishes to spend a hillion dollars on soil conservation, that is an investment. It is an investment in the national plant. Soil conservation increases the value of the land and makes it more productive. Why should not the Government borrow for that and why should that expenditure be put down as an. expenditure and why should the money borrowed be considered as a deficit transaction?

Farmers, Not Government, Helped

* The answer is simple. When a corporation borrows 10 millions and builds a plant, it has the plant and the plant becomes a source of revenue and profit to it. The revenues produced by the plant will pay the interest on the bonds and ultimately retire them if it is a wise corporation. But if the Government spends a billion on soil conservation, the soil does not belong to the Government. It belongs to the individual farmers. They will benefit. And if the soil becomes more valuable they will get the value. The Government is a corporate entity and unless the expenditure it makes increases the value of its own plant, the value will not inure to it. Soil conservation results in benefits to the people— money benefits and social benefits. And what helps the people helps the Government. But the Government does not collect any revenues out of this. It ought not to be allowed, therefore, to put down'in its account books the land values which have resulted from its expenditures. :

A Woman's Viewpoint | By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

S a friend of the families, three funerals in one day called for my presence; that of an old man, a young man and a baby. At each, the beautiful, immemorial words were repeated, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” followed by the ever challenging, jubilant cry which humanity has learned to fling at an insensate universe: “Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave, where is thy victory?” These words have little meaning to people who have not suffered the loss of one dearly loved: tb those who have, their significance is inexpressible, as if a gentle hand had touched tenderly an aching wound.

People die every day. And, so we say, we ought by

this time to be used to death. But we never are when it comes down our street, and we suffer in sympathetic understanding when our neighbors’ house is marked with a badge of mourning, Three such ‘occasions in 12 hours makes the day

a black one on any. person’s calendar—an old man |

quitting a past enriched by his good works, leaving pain and weariness and happy memories behind him: a young man done now with youth’s hurry, ambition and love; and a baby who had slipped from life before it ever knew what life could be. The last, we told each other, had not lived at all: the second had not lived enough; only the first had finished the normal mortal pilgrimage. Thinking of the strange urge we call Death, which had summoned them away reminds us again that Time is only a method man has devised for computing his days, butigthat Eternity belongs ta Gad. It is a great wonder We have yet to discover.

The Hoosier Forum

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

URGES CORRECTION. OF NARROW VIADUCT By Henry Osgood : The Times is generally regarded as favoring necessary reforms and calling attention to matters of civic importance involving the safety, security and general welfare of the public. It is with this in mind that I wish to refer to the very dangerous

intersection of East Washington St. Many serious accidents have occurred there because of the narrow driveways for vehicles flanked by iron posts. The original construction antedated the automobile and auto truck period. Any machine out of control is certain to come in contact with those iron columns, relics of an earlier period. It is only a question of time until some shocking accident will direct public attention to the necessity of modern construction to meet modern requirements. But why wait until loss of life makes a change imperative? The time to attend to matters of general importance is be= fore they happen. ® 8 8 NEW CINDER WALKS CALLED DISGRACE By F. E, F,

I have lived in the vicinity of Troy and Carson in this city for 20 years and, like all my neighbors, either walked on the pavement or waded mud shoetop deep; but that was a credit to what we have to wade through now, since they made the so-called cinder walks on Carson Ave. southeast of Shelby and vicinity. They are nothing more nor less than fine slack coal dirt—only one cinder to the mile of walk, and you can sweep, mop, use the sweeper from ‘daylight till dark and it doesn’t help for five minutes. It grinds right into things, even the furniture and clothes. It is a disgrace to the City of Indianapolis. I hope that someone with authority will do something for us. 2 ” 2 SEEKS AWAKENING OF

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE By a Reader

Much is said these days about our growing tolerance. We talk of liberalism more too. Neither qualities are isolated things, but seem to me to be a part of a much larger movement growing in the nation. This movement has been called an awakening of social conscience and also a political awakening. The movement seems essentially to be a new awareness of the importance of the individual in the general scheme of things; that our particular problems multiplied make up our national oroblems; that problems of one group here affect the lives of a group far removed. It is a desire to try to understand—

condition of the Belt Viaduct at the|-

(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.) =

and consequently sympathize with— the difficulties that our neighbors here and in other sections and economic strata have to contend. This greater understanding has also brought about a greater intolerance of evil and a uniting of effort to wipe it out. During these hard times it may be that our own misery has given each of us a greater insight and understanding of the misery of others. Hence the tolerance and liberalism. -

” ” ” WANTS MORE LIGHT ON TOWNSEND PLAN By Claude Braddick, Kokomo

The Townsend National Plan anpeals to me more and more as a sound economic proposition. There are, however, certain minor details which are not quite clear in my mind. - I cannot conscientiously become a member, or lend them my active support, until some of these points are explained to me more fully. I was hoping some of your readers might be able to help me. For instance, this: Elderly people are notoriously sensitive to cold, so what’s to hinder these old-age :pensioners from treking away .to a sunnier clime at the first breath of winter? What's to keep them from pouring their golden bounty into the

LIFE’S ROAD

By JAMES D. ROTH

When you hit the stony road, Let your courage lift the load. On our miles some grief we bear, But we should meet it with a dare.

So—just ahead there lies out fate; Awaiting all; the poor and great. Yes, many stones are in our way, Buk We should master them each ay.

And when amidst, the beauteous flowers : . Whiling away short golden hous, Remember, there are hours and miles Brimming over, with mirth and : es. :

DAILY THOUGHT But I keep it under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means when:I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.—I Corinthians 9:27.

F you would learn self-mastery,

begin by yielding yourself to the One Great Master.—Lobstein,

already full coffers of Florida and California, while we less fortunate Hoosiers toil and struggle in bitter weather to provide the wherewithal?

Preventing this innocent sabotage of the Plan’s basic principles might seem to present some difficulties. I am assured, however, that a far knottier problem has already been met and solved; that of providing machinery to see that each recipient spends to the last penny each of his monthly allotments. Here the planners were face to face with the fact that some of these people were bound to be troubled occasionally by outmoded habits of thrift. -

Moreover, it is reasonable to suppose that some, if not most of these people, will prefer the climates of northern Wisconsin and Michigan —or even Canada—to that of Indiana during the summer Thonths, and unless steps are taken, we may find ourselves reaping but scant benefit from our day-by-day 2 per cent tax. Indeed, it may come to

pass that we reap no. benefit at all}.

—except for those rare intervals when the geese that lay the golden eggs tarry with us briefly in their semiannual transit between winter and summer :omes. If provisions have not already been made to cover these ‘objections

—and I have heard of none—then|

I can only suggest that the Hoosier. delegation in the next session of Congress insist upon a “nonmigration” clause in the Townsend bill, before it is reported out of the House Committee. Otherwise, I should certinly be tempted—pledge oe no pledge—to vote an emphatic “ ol” ” ” ” THINKS HITLER RACING AGAINST TIME By Observer “With both Herr Hitler and Sig. Mussolini it is merely a matter of time.” That amounts almost to a certainty as it does with all adventurers whose careers run counter to convention. And in the case of Herr Hitler one can’t help feeling that he is racing against that time when his bubble will burst. But as Mrs. Roosevelt observed, they do too much damage while they are in power. - The late William Bolitho in “Twelve Against the Gods” traced the careers of 12 adventurers, including among - others Alexander, Cataline and Napoleon. He analyzed them and found the same general pattern for all and he was thus able to put his finger on just the point in each life when they started on their downward curves to disaster. According to Bolitho’s pattern, adventurer Hitler will also end in disaster; but the author didn’t inake the pattern clear enough so it could be superimposed on Hitler's career to be able to say just what point in it he’s reached and how much more

damage he’ll be able to do before

he’s routed. I wish he had.

EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

1 THIS has been quite widely assumed, by doctors and biologists, put Dr. Charles Stockhard, biologist

ears of study of fige sizes

BC

Jo Cornell throws doubt on the theh

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SARA, YOUR ATTENTION? YOUR OPINION ——

REQUIRING NO ATTENTION.

[J THERE SOMETHING OF AND MR HYDE VERN EACH ONE OF US? YES ORNO—— 3

He concludes that the tissues of the body themselves have powers of growth, independently of the glands, which to some extent also determine the size and shape of the bodies. He

but that these tendencies are inherited in the nerves and tissues in each breed of dogs and likewise in each breed of the human race and that the influence of the glands has been overrated by most previous investigators. : 2 2 2 : ELTON MAYO, authority, maintains — from experiments — that work that requires no attention but allows workers to _ehat with each other, and also work that requires all one’s attention, do not bore and tire nearly as quickly as work that requires just enough attention to keep one from talking with his fellow workers. A most important dis-

covery. 8 8 =

YES, more than we realize. No one’s character and behavior is entirely consistent. Every one is moral in some things and immoral in others or at least much more moral in some situations than in others. Moreover, we tend when witnessing a movie or play or reading a novel to identify ourselves with the characters and for the time being sort of adopt their personalities; and when the play is over we return to our normal personalities— or nearly so. This is what makes the reading of children and. the

movies they see so importan

ntify themselves he

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Gen. Johnson oe

|| Says—

Southern Farmers Reported Voting Against Quota Control for Tobacco, But Favorable to System for Cotton.

EORGETOWN, S. C., Dec. 13.—Southern farmers voted last Saturday on whether they want to

| apply a quota system of marketing control to cotton

and tobacco. If two-thirds—not of producing farmers, but of farmers voting—say “yes,” then community committees will tell each farmer how many pounds of cotton and tobacco he can sell. If any sells more tobacco, he is taxed half the price he receives. If he sells more cotton, he is taxed

| three cents a pound or 37% per ceht of the present .

price. In either case, he loses Government loan

privileges and “benefit” payments.

Final returns are not complete but at this writing it appears that farmers voted “no” on tobacco and “yes” on cotton. Figures on how many farmers eligible to vote actually voted are not reported. But it is obvious that, under this system, a very small minority could conceivably impose marketing con trol on the rest. ”» ” ” HAVE been critical of this whole approach to the farm problem. The Secretary of Agriculture sug gested that I go into the field, talk to farmers and committeemen and see the system work. This I have been doing and on Saturday, I watched some of these elections. : Here are two typical examples of what markete ing control for tobacco has done to farmers—Mr. G, and Mr. H. Mr. G. Year Acres Permitted Sales Permitted (Pounds) 49,000 35,000 23,000

12,000 1938 5 6,056 1939 5 4900 Tobacco is the principal profitable cash crop of both these farmers. It requires much labor. Sixtye three people are dependent for their livings on Mr. G, and 19 on Mr. H. This practical reduction by half in their production simply means that half of those people go on WPA relief. Also, for these particular farmers this is disaster. 2 2 8

‘A NOTHER farmer, Mr. M., got similar reductions, But he is a scrapper and a power in the come munity. He put on his war paint and hegan to howl

1937 1938 1939

1937

40 24% 24

Mr. H. 10

loud and long and savagely. He threatened to abane

don his profitless production altogether and dump his whole 97 dependents on WPA relief. He was asked not to make so much noise. His allotment was “adjusted” upward. But the meek do not inherit the earth in this business. Mr. G. and Mr. H. have no such drag. There are mathematical rules to figure thése quotas but the committee have so much discretion to “adjust” them that the charge is common that it has become a minor racket of politics and favoritism. If a man raises less than 3200 pounds, about three acres or $600 worth, the policy is not to cut his pro= duction at all. Officials say, “this is a plan for small farmers only.” It certainly is a plan to prevent any farmer from prospering. It distributes not wealth but poverty. : In addition to the ruin of individual farmers, this plan increases unemployment, impoverishes agriculture as a whole and rapidly is losing for us to competing countries our export markets for surplus crops.

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Maybe Miss Barrymore !s Right and We Need Oldsters in High Places.

EW YORK, Dec. 13.—Miss Ethel Barrymore said recently that she thought the present errors of the world might be attributed, in part, to the fact that old people have insufficient voice in leadership. It may be a mere coincidence that Miss Barrymore at the moment is appearing magnificently in the role of

a woman 101 years of age. Still her statement is more than a mere press agent’s yarn. Before Versailles and after it was universally accepted that millions had been sent to their death by Prime Ministers and potentates who were aged. There seemed to be a notion that if youth could only have its fling peace and brotherhood would prevail across the face of the earth. But Hitler is younger than the Kaiser and Daladier by many years the junior of Clemenceau. It does not seem to me that they have done much better. . Of course, the truth must be that no one should attempt to indict a generation or measure wisdom with an hourglass.

There's Steffens, for Example

Naturally the name of Lincoln Steffens comes to my mind. He was growing and expanding up to the very day he died. Governor Cross of Connecticut, who was defeated in the last election, is 76, I be~ lieve, but yesterday I was talking to a practical polie tician who said, “They haven't got him licked. I'm absolutely certain he’ll make a comeback two years froin now.” : Presently it will be possible to know with some precision whether the power of the seniors in Amer= ica makes for peace and progress. The most significant feature of the last election was the sweeping triumph of the oldsters. A very high percentage of the newcomers to the House and Senate are pledged, in one fashion or another, to the Townsend plan. - It is quite true that some of the statesmen who rode into office on the bent backs of veterans were only kidding the voters. ; Of course, there is no point at all in passing pen= sion ‘laws, either State or national, which will buckle under their own weight. I am quite ready to admit

that the Simon Pure Townsend plan simply will not

work in the world in which we are living, And yet the drive for greater security has been a salutary thing. I think that even those called cranks and crackpots deserve credit for the energy which they have put into the drive of making legislators conscious of the need for real security.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

HE term eczema has been applied to all sorts of inflammations of the skin for years. Even today the experts are not certain as to just which skin diseases are best included in this category. These conditions do not represent a single disease, however. Most authorities are inclined to restrict the term to inflammations of the skin in which there is definite reaction to some external substance like drugs, oils, varnishes, cleaning materials, paints, dyes and dis infectants. Hypersensitivity to such substances is conceived to be the basic cause of eczema. : Just how people become sensitized to these sub stances is not yet known, Sometimes the reaction ap= pears after the first contact with a substance of the type that has been mentioned. Sometimes exposure must take place over fairly long periods of time. In other instances, persons seem to be desensitized from repeated contacts with the substance. reall "Dr. Fred Wise mentions workers who are employed in a Japanese lacquer factory who suffer from eczema due to the lacquer. At first the lacquer aggravates the eruption, then the worker will become desensitized and ‘may continue to work without a recurrence. If, however, he discontinues his work for a long period of time, the desensitization may be lost and the eruption will occur again, °° © a a Some people seem to. inherit a predisposition to eczema. Moreover: dle. are certain abit of ie and living which seem to encourage - the. spread

eczema.

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