Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 December 1938 — Page 18

. reau of Circulation.

CE 18 . ~

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY President i . Editor

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The: Indianapolis - Times gL i ered by carrier, 12 cen Publishing Co., 214 W. a week. Maryland St. y .

MARK FERREE Business Manager Price in Marion Coun-

Mail subscription rates ‘in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month.

«E> RILEY 5551

Give, Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

. Member of United Press, Scripps =~ Howard News= paper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bu-

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1938

“VV 0ODROW WILSON shortsightedly refused to take the elder Senator Lodge or any other Republican of fluenice with him when he sailed for Versailles—and he

1 ived to regret the rebuff.

President Roosevelt wisely named Governor Landon, the country’s outstanding Republican, to a position second

. only to Secretary Hull on the United States’ delegation to

Bins. And already Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Hull have had

. many occasions to congratulate themselves.

: As was to be expected, Governor Landon left politics behind at the 12-mile limit. At Lima, he and Secretary Hull have worked side by side, in complete agreement, taking a firm stand against foreign aggression in this hemisphere and trying to persuade all American republics to embrace the same policy. : : The high point of Mr. -Landon’s activities was his speech broadcast Sunday, in which he reaffirmed the-cen-tury-old American policy “that the United States will not tolerate any foreign government gaining a foothold on this continent,” a policy which holds regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. ol ” : » 2 =»

tJ ”»

: “WE Americans,” said Mr. Landon, “have had our family

Cae revrrag ART

Sek { ke yd

§ br

VV disputes and may continue to have them, but let me say that anyone would be making a great blunder to mistake differences for disunity. For in the end we will always unite against any outside aggressor.” : As to the significance of all this, we quote excerpts from a dispatch from Lima by William Philip Simms, for“eign editor of the Scripps-Howard Newspapers: “After. all is said and done, defense of the Western Hemisphere devolves for the most part on the United States and unity at home, if anything, is more important than a unity of the Americas, desirable as that indisputably is... Landon’s support of Hull is not Jost on the conference . . « what is more important . . . it ‘won’t be lost on Europe or Asia either. The Hull-Landon teamwork has convinced them that the United States’ isolation and timidity in the international realm are now definitely on the way out and that a new era of growing influence is beginning.”

IS THIS FAIR, GOVERNOR? GOVE NOR TOWNSEND has finally gotten around to ~* naming a five-member commission to investigate the ‘State Alcoholic Beverages Act and to prepare a report for

the Legislature.

He has named men who are expected to make a con-

be scientious study and prepare a useful report. It goes with5 out sayi g that there should be public hearings and the

port

‘BA

possible.

‘fullest publicity on : : did he withhold naming a commission until

Why, then,

the Legislature is almost ready to meet ? Why shouldn’t it

been named two or three months ago so that its remight be ready early in the session? As it appears the commission will be unable to make a thorough

have

. NOW,

study of this complex law, weigh various recommendations

and make a final report until the legislative session is well

under way.

Under the circumstances, it is the Governor's duty to 'make sure that the Democratic politicians do not get the rails greased for their own amendments with the excuse that there was no time to wait for the committee's report.

RGAINING AND BALANCE

N Sweden, where collective bargaining has become some-

~* thing of a model for other countries, the system soon .outgrew defects of one-sidedness.

Industrial strife “taught both employers and employees

‘ the necessity of ‘permanent associations and the value of collective action,” while the Government, instead of seeking

industrial peace ‘at the expense of the subjection and

impotence of fighting groups,” has encouraged collective

action leading toward ‘“‘a balance of industrial powers,

and has moved decisively, if deliberately, to enforce upon

parties the agreements arrived at, by limiting hostilities

within the areas of contract.” :

On the one hand is the Swedish National Federation

of Trade Unions, established in 1898, which today includes

42 union federations, craft and industrial, comprising some 850,000 workers. © ie ‘On the other is the Swedish Employers’ Association, established in 1902, with a present membership of 5000 employers, who employ some 400,000 workers. : It is by constant insistence. upon rights and duties on both sides that the Swedish Government has helped to develop the experience and balance that make for industrial peace. Fo a ' This would seem to be the logical and safe track for government in these United States—beginning with bilateral improvement of the National Labor Relations Act, which

now recognizes no “unfair labor practices” save those’of

the employer. . 1

SAD BUT JUST : : | | the toils of a Federal custom prosecution Mrs. Edgar J. = Lauer; wife of the New York Supreme Court Justice, is : reported to have been much upset by the inevitable fingerprinting and fo have said: , ‘| #1 never thought I'd have udge’s wife, you know.” According to Plutarch, Julius Caesar laid down the stern precept that “the wife of Caesar ought not only to be lear of ctime but of the very suspicion of it.” roe A kindlier modern version might warn judges’ wives that, in the matter of custorns law, if they can’t be good they should at least be exceedingly careful. = .

to go through this. I'ma

ty, 3 cents a copy; deliv-

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler © WPA Writers’ Project in New York Publishes Slang Almanac. Which ~ Would Have Been Modern in 1910. EW YORK, Dec. 20.—A release from the writer's

project of the WPA tells us that the 1939 almanac for New Yorkers, just published by this agency,

in the slang of the New York uncerworld, that a girl is called a twist, that a crook who introduces an un-

a knife is called a chiv.

a copy of the almanac itself, so [ am unable to say whether this helpful publication tells the meaning of the term 23-skiddo, but from the samples given in the mimeographed teaser I would guess that it does. It is thoroughly up to date as of the year 1910 and may

be helpful to literary archeologists as a glossary of |}

the obsolete. It has been so long since a gun was that those who have an ear for the spoken tongue of this ‘country associate the term with button shoes, pegtop pants, the pork pie hat aad the reign of the Big Three in football. True, the gun once was called a roscoe, but that was long before it was called a rod, a term which gave the. more poetic form

manhood. 2 x = : HIS last was slightly awkward, but full of meaning to some. It conveyed the idea that a man was not a man without his gun, but with it he was somebody. It didn’t have much of a run, but the word heater made good for a while, and in Chicago the term blast furnace’ or just furnace was used to identify the sawed-off shotgun. The word twist, for girl, never this country. Our underworld slang is not confined to the underworld, anyway, but seeps into the language of the people who affect slang which they think picturesque and presently find themselves using it without deliberation. Girls have been called wrens, chickens, dolls, broads and a number of other things in the American tongue, but the word twist is an import, said to have come from Australia by way of San Francisco, and is an abbreviation of “twist and twirl.” Ma : This Australian lingo still comes to life in print now and again. Mr. Hype Igoe, the boxing writer, is an authority on the Australian lingo and has printed

Tad Dorgan used bits of it occasionally in his cartoons. Hype and Tad both came from San Francisco, = ” 8 *

HE word steerer seems to be an old Western and if it is being used in New York now. it is playing a revival. I think there was a Western melodrama a long time ago called “The Bunco Steerer.” Nowadays —and even these terms are old—a steerer would be called a shill or capper. I suppose there are those who call a knife a chiv. v The almanac also tells us that a prison guard is called a screw and that the word jiggers is a cry of alarm denoting the approach of the cops. In fact, it doesn’t go that far about the word jiggers, explaining merely that it means look out, but the old phrase, “jiggers the cops,” certainly needs no translation to anyone who was committing juvenile mischief in the alleys of the United States as far back as 40 years ago. ; I don’t want to seem saucy, but I think such a book, at public expense, is just sheer bunkum, to use a slang expression. i

Business By John' T. Flynn

Many Indorse Asset Accounting, But Forget One Important Factor.

. TEW YORK, Dec. 20.—Apparelitly some people are sold on the idea of the new trick bookkeeping which the President is playing wita in order to abolish the deficit. Readers write to deiend the plan. But they overlook a most important fictor. ; The plan is to keep the Government books in such a way that all expenditures for the current operation of the Government would be put down as expenditures, but all expenditures made to increase the plant of the country would be called investmeit and not expenditure.

dollars to run its business and korrows a million to build a plant, that million is not called an expenditure but an investment. And sc if the corporation has receipts during the year of $1,500,000, then it will not be said to be in the red because it spent two million dollars. - Half of this will be called investment.’ In the same way it is said if the Government puts out money on its plant in such g way as to. increase the earning power of ‘the country, then the money thus spent should be called investment and not expenditure. ? In looking this over, the citizen should be careful to keep in mind the difference between the Government and the country. They are not the same, The country includes all the people, The Government is merely one public agency set up fo serve all the peo-

ple in a certain very limited area. Everything that belongs to the Government belongs to the people. But everything that belongs to the people does not belong to the Government,

An Important Distinction !

‘When the Government performs some service for its citizens—as for instance when it helps farmers to improve their land—the imprévement in the land. belongs to the farmers, not the Government. : Of course the improvement in the farmers’ land may enable the farmer to make more money and thus enable the Government to extract more taxes from him. It is a fair assumption that all Government expenditures as a whole gdd to the value -of the land and the taxable potentialities of the population. A city builds a school ard firehouse and immediately the land values of the neighborhood rise. But the city cannot add these land values to its corporate assets and include them in its books, even though itis able to tax more. = All these Government expenditures may be justifled the case of the school and firehouse, but that is no reason why a city should fool itself and monkey with its books to complete the delusion).

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson 2

RECENT megazine poll verifies our gravest suspicions; the average husband doesn’t have the

Jainiest notion of what goes on inside his wife’s mind, any. ; For heading the list of what's wrong with American men, in the opinion of American women, is their lack of romance. his It is often said that our femirine gang is the most obstreperous on earth. They keep their men neck deep in hot water, spend more money than they can afford, and are always asking for extra rights. Moreover, the way they run to the divorce courts after every quarrel is g national disgrace and scandal. On the other hand, we also hear that the American husband is the most generous in the world. With his money, he is, Everybody gives him due credit for the virtue. However, he is a veritable miser when it comes to romance. Stingy with his time, niggardly yin 2 his Sonsstation, he doles out compliments to s wife as ey were rare golden n not bear to part with. . £0 | gests he sould He has also heen trained to believe that the technique of romancs should be left to sissies and foreigners, being quite beneath the attention of the practical, hard-headed businessman, s0 he is utterly inept at the art of love making. = | He could easily master the gift, of course, because in the main he is a very intelligent fellow. But he doesn’t consider it worth his while. oo On the contrary, by the time they've passed the first’ few milestones, kisses become few and grudging, He rivets his attention to his ledgers, grunts when she talks to him snd is just about as romantic as cold gravy. be Many domestic flareups are put on to attract the masculin ally speaking

) e eye, because, generall bomb under the

contains the information that a gun is called a roscoe

fortunate victim to a gang is called a steerer and that

Unfortunately, the release was not accompanied by

called a Tosco?

equalizer, which, in tGrn, was challenged by the word

has been current in

a rather extensive vocabulary at times, and the late

In other words, if a corporation spends a million |,

come into much wider

Gen. 26 Says—

Johnson |

Harry. Hopkins Likely to Be Nanie? . Commerce Secretary and Will Make ~~ Good in This Very Important Post,

| WNTEW YORK, Dec. 20.—Ir. all this talk about Harry

‘Hopkins being appointed Secretary of Commerce | and refused confirmation by the Senate, my bet is ‘that he will be nominated and confirmed without a ripple. I will go an astonishing step further and guess that he will be “the greatest Secretary of Com-

4 | merce ‘since Herbert Hoover” and maybe better.

L| ence—the bitterer the better. [| dificult to understand or ceal with business.

‘There is a big job to be done there. That depart-

ment for labor or of Mr. Wallace's department for agriculture. With few exceptions, it has been presided over by a succession of flops. It should include all related departments like the Federal Communications, Interstate Commerce and Securities & Exchange

i | Commissions. If the Federsl Trade Commission could ;| ever. get over being a Kind of glorified house-dick to

| peep through business keyholes, and hecome a real | force to tell business what i can and cannot do under the antitrust acts, it also ought to be there. There are far too many statistical services in gove ernment. - There .should be just one and this is the ‘place for that. It ought .to be greatly expanded and stepped up to get figures out before they are too stale to he useful. | 3 : : pi : ® x = - z FYVHESE and many other improvements are within 1 A the range of possibility. As has been remarked

i| here before, business is as much of a profession as

| medicine or the law. The only training is experiWithout ‘that, it is Une

et fortunately, Mr. Hopkins hes it not.

But he is an able citizen. I think his is one of fhe best brains in the Administration. If he surrounds himself with experienced aids, he could overcome that handicap. The hue and cry-will go up over his Santa Claus habits in WPA, I.submit a different idea. about that. Mr. Hopkins is a go-getter—a zealot for getting done the job in hand. WPA was a spending job—a relief job. Like it or not—Harry did what ‘he was put there to do. I have a hunch that he would do exactly that in any task. The job of that

commerce. I think Mr, Hopkins will try and do it well. Harry is too smart not to know that taxing and spending cannot go on forever without busting the country. I know that, in private conversation, he has

to do it

The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will - a defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire. - .

made his understanding of the basic economic necessities very clear. : onsERING all the facts and personalities in 4 the situation, if T were in businéss, I would feel pretty confident in having Mr. Hopkins as. my advocate with this Administration. Uncle Danny Roper ‘was barely tolerated. Mr. Hopkins will be heard.

TELLS WHY WIVES FAVOR CIVIL SERVICE By a Homemaker Someone in the Democratic organization publicly asks the question—no doubt intended as a slam —that if cooking and keeping house

were placed under civil service, would these women who are ad-

ernment be able to pass the exam-

ination? : |

You bet they would, mister! As a matter of fact, that is precisely

government. Speaking for myself, it is my experience in keeping a house comfortable, clean and enjoyable, cooking as well as a lean budget will permit, keeping the children neat, healthy and happy, stretching every nickel of a too small income to cover too many needs—in fine, it is knowing my job as a homemaker that causes me to advocate a civil service system. _ If the wasteful, inefficient methods under which a spoils system permits the Government to be administered were duplicated on our income, our home would be wrecked. It is because I know how to keep house and cook that I realize how much economy and efficiency depend on competence. Spoilsmanship can have no place in administration detail if citizens are to get fair and full value for their support of the Government. (It strikes me as being too much like neglecting the income-producing head of the house extravagantly to favor the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker.) if . Whoever made that argument may find it quite a boomerang.

o » ”

GLAD MR. KENNEDY

LIKES THE BRITISH By Daniel Francis Clancy, Logansport Now and then one hears a hint that Joseph P. Kennedy, America’s red-headed Irish. ambassador to England, is conforming to Anglo-

American diplomatic tradition by|

becoming an Anglophile. Well, the possibility delights me—sure an’ my grandfather was Pat Clancy from County Cork. For if Kennedy—who sailed with the high hopes of the anti-British— returns an Anglomaniac, maybe the

Limey-libelers will then throw up

the sponge. 5 on» RESENTS ACTION ON NEW TEXT BOOKS By T. J. The whip again has cracked and lo, the people pay. .

‘Witness the school texts required

vocating the merit system for gov-|

why they demand civil service in

~ (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.)

to be used next year—some of which are older, and poorer, and costlier than those to be displaced. Funny too they readopted the books condemned ‘by a state-wide poll of school people. And changed those that were recommended. Will the Legislature stand for this needless waste? » # ” REPLIES TO CRITICISM OF $30 PENSION PLAN By M. A. Nichols Claude Braddick of Kokomo in The Times of Dee. 13 brings up a point about the Townsend Plan that is quite interesting—the effect of “migratory birds” on the plan. It seems to me that he is unduly worried, lL : As T understand the plan it is'paid for by a transactions tax of two

cents on each operation until 52 transactions have been completed. If the voucher is issued by the State of Indiana, all that is necessary is to see that an Indiana stamp is used on the voucher each time. And merchants would be glad to pay two

CREDIBLE FRIEND By ANNA E. YOUNG If we could be that kind of friend Wao ran smooth out the tangled en Of threads of life that ofttime wind Into various masses of knots in kind.

If we help untangle one single string, It might ease the knot and gradually bring That silken skein straight to the end, If we happen to be—that kind of friend. .

DAILY THOUGHT And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?— Genesis 37:26.

URDER itself is past all expiation the greatest crime, which

nature doth abhor.—Goffe.

(cents for a dollar's

{the tax.

ness. cashed his voucher

chant there would ana stamp. Before

52.

amount of business, vouchers require 1

plus $1.20 interest, Naturally

run down there

work on. :

s ” »

| OFFERS PROPOSAL

ON SOCIAL SECURITY By G. A. Knudsen :

plan, as follows: ’ ' Revise the income

to his or her income.

tions. A proportion

the employer, ” ® »

COMPLAINS TROLLEY BUSSES NOT HEATED

By Central Ave. Patron

ing overcoats.

equipment. ?

worth of busi-

If the “bird” went to Florida and then the merput on an Indithe voucher was. returned to Indiana it would have quite a few more stamps—maybe all

All right—if the Florida merchants want to return us $31.20 on a $30 voucher, let them have. the benefit of the volume of that Since Indiana ndiana stamps, then it follows that Indiana gets back the whole value of the voucher if everyone getting the vouchers should e might have cause to worry about our business volume—but there are thousands who could be quite eomfortable and warm here if they had $30 a week to

May I, an average citizen, suggest to the public through your columns an old-age simplified social security

tax law so that every person under 65 with any income whatsoever, pay an income tax, the amount to be in proportion

Married couples would file individual returns, each reporting half of their income, whether earned by one or both, with the usual exemp-

of these additional tax receipts is to be set aside for old-age pensions for all that paid The amount, segregated yearly, would be determined by the probable number of beneficiaries in 1942. - The individual benefits are to be a percentage of the taxpayer's accumulated payments, not to ex‘ceed $85 per month. This means that the worker would pay direct to the Government, instead of through

Why do patrons of the street rail‘ways have to stand ouf in the cold waiting for trolley busses and then ‘|get on them to find them unheated? 1 notice a lot of the operators wear-

James PF. Tretton, general manager of Indianapolis Railways, said today that all company passenger conveyances are heated, the traekless trolleys and strEetcars by electric and the busses by hot water

A matter of better justified concern is “Who will succeed Mr. Hopkins in WPA?" There is a rumor that Frank Walker will. If so, it is well. But there is another gossip that the beam will fall on the ala~ baster brow of Mr. Hopkins’ principal assistant, Aub- | rey Williams. From Mr. Williams’ public utterances, you are entitled to think that he believes - that the United States Treasury is an inverted horn ef plenty and that all we have to do to make everybody happy is to put 130,000,000 people on the Federal payroll Where would the money come from? Just pass-a law,

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Fiction Urged for Serious-Minded if, ‘They Would Profit by Book-Reading.

EW YORK, Dee. 20—This being the Christmas season, during which the average American goes out and buys a book to give away to somebody else, there is a great printing of lists. We have, as usual, the mighty 10 or 12 which are listed as the best of the week, the year or of all time. There is no great rouble in jotting down a few titles like that. When in doubt the selector can get off invariably to a running start by mentioning the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. Obviously, books influence thought, but I am in=clined to think that the manner in which they condition the reader may often be so subtle that he never. feels the sharp pang of the needle as it pene-. trates his flesh. Whenever a man leaps up from a reading desk after finishing a final chapter and exclaims, “This noble work has altered my whole life,” I gravely suspect that he has done’ nothing more than come upon sonie reaffirmation of his own prejudices and predilections. | a The truth is that the average person hates to change his mind or have it changed for him. No matter what humble protestations Mr. John Doe may make, he is seldom dissatisfied with his own mental capacity. And so I insist again that the crusading author who wishes to change the thought of the world does well to equip himself with sneakers.

The Influence of Shaw

I think that comparatively few conversations are ‘brought about by the volumes which lie on the shelves devoted to nonfiction. The best preaching is done by short story writers and novelists. Many readers feel a glow of righteousness when they curl up with a good, fat biography of some famous man. ‘I am not arguing that such worthy works may not be pursued with

do well to devote themselves chiefly to the novelists, dramatists and possibly the poets. T may be wrong, but it is my impression that (ieorge Bernard Shaw hac more influence upon my ideas than any other modern author. I would not blame the playwright for the net result, for I have not kept up my homework, And I even think that he, too, has begun to slip. ; : ine No tub thumper ever geis as large an audience as the wandering minstrel with a mission. - William Lloyd Garrison thundered against slavery, but he never had one-tenth the influerce which Harriet Beecher Stowe displayed when she wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

should be warned to let story books alone.

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGA

DOES SCHOOL INELUENCE THE GENERAL ATTITUDES AND OPINIONS OF YOUNG FEOPLE AS MUCH A® : HOME, CHURCH AND NEWSPAPER?

YOUR OPINION cee a

- DOES THE FACTTHAT

5 DUELLING

IT LOOKS THAT WAY. This is are more likely to be partly because married people/one A

ts wi

M 2

ideas within the last generation which probably—I only say probably — makes the marriage bonds set more lightly on many couples than

|and partly due to

"LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

in former generations. # ”» ®

church and newspaper. : : #2 8 8 :

|stinet” of m

NO. A study of this was made on a large group of young peo|ple in the grades, high school and university by Percival M. Symonds, psychologist, and, while his methods were technical, his conclusions seemed to show beyond doubt that these young persons had been fnfluenced scarcely at all by the school in their attitudes toward life, home, country, social duty, sex, etc. The in influences had been the home,

Dueling is partly due to 3 in codes of “honor”

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

HEN carbon monoxide is inhaled, it unites with the red coloring matter of the blood as it passes through the lungs. By ons of the peculiar laws of chemistry, carbon monoxide has 100 times as much power to unite with the red coloring matter as is possessed by oxygen. Therefore, the carbon monoxide displaces the oxygen and gives rise to a new product which is circulated throughout the body instead of oxygen. Thus the tissues of the body are deprived of the oxygen that is necessary to maintain life.

length of the time during which the body is deprived of oxygen. When the concentration of the toxic substance in the blood is less than 10 per cent, there are no symptoms. . : When it reaches 20 / likely to have a tingling of the forehead with a slight headache and dilatation of the blood vessels in the skin. When the concentration is between 20 and 30

per cent, there is severe headache and throbbing in

cent, the headache becomes worse, there is a sense of weakness and dizziness, the vision becomes dim, then nausea and vomiting folloy’ and the person may By the time the concentration reaches 50 or 60 per ¢ent, ‘life is in danger, convulsions occur, breathing is disturbed, and in concentrations over 60, death is qutte possibile. La ai eek £3

per cent, the human being is |

department is to foster and advance industry and -

profit, but I still insist that serious-minded folk will

The amount of the reaction to the. poisoning depends, of course, on the dose of the poisoning and the

the temples. When the corcentration reaches 40 per

§ | ment never has done for commerce and industry anything to compare with the work of the Labor Depart-

Accordingly; conservatives who wish to stay that way E

Watching Your Health A