Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 December 1938 — Page 14

~~ Maryland

| PAGE 14 — _— ‘The Indianapolis Times

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i ROY W. HOWARD LUDWELL DENNY MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1938

MORRISSEY AND E REFORM

are glad “Mayor-elect Sullivan. has reappointed "Michael Morrissey as Chief of Police. We consider it a good trial appointment even though Chief Morrissey id not do a superior job during the last Administration. The worst faults of the Police Department during the last year or so probably were beyond the Chief’s control. layor Boetcher, the Board of Safety, and the Democratic i did not give Chief Morrissey the kind of support v. ‘In any case the real responsibility for the » of a police department rests not with any chief ; 1 the Mayor and Board of Safety who are his su eriors and who are responsible to the public. After all allowances are made for the inadequacy of the police setup in the last Administration, the important thing now is the job ahead. That is a big job. There is too much politics in ‘the Police Department and too much Sion” There is too little discipline. The morale is too low. And there is entirely too much strong-arm stuff ‘on the part of certain lawless officers. | It is mow the task of Chief Morrissey to enforce reforms, And it 1s even more the job of the Board of Safety and of Mayor Sullivan to see that those reforms are not delayed. | The public, we believe, is justified both in its confidence in the new Administration and in its impatience for better results. | |

Ls OVER THERE | : WAY over on the east coast of Africa, near where the ~ "V _ Red Sea touches the Gulf of Aden, French troops and Italian troops are concentrating along the borders of Somaliland. We hope they don't start shooting. But if they do, let’s| remember, this— Back when this century was younger, when we thought w could ‘save the world for democracy, we helped France and Italy fight one war which was 'to end all wars. We lent France $3,404,818,945, of which she has repaid $407,341,145. We lent Italy $1,648,034,050, of which she has repaid $100,829,880. And both long since have stopped paying.

” 7 2 | ND hile on the subject of not sticking bandaged Bg fingers again into the fire, it may be well to take notice ‘of the speech which former Premier Leon Blym delivered ‘before The French Socialist Congress. M. Blum suggested that the United States, France, Great Britain and Soviet ‘Russia should form a coalition to oppose the Rome-Berlin ‘axis. | That’s a good idea—from M, Blum’s point of view. He ‘said he didn’t think it would lead necessarily to an ideological war” since the four countries mentioned have differe t ideologies. But as we see it, the only axis we Nens to join is a peace axis that extends from the North ole to the South Pole and stays inside this hemisphere.

| ‘OVER HERE A LOT of people have a lot of bright ideas for elbowing | into our national defense program. : | For instance, the abandoned Florida ship canal project is being promoted again, this time not as a subsidy for | water commerce but as a defense measure. | The Administration sank more than five million dollars into that ditch before Congress called a halt. To complete the project would require a total outlay of more than $150,000,000. i Well, we're not surprised that the idea is being agitated anew. Early this month Florida interests hired a special train and took some 40 Representatives and Senators, and their wives, on a de luxe excursion through the land of sunshine and citrus. We had a hunch then that it would e quite a while before the taxpayers heard the last of that unket. ; | % 2 8 LREADY the Civil Aeronautics Authority and Mr. . Aubrey Williams’ National Youth Administration have oved through a back door. They sold the President on he idea that the Government should spend $100,000 in he next school semester training 300 college students to fly airplanes. | Of course, the announced purpose is to train pilots for civilian purposes. But if the experiment proves successful, it is to be expanded into a program for the annual raining of 20,000 pilots in schools all over the country, at a cost of $9,800,000 a year. With the advance of science, it is inevitable that the vernment will find more modern ways to spend money.

necessary. : But it occurs to us that day after day, as we read of these newer, streamlined plans for Government spending, we never hear of any old, horse-and-buggy spending programs being abandoned. We still have cavalry drills and

.. feed bills.

BOBBITT’S CHANCE § are pleased that Arch N. Bobbitt, Republican state chairman, has been invited to go before the Vigo ty Grand Jury next Tuesday to present any evidence ay have of election irregularities in that county. But to date Mr. Bobbitt hasn’t said he would accept cline the invitation. That surprises us a little. We tht he would jump at the chance, since he has had investigators digging around in the Terre Haute area for weeks and hinted from time to time of finding serious irregularities. : : ~~ We don’t see any reason for delaying -acceptance if Mr. Bobbitt has the air-tight evidence he has indicated is n file. If he hasn’t, then he has been grossly unfair to igo County and to the public. : ere are 3 good many people who feel that the time

And many of its new programs will be valuable and

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Contents of His Desk to the Public.

EW YORK, Dec. 29.--Finding himself in a mellow, holiday mood; the author of these dis-

for posterity. You know-how it is when great writers die and leave their papers in a jumble. Their kinsfolk fail to appreciate the importance to the world of the spoiled leads, the magazine rejects, the letters and all which lie about their desks and permit” these priceless mementos to be carried off as souvenirs by percipient worshipers or just thrown away and burned as trash. Or, if their kinnery be smert and without public spirit, these papers become the private property of their heirs and are kept in private possession, inaccessible except by special permission, grudgingly given, if given at all, to students of the life and times, the inner character and the achievements of the deceased. In either case, the result is a great loss, or great denial, to the world in after years, and any man with the sense of value to permit him to recognize his own greatness and the courage to admit it to himself and the public owes it to mankind to make appropriate arrangements. » = = 2 PY FEREFORS your correspondent has decided to bequeath the contents of his desk to the public. The letters on the right-hand pile are the latest ones, and those of the left have been lying around for some time, awaiting answers. Quite a ‘lot of them never will be answered, anyway, because your correspondent doesn’t know the answers. There are also a lot of books and pamphlets for and against Nazi-fascism and communism, and it has often occurred to your correspondent, along with a distinct chill, that if it ever should happen here, one way or another, he wouldn’t stand a .Chinaman’s chance in one of those kitchen table people’s courts, pecause he surely would be caught with subversive literature. The obstacle to this decision was a mere matter of taste and self-appreciation. Yet, if a President: perceives himself to be a latterday Lincoln and his political opponents traitors of the contemptible type who beset the path of the martyr, it is his duty to the world to admit his greatness and take steps to preserve

‘the records of his struggle for future generations. A

too sensitive regard for modesty might object, but such a man's very greatness would carry him over this petty obstacle and give him the candor to recognize himself as an historic if, in some quarters, insuffi-, ciently appreciated benefactor. . # nn = 1TH the case of William Shakespeare in mind, your correspondent has decided to obviate the deplorable confusion and doubts which have befogged the record and to prevent any necessity, 500 years from now, for delving into the honored grave of his contemporary Hugh S. Johnson for a solution of the question, “Did this egg have a Bacon?” ° The Shakespeare trouble would have been avoided had he had the wisdom to know how well he wrote and the consideration for posterity to provide a neat bundle and a sworn statement covering the Bacon thing, accompanied by adidavits from witnesses. Of course, there may be critics of the moment who will see ill taste, perhaps even mild presumption, in your correspondent’s own acknowledgment of his worth, but let them scoff and let it be hoped that 500 years from now, for humiliation of their money and the vindication of true vision, some record of their estimate will be preserved in the same collection. They scoffed at Shakespeare, didn’t they?

Business

By John T. Flynn

Cites M-K-T as Proof Railroads’ ~ Only Hope Is Completely New Setup.

EW YORK. Dec. 29—A business house which year after year cannot earn a profit and cannot earn enough to pay its taxes and the interest on its loans is by all the standards of business assessment looked upon as bankrupt. If that business concern happens to be a railroad it is obvious that there is no future for it in that state, but unreplaced obsolescence and unrepaired depreciation; that year after year it will sink into decay; that it cannot pay decent wages and cannot keep abreast of the competition which confronts it. Such a’ railroad is the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, k as the Katy. For five years from 1933 to 1937 it had fixed charges of $4,300,000. . Not only did it fail to earn enough to pay these charges, but it failed to earn any part of them and it failed to earn certain other charges. Of course there is only one thing to do with a business like this and that is to put it into bankruptcy. Now the Katy faces a new batch of bills—$2,824,000 worth. It wants this money to pay interest on its notes, rent, taxes, etc. And it wants some. of it for the cash drawer. No banker and no investor in his sound senses would lend money to such a borrower.

Some Fancy Side-Stepping

So the Katy asks the Reconstruction Finance Corp. to make the loan. The Interstate Commerce Commission must concur in such loans and by a vote of seven to three authorizes thisspne. Why? * Is it any part of the Government's business to be paying the interest on railroad bonds? And by doing this and keeping this road out of reorganization for a longer time, is it not actually postponing the day of redemption for the road? ‘The loan was made against the vehement protest of Commissioners Eastman, Mahaffie and Meyer. It is but one more sample of eye-closing and sidestepping where a great national problem is involved. The plight of the railroads is obvious. They will never do anything until they get a complete and thorough reorganization. : They have been kept from that in the last six years by two measures—hy the Administration’s frightful reorganization law passed in 1933 and by the policy of the RFC in keeping fhese ba railroads alive. h

¥ 7

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

is more difficult than ever before, because the

rules for bringing up children are constantly changing. Every so-called improvement means that the

woman must rearrange all ideas on the subject. Dur-

ing the process of rearing her family, she is obliged

to re-educate herself, not once, but many times.

rearing under the old-fashioned hit-or-miss

was the sort that nourished all babies before formulas were invented. He never kept regular hours and many | an evening found him slumbering peacefully on a couple . of chairs at the local dance hall while his

foolish young parents enjoyed the festivities.

Our daughter arrived as self-expression for children

came into fashion. Her regimen was more strict than that of her brother; she was encouraged to be heard as well as seen anc! she became a little girl just about

because the now aimost extinct little girl was really a very delightful person. :

pened in, the fearsome Bogy of Psychology had us in his clutches. We hovered over the crib with jittery hearts, afraid lest some small mistake on our part tion.

out as well as ihe general average, & that the

With Shakespeare-Bacon | Mystery | In Mind Your Columnist Bequeaths |

patches has decided to do something rather handsome | %

. MOTHER'S job is never a snap and nowadays it

~ My own three youngsters were several years ‘apart in age. Not only were their eating habits entirely

different, but the public approach to problems of child were wholly dissimilar. The first boy grew up | . His food

THE INDIANAPOLIS

“What a World

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

CHIDES GOVERNOR FOR STAND ON PRIMARY By Citizen

I read that Governor Townsend is going to take .a stand opposing the direct primary for nominating State officials and United States Senators, because organized minorities can get control and crackpots can get into office. Tsk, tsk, Governor. You don’t give the voters of Indiana much credit for intelligence, do you? As for organized minorities getting control, they couldn’t get control as easily as they do by the convention system. And if crackpots can get into office by the direct primary, they certainly couldn’t have pots any more cracked than those which might get into office by the convention route. With all its disadvantages, the direct primary is much to be preferred to the convention system as we have learned to know it. And who should know it better than the Governor who cracked the whip at the last convention and was himself steamrolled into the nomination in the convention of '36? Would the candidates for State office find it more expensive to run with a direct primary system? I daresay not, for convention fees run up into pretty fancy figures. The only difference, very likely, is that in one case the sum would be _spread out, and in the other the political machine of a minority would get the whole. It’s not surprising the Governor opposes the direct primary | system. i ” ” ” DEPLORES AGITATION FOR PROHIBITION By a Times Reader I see so much agitation in the paper about prohibition. Everybody knows that prohibition has been tried and was a perfect failure. It caused thousands of gallons of white mule to be made and the

for taxes. Look at the licensing of taverns, The money that is paid is worth consideration. I am not a drinking man but I could make ‘two quarts of white mule a day in a coffee pot without detection. I believe in the Bible and in the first chapter of Timothy, 23d verse: “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.” ” ® ” FINDS JAPAN HAS OTHER USES FOR SALT By A. B. C. : ; Incidental intelligence by way of Tokyo informs that the Japanese Government has banned the ancient custom of placing tiny piles of salt in front of business places to ward off bad luck and woo customers. The salt charm was known as

Government did not get a penny |”

(Times readers are invited to gxpress 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.)

“mori jio” or “devil chaser” and its abolition is reported to have wrought consternation among Tokyo shopkeepers. / The “no more mori jio” decree is a wartime measure, the idea being, it is said, to place the salt thus saved on Chiang Kai-shek’s tail feathers and capture him.

® 8 ” U. S. CHANGE TOWARD NAZIS CALLED SIGNIFICANT

By B. C.

It would be easy to exaggerate the importance of the recent exchange of pleasantries between the German and United States Governments. Such things as Secretary Ickes’ speech, the German protest and the American rebuff of the protest make interesting headlines, arouse a certain amount of national ill-will nd

TRAVEL, 1938 By R. M. L.

The chunk of Chinese paddles on the turgid, dun Yangtse, The fabled castles on the Rhine in storied Germany, The art and prigeless treasures of historic old Madrid, An Andalusian sun upon the country of El Cid. : :

A quiet temple garden built for Her by Shah Jehan, The pleasure dome at Xanadu decreed by Kublai Khan, I used to dream and scheme against the day when I could see The romance: of the East and West—and silent mystery.

The travel posters Still beguile but now no longer lure, The itching foot of ’38 must find another cure, A wanderlust is savorless when war pre-empts the scenes. I'm quite centent to stay at home and travel just in dreams.

DAILY THOUGHT

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.—Luke 13:3. rOuU cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late.—Fuller.

give the diplomats something ‘to worry about; but they don’t lead great nations close to war, especially

| when the nations are as far apart as

Germany and America are. 50-no one needs to fear that this dust-up is going to bring swastikamarked bombing planes or warships to, American shores. After the first soreness wears off, business will go on just about as usual — except, of course, that the incident will be remembered for a long time by both sides. ' But the event has a significance that should not be underestimated, just the same. For in a modest way it | represents an about-face from a policy which practically all of the democratic nations have been following toward Herr Hitler and his Nazi Government. |Go back a few years in your memory and you can understand that policy very easily. After the passions of the World War had cooled, people in such countries as America and England had considerable of a change of heart about ermany. They began to feel that ermany hadn’t caused the war all by herself, after all, that her inhabitants were basically a pretty fine set of people who had been unjustly treated at Versailles, and that it would be a good thing for the world in general if they could get out from under some of their troubles. + So the democracies adopted a lenient attitude. When Herr Hitler earmee his nation, scrapped the Jersailles Treaty, reoccupied the ineland and annexed Austria, ere was a pretty general feeling at while these acts were somehat disturbing they were, after all, Hore or less justified. The represive acts of the Nazi Party inside of Germany were condemned, but along with the condemnation there went the assumption that those things, after all, were Germany's own business. j . Recently, however, the picture has changed. First came the Munich settlement, in which this policy of appeasement was carried to great lengths; on the heels of that came the incredible savagery of the antiJewish pogroms, along with new evidences that Herr Hitler was planning still further adventures. So it became clear that a new attitude was needed. Instead of going along and trying to be accommodating, it was up to the democracies to bark back a little. And the recent clash at Washington does

{represent a bark—a quiet littie

bark, maybe, but unmistakably a bark, Viewed from that angle, as the symbol of a new international attitude toward Herr Hitler and his methods, the affair has, a good deal of significance.

“lo ™ME MAIN

&TRUG GLE :

TO MAKE A LIVING P

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGA

{

+ WHICH TEND TO SING MORE AT THEIR =——MEN OR :

2 YOUR OPINION —

the time when little girls went out of style and sub-'| debs came in. T¢ this day I regret that exchange, |

By the time the second male Ferguson had hap-

might warp the child's personality or ruin his disposi- | _ _. The story has a happy ending too. They all turned

YOU TRUTHFULLY M ean ON KE "STATEMENT ABOUT ANYTHING P . YES OR NO.

% wean

i J $

la ‘|etry

; , dt is. rtain ( of living.|shelter. Our le for a living

ing, but both could cease struggling altogether if they were content with $1 a day—an amount on which

thousands live. 2 td

ONE woman writer and traveller—C. Q. Hartley—has studied this among the workers in many countries and reports that women sing far more than men! at their work. She found this is particularly true in those countries where women work in the flelds. They lighten their work by singing together and working in rhythm. This custom is strangely upheld by modern psychology as experiments show workers make greater output with less fatigue where they can work to music. Work then becomes almost as thrilling as dancing. : s2 = ” NO, unless it be that you can’t a) make an unqualified statement. Scientists and philosophers can only

and so is true. But if so and’ so changes, so and so must change also” Einstein has upset even the of time and space—of geom-

and mathematics. Heisen

the struggle to secure certain kind of food, clothing and struggle {

berg and others ha

‘| everything all right.

larly useful in the

say “If so and so: be true, then so}

___ THURSDA Gen. Jol

ent on Spending Fails Axiom Thet You Go Outgo Exceeds Income.

Eccles’ Arg To Upset old . Broke When NULSA, Okla., Dec. 20.—Mr. Eccles’ reply to Sen

ator Byrd states in short and simple terms the whole fiscal creed of irman Eccles’ wing of the

‘Third New Deal.

Senator Byrd wants to reduce taxes and vnnecese sary Spending. He regards a debt of 40 billions as a danger. ie

the Third New Deal is: “Why worry about a 40-bil« lion-dollar debt? Impoverished England and busted France have greater ones on--any basis of comparison.” Even if that were true, what reason is it for impoverishing our country—except, perhaps, the argument of Aesop’s fox who wanted all other foxes to cut off their tails because he had lost his own? Mr. Eccles makes a similar statement, that the total of public and private debt is no greater now than it was in 1929, with the implication that this makes Che vast private debt of 1829 has gone down, but the public debt has increased by an equal amount. | ; e 2 2 ®» \ T was precisely the gross inflation of total publie and private debt in 1929 that brought the crash and our eight black years continuing to the present day. The real cure was to reduce that total debt burden by partially paying it off. On Mr. Eccles’ own ‘statement, it has not been reduced, Its burden has merely been shifted from private to public backs—:

typical white rabbit or phony fiscal legerdemain. It is § as threatening as the total debt of 1929.

But isn’t it okay, Mr. Eccles seems to ask, because interest rates ‘are so much lower that total

| interest payments are less on the total present debt

than on the total debt| of 1929? Private interest rates are lower because business is so dead and investment so timid that there is no demand for the vast sums of money available to finance recovery—paralyzed through fear of just what Mr. Eccles is advocating. They are low for exactly the same reason that the price of wheat and coal are low—an insufficient demand for a vast surplus of supply. Rates .of interest on public debt are low for this reason and a more dangerous orne—Gov~ ernmént domination if not manipulation of the banking and credit system. It is in part a fictitious market. 8 5 8

MF BocLEs drops the 1020 comparison for his next argument and goes to 1932. He suggests that the increased debt is all right because national income out of which to pay its charges rose by 1937 approximately from 40 to 70 billions and he thinks that increased debt and spending did that and that it would have been impossible without them. These figures are also disputable but, accepting them at their face, we didn’t need any 40-billion debt and eight billions of yearly spending to reach a national income of nearly 90 billions in 1929. We got along much better for years on half the spending and we decreased the debt.

“robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul”—a i:

Mr. Eccles says, “Nay.” A principal argument of be

There isn’t room here to discuss the rest: of Mr,

Eccles’ points. They are all cut from the same cloth— a financial new magic flatly contradicting the experience of mankind from the beginning of time without exception—that you can’t go on forever spending: more than you earn without going busted,

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Robot Creator Saw Dream Come

True, but Missed Happy Ending. 1 . 1

EW YORK, Dec. 29.—Karel Capek, who has just died in Praha, lived long enough to see the gloomy prophecy which he made in a fine play come true. In fact, fruition came to his very doorstep, . At the time of his death the Nazi regime was in, possession of the greater part of his homeland. He himself was under suspicion and on the threshold of danger and imprisonment. Nature is in the habit of holding the mirror up to art, and the mechanized and regimented universe which ‘Capek created in “R. U. R.” was rendered literal as the tanks and trucks of Herr Hitler came over into Sudetenland. The soldiers goose-stepped to precise alignment, i all this Karel Capek had set down in his play abot the robots written some 20 years before the Peace of Munich. : / ® I remember it still as one of the most frightening. | spectacles I have ever seen in a theater. There was the act in which the mechanized men, by the hun~ dreds and thousands, wave after wave, marched. forward to conquer and take over that civilization slowly built upon the dreams and deeds of human beings. But there was a postscript to the play. Had Capek lived a year or two longer I feel certain that he might yell have found his second prophecy as authentic as his first. : 3

Hope in Final Scene

As I remember the final scene of “R. U. R.,” the triumph of a regimented and iron age fell under its own weight. Civilization was not destroyed. In a tragic way it had been set back, but “R. U. R.” ended upon the note that the forward march would begin

selves. And so it will be with of the Nazis. Civilization moment in Germany and in many other lands as well. But the old get. up and go and the spring in the legs of the civilized human. being: have not been. lost. Ever more surely than water, the man of good will may be expected to find his own level. 3 We are the sons of God as well as Adam. The life force is not mocked. Capek saw in his mind's eye the march of the robots. The rush of creatures, of steel and tin. He lived to find the nightmare true but only for the moment. In the heart even of a. dead poet there must remain the calm assurance that these things, too, will pass away. The brotherhood of man is mighty and must and will prevail.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein &

HENEVER a great discovery is made in any! W ea of medical science, new. discoveries |

promptly follow based have shown the way. was recognized as a great of disease, investigators.

attempting to develop i Bilin which would have special virtues not

fascism and the philosophy has dropped back for the

advance in the treatment!

In the course of such investigations English workers early this year noticed the development of ‘a pyridine derivative of sulfanilamide which seems to} have just those special virtues. When ‘the product was first tested on anil; it was found to be particus : trol of certain types of pneu-: monia. : tes As soon as it was found from studies on animals! that the derivative could be given with safety to - healthy human. beings and that modergle doses did not cause any serious reactions, it was ied on. 200 cases of pneumonia. in a great British hospital In cidentally, this product is not. yet generally a for use except under experimental conditions out the United. States. Rens The - patients were compared wi

to +

product and who" were si ‘per cent of the group.

pyridine died of the

again. Two of the robots found souls within them- : Aq

on the investigations which! Just as soon as sulfanilamide}

i available in the original product. : g 4 ,

throughout the world began: modifications and reviativés of }