Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 January 1939 — Page 10

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! SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1939

. ~

TOWARD A MANAGER FLAN

JT is now proposed that a. seven-member study commission do what friends of the city manager form of government have been unable to do among themselves—agree on a sound method by which Indiana cities can adopt a manager plan if they desire one. Concurrent resolutions providing for the creation of such a commission have been introduced in the Legislature. The Senate passed the resolution immediately, but the House referred it to the Judiciary Committee. The resolutions apparently have the unanimous backing of the _organizations most interested in this reform. , Good. We do not like the idea of another stody commission, |of another long delay, but we know of no other "solution of the problem. - Even the most sincere supporters of the manager plan idea were hopelessly divided as to whether their objective could be safely gained by the legislative route or only by a constitutional amendment. It would be the job of the commission to end that uncertainty. Its task would be to explore the entire subject, decide upon a sound method of procedure and prepare a definite legislative program for the Governor’s approval. We see no reason, however, why appointment of the commission should be delayed until July 1, 1939 and its report to the Governor until Oct. 1, 1940. It would be far better if the commission could begin ‘work as soon after legislative adjournment as possible, say April 1, and have its report ready at the first of the year. That would permit interested groups to study the findings and to plan their course of action. These changes should be made by the House.

AN ECONOMY GESTURE

E may be wrong, but our guess is that more jobs will be created than will be abolished by the, action of

~ Congress in lopping that $150,000,000 off the WPA ap-

propriation. Yesterday’s vote in the Senate, concurring with a previous vote in the House, completes the first real gesture toward economy which Congress has made since the early days of the New Deal. It is a gesture private industry long has been asking. Industry’s spokesmen have been saying that once that gesture is made, once some power in Washington demonstrates that its hand is on the spending brake, private industry will then go forward and create real jobs at real wages. Under the terms of the Senate’s economy vote, the worst that can happen between now and April 1 is that * 150,000 persons—b5 per cent of the 3,000,000 on WPA payrolls—will lose their WPA jobs. The House Appropriations Committee reported that 10 per cent of the persons on WPA payrolls had been there for more than three years, had apparently empraced WPA as a career, and therefore were in need of some urging to get off and hunt private jobs. So it seems altogether probable that WPA can carry on until July 1 with the $750,000,000 which Congress is providing. And there are, we think, sound reasons for believing that private industry will meanwhile create several times 150,000 new jobs. Senator Adams, who handled the WPA appropriation in the Senate, predicted that if Congress continued to hold the brake against excessive Government _ spending, the recovery in private industry ‘would in the next six months provide jobs for 4,000,000 unemployed. 8 # » 8 t 2 J VENTS may prove the Senator too optimistic, but we think he is on the right track. Surely it is evident by now that the Administration’s borrow-and-spend program has been on the wrong track. The best the WPA has been able to provide is subsistence jobs for some 3,000,000 unemployed, leaving the other millions of jobless to live on private charity, local doles, or luck. And evidence accumulates to show that every billion the Government has borrowed and spent has driven two billions of private capital into hiding. There is practically no limit to the potential number of jobs that private industry can create, once those hiding - billions return to the pursuit of profits, starting new enterprises, expanding old ones. As President Roosevelt has pointed out, if we can build up business volume to a point where ours is an 80-billion-dollar. country, there will be jobs for all. This first economy gesture of Congress is important, because it demonstrates that the spending-and-taxing branch of government at last has recognized the need of moving toward a balance of the Government's intake and output. That recognition is a realistic bid for the confidence and co-operation of business.

COSTLY JUNK TRADE

FROM the storm-wracked North Atlantic came in the other day a pointed radio reminder of one of the strange contradictions of our day—the distress message from a Dutch freighter carrying a cargo of scrap metal from Boston to Hamburg. Later, we were pleased to notice everything was reports ed 0. K. And so the scrap metal goes on nmolesied to Hamburg. ‘Other scrap metal is streaming across the Pacific to Japan. Scrap steel from New York's. elevated railway is

‘going into the furnaces at Bethlehem, Pa., but that is al-

most a news story in itself, scrap that isn’t being shipped |

. abroad. This country has become the junk dealer for the

world—junk to us but armaments to them—and| every-

one knows that our big customers are not the democratic

powers. Meanwhile at home we seem headed for an emergency order of 3000 fighting planes. Against what enemy ? Well,

anyway, if the major purchasers of scrap metal were out

f the picture, we don’t believe it would be necessary to end the money And we doubt if there’ s enou

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

President's Plea for End of Tax Exemption Seen in Some Quarters As Sly Design to Destroy States.

EW YORK, Jan. 28.—The troubles of the income tax payer long have been a source of crude mirth to those who like to jest at wounds, but the discussion has now taken a new turn. The President’s proposal to tax the salaries of state, county and municipal employees and the income from securities issued by the states and their subdivisions is examined with suspicion as a cunning design of the Federal Government to destroy the states themselves. Theoretically, Congress might attempt this by fixing the tax rate on the income from these securities at a prohibitive figure. Congress might also tax the income of churches, which now enjoy exemption not only as to contributions, but also as to profits on commerce conducted by religious bodies. Congress might choke off contributions to the churches by refusing to permit deduction of such sums from the income of the donors. The income tax amendment contains a power of mischief which was foreseen in part and viewed with alarm in some of the debates which preceded its adoption. ! » ” ” : F itself the present proposal obviously is no tax on the states or their subdivisions. When a gov-

ernor, mayor, judge or commissioner cashes his pay check the money is his gnd the tax burden falls on him, not his employer. “Similarly he is the victim whep the time comes to pay the tax on the income from it. ‘There are those who frankly argue that the states, in the main, have failed to meet their responsibilities and, under the political temptations set forth by the New Deal, have become parasites on one another and that the vast and inefficient spread of taxing bodies within the states has become an unbearable burden. The honest way to meet that issue would be to talk it out and vote it out on its merits, but some would not do it that way. The cunning way of creating changes, the way of Adolf Hitler, the way of our Communists and their fellow-travelers, too, is to use an existing law to obtain results which were not intended by the

law in the first place. » ” ”

HE income tax law never was intended as a weapon of political coercion, for example, but has been so ysed in. the last few years. Nor was it intended to intimidate individuals in the exercise of their constitutional right to petition Congress. But last year Senator Minton of Indiana obtained from the White House authority to examine the income tax returns of all citizens whom he might accuse of lobbyfe on an issue close to the heart of the Administraion. The misuse of the tax returns has been conducted with political discretion, and the power which can be read into the amendment and ratified by an obedient Congress by strained mental processes is unquestionably the power to destroy not only the states but the

which is the object of ill-concealed contempt in some quarters in Washington today. Surely there was no original intention that high salaried public employees should be exempt from the income tax or that mfionaices should find it more profitable to invest in -exempt issues than to put their money to work in “industry. The proposal to revoke this exemption is popular and fair, but a Huey Long or another New Deal come to power might try to use the income tax amendment to abolish income altogether and with it American rights a million times removed from the original purpose. :

Business

By John T. Flynn

Congress Should Recast Neutrality . Act to Include Redefinition of War.

EW YORK, Jan. 28.—The violent discussion which is now going on about the subject of American neutrality and the Neutrality Act confirms everything which was said by the advocates of the act at the time it was adopted and they were forced to accept provisions introduced by its enemies. There are various groups now clamoring either for strict enforcement or for abandonment of the act or the relaxing of it. None of them, however, is doing this in the interest of neutrality. Those who want the act relaxed or repealed of course do so because they want to see aid cut off or given to some nation now at war. Those who want the act rigorously enforced do so not because they believe in neutrality but because they believe enforcement will hurt Japan or hurt the Loyalists in Spain of for some other unneutral reason. The original advocates of a neutrality act believed that a law should be passed which at the outset of any foreign war would result in neutrality as to both sides by the United States as automatically as possible. They feared that if action was deferred the friends of the side which believed it would be helped by the application of neutrality would clamor for it. The friends of the side which would be hurt by our neutrality would cry out against its application. When the debate reached that stage, the Govern- (a ment would be in a position of being unable either to apply or not apply the act without taking sides, which would defeat the purpose of the act. Hence the sponsors proposed that immediately upon the breaking out of war between foreign countries, the President should automatically proclaim that fact and apply the act.

Unforeseen Contingency

They could not foresee that the President would refuse to obey the law. Although a frightful war has been going on in China for two years the President has refused to prociaim that fact. The object of the act was not to prevent the United States from taking sides in a foreign quarrel or from helping one side or the other if it saw fit. The object was to prevent the President from deciding which side we should be on. The act has been a failure not because the principle of the act is unwise but because it has been misinterpreted. The proper course for Congress would be to amend the act first, by defining war so clearly that no doubt could be left on that point, and making the President’s proclamation a purely ministerial performance and, second, by declaring specifically that Congress alone can determine when exceptions may be recognized.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

AM glad we are at least coming around to a new respect for heredity. The champions of environment in the age-old debate have had the floor for some time, and a few of the die-hards still insist that training counts more than breeding in a child, in spite of their ideas about race horses. Lately, however, several studies show that heredity is a stronger force than environment in the majority of adopted children who resemble their real, rather

than their foster, parents, Probably there is a | safe middle path between these two argumentative |

extremes, but surely reason tells us that in uma animal, as in all other forms of life, 410 he I oa background help to ‘shape the mature being. A study of the subject seems imperative ‘today when there is a tendency to allow the unfit to breed like rabbits, while the capable and intelligent folk seem less inclined than ever to reproduce their kind. More dangerous still, they are given little encouragement since most present legislation is designed to help either the very poor or the very rich. Yet it is the middle class that will eventually have 0 Some sti Deny ah problems now before us— Solved--and in the las he very Lie o democracy depends upon ee ei 0 men omen who are not afraid of work or If the United States continues insane, the diseased, the shiftless a sone | ‘have larger and larger families, the time is bound to Sone when men and women who are moved by a

profit |

A eDopsiiy cannot afford. to have

press, religious organizations and an economic system .

——

-— _LALRURI

“Semen aovss’

- ® E : + : { The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what’ you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.,

OPPOSES PROPOSED CAR TAG REDUCTION By One Who Pays Has any one given this new gasoline tax any thought? Just study

will benefit. Reducing the price of license plates will help no one except the large car owners who can afford large cars but not the plates. ‘By reducing this the State has said it has to get the money some way so it will add one cent to the tax we now have. Who will that hurt? It is the little fellow who lives out at the edge of the city and who drives to work or the truck owner who is trying to make a living by work. I have a small truck and drive an average of 900 miles a week. I average 13 gallons of gasoline a day which means that I am paying 65 cents a day tax now. If that one more cent goes on it will mean another 13 cents. The fellow that buys five to 10 gallons a week to ride from his apartment to the office is not the fellow who will be hurt. ! Don’t let anyone tell you it is the trucks that hurt the roads. It’s the farmer with his tractor. And he is one also that this added tax won't hurt because seven out of 10 farmers don’t pay any gasoline tax. The three who don’t have tractors so they can’t get the rebate the State returns to them on receipt of gasoline receipts. Let us little fellows get this before the men who are in Indianapolis to represent us. ” ” ”/ OPPOSES JUDGES ON M’NUTT COMMITTEE

By Citizen It strikes me as being rather poor taste for judges to be directors of a political campaign, as has been announced by the “McNutt for President” organization. . As ‘a voter, I cherish the notion, however mistaken, that + after a judge is elected, he puts aside partisan politics. And to be a director of a political campaign arouses my suspicion—unnecessarily, perhaps, at that—as to his conduct in his high office. Particularly when I sniff the unattractive odor of the McNutt machine do I protest those appointments. They smack too much of political favoritism—both past and future. ” » ”

CLAIMS SOME RELIEFERS DON’T PAY THEIR BILLS By Ragged Royalist

The word “chiseler” has been officially incorporated into the language by the National Administration. “Chiseler!” A few more years of governmental development along the lines of the recent trend and it will be a perfect substitute for what is described as “An American.” But perhaps I have a distorted view of the situation—one that

who this is going to hurt and who it

(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.)

would never inflict itself upon either a representative of the properly cultivated farm vote, the one in four on the relief rolls in Indiana, or, say the many with soft jobs of a stronger official character in the vast bureaucracy that is now American government. I am merely the keeper of a small rooming house, with a grievance against chiseling WPA and PWA tenants, past, present and prospective. With the weak logic that prevails among those of my kind, I resent having the governmentally instilled and exploited attitude of “Get all you can for nothing from the ' Government,” current among those specified above, carried out in practice so that it means, “from everybody.” A large proportion of the subsistence work and gift beneficiaries of various kinds now make a racket of beating. out- of those marginal economic royalists all they can in the way of board, room-and groceries on credit. They insinuate themselves on credit ledgers with all the devices possible to that attitude as bulwarked by the assurances of a regular payday to themselves from the Government. Nor do letters of protest to those in authority have any effect ‘or even acknowledgement, Those who provide basic sub-

ONE ROUND OF LIFE

By ELEEZA HADIAN If it has to be cut And discarded, If it has to be finished And its tinsel tarnished So soon— Oh, let me be, - A tall fir tree— 3 The boon— At a joyous Christmas party! And let me have Amidst the swarm Of gay, young ones, ONE LIGHTED HO

To warm Cold bones, In that dark and silent tower, Where dreams, dead hopes, Will slumber, Forever!

DAILY THOUGHT

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.— Psalms 46:1.

S a countenance is made beautiful by the soul’s shining through it, so the world is beautified by the shining through it of God.—

Jacobi.

sistence needs shoulcl have precedence over the financial claims of the saloon, the packsge liquor store, the domino-poker geme, bingo and the pleasure-jaunt jaloppy. Incidentally, what attitude should the passing Americans, we who are still making it the clean, hard way, hold toward the relisfers, farmers, project employees and others, We pay and pay in their behalf--buf we dof’t get paid. Any pretension of equality between ourselves and the latter would be Zarcical. . -» 2 2 IT'S TRAGIC, NO LESS, THAT MUSTACHE RDER! By Mustachio I wonder if Chief Morrissey knows that the peerless Philo Vance boasts a full-fledged Wan Dyke. Or that the indomitable Hercule Poirot

has the grandest mstache in the world. Ah, oui! Did Chief Morrissey ever see a Scotland Yard man whose upper lip failed to boast a walrus-like adornment? Why, policemen have to have mustaches. Nobody put a cartoon strip detective goes without one. Does anybody know what having a mustache has got to do with being a good detective? Cr a good policeman? Or, maybe, even a good, police chief? of 2 / ADVOCATES REFORM OF TAX SYSTEMS = By Taxpayer SL Simplification of cur/tax system is indeed desirable. e complexity of government has’ given rise to many agencies for tae levying of taxes. ‘Overlapping cf governmental functions and unnecessary duplication of/service edd immensely to the burden of the American taxpayer. Consolidation of counties and the elimination of townships as units of ‘government would materially reude the taxpayers’ overhead. 1 hidden taxes si:ould be abolished, and property taxes removed, making Government income solely dependent on one state income tax and one Federal income tax. All taxes should come ou: of income. »

# e HERE'S A COMPLAINT

FROM TAVERN OWNER By H. R. What is to become of the beer tavern owner? The chain stores now are endeavoring to have their licenses lowered so that they can put the small man ou! just like they put the small grocery man out of business. I pay $1100 for a license and then I have to stand by and let the big companies mow me down with a| $100 license. What's fair about that? I say take the Zeer and liquor out of the drugstores and groceries and give the small man a chance to

make a living.

EE er FORT Pitkin sent carefully framed questions to a large number of me

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM—:

wepEOPLE

THEMSELVES § AS THE wi OTHER PEOPLE? Veo pry

Noe MORE THAN MEN TO SPEND oe FAL SANS FOR A HOME?

had $200 a month. Out of 200 women 194 said they would first ‘buy a home, Out of 150 men not a single Ti

CC]

airplanes and spend money for travel—quite the opposite of owning a home. # 8 NO. We deceit ourselves in every way we ca:, especially by ascribing noble motives for even our meanest acts. No matter how “cussed” we are we try to find a good’ “reason” for it. I think deliberate hypocrites are rather rare, but if one does not watch his step he will become an unconscious hypocrite and will get into this habit of “rationalizing” all his acts —that is finding fine motives for his worst behavior, We are much more honest about our neighbor’s conduct than about cur own.

s #2 EXPERIMENTS; at Columbia,

| wards stimulate both animals and

men to betier perfcrmances than punishment. As we look at history it has been the rewsrds of money, fame and power or the sheer joy of creation that ‘have Jrought about all the great human achievements. On the other ‘hand {zar of punishment—at least in this country—has apparently not steely: diminished

‘business butting into strange new fields.

'| quarters, the meanest and most unw

Chicago and|

Gen. Johnson

|Says—

Unworthy Political Prejudices Are Making Task Difficult for Those . Directing Antiparalysis Campaign.

EW YORK, Jan. 28.— a very few days this . column will be conducted \by en ex-manager of drives for donated funds for worthy causes. He will be very “ex”. There are perhaps no words in the English language adequate to describe how completely and absolutely “ex” he will be. Amateurs have no Columnists as well as shoemakers have full time jobs: and should stick to their lasts. . I am talking about the fact that for Slost a month I have been trying to tap the City of New York for money to provide it with a proper defense against infantilé paralysis. This effort is going on in every county in the United States. There is no argument about the necessity and the great advantage of having, in each community, equipment to take care of victims of this crippling enemy of childhood. There is no dispute that one of our great national needs is a fund to finance research to find the exact cause of this disease. If that can be found, our doctors may be able to stamp it out as

‘they have stopped yellow fever, typhoid and dozens of

other plagues that once depopulated whole areas and threatened the commerce of the world.

2 8 8 VERYBODY agrees that the purpose. is worthy and that “something ought to be done.” No “drive” ever had greater support from the press and radio. My various columnar and editorial colleagues and sports and ‘special writers have rushed to the rescue as though this cause were their own. My vol-

| unteer staff has worked its head off. Considering the

handicaps, the money is coming in as well as could be expected and especially from the poor. But that isn’t good enough. Minimum equipment for the City of New York, for example, would cost $250,000. It is very difficult to raise that amount in a few days by a volunteer “drive” competing with other drives and geared to dimes. With something to create extreme and general enthusiasm, as in the original birthday celebrations, it would be easier. But inthis case there is sometimes the reverse of that. In some y prejudices of political bitterness have created an inertia if not-an active resistance... This grows out of stories that have not even a shadow of truth. There J isn’t time enough for the truth to catch up with these lies and crush them. 8 8 8 i : HESE are the truths. This drive is for the beneo fit of children crippled or threatened with ine fantile paralysis—and that is all it is. It has no political aspect. It is for the benefit of each come munity—and not for Warm Springs except as it hape

pens to be another orthopedic hospital. This whole . uperation will be audited and every receipt and exe pense accounted for. Infantile paralysis is not being over-emphasized to the prejudice of funds to fight other djseases. This money is needed. “These are the facts. Anybody who tells you any= thing conflicting with them has either been mise informed or is letting some personal or political bite terness persuade him into a position that cannot be more charitably described than as an enemy to the ald of crippled children. Nobody would ‘consciously be put in that position. = This drive does not, as is generally ‘supposed; end. on Jan. 30. The President’s birthday dances are only an incident’ of it. But it can't gos on forever. The time to help is limited.

Aviation By Maj. Al Williams : Takes ‘Issue on National Defense Views Expressed by Maj. ©. F. Eliot (Pinch -Hitting for ‘Heywood Broun) :

M°™ fast or perish is the order of the day. And the man who pulls a punch in planning national

defense is.as culpable as the British admirals and gene

erals who fought steadily against the expansion of the

British Air Force.

In the Munich emergency the British lacked air power and the admirals and generals were helplessly silent—and all because during the last 20 years British airmen with vision to see what the future held lacked the gumption to, fight for the accomplishment of that vision. The basic plans made now for our national defense : will decide whether we wini the next war. That issue is too important to permit of hemming and hawing. The reactionaries who stand still and insist that others do likewise while the world moves ahead, deo serve to be attacked. All this leads up to what I think of the views of George Fielding Eliot, formerly major of the Army Tmslligencs Reserves. In his published statements, Maj. Eliot has done e than anyone else in my lifetime to create a feel oo f false security in the mind of the ordinary citie zen, who would like to get’ the lowdown on the relative fitness of his national-defense machinery and organiza tion compared to the setups in other countries.

Excellent War Record

Maj. Eliot served in the World War creditably, ate taining the rank of Major in the Australian Army, later did a hitch in the Canadian Mounted Police, and we find him coming into our armed forces with - the rank of Major, United States Military Intelligence Reserve. > His statements sniff of Army and Navy statistical ice-boxes. Of course the admirals and generals ine dorse Eliot. Why shouldn’t they? He tells America (for them) that the floating iron fort is still the backbone, and about all that’s needed for our national security. He jumps out with opinions that the Army is underpaid. When he convinced Army and Navy people that such was his, stand, of course they helped him gather his material. But when he says we don’t, need air power per se, able to move, strike, and influence an enemy on its own, without being tied to any surface forces—while all the rest of the world is feverishly building just what he says we don’t need—I, for one, want to know why.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

IF a new specialty known as orthodontia, modern dentistry offers a relief to child dental problems, At one time a child whose teeth had “come in crooked” or who had large teeth projecting over the under lip was merely “unfortunate.” The child, in most cases, faced an entire\life marred by the deformed conditiori. Feary

The proper age for thé beginning of orthodontia appliance is still a debatable subject. The problem is important because the mouth undergoes various changes during the falling out of the first set of teeth and the complete development of the second set. That littie corrective work can be done once the second set of teeth have grown in and been thoroughly established in the mouth is a mistaken notion. There are possibilities for the adult as well. In a consideration of orthodontia before the Amer« ican Dental Association, it was pointed.out that the dentist must be familiar- with the positions of the teeth at every stage of their development. . While the child is stili young, the dentist endeavors : to correct such harmful habits-as thumb sucking and ’ mouth breathing. He tries to treat obviously poor teeth formations. : After the child has reached the age of 5, the dentist carefully watches the disappearance of the first set of teeth. He does not, however, attempt to use braces - or Sihel Sppliances until the child is approximately 7 : years ol ;

It is fmposattle to do as much for adults whose correctly aligned. There evidence;