Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 March 1939 — Page 10

The Indianapolis Times

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: Give Light and the People will Fino Their On Way on SATURDAY, MARCH 18,1039 _ WILL HITLER HEED? FOR many months Neville Chamberlain has been a world 7 symbol of slowness to wrath. That is why his speech ‘last night has such vast significance. ; <The all-important question now is whether Hitler will --heed the warning—whether he is willing or, indeed, cap- . able of understanding that the British Prime Minister's -.change from patience to anger means business. Mr. Chamberlain has gone to extreme lengths to pre- _ serve the peace of Europe and of the world. So long as ; there was any vestige of justice in Nazi Germany’s claims,

peasement, despite criticism at home and abroad. But now that Hitler is proceeding with what the American Undersecretary of State, Sumner Welles, correctly described yes- + terday as “wanton lawlessness” and “arbitrary force,” Mr. . Chamberlain has told the Nazis to halt or take the con- ~ sequences. : : And those consequences, serious as they might be to the rest of the world, could hardly fail to be utterly disastrous to Adolf Hitler and his dupes, the German people. i We can only hope that Hitler will be wiser than the Kaiser who, in 1914, would not believe that Britain would fight. An Englishman, the poet Dryden, wrote a line that : the Fuehrer might ponder today to his great profit: “Beware the fury of a patient man?”

. A NEEDLESS HANDICAP JE, CONOMIST JOHN T. FLYNN, testifying yesterday be-

i. T

“severely critical of the method of which old-age benefits "are being financed under the Social Security Law. He “attacked especially the huge old-age pension reserve fund now being accumulated by taxing payrolls. : It is true, as Mr. Flynn said, that money paid into this : fund is immediately borrowed by the Government and used ; to pay Federal expenses. A reserve of billions of dollars : can’t be set aside in cash. And a Government living by ~ deficit financing, as this one is, must borrow somewhere. * The social security reserve is as safely invested in Govern ment bonds as it could be anywhere. 1 The real question is whether it is wise or necessary to : accumulate the huge reserve. Mr. Flynn thinks not, and * many other authorities agree with him. The present payroll tax for old-age ihsurance purposes “is 2 per cént a year=half taken from employers, half from employees. That is a heavy burden on business and an enormous drain on buying power. And, under the law as it stands, the tax is to be increased to 3 per cent next year and to 6 per cent by 1948. But, for many years to come, the benefits paid to the aged will be only a fraction of the amounts taxed from payrolls. ey By June 30, 1940, for instance, the payroll taxes collected will total $1,826,000,000 while the benefits paid out will be only $60,000,000. By 1980, if the tax rates are increased according to the present schedule, the Government will have collected $111,000,000,000 from employers and employees; but the aged will have received in benefits only $63,000,000,000. The balances, more than $47,000,- - 000,000, will be in the reserve fund, invested in Government bonds. : Mr. Flynn and other authorities contend that a reserve of such size is totally unnecessary; that the tax burden on ‘employers and employees will grow so great that there may be a popular rebellion against the social security program; ‘that for many years the present 2 per cent payroll tax will provide much more than enough money to pay the cost of pensions. ; If that is true, and the evidence on the point is very “strong, we believe the tax increase to 3 per cent, now ‘scheduled for next year, should be at least postponed. That : additional money, left in the hands of employers and em“ployees, could contribute much to business recovery. Paid ~into a needlessly large reserve fund, useful only as a con“venient recourse for Government borrowing, it would retard ‘recovery. For it would leave employers less money to pay :in wages, and workers less money to spend for food, clothing “and other commodities. : We hope Congress will give earnest consideration to the possibility, suggested by Mr. Flynn's testimony, of making ‘what might well prove a decisive contribution to recovery.

‘THE WAR CENTURY FHE “war index” of the 20th Century is eight times : greater than all preceding centuries. - A Harvard professor has analyzed 902 wars and 1615 ‘internal disturbances in the last 2500 years. War would seem almost the normal state of Spain, for it was found ‘to have been at war 67 per cent of the years of its history.

‘England was at war 56 per cent of the time, France 50 per

‘cent, the United States 14 per cent. But whatever our 20th Century may find to be proud about, it can brag but little of its war record, for éven the ‘turbulent past, which seems to the history student little ‘but a succession of wars and insurrections, is exceeded in ‘violence by our own time. 1

HORSESHOE NEWS

ONE of the pleasantest bits of business news in a long, ~~ long time comes from Troy, N. Y., where the Burden Jron Co. has announced plans to reorganize and expand one ‘of its branches—the branch which manufactures, of all ‘things, horseshoes. : This 130-year-old company has, at present, 100 employees making horseshoes and shipping them to customers %in all parts of the country. It expects, under the new setup, to hire 200 more, and it reports a healthy market demand for the increased product that will result. This doesn’t “mean, of course, that the country is headed back to horse-‘and-buggy days. It does mean that Old Dobbin remains ~ wery much a part of the national picture, and that the coun¢an count on a continued supply of horseshoes, which;

the old man with the umbrella stuck to his policy ‘of ap-

= fore the Ways and Means Committee of Congress, was |

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

If liish Are to Claim Credit for The Sheridans of U. S. History They Also Must Take the Dick Crokers.

EW YORK, March 18—Recent advices inform your correspondent—some of them with more than a trace of anger—that Gen. Phil Sheridan was an Irishman and that his services to this country, therefore, must be regarded as a contribution by the Emerald Isle. Gen. Lee Bullard and Gen. Hugh Dium are similarly claimed in the upper register of a long list of distinguished individuals which includes John L. Sullivan, Gene Tunney, James J. Corbett and Gabby Hartnett. Recorded information has it, however, that Gen. Sheridan was born in Albany, N. Y., and that Gens. Bullard and Drum are natives, Gen. Drum being, indeed, the son of an American officer who was killed in action in the American War against Spain, Sullivan, Tunney, Corbett and Hartnett also were born and raised in this land. : ! : The ¢laim advanced by Irish correspondents is one of great delicacy, as your correspondent learned last year when he awarded to Italy full credit for the lives and works of a long roll of famous, if not exactly honored, individuals who rose to eminence in the criminal branch of American endeavor. : s ” 8

1 Italian Duce’s press at the time was berating the United States as a gangster nation, but, rather oddly, when the deeds of these missionaries were credited to Italy there was much indignation against the aspersion on “Italian blood and culture. They were, it appeared, Americans and victims of the corrupt environment of a barbarian country. Now with regard to Gen. Sheridan and the others cited by Irishmen as Irish contributors to the greatness of the United States, the contention is reversed. They were or are, as the case may be, one is heatedly informed, Irishmen though born here, careers belong among the treasures of that great nation. i ; . So be it, then, but if it be so the list of noted Irish among us must be opened to others who are plainly eligible on the same grounds, starting, at random, with the late Boss Dick Croker of New York. Frank Hague, the Mayor of Jersey City, a millionaire by dint of saving on a modest salary, and his precocious son, lately appointed to the highest court in New Jersey, though not long out of law school, are two more who belong to Erin’s honor roll by this argument. 8 8 =n

O Ireland then must go credit for the contributions to good government and public morals which have honored the names of the O’Connell brothers of Albany and to Ireland also such glory as she may find in the lives and works of Maurice B.

‘Connolly of Queens, Big Tim Sullivan, Commendatore

Tomasso Pendergast of Kansas City, Tin Box Tom Farley, Jimmy Hines, John McCooey and those twin guardians of honor, decency and civic purity in the old first ward of Chicago, Hinky-Dink Kenna and Bathhouse John Coughlin. All these and may others belong to Ireland by the same rules of contention that claims Gen. Sheridan, born in Albany, and other honored natives of the U. 8. A. A simpler and more honest and sporting way would be to yield to this nation all the achievements of one kind or another of all her citizens. The United States should receive the credit along with the punishment.

Business By John T. Flynn % Futile Policy of Increasing Money Supply Again Is Urged in Capital.

EW YORK, March 18.—The money reformers who want to regulate the economic system and restore and perpetuate prosperity by controlling the supply of money are getting active in Washington again. Back in 1931 to 1933 there was a powerful blog in Congress which argued that the way to restore business activity was to put up the prices of commodities. This: they said, could be done by increasing the volume of money. And this could be done by directing the Federal Reserve Board to issue Federal Reserve notes until prices went up to the 1926 level. This is one of the most persistent of all errors in finance. And it is one of the most dangerous because it is the most plausible, After all, people say, why is business poor? Because people have not the money to buy. If they have not the money, why not supply the money? Money is issued by the Government. It has billions in gold. Why not, therefore, issue notes against its gold reserve and get them into the hands of the people? Now there are two failacies in this. The first is that raising prices is the way to prosperity. The second is that increasing the supply of money will raise prices and make us flourish. The truth of the matter is that in 1937, when we were moving toward a very moderate recovery, it was rising prices which helped to stem that rise and threw us back into the depression.

Goods Must Be Sold Higher prices do no good unless the goods can be sold. And there is a point beyond which resistance to higher prices cuts down sales to the point where the merchant and producer are worse off with the higher prices. : As Jor the supply of money increasing prices and business activity, here are some facts: Back in 1926

there was about $3,600,000,000 of Government money in hat i Now there is $5,700,000,000 in circula-

tion. That is almost 60 per cent more, yet the prices are lower. er Of course the money we use ih our transactions is bank money--bank deposits, not Government money. We merely use that for small daily transactions and for making clearances. But in the case of bank money the story is the same. In 1929 we had about 53 billion of bank deposits. Now we have just about the same. But in 1929 business activity was on a vast scale. Now it is in a state of lethargy. It. cannot be due either to the volume 0f Government money lor bank money. The cause must lie elsewhere. | ' . We have enough trouble now. It is to be hoped -the/champiens of money abundance will not get under way agdin.

| . |

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

00 about women written by men are always literary events. When the writer is John P. Marquand, Pulitzér Prize winner, readers of both sexes should pull out their easy chairs, for a treat is in store. “Wickford Point” is about one of those queer, inbrgd, delightfully irresponsible families which remain to|rémind efficient moderns of the fun they're missing. | Bella, loveliest of the fribe, is both a darling and deceiver. And she deceives no one more than hetself. Also she belongs to the ever increasing throng of 20th Century girls who expect to remain perennially young and lovely and who believe they can: get everything good from life without giving anything in return. Mr. Marquand’s Bella is a peculiar product of her time—the sort of woman who puts her faith in cold creams and invests her money on fripperies to catch rich husbands. And her evaluation of men is something which ought to give pause to every trousered American, because she represents an existing type— the Eternal Huntress, who today stalks the earth on the lookout for unwary males with more money than sense. Eo _ And yet the author has made her an appealing creature, [for are not such women always appealing? Readers, [as well as malé admirers, are moved to for-

give heriover and over and to hope, until the last |

page, that some magic transformation will take place in her character. It never does, of course. And when you put it down, you will wonder just how many little Bellas our school of Wishful Thinking Entertainers are manufacturing through fiction, sake and moving picture cameras, and what civilizZauon RB 4) 3 Dr m i

and their

The Hoosier Forum

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

CLAIMS SMALL GAMBLING DENS THRIVE HERE By Mrs. M. C. | A club announces its opening. The following night the papers give the stories of a raid seizing several thousands of gamblers’ money and equipment. Most of the gamblers who go to a club can afford to lose the money. Many of them have inherited more money than they know what to do with. The officials should spend some of their time cleaning out the rear end of some of these billiard parlors where hard-working factory men are foolish enough to go and spend their whole pay checks or so much of them that their families suffer for essentials of life. My husband doesn’t make a large salary, but we could live and dress as well as the average working class of people if he could just get past the gamblers’ dens and spend it at home. If these small gambling dens were cleaned out, I'm sure there would be more happiness in homes and at least the wives’ hearts wouldn’t be brokén and their foreheads lined with wrinkles from worrying about the lost pay check. Most people say, “Well, if they are foolish enough to go in, let them lose their money.” But some people are too weak to resist gambling as others are susceptible to certain diseases. 2 ” 2 CITES ONE CAUSE FOR PARKING IN STREETS By Mrs. Iva L. Burns

Hasn't the Safety Board got the cart before the horse in connection with all-night parking? It seems to me that the first persons to go after concerning street parking are real estate men. A great percent age of the rental property in Indianapolis has no garages. With the high license and .property taxes, sometimes home owners find it difficult to raise money to erect garages. After all, the home owner is the making of a city, and is charged a certain Barrett Law assessment for the street he has been parking his car on. It is also part of his taxes that pays for the cleaning of that same street. 2 2 8 THINKS COMMON SENSE NEEDED IN RELIEF

By Plain Citizen If economy were -an objective in

much road work to show for the money spent. To build roads with hand labor ignores every principle of economy. Hand labor should do only the final

work. We should not complain of the expense for the work done by hand, as long as businessmen insist on forc-

A, we would have five times as). |

: finishing ° after machinery has done the rough

(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.)

ing relief labor to work in the most inefficient way. We are obsessed with the idea of labor as the basis for obtaining the relief dole. It is not labor we need as much as common sense. At least we do not need useless labor just to pretead that we earned something. - : The mere existence of WPA relief work indicates that we do not want to economize on labor, through efficient use of our manpower, to produce real wealth in the most efficient way. : 2 8 =

LISTS CAPITALISM WITH UNDESIRABLE ISMS By Let’s Live 7 In reply to Homer L. Chaillaux at the Lions’ Club on Tuesday, I agree that we should do away with all

isms except Americanism! I would start with capitalism and have production for use with abundance for

| |all—not for only a few.

The greatest bulwark against for-

| eign isms is three square meals a | {day and good housing for all.

We should resolve that the present order, under which the means of life, liberty and happiness are cornered by the few, thereby empowering them to deny the great many access to the means of making their living, be immediately junked as 100 per cent un-American and a gross violation of the fundamental principles

.° REMEMBERING By MAUD COURTNEY WADDELL Long gone—yet always present here { Within my heart, I hear your voice; I see your smile. 'Twas not from choice Came sudden separation, dear!

Your spirit lives in what is best; In distant music through the trees

lz ‘hear your laughter. Every breeze

{Wings soft caress to bring me rest. >

| DAILY THOUGHT | Hitherto have ye asked noth=ing in my name; ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. —John 15:24.

ITO one who is not accustomed to give grandly can ask nobly

and with boldness.—Lavater. .

payers, voters and those who are

| cause for alarm. Germany -is creat-

upon which this great nation ‘was :

founded. 8 8 =

OFFERS SUGGESTION FOR SAFER HIGHWAYS

By Joseph Greer { This is a warning to fellow tax-

making special efforts to be law abiding citizens. U. 8. No. 40, between Harmony and Mount Meridian, is a hazard.

We should have been systematic and made our new dual pavement at the hills and curves, before we did so on the straight highways. We should erect signs at the hazards which read “No passing zone,” “End no passing zone,” etc. La. 8. ANOTHER CRITICISM OF THAT ‘SWING SESSION’ By C. E. Coy, Plainfield To our Legislators: The most disgusting thing that could have happened in our fair state was turning our halls of honor into a low-down, cheap night club! My vote will never help send any of you back. Every one of you owes the citizens of Indiana an apology for such monkeyshines. You acted like a bunch of hoodlums instead of dignified men. I don’t suppose it ever entered any of your minds that a prayer for guidance to help you decide matters of state would have been more appropriate. |

. a = = SEE NAZIS CARVING ECONOMIC SPHERE By Telescope i The marching men of Germany crossing political state borders is

ing an “economic state” of the Cenfral European area. Belgium, France, Holland and England long ago created their own economic orbits Miroush acquisition of colonial empires: hey are classed as democracies, even though they dominate their colonial subjects. They shun democracy for others whom they exploit. They tried to make Central Europe their colonial oyster. Germany, shorn of colonial areas by the democracies, is carving itself an orbit of economic self-sufficiency, which will in time reach from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. World capitalism has divided itself into economic spheres. That forces it to maintain huge military machines to prevent capitalism from becoming the universal agent. By power blocks the statis quo is maintained for these economic spheres. If trade does not flow across national boundaries, then armies

march across.

LET'S

EXPLORE YOUR MIND

oe

1 NO: it is unfortunate for boys ‘and girls in their teens to take fall in love

Me.

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGG

YJ 05 IT WISE FOR : GRISLY

TEENS TO TAKE THEIR DATES

their dates so sériously that they, ne inf uated

3 get pro TAUE THATA

£5 OR NO

DRUNK NAOURTED

pr

0 él

THE STORY OF EAVIRONMENT

ON, B Wi TAS ( CAN DOF 3

ber of other boys or girls and thus making a more intelligent choice-of mate. Of course puppy love may happen ust

AM-

see théy have fade a mistake it becomes a tragedy and sets up a lot of unnecessary emotional turmoil. They should form friendships but stop short of getting involved in a romantic love affair. ® 8 = YES, when he is just djunk ‘enough not to be “blind drunk.” This is partly because he loses control of the muscles of his eyes so he cannot fuse the image each éye sees separately into one image as all but cross-eyed people do, and partly because even if his eyes do fuse then his brain is too befuddled to recognize it. According to Science Service babies and drunks have the same difficulty—but not, I take it, from the same cause. 8 8 » HE CAN often do far better than a bright person actually does do, because a bright person is about as likely to be lazy as a dull one and, perhaps, even a bit more likely to go in for social affairs, dates, parties and the like ard neglect to work. But of course if they both work equally hard, a bright person naturally can learn faster and remember it better than a person of lesser intelligence. The

- =

Sa y§—— New York City's Survey on Relief

Points the Way to Adjusting This Burden to Our Capacity to Pay.

’

ASHINGTON, March 18.—The récommendae tions of the advisory council headed by Oswald Knauth, which was set up by the New York City WPA Administrator, Col. Somervell to study WPA in that city and suggest improvements have been published. They were necessarily in general terms. They include very little that has not been a mattér of general opinion for several years. Mr. Knauth wisely set up an efficient research

organization which worked for months. All the findings of this careful survey are not accepted by tHe

.| council, but the mass of facts that it collected and

analyzed support the recommendations of the council, They thus can’t be regarded as a personal dogma. They are a start at least in the direction of economy and reform in adjusting the greatest burden on our people—the cost of unemployment and: other relief, Including public works, AAA payments to farmers, social security and railroad and civil service retire-. ment, this burden is estimated to cost this fiscal year nearly 5.6 billions of dollars. All the rest of Government, including vastly increased national defense, will cost only 3.8 billions. We are spending almost twice as much for relief of various kinds as we did in the predepression years to run the entire Govern= ment exclusive of the public debt. : ” » ” . T is the fashion of the Administration to say: “All right, where are you going to begin to cut?” The Knauth -committee’s recommendations do not answer that question. Nobody does. The whole system of relief by Federal gift to the states and cities ranges each political subdivision on the side of grabbing as much as it can. ‘That makes it politically unthrifty for any group in any locality to advocate anything that would shift any of this back-breaking burden from the shoulders of Uncle Sam to the local taxpayers. No New York committee, for example, even one as highminded as this one, can be expected to advance arguments against New York getting more Federal money, No New York Mayor, even one as high-minded as Mr. La Guardia, can be expected to do a similar. thing. But there is one simple rule, suggested if not stated in this report, which is the beginning of wisdom. Ask: “How much can national economy afford to spend for

est economy and the widest result?” ; 2 os ® O such principle guides relief spending now. The various localities say what they need. The Gove ernment adds all that together and asks Congress for

day—who knows better than the mayors what the cities need? It is an invitation to extravagance. This whole question of relief needs to be examined by an impartial authority with Federal powers and

with a stern and fearless purpose to reduce its cost to something reasonably within the capacity of this

fantastical amounts now being spent, together with the rapid increase in debts and deficits and the failure

gest economic problem. And we face it in an atmosphere of almost complete public indifference to the perilous necessity of solving it. :

lt Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Maybe It's the 'Fire of Fulfilment Now Burning Briskly in Everglades.

(ORAL GABLES, Fla., March 18—The Everglades, one of our bigger and better swamps, has. been ‘burning briskly. And the natives say that recent sharp showers will hardly be enough to check the fire which creeps along among the roots below the surface. fills the sky. As long as there is breeze enough to stir the smoke, it adds a pungency to the air and softens the all too brilliant reds and greens and whitewashed walls of the Florida landscape.

years ago and only now spurts up from underground. But in any case it must be rough upon the Seminoles, who constitute perhaps the most primitive of all the people in America. . : In some of the deeper pools, remote from the automobile highway, they say that ancient Indians abide who have not yet received the news that Ponce de Leon has landed. There is an even more sensational story current, but as yet I have been unable to confirm it. According to the legend, de Leon himself is still among the

the secret of longevity. ged And the story goes that to him the discovery has been a disappointment, for what he has obtained is not eternal youth but merely perpetual stagnation.

No Dearth of Swamps

The man who sought eternal youth has never really known it. Now as the fire flings itself across the swamp he will learn the great truth that life is not a thing which may be measured in the tables of the actuaries. Even ah instant of complete fulfillment is more than a span of years in fumbling existence, Below the surface fire cuts its path across the Evere glades. And possibly it may go farther, for there is no dearth of swamps and shadows on the face of the world. i : Life began in the water under the earth, and all human progress must come in movements which are deep rooted. And so the Everglades may serve as a laboratory for all lands. There is a tang in the wind, and its pungence travels. across the numerous oceans. The living fire of fulfillment is on its way to liberate the nations. And out of the depths will come the voice of men who rise and sing. It has been said that some of these days God's going to set this world on fire. And it may be the

the bushes of the dismal swamp. :

Watching Your Health By Dr. Morris Fishbein

TT official reports of the League of Nations on the world traffi¢ in opium indicate that the numbes of narcotic addicts in the United States has fallen considerably during the last 10 years. Thus it is now estimated that there are between 35,000 and 50,000

addicts in the United States, whereas estimates of 10 years ago were from 100,000 to 150,000. In Canada also apparently the numiber of addicts has decreased from approximately 8000 to 4000. = Ht Obviously all such figures are estimates since secrecy is the very life of opium trade. Whereas the drug traffic in the United States and in Canada has decreased considerably there is good evidence that it has not been brought under control in other sections of the world, particularly in the East. Today the Far East is the principal center of thé illicit manufacture of and traffic in such drugs as opium, morphine, cocaine and their derivatives. All information now points to the necessity for international control of the production of drugs and thé consumption of raw opium if the illicit traffic is to be brought under control. . : . : * The experts estimate that 300 tons of raw opium are required annually: for the legitimate needs of the world, that about the same amount is. required for the present needs of opium smoking monopolies, and that about 500 tons are required for non-medical con» sumption. ws saint This makes a total of 1100 tons, but the annual production, eliminating Afghanistan, China and Man= chukuo, would seem to be 2300 tons. : Unfortunately, science has not yet developed any

chief thing to

oh N

keep in mind, how-

substitute for opium or morphine which has their.

relief? How can that money be spent with the great-

the money. As Mayor La Guardia suggested the other.

country to carry the load. Considering the perfectly

of the taxing system to carry the load we face our big-

A haze like that of New England summer

Perhaps this is a fire which began very many

living. Not from a spring but in a swamp he found

very hand of the Lord which has kindled to burning

ER I ERY

por J