Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 March 1939 — Page 10

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Eo ffEBo RILEY §551

Give Light and the People Wilt Fino Their Own Way --

MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1939

‘STRONGER THAN WORDS’ : BERLIN dispatches report that Nazi leaders are “stunned” ~~ by the action of the United States in imposing an additional 25 per cent duty on German goods sold in this country. If so, the Administration in Washington is to be congratulated. For these same Nazi bosses paid no heed whatever to Secretary of State Hull's repeated warnings that the Reich’s barter-trade warfare was inviting reprisals. Nor were they impressed when President Roosevelt, at the | opening of Corigress, remarked that “there are many methods short of war, but stronger than words, of bringing home to aggressor governments the aggregate sentiments of our own people.” ‘This “countervailing duty,” so-called because it is designed to offset the German Government's subsidies, is imposed under authority of the Smoot-Hawley act of 1930. It could have been applied at any time over the last several months, and probably should have been made effective long ago to protect American products from unfair subsidy competition. in But it is, we think, fortunate timing that its applica- ~ tion came on the same week-end that Great Britain, France, Russia and the United States were joining in denunciation of Germany's seizure of Czechoslovakia. For, perhaps, it may impress on the not-impressionable Nazi mind that we mean what we say in disapproving military aggression, just as we meant what we said in protesting trade aggression. : Of course our trade with Germany flows two ways. And, in Tetaliation, Germany doubtless will try to stop all purchases of American goods. But for two years at least it has been Germany's deliberate policy. to buy from us only materials which she has needed for her own industrial and armament program, and only materials which she could not obtain elsewhere. Germany doesn’t like what we have done. was forewarned and heeded not." :

KEEP THE DOORS OPEN T isn’t true that “workers are through after 40.” So says ~ the Committee on. Employment Problems of Older Workers, appointed last year by Secretary of Labor Perkins. And the Committee has assembled an impressive mass ‘of evidence, drawn from many sources, to support its declaration. Prejudice against hiring older workers, it asserts, “rests largely in inadequate and erroneous impressions.” It finds, further, that any policy “which arbitrarily discriminates against employees or applicants on the basis of a fixed age is undesirable from the point of view of employees, employers and the public at large.” Of course it is. Shutting the doors of opportunity to men and women as they reach middle life is not only cruelly unfair. In a country whose average age level is rising steadily it is economic folly. Granting the advantage of youth in occupations requiring great physical strength and endurance, maturity also has its advantages—seasoned judgment, steadiness, patience—far too valuable to waste. The Committee “strongly recommends” that the Federal Government lead the attack on this problem by abolishing its own employment age limits and making future "appointments in Government service “solely on the basis of qualifications and without regard to age.” : That, surely, is a sound recommendation. The Government has little right to criticize private industry for dis-

But she

|

fo

criminating against older workers unless the Government, |

itself, sets a good example.

BUTLER’S FINE RELAYS

I¥ many sections of the country track is classified as a minor sport. But not in Indiana. And certainly not in Indianapolis where-the nationally famed Butler relays annually is one of the City’s finest indoor sport attractions. The show put on last Saturday by 828 of the nation’s finest college athletes was a colorful, fast-moving, exciting performance. The crowd of 40,000 saw the accepted indoor world record in the pole vault broken by Milton Padway of Wisconsin, another world record tied in the 60-yard high hurdles and meet records generally take a beating. It saw such exceptional performers as Johnny Woodruff, the former Olympic champion, and Don Lash, world record holder in the two-mile, and college talent scarcely less brilliant. : Track a minor sport? No, sir. Not at Butler.

id

NEW WATCHDOG NEEDED : PREPARING budgets for the United States Government = is a tough job in these times. For five years it has been done by an acting director, Daniel ‘W. Bell, who took over when the last regular director, Lewis Douglas, resigned be- * cause he couldn’t agree with New Deal spending’ policies. Now that Mr. Bell is returning to his former post, as assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, we think he’s entitled to a word of praise. Many people haven't liked his ~ ‘budgets, but of course he is not responsible for the deficits. He has handled a difficult assignment with industry and intelligence, and we wish him well, as we do the new Budget Director, Harold D. Smith. i“ This change calls attention to another, even more important, Federal office which has been filled for more than two and one-half years by an acting incumbent. The 15year term of John R. McCarl, Controller General, expired in June, 1936. President Roosevelt has named no successor. ~The President, of course, wanted the office of Controller General abolished. That was one of the roposals in his original Government-reorganization bill—and one of the worst. Congress, wisely, refused to make that change. The new reorganization bill now being considered doesn’t touch the Controller General's office. There is no longer any excuse for leaving an acting Controller in charge. One ‘step definitely reassuring to business, justifying hope for a closer check on spending, would be the appointment of a mew Controller General with full authority to get busy t the necessary task of making the office function more

n Washington By Raymond Clapper

Pittman Apparently Is Voicing Mr. Roosevelt's Deep Distrust of Everything Hitler Stands For.

A J7ASHINGTON, March 20.—Even more significant than the statement of condemnation issued by this Governynent upon Hitler’s crushing of Czechoslovakia were the words of Senator Pittman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman. “We must® not delay in. preparation for potential and physical action,” said Senator Pittman.

words which the White House was not free to speak, and this utterance should be accepted by the country as one of those occasions. I feel confident that it is what Mr. Roosevelt himself would like to say and that he is anxious to have this warning of the gravity of the situation conveyed to the country. As a good many in Washington knew, nothing yet published adequately expresses the intensity of Mr. Roosevelt's personal feeling about Hitler. Not all that he said to the Senate Military Affairs Committee in that now historic secret meeting has been published.

No. 1 menace to the kind of world we know. He has no faith whatever in the man. ” 2 2 2

THINK it is the conviction within the Adminis tration that when England and France decide the time has come to act, it will be necessary for the United States to throw its material resources in. Mr. Roosevelt will not, while he is President, sit idly by and see England and France want for supplies from the United States. If the Neutrality Act is not fixed

to permit such action, it will be fixed. Mr. Roosevelt will muster all the strength he can command to clear

that he will have Congress overwhelmingly with him when the showdown comes. . : Up to now, as Mr. Chamberlain said in his memorable Birmingham speech, there has been some justification for the things Hitler has done. If we didn’t like the way he operated, a great many people recognized some justice in his demands, his reoccupation of the Rhineland, his annexation of Austria, and even his absorption of the Sudeten portion of Czechoslovakia, England and France ignored his demands and he gained his ends by force. There was something to be said in Hitler's behalf up until last week. Mr. Chamberlain was patient. If ever a man tried to find a peaceable solution for very real problems, if ever a statesman tried to go more than halfway to find a peaceful solution that would help Hitler, it was Mr. Chamberlain. : ” #” » OW Hitler has betrayed all of that. He has broken all his promises and perpetrated the rape of a small independent country which was tending to its own business and which couldn't possibly be a menace to Germany. Without consulting Mr. Cham-

| berlain, as he had promised to do, Hitler marched in

‘and seized the country, threw his yoke around its people, snatched their gold, and inflicted his brutalitarian code upon them. Of all the crimes in this black century, this of Hitler's must head the list. An outrage without a shred of extenuation to veil its treacherous infamy. German citizens could reasonably have approved of much that Hitler has done. It is difficult to see how they can, at heart, feel other than shame over this last needless, disgraceful act.

Business

By John T. Flynn

Probe Seems Headed for Attack on Competition Rather Than Monopoly.

EW YORK, March 20.—Slowly it is becoming plain, what was fairly clear to nedr observers from the beginning—that the monopoly investigating committee in Washington is split broadly into two groups. The idea of monopoly hardly expresses the precise point of difference between them. One group is for submitting the economic system to some .sort of control and letting businessmen exercise this control through agreements of various kinds. The other group opposes this. This first group includes generally those who are looked upon as part of the inner Administration group. They will generally disown any intention to bring back NRA. But the assurance is based upon a misunderstanding of what the NRA was. People have a way of judging things by their accidentals, their details rather than their essentials. Essentially the NRA was a plan to enable businessmen in their several industries to unite in groups, to make rules and regulations governing such groups, to control the trade practices of the industries. At bottom you find that many of these Administration persons connected with the monopoly investigation favor this principle. 2d But this gets down to a question of how ithe busi~nessmen should exercise their control. Once you admit they ought to be allowed to control, then you will have to admit there will be differences of opinion as to what the decisions of the governing body should be. Jerome Frank thinks they ought to exercise it in the interest of increased production. But most of the businessmen who do the controlling will disagree. They insist increased production is what sends prices down. and cuts profitsi - And in the very nature of things if you commit control of industry to the busi nessmen they will think in terms of prices and profits.

Old Idea Persists

This idea of permitting employers to control the economic factors in their industries has pursued this | Administration like a fatal demon. And the latest | phase of it to show its head in the monopoly investigation is an idea for dealing with business “industry by industry.” : That is, the Government should forbid monopoly or monopoly agreements in some industries but might permit them in others. It will begin in a few industries and promptly spread to others. It means, of course, the end of the antimonopoly policies of the Government. So that this writer was not far wrong when, at the beginning of this investigation, he suggested that the monopoly investigation would turn out to be an attack, not on monopoly, but competition and that it might end in the legalization and spread of monoroly. : -

op . A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson 2

R. GALLUP’S poll still shows the majority of - American voters to be in favor of a constitutional amendment requiring a national referendum before the United States can engage in a war over-

seas. “Utterly impractical,” say its opponents. Now no word in the language is more potent on masculine lips. They sling it about as if it had some

magic qualities to quell feminine arguments. As indeed it has. For we usually remain slient, hesitant and cowed before the impact of its ruthless force. To be impractical, according to many, is to argue one’s self an gidealist, and dare we be idealists where war is concerned? Before answering the question, let us find out wh the word really signifies to its most ardent users. Bat fined by the dictionary, - “practical” means: “pertaining to or governed by actual use and as contrasted with ideals and speculations. When we study that carefully, rearrange our ideas on the whole question, I think. For in view of such an interpretation would you not agree that fighting a war on the other side of the ocean is really a magnificent demonstration of the impractical? Regarded through the lens of our own experience, can you think of anything more sentimental than for Americans to make aggressive trips into Europe or Asia in order to preserve democracy? Yet this is what we are now told may be an eventuality. It has happened before, therefore, we - know it can happen again. And if such an effort is made, we can venture a guess that it will be brought about by our so-called practical people. Remembering other crises when their opponents were hooted and even rotten-egged from platforms, I am a bit dubious -about the workings of the approaches the subject of armed conflict.

Time and again Senator Pittman has uttered the |

‘The President, I am certain, regards Hitler as the

the path so that help can be given, and my guess is | F;

experience

we are obliged to.

[1m—By Herblock

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

SUGGESTS WAYS TO SPEED TRAFFIC By Roscoe Beedle

becomes greater and until the air-

plane is more universally used to elevate the cross-country traffic we will have a problem on our hands. Because of the demand for taxi and streetcar service, we cannot eliminate them from the downtown area. We cannot widen our streets and it would be too costly to elevate our streetcar service, so we must move traffic faster. To do this I suggest replacing all traffic signals within the mile square business area with the new type signal now in use at New York and West Sts. I believe this type signal will permit faster driving because the driver will know at all times when he must stop and. judge his speed accordingly. . Next we should remove the pedestrian at congested intersections by using escalators, and by couastructing approaches to streetcar safety zones from the escalator alley below. I do not know what technical and financial difficulties this would create, but if it should be instrumental in saving lives, the cost would be more than repaid.

: 2 2 = LEARNS WHY PEGLER WRITES BETTER STUFF By C. B., Kokomo

Westbrook Pegler, veteran columist, once confessed that he needed a whole day to prepare and write his column. Proving he thinks before he writes, instead of after he writes, as I sometimes do. Bad habit, that—writing blind, then opening your eyes to see what you've written. Perhaps that will help to explain why Mr. Pegler’s stuff is so mucha better than mine!

” » » RAPS NARROW CONCEPTION OF PATRIOTISM By OC. E. W.

Erzberger, a noted German statesman, said in 1914, “If a way was found of wiping out the whole of London (or Paris) it would be more humane to employ it than to allow the blood of a single German soldier to be shed on the battlefield.” Certain things one reads and hears in the United States give the impression that we have persons here who have the same selfish and narrow conception of patriotism. In a democracy patriotism should not be defined as devotion to one’s country but as devotion to one’s country and its ideals in government. Now the bandits, Hitler and Mussolini, think that through a superior air force, they have found the way

Each year our volume of traffic

(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.)

not only to destroy these cities but to acquire much territory by conquest. It is to be regretted that we

have men in Congress who have so little concern as to what happens to our: comrades of the World War, whom we have probably brought to the brink of ruin by deserting them and signing a separate peace. It does seem that their consciences would at least condemn them, especially if they were in any way responsible for the separate peace, to the point that they would not try to make politics out of the legal purchase of planes by France, a democracy in dire need of them. But the isolationists did make such a noise about it that it was heard. around the world and caused Hitler to resolve to double the number of Germany’s submarines.

2 8 =» THINKS BINGO PARLORS BETTER THAN TAVERNS By M. M. 8.

And so again bingo is blamed— even to taking away business from a tavern. I just wonder where there is a man or woman who would not rather have the husband or wife, whichever it would be, play bingo

and come home cheerful and happy

from an afternoon’s or evening's

SCHOOL DAYS

By ANNA E. YOUNG To mother the hours are a trifle long ' And her house a wee bit still Even Brownie the pup senses something wrong : And mopes around—until

The clock chimes three, then a joyous shout : As Teddy comes in-—pell-mell Such a glorious day, but school is out

And is he loaded with things to tell! . -

DAILY THOUGHT But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face— Job 1:11. : :

URSES are like young chickens, and still come home to roost. —-Bulwer,

pleasure than come home from a tavern under the influence of drink. I say if bingo has done this for the people, has caused them to spend an afternoon or evening with intelligent people instead of at a tavern with the class of people who frequent such places, then the City would be doing good work indeed to allow bingo games to continue. § 8 8 =» RESENTS CLOSING OF BINGO PARLORS By a Player I am not a bingo operator but I like to play the game and there are about 15,000 others who like to play it. I was never forced into a bingo game. If I played I did so of my own free will. And I don’t think it is anybody’s business. : It has not been so long ago that the very men who are now officeholders were attending bingo games seeking votes. They went so far as to furnish covers for bingo cards announcing their candidacy. They did not oppose it then. Why oppose it now? . There were enough ‘votes cast by bingo players to have changed the election. If bingo is to be stopped, stop all euchre and bridge games, remove the slot machines from all the clubs, close the movies on Sunday, stop bank nights, close Sunday baseball and let’s have a real closed city. 2 2 2

CITES WAY TO CUT GOVERNMENT COSTS By W. T. © : One of those singular items cropped up the other day about a relief client who died, and who was then found to have been rich. This particular New Yorker left an estate of more than $130,000, though he died a\charity hospital patient, and had been on the relief rolls. Somehow, these stories get lost in the follow-through. Will the relief authorities collect from the estate the money paid to this man while he was sponging on the public? It certainly should be done. But the amount will probably not be large, and the story will have been forgotten by then. : People who, if they damaged your property or their Uncle Dualey’s, would apologize and pay instantly, think nothing of damaging property belonging to all of us and sneaking away. People who would not steal from Aunt Ophelia don’t hesitate to steal from Uncle Sam. One way to plug the government financial leaks, local and national, would be to insist more stoutly on repayment of public money stolen,

public property destroyed.

1

practical mind when it

> without

DOES IT SHOW A WEAK, PERSONALITY IF YOU FI T HARD TO STRIKE UPA CONVERSATION WITHA |

FIND

A |, SAYS A

PN AUTHORITY, 19 GET HIM TO TALK ABOUT HIMGELF. YOUR CHNION —

7

AS A RULE it is not a strong other general feelings of being inpoint and in many cases signi-|ferior and afraid to meet «people. flies a decided inferiority complex. I| The best book ever written on how B® om of letters on Le po, Bo becorne & good conversationalist especially ‘from young ‘people exception they speak of (Mi

bg NOX

“The Art of Conversation” by on Wright, Nothing. adds

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

to one’s self-confidence than to learn how to talk ‘easily and well,

t t 4 #8 : THE Chautauqua Survey I mentioned recently showed that an immense majority of the young people interviewed strongly objected to parents trying to control their

selection of friends. Personally, I agree with these young people most of the way. I know of no way of antagonizing young people more quickly and deeply than trying to dictate their friends but I know of

effeciively than making the home so enjoyable and such a good place

|to bring friends that selection takes

place naturally without much thought on the part of either parents or children.

* 8 =» THIS STATEMENT is made seriously by F. B. Fisher and is

of all ages on marriage and thousands of round table discussions with both young and old. It is worth following by women who wish really and sincerely to interest a prospective husband. entirely justified in a husband Fisher's ad

if she wants one. and vice mig i

Gen, ; 2] Says—

no way of winning them more not mere impression but is the out{come of years of lecturing to people

Any “woman is trying I - to land

J ohnson

: Monopoly Probe "Conducted on High Plane and It Is Likely Reform of Our Antitrust Laws Will Result.

ASHINGTON, March 20.—The “verbatim rece ord” of the proceedings of the temporary Nae tional Economy Committee is published by the Bureau of National Affairs. It is the best reporting of one of

have seen. : : This is the so-called O'Mahoney “Monopoly Come mittee” composed of members of the House, Senate and executive departments to study the American business structure to see what ought to be done about amending and enforcing the antitrust laws. Senator O'Mahoney has succeeded in conducting it in the very best iracitions of the great British commissions of iT 108 to read the “verbatim record” daily. It is disclosing the clearest general picture of American industry that we have had. : 2 » ”

I is too early to say whether its method will change

will point. But some of the running debate with witnesses and among the committeemen seem to me to suggest that they will point directly away from the theories of the antitrust laws as we have known them.

They simply outlaw “combinations in restraint of trade.” Nobody has ever. known what that meant. Any contract is a restraint of trade. Other important commercial countries forbid combinations in restraint ot trade “which are not in the public interest.” They: give business some hint as to what it may or may not: do. Our anti-trust laws and system practically say: a ip your peril. If you guess wrong you can 20 a on 3 t As a result, they haven't worked to protect the public as was intended and they have worked to hamper and hinder. business. It is appearing from these hearings that one rule will not work for all kinds of business, that many combinations are very much in the public interest and that some kinds of competition are fatal ta the public interest. It also seems’ to appear that there should be some change in the law and some kind of Federal tribunal where business could come and learn what it may and may not do. : Le 2 ” 2

HAT, if true, is particularly gratifying because exactly that—no more and no less—was the fundamental principle of NRA. No matter how much in the haste and pressure of the 1933 emergency NRA

fumbled that principle, no matter how many mistakes it made—and it made plenty—that was the economic law of its foundation. There is some suggestion now that, by combining the functions of the Department of Justice and Come. merce and the Federal Trade Commission, we can get: 8 new system of regulating “combinations in restraint: of trade” to keep them “in the public interest.” In a general way, NRA tried to use the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice somewhat in this way. It was like a rabbit trying to use a team composed of a wildcat and an airedale. They didn’t believe in this principle, With a change of view, the vast experience of NRA and the benefit of the careful deliberate studies of this committee, perhaps a new law and machinery can be set up which will do well what NRA unsuce cessfully tried to do. :

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Farley Stil Loyal to Roosevelt, Friend of Party Chief Insists,

'IAMI, Fla. March 20.—Speaking of politics, this seems an appropriate day to discuss Jim Farley

eral, who voiced a theory which he offered as his own and not as an official utterance. “You know,” he bee gan, “you newspapermen do a great deal of harm. You catch a public official down here, let's say, just _as he’s winning a bet at a race track or coming out of a wave at the beach and something he gurgles in an off moment is played up in the headlines the next morning.” ; : “Public officials,” I replied with Spartan firmness, should never go near the race track or the water.” “But even that wouldn’t protect them from you gossipers of opinion,” my friend argued. “I know of plenty of cases where a correspondent has written that some Congressman was for this and that when, as a matter of fact, the poor fellow had never even given it a thought. But after the thing has been written up the Congressman just has to live up to it. “But,” I objected, “is’ there anything so terrible in trying to put an idea into the head of a Congress man?” My friend sighed and said: “I was looking for ine telligent conversation. I have a definite case in mind and so let me do the talking and save your wisecracks, if any, for your column.

The ‘Statesmen’ Get Busy

“I think in the beginning somebody printed a ree mark Jim’s wife was supposed to have made and’ she was quoted as saying, “The Farleys aren’t Roosevelts.” “There wasn’t anything very terrible in that and I don’t even know whether she said it. But it was enough to set the backstairs statesmen going. Day after day everybody in America read that an increase ing coolness could be observed in the relations of Roosevelt and Farley. Jim was supposed to disapprove of this Administration policy or the other. “Well, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Farley are human beings and they read the newspapers. Of course they don’t believe everything they read, but if a story is printed often enough some part of it sinks in. I don’t think that Jim and the President are as close as they were once upon a time, but it is the pressure of suge gestions from the outside which has made the trouble, They belong together, “Garner isn’t Jim's kind of fellow and I'll bet you all the tea in China that when the fight comes in 1940 you'll find Jim and Franklin standing shoulder to shoulder. After all it’s an old established firm and guess and gossip and rumor aren't good enough to blow it down.” i

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

Ho authorities are convinced that the pase + teurization process is without doubt the most important single factor from the point of view of public health in the control of milk and milk products. Doctors, public health workers, and sanitarians alike are agreed on the necessity for pasteurization for the control of disease capable of being transmitted by milk, ; The most recently available figures show that in all cities with a population above 10,000 about 88 per cent of the milk supply used is now pasteurized. However, some people still oppose the pasteurization of milk, bee lieving that raw milk possesses advantages which pase teurized milk does not. have. A committee of the American Public Health Asso ciation has recently made a special report on this sub ject. Experiments made on animals invariably show that there is no significant difference in the food value between raw milk and pasteurized milk. Experiments with children confirm the observation made on the lower animals. Out of some, 2500 school children studied, both in this country and in Scotland, those who were fed with pasteurized milk did just as well as those who were fed with raw milk. - The main contentions have concerned the vitamins. Apparently the pasteurization process ‘does not lower the content of vitamin A and vitamin D. . It may affect somewhat the various portions of vitamin B and vitamin G, yet these vitamins are plentiful from other In any event the vitamin C content of milk is low

Cc is

and it is customary to add orange juice to the diet in

the most important governmental committees that I

and far too early to say which way its conclusions v

and 1940. I ran intq a friend of the Postmaster Gens

&