Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 June 1939 — Page 14

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The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co.,, 214 W. Maryland St.

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Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulation.

RILEY 5551

Give Lioht and the People Will Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1939

PRESSURE POLITICS—$125 TO $1 WHILE considering WPA in politics, let's not overlook AAA, What “Dear Alben” Barkley did seemed plenty raw—in expounding his two-wrongs-make-a-right justification for prostituting public funds.

story which makes that episode seem by comparison the | true svmbol of the “new moral climate” in which we are |

now supposed to be living. Read on, from a letter soliciting memberships to the American Farm Bureau Federation: “There is only one way to continue to receive these

(AAA benefit) payments; it is through the membership in

an organization which is strong enough to tell Congress what vou want. The American Farm Bureau Federation is the largest farm organization in the world and only through this organization have you been able to receive these payments. . .. “For each dollar vou invest in Farm Bureau dues you have received £125 in Government benefit payments. 1 know of no better investment of insurance than you can make on vour farm or in business today... . Your $2 (anpual dues) will earn vou more than any investment you have ever made or probably ever will make in your lifetime.”

That the author of that solicitation was not exaggerat-

ing seems to be confirmed by what has happened in this present Congress, on which the full heat of the Federation lobby already has been turned.

House and the Senate hy $376,540,521. Thus do great oaks of Federal appropriation grow from the little acorns of pressure group dues. » » n N ” THE letter (full text published elsewhere in this paper today) was sent out by R. L. Griffin, County Agent, Perry County, Alabama, and, to make the incident perfect, the letter went postage free, under Government frank. About as near a case of perpetual motion as could be imagined. The tax bill, created by telling Congress what you want and not meaning maybe, will be paid, as Mr. Roosevelt said, “in the sweat of every man who labors.” It amounts altogether to more than one billion, 200 millions for agriculture. And it’s only one among many, wherein political pressure

plays its potent part.

It is another case of “keep your friends in power’— | off the same bolt of cloth as the relief expose of a year ago. | Out of that came the Hatch Bill to prevent the employment |

of relief billions as a superspoils system. No better thing has come forth from this Congress than the assurance from Vice President Garner vesterday that the Hatch Bill would be brought forth from the committee where it has been hottled up, and passed before this For no oreater threat to our form of governcontained in pressure politics at tax-

session ends.

ment exists than is payer expense. We take the statement by the Vice President—a rare event, by the wav—at its face value. “You can write that that bill will be law when we quit,” said he. May nothing be allowed to happen that will cause the measure to be lost in the shuffle of Congressional adjournment.

“SHOCKING HUMAN MISERY”

MAKING public its survey of relief conditions, the AmerWorkers has cited the plight of two Indianapolis families, one of which lives in a

ican Association of Social

house for which $1 a month rent is paid. Insects and rats make sleep almost impossible for both families. One of the men stays awake at night, said the report, to guard his wife

and nine children from the rats. “Shocking human misery,” | is only one way in which these savings can ever be

said the association’s report. That is not an understatement. Only a few weeks ago, Nathan Straus, Administrator of the United State Housing Authority gasped as he inspected some of this city’s slum sections. “Any city.” he said, “which permits people to live like this cannot call itself civilized.” He offered Indianapolis the assistance of the Housing Authority. All that was needed, he pointed out, was the formation of an Indianapolis Housing Authority, for which enabling legislation is already on the books. Obviously, the Housing Authority's program cannot do

away with the misery of persons living in shacks unfit for

animals. But it can help. It is time the City Council started overriding the selfish objections of opposing cliques. We hope it moves to improve housing—aquickly.

WHEN DOCTORS DIE

WO great doctors died on a single day. Charles Horace Mavo was more widely known to Americans than Laszlo Detre, but both had served humanity well and each deserves our gratitude. Just 50 years have passed since Charles and William Mayo, sons of a country doctor, established their little clinic at Rochester, Minn. Now Dr. Charles is gone, and Dir. Will is convalescing from a serious illness, but their clinic flourishes, a vast hospital and research foundation to which more than 55,000 patients come each vear from

all parts of the world. It is as splendid a monument as men

could have. Dr. Detre had been, since 1932, senior immunologist of the Public Health Service at Washington. Many vears before, in his native Hungary, he had become a world pioneer in the fight against syphilis, helping in development of the Wasserman test. His life was devoted to the conquest of disease through the science of bacteriology. Great doctors, more confidently than most men, can face death with the knowledge that it is the good they have done that will live after them. That knowledge, beyond the wealth they may acquire or the honors they achieve, must be a singularly satisfying reward for the sacrifices demagded by their profession, 2

Price in Marion Coun- | ty, 3 cents a copy. aeliv- |

But here is a pressure group |

The President's budget figure of $842,126,051 was expanded under that heat in the

| dent

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Frowziness Accepted as Advanced Thought Which Is Why Radicals

Often Are Viewed With Suspicion. |

EW YORK, June 1.—Miss Dorothy Day, a former |

rough and tumble radical, has written a book called “From Union Square to Rome.” in which she

asks herself if the old desire to be with the poor and |

mean and abandoned was not mixed with a distorted | desire to he with the dissipated.

The question has |

arisen in other lands, prompted by the conduct and | language and the studied physical and moral frowzi- |

ness of individuals whe have identified themselves

with radical movements.

The arts also have served as an excuse for a dirty | way of life, and some persons of this type, being in- |

| competent painters and writers, easily persuade them- | selves that thev coulda command high prices if they | would compromise with their principles. themselves and disguise it to their friends. Greenwich Village 20 vears ago was a haunt of

They become | | radical painters and writers to excuse their failure to |

sloppy fakers who said they desired to live their lives |

in their own way, unfettered hy middle-class conventions. They had read about the art and independent thinking in a dirty quarter of Paris, and for a time

| maintained a similar artistic and intellectual slum in |

New York, most of whose inhabitants overdrank and |

| produced punk poetry and short stories and incoherent

smears on canvas. »

HERE were quite a few young corn-fed frauds of

» »

both sexes from the Middle West, putting into |

| effect ideas of conduct and morality which they had heard talked upon the campus, but the colony in New York, as well as the one in Paris, also included un-

sightly females of considerable age with small private | incomes who liked to sit around listening to the talk |

and reading of the unwashed literati and imagine

themselves to be of the arts. In summer, groups of such people move to places in the far suburbs to go around half-naked, if not altogether which did have a colony of legitimate artists, sufferad from the prestige of carousing counterfeits. The neighbors got an impression that art meant free love, filth and drunkenness, and that

nude, and the town of Westpoint, Conn. |

most writers and |

artists were Communists, because the incompetents are | likelv to condemn a system which refuses to appre- |

ciate their talents. » ADICAL thought and belief does not truly press itself in filthy attire and dirty fingernails, for radicals purport to be intelligent, and it is only the ignorant who have an excuse for dirt when soap and water are almost free and whiskbrooms are a dime. Nevertheless, affected frowziness has come to he offered as evidence of advanced thought, and profane speech is sometimes offered by women as proof that they are fighting mad at the condition of the poor or the sufferings of | munists Probably it is not so much the radical ideas but offensive personalities, and on warm days an odor as of something not quite fresh, which has made host. Americans suspicious of radicalism. There is also a deterrent in the apparent, though not real requirement that to sympathize with radical ideas

» »

| one must give up hygiene, become personally filthy | and, as between husband and wife, each agree that

the other mav jump the fence whenever he or she is troubled hy a dream.

Business

By John T. Flynn

F. D. R. Forgets That Savings Only Can Be Put to Work by Investment.

EW YORK, June 1.—In his National Retailers Federation speech Mr. Roosevelt took to task those who that recoverv must come from the heavy industries. He declared that he was putting his emphasis on reviving the purchasing power of the people and implied that ohject of that purchasing power was to buy things that are found in the stores of the retailers. He implied that reliance upon private investment meant that people

insist

the

| were called on to invest in the continuous construc-

tion of new plants to produce and to overproduce things which the people did not have the income to buy. And there was a note of irritation at the heavy industries. Thev have steadfastly refused to be stimulated and the President seemed almost to be utterly out of patience with them. But the simple truth is that these heavy industries—building construction and heavy machinerv— are essential to the functioning of the capitalist

ex- |

the Spanish Com-

PROTESTS REMOVAL OF INFORMATION BOOTH

shift for themselves and can either

system for a reason wholly outside the things they |

produce. Here are a few thoughts which the Presimust keep in mind. The people never spend all of their income on things which appear in retailers’ stores. Many people insist on saving a part of what thev earn. Even people with small incomes save something. People with incomes in the middle brackets—$3500 to $20,000 —save a great deal.

Facing a Condition

Now what a man saves he does not spend. And these savings mean the withdrawal of all those billions from the purchasing power of the nation. There

brought back into spending—become purchasing power again. That is through investment. The man who

saves a thousand doliars will not spend it for per- |

sonal wants, but he will lend it to someone who wants to use it in his business or he will use it in some business of his own. More likely he will put it in a =avings bank or other institution which will lend it. To put it a little differently, the President has a condition on his hands. He has an economic system —the capitalist, private profit, money economy. It works according to a well-defined pattern. One part of that pattern is the need for bringing savings back Into spending and =o far there are onlv {wo ways to do it—oprivate investment and taxation. Does the President intend to use iaxation? He has practically assured us he does not. Therefore private investment in the heavy industries must be revived or the svstem will collapse. :

A Woman's Viewpoint | By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

| cent column pointed out that there

{we not at the same time that we

| extend our generous impulses just a

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1939

| | | |

| rumored to he another

Gen. Johnson Says—

Danger to Army Morale Feared if Officers Are Retired Under the Arbitrary Plan Now Being Studied. EW YORK. June 1.--Socme time azo this column discussed the ‘“age-in-grade”

Army, now being discussed in Washington. brainstorm

tha 13

for Tt Tommy

proposal

of the

| Corcoran governmental steering committee of bright

| young men,

I don't know about the rumor. but I do

| know from my mail and personal contacts that it 1% | injecting apprehension ahd uncertainty and a sense

of injustice into a service that ought to he thinking

| about other things.

Briefly to repeat, this is the problem: A great blon of officers of about the same aze were commissioned in the regular Army from our World War emergency army. Due to this and later legislation, the Army is top-heavy with cantains of high rank and field offi-

| cers (majors, lieutenant-colonels and colonels).

| and

I wholly disagree with what you say

The Hoosier Forum

defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

. but will

(Times readers are invited

10 express their views In

By True-Blonded Citizen 2 ute | nese columns, For the last 40 vears, the citizens of Indianapolis, when wanting information of the time and place one could catch a streetcar, could step up to the corner of Illinois and Washington Sts. and there would be an employee of the Indianapolis Railwavs to give out this information, but those days are gone. Our Board of Safety ordered this booth removed and now the people that rely on this information can

religious con-

Make

vour letter short, so all can

c JS

troversies excluded.

have a chance. Letters must

be signed, but names will bes

withheld on request.)

the material that we are, not what we have, that we can really offer aid. Perhaps a lot of people who read Mrs. Ferguson's column thought “what a sturdy bit of common sense.” Common sense isn't all there is to right behavior. Common sense is only a tiny part of which faith and grace and eternal vigilance for the soul make up the whole. And if the soul withers within us, common sense isn't very much use after all.

wait out on the streets in cold weather or hunt up traffic policemen, if any can be found, to find out where a certain business place is located. I only hope that the good people of this city will protest this action, not only for the good of all the citizens, but for the thousands that visit our city each vear and have no other place to receive information. Let's hear from some of the civic organizations on this matter and get this booth replaced as soon as possible, It. seems to me that we are going backward instead of forward, bunt we have only three more vears to put up with this kind of nonsense.

» »

CRITICIZES HINES ON DISABILITY ALLOWANCE By Arthur Campbell, Terre Haute Frank Hines, Veterans Bureau Administrator, appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on the Rankin bill, passed overwhelmingly bv the House on May 1, 360 to 1, by his testimony was a detriment rath- | er than a benefit to veterans,

INVARIABLY SO

By ANNA E. YOUNG Was there ever a being so good But what if he tried with all his might He might be a wee hit better By fighting a still greater fight.

» Nn » FAVORS EXTENDING HELP TO REFUGEES

Forrest Fletcher, Cincinnats

Mrs. Walter Ferguson in her re-

were some mighty pitiful looking children in America as an excuse for turning a deaf ear to the plea of the American Women's Committee for Spanish refugees. It is true, all too true that this is so, but can

And—was there ever a being so bad But what if we tried and tried and tried We could find a bit of good encased That his meanness failed ‘hide.

DAILY THOUGHT

Now therefore in the sight of all Israel the congregation of the Lord, and in the audience of our God, keep and seek for all the commandments of the Lord your God: that ye may possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance for your children after vou forever.—I Chronicles 28:8.

try to help the poor in this country

little further to embrace these] wretched little victims of political | upheaval? { It is my experience that all those | in this countrv who are working hard for relief to the innocents abroad are also engaged in serious action for the betterment of our own poor at home. Has the missionary spirit died within us? Are we incapable of thinking in any terms except “me and my wife and mv son John?” This isolationist policy carried to its ultimate conclusion is the very thing which carried Hitler into power. We are deliberately closing our doors in VERY duty brings its peculiar the face of human need. Whether delight, every denial its approthe person who needs our help be priate compensation, every thought near, or far, of different race, or its recompense and every cross its

creed or nationality, it is only out of | crown.—Mildmay,

WO dear souls I know have czlebrated their 50th |

wedding anniversary. Their recipe for a happy

half-century together was given in one short, but po- |

tent, sentence: books.” anybody's household. say, when we see such a couple—forgetting that they

“Good food, good

thoughts, good | That strikes me as a pretty swell recipe for | How fortunate they are, we |

| are fortunate because they are also wise. Wise enough | in this case, at least, to mix the solid substance of |

living with enough spiritual elixir to fashion the nectar of a sweet contentment. “Good thoughts.” I found myself coming back to the words. A trite old phrase, with a Pollyannaish

flavor. Perhaps nothing but a foolish sentiment. Yet

I think our aging ladv had not the usual definition |

in her mind when she spoke them. To her they hal a less general meaning and were spiced with a homely wisdom. Holding good thoughts about such noble subjects as God's goodness and the power of love to right human wrongs and all that sort of thing may help, but it's the good thoughts we hold about our husbands

and the luck we had in landing them that gives matri- |

monial aid.

Entirely too many girls nowadavs go into marriage |

with discontented minds. Instead of making the best of what they have—and often the best is better than

they deserve—they spend themselves in vain dreams of longing and regret. Their house is hot =o larze and |

fine as the house of Mamie Smith, and so it finally loses its charm altogether and they fall into the habit of living vicariously Mamie Smith's life, and in doing s0 waste their own. Wanting things we haven't got and never ean have, dreaming of being somebody we are not. these are the ugpardonable sins of the modern woman—and the direct cause of half of our married misery,

\ x

The propaganda that the service | connected cases receive on an average of $45 a month is bunk, as 68 per cent of them receive an average of 330 a month. 1 am not a veteran but am one of the many taxpayers who believe in liberal pensions for the World War veterans. We have plenty of money for veterans of (other wars, WPA, farmers and the | high-salaried officeholders. Will Mr. | Hines work for a salary of $30 a month? No, is the answer. His yearly salary is in the thousands.

" ” »

FAVORS SOCIALIZATION OF INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT By One Vox Populi While Mr. Sprunger and Voice] in the Crowd debate the merits of capitalism and socialism in the Hoosier Forum, let us list the existing socialistic institutions under our capitalistic democracy. Let's begin with the postoffice, parcel post, Army, Navy, highways, bridges, schools, libraries, asylums, orphanages, sewers, forests, parks, inland waterways, Alaskan Railroad. Congressional restaurants and barbershops, police and fire departments, courts, prisons, relief agencies, CCC, soil conservation and a host of others There is only the question of extending the socialization process to industrial production. Shall government place upon private enterprise a definite obligation to ab{sorb all of our manpower in the | process of production? Shall government assume permanent care of the discarded workers of private | enterprise? How long must it continue its policy of acting as guardian of our industrial outcasts? ! Shall government sponsor more competition among private entrepreneurs, by assisting those who are unemploved in forming corporations on their own account, to | produce goods and services in competition with all other producers? | Shall such corporations receive the | benefit, if formed, of the Farm | Credit Administration, RFC and the FHA? Capitalism cannot survive with more than 10 million permanently unemployed workers. Socialization under compulsion as in Fascist states destroys initiative. Extension of competition must reach the army of unemployed. Competition in production must include all workers now on relief {Public work is not the answer as long as we have poverty. The answer is organization to supply the need, not hy Government corporations but hy Government assistance | to producers’ corporations.

LET'S EXPLORE YOUR MIND

By DR. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM

TOTALTARIAN STATES GLOR| THEIR HEROES; 3 Rx en SEE PDE

SNCENAMEN HAVE | SLENDERIZED ARE THEY TALLER OR DO THEY ®2 0ST LOOK TALLER? YOUR OPIMION

YOU DO NOT EXPRESS JOY D PLEASURE WILL YOU SOON

Soetuiet tr Nae vB BY

YOUR OPINION.

1 YES. Tt is hard to draw the line between blind hern-wor-ship and an intelligent admiration

scientific spirit. Many people take pride in pointing out the mistakes and defects of character of famous for the deeds and personalities of persons. They do not realize they great men and women. TI think it are either trving to excuse their ne jean wi Jk hern-wor- | own misdeeds or to bolster up their ; . sually debunking | feelings of inferiority. Young - is done in a flippant rather than ple should be taught to Tevere ai A

/ s

human greatness and to be tolerant

toward all human weakness, | » » ” THEY are taller. A study of students of Vassar, Wellesley, Smith and Mount Holyoke shows that the women now graduating [are one and one-eighth inches tall{er than were their mothers, who {went to these same colleges. The | Eugenical News thinks the fact that we have had a great influx of the Southern and Eastern European peoples who are shorter than the |old Americans from Western Europe without lowering the average American height indicates that the children of these peoples here are | taller really than were their parents. | Whether this is due to better nu- | trition, climate, or what, is un-| known. ! Ld ” { YES. This is illustrated bv a a“ famous passage hy Charles | Darwin in which he spoke of his | “great regret” that he had not “kept | {alive” his joy in poetry and higher [ literature. As a young man he had [found keen delight in them but as he neglected for many years to find and express this pleasure, he states that in his old age poefry | “positively nauseated” him. Your entire personality and joy of living | deteriorates if you neglect to ex-

Promotion to the grade of captain is automatic after 10 years of service bul, after that, it depends on creation of vacancies by death, resignation or retirement. “Few die, none resign.” A result is that younger officers now in service can't look forward to real promotion until the very end of their careers, » » N Administration guided by bright young men who don't even care for experience on the Sue preme Court, has a short-cut solution. If a man isn't a major, for example by the time he is say 40, a lieutenant-colonel by sav 45, or a colonel hy 50, force him to retire on three-fourths pay without ale lowances—or even less. Kick him inta the discard and keep him in idleness at Government exponse, That will make plenty of vacancies and the youn men can move up, It is absolutely necessary that thev should move up with sufficient certainty and in reasonable time to keep up their spirits, preserve the flow of youth into the higher grades and prevent higher command from becoming an old soldiers’ home. But to do that by shelving faithful and efficient officers by some arbi= trary rule of age, is a piece of destructive, extravagant high-handed folly, This indiscriminate and unnecessary loading of the Army retired list with idle, able-bodied citizens, trained from boyhood to early middle age, in their own profession but, for that reason, helpless in an= other, threatens the existence of that list. If yon take away or impair that right, you destroy the morale of the Army.

»n

» ~

” » ”

LSO, the Government has a large investment. easily one hundred thousand dollars—in the ede cation and training of each of these men. In war, they would he indispensable item. Recognizing this, for both Army and Navy, we main= tain and purpose to use in war thousands of reserve officers with only a smattering of military education —and purpose thus indiscriminately to scrap many of our small number of the perfected product If regular officers are unfit. physically, mentally or professionally, they should be weeded out unmerci= fullv. Since any excellent officer should attain the various field grades at certain ages after certain service, pass a law and make it so as it is now for arades up to captain. Tt would cost no more im dollars than this mad extravagance, it would save thousands of lives and retain services of incalculable value in war,

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Voters Cheated if Parties Offer ‘Buddies’ as White House Rivals.

EW YORK, June 1—A dangerous suggestion has been made hy certain publicists and politicians in Washington. The notion is that the 1940 campaign should be a kind of goodwill gallop in which the two contenders are both personally and politically buddies. the world in general

the “shortage”

I am not one to argue that would not be hetter off with an increasing amount of amity, but it is net within the democratic tradition that a national election should take on the same aspects of good fellowship as a voting contest, among Princeton seniors for the post of “The most likely to succeed” or “The best dressed man.” There should ba a hite and an edge to political discussion. Keeping discussion on a high plane does not mean that it fails to represent a considerable divergence of opinion 1 am not saving that issues should be trumped up and fomented for no reason save to make a brave show and inspire torchlight processions. It might be highly desirable if every good American saw each problem, both domestic and foreign, from precisely the same angle. When such a state of mind has been achieved only a captious critic could complain if the two ostensible contenders ran arm in arm like team= mates intent on making a dead heat of the marathon. But I need hardly point out that sincere and honesk men and women in America right now, and probably in 1940, are miles apart in their beliefs on proper governmental policy.

Just Bad Matchmaking

The man who set up Hobson's choice was not a practitioner of the democratic way. Specifically, the suggestion goes that the Democrats should nominate John Nance Garner, because he is beloved by all Republicans in Congress, and that the Republicans should reciprocate by naming Vandenberg, since he is enormously popular with Democratic Senators and Representatives, I would call that bad matchmaking. Under such an arrangement it would be incumbent for the ane nouncar at any political debate to begin by saying, “Remember both boys are members of this club.” Indeed, if any such match is set for November, 1940, T trust that some raucous voiced rooter in a ring« side seat shouts in the familiar fashion of boxing audiences, “Turn out the lights! They want to bas alone.” And surely the voters in the galleries would have everv right te join in a Bronx brave and units upon the slogan, “Throw those bums out! They're nok trying.” :

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

ERE are five more questions vourself: 1. The air we hreathe is important to health bes cause: (a) it contains oxvgen; (h) it is full of iron; (c) it dilates our pores; (d) it cools us off; (e) it kills germs. 2. If vou get a cinder in your eve vou should: (a) rub it with a gold ring; (b) press vour upper lip with your finger; (c) rub the other eye; (d) wash it with boric acid; (e) ask a friend to scrape it out with a knife blade. 3. The way to get a good doctor is: (a) join a lodge; (b) ask your neighbor; (c) call the health de= partment; (d) ask the medical society; (e) pick the one on the corner with the big electric sign. 4. Peopl? should take pleniy of exercise because: (a) big muscles are healthy; (b) exercise makes you live longer; (c) exercise makes you eat more; (d) exs ercise makes you feel better; (e) exercise raises your blood pressure. 5. People have goiters or swellings in the neck be= cause: (a) they eat too much salt: (b) their mothers saw giraffes at the circus; (c) they wear too tight collars: (&) they live in North Carolina, (e) they get no iodine in their food. Answers 1. Oxygen is the vital element in air. 2. To remove a cinder first try dropping a littla boric acid solution in the eve, or if this is not avails able, clean water. If the result is not satisfactory have the cinder removed by someone who has had experience and who will wash his hands before trying, 3. If vou do not have a family doctor in whom von have confidence, ask fhe secretary of the medical soe ciety to recommend one to you. 4. Exercise makes you feel better, 5. Simple goiters are usually due to lack of cient

on which to test

in the diet of the growing child,