Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 June 1939 — Page 18

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' PAGE 18 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

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

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1939

LIVELY DAYS AHEAD AY what you will about the Townsendites, believe what you will about their pension plan, but mark this down in connection with their four-day convention: It’s going to be the liveliest and most colorful convention between now and the big political shows next summer. These earnest folk are filled with a fire and fervor that will start a lot of fur flying before the proceedings are many hours under way. It will be an interesting and an enlightening four days. We're glad of the chance to see them in action from ringside seats.

OUR LOCAL ‘GESTAPO’ HE complaint registered by Martinsville's mayor concerning the arrest of an Indiana University student for double-parking and the resulting treatment of the young man is just one more in a series of serious charges against the actions of Indianapolis policemen. The young man in question, according to the complaint, was arrested for double-parking, taken to the police station in a patrol wagon, refused permission to telephone his parents, fingerprinted, placed in the police lineup and released only after his trial 26 hours later. It sounds incredible. It smacks too much of “Gestapo” methods, rather than sensible police procedure. But it has happened before in this city. Other cases are on record. There is one even more shameful than this in which the police arrested, beat and threw into jail an innocent person without even attempting to learn his identity. This thing is no accident. It demonstrates a frame of mind on the part of certain of our policemen that cannot be tolerated. There have been many explanations and no action. Chief Morrissey can and should correct this violation of elementary liberties instantly.

THE BOYS WANT TO COMPROMISE

HE three Congressmen who are wielding the heaviest

meat-axes on the Hatch bill—Celler of New York, |

Healey of Massachusetts and Walter of Pennsylvania—have started holding private conferences with Senator Hatch. They are trying to get the author of the no-politics bill to agree to pull this tooth and that tooth—in fact, they would like to vank out every one of the bill's bicuspids, incisors and molars, and put in a set of false plates, soft rubber and little bite. We hope Senator Hatch refuses to compromise. issue is clean-cut. Why not fight it out? The proposition is simple. Postmasters, U. S. Marshals, Internal Revenue Collectors, District Attorneys, their deputies and assistants, and the thousands of other officials on the Federal payroll are hired to perform specific duties for the Government. Shall they be required to devote their time to performing their duties—and thereby serve the whole people, whose taxes pay their salaries?

The

Or shall they be permitted to devote their time and | energies and official influence to politics, attending party | caucuses and conventions, mending political fences and |

otherwise doing chores for the Congressmen and bosses who put them on the payroll? Let the issue be decided, and decided in the open, so the public will know where each Congressman stands.

THE TRAGEDY OF INFLATION UNITED STATES SENATOR ELMER . THOMAS, of Oklahoma, has launched a filibuster to force into circulation two billion dollars of printing-press currency and a lusty hike in the price of silver. Thomas is the high priest of inflation. He is a sincere believer in the magic of green money. If put forth in sufficient quantities, he thinks it will solve all our economic ills—if accompanied by plenty of governmentally purchased silver, at a price more than silver is worth. From time to time since our depression first hit in the early Thirties he has scored. Now he is out to score in a big way. He is of the faith that always gains converts when there is fiscal befuddlement. History shows that the tradiitonal “way out” of those in political power, when their nation goes hopelessly into the red, is some sort of inflation —usually monetary. The one thing they choose to ignore is that inflation is merely a polite word for repudiation. The mark, the ruble, the assignat, the kronen, the continental, the franc—all have traveled that route and always on a tragic journey. td

” More tragic than ever before would be a repetition now, in this country. For inflation hits hardest at those with fixed incomes. And more fixed incomes are being set up in the U. S. A. today than ever before, anywhere. Not large incomes. Mostly very small. But, superimposed on all the existing life insurance, on all the annuities, on all the bondholdings, on all other outstanding promises to pay, written not in equities, but in dollars, are 44,000,000 social security card carriers. They have been created since 1935. Their claims will be payable at only a few dollars a month to those over 65. What if those dollars which, saved in a time of purchasing power such as they have at present, should shrink in what they would buy, as did the mark in Germany ? It could happen here, as it has many times in many countries in the past. And, with all credit to the sincerity of men like Thomas, in their pursuit of the same old will-o’-the-wisp, we say that nothing more pathetic or disastrous could occur than for such a policy as the Thomas green-back-and-silver scheme to get going. Forty-four millions of the victims would be the aged. Social security cannot be maintained with wooden money.

VERBOTEN WHAT? PROPRIETORS of the dance halls and cafes in Hamburg, Germany, are puzzled. Complying dutifully with Nazi orders, they have posted signs, “Swing Tanz Verboten” (swing dancing forbidden). But they say they den’t know exactly what swing dancing is. Well, we can sympathize with them. We, too, have wondgred -about that. ; ri : on :

# 2 # s

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Apologists for Nazi Outrages Blame French Reprisals During War but Forget Acts of the Kaiser's Army.

EW YORK, June 22.—Apologists in seeking some explanation of the brutality of the Nazis in their own land, then in Austria and, now, in the country that was Czechoslovakia and never was German, sometimes try to attribute this conduct to the humiliation and suffering inflicted on a portion of the Germans by the French after the war. Hitler himself emphasizes the fact that they laid down their arms under a general promise that the

peace would not he a vengeful peace and that general disarmament would follow. There is no doubt that the French were harsh. They executed some German civilians, "possibly for insufficient reasons, made the Germans salute their officers, deported many and used Negro troops in the occupation. : With the French the color line is not a straight line; it meanders. And, anyway, in view of the present hookup between the pure Aryan Germans and the non-Aryan Japanese it is not certain, hut remains to-be seen, whether they speak from principle.

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B% certainly the French occupation never has been depicted as the wanton slaughter of helpless civilians which Belgium and France had suffered in the early days when the Kaiser's army was in full power. It is true, of course, that those were war days. Even in the war, up to that time at least, civilians were supposed to enjoy certain immunities. The Kaiser's army changed the rules. After the war there was so much counter-propa-ganda intended to cool off the hate that the mention of German atrocities, like the mention of Reds and their conspiracies in this country up to a year ago was thought to be naive and unintelligent. This counter-propaganda went so far, in the interests of peace and hope for the world, that many German atrocities, unspeakably brutal slaughters of civilians and the needless burning and looting of towns after capture, some without local resistance, were almost rubbed out of Germany's history. Yet Hugh Gibson has written of a morning in Dinant when German troops drove the civilians into the streets, burned their houses and shot those who tried to run away. He wrote that the congregation was taken from the church on a Sunday morning and that 50 of the men were shot.

8 ” ”

ot HIS was only one of several wholesale executions. T There is no end to the stories of individual atrocities,” he writes. No doubt the harshness of the French did offend the Germans whom the French found dwelling in an unscarred country only a short motor ride from the devastation of their own iand. This severity probably has contributed to the new hate which will boil into the new war one day. But the French then were still in a fury, still seeing the contrast, but, even so, when they had the Germans in their power they were motherly by comparison with the conduct of the Kaiser's army. Yet all that was a long time ago, and certainly the Czechs had no part in the French occupation or any | atrocities that the French committed. But in their treatment of the Czechs the Germans have begun where the French left off and threaten to repeat any day the conduct of the Kaiser's army of 1914. It just might be that there is some fault to be found with the Germans.

Aviation By Maj. Al Williams

Continued Independence Is Urged For Civil Aeronautics Authority.

ASHINGTON, June 22.—Reports too persistent to ignore that there is now a plan under way to incorporate the Civil Aeronautics Authority into the Department of Commerce in the next Presi-

dential government reorganization plan, are once more disturbing the aviation industry, as well as the hard-working employees of the CAA. The people who are being governed by the CAA

| President and Congress, and not under a Cabinet officer. In that status, we have hopes for its progress, although at the moment there is noi a great deal to give us such hopes. But, back in the Department of Commerce, we would not even have a hope for the future of governmental regulation of civil aviation. WHY don’t they let aviation alone and give it a little time to work out its problems, which only aviation-trained people know and can solve? The answer is not difficult. Aviation is a vehicle for ciding the headlines, for increasing prestige. Once upon a time civil aviation did function satisfactorily under the Department of Commerce, but the people running the show then were smart enough to leave it alone. Col. Clarence M. Young governed the outfit without interference from the Secretary of Commerce, or the other assistant secretaries, because they respected his judgment, training and experience.

A Success Under Young *‘

The secret of his success was that he centralized the administration of the Aeronautics Branch in one head, and he was the head. When the change over in politics came, there were many on the outside who wanted to duplicate that success, but they

would stand for no one man at the head of it. As a consequence, the Aeronautics Branch (later changed only in name to the Bureau of Air Commerce), woke up one morning to find itself under the official and unofficial direction of at least 20 bosses, none qualified to run even a small section. The upshot was a complete breakdown in the morale of the industry and of the honest workers who intend to make their jobs careers, and this finally resulted in Congress taking the whole thing away from Uncle Danny Roper and his overnight aeronautical expert, Col. Johnson. ; I realize we've got to give the present CAA time to shake itself down and get going, but it never will under the constant threat of being made a plaything for politically ambitious officials.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HAD an interesting experience the other day. Thinking it over later, I decided it had been delightful, too, because it offered unusual food for thought.

It was just another lecture, friends. And, of all things, the subject was “The Dictator States.” Yet, surprisingly enough, the speaker spent her time telling the audience what progress has been made in Germany and Italy during the Hitler and Mussolini regimes.

Angry mutterings greeted some of her remarks, and to me these mutterings were as shocking as if she had openly declared her allegiance to II Duce or Der Fuehrer, for they proved that the American mind is settling into patterns of hatred and being closed to truth. “Propaganda,” you say? Perhaps. But it seems to me we make a grave error of judgment when we dub other nations as wholly good or wholly evil, forgetting that no man and no people are without both faults and virtues. Italy, under Mussolini for example, has done wonders in the fight against her greatest curse— tuberculosis; beggary has been almost entirely wiped out and a new integrity appears among the people. Honest, intelligent visitors to Germany, also, tell us tha} many worth-while programs are set up over ere. Why should we not hear and accept the good as well as the bad reports from other countries? For it is the truth we want. Hate fills the air these days and the hate mongers are busy and fuming. And sometimes it looks as if the sweet, Christian American housewife and clubwoman isgthe best hater of us all. When : | her me it stays closed,

_* THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ozo —e. Look Out for Nature Fakers!—By Talburt

\ ° The Hoosier Forum

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

WANTS CHILDREN WARNED AGAINST WAR By Patricia Staudt In The Hoosier Forum I read an| article on “Fears War Talk Bad for Children,” and I wish to make a| comment on the subject. I pray every night that such ar-

ticles shall be printed always, not as an example for children to follow, but to take heed from and go

(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.)

on playing with toys, cars and ing to bring back the old guy with trains which will teach them to ob-|the lantern jaw and the umbrella. serve trafic laws and to protect The whole thing is as much worse their comnwunities from death by today as prohibition was worse than such accidents, instead of learning, the old-time saloon, and that was

don’t want it back in the Department of Commerce! | The CAA now is independent, being under the

she closes |

to kill their fellowmen with anti-| aircraft guns and anything that is! anti. Perhaps I am not wholly equipped | to express my opinions like this, but| I have seen the destruction and] ruin that was left both on a country and on the men, women and] children of such a country. | So many boys of the younger! generation who know nothing of war and the horrible things it does| to people think it would be fun and very heroic. Is there not some way to teach these boys that war is nothing like a game of cops and] robbers that they played in their| early childhood. but is something to! shun and shy from? To teach these boys there are more beautiful things! at every turn of the road if only! they would lcok for them. . . . These beauties are not hard to, find. Keep your eyes and ears open. | There is good in all but war. No| good comes of war. We think it teaches us something and perhaps] it did to those who were in it. But we cannot show that to our children. How I pray that somehow we can show our sons and daughters this horrible thing and warn them against it. ” 2 on THINKS WOMEN HASTEN RETURN OF PROHIBITION By Jack A man might be a barfly, a common drunk, but seldom did he go to such depths as some of the women of today. It was a saloon in those days, not a tavern, and in comparison it was honest and respectable. A man might be slugged and robbed, but the women were safe. If a maiden, sweet and pure, plants herself on a stool, says “Beer, or I'll yell for help!” what can a poor bartender do? If she crashes her car on the way home, it’s not! her fault, but the nasty old meany who runs the tavern is to blame. Women as well as men are help-

plenty. A. E. F. statistics showed that 88 per cent of the boys were subnormal in mentality. Judging by the kids of today, they must have drafted only the cream of the crop. 2 ” ” REPLIES TO SUGGESTION ON SPAIN'S REFUGEES By D. C. P. It seems that our friend W. J, who wrote a very indignant letter in the Forum June 16, has the atti-

tude of many Americans who are far away jrom the troubles of Europe. This is the attitude of “let England or France do it.” Our friend would have England and France take the Spanish Loyalist refugees, who are living on the French-Spanish border, into their respective countries and let them reside there permanently. He says they should do this because the

| Loyalists were fighting for English

and French democracy. If this is so, these Loyalists were also fighting for American democracy. If these people are as fine as W. J. states, why shouldn't the United States take care of its share of refugees?

THINKS CONGRESS TOO HARD ON RELIEFERS By E. F. Maddox

An open letter to the members of Congress: L. Lest Congressmen, in their zeal for economy, should place heavier burdens on the backs of the unemployed who are forced by present conditions on the relief rolls, I want to suggest that most relief clients are on relief through dire necessity and not by choice. Most relief workers would like to have a private job. To penalize relief workers and those who receive direct relief is a political mistake. These people still vote.

To regiment an old-age pensioner | who only receives from $15 to $25 a month, and the people who get {direct relief, or even a person on {work relief at $15 a week, and forbid them to earn a few extra dollars to pay rent or buy a few clothes is a sure way to make enemies and lose votes. Millions of people on relief have | become embittered and antagonistic because of the coldness and cruelty iof the dispensers of relief. There is a great reservoir of resentment gathering which will make itself felt next election day.

Why forbid poor people who are on the baskets to earn a few dollars to pay rent and buy a few clothes? Why limit the old-age pensioner to his small pittance and take away his pension if he works and earns an honest extra dollar? The place to economize is at the top, not at the bottom, on the poorest of the poor. Shame on Congressmen who would deny a few privileges to the relief clients. The way to get people off the relief is to rehabilitate and restore sound economic and business conditions in this country, not to nag and coerce the people who are out of work through no fault of their own.

New Books at the Library

DEEP bubbling spring ringed with watercress, reflecting an English sky; a sower of seed limned against a brown field—symbolic pictures in the sensitive mind of a poet —form the allegorical sources for the story of the boyhood and youth of Siegfried Sassoon. Whence flowed the water: How developed the seed? Tragedy shadowed later years, and the answer is not yet. But charming in itself is the period which the author presents. For “The Old Century and Seven More Years” (Viking) ends with Sassoon’s 21st birthday. Back of

Side Glances—By Galbraith

that anniversary lay a typical upper class English childhood. One might, indeed, use those days as a pattern for innumerable boyhoods, their years accomplished in the midst of the peace, graciousness, and traditional dignity which marked the closing years of the Victorian regime and disappeared forever when 1914 snatched England from her false security and her young men from the school room, the cricket field, and the manor house. This is a quiet story of a little boy, in an artistic and cultured setting, of a lovely, rambling house and garden, of a talented mother and a frail, dark-haired, youngish man who played dromedary and bear most delightfully for small boys. Then came school and sports, private hideouts in the orchard and tableaux in the parlor, and, ever more insistent as the boy grew older, one interest finally superseding all others—his deep and growing love for literature. Lucky to be in love with life at 21, says Sassoon. But those who know his war poems, or his “Memoirs of an Infantry Officer,” and remember the almost fanatical pacifism of this soldier-poet wearing his three wound stripes and the military cross of his country, will read into this little idyl a deep significance and will be happy that at least for this “pictured afternoon” there will be no sunset.

JUNE

By C. E. PROW June is here in all her splendor. Brought the birds, the flowers, the bees. And the tiny, sparkling dewdrops Fall upon the grass and trees. Winter winds have now ceased blowing; Summer sun shines over all. Showers refreshing now are falling. June has come To gladden all.

DAILY THOUGHT

The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: lét them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.—Psalms 10:2.

! makes automobiles. explosives is, as I recall, less than 1 per cent of their ; product. | making heavy ordnance.

the master sin of the

He Wonders Whether This Fight on Neutrality Is a Sideshow to Draw Attention From Domestic Problems.

USTIN, Tex. June 22.—The fight over the Neutrality Bill boils down to this. If a nation is engaged in a war that has been declared—either by herself or our President—then Senator Pittman, for the Administration, proposes that she be allowed to buy here deadly weapons—“munitions of war’—as well as other commodities, but that she can buy neither on credit or unless she is prepared to carry them in other than American ships. Senators Borah,

Johnson, Clark and others too are willing to go along with this except on one point. They don't want to permit the sale of “munitions of war” on any basis. A group of Senators, centering on the two veterans —Borah and Johnson—feel so strongly about this that they are prepared to debate it “until September” —to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer. I have- a reverence for the principal Senators on both sides of this argument. They are the cream of the Senate—of a stature rare in these days and of a caliber that needs no apologies to the greatest men who ever sat there. But to me the opposition to Secretary Hull and Senator Pittman in this matter seems to overlook the plainest lessons of history and the present state of the world. » » N the first place, what is a munition of war? Over a hundred years ago, a minister of England took the position that anything is. The advancing me= chanization and motorization of armies and the en= listment of science in war have emphasized that truth. Explosives are a mixture of cotton linters and such chemicals as ammonia, toluol (TNT) and nitric and picric acid. Gasses are made of such common chemicals as chlorine and ordinary table salt as sodium chloride. Barbed wire is one of the deadliest of defensive weapons. Armies cannot fight without wheat, meat or leather any more than they can fight without machine guns or artillery. This opposition says we can ship every-= thing else in these categories except the product of the final manufacturing process. It seems a little silly.

” 2 2 ORE important still—this opposition is based on a fear that our “merchants of death”—munitions

| manufacturers—will get us into war by selling arms,’ | Except the Government, we have few munitions man-

ufacturers—unless Henry Ford is one because he The output of the du Pont's in

I don't know any commercial company now

But my principal kick is different. If this were the only matter for debate, I don't know why the Senate shouldn't stew in Washington heat all summer, if that is its pleasure. But this country is at a domestic crisis far more important than this hairsplitting, if spectacular debate. The national mind has been too much diverted by foreign affairs from terrible failures, destructive and even revolutionary policies and general tragic blundering in its domestic problems. This Administration has frequently side-tracked public opinion from what it proposed to do, or what it had failed to do, by deliberately pulling exactly this kind of fireworks on the other side of the stage, Are Senators Borah and Johnson being taken for a sleigh ride?

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

It's Time Men Took a Back Seat And Let the Women Run Things.

EW YORK, June 22.—I got a necktie for Father's Day, one cocktail and a home-cooked dinner. You have to wait a long time for dinner in our house, but when it's ready you find you really weren't very hungry. Mind you, I'm not complaining. And what if the cocktail was a little warm? You certainly couldn't say that about the dinner. . All women "credit themselves with two abilities which, for the most part, they do not possess. I refer to feminine intuition and the ability to cook. Those are both masculine virtues. : But I am not complaining. Women make good columnists. They should stick to their last and leave the preparation of the hot dogs to the men. And women can save money and play bridge, and if they ever get elected to office in any considerable number very few men will ever be chosen for the House and Senate any more. : It is my notion that they have a natural aptitude for government. Being far less sentimental than men, women legislators probably would not be swayed to some of the cruel measures into which men can be stampeded by slick and tawdry oratory. I cannot imagine a majority of feminine legislators . in the national legislature slashing relief in the way the present crowd has done. Women know that it is a difficult thing for families on the margin line to balance their budgets. Out of their own experience they realize the value of a dollar and its vital factor in marking the difference betwen subsistence and ace tual want.

No Woman Would Say It

Certainly no woman could have written such a callous line as one I culled from an editorial page vesterday. It must have been a man who applauded the House of Representatives and said, “It wishes to discourage on WPA those who have deliberately tried to make work relief their means of livelihood.” Under this theory the Government should send agents around each month to rebuke those who manage to keep themselves still alive on the allowances handed to them. It is a man-made world in which there actually are politicians who wish to make relief a kind of punishment to be visited upon those unfortunate enough to be unemployed. And until we can make a better showing I'm all for having Father's Day abolished. What kind of future have we established for our sons and daughters? We made the war, We made the peace, and now all too many of us are chiming in with the rising complaint that the poor are too much with us and should starve much more quietly, lest they break our hearts with their misery.

Watching Your Health

By Dr. Morris Fishbein

T this season of the year fresh fruits are avail able in most markets at reasonable prices, Fruits are exceedingly valuable in the diet because they are among the richest of sources of Vitamin C and are also quite rich in provitamin A or carotene, The fruits which are richest in Vitamin C are the oranges, lemons, grapefruit and limes, and those which are yellow colored are also the ones which are most rich in provitamin A. Fruits also provide some sugar varying from 3 to 18 per cent but they do not provide much in the way of fat except for olives and avocado pears, The fuel value of fruits is usually low because of the large amount of material taken in relation ship to the sugar content. Bananas give about as many calories an ounce as fish, but most fruits contain so much water that the fuel value may be ignored. One of the questions most frequently raised nowe adays is the question of eating fruits which may ‘have been sprayed with toxic materials to prevent infestation by parasites. Under the laws of various states fruit growers and packers are supposed to wash fruit to remove dangerous quantities of these substances. : ‘ Furthermore, it is advisable for people to wash fruit before eating in order to make certain that any contaminations are removed from the surface. An estimate of the food value of fruits is conveyed by the fact that an apple will provide 100 calories; three plums or three prunes will give 100 calories, and a two-inch slice of watermelon will give 100 calories; a whole orange will provide 100 calories, but it also takes a& whole cantaloupe to provide 100 calories. For this reason a slice of 2, which, is Alling, 1s. : \