Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 June 1939 — Page 14

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1930

THE STATE PRISON

HE Indiana State Prison at Michigan City again made headlines when three convicts seized a woman visitor, a member of the Montgomery County Welfare Board, placed a knife to her throat and held her as hostage to bargain for their freedom. After two hours, Prison guards and State Police opened fire with their guns. The woman, Warden Dowd’s secretary, a guard, the three convicts and another inmate who had attempted to aid the guard were wounded. A few hours later, State Welfare Administrator Thurman Gottschalk announced that no more visitors would be permitted at the Prison. “There will be no repetition of this incident,” he said. But that cannot end it. It is far from being an answer. It was on Sept. 26, 1933—almost six years ago—that Dillinger liberated 10 men from the Prison. But that notorious episode and the continuing escapes since then seem to have taught Indiana politicians nothing. On Feb. 10, 1938, five prisoners escaped. Approximately 10 days later Mr. Gottschalk in a formal report to Gavernor Townsend recommended scrapping the patronage system for hiring guards ®nd the adoption of a merit plan. A bill was introduced in the last Legislature calling for a merit plan training school for State Prison guards. It was a step in the right direction. But it failed to pass. Failed because Indiana's politicians hold desperately to the patronage system. Warden Dowd is apparently an able person. But what may even an able person do with a personnel situation that is rotten to the core—and which he cannot clean out? One of the principal things wrong with the Indiana State Prison is the political guard—the guard selected on the patronage basis. Action to correct this sorry condition is long overdue. Even patronage-hungry politicians can’t relish what happened yesterday.

ANNIVERSARY WENTY-FIVE years ago today at Sarajevo, in a country then known as Bosnia, a Serbian student named Gavrillo Princip assassinated the Austrian Archduke Francis and his wife. Princip’s shots brought on the World War. Twenty years ago today at Versailles, in France, representatives of Germany and the Allied Powers signed the treaty that formally ended that war. This, then, is the anniversary of two events, each unfortunate for mankind. Sarajevo gave the signal for a war that caused eight and a half million deaths and a total of more than 37 million casualties; that piled up a back-breaking load of debt and economic woe. Versailles imposed a “peace” that eventually provided the excuse for Adolf Hitler's rise to power. There is tragic irony in the fact that this date, June 9], is called St. Vitus Day. For a quarter of a century the world has danced a mad St. Vitus dance of death and fear. It began at Sarajevo, the opportunity to stop it was muffed at Versailles, and yesterday on the eve of the double anniversary Premier Daladier of France was impelled to say: “The situation in Europe and the world today is the gravest in 20 years.”

THE LOUISIANA MESS UEY LONG didn’t consider his brother Earl competent to be Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, and Earl once referred to Huey as “a big-bellied coward.” Now, nearly four years after their reconciliation at Huey's death bed, Earl Long becomes Governor, under circumstances suggesting a combination of Central American revolution, mystery melodrama and farce comedy. He announces that his motto will be, “Better a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.” Even Louisiana must be beginning to realize the price it is paying for tolerating a dictatorship; and the rest of the country can hope that at last the lid is off too far to be replaced on the sordid mess made by men who have sought revenues while they prated of righteousness. We don’t pretend to understand all that is happening in Louisiana. The former Governor, Leche, who first would, then would not, then did resign; the state university presi-

dent, Smith, who became a wheat market plunger and is |

now a fugitive, accused of embezzling the university's funds; the charges of fraud involving WPA—these seem to be pieces of a puzzle that haven't yet been fitted together. The Federal Grand Jury at New Orleans has started an investigation of alleged WPA corruption. So has the WPA. The Congressional committee which has investigated WPA in other states plans to ask funds to continue its work, with Louisiana scheduled for special attention. PWA has ordered a check on its $51,000,000 program in that state. The Treasury Department is said to be looking into various income tax returns. We suspect there is plenty of work for all these agencies. And we hope their combined efforts will not merely result in punishment for a few individual culprits but expose the whole truth about the corrupt state machine that Huey Long built and lesser men have continued to operate. Louisiana needs to smash that machine and become once more a self-respecting, self-governing commonwealth.

SAME CITY, ISN'T IT?

IT strikes ug that the difficulties between the Indianapolis Park Board and the Indianapolis Works Board are getting a little involved. Just recently there was some dispute about a Park Board tree on Works Board ground or vice versa and who should cut it down. Now, we learn that the Park Board has issued an ultimatum that it no longer will take care of the esplanade on 18th St, because the ground belongs to the Works Board. The upshot is that they're going to ask the City Legal Department for an opinion. Maybe we'd better talk about intracity co-operation before we get any further into

interstgte co-operation, x |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ' Strange Lack of Enthusiasm Reported !—By Taiburt

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Society Folk Treated Harshly at Times in News, but Remedy Is For Them to Behave Themselves.

EW YORK, June 28 —Society news has been a regular ingredient of American journalism since my memory runneth not to’ the contrary, but it took a sharp downer a short time after the war when society began to frequent the gutters. Back in the Nineties and later, society had its private gutters in its exclusive colonies here and abroad, but after the World War its members began to invade the ringside, as you may remember, and discovered that the lower classes had tastes much the same as their own. The lower classes were very democratic. They didn’t object to society people, and pretty soon the best—which is to say the worst—speakeasies were enjoying a patronage composed of a chummy mixture of the Wall Street nobility, the criminal underworld and occasional sightseers under the coverage of a new kind of ‘newspaper specialist. 2 = 8

HIS new school of coverage began when a New York editor perceived the change and assigned a man to hang around the dives in the side streets off Broadway with an expense account. But he

proved to be such a friendly soul that he often was scooped on stories which he had accepted under seal of personal confidence. So the field was still open really, and others rushed in unhampered by ethics or knowledge of the newspaper business or any conception of the importance of truth in reporting. Any dirty hearsay obtained from a washroom boy, bootlegger or jealous hussy was news without further confirmation, and those papers which have used this kind of material for the sake of the circulation it would bring are responsible for this particular innovation and the discredit and enmity which it has called down on the newspaper business as a whole. People who had been libeled or whose intimate affairs had been exposed without justification had no redress, because they stood to catch it worse next time. But publishers who had intimate affairs of their own, no less interesting than some which they printed concerning others, protected themselves, proving that they knew it was dirty pool to treat others so.

» " »

EANWHILE, however, society has been and remains partly blameworthy. They send their little, immature daughters out pubcrawling in saloons infested with rodent characters and become indignant when they read little bits about them which are not exactly constructive, The possibilities for error and malicious innuendo are infinite and have been fully explored, and a man or woman who wants to rowel an enemy may do so without appearing in the plot at all by passing some word along to a professional gossip, and proprietors of some night clubs deliberately betray the patrons who spend the money which supports them by co-operating with men whose business it is to spy on the patrons at their revels. The indignation of the fox-hunting Virginians who attacked a Washington journalist suggests that society has its own remedy for gossip. It is not tar and feathers, however. It is to keep out of dumps and to exclude professional gossips from their private dissipations. Society might also try sobering up for a change and sending the brats to bed at night.

Business

By John T. Flynn

British Make Mistake of Limiting Extra Tax to Munitions Firms.

EW YORK, June 28.—The inevitable comes about in England. The armament profiteers are hearing from the people. When Chamberlain embarked on his great rearmament program, efforts were made to curb armament profits, but without success. The Government felt it had taken the necessary precautions by fixing Prices. That is what some pecple imagine can be done here. But the price fixing has not stopped the profits. McVickers, the English armament makers, have made 22 per cent on their shares. The English Steel Co. has made 43 per cent. Other concerns making ships and various kinds of munitions have been showing as high as 30 per cent for the patriotic stockholders. Once again defending the country becomes a profitable concession. But this time the munition makers and the Government which shrinks from curbing them have a far more intelligent citizenry to deal with. England is conscripting her young men. And they are asking why they can be taken from their jobs and their careers while the men who make the weapons they carry clean up from 25 to 50 per cent of the whole investment in a year. And so the Government must act. It therefore takes a partial step. 1t is about to impose an additional tax on the larger munition makers. Chamberlain has spoken of an excess profits tax—a tax designed to drain off a large part of the profits due to war orders.

Others Profit, Too

Unhappily this is not enough. One of the greatest mistakes made by the antimunition-maker agitators is to suppose that it is only the munition makers who draw the profits out of war orders. Munition makers get rich orders and hire workers and buy raw materials. These workers spend their wages in peacetime industries. And the peace-time industries, particularly around muniticn plants, begin to roll in prosperity. The government taxes the munitionmakers, but fails to see that the peace-time industries which thrive on war preparations quite as much as the gunmakers should also be subjected to the excess profits tax. There is no more reason why a factory making ships and guns which is making large profits should pay high taxes during a war or in preparation for one than any other sort of a factory which is making high profits out of the same preparations. Taxes imposed for war purposes should be designed not to punish munition-makers or any other people with large profits, but for two purposes only. One, to pay the costs of the war effort; the other te protect the society from the effects of war inflation. The war taxes should be imposed on all.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“ HE condition of the Navy of the United States is not such as any citizen of the country would desire. Our people cannot assume a position in the society of naval powers without supporting the position with dignity. There is now a growing desire to repair the effects of past negligence and, all political parties being united in the necessity of effort in this direction, the hope is inspired that the subject is to be separated from those of a partisan character. The rehabilitation of the Navy must be put on its proper level.” Those, Ladies and Gentlemen, are the words written by Rear Admiral Edward Simpson in June, 1886. About the same thing has been said in every subsequent June, and right now arguments for Uncle Sam's 45,000-ton battleships have a startling similarity. Let's hear Lieut. Comm. Harley F. Cope, to prove it. His remarks are somewhat discouraging, although I suppose they are accepted everywhere as making sense. Following his plea for bigger ships, he goes on: “Should another nation want to step out of this 45,000 class, by building larger ships of increased speedy they will toss another problem squarely into our laps. And it must be met squarely. For it would threaten our security as positively as did poison gas, tanks, submarines and airplanes in the past. We must provide the antidote for this threat and, in this case. it is to build 45,000-tonners that are capable of handling any possible enemy 45,000-tonners.” Talk about keeping up with the Joneses! The Navy is always for it. When somebody else gets a bigger battleship, let's us get one too, or maybe we'd better have a couple more. And hang the expense! In the course of a simple, unexciting life I've seen many a fine family go crashing into bankruptcy by that method. Maintaining social and naval prestige are esgputially the same,

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The Hoosier Forum

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

RAPS ARCHITECTURE OF FEDERAL BUILDING By Arthur 8. Mellinger A few years ago President Roosevelt made a statement about “Horse and Buggy Days” which created a lot of comment. He rather taunted some of us who want to move cautiously and carefully in any changes of our social structure. But look at the new addition to the Federal Building. That “horse

and buggy architecture” is an example of the Roosevelt consistency. We have had a lot of discussion about pigeons defacing such buildings. Well, the new telephone building across the street and the new Wasson store do not afford any place for them to roost. Simple answer to the problem, is it not? Besides being more pleasing in appearance, they are easier to keep clean. The Federal Building style of architecture was old 2000 years ago. We need a new birth of ideas when they plan new public buildings. They need to plan for efficiency and not to see how much space they can inclose in useless balconies. ete. Look at the City Hall. It is nice outside, but all cut up inside, so only a small space is available for real use. The first floor covers enough space ta house the whole city department. Then the public would not have to trot over three floors to find the department it wants. If a private corporation did not use its space more wisely there would not have been large cities to have City Halls

” » » SEES TOWNSENDISM AS PERIL TO U. S. By An American Citizen And now comes the latest and most disturbing threat to our political peace—on top of and in addi-

tion to all our other troubles. I refer to the present threat of “Townsendism,” and I do not refer alone to the danger of its unscientific proposals being incorporated into law, but also to the threat of making the promise of Congressional election the only and peculiar test of support by this separate holy crusading rough riding band, who seek to make Congressmen subscribe to their creed—or threatened oblivion! Pity the poor Congressman whose

(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.)

sole concern is getting elected; for on top of all other class and partyisms, this probably will test his quality of independence and statesmanship. The farmer vote, the labor vote, the American Legion vote, the religious vote—all put together have never carried the threat and danger to our Republic which this one does. And all this entirely apart from its economic aspect—bad as that is. This threat on the part of the Townsendites will result in voters being “lined up” for or against this particular pension scheme. Hereafter the names Democrat or Republican will mean nothing on the ballot; the deciding question will be Townsendite or not, pro or con. And when great questions of state are thus thrust aside; and when selfish class pension legislation is made the test or only reason for election—

then is the beginning of the end of our cherished free republic. This question of Townsendism is no longer a thing to jest about, as a thing of no moment or danger. It is likely to prove another corrupting influence in our politics, added to the already long list. It is a real danger and menace! And for that reason I sound this alarm and warning. cos:

” ” » PRAISES GOVERNOR FOR TOWNSEND SPEECH By Daisy M. Smith, Hattie Hamilton and 0. G. Lake, Townsend Club No. 6, Grand Rapids, Mich. It is plain to be seen that R. W. Weber is not in favor of the Townsend Recovery Plan, or of the grand man that is Governor of your grand old Hoosier State. Mr. Weber should be proud to have a Governor like Mr. Townsend. His advice to the Townsend delegates was very good. False friends have tried to demolish the Recovery Plan several times. Mr. Weber's article in The Times is very nauseating. Some people are far too eager to censure the Townsend Plan and all who are for it, but we find the people who are opposed to our plan are

those who do not understand it.

New Books at the Library

NE of the most interesting of the many “doctor” books which has come to the attention of this reviewer is “My Days of Strength” by Anne Walter Fearn (Harper). Dr. Fearn, who died shortly after her book was published, was born in Mississippi and was reared in the traditional Southern manner to be an ornament to society and a dutiful and obedient wife to some Southern gentleman. But much to the consternation of her mother, who threatened never to recognize her as her daughter if she persisted in her mad determination to bring disgrace on her father’s name, she chose to study medicine. She was graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Penn-

|sylvania in 1893 and almost imme-

Side Glances—By Galbraith

SOPR. 19% BY NEA SERVICE. IWC. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAY, OFF... "Would it seem insulting if we both enjoyed our food instead of straining our mind¥ trying to think up witty remarks?"

diately left for China, planning to spend a year or two at the most in the mission field as head of the Woman's Hospital in Soochow before settling down for general practice somewhere in the South.

Her marriage in 1896 to Dr. John Burrus Fearn definitely settled her fate as far as her return to the United States was concerned, as he expected to make China the field of his life work and she had grown to love the country so well that she welcomed the prospect of exile. Consequently she spent her entire life in China, going from Soochow to Shanghai, and always playing a prominent role in the medical, civic and social affairs of the city, whether it was a matter of ridding the French Quarters of mosquitoes or arranging diplomatic dinners in honor of visiting celebrities. During the course of her many years’ practice she had unusual opportunities of studying the Chinese people in their homes, learning to love them and becoming keenly interested in their welfare and advancement. She has many interesting stories to tell of their primitive and antiquated ideas and superstitions concerning medical lore. Dr. Fearn was a most dynamic and engaging person, keenly intelligent, full of fun and gaiety. Her autobiography is entertaining from start to finish and in addition adds greatly to one’s knowledge of and sympathy with the Chinese people.

JUNE SUNBEAMS

By MARY P. DENNY

June beams in light In beauty of the robin’s flight, In light of shining sky, In forests where the wild birds fly. In bright blue violet And in the pansy bright. In’ shades of grass ’ Where the brown thrush pass, And in the moss and fern That ever softly turn Their face to light. June shines in everything And ever through the earth doth sing.

DAILY THOUGHT

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.—Samuel 15:24.

O man doth safely rule but he that hath learned gladly to L y.—~Thomas A. Kempis.

WETRETAY re 28, wh Gen. Johnson Says—

New Lending Program Likened fo The Mortgage Bond Sales Which Helped Bring on Depression.

ASHINGTON, D. C., June 28.—Do you remember in the twinkling Twenties when you could buy a “guaranteed” real estate hond bearing 7 per cent interest? You had to put up only a little dough to do it. You could pay the rest on the installment plan. Real estate mortgages had always been “sound” investments but not many people have the amount necessary to buy even a modest mortgage. A way was invented to get around that. A new “industry” was started—the “mortgage-bonding” business. The company would advance somebody $1,000,000 on 3a mortgage to build an apartment house. Against that it would issue bonds and peddle them to the poor. This sudden easy way to wealth and credit and similar practices by country banks, gave us, after 1921, our biggest construction boom. It happened at exactly the same time as our biggest automobile boom. These two peaks coming together were a principal cause of the fantastic 1928 delusion which collapsed in our worst depression.

MesE of the money invested in this kind of real estate bond was lost in the collapse. Why— the buildings were still there? The answer is: “Because the loans covered the whole cost and were mostly made on an utterly unsound basis of appraisal of the value of the real estate.” If IT want to construct a store building that will cost me $50,000, I have no right to borrow from some widow's estate the whole $50,000. In the first place it is her security and she ought to loan no more than the property can be sold for, even if it goes sour, In the second place, if she puts up all the money, she is entitled to all the income. For these reasons, very rarely can I borrow from sound lenders more than 70 per cent, or $35,000. But suppose I got an expert “appraiser” to say that the real value of the property is not $50,000, but $75,000—or even $100,000. Then even on a “sound” 70 per cent rule I can borrow the whole cost, not put up a cent myself, own the buildings or (if I get an appraisal at $100,000) borrow $70,000, have all these advantages and put $20,000 in my pocket beside— all perfectly legal and perfectly outrageous.

» »

HIS is an extreme case to show the practice. bus some even worse cases happened. The application of this racket was general, the result—when, in the depression, rents declined and taxes rose—was to break hundreds of banks, destroy billions in value and savings of the people. Now of course, after that dreadful experience, nobody would ever dream of permitting such a terrible thing again, no—nobody except our Government-—wse are already loaning or guaranteeing openly on some construction far greater percentages than any sound limit for loaning. Furthermore, appraisals are matters of opinion, but, wherever I go, experienced real estate men tell me that some Government valuations for loans make the old realtor racketeers of the Twenties look like pikers.

”

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun Colonists Had It Easy Compared With Perils of Modern Wildlife.

TAMFORD, Conn., June 28.—The woodchucks are bad this year, and so are the rabbits and the Jap-

anese beetle worst of all. Whether any of these subversive groups are financed or controlled from abroad I do not pretend to know, but they are certainly working under some secret understanding. At dawn the other morning I saw a rabbit. a chuck, two crows and a detachment or robins walking practically hand in hand into the strawberry patch. As a result we haven't any strawberries.

These, despoilers of private property didn’t even wait for the cream before beginning their revolution. And what irritates me most of all is the fact that there are plenty of strawberries in the public domain. They grow profusely in the fields, and these tiny mavericks of the meadow are sweeter than the cultivated varieties. But the wild creatures are conteng with nothing but tame strawberries.

And don’t let anybody tell you that a rabbit is sweet, or meek or timid or anything of the sort. Easter bunnies, indeed! If a rabbit ever grew to be the size of an elephant he would walk over you and be glad to get the chance. Of course, he has no such gift of recollection as the elephant, and even the wisest rabbit does not know his own children. Through the process of natural selection the rabbits of Connecticut, although less in stature than the pachyderm, are already noticeably larger.

Outlook Bleak for Man

There is one who lives just back of the stone wall who is about the size of a dachshund and when I tried to chase him away from the young cabbage the other day he growled at me and showed his fangs. Only by seizing a handful of rocks did I manage to fight him off, and though I caught him square on the conk a couple of times I failed to bring him down. It wasn’t until a friend with a pitchfork came running up to the rescue, I mean a friend of mine, that we managed to drive the belligerent hare into a slow and surly retreat. The crows are as big as buzzards, and the frogs in the pond seem to be studying to ready themselves as dragons. Some cf them have already mastered the trick of blowing steam instead of bubbles,

All the birds and beasts or the field seem to be on the march, and things are looking pretty bleak for man. The small American garrison within our stockade has been augmented by native troops consisting of Rhode Island reds and Indian runners, but they, too, seem to have been touched by the call of the wild, The ducks in particular are acting very queer. I've never seen such nutty ducks in my life. Instead of swimming on the surface of the pond they persist in diving to the bottom and fraternizing with the electrie eels. I wouldn't trust one of them as far as I could throw a rock. :

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

'“" OG days” are almost here and with them there may come a “mad dog” scare in your community. Not that there is any real connection between the two. The dog days, which begin July 3 and end Aug. 11, get their name from Sirius, the Dog star. Dogs do not go mad, or suffer from rabies, any oftener during the dog days of midsummer than at any other season. But from April to September dog bites are more frequent because at this season more dogs are running loose. If someone is bitten by a dog, don’t have the dog shot, unless necessary for protection. A dog suspected of having rabies, or being mad, should be Sapiuresd quarantined and watched for a 10-day period, health authorities advise. If the dog is killed it is often impossible to tell if it had rabies. It is important to know this definitely in order to diagnose the condition in the bitten person, By the time the symptoms of rabies appear in the bite-victim, it is too late for Pasteur treatment to do any good. This treatment, when begun within four days of the bite, prevents development of the disease. Bites about the head and face, however, should be treated at once if the dog is suspected of having rabies. Treatment can always be stopped if the dog proves to be well. Rabies does not exist in Canada or in Great Britain. It need not exist in the United States, if the public would insist on measures which scientists know will control it. These are: Compulsory licensing and vaccination, impounding and destruction of all stray dogs, quarantine of all dogs during the presence of the disease in a community ard of all dogs brought into the community from outside at any time. Rabies is caused by a germ with the characteristics of a virus. The virus is present in the saliva of an infected dog or other animal. (Cats get rabies, too,

if the infected saliva gets into a wound such as 8.

| scratch on bruise.

i

3 &

you know.) You can get rabies without being bitten :