Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 June 1939 — Page 16

PACE 16 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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«> RILEY 5551

re Light nnd the Peaple Will Find Their Own Way

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THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1939

THE INNOCENT VICTIM T is reassuring to learn that Mrs. Ruth Joiner, the young welfare worker who was wounded in the most recent Indiana State Prison disorder, will recover completely. Mrs. Joiner deserves the highest praise for her courageous conduct under terrifying circumstances. We wish | her a speedy recoverv—and we hope that her experience |

may be the key that will finally bring Indiana around to a complete reformation of its political-ridden State Prison | setup.

HEAR! HEAR! RNEST T. WEIR, the Pittsburgh steel man who used to spend a lot of time blaming the Administration and lahor unions for the country’s economic woes, has just | announced some startling views concerning the steel industry’s nine-vear losing streak. Listen to what he says— | “Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with our business. [It is principally management that is responsible for our plight. Not politics. Not economics. Not high labor | costs. As I've said before, I'm against reducing wages. | 1 maintain that if the management of any company is conducted in a sound way it will make profits even at low levels of operation. And there is nothing mysterious about ‘sound | way.” The only way to make a profit is te sell at a price higher than cost.” We're waiting now for John L. Lewis to charge that | labor unions are responsible for unemployment. And for Franklin Roosevelt to blame New Deal politics for retarding economic recovery. And, after such a round of self-confession, maybe we can start over again and really pull out of the hole we're all in,

A BETTER WAY TO TAX

E are always glad to get powerful influences over on our side in any public controversy. Hence we cheer President Roosevelt's indorsement of the idea of broadening the Federal income tax base. Mr. Roosevelt favors reducing the income tax exemp- | tions primarily as a means of increasing the number of | citizens who share in the civic responsibility of contributing directly to the support of their Government. No huge sum of additional revenue will be derived therefrom, the President says. And obviously that is true, in regard to any base-broadening program that is now politically feasible, and within the meaning of “huge sums” on the present scale of Government spending. The only base-broadening program yet seriously advanced is that of Senator La Follette—which would reduce exemptions to $800 for single persons and $2000 for married | couples, and would start applying increased surtaxes begin- | ning at the level of about $5000. Senator La Follette's income tax amendments—he has sponsored them year after vear, heretofore, unfortunately, | without Administration support—would produce additional |

| i

revenues ranging from $200,000.000 to $300,000,000, depending upon the level of prosperity. | Those are not huge sums—not enough. for example, | to pav for the nearly $400,000,000 in farm subsidies which Congress added to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill, | above and beyond the President’s budget. But consider to what lengths the Government must go to obtain a similar amount of revenue through indirect and invisible levies—nuisance and manufacturers’ sales taxes. Below are some of the hidden excises which the House Ways and Means Committee has just recommended that Congress re-enact (we list only enough of these to approximate in revenue the minimum which the La Follette income tax amendments would yield) : ESTIMATED TAX REVENUE RATE Fiscal Yr., 1940 | per cent $ 7,700,000

SOURCE Auto trucks, chassis and bodies. Passenger autos, motorcycles per cent 57,000,000 Auto parts and accessories | 2 per cent 8,900,000 | Tires and inner tubes. . 214 to 4 cents per 1h. $8,200,000 | Mechanical refrigerators ....... 5 per cent 9,900,000 | Radio sets Ses DB iper ‘cent 6,900,000 | Admissions to amusements .....10 per cent 19,200,000 Lubricating oils 4 cents per gal. 33,400,000 | Toilet preparations 5 per cent 11,300,000 | Telephone, telegraph, cable messages. Variable 23,600,000 |

9 2

Totals Sete ehh Re VAN AA AAAS TE 109.000 The La Follette income tax amendments, broadening | the base and hiking the surtaxes, would produce more than enough revenue to replace all of the above named sales and nuisance taxes. And the La Follette amendments would produce that revenue on the fair principle of ability to pay, | whereas the sales and nuisance taxes are passed on to | consumers without regard for that principle. No single person with an income of less than $800 and | no married couple with an income of less than $2000 would pay a dime under the La Follette schedules, yet those in the low income levels are the very ones upon whom the heaviest burden falls under any schedule of sales and nuisance taxes. Why not substitute the La Follette schedules for all the | special excises we have mentioned here, and give the “lower one-third” a real break in taxation?

ACHILLES’ HEEL

DISPATCH says the beleaguered Britons of Tientsin continue to dress for dinner, crisis or no ‘crisis. Perhaps the Japanese, in trying to undermine British prestige in the Far East, have taken the hard way. A simpler, though possibly more brutal, ‘process might be to | confiscate all the dress-shirt studs snd stiff ‘collars within the British Concession. Bayonets and electrified fences won't force John Bull to bend the knee, but if he were face to face with the stark necessity of dining in street clothes the Lord Knows what mightn% happen. %

ame

Fair Enough

{ actually enemies or, anyway, foreigners.

| vading states’ rights at all. i other, and

| tonnage of Florida's oranges. interstate trade agreements and exclusions, passports |

| might

By Westbrook Pegler

t's Time for U. S. Government To Crack Down on States Raising Mutually Harmful Trade Barriers.

EW YORK, June 29. —State rights never meant much to me so far as I have been aware, except

| during the time of prohibition, when I felt that such

States as Ohio and Indiana and those of the Southern tier had no right to impose their religious convictions on us of New York. The old arguments on that issue were rather silly and insincere, because I didn’t really feel that I was a citizen of any particular State but a citizen of the United States. I feel even less devoted to state rights now that they ere engaged in a nasty and mutually destructive competition to fleece the Federal Treasury, each at the expense of all the others and the devil take the hindmost, as though the Federal Government were something extra rather than the sum of all. » = THEY are trying to penalize one another directly, too, in highway tolls and goods inspection, and in three cases, none very recent—Florida, Colorado

| and California—have had the nerve to establish im-

migration restrictions based solely on the poverty of native American economic cripples limping around to

| catch a few days’ work harvesting the squat crops or | toting golf balls or shooting biscuits in the restaurants

of the resorts. They crack down on chain stores,

| which are owned by Americans, and one state won't | | admit another state’s herrings to compete with its |

own, with the result that the other state says, “all

| right, we will slap a prohibitive tax on your water- { melons.” The tendency is to tax and restrict in anger, as | though the industry and people of one state were

This Is a situation in which the Federal Government isn't +inThey are knifing one anthe government, if it should interfere, would do so oniv in the interests of all. If Florida can bar a Hoosier, tooling down No. 1 in his flivver with the wife and kids to catch a little sun and hire out to drive a few nails, on the ground that he and his are likely to become a public charge, and if the union can demand a fabulous, ta him,

| price for a license to work at his trade, if he can find

work, the state government and the labor union together have combined to exclude him from a state

of the great Amercian union,

» » »

ND in time Florida may make a deal with Indiana to admit so many carpenters or frv cooks under

| visitors’ vises every winter in return for an under-

taking by the State of Indiana to absorb a certain This all points toward

and workers’ permits and a proeess in this country which some sharp mind has called balkanization. But if the 48 states ever fall into the habit of negotiating treaties, each with the 47 others, that will be no solution but rather a hopeless complication. and no one State is going to back-track in the mere hope that those with which it considers itself to be in competition will do likewise out of conscience alone. This is something wrong that is going to require Federal initiative and, if necessary, a stout belt over the head with the Federal authority, not in the interests of any

power-hungry executive but purely in the interests of

| the nation which these states will wreck, provided

other causes don’t beat them to it.

Business By John T. Flynn

Lending to Bankrupt Cities Not To Be Classed as Good Investing.

NEW YORK, June 29—One of the proposals of the President for making Government investments is by means of loans to cities and counties and, perhaps, states, to build necessary projects. Projects by cities fall into two classes—self-liqui-

| dating projects and those which are not. The Federal |

| Government might make a loan to a city for some | useful project, the city bonding itself to repay the

aan. The money might be spent on a school. The

loan, so fsr as the Federal Government is concerned. |

be called self-liquidating in that the city promises to repay ir. But so far as the city is con-

| cerned, it is not self-liquidating.

Cities and towns and counties and states do not now have any difficulty in getting money where the

| project is a sound one and the prospect of payment

is good. Indeed so true is this that rates for political

| subdivisions with good credit are the lowest in vears.

There is, therefore, no need for Government loans to cities and states for sound projects where the credit of the borrower is sound. Under this plan there will be a need for the Government loans only where the credit of the town is not sound. This means the Government will take only the unsound risks and this cannot be called invest-

| ment. This is ail the more true since cities which are

unsound as risks are in that condition chiefly because they have already piled immense burdens on themselves and cannot meet their charges or do so with

| painful difficulty. It is not only an unwise thing for

the Government to make loans to such communities, it is an unwise thing for the community itself,

Back Where We Started

In our futile and ill-considered efforts to deal with a great depression, we move around in vicious circles. the local communities which ‘were required to take care of relief and the unemployed. These local communities having exhausted thernselves in the effort,

the Pederal Government had to step in and shoulder |

ths burden. The Federal Government earried it until it became an incubus almost beyond its strength. Now, therefore, it is proposed to shift it back to the communities and states by lending them money for

public works. It amounts to the Government giving |

the relief with the state as an indorser.

It tends to draw the states now into the perilous vortex of borrowing from which it was glad to escape. There has long been a school in public finance which believes that no state or city should go inte debt. It is a good rule.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

N the foothills of the Ozarks the Grand River Dam is taking form. Compared to some other public projects it may be considered small, but, although only half done, it is already gigantic, stupendous, overpowering. The enormous buttresses. like huge beasts crouching, look as immovable as the hills around them. In between, enormous arches are spacious as cathedrals, and under their high ceilings the outside din sounds muted and far away. Day and night the noise of building goes oh. A

| sort of desperate compulsion moves through ‘the

place. The trucks lunge about amid clouds of dust,

| bent upon seemingly reckless errands. Overhead the | vast cement and steel formations loom against the

sky and by night the scene becomes fantastically glamorous. Oddly enough, you hardly notice the ‘workmen. Compared to the machines, they are sn insighificant in size as to appear unworthy of attention. Now and then one can be seen crawling up the cement mountainside, and it is as if you were watching a fly move slowiy across a wide white wall. Tt is hard to realize that men actually dominate such 3 machine world, that a man’s mind conceived it, or that men's hands are now creating such a gargantuan structure. As you gaze, you are reminded once again of the power of human imagination, ahd the same awe that fills ‘your soul when you stand under the high arches of a glorious ‘cathedral tingles in your fingertips, Already four men have died in the making of this dam, just as men always die in vast undertakings. The ‘price of progress is life, and surely the laborer who meets déath on duty is ho less to be lauded than the ‘soldier ‘who stands by his guns until ‘the end,

At first the depression costs were saddled on |

Congress Will Look Int

ro a or Si od ic

atter—By Herblock

o the

WHAT'S IN (T FOR ME? -

THT OD AY, TUNE 29, Gen. Johnson Says—

Lending Program May Be Magic Formula Sought Through the Ages But Still Needs Thorough Study.

ASHINGTON, June 29.—Is this new last-minute magic proposal to spend billions “outside the budget” and “without increasing debt or taxes” a blessing or a curse? We never did it before. Presumably, if Mr. Hoover started it when the depression first came and Mr, Roosevelt has continued it, we wouldn't have any important increase in debt now. The budget would long ago have been balanced and taxes would ba much lower. If it is good now, it was good then and ever since. It is such a shame that we and ail the bankrupt counfries—all down the ages—didn't

discover this magic long ago. Just who made this startling discovery isn’t altogether clear. Mr. David Cushman Coyle first began writing about it many months ago. Like many another New Deal virus it took time to work. Most responsible financial and economic experts say 1t 1s poison. Quite recently Mr. Roosevelt, not suggesting that he favored it, said that he had heard it discussed. Then suddenly, when there is no time to debate it, he launched it as a full fledged policy.

» » »

FLL. either it is right or it is wrong. If it, is wrong, it is just an undercover way to plunging all our people into unbearable debt and endangering everything they own. If it is right it may be the royal road to a reversal of the experience of the ages and, in spite of the copy-book | maxims. we may have semething for nothing and can spend more than we have without any evil effect. It is a vital decision and we ought to know something about it before we make it. Mr, Coyle is a very brilliant and likable young man and so is Mr. Berle. But they are not the first people I would turn to for advice before I began to invest a widow's trust estate. I would at least like to look at similar experiments of other Governments and our own before leaping. We have done a great deal of “investing” on something like this plan. Have the loans really been selr= liquidating? How many are past due? How many have heen extended and for how long and how often? What has happened to other “revolving funds” like that of the Farm Board and the Housing Administration? What about the “security” that has been taken by the Government lending agencies under political

The Hoosier Forum

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

| pressure? Is it sufficient? Is it over-valued?® What is the time limit for liquidation of these loans? What happens to money borrowed by Latin-American duces on the Franco model? How do they get so rich? What happened to former Latin-American loans?

» »

» ENATOR BYRD'S resolution asking for full reports

| VOICE IN THE CROWD United Press reported that Russell

(Times readers are invited FINDS A DEFENDER a their in By N. E. Watson

these columns, religious conI" 1 have followed the Forum debate : Y 2 troversies excluded. Make

lpetween ‘Voice In the Crowd,” Mr. !Sprunger and others concerning| Your letter short, so all can 'capitalism, economics and “svstems”| have a chance. Letters must (With a great deal of interest. 1 feel| pe signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

express views

ing that he ordered recent hombings in England. And what was Russell doing here?-—lecturing hefore IrishAmerican patriotic societies, basking in the applause of beshamrocked citizens of the United States! Now, My Wild Irish Foes, explain vourselves! : » » » LAUDS M'NELIS FOR CIVIL LIBERTY STAND By A Citizen

{impellea to rise to the defense of “V. I. C.” He's getting a great deal] of abuse he doesn’t deserve. | As I get it, “V. I. C.” apparently lever to display such spirited solicirepresents the very best in American 'tude over the predilections, preju-| business life. He is a businessman, dices or interests of the land of his|

honest, hard-working with a deep!fathers there would be a wave Of rested but believes in civil liberty |

and healthy respect for the rights !|protest over the country. of his employees. | x grant that the political philoso- |, take this opportunity to com-

He recognizes that there are cer- hy h t of ire i tl tain faults with the American capi- PHY of the government of Eire is N0linang Judge John McNelis on his

talistic system. Mostly, he attributes as contrary to our own as that of [stand against the Police Departthem to wayward individuals who !the governments of Italy and Ger- ment in denying those victims, arlwon't play fair, who try to trim/many. That somewhat hurts my rested for petty offenses, from call-

{and constitutional rights, I wish

‘wages every chance they get, who!case based on comparisons. Rut ling relatives or lawyers to come to |

‘are intent only on profits. His ar-/then, also, the reddest blooded their aid. [gument is that the average Amer- Americans claim that a citizen of | Keep up the fine work, Judge Mclican businessman isn’t that way, the United States should be for Nelis. that all you have te WA NA Su (America first, last and always—and, | > (someway apparently) the evil-doer for America only. fan) 3 land you can avoid the menace of And while our political philoso- INFLATION ALREADY | state socialism or communism, or phy may be similar to that of Rire— | HERE, TS CLAIM het have Ka Ph Fost vi | America toes Hot apie of as uy Yordm ‘Redder “V. 1. C.” is both right and wrong sassination and terrorism! And Irish | ‘ odes Sak from my side of the fence. He is members of Congress jumped to the| ‘ve have had inflation ever since right in saying that communism defense of Sean Russell, Chief-of- | fhe New Deal inflated the national jor state socialism won't cure our !Staff of the Irish Republican Army debt. This national debt inflation ills. But he's wrong in thinking when he was recently jailed in this ‘was ihdulged in to prevent the ‘that the evil-doer in American busi- country preceding the visit of ‘wash-up of the inflated private debt ness represents a small wayward Britain's sovereigns. Russell stated that oecurred during the prosperity (percentage. Our tragedy is that in San Francisco that a state of period nf 1920-29. The profit system {there are ton many businessmen war exists between Ireland and] who won’t budge an inch in recog- England-— We declared war on the [public debt or of private debt. I nizing the rights of the worker. |12th of last January.” By “we” and earned income is its awn nemesis. | There are so many greedy skunks “Ireland” he of course meant the| Thomas and LaFollette cannot like that that “V. I. C.” himself is I. R. A, which has no connection imperiled in his Wusiness. It's not with the Government of Eire. Incommunism that's choking us, it's!deed. membership in the I. R. A.

our financial system to eliminate

| debt and interest.

at Los Angeles was quoted as say-|

As a citizen who was never ar-|

can only live by inflation, either of Un- |

stop the deflation of dead debt. The future depends on the revamping of |

on the operation of Federal lending agencies | doesn’t go half far enough. Yet it is doubtful whether | even that self-audit by the operators of public opera- | tions under question will be available hefore wa | plunge headlong into the unknown and unchartered {and dangerous sea of “hold experimentation” by in['experienced administrators. | If you pause, back away and look at this rash and unstudied brain-storm of billions, it seems incredible [and preposterous that responsible legislators would consider it for a moment without a thorough examina- | tion and exposure and debate of exactly what is { involved.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

In Yearning for Peace Let's Not Forget the Peril of the Dictators.

EW YORK, June 29 —If we start with the premise that all wars are bad I think we may | agree that the worst war of all is one which is started because of an “incident. At the moment if seems as if the Japanese were certainly going out of their way to provoke hostilities. Buf, T would not like to see voung Englishmen die merely hecause some Britisher | was stripped of his raiment hy sentries. T am not | now and never have heen for sending American sol- | diers abroad to die in foreign lands, Why should T { be? My stake is personal. T do not want to see my owh son exposed, or yours, and certainly not myself {if T eould pass muster. But, let, us hot kid ourselves with the notion that all the aggressive forces of the world are so far off that we can afford to sit in a corner, come what may, land sav callously, “This has nothing to do with us.” | Tt is my notion that many of those who ery out for complete isolation are quite obviously eager for at least some little twist of fascism in this country, And 'T am not using the word in its 1nose sense. Fvery . person who has faith in American democracy should take occasion to read carefully the testimony of Maj. Gen. Moseley and his idea of turning over the administration of justice to the Army. And he means, IT he- | lieve, an army commanded by himself or another | Moseley.

ithe terrible number of greedy capi: is punishable by death. And the ” »

New Books at the Library

ROM Lake Champlain “Gentle-) He got more than he asked for and telegraphic dun to Their Most Ex- 1 man Johnny” Burgoyne led his'a sweetheart in addition. lcellent Majesties the King and army of Hessian and English sol-| The bewildered army trudged Queen of Great Britain. |diers against the rebel Americans. wearily through dense forests, burPersonally, I condemn Sweeney | Of this futile campaign Bruce Lan-!'dened with unnecessary equipment, ‘and, also all of those Irishmen who caster tells in his novel, “Guns of hungry, frightened and homesick. ldidn’t attend the Congressional re- Burgoyne.” | Burgoyne checrfully led them on. [ception in the ‘Capitol rotunda to, Through the eyes of Kurt Ahrens, brilliant fn his scarlet and white ‘greet, their royal guests. 'a voung Hessian nobleman in uniforms, making speeches, scem- | American patriots are always charge of some of Burgoyne's guns, ingly unaware of their danger and \velling against hyphenates—Anglo- we see the blundering effort of the tiselessness of their tactics. Af | Americans, GGerman-Americans and Burgoyne to conquer the Yankees. last they m=( defeat in a bloody ‘numerous others. If an Ttalian or Ahrens joined Burgoyne because he battle at Freeman's Farm near ‘German blooded Congressman were was hored and desired excitement, Saratoga when the brown-shirted rabble of Americans swarmed over them, led by shouting Benedict Arnold. | The great historical characters— “Gentleman Johnny’ Burgoyhe, ‘with his bobming laugh; beloved by ‘his troops; old St. Lue, the French (nobleman who hecame a savage: Benedict Arnoia at the peak of his glory, leading the Americans to victory, come to life in the pages of the novel. ‘Still more important, the [details of the campaign are pictured: | The daily life ‘of the soldiers, the {strange hew country, the conversation at headquarters and in the ranks. This is not merely history colored exciting story

Side Glances—By Galbraith

Be xy ao A 30

‘by fiction, but an vividly told.

T0 PHILLYSS By EDNA JETT CROSLEY

Little dear, I love to see The sunshine in your smile And ‘watch the ‘dimples in ‘your cheeks And your starry eves the while.

And ih your chubby little hand | Your fresh-cut flowers glow. You are ah angel on this land, The good Lord willed it so.

Just ‘make one up for me.” Ah—Phillyss—you're a liftle tease, But, dh, how dear to ‘te.

DAILY THOUGHT Woe tihto the world heécatse of offenses! for it must heeds be that offenses ‘come; but woe to that

‘hah by whom the offense cometh! —8t. Matthew 18:7.

IN Ix Why want of ‘conformity : unto, ‘or ‘transgression ‘of the daw Of ‘God. —SHorter ‘Ontéchisth,

0PR. 198 Wy NEA SERVICE, INC. T.. REG. U. 8. PRT. BFF. £-23

"Married life's great, soh! The only thing that's liable to be ahnoying is your wife,"

It’s “Tell ‘the a story, pretty please, |

And so, instead of wild outcries against send’ng ah American army abroad, which can scarcely i» favored by as much as half of 1 per ¢ent of our population, let us begin to talk seriously of the infiltration of the dictatorial and aggressive powers, |

Looks Are Deceiving

| It is true enough thai we should not shed blood | to keep the open door in China. Personally I go along solidly with the slogan of “China for the Chinese.” | But “China for the Japanese” is something else again, | ‘Since ‘most of us are addicted to lump thinking, wa are inclined to talk about the white ahd the yellow races, although nobody is actually white and few, except the victims of jaundice, are really vellow. There may be a close ethnological hond between the Chinese and the Japanese, hut in philosophy, personality and racial ideals they are very different. Tt | is ‘difficult to imagine a Chirs concerned with pushing conquest beyond its borders. It is foolish not te admit that the ambitions of the military clique in | Japan know no limits whatsoever, | The position of America can never he isolated with a Hitler at the end of one ocean and a Hirohito on | the other. All right, the Mikado is just window dressing. Maybe Hitler is. Rut here are forcez which bode

ho good to us and which cannot be ignored, Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

! HE world's largest cancer hospital has just heen opened. It is the new building for Memorial | Hospital in New York City. This hospital, when it | ‘opened its doors on its old site in 1887, was the first | institution in the United States devoted exclusively ta cancer, Memorial Hospital has been a leader on threa fronts in the fight against cancer. It has (treated thousands of ‘patients, It has pushed the search for new and better ways of treating cancer and for knowledge which might lead to cancer prevention, Tt has since 1925 trained young doctors ih the latest and best | ways of diagnosing and treating cancer. The hospital is ‘equipped with the latest and most powerful cancer fighting weapons. including a pocket edition of the giant million-volt X-ray machinss used in treating deep-seated cancers. Not, all the ‘cancer patients in the world can go te Memorial Hospital for treatment. Nor de they need to go there, Many other institutions alse are ‘equipped and staffed to treat ‘cancer with X-rays, raditim or surgery. The important thing for the patient is that | He should go for treatment early in the course of the | disease. That is when the chances of cure are best, Doctors have been teaching this for centtirfes, A% the beginning of the Christian era nearly 200 years #go, a ‘medical ‘writer ‘observed that cancer could be ‘cured only ‘in ‘its beginning stages. At the dedication ‘of the new Memorial Hospital Dr. Ludvig Hektoen, ‘executive director of the National Cancer Advisory Council, pointed out that it is just as frue today ax it ‘was 1900 years ago that ‘early diagnosis and prompt freatment are the chief points ih cancer control. Anything that ‘might be cancer—a persistent sore, unusial bleeding, persistent indigestion, a lump in the breast— should be Rttended to Tt ‘may not be ‘caf-

| ‘Ger, but it Is vitally imporee