Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 July 1939 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) *

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

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«SP RILEY 551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way ~~

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1939

TODAY IN CONGRESS IX Congress today the President's leadership is being put to the test in two fields—his neutrality and monetary policies. In our opinion the best interest of the country would be served in both instances if Mr. Roosevelt's views prevailed. The President is afraid, with good reason, that if a European war starts we will eventually be drawn into it. He holds that we should at the very least do nothing to encourage European war. The House, by writing into the Administration Neutrality Bill last week a flat embargo on exports of arms and ammunition to belligerents, has won the cheers of the Axis press. For Germany and Italy would be blockaded by the Anglo-French navy if war came and couldn't buy from us anyway; accordingly the House action is damaging only to the democracies. That is why the President says we are in the position of encouraging new aggression in Europe. The Gallup poll has indicated that most Americans favor amending the law to permit the sale of war materials to England and France. But the House has read the country’s pulse differently. It remains to be seen what will be done today by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

2 zn = = 2 2 HE other issue is the President's monetary bill. The

House has already approved it. The Senate will vote on it at 5 o'clock this afternoon. Strangely enough, the self-proclaimed conservatives are the ones who are leading the fight for defeat. They are loud in their denunciation of “money tinkering.” But the defeat of this hill, which they so earnestly seek, seems to us money tinkering of the most radical nature.

It would wipe out a mechanism which for more than |

five vears has maintained the dollar at a fixed gold content, has put a stop to the competitive devaluation of rival cur- | rencies, and has helped maintain a high degree of stability | among the world’s principal monetary units. Defeat of the President's monetary bill would greatly restrict our Government's power to enforce and uphold its share of the three-power agreement between the United States, Britain and France. What the consequences would be we do not know. But we cannot forget the chaos which prevailed before the stabilizing agreement was adopted.

CONGRESS TACKLES RELIEF HE £1,755,600,000 appropriated by Congress for relief | is almost exactly what President Roosevelt asked for, and the $1,477,000,000 share allotted to WPA meets his re-

quest to the dollar. But this new Federal relief bill is much less a blank check than any of its predecessors. It lays | down certain definite policies to be followed in administra- | tion. marked changes. The changes won't please everybody, and some of them | will greatly displease certain groups. The death sentence on theater projects, for instance, and the provision that | music, art and writers’ projects may be continued only if | local sponsors pay part of their costs, will arouse im- | passioned protests. But we think the bill represents a sincere and generally intelligent effort to insure that the relief appropriation will be so used as to do the greatest possible good to the largest number of needy people. Such an effort requires that extravagance shall be curbed, and that efficiency in administration shall be increased. And, since the amount asked by the President to carry WPA through the fiscal year just |

These, chiefly affecting WPA, will involve some |

vear, it is plain that such an effort was needed. Congress deserves praise for this measure.

RAW! RAW! RAW! HERE'S a strong collegiate flavor to the latest Washing-

ton news concerning Secretary Ickes and Lawrence W.

mittee. Mr. Robert, it seems, was chairman of a comrittee which obtained a $21,600 PWA grant to aid in construction of a boys’ dormitory wt the University of Georgia. Mr. Jckes says he has discovered that the

building actually is a fraternity house for Mu chapter of |

the Sigma Nu Fraternity. So he has canceled the contract and demanded return of the 37200 in Federal money thus far advanced. ; Mr. Robert is, himself, a member of Sigma Nu (and of Phi Kappa Phi), while Mr. Ickes owes allegiance to Phi Delta Theta, Phi Delta Phi and Pi Gamma Mu. Both, then, as they say on the campus, are Greeks. And when Greek meets Greek—well, the tug of war appears to be in progress. Mr. Ickes recently refused to pay a $36,000 “promotion” fee charged by Mr. Robert's engineering firm in connection with a $4,000,000 Georgia state hospital project. If the facts about this newer incident are as Mr. Ickes reports them, then more strength to his arm. Using PWA money to build a fraternity house does seem to be carrying the good old brotherly spirit a little too far.

ZIPPING TO SUCCESS IDEON SUNDBACK of Meadville, Pa., who came from his native Sweden when he was 23, is retiring at 59 to. what should be a life of ease and pleasure. We don’t know the extent of his fortune, but it probably is plenty. For Mr. Sundback, in the last 26 years, has registered 78 patents on the “zipper” and he is one @f the founders of the company which now employs 4200 persons and produces about three-fourths of all American slide fasteners. What seems especially noteworthy is the fact that his industry’s

it was widely said that there were no more frontiers.

Mr. Sundback made his own frontier, and fairly well | The people of his adopted country now |

conquered it. zip practically everything from gloves to golf bags and from tents to trousers. Whatever the future holds, nothing seems more certain than that fortunes will continue to be made by people who have the ingenuity and ability to perfect and market little things as simple yet as useful as the 2ipper, : : hs: les

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

New Deal Not Entirely Blameless For Louisiana Mess, but Can Make Amends by a Thorough Inquiry.

EW YORK, July 5.—Louisiana newspapers and individual politicians of tne opposition group are demanding that the Federal Government become a sort of receiver for their state government in order that there may be a complete, nonpolitical investigation of the conduct of state officers. The authors of this proposal have an optimistic faith that such an inquiry could not be impugned but, unfortunately, that confidence is not justified by past

performances. However, the Federal Department of Justice has come under new management since the memorable income tax compromises which followed the assassination of Huey Long and the political reconciliation between his heirs and the New Deal, It is important that, for once, the Federal Government disregard politics and, with a clean sense of responsibility, wade into a foul mess with a determination to do a conscientious. job. 5 ” 2 HETHER Frank Murphy has the character to do this remains to be seen. The situation should not be exploited merely as an opportunity to make political capital for him and to offset the paltry little Republican boom that has been created for Tom Dewey in New York. Even with the purest motives, Murphy is certain to be suspected, and for that he can blame President Roosevelt and Jim Farley, who openly associated with the direct heirs of the Long machine and played ball with them as soon as Huey was out of the way. But someone must do the job in Louisiana, and with all the local factions involved one way or another, the inquiry and the prosecutions which are bound to follow must be undertaken by some authority outside the state and superior to the morally bankrupt state government. There is only one such authority. That is the National Government, and if the National Government cannot be trusted to run an honest investigation then the people will just have to fight their way out. ; Most of the men involved on both sides in Louisiana now took part in the Long dictatorship and helped Huey to create a system of extortion and oppression which ran well as long as he was alive to keep discipline but which ran wild when he perished. Ever since it has been a case of every man for himself, and it were naive to pretend that the

New Deal has not known what has been going on in |,

Louisiana. = nn = HESE people, under Long's orders, had put through laws which permitted the machine to hire unlimited numbers of Long men in various departments and to prevent any inquiry into the accounts of the state government. They rigged the election machinery and established a party rakeoff on every dollar paid to an officeholder or state employee and to most municipal employees. Governor Dick Leche’s political newspaper printed huge anniversary editions in which municipalities bought space for ads at the taxpayers’ expense. James W. Noe, who now clamors for an investigation. himself once a diligent political black shirt under Huey, and did his bit to create the machine and the laws by which the machine would be permitted to loot without question or investigation. He was made president of the Win or Lose Oil Co. which

Huey chartered with the right to drill in Louisiana's |

own Teapot Dome, a field on state property. He never wanted an investigation while Huey lived and he himself was politically in.

Business By John T. Flynn

Coat & Suit Board Is Engaged in '‘Law-Making' Despite Death of NRA.

EW YORK, July 5—The National Coat & Suit Recovery Board is apparently a private organi-

| zation. It is made up of manufacturers.

Each manufacturer of coats and suits has a right

{ to run his business any way he chooses, but when he

joins with other such manufacturers and makes rules affecting prices, costs and trade practices which are binding not only on him and his fellow members

| but on others as well, he comes pretty close to being

engaged in the making of laws. In the days of the NRA such bodies were authorized to make laws for the people of the United States and that is one reason the Supreme Court unanimously declared the law unconstitutional. It declared that Congress had surrendered its power to make laws to the President and these trade associations. And so the NRA is no more. But here we have a Coat & Suit Recovery Board still making laws and proclaiming them with the aid of public officials. For instance, this board sent around placards to all its members reading: “Effective July 1, 1939, cost of delivering packages to packing companies, etc, when made under instructions from the retailer shall be charged to and

vil . ehbis y | paid for by the retailer.” beginning is 773 million dollars less than was provided last |

Mr. XYZ, who is a coat and suit manufacturer, might be willing—indeed he might be* happy—to assume these charges of delivery as a means of getting business and keeping his plant active. but the Coat & Suit Recovery Board has passed a law which forbids his doing this.

Where Is Mr. Arnold?

This is one of the assumptions of power which

: ' | these trade associations have taken over and which (Chip) Robert, secretary of the Democratic National Com- |

the antitrust laws were designed to prevent, which leads us to the dquestion—what has become of the antitrust laws that Mr. Thurman Arnold was going to enforce? j ! It is not necessary to have any more legislation to prevent these hangovers of the code authorities from attempting to legislate for American business. The

‘department stores, the vetailers, the shipping and

freight companies have all protested against this. It 2ll seems to boil down to the question as to what are the laws of this land-—the laws passed by

the Coat & Suit Recovery Board or the laws passed

by the Congress of the United States? This is the kind of thing which has made its way into the building business and practically destroyed it. Tt is done in the interest of what is called “stabilization” and now the building industry has been stabilized into that quiet calm one finds in a gravevard. Unless a vigorous Department of Justice enforces the law we will have the same kind of stabilization in every kind of industry. t

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

CCORDING: to a teacher friend, eye defects are a great handicap to education. And eye defects

are often due to malnutrition and malnutrition is common in city and country schools.

An interesting case came her way last year. A brother and sister, both far behind in their grades, were sent to her department and after a time she discovered that their vision was so bad they were practically blind.

Investigation showed them living mostly on potatoes and macaroni, without green - vegetables, butter or milk. When these dietary deficiencies had been supplied, bothk became good students and their vision was entirely restored. : And then my friend told me something strange and astonishing. - She said that oculists and optome-

| trists generally showed very little interest in the

situation, and that in the fourth largest city of the United States, where she teaches, only one physician

J . . : out of the many thousan greatest growth came in the last decade, during times when | over the fact BY a Hoy % oe Set iousiy Soheerned

| children could not see well.

This seemed astonishing to me, because it shows such a lack of business perspicacity on the part of the doctors. For if teachers, school hoards and the public could be made aware of the cohnection between poor

| grades and some defect of one of the five senses,

surely all of them together could bring about a salutary change and such a change undoubtedly would result in a parade of school children to the oculists’ offices. Perhaps we'd do a better job of educating children everywhere if we could first convince the taxe payers: t. the ‘hungry: and defective il responds slowly to teaching, ‘© | ou dijon

}

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1939 |

Suspended Animation! —By Talburt

HOTHEY'VE CERTAINLY GOT HIM UP IN THE AIR!

The Hoosier Forum

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

OPPOSES ROAD PATROL FOR COUNTY {By C. R. B. I would like to express just one {voter's and taxpayer's opinion of | Sheriff Feeney’s re-establishing the road patrol system. We elected Mr. Feeney to office as our choice for sheriff because we (thought he was the best man. But |we surely are not in favor of paying out several thousand dollars for new

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious con. troversies excluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

problem of making people work at something beforé they can get the things the machines can make for

us. # =» ”

DOUBTS THERE WILL BE WAR OVER DANZIG By E. F. Maddox Since I correctly predicted that England and France would not risk

their national existence to save

cars and upkeep to say nothing of wages for the 16 deputies.

lowed by the board as it looks on the surface to be a benefit to the farmer. And evervone knows how the farmer has been rewarded for his support of the “New Deal.” But how about us city folks? Chief Morrissey has been trying for some time to get the board to give him more policemen to protect our children. But so far we have only about half enough motorcycle men on the [City streets. . On the day Mr. McNutt visited jour City it seemed tc me every person driving a car wanted to run over |the other feilow. And this may have {included me as I sure wished for a [five-ton truck to drive in some of {the traffic violators I saw. Drivers | were running red lights, making left | turns anywhere they wished, parking jand double parking all over town, and beer and ice trucks had, or were taking, the right of way over mail trucks. I suppose everybody knew what few motorcycle men we had were busy with the parade. If we must add more stars to the crown of justice, let it be on the staff of Chief Morrissey. When I

However, I suppose it will be al-|

pay is silly when machines will pro-| Czechoslovakia, I also now give it as

duce the greatest part of our needs MY “Dijon that there will be no war | wri p over Danzig. | Without work. We feed the children The reason is that Germany, Poof the nation and pay for their edu- jand, England and France cannot cation, but will not allow them to afford to destroy themselves by work to pay for their needs. All the | fighting each other. That is exactly physically and mentally unfit are What will happen if these nations [paid their keep without require- | fight and they all-know it. There is ment of work as a prerequisite. | too much loud talk and bluffing Most of our work is unnecessary | £0ing on in these nations for their anyway, since it is largely duplica- OWn good. Stop and consider that |tion of effort without correspond- | at Munich, Hitler and Chamberlain ling addition of social values. If vowed ‘never to make war on each those who are employed now in other.” Germany, if she wishes to Ineedless jobs were added to the continue as a world power, cannot | unemployed and all these were put afford to fight Poland, France, Eng|on a pension, we could afford to use land and other powerful nations over the electric eye ray to produce a little place like Danzig. | wealth in abundance for all to con- | The only hope tor each of these sume regardless of their social se- | nhations to weather the economic | curity card number, storm raging in their midst is to | The idea of wages is silly. Not come to terms of peace with each ‘only the children, but also the aged other. In fact, the only hope to (and all in between should receive a'avoid another World War is for Poregular check from the Federal land, Germany, England. France and | Treasury to allow us to loaf if we|Italy to come down off their high like, or improve our mental powers, horses and talk sense. especially to rid us of the idea of| The time for bluff and bluster is working at useless jobs or working past. If Danzig belongs to Germany on make-believe jobs, at relief proj- and wants to rejoin the Reich, there (ects or even the making of more is no justification to start a war to

drive past the Monument and see|laws that produce no solution of the

that white flag there, I know my

| stop her.

family has been safe for another day against the “horn tooting, brake neglecting fool.” ” 5 2 SAYS TOWNSEND PLAN

New Books at the Library

NEEDS PRICE CONTROL By Universal Pension Advocate 5 . Yo The Townsend Recovery Plan ODERN Jistory 3 writen by Convention may have enthused the| John Gunther in “Inside Eu-

old people as to future pennies 'OPe” Was largely a story of outTom onion. The real folly of the | Standing personalities set against a

plan is that it does not provide for | Political and economic background. 'a control :of prices as the result of | Inside Asia” (Harper) is different, the monthly payments. Otherwise because Asia is different. they are .only imitating the farmers. | Personalities there are, to be sure, who get their subsidy checks for not who play an important part in the producing crops above the allot- conflicting forces which 1roil the | ments. | Asiatic water and arouse the apWhat is good for the “short crop-! prehension of the West. And Mr. pers” is good for the aged also. The | GuntRer describes and interprets {pension plan is not a bad idea, these men and women for us— especially in these days when the Chiang Kai-shek and his charming electric eye can produce practically | wife; the Japanese Mikado and his all of our goods without labor if it advisers and generals; Ghandi and were widely used. [Jawaharlal Nehru of India; Dr. The idea of working for wages or Chaim Weizmann of Palestine;

Side Glances—By Galbraith

CE, INC. T. M. REC. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

rs. Tweed—don't let him have the idea he

"Hold his head up, M OME SUR SRR - ; 2 - get the best of you." : ) ‘

Manuel Quezon of the Philippines; the politicians, both great and small, the Oriental Hitlers, the warlords of China, and the petty princes of India. These figures emerge as indications, symbols, of the restive currents of Oriental thought and politics. : Modern Asiatic history, however, is more then this; it is the story of emerging national consciousness opposing itself to imperialistic forces; of Western industrialism struggling to adapt itself to, or to change, Eastern culture; of population pres|sures, religious differences, and a [growing movement towards democracy; of the struggle among the Western powers for the resources and potential markets of these “backward” countries. The Asiatic temperament, the cultural contrasts of this continent, the political ferment, the international rivalry furnish rich material for a significant book. Those who have read Mr. Gunther's earlier book will know that he has used this opportunity brilliantly.

OLD AGE PENSION By ELEEZA HADIAN

Laugh. laugh at the old Pessimist, Laugh at the wise Scientist, Laugh at the bold, Sharp-eyed thief, We are rich beyond belief!

Ours is buried, treasure gold Locked in the depths Of the earth’s Unreachable stronghold; Yet the yearly, tenfold Interest, Always paid without protest. For thrice witnessed note we hold Is the rock bound, sacred promise Of golden yellow poppys!

Oh, the rich, wild-gold crop grows Wherever the wild wind blows! But only an aged heart knows The enduring joy that goes To the draining of the gold That the precious, gold cups hold, That unfailing rites unfold!

DAILY THOUGHT

Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus 19:3.

OD planted fear in the soul as truly as he planted hope or courage. —H, W. Bi .

Gen. Johnson Says—

Aid Would Be Mostly Economic, Anyway, So Neutrality Action Does Little Harm to F. D. R. Foreign Policy.’

ASHINGTON, D. C, July 5—The automatic arms embargo which the Administration fought and Congress insisted upon isn't very im= portant. It has been whittled down to apply to a very limited class of exports—actual weapons of war. It will probably be interpreted in practice to mean only things like rifles, cannon, machine-guns and shells. : v The foreign policy of the Administration favors Britain against Hitler, Mussolini and Japan. It is not as yet based on any remote idea that our people would suffer it to take us into war to prevent German Danzig, for example, from returning to Germany. But it does seek to curb the aggressors by serving notice on them that, if a World War comes, America will serve as a base of supplies for England and France. One reason for this policy is that the latter two countries stand between this hemisphere and the aggressor nations as a sort of first line of defenses and that it is to our interest to keep the British navy and the French army strong. The second reason is that forces are so evenly balanced in the European poker game of bluff that, if England and France can be sufficiently assured of our economic support and Germany and Italy can be sufficiently frightened by it, that the mere threat of it may keep the peace of the world.

HE inside baseball of this is very clever. It is urged that we “can take this stand without violating either the letter or the spirit of the oldtime international law of neutrality. The argument Is that our factories and resources will be open alike to England and France on the one hand and to Italy and Germany on the other. Of course it is true that the former two nations control the seas and that, for the latter two, their rights are dry and worthless. But that is not our fault. Our policy is toward all alike on equal terms, “Come and get it—if you can.” The purpose here is not to criticize this policy any more than to say that it is playing with dyna= mite and that you cannot mess in a world war—no matter how cleverly—on the economic side without danger of being sucked in on the bloody side. What is here being discussed is the extent to which this position has been impaired by the action of Congress.

” ” 2

THINK the impairment is almost negligible. A lot of sentiment for the arms embargo was built up on a ballyhoo that our commerce in deadly weapons got us into the World War. It is true that before our actual entry we furnished some shells and machine guns but the great bulk of our contribution then, as it would be today, was in other things— wheat, cotton, leather and raw resources gerierally. As to cannon, artillery, ammunition and airplanes, we did not supply the Allies. They supplied us. Of the millions of rounds of shells and shrapnel we fired on the Western front, we supplied only 10,000 rounds of shrapnel. Of all the 75 and 150 m. m. guns of the A. E. F. artillery we supplied not one single gun. Almost our entire air fleet was purchased abroad and those we shipped over were inferior, Our economic aid, which decided the World War, was almost entirely outside of the class of things which will be embargoes by the recent Congressional action. In other words, the Administration's foreign policy, as here described, is hindered very slightly if at all.

Aviation

By Maj. Al Williams

Some Costly Accidents Happen When Planes Are Bought in a Hurry.

ASHINGTON, July 5.—It's not generally appreciated, but a lot of costly experimental aire planes have been cracked up since we began what we are pleased to call our emergency air rearmament program. But that’s only a mark of trying to do the

business of the air in a hurry. We've tried to buy a lot of airplanes in a hurry, many times before. One instance I shall never forget. We had bought some training planes—a whole flock of them—without testing the first few; training planes with a top speed of about 105 miles per hour. Somehow or other, seven of the first ones delivered tumbled into the water while executing (unplanned) aerial maneuvers knows as “flat tailspins.” A storm of protest broke. Seven ships delivered and cracked up—with 68 more to be delivered under an existing contract. The usual confab of great minds followed. A conference expert—and this kind of an expert is always superior to a flying expert—was sent to the manufacturer's plant to fix the little trainers so they wouldn't spin any more. He fixed and fixed, and he said he spun, too.

They Had to Be Shown

And then he came home and said the flat spinning was through. He talked so persuasively that a high-powered nonflying bigwig climbed aboard. We never doubted; neither did we believe. As the pair in the fixed trainer climbed higher, we called our photographer and told him to focus on it and not to miss a trick. At about 5000 feet we heard the training plane's motor become quiet— throttled. The little silver-colored dot up there was going to spin for a while and then come out of the spin whenever the pilot wanted it to come out, and fly straight. “There she goes,” was the mumbled murmur as the silver-winged plane started to revolve. Yes, ree volve! One thousand feet, two thousand, three thou= sand, and still revolving (flat spinning). A hardboiled eagle-man told the photographer to keep on turning his crank. Two thousand feet to go. One gone-—one left—still revolving. None left, as the trainer slowly folded into a tent-shaped pile, upon stacking the earth. The fixer pilot and his bigwig passenger? Cone ference pilots never get hurt. The rest of the unbulilt trainers? Ah me-—no ona seems to know. And if anyone does, he won't tell. Probably just flew away some day, on account of the hurry in which they were bought,

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

NEW reason for screening windows and doors and otherwise guarding against insects has appeared with the appearance of a new kind of sicke ness. This is the horse malady popularly known as horse sleeping sickness and technically named equine encephalomyelitis. The disease has been a serious plague among horses for years, and now it is known to afflict humans as well, sometimes killing them. Only nine states—Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia—were free of the horse plague in 1938. It may get into these states this summer. The connection with screens on your, wine dows and doors is that mosquitoes or other insects may spread the ailment. This is not known certainly. In laboratory experiments, mosquitoes showed they could carry the disease. So far, they have not been caught doing this in nature. Nevertheless, health authorities advise guarding against insects as one possible means of avoiding the horse plague. Even in the nine states free of this horse malady, one should be on guard against other ailments carried by flies and mosquitoes. Malaria is the chief disease carried by mosquitces which needs to be feared in the United States. Mosquitoes can also carry yellow fever, dengue and filariasis, but in this country we have no yellow fever and dengue and filariasis are rare. Flies, as you know, can spread typhoid fever, dy. sentery (amebic dysentery, too), and diarrhea or summer complaint of children. They have been convicted of spreading “pink-eye” among children in California and Florida. Besides spreading these diseases, they can cause sickness by carrying fiith from garbage and sewage onto your food, your.hands

| and your baby's mouth.

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