Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 August 1939 — Page 10

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

. TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1939

‘TELL THEM HERE are plenty of reasons why Indianapolis should present a vigorous case in Washington for locating the proposed $10,000,000 Governmental airplane experimental laboratory at Municipal Airport. : We have a fine Municipal Airport, a splendid location, a key aviation engine factory, an important Government radio laboratory and every reason to believe this city will become an increasingly important aviation center. We have no quarrel with any of the other five cities which are seeking this laboratory. But we believe Indianapolis’ advantages are equal to any and, in several important

respects, superior to those of friendly competitors. These |

advantages ought to be brought to the attention of Washington authorities by the ablest delegation we can send there,

THE N. A. M. IN POLITICS? N attack on labor policies of the National Association of Manufacturers by the Senate’s La Follette Committee is/scarcely news. The N. A. M. may be a little less hardboiled, a little more discreet, in some years than in others, t it manages to maintain its well-earned but unenviable

putation as industry’s No. 1 spokesman and lobbyist |

against labor unionism. A very interesting aspect of the new La Follette Com-

mittee report, however, is the charge that the N. A. M.]

is in effect “a vehicle for spending corporate funds to influ‘ence the opinion of the public in its selection of candidates for office.” ! : : As the Committee points out, there is a “well estab- _ lished public policy forbidding corporations to make con-

tributions in connection with pdlitical elections.” If; as the | committee suggests, the N. A. M. is being used by a hand- |

ful of big corporations to evade this public policy, then Congress might well consider measures to prevent such evasion. Just as public servants have no business politicking— a habit which the Hatch Act was designed to curb—so should corporation officials, who have at their disposal vast

sums of “other people’s money,” be prohibited from divert- | 3%Us rt ;

ing any of that money to the pursuit, whether open or covert, of political objectives. | If it is bad for officeholders to dominate political conventions, it is worse for corporation executives to pour millions of their stockholders’ money into propaganda for or against one party or another, or one candidate or another. |

A BOOST FOR MERIT ; | HE principles of the Hatch Act and of the Civil Service Law as well are written into the new social security amendments. Chairman Altmeyer of the Social Security Board and Senator La Follette deserve most of the credit. One provision prohibits the use of old-age pension lists for political purposes. That should prevent a recurrence of what happened in Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma and some other states preceding the elections of last year, when needy pensioners were boldly solicited to vote for the candidates of the state machine. | ‘Another provision stipulates that the administrative employees in the various state welfare agencies, having charge of the distribution of funds supplied in part by the * Federal Government, must obtain and hold their jobs on the basis of merit rather than of politics. The Federal board, therefore, will have to specify that such employees refrain from taking active part in political campaigns. | These safeguards, if rigidly enforced, should mean that more of the taxpayers’ dollars and cents will reach the pockets of the needy for whom the money is appropriated. | We cite one example of what can happen in any state where politicians have control of the machinery for distribution of Federal-State charity funds. We cite the example of Ohio, where Martin L. Davey was a candidate for the Governorship renomination in 1938: Sih al / The primary got under way in April, and in that month the Division of State Aid for the Aged operated on an administrative overhead cost of $122,490—taking care of 108,718 pensioners. In May the overhead rose to $123,615, in June to $128,640, in July to $140,916; and in August— the month of the primary balloting—the administrative overhead was $150,384, and the number of pensioners 111,948. Governor Davey was defeated. So— In September, the overhead for the Division of State ‘Aid for the Aged dropped to $145,110, in October to $140,666, in November to $139,0283—yet meanwhile the number of needy oldsters getting pensions rose to 112,065. To complete the story, a new administration took over in Ohio last January, and swept clean. By April, 1939; the overhead in the Division of State Aid for the Aged was reduced to $90,389—though the number of needy pensioners had risen to 112,616. aay : ] Xx We're not accusing any other state of having a record as bad as Ohio’s. We merely use this example to point ont the vast pogsibilities inherent in substituting merit for politics in the distribution of public money to the needy.

SURPLUS SOLUTION 1] THE United States is not the only country in the world that has its problem of agricultural surpluses. Brazil, for instance, has destroyed $500,000 worth of coffee by ‘burning it, and has millions more that seem destined for the same end. Naturally when Herbert S. Polin of New York arrived in Rio de Janeiro with news that he has discovered a means of converting green coffee beans into aplastic material suited for floorings, walls, cups, plates, and buttons, hopeful Brazilians greeted him with enthusiasm. For if a tangible use for this surplus coffee can be found, Brazil will be on the way toward problems. | "Question: Why has not more progress been made in the United States toward developing other uses for our great grain surpluses, since we do not seem able to find a way to get it into the hands of people who want to eat it? That is our problem, and one on which we do not seem se maki OT rht, I

solving one of its toughest economic

Fair Enough La |

By Westbrook Pegler

Even Though Ekins Has Been Kicked Out’ of ltaly, Many Suspect His |

Report on Duce Was Accurate.

is still ground for suspecting that the report which brought on this retaliation may be true. The U. P. disseminated in this country a report heard in London that Mussolini had suffered a heart attack. The

maneuvers themselves were abruptly curtailed, and it must be assumed that if he did have a heart attack Rome would deny it. The denial therefore means nothing. sven ‘his reappearance in public need be accepted as complete refutation, because it is not impossible for persons having cardiac troubles to rebound quickly.

the conditions imposed on foreign correspondents in Italy and Germany, the chances of error are many more than the actual errors would suggest. We do not know the authority for this report, but anyone who knows the personnel and methods of the American press in the foreign field would be tempted to assume that it originated in Rome and was relayed to London, and that the London date line was camouflage. f # 4 #

T= Italians and Germans have a habit of tran- | scribing’ telephone conversations on wax records so one would guess that the phone was not used in this case. : “ But it would have been’ possible to whisper the ‘news to some trusted acquaintance leaving Rome for Paris, and for that person to communicate it to | the Paris Bureau for relay to London. | - They also have a trick of planting false information with persons who are suspected of having secret ‘dealings with American journalists so that when the reports show up in print they know whom to grab. The Italian and German system of censorship, lately adopted by Russia, and in a minor way by Presi'deht Roosevelt, too, is one of intimidation and har‘assment as distinguished from the simpler method lof examining all dispatches and deleting parts or ‘suppressing all. Under this system, a journalist is held ‘accountable for everything that he sends, but is given no definite understanding of the rules or limits. He never knows when he sends a story whether he will be kicked out with his wife, the canary and the cat, on 24 hours’ notice or called down to the ‘press bureau to be lectured or threatened by some

swollen little politician. . ®

HIS business of calling a foreign journalist on the carpet when the reporter knows his story was absolutely true has an effect on the nerves of the | victim. He may become shy and shade his copy so as to avoid offense or, on the contrary, get sore and | shoot the works, in which case the fly-cops come | around to help him pack his stuff and boot him over the border. 3 Mr. Roosevelt adopted the harassment and intimidation method recently with Lyle Wilson, the chief of the U. P.’s Washington Bureau, lecturing him on one occasion on the tone or treatment of a political article, and denouncing the U. P. for fakery a short time later in the case of a news item on which the two reporters involved stood pat. If, hereafter, Wilson must honestly report some political development unfavorable to the President, he may be accused of vengefulness. Mr. Roosevelt has put him

The removal of Mussolini from the troubled scene just now or soon might be no great boon, because nobody can predict what would happen then,

Business

By John T. Flynn

A. F. of L. Pact With Contractors Is Good News for Building Trades.

"EW YORK, Aug. 15.—Here is just about the most ’ profitable piece of news that has come out of the A. F. of L. in many years.

The Building Trades Department of that organization has announced that hereafter, ‘when two unions get into a jurisdictional dispute on a building job, no strike will be called, but that the union in possession will continue on any job actually under way until the dispute has been settled by the unions. :

There has been no more costly abuse in any industry than the jurisdictional dispute in the building industry. And to make matters worse, these disputes were quarrels, not between employers and employees, but between unions. Unions for years have denounced employers who refused to enter into collective bargaining with them. Why, therefore, unions could not enter into collective bargaining with each other, where the employer was not involved, was difficult to understand.

Aside from the illegal nature of the evil, it has a

was a great weapon in the hands of the dishonest labor leader to call strikes and blackmail employers. It is difficult to carry on a large building operation without having almost at all times one group of men doing some sort of work which another group claims belongs peculiarly to their craft. This is particularly true now when there is so much experimenting with new materials, so that sometimes it is difficult to ‘know whether the job belongs to a plasterer or a carpenter or a tiler.

Investigation Should Proceed

It is high time that the A. F. of L. put an end to this shameful abuse. Because it is understood in Washington that the Department of Justice has just sent out a large number of investigators to look in building rackets of all kinds. It is to be hoped, however, that this agreement will not put an end to these investigations. The jurisdictional disputes will still continue. This agreement merely means that such a dispute will not be permitted to interfere with a job which has already started. But they may still interfere with the beginning of jobs that have not yet started, Nothing will bring this unhappy situation to an end more quickly and put the A. F. of L. in the mood to clean house thoroughly than the indictment of some of the leaders who have used this weapon to shake down builders. And I can think of no better place to look that subject over than in Chicago. :

A Woman's Viewpoint|

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

ELL, folks, the Millennium is just around the corner. When Hollywood scouts are openly hunting for girls with brains, you can’t say there’s nothing new under the sun. " And that’s exactly what Billy Grady of M. G. M. is up to. For some time he’s stalked the Middle West searching for intelligent, instead of glamorous, females. Lame brains, even when accompanied by loads of pulchritude, need not apply, he says, for there are go many of them already they fetch only a nickel a ucket. “What I want is intelligence,” cries the harried Mr. Grady to reporters. “Our make-up experts can make any woman look beautiful. If she’s got too much upholstering around the thighs and not enough higher up, our masseurs can move it up. But we can’t give her brains.” . Quite an admission from Hollywood, isn’t it.- And a break for the girls who have had to take a back seat while the cuties cavorted all over the place. So it looks as if Miss Dumb Dora would be taking a final curtain. If we don’t see her around for a long time, it will be soon enough. And now, when the bachelors get equal sense in their heads, we shall believe we are really entering a new era. : We ought to squelch the pernicious and degrading notion that intelligence is a handicap for giris. All

women go right on spouting the worth of a theory hatched up a long time ago by some wight who couldn’t stand the thought of any intellectual competition in the family. As long as Nature arranges for children to inherit from the maternal as well as the paternal side, men who seek brainless wives are ap

. NEW-‘YORK, Aug. 15.—Although Mr. Bud Ekins of 65 | the United Press has been kicked out of Italy there

Duce had faded out of his army maneuvers and the:

Meanwhile it should be kept in mind that under

far more sinister meaning. The jurisdictional dispute

facts prove the contrary, although the men and some |},

|*Something Else for You,

a Fon A A NAS

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

FAVORS BEAT MAN TO CURB CRIME

By Indignant

Chief Morrissey’s statement “It’s the man on the beat who prevents crime” is true. One officer walking a beat could do more to rid our streets of drunks, thieves, and hoodlums than 10 of the squad car men, whose motto seems to be “eyes front.” Respectable citizens are denied the use of many of our streets on Friday and Saturday nights. The sidewalks of Massachusetts Ave,

by groups of drunken, cussing men on these nights, and fights are common occurrences. Decent men and women are jostled, insulted and struck by this rabble. Thus an important shopping center has been closed to them. There are few business establishments in this district that have not been held up, burglarized or both, many of them more than once. ‘Streets, alleys and store entrances are defiled, bottles are broken in the streets, citizens are knocked down and robbed. Bands of hoodlums roam. the streets, shouting, cursing, until dawn, unmolested. Drunks asleep in entrances are common sights. : One good “beat man” could restore this block to the citizens and taxpayers, to whom it rightfully belongs.

2 nn 8

PRODUCTION FOR USE HELD KEY TO RECOVERY By Jasper Douglas

It would be humorous if not so tragic to read the outbursts of Mr. Maddox and a few others who are alarmed lest there grow up a sentiment for some change in our present system that will make it possible to do away with depressions and poverty and put Government in the hands of the people as our Constitution and its founders intended. Any person who advocates a change for the betterment of the whole nation is dubbed un-Amer-ican. . . . : Those who rail at the isms and shout that Communists, Socialists and Nazis should be disfranchised and transported out of the country have simply condemned without a hearing the various causes they abuse. Their information (or misinformation) has all been gathered from its enemies and they have never read a word of literature put out by the organizations they condemn to try to find out if in them Shere may not be a little that is good. ; The writer is an American of the fourth generation and would be among the first to condemn any-

from Walnut to College, are blocked |

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

thing un-American, but the last 10 years have so clearly shown that the capitalist system of production and distribution for the profit of the few by the impoverishment of the many must give way to a more truly American system of production for use, with all our boundless resources of raw materials, machinery and manpower put into action, not for profit but for the purpose of giving that abundance for all of which the country is capable. : In the last 10 years the wasted man power, by unemployment, of those willing and able to work would have produced $2700 for every family in the United States. Then how foolish to continue to waste while there are still one-third of our people who are ill-housed, illclad and ill-fed. 8 = =

GARNER TESTIMONY CITED IN CRITICISM By R. Sprunger : : In 1926 Cactus Jack was testi-

'| fying before the House Committee

on Immigration on a bill to place Cuba, Canada and Mexico on regular quotas. He was against it for fear it would raise the cost of farm labor on the big fruit and vegetable plantations of southern Texas. He stated the following about Mexicans: “They know very little about a court or about a process or anything of that kind. It is the sheriff that goes down and picks them out and tells them to do

something and that they do. In our country they do not cause any trouble, unless they stay there a long time and become Americanized. They are a very docile people. They can be imposed on; the sheriff can go out and make them do anything.” Mr. Maddox has said that by “political courtesy,” Cactus Jack

{should have the Democratic Party

nomination for President in 1940. Mr. Maddox speaks so much ‘of Americanism and justice and accuses Socialists of being traitors and. un-American. Maybe Mr. Maddox can twist this around so it won’t look so bad for Cactus Jack. : sg 8 ADDS TO LEWIS’ COMMENTS ON GARNER By Daniel Francis Clancy, Logansport, Ind.

.. ..John L. Lewis’ calling Vice President Garner a labor-baiting, poker-playing, whisky-drinking, evil old man may have been right or wrong—but he would have been safe in adding that he is a bore.

THINKS WPA LAYOFF PROVISION IGNORED

By John A. Warren The bill recently passed by Congress curtailing WPA activities, was by the intent of Congress to be a rigid automatic dismissal of all WPA workers who have been on the rolls for 18 months. John K. Jennings, State Director, terpreting the bill to meet his own ideas of who are to be dismissed. On June 30, a U. S. Senator rose in the Senate and made the following statement before voting on the bill, “There are persons within the WPA who will use every subterfuge and device to circumvent the will of Congress.” Is there no means of compelling Mr. Jennings to obey the mandate

of Congress?

New Books at the Library

“ a4 PINNACLE plateau rising from

a forested deep gorge in the

Santa Yenz mountains of southern California’’—a little promontory

‘that was just large enough to hold

a house, a garden and small olive and orange groves, a tiny discreet heaven apparently detached from the world, made a perfect ssetting for the home of Leo Walden, biologist. It is in this setting that Louise Redfield Peattie,

wife of Donald Culross Pegttie, has

Side Glances—By Galbraith

~

kingdom of God.—Mark 10:25. F all the riches that we hug, of| this is

placed the scene of her novel, “Star at Noon” (Doubleday). It is a story of tangled loyalties, of complicated relationships caused by the fact that Leo Walden, living comfortably with his second. wife, Emma, whom he called “His Solid Comfort,” has the urge to see his daughter by his first marriage and invites her to visit them. Andrea accepts the invitation. Soon after her arrival she realizes that Leo still loves her mother, and, knowing that Bliss is still in love with her father, she fears the worst. To complicate matters more, it is love at first sight for Andrea and Leo’s stepson, Hal. How. they untangle the web that binds them all together cannot be told in a few words. Mrs. Peattie explains the raveling of this interweaving of emotions when she says: “To forgive their children is the favorite self-indul-gence of parents. Presently the children discover that in combatting their parents lie virtues of honesty and courage. And by the time they learn to forgive their parents, these older people have become a source of care and worry and love, like children. } Th! : “We are all struggling here together at once, and in the struggle it is not always noticed that everyone is fighting on the same side.”

DARKNESS AND LIGHT By JAMES A. SPRAGUE If the sun shone on forever, There were no clouds nor night; Poor man would walk in darkness So blinded by the light.

We need the clouds and shadows, ‘We need the dark of night; For rest and strength of purpose To rightly use the light. :

DAILY THOUGHT It is easier for a camel to go

through the eye of a needle, than

for a rich man to enter into the

ail the pleasures we enioy. ve

is in-}|,

Gen. Johnson Says—

. Approaching = Canal Anniversary, ‘Merits a Tribute for Goethals, A Great Executive and Leader. - WASHINGTON, Aug, 15—The approaching anni. versary of the Panama Canal warrants a. column on

George W. Goethals. It is a labor of love. He was my boss during part of the war and for many more

‘years my close personal friend.

As an Army officer he was peculiar to himself— absolute, fair, kindly, human and unbelievably effi«

]| ctent. He had no more “side” than a stevedore. His

principal peeve was pretense. He was an instructor in practical at West Point at about the time I entered—15 years be= fore the canal. One of his final examination questions to a boy about to become a second lieutenant was: “You have just reported to. your first station. Colonel appoints you police officer (meaning general handy man). The 90-foot flagpole has fallen and broken in a hurricane. How do you put it up?”

Few graduates of the primary engineering course would know but any one would make a bluffing complicated stab about the use of shears and pulleys. This one did. Lieut. Goethals interrupted him at once. ; : : : ¢ . “Aw, you just call the provost sergeant and say, ‘Sergeant, get that blank blank pole up and do it before noon.’ ” : ; 2 8 =

HAT was the way Gen. Goethals built the canal. 7 He didn’t claim to be an expert on that kind of engineering. Most of that technical planning had been done before he came. That wasn’t why the canal wasn’t getting itself built. The trouble was indecision and divided authority. Goethals was one of the best executives in this country. So he built thg canal where others had failed for nearly a century. If he believed in you, you couldn’t be wrong about anything. That furious loyalty to subordinates got him as furious a devotion. and effort from juniors as any leader ever had. On the other hand, if he didn’t believe in you, you were an untouchable so far as he was concerned. One of my jobs under him was to try to “co-ordinate” Army purchase—which meant to get the heads of seven supply departments to play together. On two of them were brass hat major generals who had ranked me by many years in the old Army. There were hot conferences where his seniority and commanding presence were absolutely necessary to me. : 2 ® EJ IS invariable answer was: - ? “Old so-and-so and so-and-so are there, aren't they? Yes. Well, I wouldn't sit in the same room with those two blankety-blanks. If you want me to get their scalps, say so, but I'll be darned if I'll breathe the same air they do.” He became an expert on slides in the Culebra Cut, | After the war, a great city had an important road | that kept sliding down a hill. They tried to employ him as consulting engineer. He didn’t want to go. Finally he named a fee so high he thought they wouldn't accept, but they did. Then he said: “See those big boulders on the hill above the road? Yes, well, roll ‘em all down below the road. When does my next train leave? And how about my fee?”

There was an awful row about that. They wanted an elaborate report for their money. He wouldn't give it. Finally they rolled the rocks down. The road was anchored. Goethals got his money.

Aviation By Maj. Al Williams

He Recounts the Thrill of Flying With a Motor You've Worked on.

RK 7ASHINGTON, Aug. 15.—The other day, watche ~ YV ing a Putt-Putt pilot take off his Sunday-go-to= meeting coat, roll up his sleeves, and tear the cowling off his engine to get along with a repair job, reminded me of an incident. ; I was stationed at ton Roads Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Va. Theré I had two of the best flight mechanics the Navy ever turned out—Floyd Bennett and Wilmer Stultz. A new and rare flying

| animal had just been delivered to us in boxes, a

British Vickers Viking, single-seated (Napier) amphibe ian flying boat. :

Amphibs were rarities in those days, and the Brite ish Napier engine was entirely unknown in this country—using castor oil instead of the mineral oil with which all our engines were lubricated. We studied the plans and set up the Viking from blueprints. Then we flew it round, making one landing on the land and the next on the water. Someone insisted that we could use mineral oil for lubrication, so we used it, and burned out the first engine. We had been holding the Viking to take Admiral Moffett to Washington the next day. The burn-out left us in a picklement. So Bennett and Sialis and yours truly donned overalls and went to wor }

Then the Fun Began

We had a spare engine. It was only hand labor ta get ‘the busted engine out, but when we installed the new one we found that the blueprints failed to mention the necessity for a certain amount of welding and brazing to get the water-cooling. pipes at the proper angle. ; : We knew nothing about handling oxyacetylens welding torches. That's specialty requiring years of training. But we were too young to bother about a little thing like that, : : ; It was 4:30 a. m. We'd worked straight through the night. After fiddling around, we got the torch lighted, and then the fun started. pin ao A small opening, about the size of a silver dollar, had to be covered with metal. Each time I'd think the job was done, the covering would sag in the middle or the metal would run all over the place. If took two hours and about 10 pounds of metal to close that center hole—a great, unsightly mess of metal on the sida of a new engine. ha : We flew Admiral Moffett to Washington that aft ernoon—without telling him about the welding job, of course. But every once in a while we looked at the motor overhead, watching for a leak. It held tight. Boy, the thrill of flying the motor you've worked on{

Watching Your Health By Jane Stafford

a child complains of growing pains, those inIF dante, nagging aches that occur most often in the legs, he should be taken to the doctor. Many times such indefinite pains are not significant, but they may-be a| symptom of rheumatic fever. This disease can damage the heart seriously, so of course, it is important to have it diagnosed and treatmeni started promptly. = ; ; | ‘The amount of heart disease found in children = | who have had non-rheumatic growing pains is. not greater than would be expected to occur in the child population generally according to a physician, Dr. J. et Hawksley, writing in the British Medical Jo . ih - This same doctor brings out some differences between ‘growing pains and rheumatism, of which growing pains are sometimes considered a direct sign. Rheumatism, he points out, affects the joints and there is usually pain or tenderness when they are moved or touched. Growing pains, on the other hand, are usually felt in muscles, ligaments and tendons, there is no redness or swelling as in rheumatism, and tenderness is rare. The pain is more nage ging and more likely to cause crying in the non-rheu-matic condition. _ Defects of posture or of the spine or feet are often found to be the cause of growing pains, which, since they can often be corrected, constitute another reason for taking the child with growing pains to the doctor. : En The rheumatic child is often anemic, but the

one

‘best of health. Patients with growing pains, Dr. Hawksley says, are usually sulky and unsociable, but

uncommon in rhe ] with

J