Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 October 1939 — Page 8

The Indianapolis ‘Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) ~~

ROY w. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE Presiden t Editor - : Business Manager 4 Price in Marion Coun‘ty, 3 cents a copy; deliv: ered by carrier, 12 cents a week.’

Mail subscription rates in ‘Indiana, $3 -a ‘year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents as month.

«> RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

~ _ Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by

{ Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, Service, and Audit Teau of Circulation.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1939

_ “ALL THUMBS” ATH came in| Switzerland the other day to an: old man ‘who once tried to: serve ‘Germany by keeping the United States out of the World War. Years after that war ended, Count Von Bernstorff told why his efforts failed. As Germany's Ambassador to Washington, it was his duty to inform his government about the state of American opinion. This, he said, he tried faithfully to do. After

the Lusitania sinking he repeatedly warned his government.

that another such incident, or an unlimited extension of submarine warfare, would bring this country in. : “But,” he added sadly, “they would not listen.” 2 x x x = = The unfortunate German people owe much of their troubles to the positive genius of their rulers for misjudging the psychology of other nations. It was true under - Kaiser Wilhelm and it is true under Hitler. Yesterday Hitler proposed through an agent—Dr. Otte Dietrich, the Nazi press chief—that President Roosevelt save Europe from “the most gruesome blood-bath in history” by telling Prime Minister Chamberlain that he must express a willingness to meet Germany in conference. - Failing that, it was implied, Germany would unleash “war in earnest.” ‘We don’t know whether Hitler seriously believed the President would act on such a suggestion conveyed in such a manner. Perhaps, having blamed Poland and then Britain for starting the war, he’s now trying to fix blame on Mr. Roosevelt for not stopping it. In either case, we think, he has misjudged American psychology. For the American people, much as they would like to see peace in Europe, have no desire to involve themselves in the quarrel over there by ordering Britain to negotiate for peace on Hitler's terms. If both sides should ask the President, officially, to help them make peace, that would be different. | oo FA * ® = = | “They would not listen.” Those words, it seems to us, explain a lot about why Germany has been so consistently clumsy in her foreign relations. Berlin still talks as if Russia and. Italy will enter the war on Germany's side whenever Hitler pushes the buzzer. From this distance, it seems more likely that he has lost Mussolini by going into partnership with Stalin, and that Stalin is playing him for a sucker. However that may be, what we need to Seinember is this: It took more than clumsy German policy to get us

into war, in those days when Berlin wouldn't listen to Von |

Bernstorff. We made plenty of mistakes of our own. This | time, let’s be wiser. With a clumsy man loose in Europe, getting himself and others into trouble, let's be doubly careful that he doesn’t get us into trouble.

IT'S ONLY A LINE N 1494 Pope Alexander VI undertook to settle for all time all quarrels concerning the new world. He drew a line—a north-south line—and by a Papal Bull he decreed that all lands lying to the east of that . line were the property of Portugal and all to the west belonged to Spain. : Portugal and Spain readily accepted Pope Alexander's ‘line as having the full force and effect of international law—or whatever was the 15th Century’s equivalent of that term. - For more than 300 years “beyond the line” was a phrase conspicuous in Spanish diplomacy. But the British, French and Dutch paid scant heed. As soon as they discovered the vast and rich areas beyond the line they began to lay hands-on same. All this is recalled by way of emphasizing that the Declaration of Panama, drawing lines far out into the ‘Atlantic and Pacific and circumscribing the shores of the 21 'American republics, can hardly be regarded as an accomplished fact. The decree that non-American nations commit no acts of war against each other within the waters of the so-called security zone is not self-enforcing. It is necessary either that European and Asiatic powers voluntarily accept the rules laid down, or that we build a Navy large enough Ei strong enough to command their acquiescence. Within the United States the Constitution is what the judges say it is. On the seas there is one supreme arbiter of international law—the strongest navy.

A PENNY IN COURT

NOT that we want to start an argument with the United States Supreme, Court, but it does seem too bad that the justices, in their wisdom, have refused to review the case brought before them by C. Leon de Aryan of East San Diego, Cal. Mr, de Argan thus loses a long battle to recover 1 cent which he contended was collected from him wrongfully under the California Sales Tax Law. Citizens of many states have objected to sales tax rates which purported to be 2 or 3 per cent, but which actually amounted to 10 or 20 per cent on purchases costing a dime or a nickel. ‘He was fighting, of course, for a principle rather than for a penny. We wish, in these times of multi-billion public spending, the Supreme Court could have found it possible Jto give its attention to that 1-cent case. It was an opportunity to rile on another principle—one that was stated by Benjamin Franklin and that might well have been reaffirmed now by high authority: Take care of the pennies and the dollars. will take care of themselves.

~ OPTIMISTS | : Te rare birds, these days, but we've inanaged to find at least two in the current news: Stewart McClintick, 80 years old, of New. Virginia, Towa, who still opens his livery stable for business at 6 o'clock évery morning, although there hasn't been a horse in its stalls since 1918. And the Rev. W. D. Baker of Iola, ‘Kas., who, when asked how he felt after both his legs were 1 ccident, replied, “Well, I can’t: Jeiok” li

Fair Enctgh

By Westbrook Pegler

Influence of British Among Us Is Amazing in View of Small Numbers Of Them Who Have Settled Here.

EW YORK, Oct. 14 —How odd it is that the —English, who have sent this country fewer immigrants than Andorra since the United States put on long pants and began to carry matches and shave,

nevertheless, have more influence among us than any of those foreign elements who came here in bewildered droves to engage in strong back toil but still, even to the third generation, are snootily regarded as being at least a little bit foreign. I have no statistics on the English immigration, and it is only by a firm effort of the will that I refrain from making up some. However, in the course

come upon an English colony anywhere in the United States, and’ individual Englishmen, naturalized or otherwise, are comparatively rare. They have had other plans, Their surplus ‘sons of the dude and semi-dude classes, after the elder ones had been bedded down in the army and navy,

to Canada, Australia and Africa. The low-born:fol-lowed their betters to the colonies, where their efforts counted for the empire. Few came here, most of those few were not at all pleased, and: they have

harvest fields. : s ss 8 ; OTWITHSTANDING the comparative rarity of

in the land a strange, inscrutable feeling cf not exactly aloofness but something like .it toward persons whose names end in vowels of “itch.” This feeling is less noticeable toward persons with Scandinavian or German names but has not been wholly conquered, and there is a vague, unspoken superstition in the hearts of Americans of British descent that they are big casino even though they actively dislike England. I think the feeling is due in part to the humbug of titles and rank in England whereby, against our sense, we are taken in by the transformation of an ordinary Englishman into a lord in recognition of some routine service in trade or public office or, more likely, .in reward for a cash. contribution to a political campaign’ fund. Had we the same system, Jim Farley, Paul McNutt, Chip Robert, Jim Moffatt: and Mrs. Perkins would have received titles long ago and Mr. Farley, entirely forsaking the name of his fathers, would now be known as Lord Rockland. 2 2 =»

VEN the ordinary, untitled, pip-pip and toodle-o00

someone a little more special than an American of equal intelligence or a German, Italian or Spaniard. He is an Englishman, you understand, and is puzzled and a little disdainful at the .gaping politeness of Americans eager to agree with him. ' The Americans of other breeds sometimes form

bers and, incidentally, ballyhoo' traits of their stock which they deem admirable Yet these often are regarded as propaganda circles or foreignizing influences and are resented. The English, or British, don’t do this. For one reason, there aren’t enough of them, and, for another, snobbery is so strong through all the grades that they couldn't get together. For still another, they don’t have to. Something in the American nature performs the service of a propaganda bureau. Neither nudging nor expenditure is AR

Business By John T. Flynn

No Matter What Happens Victory Is on Side of the Neutrality Bloc.

TEW YORK, Oct. 14. —There is one aspect of this neutrality fight which has been quite completely overlooked. That is that under no circumstances can the advocates of neutrality lose wholly. These facts must be recognized: - Congress is in session; Congress, as the representative of the American people, is now actually debating what course the country shall take in this present world crisis and Congress: will settle it. Also Congress is for cash-and-carry, for keeping belligerent shipments off American ships and American citizens off - belligerent ships, and so on. -Having recognized these facts, we must recognize another fact—that if Congress is in session and is for all these things, it is because the neutrality bloc in Congress, against the wishes and influence of the President, forced the adoption of the neutrality legislation we now have. In other words; the very fact that Congress is settling this problem and that Congress is for neutrality legislation is due to the neu"trality legislation which Senators Nye and Bone and Borah and Clark and Vandenberg put through Congress in 1936 and 1937. . This -means that these Senators have won their victory. The worst that can happen to them now is that they may lose the arms embargo and have their neutrality plans weakened to that extent.

Recalling Some History

The country has forgotten that the chief opponent of all the neutrality legislation was the State Department and the President. If Roosevelt had his way there would be no neutrality legislation now; there would be no bill of any kind to amend; there would be no need to have Congress in session; Congress would not have been called; there would have been no debate. The whole thing would be settled by the President and the State Department at its own sweet will, as it was in the last war when we were taken by our leaders, secretly, little by little and step by step, into war with Germany—Ileaders, by the way, who were very much more opposed to collaboration with Europe than our present leaders. All of these people who. are now so eagerly for cash-and-carry and keeping. Americans off the ships of warring nations and American cargoes off American ships bound for warring zones would do well to remember that they owe the present advance along the road of neutrality to the group of Senators who are now fighting to save the arms embargo—and that from the beginning of this battle, which goes back to 1935, the forces which have had to be battled all the way were the President and the State Department.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Hoo EROUN, who, I am convinced, is sincerely eager preserve liberty and writes excellent homilies these days about our oi responsibility to the world at large. - In this he is ably abetted by Miss Dorothy Thompson, Mrs. Roosevelt and other intellectual leaders. It would be wrong to question their sincerity, but their reasoning ought certainly to be challenged, since a good many of their remarks have the trumpet sound. We must, they imply, be prepared to assume moral” leadership in an evil world and that means only one thing now—that we shall be ready to assert the right of moral superiority ‘with guns. I believe every sensible American citizen should refuse to be misled by such preachments. In the first place, morality and war are scarcely compatible, and in all the years since humankind has cumbered

force has been done in the name of righteousness. In our short history we have meddled a great deal in other people's affairs. Persistently we have dispatched missionaries into all parts of the world, to teach our religious “isms,” yet when other people come here peddling their “isms” we dub them revolutionaries and iconoclasts.

recall that the talk of white men who came minister ing to the Indians’ moral welfare during my girlhood days in the Choctaw Nation was extremely 7 ples. Most of them were good and sincere beings, too "Yet, after the Indian's soul had been saved, He, of his worldly goods had vanished into the white ‘man’s pocket. The “holier than thou” in:

‘mirable in

of some rather extensive getting-around I have never

the civil service and the ministry, went out to India, |

never been conspicuous in the railroad - camps or

Englishmen among us, however, there persists |, :

Englishman in our midst also is undeniably"

clubs to promote good Americanism arhong their num-

the earth every aggressive move made with armed

Perhaps my memory is too long. At any rate I|

1Gen. Johnson

Says—

Jnactioty oh the West Wall Means “That Allies Have Shifted Tactics and Are Placing Reliance on the Defense. : ASHINGTON, Oct. 14—The charge of “phoney

war” applied to the “waltz-me-around-again willie” affair on the Western Front is inaccurate.

‘What we are observing is the result of one of the

periodical grand shifts in military theory which. seem to sweep the profession at various intervals. Ever since Napoleon, the accepted axiom has been that the offensive is the only road to victory and that even the best defense is a vigorous attack. Marshal Foch was the outstanding prophet of this

philosophy. The French general staff in 1914 was

committed to it to the hilt. It had indoctrinated even

| the British high command in spite of an Englisit tra-

“The ‘Hoosier Forum

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

PRAISES EXPOSE OF POLITICS IN RELIEF By L. C. Martin. -I think you are doing a fine thing by the expose of the unfairness and selfish actions of our Township Trustee and assistants. Keep right at it and we may get rid of such

persons that are holding a lot of political offices at present. It is getting pretty bad when they will commercialize on. such a thing as charity and relief work. Lots of luck to you.

el Ee

SEES ROOSEVELT USING WAR AS SHIELD By Country Gentleman

It is perfectly natural that Mr. Roosevelt should remain cool to a suggestion to act as mediator in the European war. If the war should end now, he could not attract our giddy minds to foreign quarrels’ as a substitute for his'own inability to cope with our domestic problems. He follows the advice of “Henry IV” in the fourth act to his son:

“I... had a purpose now To lead out many to the Holy Land, Lest rest and lying still might make them look Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course, to busy giddy minds ; With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days.”

If the war boom collapses now, Mr. Roosevelt must find another alibi fdr his failure to set our own house in order. Those emergency powers are too much for him to pass by if he can create even a

limited emergency. To him fell the|®

task of rationalizing our domestic economy. He has dodged the job successfully thus far. If the war goes on he can dodge it till the end of his term; if not, he must face it soon. : ® = = CLAIMS PETITIONS ON NEUTRALITY IGNORED By Mary J. Leach

It seems that it is futile to appeal to either our Senators or Representatives in this crisis. Two years ago we had one Hoosier Senator who seemed to have developed enough independence to be classed with truly American statesmen. Alas! In this moral crisis he too has deserted both God and countrymen. “What is wrong with our country

LOCAL DEMOCRATS

(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.)

that the moral law is flouted, the

right of petition to express their honest convictions? If our petitions fall on deaf ears, then ‘we not only failed to save democracy in Europe, we have lost it in our own country. Every American knows there are good features in the proposed bill but they also realize that every good feature 'is nullified by repeal of our present Arms Embargo. And, when either our Senators or our Representatives even listen to the

proposal to allow 90 days’ credit to those nations who have refused to pay a dime on their debt of 19 years’ standing, they are guilty of treason to the American taxpayers. Will the members of the 1939 Congress—Special Session—betray those brave men who founded and made this Retin by accepting such legislation? . »

CHIDED ON RECORD By Citizen : In this land of freedom (the last on earth) our local Democratic poli-{

ticians have seized every golden op-

portunity to. “make hay while the sun shines.” They have a fine rec-

people ridiculed, maligned and in-|° [sulted for using their Constitutional

raids without warrants have long since ceased to be funny. One local politician is arrested by 11 squad cars for. disturbing the peace; he is freed because of “a confusion of evidence.”

Our local politicians have a fine|

record of relief disbursement. To profit at the expense of people who have lost everything brings a new law in political haymaking. Just look at our news. venders on a cold, rainy day for a good example of local political methods. Last, but not least, our local politicians have a. fine record of election success. . They can do more tricks with, the ballots and get away with it than ever known before. Let's give three long “cheers” for their appreciation of this land of: liberty.

» » » WANTS ENGLAND RETURN LANDS IT SEIZED By Student : If Mr, Chamberlain would offer to restore South Africa to the Boers, along with his black subjects. in Somaliland, Basataland, Bechunaland and all his other subject nations in .the British empire, as a signal that he too would avoid .the fruits of ‘conquest, his ‘terms of peace would not sound so hollow, Why .did Chamberlain studiously refrain from mentioning Joe Stalin’s excursion into Poland or even declaring a state of war against him for the excursion? Well, anyway, it looks as if Joe ‘Stalin will become

{the undertaker for the whole gang.

‘ 2 2 = REMINDED OF LINE - FROM RABELAIS By M. K.

Hitler's last bid for peace reminds me of Rabelais’ famous line, “The Devil was sick the Devil a monk

ord of law enforcement. . Their vice

would be.”

New Books at the Library

EN years ago a number of distinguished men and women were invited by a publishing house and the editors of “The Forum” to state for publication their “personal credgs”—the moral and spir= itual cre by which they lived, their theories of lifz and death, and their concept of man’s relation to man and to the universe. Twenty-two essays by such famous people as Albert Einstein, Sir James Jeans, Theodore Dreiser,

Julia Peterkin, George Jean Nathan and H. G. Wells subsequently ap-

attitude is To more ad-

Side Glances—By Galbraith

peared in ‘book form as “Living Philosophies.” The changes of the decade—depression, the rise of fascism and dictatorships, war—have modified and in some respects annihilated the traditions upon which the philosophers of 1929 based their beliefs. A new series of intimate credos, written by a contemporary group of eminent men and women, and edited by Clifton Fadiman, is now published under the. title “I .Believe” (Simon and Schuster). ‘Interesting not only for their revelation of the writers’ deepest convictions, but also for the contrast they present between the cultural, spiritual. and humane concepts of 1929 and 1939, are the essays of the 21° famous contributors, among whom are Pearl Buck, Havelock Ellis, Ellen Glasgow, Lin :Yutang, Emil Ludwig, Thomas Mann, George Santayana, Vilhjalmur Stefanson, Hendrik Van Loon and Rebecca West. TIMEQUAKE : \ By LEW CIEL : It did surprise me, finding wine and bread, Unleavened bread, and cups get

out for three! =. My beauty-loving spirit freely fed

Wit 1 paintings done in oil; then in

but time Was Shaken jarsins open sudden gash,

* canyon deep And firm a bedrock: strata, | answered calls or Ohitist, .of Monss, Popes. in surface

tapping no noise.

DAILY THOUGHT

{Sell cunt ve favs, an give alas. —Liuke 1

Ygon the scene as still life, art in| Of Pe I felt i a quake—not earth, :

Revealing - those who : “sought a! me

umbered sweep. or Wow dull, if plummet from time's | o

dition for the defensive centuries old. No one will ever know how many hundreds of thousands of lives were needlessly sacrificed to it in the World War. That was what Mr. Hoover meant when he recently suggested ‘that the Allies would

‘| have prevailed earlier and without our help if they

had not wasted so much effort in trench attacks. The whole subject is beautifully covered in the

| current issue of the. Infantry Journal by Maj. Tom

Phillips under a heading—Blind Adherence to “Principles” of War Has Lost More Battles Than Trasson, Cowardice or Stupidity.

2 x =

: WEL the pendulum has swung to the other end

of the arc so far as British and French mili= tary thinking is concerned. They favor the defensive now. Nothing could make that plainer than the book of an English expert, Gapt. Liddell Hart, “The Defense of Britain,” written just before Hitler's amazing offensive in Poland. The latter event makes some of

‘| Capt. Hart's pages sound a little silly, but that does

not change the certainty of this sweeping reversal of European military thinking. Maj. Phillips’ thesis is by far the more reasonable —that there is no cast-iron rule, that military strategy is not a mathematical science and: there are circumstances in which only the offensive is indicated even . in defense and others where the reverse is true. On the Napoleonic theory that victory can be gained only by attack, Maj. Phillips observes that Bonaparte’s grand army was destroyed in Russia by a purely defensive strategy ‘and that, whereas Fabius was displaced because of the “Fabian” strategy of retreat and delay against Hannibal, the moment his successor began to attack he ran into the most overwhelming defeat in military history—Cannae.

AJ. PHILLIPS might have added that when the Fabian, Joe Johnston, was replaced against Sherman by Hood who “would charge hell with a bucket of water’—exactly the same thing happened. Time works against Adolf. It is not easy to‘keep a natien -fully keyed up.and mobilized for war and yet inactive. England, at least, is still in the excitement of getting ready with a long, long effort ahead to keep up the national interest. Winter is almost here. Hitler will have more months to stew in his own hot water. A few. “confidential” tacts are . seeping through about raids of 20 to 30 bombers on naval forces. They have been flops—on both sides. There are some indications that new defenses against mass raids on - large cities make them too dangerous and fruitless to try. It begins to look like a contest in stalemate and starvation. ;

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun Elliott Only the Metin by ‘Which

Society Took Revenge on Slayers.

EW YORK, Oct. 14—The rewrite men went to town nimbly in the obits which they did on Robert G. Elliott, official executioner for half a dozen states. It could be unlike any other death notice in a decade. An old gentleman dies quietly in his sub= urban home. His dear ones are around him, and the garden patch lies outside the window of his bedroom. Death has to fake a bus to Richmond Hill in order to find the man who pulled the switch: «for more than 300 of the gondemned. : On the whole it seemed to me that the pieces in the papers showed how well reporters write. The temptation to go Edgar "Allan Poe on the public must have been present, but in only one account did I catch the word “macabre.” The boys didn’t let the story run away with ‘them, and in the main they refrained from bearing down on the dead executioner. After all, there was much in what he said when he stated simply some years ago that he was opposed to capital punishment and explained. “But I have. not killed these people. You who read this and are voters of these six states’ have done that. You have done it through the laws you have passed. You have done it through due process of the courts. I have carried out your orders.”

He Might Have Gone Further

In fact, I think that Mr. Elliott might have carried his philosophy even further and into aspecis of: life where even greater numbers die. Individuals and groups in many -lands express a horror of war and of leaders who seem to be directly responsible for slaughter. But many who cry out against carnage have done singularly little to abate its causes or to bring about any Mind of international agreement which might stay the sound of the drums and guns. In a sense Robert Elliott was blasted for the sins of the community in which he lived. Nor do I refer only to the fact that he was the medium through whom society took revenge upon criminals who warred against it. However slight and indirect, some definite part of the responsibility for crime, even in its most. atrocious ‘forms, rests upon each of us. People who have made scientific studies of housing assure us that bad living conditions have a’ mathematically ascer-

‘ tainable effect on crime. And so, until the slums are . |

cleared, it is hoity-toity for us to take on airs about an agent who merely wrote finis to certain cha in. which we have collaborated. There have been those for whom the chair was being made ready almost from the first moment, of a warped and haven lite. *

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

Wis Johnny picks ‘up whooping - cough or. measles or some other ailment from a ‘school="mate, he and his parents are likely to hear the school

‘doctor or nurse-or their own physician ure some. un=

familiar and confusing terms. Fumigation, for En is i the same as aise infection. Disinfection applies to germs, and means destroying their vitality by chemicals or by physi means, such as boiling orburning. Fumiga

ov ate hy sting of o pss wi Seat Bg you diSinfect the dighes a measles 7 A carrier is

Could neve sound the depths wit} 0. cat | articles