Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 October 1939 — Page 16

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1939

BALONEY FROM BUTLER PPEARING in the international scene is a school of socalled thought that Would now put the blame for the second world war on none other than Uncle Sam. This particular buckpassing from abroad has moved cautiously up to now, but it’s moving. : Co The idea is grotesque enough to seem humorous at first. But repetition is a powerful thing. So we may e pect in the fullness of time to be firmly established as the |scapeoat. Cy E It is sufficiently fantastic when such propagan sticks its head up across the sea. But now we have a well-known American and Anglophile tuning in on the same theme— none other than Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler. Says the headline: “Dr. Butler puts war blame on

U.S. lethargy. Says world-wide conflict is due to our failure to force removal of causes.” #8 = = : 2 8 8 The doctor sneers at those who ‘emotionally agitate” for peace, assails America for not “doing something” to prevent war by removing the causes, and actually bursts into such remarkable language as—“This is the real ques‘tion for Americans to answer, since their responsibility for the present tragic state of affairs is direct and overwhelming.” Now that the doctor has decreed, we suppose th U. S. ‘must forever cringe under the indictment of having caused the power grabbing at Versailles and of not having restrained French tertitorial greed in the Near East in the early 1920's. It was the U. S. no doubt that prevented the peaceful and democratic German-Austrian customs [union in 1926 or thereabouts, a move that might have made Hitler impossible; the U. S. who set up the blood-out-of-a-turnip reparations formula; who failed to stop France from reaching into the Ruhr, and, later, failed to stop Germany| from marching her armed forces back. oo, And while flagellating ourselves, let’s not fail to assume responsibility for Britain and France making impossible the growth of a German democracy when democracy had a chance in the days of Bruening and Stresemann, and for not compelling our former Allies to live up to their disarmament agreements which grew out of the Versailles

conference. : 2 8 8 2 8

Last but not least, it unquestionably was of our doing that Sir John Simon double-crossed us in 1931 when our own Secretary Stimson tried to put the whole principle of collective security to a test in the Manchukuo affair. And what were our calloused citizens doing all that time? They were engaged in the highly improper and mundane task of earning a living 3500 miles away from the seat of power politics, miserably failing the while to appreciate their “moral responsibilities.” No, it must always be to our everlasting shame| that we didn’t take Lloyd George, Clemenceau, old Curzon, Bonar Law, Poincare, et al, and slap their ears down and make them understand the details of this little European problem which had been growing up around their knees for 20 cen{uries. Yes, what is happening in Europe is all our fault; Dr. Butler has spoken. [

WAR AND RACKETS / VVEITIN G from Washington the other day, Raymond ” Clapper pointed out the danger of scandal in connection with the raising of relief funds for European; war victims. | Many entirely legitimate organizations are soliciting such funds. But there's a tempting opportunity for unscrupulous persons, playing on American sympathies; to organize war relief rackets. The State Department, charged by law with the duty of approving such appeals, is swamped by applications and finds it impossible to investigate all carefully. Some 80 organizations for relief in Poland alone have been approved. Mr. Clapper thinks—and we agree—that there should bé an advisory board of well-known citizens, experienced in philanthropy, to investigate all money-raising proposals and . sift out the phony ones. A board of that kind, set up by Newton D. Baker in World War days, investigated about 8000 such proposals and found only 300 of them worthy. A new advisory board, appointed now, could protect generous Americans from relief racketeers and at the same time strengthen public confidence in legitimate appeals; We i |

| l- | |

hope Secretary Hull will follow the Baker precedent.

. MORE CAR—LESS COST

HE automobile season is on again. As always, we marvel at the industry’s advances of a year—handsomer, safer, better cars. ST) A striking illustration of what this mass-produ tion industry has accomplished appears in the United States News, which has figured out the price and horsepower of the average sedan: | In 1920—Price, $2877; horsepower, 43 In 1930—Price, Buy horsepower, 64. | In 1939—Price, $795; ‘horsepower, 85. And in 1940, judging by price reductions announced on the cars now being displayed, the average cost of the new cars, with all their improvements, will be still lower. |

ILLUSION? | FRITZ KREISLER is sorry for the young people of tof ay. i “There is no romanticism for them,” the famed violinist told an interviewer at Columbus, O. “From the start, they are face to face with stern necessities, leaving no time for the foolish little romantic things we did when I was young.” ; We wonder whether Mr. Kreisler hasn’t fallen viétim ‘to an illusion common to the older members of every generation, Certainly, this is a pretty tough world, but hasn't it always been so? And haven't young people always .. found time for the foolish little romantic things? | “ : e facts of life, we think, is thie

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| as much as the hanging of the Salem witches.

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Ohio Also to Vote on 'Ham and Eggs’; Money Required Would Take More Than the State Could Collect.

~LEVELAND, Oct. 19.—The people of Ohio will vote on two proposed amendments to the Con-

stitution’ in the election of Nov. 7. The first would |

provide pensions of $50 a month to each single person over 60 and of $80 a month to each married couple living together. The second would reduce to 100,000 the number of signatures required for a petition, to place proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot and to 50,000 the number of signatures required to submit a proposed law to the voters.

At present about 250,000 signatures are necessary |

to place either an amendment or a law on the ballot, and there are provisions which make it impossible for one city or one region to supply the required number of signatures. - : ay If both amendments pass they doubtless will be invoked to dodge the Legislature ‘and submit to a direct vote of the people all proposed laws or repealers. The sponsor of these proposals is the Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow of Cincinnati, a man now in his 70s, who was in some degree responsible for the municipal reform there and served one term in Congress as an independent New Dealer. FE : : 8 = 8

R. FRANCIS E. TOWNSEND, the author of the revolving pensions scheme, has denounced the Bigelow plan as economically unworkable. Nevertheless, the Townsend following is devoted to the Bigelow plan as something that will do for a substitute until the Townsend plan becomes a reality.

The Rev. Mr. Bigelow once was a Townsend man,

himself, but couldn't wait. » There is great alarm in the business community, and the campaign of the opposition probably will

bring out an uncommonly large vote, because the |:

scheme calls for a state income. tax as well as a boost of 66% per cent in the taxes on all land worth $20,000 an-acre or more, i. "This might raise the taxes on homes in the city and suburban neighborhoods.’ Nobody knows exactly whether the amendment means just-land or land and the improvements and the home-owning citizen doesn’t trust his luck. His 50-foot front with hjs mortgaged home, might be subject to this raise because the amendment lays the tax on land whose value exceeds “the rate of” $20,000 an acre.

T= pension amendment is -a sloppy piece of writing. It would pension all Ohio citizens over 60 who are retired from gainful occupations “as wage earners,” and that is being interpreted as an exclusion, probably unintentional, of farmers, housewives and others. 3 And the shocking possibility has been discovered that elderly couples” entitled to only $80 might feel compelled to live apart to qualify for the rate of $50 each, a net gain of $20 a month, for the assistance of their indigent or tired offspring. There is one screaming clause in the pensign amendment, however, whién outshrills all the rest. That one requires that these pensions, amounting, at a rough estimate, to $300,000,000 a year, about twice the present state budget, would become the first obligation of the state. _ ‘ This would leave no money for any other function of the government. The old people would get it all, and still new revenues would be needed even beyond Mr. Bigelow's income and land taxes, to reward for the achievement of living 60 years.

Business By John T. Flynn

Despite Grief From Last War, lowa Is Buying Heavily in Farm Lands.

EW YORK, Oct. 19.—The strangest report comes from Iowa. In the light of all the blunders of the last war and all the losses suffered by the farmers when that foolish war boom exploded, it is difficult to believe what one hears now about farmers.

The report is that since Hitler marched into Poland there has been a sudden and persistent activity in farm land purchases in Iowa. During the last war the demand for grains and all sorts of farm products abroad sent the prices of these commodities soaring. If the farmers had been content to ‘enjoy the unholy fruits of that war boom on their existing farms they all would have benefited by it. But every farmer figured that if he could only increase his acreage, double it, treble it, he could enormously increase his profits and grow rich.

The result was that farmers rushed about buying up all the land they could manage, loading themselves with heavy mortgages and running up the price of the land. Looking back, one wonders if these men really bes lieved the war was going to last forever. If they did not, upon what principle could they defend the extension of their farms which they would have to go on cultivating? And how could they defend the mortgages, which would last for many years?

They Never Learn

At least we can say that in the last war farmers, as well as businessmen, were children. Economists by the score warned them, but of course they didn’t listen, and then after the war they blamed the economists for not knowing their business. But this time they have at least the advantage of experience 25 years ago. They are still suffering from that experience. That war—bad as it was—disappeared 20 years ago. But the mortgages still hang on. . The insurance companies, which ought to know better, are said to be holding on to the acres they took under foreclosure for better prices. The Federal Land Bank at Omaha reports that, for the first time in 22 years, its monthly total of land sales exceeded a million dollars. . All this results, of course, from the boom in farm prices. which followed Hitler's jarch. And farmers are being told. that the war if going to last a lcng time and that prices are going higher. ‘They are therefore gambling on a long war. At least, that is what they think they are doing. But when they are increasing their holdings and assuming mortgages they are gambling, not on a long war, but on an eternal one, and they are bound to lose. ;

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

T WOULD be safe to say the fate of mankind rests in the hands of historians. Their interpretation of events and, more especially, their choice of heroes, has always set standards for future generations. That’s why I am much interested in a new kind of history. “The Heritage of America” (Little-Brown), which is a compilation by Henry Steele and Allen Nivens of events told by individuals who actually saw them taking place. It ought to be a valuable book for children and young people since it brings the

human element to the front, putting emphasis where |

it should always be—upon the common man and best of all, upon woman, his greatest helper. It seems to me time we should get our share of the glory of making America and so I find it consoling that my séx should be noticed at last. Some of the best bits in the new history are the accounts told in women’s words of their struggles and suffering in the wilderness and upon the westward march. Laudable also is the recital of the'injustices which abounded during our stirring expansion era. The persecution of the Mormons, for example, is stressed Rebellions against conscription in the North preceding the Civil War, are recounted.» Indeed, the whole bitterness engendered by the ccnflict between the States and the horrible destruction of Southern property are fully related. : } Social movements are given as much space as political ones, whole chapters being devoted to the esJeblishmen: of Hull House and the temperance movement. Ladd i

_ THE INDIANAPOLIS

Look Out for

Sui

The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

PRESIDENCY SEEN AS ‘PENALTY’ FOR LINDBERGH

|By A. B.

Lindbergh has talked himself right into the |ranks of presidential possibilities as listed in nationwide polls. | It will serve him right if he’s elected. !

* 8 = DISPUTES FLYNN ON EMBARGO STAND - By Pat Hégan, Columbus, Ind. John T. Flynn, high priest of the isolationists, presents a puerile argument of a steel magnate who fears a war boom will ruin his mills. Also Mr. Flynn visited the office of a Senator and saw. letters 50 to 1 in favor of hanging on to our un-neu-tral law.

On another page of the same paper which carried Mr. Flynn's dark forebodings, the Gallup poll showed the people 57 per cent in favor of erasing the embargo. Evidently Mr. Flynn knows his Senators.

In considering a subject where civilization and greed hang in the balance, it is well to lay aside pretty theories and opinions of the Flynn clan and consider these grim, stark facts. Ours is the best and richest nation on earth; it was founded by a mighty struggle from beneath the heel of the same ruthless foe with which the Allied Powers are now grappling—greed and slavery. We were deeply grateful, if indeed not made victorious, by munitions and other aid from France.

More facts: The allied navies now stand between us and the greatest injustice of all time, while our present un-neutral law aids this injustice,” and places us in greater peril than no law at all. (All shipping is contraband now, but American ships can haul it.)

It is a fact that the Hitler government has made many promises, pacts, and treaties against aggression—and broken every one. Should Hitlerism triumph now, what next? Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, a score of smaller states? With the gold, industrial and natural resources, and war equipment of conquered nations, how long before we will be forced to entertain Herr Hitler? And when Hitler calls on us, will the .steel magnate have the privilege of walking into his 3ffice and airing his views? France placed orders here months ago for planes. Now we must say,

(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.)

“No, we will not fill your orders. We are neutral; besides, there is a moral question about selling implements of slaughter. We enjoy peace and security because of two great oceans. Of course you helped us get this freedom and security, but that is ancient history. Forget it. Go paddle your own canoe. You may be slaughtered because you haven’t enough’ weapons to defend yourself, but that is your hard luck, and no moral question of ours. Good day.” ; el f A 2 8 =» SEES PEOPLE CRUSHED BY GODLESS LEADERS By T. H. G. I have been struck recently with the thought that slowly the pendulum of time is swinging back, back. Once again Godless men heartlessly are slaughtering poor, helpless people who make up nations of the

earth, to gain wealth and prestige %

for themselves.

These people of the earth have worked hard and tirelessly their entire lives, just as we have worked, to make homes for themselves, raise families, and live as normal a life as they think possible. . .

Here's an individual. "One who

practices the teachings of God in his everyday life-“tolerant, good, just and generous. Here's his neighbor or co-worker—out to get everything he can because he has no

|God, no goodness, no fairness. Re-

sult: The God-like man is-surg to give everything to his neighbor, but if he doesn’t, everything will be taken from him by that same neighbor. And so with countries. It is happening today. It will always happen until the people rise up with a loud voice—the voice of God—and say, “Peace on Earth” and so, too, in the hearts ‘of men. Well, we are supposed to be an infelligent generation. 8 t 4 f J RESENTS RADIO BAN ON FATHER COUGHLIN By Charles Norris Tidy Yes, take Father Coughlin off the air; then tear up your Bill of Rights —no more i speech, no more constitutional “gights. We have always been agalfist dictatorship but it seems to me we are pretty clo to one now. Why should any individual be taken off the air when his or her views do not agree with

the present Administration? . .. It seems to me that any individual should be allowed to express his views as long as they are not treasonable. . . . .

” 2 ” SUSPICIOUS OF THAT NAZI PEACE DOVE By N. A. E.

Of course the light may be bad, but from here the Nazi. dove of peace looks strangely like a vulture.

New Books at the Library

GERMAN conservative of the Junker class, for a time a member of the Nazi party and president of the Nazi Senate of Danzig, Hermann Rauschning gives the fruits of his observations and experiences in “The Revolution of Nihilism” (Alliance Book Corporation). Herr Rauschning, like many other conservatives, he says, joined the Nazi party because he felt that its youthful nationalist spirit might bring to post-war Germany the

|

Side Glances—By Galbraith

renascence she so badly needed. Again, like many others, he became disillusioned, broke with the party, and in 1935 went into exile. And now he sounds a “warning to the West”: The world has been asleep while the Nazi party has re-armed Germany and has set’ her upon a revolutionary path which Wi leave no part of the world unaffected. This revolution he calls the revolution of nihilism because it has no doctrine, no end, except the gaining of power and domination. Towards this end no brutality, no violence, no hypocrisy are too great. Within the nation this revolution has meant, and will mean, moral disintegration and the . complete subordination of the individual to the state. In respect to Germany’s foreign relations, it means the disruption of peaceful, co-operative methods of dealing with international problems; it means the spread of revolution throughout the world, the destruction of the world order as we know it, and a mew world organization built about the “young” and “dynamic” nations and supported by violence, he says.’ The author directs his warning to the Germans and to the world in general. He sees, in no distant future, an era of brutality, of repres-

|sion, of degradation. And the one

who will suffer most, he believes, will be Germany. .

‘ ROBIN By MARGARET HUGHES It matters not how deep the sea, How blue the smiling sky above— For all that matters much to me Is but the measure of your love.

The world will turn e’en if the sun Should never shine for days on end— : But give my heart its one desire, To be your love and /not your friend. a

DAILY THOUGHT

Search - the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have - eternal

| life: and they are they which

testify of me.—John 5:39 :

‘| many World War soldiers.

-| years.

marauders.

__ THURSDAY, OCT. 19, Gen. Johnson Says— . ...

Army - Should Call in Industrial Leaders to Confer on Speeding Up Production of Defense ‘Weapons. ASHINGTON, Oct. 19—In this war business,

wealth and resources are important, but they can be almost useless if they are not prepared for

| military use—“mobilized for war.” ~ As long as we

maintain naval and air supremacy, we shall not need

| a big army, but we shall always need a good one.

A good modern army is impossible without three new elements. First: Immensely increased fire-power due to automatic rapid-fire longer-range weapons—

rifles, machine guns and cannon of both small and.

large caliber. Second: , Immensely increased speed and mobility, due to motorization—automotive transport of everything from men to materials. Third: Immensely increased protection by putting this motorized ‘manpower behind steel shields: If this is done, one soldier can do the work of This new: system is peculiarly fitted to our American military problem: and

| industrialized economy. We ought to be farther ad-

vanced in this new technical defense than ‘any other nation. ‘As a matter of unfortunate fact we are ‘among the most laggard. * a £4 » E simply do not have the equipment and at the present rate of preparing it we won't have it for It isn't a question of lack of money now. Congress is in a mood to provide whatever is needed.

| Our rearmament with modern. weapons is solely a

question of production—manufacture. . :

Some of our designs are not even settled. Very few contracts for production have been made and some of those that have been made,.for example, for the wonderful new semi-automatic rifle, call for a rate of production so slow that, if it is not speeded up, we won't get full equipment for years. Ma What's the matter? Well, part of the trouble is that our Army technical branches do not really understand manufacture. They have an obsession for perfection in engineering and design and. nobody does that better. But every commercial manufacturer knows that if there is not some intensely practical control of his engineering or design department, it will go on designing, seeking perfection, until the factory has nothing to sell. : : : » 8 # ‘

: T= very essence of the manufacturing art is to

get something that will do the work required without imposing * impracticably ‘ close standards of which the slight increased margin of excellence: is nowhere near worth the increased cost and loss: of time in production. 2 3 3 : We have produced some veritable magicians ‘in this art. Henry Ford is one. So are Bill Knudsen, Walter Chrysler and Charlie Nash. I don’t know the younger generation so well, but I know that these genii have trained a flock of them in this principle. It is almost a religion in American inustry. .

We don’t yet need a new War Industries Board.

for complete control of industry. But our War Department could multiply the speed of ‘its vital production plans, if it would invite a small committee of the best of our practical manufacturers to sit with it and advise on two purely technical questions—modification of design in the interests of production— where and how to get and co-ordinate for mass production the best and most competent facilities in ‘the United States. Ls ;

lipases ism ond

It Seems to Me By Heywood Broun

Disputes Lindbergh's Claim as ‘to Offensive and Defensive Weapons.

N= YORK, Oct. 19.—I am not a technician, but it seems to me that Col. Lindbergh talks arrant nonsense when he endeavors to make a distinction between offensive and defensive armament. I am a respectable suburban householder, let us say, and in the drawer of my desk I have a loaded .45 to repel ] That is a defensive weapon, and yet a burglar with the same gun could be singularly offensive if he blew my head off or held up a filling station. 5 : : It must be a good trick if anybody can drive off desperate men with nothing more than a prop. And yet the thing has happened. I seem to, remember a girl bandit who held up a lot of neighborhood drug stores with nothing but a cap pistol. i It is not so much the character of the weapon as the personality of the possessor. When one is asking about a -piece of defensive or offensive armament he must cross-question the man who owns one. I cannot see how the distinction can Teasonably ‘be made in any sort of coherent legislation.’ The rifle could be the arm of the settler defending his family and friends from the hostile invasion of Indian raiders Lx It could also be the Krag with which an imperialist force purposed to civilize the little brown. brother of the Philippines. The hand grenade may enable you to keep ‘the aggressor out of your own

trench, but.t could also be a ‘very potent aid if you | wished to capture his position and move more deeply

across the fortifications of the Rhine. col As I remember, Col. Lindbergh mentioned anti< aircraft guns as a specific sort of defensive weapon. But even that will not stand up. The aggressor Who moved ('¢éeply into the territory of the opponent would take those same guns along ‘to prevent the resurgence of his eépponent. /

The Answer Lies in. Men

Coast artillery, perhaps, could be cited as something obviously designed for home defense without any thought of pushing boundaries backward. And yet even the biggest gun could be loaded on flat cars and carried forward to blast a foreign wall in favor of attack. It does not seem to me that ithe problem can be left wholly in the hands of .technicians, however expert, The answer must lie in men and not in material. Lindbergh has said that we do not face the threat of Genghis Khan. In other words, he accepts. Hitler and the Hitler system as something with which the world can dwell in comfort. Lindbergh .is: wrong. Hitlerism is ice on the wings of - civilization. Unless it: can be melted off there will be for sane people

no kind of peace or progress.

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

MERICAN women, to their credit, are ready ta t

health when it comes to a fashion. Paris, early this the wasp waist of grand-

fight on the side of battle between health and fall, decreed a return to

thother’s day and provided the means of achieving if

in the e¢ of a frothy but tight-lacing corset BE , most. of them, have refused ta sacrifice their health and comfort. - American mer. chants did not really expect that they would, reports to trade journals show. ’ > Ii de decrees a waist line, fhe Americar woman will go along to a certain point. But she take nature, not fashion, for ber guide. She knows thai nature achieves the effect of a slim waist not by cons stricting the waist but by / and below the waist. So the American woman wil achieve the effect of a slim waist by the cut and: of her dréss, with supplementary padding above below if nature did not provide her with enough. . This is not the first time American women haw showed that they want to be healthy, even if the) must stage a battle with Dame Fashion. 1029 a fashion revolution threw out the extrem straight-lined, knee-length dress and small close fitting hats which had’ developed: during the wa years. Long, floor-sweeping dresses, small waist lines corsets, and huge-brimmed hats were the Medical and health authorities viewed with alarm sign of a return to an unhealthful dress era. A feu affirmed their faith in the American woman's goo¢ sense, proclaimed that at least she would not sacri fice her freedom of activity. They were correct. Ame

expanding curves abov( .

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