Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 October 1939 — Page 8

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1939

WEANING ISN'T EASY |

ing loans to cotton farmers. Over a period of years, the Government finally had more than 11,000,000 bales of

farmers retain an equity. The cotton warehouse business had many years. But under the Government loan program it became a means toward quick riches. The Government has paid out as much as $45,000,000 a year to store its loan cotton. Of course if a farmer wants to get back any of the cotton he has borrowed on, he has to pay the storage _ charges, so it might be said that the $45 000,000 has come out of the farmers’ pockets. But, however you look at it, the fac is that the Government has been paying 25 cents per bale per month for the first year’s storage, and 18 cents thereafter. Last session, some Congressmen began: to raise cain about these payments to cotton warehqusemen. It was charged that the loan program had cr ated a new and strange cotton aristocracy in the South. oo ' Recently the Commodity Credit Corp. decided it was time to cut rates. So it sent out notices saying it would pay only 1215 cents per bale per month. Then the howl started. Warehousemen, themselves well organized, and Congressmen began to put the pressure on. The CCC changed its mind. It decided that it wouldn't make the full reduction from 18 to 121%| cents, retroactive to Aug. 1, but that for three months, to Nov. 1, it would pay 15 cents, and thereafter 1215. So what? It adds up to this: | The Government, by launching a new economic experiment affecting cotton, and by its high storage payments, permitted the creation of a vested right in a business. When the time came to cut down what the CCC called the “incredible” profits of that enterprise, powerful pressure groups cried that the Government must not ruin business. And that is one more reason why Congress and the Administration must look long and carefully before trying new schemes to help anybody.

AFTER 35 YEARS PEAKING the other day about a jurisdictional row in Washington, D. C., which had resulted in Federal indictments against a teamsters’ union and five of its officials on charges of conspiracy in restraint of trade, we said that labor ought to make prosecutions of that sort unnecessary by stopping that form of internal warfare. ‘An incident at the American Federation of Labor convention in Cincinnati, it seems to us, shows why the hope .that Iabor will do that job for itself has grown dim. There is a jurisdictional row between the A. Fa of L. brewery workers’ union and the A. F. of L. teamsters’ union. It has been going on for more than 35 years. The point at issue is whether men who drive beer-wagons shall belong to the brewery workers’ union, as they have all these years, or to the teamsters’ union. The A. F. of L. convention in 1933 ordered the brewery union to transfer the drivers to the teamsters’ union. The brewery union refused to do that and recently obtained a Federal Court injunction restraining the A. F. of L. from putting the transfer into effect. Well, at Cincinnati, the A. F. of L. spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do about this ancient quarrel. Delegates from the brewery union and the teamsters’ union called each other some pretty hard names. Both sides were still determined to fight. No solution has yet been found. We aren't interested in the merits of the row. What does interest us is the fact that it has gone on, year after year, defying all efforts to settle it and involving strikes, boycotts. and disturbances that have caused untold inconvenience and loss to employers and the general public. That's what jurisdictional strikes so often do. And that’s why we think the Federal Government is justified in invoking the anti-trust laws against unions which disrupt industry by jurisdictional strikes having nothing to do with wages, hours, working conditions or any other legitimate object of organized labor. CAUTION (ORGANIZATIONS here and there are soliciting funds to keep America out of war. “If you want to keep America out of war,” reads one solicitation, “send this committee a dollar to help our work.” Maybe the “work” is on the level. We don’t know. But our faith in the effectiveness of warnings to the American people to contribute with care has been weakened since we heard about the experienca of Rep. Ham Fish’s National Committee to Keep America Out of Foreign Wars. This committee, sponsored by 38 Congressmen, has appealed for funds to finance its activities. A week or so ago Rep. Woodrum of Virginia made a speech in the House, bitterly criticizing Mr. Fish and saying it is outrageous for members of Congress to solicit funds for a lobbying organization. That speech got publicity all over the country. Well, today the committee treasurer said that contributions are coming much faster since Mr. Woodrum’s attack. When Congressmen panhandle their constituents for money to help them perform a function which they are hired by the year to perform, there is only one name for it: It’s a racket.

THAT'LL HANDICAP HITLER

1 E’VE heard of some large orders, but one of the largest ) ever issued comes from Dr. Carlos Salazar, foreign minister of Guatemala. He has sent a note demanding that Otto Rheinbeck, Nazi minister to Central American countries, take immediate steps to insure that German radio stations broadcast only the truth.

IT’S NOT OUR WAR

“J UROPE is the land of the double-cross as well as the little white crosses.” Senator: Arthur Capper; -

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THE INDIANAPOLIS

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Amendments Before Ohio Voters "Would Allow One Group to Vote Themselves Part of Others’ Wealth.

LEVELAND, Oct. 21.—The two little home-made _ constitutional knick-knacks which the people of Ohio will vote upon Nov. 7—one providing old-age pensions which may cost twice the entire present state revenues, the other proposing .to refire the Legislature—are pre-operative painkillers to prepare the state for confiscation and bolshevism. The pension proposal provides for payments to persons over 60. It holds that one particular group, in this case an age group, is entitled to a division of the property of those who have saved, inherited or otherwise acquired some. Those who want a share of their neighbors’ possessions may award themselves that share by popular vote and collect it- through taxation. But there is nothing to restrict this benefit to persons over 60 or to limit the payments to the amounts proposed. : The age minimum might be reduced to 50, 40 or 30 or just eliminated altogether. The payments might be $500 a month. Lump sums of $5000 could be voted to members of“groups or to all hands. Poverty or

need is no requirement. 8 =» »

T makes no difference that an elderly couple are receiving an income of $10,000.a year from investments or inheritance. They still are eligible, or, anyway, the old gentleman is, provided he retires from a wage-earning occupation. As to mamma’s eligibility, there is some doubt. If she always has been a home body apparently she is out, but if she ever earned wages, even for a week, however long ago, she is “retired” from gainful occupation as a wage-earner” and is in. At this point a curtain will be drawn over the unmannerly spectacle of the whole population of a proud and enlightened state throwing everything up for grabs, and we will unzip the No. 2 amendment and see what is in it. . } This one is a liberalization or frustration of the initiative and referendum which was adopted with deep solemnity about 1913 and was regarded as a beautiful reform. : At present, to place on the ballot a proposal to amend the Constitution or to enact a law, the initiators must obtain about a quarter of a million signabres of citizens residing in at least 44 of the 88 counties.

HE new proposal would reduce to 100,000 the number of signatures required to place on the ballot a proposal to amend the Constitution and to 50,000 the number necessary to submit a proposed law. Moreover, it would permit the people of any one big city or populous district, with a special, local or group interest, to provide all of the signatures. The meaning of this is that ‘the advocates of the amendment are just sick and tired of the legislative process, which, by parliamentary methods, political trickery and sometimes by the exercise of intelligence, defeats a variety of proposals ranging from the wise to the crazy and crooked, and, by the same token, sometimes ratifies measures of like character dnd in like proportion. They have been hearing again about the democracy of the old New England town meeting, and they mean to run Ohio by one vast, incohereftt town meeting of the state. . : Nothing stands between the people and all this except the final and most reliable democratic defense, the will of the people themselves.

Business By John T. Flynn

Steel Mills Thriving, but War Orders Are Not/the Chief Reason.

HICAGO, Oct. 21.—I can not find any evidence that war orders have had any important effect as yet on business in this country. The war has had an effect, but not war orders.

For instance, the one big sensational upthrust in business is in the steel industry. With the advent of the war its mills went into high. As one goes through this steel country the most harped-on subject is the march of men back to work, the firing of new blast furnaces, the mounting energy of the mills. People naturally suppose that this is all due to war orders placed by England and France. ; War orders may and will come but they have not appeared yet in any important way. The mills are working on domestic orders. But while this is true the reason for the domestic orders in such large quantities is the war. i # This demand comes. from several sources. First of all, before the war steel orders had lagged heavily. I do not know the cause but I am informed it was due to the slowness of auto manufacturers to place their usual heavy orders ‘during the spring and summer. Then came the war—first the threat of war in August, which seemed to make hostilities inevitable, and finally the actual invasion of Poland. Then the automobile companies rushed in with their orders. At the same time other large and small users of steel became alarmed at the prospect of a price rise. And so demands for steel came pouring in. !

Expect Long War

Now suppose the bars are thrown down for foreign war orders here. Then the steel industry will find itself confronted with a new demand. And should war orders develop on top of. the domestic demand, we will see a pretty hectic season in the steel mills.’ But if the war should end before these war orders get heavily into production and just as this jam in domestic production is thinning out, we will see a swift collapse in steel. A little of the same has made its appearance in other industries, but there it is due chiefly to advance buying. There seems to be a widespread conviction that the war is going to send prices up here. There is therefore a lot of advance buying in numerous businesses to get in ahead of the rise. All this is making for heavier production schedules now. It will make for lighter schedules later. But businessmen here refuse to believe that. They are

still sold on ‘the proposition that this is going to be

a long war.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

E laughed last year when Orson Welles scared the wits out of a great many people by announcing an invasion from Mars. Yet ‘today every third person you meet is sounding off on the same note, only this time it’s Hitler who is on the way. If you beg for explicit directions about the future conquest of America, feeble platitudes will be forthcoming. Certain jitterbugs think the Bund movement may turn the trick, but the majority speak as if the Nazis will simply take wings and sail over here. At the moment, this kind of talk is our most dangerous war propaganda, because it appeals to powerful human characteristics—f{ear and pride. The inference behind such clap-trap, of. course, is that the United States could roll up.her sleeves, rush over and pound some sense into German heads, and everything would be settled. This feeling ‘which we call National Pride, and which we boast about a'good deal, is merely infantile delusion. The problems of present day Europe are so- deep seated, they involve such racial and political conflicts, that we can scarcely comprehend, much less solve them: There's also a second striking fact regarding our belligerent-minded friends. Those who feel that Uncle Sam should play Godfather to all the yond, are people who couldn’t possibly do any actual g g. : :

Wars are always fomented by men and women who | |’ can stay safely at home, and they are generally fought |

by those who do not wish to go.. Without: conserip~ tion, it is hardly likely they could be carried on. In case we manage to push ourselves bodily into the European fracas, I trust our patriots will be per= mitted to back up their heroic words with noble deeds.

From where I am, it looks as If ‘our most

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‘Remember When We Used to Be an Issuer”

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

RELIEFER- WANTS RIGHT TO DRIVE CAR By Poor Boy I am a taxpayer in Marion County but fate has me on relief and I am informed that if I own a car I must take my plates off and hand them over to the trustee of Center Township or I don’t get any relief. Do you think a person who lives in the rural district and wants to help himself in going to work (if he happens to get two or three days work several miles from home) should be deprived of the means of getting there? Is it lawful for the township trustee to confiscate a person's automobile plates and keep him off the roads when he paid for the right to use them? : 2 ” 8

STUDENTS FORM PEACE SOCIETY

By Benson Ford, Robert P. Fortune, George Watkins, Harry C. Van Rensselaer, 8. A. Woodd-Calmson and Philip H. Willkie, American Independence League.

The American - Independence League has been formed by undergraduates of Princeton and Harvard in response to the necessity for some medium of united and collective expression of the individual determi-

nation of most Americans to keep the United States out of the European war. The American Independence League is dedicated to the purpose of revealing, strengthening and expressing this determination. It seeks to organize chapters not only in colleges but in every community where there may exist any group which shares our views and desires to associate itself with our objectives. We deplore the emotional attitude to the war now so prevalent in the United States. This is a time for sober, calm and reasoned judgment. We believe that only by the persistent presentation of the factual information available, can the people of this country resist the inroads of foreign and minority pressure group propaganda. . . , We maintain that the destiny of the United States lies in the preservation of its own democracy and its own institutions. . . Were it a question of going abroad to fight in the expectation of participating in a just and lasting peace which we might hand down to our posterity, we would endure any sacrifice, but, unfortunately, we have no such expectation. . . . Our program may seem too great an undertaking, but the fact re-

(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.)

mains there is a crying need for articulation and leadership among us. That leadership is not forthcoming from the older generation, and the means for such a united expression of individual belief are also neglected by our elders. These being the facts, the need being : present, and the leadership absent, it is imperative that we take into our hands, however inadequate and inexperienced they may be, such action as we deem necessary to give expression and determination to our common feeling. . . . ” » » TERMS ROOSEVELT POLICY INCONSISTENT By Ma L. : The President has called upon executives of the intergovernmental committee on political refugees to prepare to find new homes for the 10 to 20 million people who may become refugees before the war in Europe ends. A major problem, Mr. Roosevelt said, will be the job of resettling the multitudes whose roots will be torn up by the present war. This is indeed a fine humanitarian thing to do.. What spoils the picture for me is the thought

that at the very same time the President is just about breaking

his neck to get Congress to lift the embargo on arms so that this country may provide more fuel for the opean fire—and make more refugees to be taken care of. . #8 8 = : LAUDS VOORHIS BILL AS WAY TO PROSPERITY By Times Reader House Resolution 7504 introduced on Aug. 4 by Rep. Jerry Voorhis (D. Cal.) provided for a method by which American industry could function on a 100 per cent efficiency basis, proceeding by democratic methods. The purpose of the bill is to control monopoly, encourage and protect commerce among the states, in order to assure continuous economic ' ‘prosperity - and: security, increase the. national income and promote adequate and ever-rising standards of living limited ‘only by the productive capacity and natural resources of the nation. This bill provides a vehicle by which we ean really pay off the national debt, balance the budget, eliminate = unemployment, assure profits to business co-operating in the program and create an ever increasing standard of living. That is what I am talking about when I say “we -must streamline our economy.” That requires intelli-

‘gence and positive action. Lower-

ing our living standards to pay off the public debt would produce even greater unemployment. ' : 2 2 =» ONE-WAY NEUTRALITY IS SEEN AS GOAL, By Bull Mooser, Crawfordsville, Ind. From all the arguments it seems

that what America wants most at present is ‘neutrality — neutrality

against Germany.

New Books at the Library

O Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes, famous educator, lecturer, and member of the staff of the Editorial Department of the'Scripps-Howard newspapers, who will speak to tne members of the Indiana State Teachers’ Association Oct. 26, we are indebted for a most timely and scholarly book, “Society in Transition; Problems of a Changing Age” (Prentice Hall). . Faced with either Utopia or barbarism, our age stands without precedent in the history of mankind, the author asserts... And the

Side Glances—By Galbraith

| He keeps |To take, but to restore

crux of our problems is the cultural lag, “The cave mind in the machine empire.” “The major social problem of our era,” he adds, “is the gulf between our: marvelous mechanical equipment and ‘the economic and political institutions through which we attempt to control it.” The book, ‘a survey of the social scene, discusses, “The historical background of our transitional age,” “The physical and economic basis of our social problems,” ‘Leading socio-biologi¢al problems in modern society,” “The institutional impact of “urban -industrial society,” and “Social wreckage.” - From almost any one of its.999 pages one might select ‘Sentences bearing the staccato emphasis of headlines. For example: “We have created a machine age uniquely prepared to serve us or to wreck us.” “Nothing could be more fatal and self contradictory than for the United States to. enter a world war to preserve democracy.” Or, “Social

"|erigis is so close that the children

in school will have little chance to help.” And, “Fascism would follow on the heels of any declaration of war.” § 50 Here is ah impassioned plea for an intelligent understanding of the forces which have brought us to the edge of chaos, and an urgent hope that if we act quickly we may, even

| yet, save our Western civilization. -

FAITH’S REWARD By JAMES D. ROTH In the vale of dedth and sorrow There's a power standing by.

|For only time we borrow

And our master’s ever nigh. keeps His holy promise made ternal life if we but aid.

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Gen. Johnson Says _—

Submarine Successes Confused With Air Raids Which So Far Have Not Proved Superiority. Over Warships.

: ASHINGTON, Oct. 21.—The sinking of the Brite

ish plane carrier “Courageous” and the old bate tleship “Royal Oak” by submarines was told in the

news about the same time as stories of bombing ate tacks on British ships at Scapa Flow. As to the

bombing raids, all we have are indefinite reports of “some damage” to a battleship, the “Iron Duke,” and conflicting stories about the “Ark Royal,” the battlee ‘ship “Hood” and the cruiser “Repulse.” : But the jumbling of these stories of submarine success with bombing uncertainties has touched off several American editorials regretting that Billy Mitchell is not here to see his prophecies justified— that the battleship is a relic of the horse-and-buggy

age. - I knew Billy Mitchell from youth. I served with him frequently. He was an air enthusiast with the showmanship of P. T. Barnum. Before the World War a cavalry man was considered no good unless he believed as a religion that cavalry could lick double its weight in any other arm by a mounted charge. Just about that time: the artillery was getting cockey. To hear the gunners talk, new methods of fire control had obsoleted everything on any battlefield. For seve eral recent years the enthusiasms of aviators have ine sisted on the complete futility of anything that doesn’t fly. : 3 : » ” 8 HE Army needs that kind of devotion and enthuse siasm in every professional branch, but the laye man doesn’t need to be carried away by it. Billy Mitchell was given every reasonable opportunity to prove his thesis, even to being permitted to try to sink, from the air; several million dollars’ worth of actual battleship. It was finally done but under no reasonable conditions of actual warfare. When he 1 tested under those he failed.

Bombing raids on naval bases have been purely experimental. - On all the proved evidence yet, all have flopped. What the mass suicide raid may do remains to be seen. But nothing has happened yet to disturb the bones of Billy Mitchell. : » » »

S for the submarine result, it isn’t even up to the World War record. On Aug. 5, 1914, the World War began. On’ Aug. 7, a British cruiser, the “Am= phion,” was sunk by a German torpedo or mine. On Sept. 5, the scout cruiser “Pathfinder” was torpedoed. On Sept. 17, three British cruisers, “Cressy,” “Hogue and “Aboukir” were sunk within an hour by a single submarine. On Oct. 15, the cruiser “Hawke” was sunk, In the meantime, so many German submarines had actually entered Scapa Flow, that the British grand fleet sought another anchorage. On Oct. 26, the great battleship “Audacious” was sunk off Lough Swilly, During the entire naval war, the British Navy suffered far heavier losses in capital ships by this kind of sniping than the German fleet suffered from all causes. "Recalling the World War experience and timing, there is as yet absolutely nothing to show a greater. danger to the British Navy from submarines now than in 1914, far less reason to fear for British merchant

| shipping, and nothing but indecisive if not wholly

negative facts to support any jitters about air forces wiping navies off the seas or the German boast that Britannia no longer rules the waves.

lt Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Play About Woollcott Recalls Crier's Antics Under Fire in World War.

TEW YORK, Oct. 21.—George Kaufman and Moss Hart have done a highly diverting play out of the Woollcott saga. It seems to me that “The Man Who Came to Dinner” embellishes a legend rather than presents us with the town crier complete and in the flesh. There has never been another soldier like Sergt. Woollcott or a single individual along any front who in ‘the slightest -way resembled Woollcott the War Correspondent. After frantic attempts to enlist in all the more combative arms of the service Mr. Wooll« cott managed to blink his way into the Medical Corps. .I ran .across him at Savenay, a base hospital a little to the north of Saint Nazaire, where the first division landed. As orderly I rather fear: that Mr, Woollcott was a menace to discipline. There had been some little flutter of excitement the day before I arrived, because Mr. Woollcott had flatly refused to show up for maneuvers on the day a famous oral surgeon happened to inherit the command. «I refuse to be drilled by a dentist,” sald the sergeant, and got away with it. : And so, when the Stars and Stripes—a paper for enlisted men—was started in Paris everybody in authority at Savenay moved heaven and earth to get the sergeant transferred.to journalistic duties.

Off for the Front

And presently Mr. Woollcott was off for the front line to give the doughboys a first-hand account of what they were doing. It was not my good fortune ever to see Alec in action, but the late William Slavens McNutt once gave me a vivid description. “All hell had broken loose in a valley just below us,” said McNutt, “and I was taking cover in & ditch as Alec and Arthur Ruhl ambled briskly past me on their way into action. Alec had a frying pan strapped around his waist, and an old gray shawl was flung across his shoulders. Whenever it was necessary to duck from a burst of shell fire Alec would place the shawl carefully in the middle of the road and sit on it. In another quarter of a mile we would be in the thick of it. I saw that Ruhl and Alec were having a terrific argument, and so .I managed to catch up to find out what men would quarrel about at such a moment. Suddenly we all had to fall flat, but while still reclining'on his belly Woollcott turned and said, ‘I never heard anything so preposterous. To me Maude Adams as Peter Pan was gay and spirited and altogether charm= ing as the silver star on top of the tree on Christe mas morning.” “I guess,” said McNutt, “there’s no curbing a: dramatic critic even if you shoot at him.” :

Watching Your Health By Jane Stafford

PORE by re To sponsored by the American Society for the Hard of Hearing, National Hearing Week starts tomorrow. The idea is to wake up the public to the size of the deafness problem and get them to help do something about it. * ; Three-fourths of the population of this country are either totally or partially deaf, the U. S. Public Health Service announced early this year after a. special survey. Nearly half of those who think they hear normally are really partially deaf, hearing tests of a large group of people indicated. ry : The battle against deafness should begin in childs

| hood. It is fought by guarding children against colds,

influenza, scarlet fever, meningitis and diphtheria, since these often start the damage to ears and hear. ing. If the guard against these germ illnesses breaks down, and the child does get a cold or scarlet fever, he-: should be-given the kind of care that will help him to get well quickly without such complications as earaehe and “running” with their threat to his. hearing. Authorities also believe that the hearing of school ‘children should be tested, to detect previously unnoticed partial deafness while there may be some ‘chance of correcting it or stopping its progress. . Medical scientists are working doggedly at the other side of the problem—the search for ways of curing deafness. Marvelously delicate ear operations have“

been devised by surgeons, and remedies ranging from

gland hormones: to vitamins have been ‘tried in the | hope of making i ‘deaf hear again. A few deaf peo=

hope of

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