Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 December 1939 — Page 16

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PAGE 16 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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

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RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1939

THANKS, GOVERNOR OVERNOR TOWNSEND is to be commended for announcing early the extension of the deadline for purchase of the 1940 automobile licenses. His action ends the hesitation, uncertainty and meaningless warnings that were evident in former years when the extension was delayed until around Jan. 1. The holiday season has long been recognized as an inappropriate period for the purchase of auto licenses. Most states have adopted March 1 as a more convenient date. The Legislature ought to bring this state in line at the next session.

HORRORS OF WAR

IY a letter to the British Committee for National Defense

of the Public Interest, Prime Minister Chamberlain says: |

“In this strangest of wars we must see to it that public morale is sustained. People are sometimes apt to get a little restive when, as they put it, nothing happens. So I welcome the wartime luncheons you are arranging, at which members of the Government and other leading figures will speak.” Well, it’s a trifle difficult to understand how the ennui of what some British wits have called the “Bore War” will be relieved by public luncheons. Indeed, if they're like some of the wartime luncheons we once had to attend,

with Four-Minute Men speaking and all that, nothing less |

than a series of air raids will overcome their deadly effect.

WU PEI-FU O Wu Pei-Fu is dead. An infected tooth has struck down China's poet-soldier, the fragile philosopher who turned war lord and then philosopher again after treachery and defeat despoiled his fame as the "Ever Victorious General.” If he died as he lived, he went out with the taste of brandy on his palate, and on his lips perhaps a benevolent epigram or perhaps a scholary curse for Feng Yu-Hsiang, the “Christian General” who once betrayed him in the field. In a land where tradition encourages military leaders to look to their own skins and comforts, Marshal Wu was distinguished by a reputation for leading instead of following his troops, and for disdaining bribery either in the receipt or the bestowal. The Japanese thought some months ago that they could persuade him to serve as one of their puppets in China, but this proud little man who once con-

trolled the greater part of China seems to have preferred Crowded as is

the obscurity of his cloisters to such a role. the long history of China, there will be space in it for Wu Pei-Fu.

PERJURY ON THE MARCH

E in our democracy are too much inclined merely to say “absurd” and let it go at that, when we read the organized perjury put forth by Russia. For those living in that dictatorship who are fed nothing else and have access

necessarily be the truth if the lie is all there is. That phase of this war can’t be too strongly emphasized or too often reiterated. The Russian people aren't dealing with propaganda in the sense that we think of propaganda. What they get is super-propaganda against which there can be no backfire. It's not a matter of charge and counter-charge. So, by now, those Russians who can read at all, or listen, already have been sold the idea that Finland was the aggressor and that the long suffering Soviet was engaged in a desperate struggle of self-defense to drive off the “Finnish provocateurs and make the border safe” for the peaceloving Communists. If they were told that Finland had an army of 500 million men, there would be nothing to do except believe it, In this country when the Soviet organ, the Daily Worker, headlines “Red Army hurls back invading Finnish troops,” or charges Franklin Roosevelt with being the real - cause of the trouble with Finland, it is to laugh, but there is nothing amusing about the long-haul effect when that sort of absurdity is published in Russia. For what it all means is a systematic regimentation, through combining perjury with suppression, of 180,000,000 people. Moving behind a barrage of lies they are being turned loose upon the world in which we live. Ancient barbarism in its palmiest days never had a weapon like that.

NO MARTYR!

OOKING back on Bund Fuehrer Fritz Kuhn's conviction for forgery and for stealing money from the treasury of the German-American Bund, the average American is likely to think: Why not pin a medal on anyone who diverts Bund funds? The objects and methods of the Bund are so contemptible that it looks like almost a worthy deed to spend its money on a blond instead of for promoting the interests of the organization. And yet larceny is larceny and forgery is forgery, even under cover of the fuehrer principle. District Attorney Dewey of New York last summer declared that Kuhn was “just a common thief,” and now his assistant prosecutor, Herman J. McCarthy, has made good the assertion, . Judge Wallace, the prosecutor and the jury all had a disagreeable task on their hands in this trial, and their performance has earned public gratitude. At every turn they were liable to be accused of prejudice and unfairness. And yet, at the conclusion, we believe that none but willful twisters of fact can pretend that Kuhn is a martyr. Testimony showed that Kuhn's bookkeeping and financing were unconventional, to say the least, even in a fuehrer. By the charge of Judge Wallace the jury was free to accept the defense plea for whatever it considered it worth, In the court's ruling and comments there was reflected, we believe, the clearest determination to try the

prisoner for what he had done and not for what he was. | Meanwhile the German-American Bund itself continues |

at large, a separate and distinct problem, not in any essential way solved by its leader’l: conviction of crime,

| in the last year, we're told. . . | story we hear, Earl loves to slip out of his office

Fair Enough

‘By Westbrook Pegler Moscow, Idaho, Philosopher Lauds

| His Own Brand of Religious 'Stuff' | But Has Doubts About Some Others.

EW YORK, Dec. 5.—Dr. Frank B. Robinson of Moscow, Ida., has been in our midst briefly and | has endeavored to set your correspondent right on | some matters pertaining to his business which is enjoying a boom at the present writing. Dr. Robinson, who answers to the name of Doc, is the man who advertises that he was a box-car bum, but talked with God and speedily acquired a magnificent home with a pipe organ, a Cadillac limousine for himself,

others cars, diminuendo, for his wife and son, “a lot of life insurance” and a bank account sufficient to withstand the tap of a check in five figures. He charges $20 per head for a correspondence course in his copyrighted religious philosophy, called Psychiana. But he asserts, notwithstanding his rise | to wealth and this firm insistence on his ownings, that | he does not desire to make money out of Psychiana. 2 = EJ | HE Doc, who has been advertising in a New York paper of late, said he was doing a lot of busi- | ness here and expressed disbelief in several current competitors in the God business, particularly G. | W. Ballard of Los Angeles, known as the Great I Am. Mr. Ballard's widely scattered believers labor under an impression that he is the reincarnation of George Washington, that his wife is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc and that a gaseous God-force known as K-17 recently destroyed a fleet of hostile submarines somewhere off the American shores with a sword of purple flame. Doc Robinson says he doesn't believe a word of Mr. Ballard's revelations, insisting that they are | against reason, and adds that, anyway, he can't make head nor tail of the I Am religion. He refers to various of these new philosophies and faiths, including his own, as “stuff.” That is to say, he speaks of “my stuff” and Ballard's “stuff.” Father Divine's “stuff” and Dr. Edwin John Dingle's “stuff,” this latter being something called Mental Physics, Inc., of Los Angeles, Cal, of course. His skepticism toward the others reminded your correspondent of Doc Townsend’s recent contemptuous verdict, delivered at the height of the Ham-and-Eggs campaign in Los Angeles, that the Thirty-Thursday proposition was economically unsound.

” 2 o N speaking of his stuff, Doc Robinson's tone is one of proprietary pride and jealousy, like that of a radio comic with a prosperous, sure-fire specialty who is wary of pirates and poachers. He says Ballard | called on him when he, Ballard, “was just startingy out.” “I told him I didn't mind,” the Doc says, “just so he doesn't infringe my copyright. I just warned him to keep off my stuff.” Nevertheless, the Doc insists that Ballard’s stuff in parts is very similar to his stuff, even though he can't make head nor tail of Ballard's stuff. “I am not, interested in saving souls,” says he, “that is orthodox. I want to raise the mental and spiritual sights of the people. And if I didn't copyright my stuff I would have every faker in the country using it. It would be poor business, in the first place, if I didn't copyright it, because I have got a religious philosophy that is a stem-winder. There is no legal way to stop a faker. With a guy like that all you can do is just let him alone and they'll blow up.” From that you will understand just how the Doc stands on religious fakers.

Inside Indianapolis

Talking About Traffic and Dollars; And the Pleasures of Fishing, Too.

HE Indiana State Safety Council met today at the I. A. C. with some distinguished visitors in the limelight. Presiding was Paul Hoffman, president of the Studebaker Corp., and in the audience were Sidney Williams, National Safety Council director, and the famous Lieut. Franklin Kreml. All this makes it an ideal time to talk about the Indianapolis traffic problem. . , . We talk a lot about it but nobody seems to want to tell the public the truth. , . , The truth, folks, revolves around money. . + . Big money, too. Indianapolis traffic is a mess. , . , Our stop-and-go signs run as independents. . , . Wherever you find an open spot,'you find speeding. . .

do very much. . . . Switching over our traffic signal system to something like New York's cascading light business is impossible with our present equipment. . . . Best guess on the cost of a real lighting system that would enable trafic to move, co-ordinated in north-east-south-and-west directions, at speeds upward of 23 miles an hour is just about $150,000. No fooling. , . , That's why you haven't heard much about it, 8 n ” » EARL BARNES, the lawyer, has developed a sudden—and somewhat secret—passion for fishing with- . According to the

on a nice afternoon and fish in Fall Creek. . . . He

| carries his fishing tackle hidden in the trunk of

his car. . . . And his close friends say that even his wife is unaware of this piscatorial pursuit, although she may have suspected something several weeks ago. . . . It seems Earl slipped and slid down a muddy creek bank and ‘went home with his clothes all muddy. . . . Wonder what he did tell the wife? ” ” ” HAPPIEST PEOPLE in town are the dealers of Chrysler-made cars. . . . Although they had nothing to do with it, they were the ones hard hit around town hy the strike. . . . They'll remember this last November for a long time. . . . The Indianapolis Children’s Museum is going to celebrate a birthday party soon. , .. But not its own. . , . It will mark the 40th anniversary of the birth of the parent museum in Boston Lloyd Carter, the local wrestling impressario, is recovering from an emergency appendicitis operation in St. Louis. . . . Laugh of the day: The young chap who walked into one of those automatic elevators yesterday in the Canary Cottage, looked baffled for a moment by not findIng any operator in it, and then almost jumped off as the doors closed automatically and the ele-

vator started to move. .,. Tsk, tsk. . . . This modern world,

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

ASS many women's clubs—and men’s too, for that matter—would do a great patriotic service by disbanding. There are far too many of them: Is usually so busy getting to meetings that it has no time left for sustained effort in any cause. It is astonishing also to find how many people belong to organizations whose aims are diametrically opposed. Sometimes the right lobe of the club mem-= ber's brain doesn’t know what the left is up to. This is a pretty stupid procedure, and it makes for mental confusion. Now, if ever, is the time for clubwomen to know what they are aiming at, I'm convinced that sometimes a very large number haven't the faintest idea. They happen to be natural Joiners or “yes women,” and belonging to many groups gives them a feeling of importance, which is a perfectly normal characteristic. But the amount of effective work they do woud be an ordinary year's output for a sloth. Then again clubs are wonderful havens to hide in. It's such a comfortable feeling to merge yourself with a multitude and let Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith look after things. Club officials are nearly always bustling ladies with a positive ven for activity. They are loath to allocate much work to their helpers, because they think It will be done better if they see to it themseives. This, as every industrialist knows, makes for general laziness and incompetence. But we never think of that because there are only two kinds of women: Those who want to do everything and those who want to do nothing, So the latter just sit around breathing through their pores, and for all the good they do themselves, their organizations or their communities, they might as well be in Timbucto.

. THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

to nothing else there is no absurdity about it. A lie must | life

their work frequently overlaps, and the membership |

Any club whose membership is tepheavy with su pattycakers might as well dishanc foe orcas: Gory

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The Hoosier Forum

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

RECALLS G. O. P. STAND ON WORLD WAR I By Claude Braddick, Kokomo, Ind, It is rumored that the chief issue in the 1940 campaign will be war or peace. The Republicans, it is said, will point to 1917 as evidence that the dove of peace is not safe in the bungling hands of the Democrats. Who was it said, “A nation can be too proud to fight?” And who was it bandied that phrase about with devastating scorn and ridicule? | 2 2 DOUBTS PENSIONS ADD TO PURCHASING POWER

By Voice in the Crowd

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

older men to perform light task are not contributing to the solution. The old copybook adage, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” is

It does not seem that S. D. D.|j.a] jeadership does not soon become is offering any evidence in favor of | intelligent and lead us to the solid the Townsend Plan in his attack on ground instead of bending to the George Maxwell. The fact that pressure group votes. many “doctors, lawyers and ministers” are for the plan is no indica-| . tion that it is economically sound. | THINKS U. S. SHOULD The people who have to produce TRY TO STOP WAR something ’-ngible in order to earn | By Edward F. Maddox

un o 8

to pass on matters of evondinies] WIN fe commence o tue wana : st men i TOfessional |. ir rs” ms ’ than are most men in professionali uu; weighed in the balance

Those people are not for the nd found wanting in wisdom,

charity and brotherly kindness; with | hatred, malice and lying propaganda |being sown, it is time for the

Townsend Plan and foresee in it the most visible danger to American liberty. “¥ith people living longer and the

going to have ample proof if polit- |

United States of America to wake up to the danger of the situation. Germany, France and England, by their stubborn disregard of reason and justice toward each other, are laying the foundation for their own downfall. And the great tragedy is

that they can't destroy themselves without dragging the rest of the civilized world down into the dark abyss with them. The starvation blockade of England and Germany is the height of hate and brutality, caused by envy, jealousy and greed for power. It is |imperative for our own self-interest, as well as for the welfare of the warring nations, throw its great influence into the balance on the side of peace by call~ ing for a cessation of a senseless war, We don't want to see either the people of England or Germany starved. Such barbarism belongs to the past. Shall the whole world suffer because a Hitler and Chamberlain hate each other? Away with such nonsense, The world needs both England and Germany to remain strong and sane. Destruction for either of these great nations points toward chaos | t land communism. Let us pray that | God will save us from such a calam- | ity.

birth rate on the decline, it is estimated that in 40 years one-half of the people would be living at the expense of the other half. If vou are working hard to support a family of four persons just imagine

New Books at the Library

what you would have to contend] with if the Federal Government | B= of the mountains and off gave you four more people to sup-| the beaten tourist path in Caliport. If Jou an imagine Wiis Jour | fornia, miles o. fertile valleys, deoad wou e if it were doubled,!,, . you know what the present-day oud (Yo to large-scale farming, Pro folks are trying to put over on your duce some of America's largest children. {crops of vegetables, grain and cotIt is false that the pension would ton. These large farms are operatincrease purchasing power, because ed almost exclusively by cheap all of the pension fund would be transient labor, and it is the plight taken away from the purchasing of this moving army of poorly paid power of those that earned it. The|and homeless men, women and chilsum total would be the same. Better |dren upon which Carey McWilliams living standards have made for|turns the spotlight in “Factories in longer life. The fact that more peo-|the Field” (Little). ple live beyond the age of 65 is no| Going back into the history of the indication that other people with-|development of the state, Mr. Mcout relationship should support | Williams made it plain that the them. | present situation is the continuation The national problem is to help |of a system established even before the old find ways to support them-|the state became a part of the selves by tasks that grow lighter | union. Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Wage and hour laws, labor union | Armenians, Filipinos, Mexicans, ho-

restrictions, fiat security and busi-|bos, and, last of all, refugees from]

not hire the sharecropper districts of the

Side Glances—By Galbraith a ?

“

ness concerns that will

A CREO St: To EVR SR

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wokicy

' COPR. 1939 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF,

"My coffee is boiling over—the children are screaming—the deg is + barking—the phone is ringing—and you it yc disturbed mel"

South and dust-bowl area of the West, have been attracted to the rich agricultural regions of California and have in turn been exploited by the so-called ‘“landbarons.” Existing during the crop-produc-ing seasons on sub-subsistence wages and living under conditions of unspeakable squalor, these laborers and their families are utilized when needed and then left to starve or leave the country between seasons. The foreign minority groups, aided by labor organizers, resisted the situation ineffectively. A few stayed despite the vigilantes, many died, and others were repatriated. The last group, however, respectable Americans, some of them once prosperous farmers, and many of them self-supporting a few years back, have come to California to remain land are demanding a place to live and a living wage. Basing his conclusions upon his investigations, this author maintains that there are two possible solutions to California's agricultural labor problems; co-operative housing of the workers and stabilization of work and wages, or the division of

operated directly by the owners or by tenants. The book is well worth the consideration of readers interested in phases of the changing economic scene in the United States.

A SONNET By FLORENCE MARIE TAYLOR All lively old things never pass— A chair of Hepplewhite design, A bowl of red Venetian glass With tracery of flowers and vine, A quaint, old street in Quaker town, The reverent thought of saying grace. A treasured heirloom handed down, Of wedding veil in rosepoint lace. So fine, old chivalries remain of honor, truth, integrity. Virtues that through the years sustain. In sheer, unchanged ideality. Life's deeply rooted tendril clings To justly proven fine, old things.

DAILY THOUGHT

For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.—Jeremiah 29:8. 8 8

all the spirits abroad in

be;

that this nation|

the large farms into smaller tracts

the' icans, but ¢hey are vitally im

TUESDAY, DEC. 5, 1939 |

Gen. Johnson Says—

F. D. R. Right on Short Campaign; In These Days Too Many Speeches May Only Result in Boring Voters,

ILMINGTON, Del, Dec. 5—The President's

suggestion for a short campaign is incontestably right. Like many of our other governmental tima

limits, the long’campaign is a relic of the days when the expression “I could no more do that than fly to Texas” made some sense, In those days a candidate could write about five canned speeches and deliver them over and over again, He had to have that time to carry his message to the

people—or convince them that he didn't have any, Today his voice goes instantaneously to the wholes population and is recorded verbatim in every paper, Everybody knows his position and he couldn’t repeat himself without reaping razzberries by the bushel. I have been a member of the ghost shift in three Presidential speech foundries. Al Smith used to say, “one subject, one speech” and nothing could persuade him to play to much as a single variation. That, too, was right. If you can’t say it all on any major subject in half an hour, you can be sure either that your thinking is muddy or you haven't thought it through,

td 2

HE effort to make something out of nothing—or even out of the tag-end and leftovers

of an {issue once presented, is a terrible task, You can jimmy up some new wisecracks and put new sugar on old pills and there is some fun in the effort, But when you take the product to the general staff and hear your hard-boiled friends lay its real bones

bare, you feel like somebody caught cheating at cards, Even the temptation in debate to pick up promptly every boner the opposition has pulled and shoot jt full of holes should be shunned. Franklin Roosevelt un« derstands this principle better than most men. It is far better to let them pass in silence until you have a fist full, and then shatter them all with one omnibus barrage. Picking up just one blunder begins to sound like scolding and piffling. If you let them accumue late, you can write devastation in a single blast. This is especially true if, in the interim silence the opposie tion begins razzing you for not answering.

2 u #

ACK GARNER took it in silence for weeks in 1932 and then made just one speech, He didn’t have to make another. After that they laid off the old cactus, In the same year, Franklin Roosevelt let his opposition exhaust itself taunting him with his silence on both the budget and prohibition and then, at exactly the right moment, made two pronouncements that won him a couple of million votes. There is room for cnly six good speeches in a Presidential campaigh—five on major issues and one counter attack. A long campaign is a disturber of business and other relations. After about the first of October ale most everybody has made up his mind and the risk of further churning is that he will get bored and either will not yote at all or take it out on the borer. Some people read into Mr. Roosevelt's suggestion a maneuver for a third term. If that were true, it wouldn't change its perfect logic. It doesn't make much difference anyway. If the Republicans can’t present any stronger candidate and program than they have produced so far and if the other Democrats can't make any better showing, he is going to get it anyway—by acclamation in the convention and by default in the election, You can't lick something with

nothing.

It Seems to Me

By Heywood Broun

Bare Mention of Roosevelt's Name Stirs Ire of New England Republicans,

EW YORK, Dec. 5—Thanksgiving comes but twice a year, which is entirely too much. And so I fled from Connecticut to get away from the second celebration. As a matter of fact, it was less a celebra= tion than a Republican rally—a sort of protest meet ing against “that man in the White House.” Not even the original settlers could have chewed their turkey quite as grimly as the embattled taxpay= ers of Greenwich. There are some pretty intent Roosevelt haters down in Nassau County on Long Island, and Westchester can muster an entire division of unreconstructed Republicans. But for pure vinegar and venom there are no anti-New Dealers fit to be compared to the irreconcilables of Greenwich, Darien and the Strawberry Hill section of Stamford. I will guarantee to produce dowagers who, by dint of practice, can actually put a sibilant quality into the name Franklin and hiss it through their front teeth, Naturally, none of them observed Nov. 23 save as a dav on which to fast and prey upon the policies of the President. And even Thursday, when the festival of the Pilgrims’ pride turned up, there was little hilarity to be observed in any of the Connecticut mansions.

Jam Sessions Abandoned

Of late the jam sessions in which F. D. R. is put upon the pan and toasted have been generally abane doned. The house committee of one prominent coun= try club has found it expedient to pass a rule prohibe iting anybody from mentioning Roosevelt's name even in anger. This action was taken as a medical pre= caution. Too many of the older members were ine clined to grow purple in the face and slink off inta apoplexy. Right now there is another proposal as to a poten= tial rule of censorship in regard to general conversae tion. Next to the name of Roosevelt there is nothing which tends to raise blood pressure along the Sound as rapidly as the innocent query, “But after all, business is really getting a little better, isn't it?” Naturally I would not dare say so if I were back in the Nutmeg State, but there seems to be a great many indications of industrial revival in Connecticut. People - go into factories and stay quite a while, and trucks and freight cars roll up to the doors of plants. There might even be a boom on the way, but breathe it not in Greenwich, nor in the streets of Darien. Prosperity could be just around the corner, and, gosh, how the Republicans dread it!

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

N the midst of vour own personal fight to stay healthy, you might take time out to consider the health problems of your fellow citizens in the rest of the world, if for no other reason than to count your. blessings. Considering health from the world-wide angle, moreover, is just as important as taking a world's eye view of social, economic and political problems. Cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, tuberculosis and syphilis hold the spotlight of the health stage in America. But the world around, malaria is the worst disease of mankind and the world's greatest killer, - It has held this unenviable position throughout thax ages. In this country, malaria is fortunately no longer much of a killer, but it is still devastating in terms of human health and progress. It shortens life, reduces working time and productive ability, decreases, the efficiency of entire communities and acts as a deterrent to industries that might benefit such come munities. On the world stage, typhus fever and plague come pete with malaria for the dubious honor of being* man’s greatest health problems. Plague is a yearly scourge in parts of the Orient. Typhus fever is a constant threat to the populations of eastern Europe and other parts of the world where overcrowdinge without sanitation prevails. Yellow fever is another grave threat to health in Africa and part of South America. Only constant vigilance on the part of health authorities keeps it from being an acute problem here in America and a devastating catastrophe in India. : Vast ‘portions of rich territory in equatorial Africa have been kept in an arrested stage of development by African sleeping sickness. Dengue and smallpox are far from being insignificant in the world health picture, and they are not the exclusive problem of far-off lands. We have both, especially smallpox. Filariasis and cholera are just names to most Amere t in other parts of

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