Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 December 1939 — Page 18

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The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERRER President Business Manager

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cde RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1939

BRITTANIA STILL RULES SCAPE of the liner Bremen, first across the North At-

lantic to refuge in Murmansk, and then down the coast | of Norway, through the British blockade to anchor in the | home port of Bremershaven, influenced some people to be- | lieve that his Royal Majesty's fleet must be asleep on the deep. As the Nazis boasted, the Bremen resembles nothing so much as a mountain on the sea. And if the British couldn’t stop it what could they stop? But events of the last few days indicate that the British commanders on the seas have quit taking time out for tea. Score one, the blowing up of the German battleship Graf Spee in the River Plate. Score two, the scuttling of the costly luxury liner, Columbus, off the Virginia Capes, also to avoid capture by the British. Score three, the German freighter Arauca chased into the harbor of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Over there German planes are bombing and machinegunning British trawlers, but on this side of the Atlantic at least the Royal Navy is still mistress of the waves.

A HINT TO THE RICH USSIAN bombers roared over Helsinki Tuesday and, according to one dispatch, killed a crow. Anyway, their | pineapples did no damage except to the frozen earth outside | a suburb. At Aabo the bombs set fire to workers’ houses. But several of the invaders were bumped off by the Finnish anti-aircraft and pursuit planes. Business-as-usual in the Finnish capital suspended for a few minutes only, Christmas shoppers quickly resumed their places at the counters, peddlers of silvered evergreen reappearing at their posts to sell their symbols of the season. In the meanwhile Finnish forces polished off 17,000 of the heavy-footed in another section of the little country | and trapped a few hundred more up in the Arctic region. | It continues to look as if brawn isn't everything and | |

that being lowbrowed and muscular doesn't necessarily | mean that you win a war. Up to now we have been witnessing the most spectac- | ular David and Goliath act since the biblical premiere. And | we hope this most amazing and unbelievable thing continues | | | | |

until the great, dull bulk of cannon fodder wakes up to the idea that it is getting the same ghastly runaround as did their predecessors under the Czars; that dictatorship is dictatorship no matter how you slice it. Then something may happen as did when Nicholas II went west. ”

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” ” But let's bear in mind that the Finns can’t keep going | on bread and milk. A lot of help seems to be lining up. Included in the day’s developments is action in Paris to provide aid other than language, following the outlawing of the modern barbarians by the League of Nations. And the U. S. Navy politely retires in favor of Finland in the matter of some! 40 airplanes. Completed for us, but to be shipped at once | to where they will do the most good. Tonight in Madison Square Garden, New York, a huge mass meeting will be held to raise money for Finnish Relief, Inc., the organization headed by ex-President Hoover.

This is not our war, And on that this nation will stand. But that doesn't mean that our national interest isn’t | directly involved in seeing that Stalin doesn’t gobble the | globe. So nothing could be more in our national interest | than financial help to Finland through Finnish Relief, Inc. |

Reports show that contributions are flowing in from all | over the country and from a dollar on up. We want in | this connection to point out a very practical proposition: Those who have been loudest in their hate of communism have been the ones who have the most to lose. Now is the time for them to show their sentiments with something more than red faces and profanity. For the rich, this is something in the nature of a bargain. They can get more than a dollar for every dollar subscribed. By a ruling of the U. S. Treasury donations to such | causes as Finnish Relief, Inc., are deductible for income tax | purposes up to 15 per cent of total net income. A word to the wise and a hint to the rich are sometimes sufficient. And as an insurance proposition for the rest of the world, Finnish Relief, Inc., looks like the best | in our lifetime—regardless of your income bracket. The receiving end for Finnish Relief, Inc., is 420 Lexington Ave., New York City,

THEY’'D BE SURPRISED "THE new Manhattan telephone directory is out, with 6000 | added listings, bringing the total number of subscribers | to 606,000. But Manhattan is only part of New York City, | where the total number of telephones in use is about | 1,600,000. Another New York statistic says that the 29,000,000th automobile crossed the Henry Hudson Bridge over the Harlem River ship canal the other day. The bridge is just three years old. It hasn't been used by 29 million different automobiles, of course. There have been many repeaters. But traffic is increasing steadily, 12,599,711 cars crossing in the last year, which means an average of better than 34,500 a day. Such figures tell Americans much about their greatest city, but there are other countries where they might be studied to even greater advantage. Russia, for instance. The Russian people are told that America is 3 land where a few greedy capitalists keep the masses in miserable

poverty, But the overlords of Wall Street could hardly need | 606,000 Manhattan telephones—almost as many as there | are in all Russia—for their own use. And quite a few proletarians must ride in those automobiles that cross the Henry Hudson Bridge at the rate of 1438 an hour,

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| knee pants.

| tell what the future holds. . . . | stores are still busy selling skates. .

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Wherein Some Envy Is Expressed By a Leading Thinker of Our Time On the Gentle Art of Ratiocination.

BW YORK, Dec. 20.—Quite a lot of books have been written in the last few years on the subject of thinking, and as one of the leading thinkers of the period I might offer some helpful suggestions. I am what you might call a Sears-Roebuck thinker, which is to say that I think in enormous volume on an amazing variety of subjects. Mine are: not de luxe thoughts, but they are good and sturdy and give satis= factory results on the whole, being marketed through a rather extensive list of branch outlets round the country. Some of the stylish, custom thinkers who work over each thought with extreme care, often spending weeks on a single lovely little job of ratiocination, think that I think trash, but I don't care to go that far. I admit I don't ratiocinate. It takes too much time, and I have to turn it out six days a week, including some days when the raw materials aren't very good and the mechanism is creaky. = = = ORECVER, the class thinkers refuse to handle many of the subjects which must be carried in a popular-priced variety line. They are like those oldfashioned apothecaries who give you a look if you ask for a percolator. I carry percolators, alarm clocks, salted peanuts and a full line of stationery, office supplies and bathing caps, and you can get chow mein or the blue plate at the soda fountain.

I am not Sears-Roebuck, any more, you will notice, but a chain of drug-department stores. It may sound to you as though I have got my ideas confused, hopscotching around that way, but that isn't it. A thinker in my line of business can't spend all his time on one thought. People want variety. Next paragraph I might be the five-and-ten., 1 never know from one paragraph to another, Sometimes, just to keep up on things, I read some of the swanky thinkers. You have to do that occasionally. I press my nose against the pane to see what Walter Lippmann is thinking, or Jimmy Sheean, or old man Villard, who is a progressive but Keeps the same old carved black walnut intellectual fixtures and high ceilings, generation after generation, and would be insulted if you asked him to think up something about a big heavyweight fight just to catch the trade.

STARTED out thinking just the easiest kind of little thoughts, and although, in later vears—since I turned pro--I have sometimes thought about communism and economics—I have avoided complications which would ball up things and spoil the product. I Just refuse to try to fit in thoughts which conflict with my own. It is the best way, I find.

But TI suppose old man Woolworth envied Tiffany.

and I admit that T have a somewhat similar feeling |

about some of the exclusive thinkers, such as this Reinhold Niebuhr, who last week thought up some-

thing special for The Nation about the Russian in- |

vasion of Finland.

‘To condone Russian politics of recent months.” he |

wrote, “on the ground that it is merely power politics

in a world in which the power game is still being |

played and in which defensive necessities require participation in the game, counters the criticism of only those moral purists who are under the illusion that politics can be sublimated into an exercise of pure moral suasion.” . Man, that's thinking!

Inside Indianapolis

About the Outstanding Young Man Of the Year and This and That.

1 anapolis business and professional men saying that the Junior Chamber of Commerce was getting

| ready to select the outstanding young man of the

year and that nominations were in order. . . . The result has been a deluge of phone calls from one office to another, all seeking ideas. . . . And a lot asking the same question: “How old is So-and-so.” . The

nominee has to be under 36. . . . Practically, a boy in | Oh, if only it could be prevented | . » . Folks driving north on Meridian St. | then. We can help prevent it.

these nights draw up in surprise as they pass 38th St.

| +. . For there on the east side of Meridian St. is one | of the most spectacular Christmas displays ever seen on a residence. . . . It's worth taking a look at. ... It's | the Tom Joyce residence. . . . Speaking of Christmas, | BRINGS MORAL RECESSION if you haven't mailed your Christmas cards you'd |By Voice in the Crowd

better hurry up.

THE BOYS WHO scrape the ice between periods of the hockey games at the Coliseum now are on

| skates and wear blue sweaters with the word “super- | visor” | Judges are usually to be seen at all the Butler basket- | ball games. . .

on their backs. . . . Speaking of sports. our . Judge Herbert E. Wilson was intent on the Iowa game. . . . But he was probably wondering about Michigan's five. . , . A new book, “The Old Fauntleroy Home,” has just been published for the New Harmony Memorial Commission by Mrs. Edmund Burke Ball. . . . Very nice, too. . . . They've got the Court House clock so well decorated you can't tell the time these days. . . . Lincoln Hotel employees have Just completed two nights of “family” parties. . . . And a nice time was had by all. . . . Holiday skeptic: The person who put two large question marks after

| the big East Side billboard which says: “Peace on

Earth.” ®

THE FIRE LADDIES bad a call downtown night before last. . . . It seems one of the stores had been demonstrating an electric iron. . . . And somebody forgot to turn it off. . . . Shopping note: Biggest crowd in one bookshop was at the children’s counter. . . The State Employment Service is sort of proud of itself iately. a stage manager. . . . What's all this stuff about the great skaters being from Canada or Norway or Sweden? . . . This troupe which has just arrived stars an American girl. . . . And most of the rest are from England. . . . Just now most of Indianapolis is learning how to skate sitting down. . . . But you never can

n ”

. . Smile of the day: The gentleman trying to date one of the Salvation Army girls tending the littie kettles.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HE only sensible reason I can see for doing Christmas shopping early is to save the salesmen and omen and the postoffice people from overwork at the last minute. enough extras to take care of excess jobs? and a mighty good way to spread Christmas cheer about, if you ask me. 3 I'm all for the dither which accompanies postponed preparations. If we all became forehanded, picking up little items and wrapped by Mid-November as I'm told many worthy folks do, what would become of the Christmas spirit? There wouldn't be any. I like mine to be a BlitzKrieg affair, flurried, hectic, in fact the crazier the better. the house; I like closets crammed with parcels. I love the rush and swish and zip of crowded shops and stores, the noise, tiredness and confusion—all the

| mad melee which comes only once a year and without

which no year would be complete. Have you ever considered, too. that yuletide is the one brief interlude in the whole 12 months when practically every person in the country is actively engaged doing something for others? In the rush to

| select an appropriate gift for Aunt Nellie and Uncle

Joe and to remember poor old Second Cousin Flora who has had such a hard time of late, you entirely forget your wants. You're too busy to be mean or selfish or malicious. Your picayunish frets vanish with most other mundane matters while you wander in the market places,

HE other day letters went out to prominent Indi- |

. +» The other day they filled a vacancy for |

' THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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our national budget was in balance | before the war |plus existed in the post-war years!

Just Waiting for a Streetcar?

YOU AINT GOT ANYTHING (N MIND WHATS THE IDEA IN STICKING RIGHT IN THAT, SPOT:

The Hoosier Forum

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

SEAL PURCHASE URGED BY T. B. VICTIM By J. AZ. Buy Christmas seals yourself! This is the time of year to buy] these seals to fight tuberculesis all| year and help save someone from] this dreadful disease. It is prevent-| able and curable, so let's buy these seals and put them on all our Christmas cards and packages and show the world we have declared war on it to save our loved ones

(Times readers are invited to express theit 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.)

and help)

to concentration camps or shot if from unnecessary suffering they strive for more light. It seems I know the heartaches and suffer- | bast With she Listie Sela) a ing of this for I have been one of its Menting that we have tried, some

oD est ral 1 i in- as imperative as Europe's litical ‘victims and am only writing this to moral recession is apparent. For in- 3S p Pp po

help others from the same ex- Stance, politics in relief, politics in perience. Suffering isn't all, but the|the search of power and the remisery that goes with it. Unemploy- | ¢ipient of relief who will not assume ment is one example. [his own responsibility when he has This all happened seven years ago. | the chance. ” » » We THINKS RUSSIA ACTING IN SELF-INTEREST By H. L. S. The best that Finland can do under present world conditions is to negotiate terms for settlement of its difficulties... While we all feel sorry for the Finns, so do we for

must buy these Christmas seals.

” # ”

CLAIMS SOCIAL PLANNING

It is perhaps out of my sphere to answer Edward F. Maddox's mail.

but I would ask “Curious” if, when all the oppressed, whether they are|

oppressed by British, French, German or other rulers. If America would suddenly become suspect of Britain and France as to what they would do to American interests in this hemisphere, after they might crush Germany again, we might act like Russia in block-

and when a sur-| that permitted an 11-billion-dollar reduction in the national debt, were! we in “planned economy” and were we in any relationship to com-! munism?

ing any such possibility now, while they are engaged in a death grapple with Germany. The world situation today is a product of 18th century thinking politically as well as economic. This. war may speed the collapse of our antiquated nationalism and produce the necessary international political and economic reorganization that will insure peace, as well as world prosperity. The price of peace to the robber barons of today will be stupendous. | That world reorganization can only {be delayed but not avoided. There lis ng other road to peace. Our own

internal economic reorganization is

(chaos. ” » » .

SAYS WORKERS EARN ‘RIGHT TO SECURITY

By R. Sprunger

When a worker works most of his life to improve the standard of living does his part towards producing and distributing wealth and paving the way for the following generation, he is entitled to rest in peace in his reclining years if he so desires. Voice in the Crowd rates a human being below the status of a mule. He objects to pensions for the aged people. Yet Congress authorized 30 | dollars per month “pension” to army mules too old to work. The {only liberty Voice in the Crowd {knows is the “liberty” of the profit {mongers to exploit workers and | [sweep aside human rights to gain (more profits for their own selfish | desires.

Budgetary control of the Admin-

|istration’s expenditures has nothing

whatever to do with the regiment- |

|ing of production and distribution | New Books at t

economy,” which is to say the least

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We notice that the |

And couldn't that be prevented by hiring | Sure!— |

I like the family to be stampeding through |

hunting for Christmas trees. wreaths, turkeys green | lettuces, bright-colored candies, golden oranges, and |

red apples for the Christmas feasts. Everybody gets fagged out before it's over, but we are tired with a weariness which relaxes our souls even while it tenses our bodies. And somehow weariness in well-doing

Sati

is never so intense as that we feel when Ls gn _ we slave fo® selfish purposes - a —— ’ i 3 ™ OH

that is currently known as “planned |

he Library

a deeper shade than pink. Socially, the theory of communism | JN the 1880's there was a glamour is that all men are on the same girl in Cairo, Ill, named Maud social level. It does not work that Riitenhouse, who told all to her way, because there is a group of|diary. Luckily for us, Richard Lee real exploiters at the top. The rest|Strout edited and arranged that have no chance. The social leveling | diary, published now under the of communism is downward. ’ You simple title “Maud” (Macmillan), can pull men down by governmental | Which depicts four years of her life regime, but you cannot pull them | in her up. Men go up only as individuals | Cairo.” who strive to improve themselves| Maud admitted she was not beaumentally, morally and physically, to|tiful, but she had more beaux than attain a social standard of their|anyone else in town. She was not own. That process can exist only the valedictorian of her class, but with a free people. [still she was the hit of Graduation In dark Russia and in more en-| Day because she read her essay in a lightened Germany, men are sent'good loud voice, She was a happy

“dear lovely ugly sweet]

Side Glance

12-20 COPR. 1939 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. 7. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF. >

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soul always—and why not? As she |says, “I have a darling Mama and Papa, a sweet home, an honest girl friend, and almost everything |I could desire.” Our heroine records naively the | fancies and foibles of that era. She painted, she wrote, she orated, and she acted. She painted everything a party dress for herself, portieres for the house, hat bands for the boys, 4 banjo for her mother, and a bedroom toilet set for her girl friend. She wrote delicate stories entitled “My Sunrise Room” and “A June Retouched” and “The Man | She Despised,” for which she re- | ceived as much as $10 plus the admiring plaudits of her friends. She orated for the school, for the church, and for the temperance cause. She sold many of the young | bloods of the town on the horrors lof demon rum, pinned the white | ribbon on them, and was deeply hurt |when her converts forgot ‘their | pledges. She was one of the leadling lights in the theatricals at the Opera House and even: made her debut in opera. Each time she per- | formed, the ovation was greater, the | flowers more profuse, her costumes | more elaborate, and her acting more | finished. . | All these happenings were care- | fully recorded in purple ink in | Maud’s “dear book,” and today she | lives to see them brought to a wider | public than she ever enjoyed, in as entertaining and lively a biography as we have read in many a moon.

CHRISTMAS SHOWER

By MRS. HELEN MORI ECK If this lucky kiddie So bountifully supplied Such a host of lovely things— Seems nothing was denied— Could share with that hapless kiddie, Also supplied, But, only with the hope of heaven; Most earthly things denied, The Lord pondering all Would have magnificent content! “For unto ‘all’ the least of these” Is surely what he meant!

DAILY THOUGHT

For none of us liveth to himseif, and no man dieth to himself. —Romans 14:7.

T is best to live as friends with

1 me RR aan Le

‘WEDNESDAY, DEC. 20, 1939 Gen. Johnson Says—

He Seldom Agreed With. Broun, But Admired Him for His Ccurage And His Ability as a Craftsman,

ASHINGTON, Dec. 20.--It hurts to hear of the death of a fellow craftsman in. any trade, You learn so well to know what “going west” may mean in such a case. In the army you have to get used to it because suddenness in death is so frequent, But this columnist business is different. Hardly a week ago I was listening to a story of the kindly, sportsmanlike conduct on both sides of the transfer

"of Heywood Broun's column from one set of papers

to another. It is sad to think that. there will be no more “It Seems to Me" in any paper. It is the more so because Heywood's column and this one frequently cross-fired. I like to remember that all the encounters were in a razzing, genial mood. The last time I saw him, he came lumbering across the room, and said: “General, I always agree with your column but I never read it.” If you know how many times a columnist hears: “I always read your column, but I don’t always agree with it,” you will know what Heywood meant, I doubt if he ever really got sore at anybody. There never was any venom in his shafts. When he wanted to put out, he could write as engaging prose as anybody in America—even about a brick—and make you like it, : . ” » ” EYWOOD had courage. He said what he thought regardless of whom it hit or what harm it would do to his circulation. He was no middle-of-the-roader-—even in thought. He was a radical of the extreme left wing, but he believed in taking it out on the intellecutal side. The country needs to hear every aspect of these questions. In the presentation of Mr. Broun's side'he had no equal. There is no columnist to take his place. There are some who will try but they are toe prejudiced and hot-eyed to gain either patience or conviction among readers who are not already convinced anyway. Most of them do not know how to write as Broun did when he wanted to—so attractively as to hold attention to the text even if you didn't agree with a word of it. ; ” n ” IS experience had covered so many fields tha he was articulate on as wide a° range of subjects as any columnist—war correspondence, ‘art and dramatic criticism, sports, politics, sociology and labor relations. He knew by close personal contact, if not more people at least more classes of people than most writers. In their parting interview, he reported Roy W. Howard as remarking of him that he would take great interest in everything—except, his job. But after all,“wasn't that exactly his job? Gents who pontificate on every subject ought to get a little knowledge of each—and get it somewhere outside of a book or a crystal ball. Heywood lived a full rich life. Perhaps that helped: to take him off too soon. But it also helped him to write with the genial confident philosophy that was part of all his efforts. He liked and enjoyed

| life too well to want to leave it, but if he had known

that he must go, I imagine that he would have chosen the way he did go—a sudden loss of conscibusness in its full flood and then the end with no long-drawn agony. “Sunset and evening star and one clear call for me!” Wo

Drink Ye All of It.

Tribute Paid Broun by President in Reading Writer's Parable Recalled.

By Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance . V ASHINGTON, Dec. 20.—Two years ago -this week President Roosevelt paid ‘an unusual honor to Heywood Broun. The President, on the occasion of the lighting of Washington's community Christmas tree, read over the radio Mr. Broun's column of the day before, “A Christmas Parable.” The column, which seems as timely now as then, read as follows: We were sitting in a high room above the chapel, and although it was Christmas Eve, my good friend and Dominie seemed curiously troubled.” And that was strange for he was a man extremely sensitive to the festivities of his faith, , , . My friend is an old man and I have known him for many years, but this was the first time the Nativity had failed to rouse him to an ecstacy. He admitted that something was wrong.” “Tomorrow,” he said, “I must go down to the chapel and preach a Christmas sermon. And I must speak of peace and good will toward men. I know you think of me as.a man too cloistered to be of any use to the community,” And I know that our world is one of war and hate and enmity. “And you, my young friend, and others keep insisting that before there can be brotherhood here there must be bashing of heads. ... You may laugh at me, but right now I am worrying how Christmas came to Judias Iscariot.” ; It is a habit of my friend when he is troubled by doubts to reach for the hook and he did so now. Ha smiled and said, “Will you assist me in a little experiment?”

He Finds Christmas

“Like the men of Athens,” he added, “I am too superstitious. I will close my cyes and you hold out the Bible to me. I will open it at random and run my fingers down a page. You read me the text which I blindly select.” ! I did as he told me, and he happened on the 26th chapter of St. Matthew and the 25th verse. ; I read, “Then Judas, who betrayed him, answered and said, ‘Master, is it I?’ He said unto him, ‘Thou hast said.’ ” : My friend frowned, but then he looked at me, in triumph. “Now I remember. My hand. is not as steady as it used to be. You should have taken the lower part of my finger and not the top. Read the 27th verse. It is not an eighth of an inch away. Read what it says.” i ; ¢ And I read, “And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink ye all of it.” “Mark that!” cried the old man’ exultantly. ‘Not even to Judas, the betrayer, was the wine of life denied. I can preach my Christmas sernion now, and my text will be, ‘Drink Ye All of It.’ Good will towafd men means good will to every last son of God. Peace on earth means peace to Pilate, peace to the thieves on the cross and peace to poor Iscariot.” And whether the old man was right or wrong, I was glad, for he had found Christmas, and I saw by his face that once more he heard the voice of the herald angels.

Watching Your Health By Jane Stafford Po al

RANBERRIES, traditional - trimming of the + Christmas dinner, have lately been discovered. tc contain a fair amount of scurvy-preventing vitamin C When served in generous portions, théy will add con siderable of this vitamin to the diet, say experts of th: U. S. Bureau of Home Economics. : According to an old story, seafaring men years ago knew this health value of cranberries long before scientists discovered it.” When ships sailed from New England harbors to Africa and around the Horn, the story goes, the cook’s galley was stocked with a barrel of cranberries: As the sailors passed they occasionally grabbed a handful of the berries and ate them raw as they stood their watch. Now comes scientific confirmation, which not only gives the reason for the scurvy protection afforded by cranberries but which shows the sailors were right to eat their cranberries raw. . Vitamin C tends to be-de-stroyed by heat and by exposure to air, and the food value of cranberries varies according to the way they are prepared.. Most of the vitamin C is available when the berries are used raw, as in new style freshly made relish of ground cranberries or in molded salad. Some of the vitamin is lost: when the cranberries are made into sauce, and even more is destroyed when the sauce is strained or the juice made into jelly, Of course, this does not mean that you cannot or should not eat cooked cranberries in‘sauce, jelly, pie, or muffins. But if you are relying on cranberries fer your day’s allotment of:vitamin C, without éating any other foods er be eaten raw and in a generous

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containing this vitamin, the cranberries “portioh,

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