Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 December 1939 — Page 12

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PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

MARK FERREE Business Manager

" ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER President Editor

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SB> RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1939

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TAKE IT EASY

F you are late to the office and feel impelled to step on it a bit— If you are in a hurry and want to make up a minute or two coming downtown— If the street seems clear and you feel that you can take a chance— No matter what the occasion or how strong the impulse, we urge you to resist it while our streets are covered * with snow and ice. ; . Remember that you have scant control over your car if you try to stop suddenly under such conditions and that any pedestrian unfortunate enough to be in your path will have no chance whatever to get out of the way. Take it easy and you wiil not only save yourself possible injury but you will safeguard the lives of those on the street around you.

“AMERICANISM” IN CAMBRIDGE

ITY Councilor Michael J. Sullivan wanted “to stamp out the further spread of communism in our city.” So he persuaded the City Council of Cambridge, Mass., to adopt a resolution forbidding anyone to bring into the city any book, magazine or newspaper containing the words “Lenin” or “Leningrad.” Instead of stopping the spread of communism, what City Councilor Sullivan is doing with his silly ordinance, of course, is mimicking the practices of the world’s one big Communist state. It would not be at all surprising if a Soviet district council forbade in print the words “George Washington” or “Washington, D. C.” For it is the practice of the Soviets not only to decree what shall not be printed, but also what shall be printed—and without regard for truth. But it is surprising that any American city should even consider such a regulation. Happily the Mayor has declared he will veto it, and thus it will die unless the Council readopts it by a two-thirds vote. One rule which Cambridge should adopt is a requirement that all members of the City Council memorize the Bill of Rights. If Councilor Sullivan had taken the trouble to drop around to Harvard Square he could have learned from some first-year law student that the U. S. Supreme Court said only a few weeks ago, when invalidating several municipal handbill ordinances: “Although a municipality may enact regulations in the interest of public safety, health, welfare or convenience,

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these may not abridge the: individual liberties secured by |

the Constitution to those who wish to speak, Write, print or circulate information or opinion.” :

PAYING FOR WAR

NCLE SAM closed his books, the other day, on direct claims of Civil War naval veterans when Rear Admiral Reginald Nicholson died at the age of 87. After 75 years, we have finished paying off this part of our debt. Still on our rolls for compensation, however, are: Widows and children of Civil War naval veterans; The last vestige of Civil War land forces and their widows and children; . a Survivors and claimants from the Spanish-American War, 40 years ago; Thousands of beneficiaries from the World War, only 21 years ago. In fact, Uncle Sam is still paying one daughter of a War of 1812 veteran and several others have filed claims for compensation. That conflict ended 125 years ago. If, at any time, we're not quite sure what we're going to do about the present struggle, we might look at our monthly war bills—stretching back for 125 years.

PARABLE OF THE BLITZKRIEG

WHEN a blitzkrieg fails it backfires on the reputation of the one who threatens—whether in warfare or in just a- private fight. Russia’s might was something to cause bad dreams until Goliath started to stumble in the snow. The moral is—unless you can deliver, don’t brag, because you quickly shrivel in the eyes of your audience and finally succumb to the most powerful of all attacks, ridicule. Stalin could learn a lot by reading Mark Twain. That part, for example, in “Life on the Mississippi” where two loud-mouths on the raft were declaring themselves: “Leave him to me; he’s my meat,” shouts the first— “I'm the original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw! Look at me! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by.an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to smallpox on the mother’s side. I take 19 alligators and a barrel of whisky for breakfast when I'm in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm ailing. I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak. . . . Lay low and hold your breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!” ; . Blitzkrieg No. 2 responds: “Whoo-oop!. Bow your neck and spread! Hold me down to earth, for I feel my powers a-workin’. Don’t let me get a start. Smoked glass, here, for all! Don’t attempt to look at me with naked eye! When I'm playful I use the . meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe _ in it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm. «+. I put my hand on the sun’s face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather—don’t use the naked eye! ~ I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! Bow your neck and spread, for the pet child of calamity’s - a-coming!” All of which ends when a little fellow moves in and whips them both. :

Aviation By Maj. Al Williams

Ability of Warplanes to Conceal Movements Shown by Presence Of Italian Ships on Finnish Front.

TALIAN fighting planes and pilots are reported fighting with the Finns against the Soviet invaders. British and French equipment is also reported on the new battlefront. Even the Germans are said to be supplying infantry arms to the Finns. People wonder how the Italian planes were delivered on the Finnish front. Airpower has its own way of doing things. When land armies are transported everyone knows it. Fleet movements can be

concealed only under exceptional conditions. As soon as a naval concentration is effected the news is public property; because the sea is occupied by merchantmen, fishing boats and yachts on which people live. And the people will talk. But air power can select air roads, far above those traveled by air liners and private planes—at 20,000 feet. The Germans may not “let” the Italians fly across Germany, but maybe the Germans wouldn't know anything about it. During the Spanish Civil War, German warplanes were flown across France without the French being more than suspicious.

2 ” # GAIN, when the German Focke Wulf Condor, four-engined transport plane, flew from Germany to New York City nonstop, its Great Circle navigation course took it right over Edinburg, Scotland. Yet the Scots didn’t know about that until they were told. It would be interesting to know how the Italian Air Force will figure in the Rumanian theater, which threatens to be the next war zone. This belief is a natural conclusion from the recent news released from Berlin in which the Germans confess that the British sea blockade is adversely affecting German economics, and point to the Balkans as the only salvation for future raw materials and food supplies. 8% 8 ERMANY not only wants the oil fields of Rumania but also the wheat and food supplies. Attack by Germany would result in demolition of the oil fields, and it takes about two years to get ruined oil wells producing again. If the Russians are also intent on invading Rumania, it may be Germany's role to move in for a split. Italy has a stake in that portion of Europe, and if Germany moves in the air power of Italy is undoubtedly ready to defend Rumania. What I am driving at is this—if any invader comes into Rumania on foot with a land army, the natives will destroy the oil wells. That much warning of a marching army will give them time to do the job. That is the fear of the conqueror. And the only way he can forestall destruction of the black-gold supplies will be to attack military centers by air or threaten the ruthless destruction of cities with air bombardment.

(Westbrook Pegler’s column will appear tomorrow.)

Inside Indianapolis.

Why Interest High School Basketball Has Dropped Off.

T used to be quite in order to refer to Indiana's craze for high school basketball as “the Hoosier hysteria.” It was true. But it’s not true any more. High school basketball is no longer the unchallenged king of winter sports here. That's the situation all over the state. It may very well be that the Indiana High School Athletic Association, which ranks as a financial giant as well as a colossal clearing house for juvenile sports, committed hari-kari with the hardwood sport. The whole thing was geared to a tremendous finale—the State Finals tournament. The finals event was a spectacle in the full sense of the word. Visitors who came here for the event from other states were amazed. The big, colorful 16-team, two days and two nights tournament gripped the interest of the whole state. It» was pageantry and excitement. But the I. H. S. A. A. came up with a revised setup. It juggled the whole tournament setup, came up with a four-team tourney. And interest has never been the same. Gradually it has been dropping. This winter, the crowds at Indianapolis games are on the sparse side. You might explain that away by saying that Butler with a great nationally known team and the advent of hockey are tough competition. But how do you explain Hammond calling off a holiday tournament because of lack of interest?

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” » ” SPEAKING OF SPORTS brings us to the ice revue at the Coliseum. Those who have gone have stared in admiration at the colorfully decorated ice and the guesses on how it’s done are, to say the least, prolific. We'll tell you how and end the puzzle. ’ To start with, the ice used for the hockey games is a bit too hard for figure skating. But the interesting part is not the softening but how they transform a matter-ofifact hockey rink into a fairyland within 24 hours. First, they planed off a little more than a quarter of an inch from the surface, obliterating the hockey markers. Then, over the remaining ice they sprayed a specially made ‘white paint. Then they froze a sheet of ice over that about a sixteenth of an inch thick. Then the designers came in. Working with prepared designs and special paints, they laid out the tricky parabolas and stars and whatnots. They had to use sprays of water from regular little flower sprinkling cans to keep the different colored paints from running. But when the whole job was done,

they froze more ice on top of the rink and when it |

got back to that quarter of an inch planed off, the whole thing was there, as pretty as a picture. That ought to settle it. = ” 2 MOST OF THE private buildings in town yesterday cleared off the snow in rapid-fire time. . . . At noon, the Capitol Ave. and Senate Ave. walks around the State House were the only ones downtown untouched by shovels. . . . The walks leading to the Capitol itself were one-aisle cow paths. . . . What they're doing at Illinois and Maryland, where the Haag’s store sits, is to take off the second and third stories and leave just the first story. . . . Nice trick, eh? . , . There are rumors that there's a big story about to break in Democratic political circles.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“Q HE'S buying the love of her children!” hissed one »7 woman to another whose gifts of money and goods to members of her family are the talk of our neighborhood. It was only another case of the pot calling the kettle black, however, for the speaker was

noted in the community as a doormat character. Her husband and children run over her with hobnailed boots and she merely smiles and asks for more. No fake martyr could be more sanctimonious. Both women are buying affection, you see, only one pays for it with money and the other with physical and mental servitude. And both are to be censured only hecause they have gone to extremes. Are we not all guilty of buying affection? Indeed how else is one to have it except by paying some kind of price? That purchased with money doesit always stick, but we can be equally sure that few people ever love us only because we are charming or beautiful or Wise. Certainly our children are not fond of us merely because we happen to be their mothers.

This assumption has been the undoing of many a woman, and is partially responsible for the unfilial attitude of many modern youngsters. The mother who whines that her family fails in its duty to her when some domestic crisis comes, is merely charging herself with sinful neglect. She was not willing to pay the price which all must pay for the regard of others—the price of tolerance, understanding, unselfishnes nd Service, ple who go through life expect to get without giving love in return: DE EL lore Sei vey Ton servine, who hope to be popular withOut paying the price of popularity, are hard fall, pop y ews Every good thing in our lives exacts its Just price. We pay for all affection we receive, and blessed is the being who pays ungrudgingly, for hers is the Kingdom of Love, mda

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FIND HIMSELF IN A TOUGH SPOT

Predictions for 1940

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WiLL FIND HIMSELF IN A TOUGH SPOT

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JAPAN WILL FIND ITSELF IN A TOUGH SPOT

CHINA WiLL FIND {TSELF IN A TOUGH SPOT

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PEMOCRATIC PARTY WILL FIND ITSELF IN A TOUGH SPOT

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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.

RAPS COUNCIL ACTION ON HOSPITAL BILLS By Citizen

A short time ago our city officials were discouraged because they did not have money to raise salaries of recreational leaders who were getting only $65 to $85 a month. Now all of a sudden the City Council finds $60,000 lying around in a corner. This money is to be used to employ a staff of investigators to locate hospital chiselers. Unquestionably there are chiselers for some people quickly and conveniently forget a hospital bill. But why does the City have to spend $60,000 for investigation only? After our Sherlogk Holmes detective has cornered the chiseler, how will the City be able to collect from the deadbeat? Will the City officials get tough with people during an election year? That wouldn't be good pelitics. Why does a dumb citizen have to ask so many questions anyway? = sn ” DOUBTS: POLITICAL ACTION CAN BRING RECOVERY. By Voice in the Crowd “Thinker” expresses a thought that is still too prevalent—that a President can be elected who has a plan that will end the depression. This cannot be accomplished by one man, nor a group of men. It seems that we should give up the idea that we can drop a ballot in the box and pull out prosperity. The solution of our problem will be evident when 30 million families think straight and pull together, with each family solving its own depression. Proper political leadership can lead the people to this thinking and can give them strength to fight their 4ght, and the crying need is for that leadership. When people have a greater faith in each other, when they learn to do their best with the means at hand, when they give earnest thought to the future of the nation, we will be in our march toward recovery. It may be a long march. We still have a war and some |legerdemain called “planned economy” to pay for. It is meaningless to talk of “surrendering property rights.” We are now paying a third of our incame for taxes and our grandchildren’s taxes have already been spent. How much more should we surrender? I say to you that when property rights are surrendered, human rights are surrendered also. You just cannot surrender them separately. The saddest highlight to the de-

(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.)

pression is that some real folks, clean, honest Americans, are cold and hungry. If one-half the money that has been spent to reach them had reached the honest needy, none of us would be so badly off. Some unclean hands have touched our most sacred funds. Most people, however, are only suffering because it is so hard to keep up the payments on the ear, 7

= » ” DOUBTS TOWNSENDITES WILL SWING ELECTION By Jack Dolan, Shelbyville, Ind. A reader from Spencer said the Townsendites would determine the result of the next election. We are all aware Dr. Townsend cut a big figure in past elections, but he just cannot fool all the people all the

time. To begin with, no one knows what his plan is; his bill that was defeated 3 to 1 in Congress a few months ago was not a $200-a-month bill and the officials when sufficiently pressed admit they do not know how much it will bring per month;

and now he has no plan that he has as yet made public. I agree that too many of our Congressmen can be frightened into silence when people are divided on an issue, but I don’t believe they are fools enough to be frightened at a bogey man. ... Every student knows no bill ever was passed in Congress in the original form it was introduced. His bill was not looked on with favor by Congress, and when the Congressmen who were real friends of the old folks wanted to introduce a pension bill that Congress would consider and would give the old folks an adequate livelihood, our good Doctor used all the power he had to defeat those same men. . .. I feel sure if his first consideration was for a Federal pension we would have had it two years ago, and it is my kelief before we get a national pension we must first learn to forget Dr. Townsend. = ” os

THINKS U. 8S. MAY PAY FOR THIS WAR, TOO By Curious, Bloomington

Wow! Did you read what Dear Old Iron Pants had to say on Saturday, Dec. 23? I guess some of the uninformed will be calling Gen. Johnson a Red and other nice names now. Well, it looks to me like Wall St., France, Great Britain and Finland ought to give U.S. S.R. and the Third Reich another good wealloping one of these days and we, the goats, will pay for it as we did the last time. Three cheers for American stupidity.

New Books at the Library

OT so many years ago in a little town in Utah, a thin, intense, red-haired child, the ugly duckling of a modest family, strutted before audiences of her schoolmates in lace curtain grandeur or thought up a thousand other interests to express the exuberant spirits descended to her from those sturdy Mormon pioneers who were her forebears. Today this same person, a perfectly poised, exquisitely dressed woman, sits at the president's desk of a large retail store in New York City, the first woman executive to attain this eminence. The story of this upward climb, a mounting path often beset with ludicrous difficulties, makes up Hortense Odlum’s autobiography, “A Woman's Place” (Scribner).

Side Glances—By Galbraith

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"Now, old man, you're coming home with me. My wife has dinner waiting."

{ | bit of it. | | the development of - her business | |acumen, for the pleasure of seeing . {grit and humor win out, or for the

School days, marriage, and motherhood found this daughter of the West, of peppery temper and stubborn adherence to her own ideals, developing those qualities of heart and mind which were to prove so successful when she became mistress of a beautiful home, and later the somewhat chagrined recipient of the presidency of Bonwit-Teller. By the force of her personality, her driving energy, her power to sense the mind of her customers, her love of clothes and flair for line and color and suitability, this woman who in 1936 was chosen as one of 10 outstanding women in the country built up the great woman's specialty shop which is Bonwit-Teller’s. And always when addressing groups, when launching innovations in retail selling, when handling problems of administration, she remembers the skinny little girl back in Utah, the young mother who made her own cotton dresses and evolved 20 different ways to serve hamburger, the wife who schemed and saved, pushing her young husband up the way to success. She sees life whole and loves every Whether one reads for

love of good story, well told, he will gain as well a sense of uplift and inspiraticn as heady as a breath of success.

CALL IT GOLDEN By KEN HUGHES Today I love you more For golden silence Than for words You might have spilled Upon my senses. Your velvet eyes Can make each breath A vibrant hour. Your fingertips imprint A phrase of language Touched with flame. Today I love you more, far more, For each and all of these Which seemed to make a golden bond Between us two!

DAILY THOUGHT

For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. —Mark 9:41.

N effort made for the happiness -of others lifts above ourselves. yi M. Child,

“THURSDAY, DEC. 2, 1989, Gen. Johnson Says—

Congress Should Name a Special Committee to Draft Defense Plan If Mr. Roosevelt Fails to Do So.

ASHINGTON, Dec. 28.—If the President doesn’t appoint some kind of a mixed commission to investigate and report upon our plans and prospects for national defense, then Congress should appoint a Joint committee to do the same thing. : About a month ago, Col. Wild Bill Donovan pro=posed such a commission to consist of representatives of all affected governmental departments and a few prominent civilians.

The Administration admittedly has not yet formu= lated any fixed long range policy for national de= fense. The President has suggested that the country make up its mind on this. Before defense can be properly prepared, we have to know what we are going to defend. Will we fight for our slight dab of American trade in China? Do we propose to hold our long and dangerous salient in the Philippines? Is Guam our advance base? Will we fight to preserve the territory of South American countries? Are we really going to patrol the “safety belt” of the Declara= tion of Panama and fight if it is violated? ” ” n

AS Col. Donovan points out, you can’t plan a sen= sible defense before answering these questions. Neither can you plan intelligently without a lot more teamwork than exists now in the planning agencies—

including Congress. Under our Constitution, the President is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, but it is the duty of Congress to “raise and support armies . . , to provide and maintain a navy . « . to make rules for the Government and regulation of the land and naval forces . . . to provide for or< ganizing, arming and disciplining the militia.” We have little in the nature of basic military plan or policy, but there are plenty of willing workers in Washington just now cooking up surprise packages. The recent revelation that Secretary Morgenthau had a secret plan to control the war in Europe by buying up all the loose strategic materials in the world with American taxpayers’ dollars, is a case in point. It is typical from many angles. Mr. Morgenthau’s experience in this field is accurately reflected in the absurdity of the idea. It is the statutory duty. of the War Department, and not the Treasury, to be making war plans. . 8 ” ” UT Henry isn’t the only uninvited authority who Is secretly working on surprise defense cure-alls in case of war. Several of the leading Fourth New

Deal “thinkers” in more departments than one are busy. It was they who resented and scuttled the illfated Stettinius Committee. They don’t want any competition—not even from the War Department. Now this is all incompetent nonsense in a danger-, ous field. The fact is that, at least qn land and mechanization, motorization and anti-aircraft equips ment, we are piteously unprepared for even home defense. An even more alarming fact is that our plang to get these things promise results so few and slow that any fair appraisal would shock the country. In, all the past excitement of the war abroad, we have neglected our own house. The coming excitement of a Presidential campaign is likely to continue to keep public attention away from a pressing problem. That situation should be completely examined—now.

New Townsend Plan

By Bruce Catton >

Transactions Tax to Be Dropped In Favor of Levy on Gross Income.:

ASHINGTON, Dec. 28.~The famous 2 per cent transactions tax will be missing when a streams: lined version of the Townsend pension plan is offeredy to Congress this winter. : - [ Dr. Francis E. Townsend and his aids have de« cided to drop this scheme for financing the pension; plan. In its place, the bill which will be presented. will provide for a flat 2 per cent gross income taxg exempting wages, salaries, income of dirt farmers and all gross incomes of less than $200 a month. o Gone, too, will be the flat $200-a-month clauses Instead the pensions to be paid will be scaled tor the income derived from the tax. Townsend Plan headquarters estimate that under present conditiong the scheme would provide pensions of $50 a month for all persons over 60 retired from gainful employ-. ment. ; - Contrary to earlier reports, the Townsend peopl will fight for action on their bill at this session. I ‘had been expected that they would let the issue lid. dormant until after the next election, . oe

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Wallace Seeks FCA Changes

Real issue in the row over whether Secreta Wallace should exercise full authority over the Farmp Credit Administration is an argument over whethew FCA’s policies ought to be co-ordinated with the policies of the Department of Agriculture. F. F. Hillp

governor of FCA, has followed a more or leSs hard® boiled business policy in connection with loans and: foreclosures. Wallace holds that FCA ought not tae resell foreclosed land which the department considers sub-marginal, that it ought not to make loans o sub-marginal land, and that it should not permis the farms it holds to be operated without propet soil conservation methods. a The Farm Credit Administration was put under the Department of Agriculture last spring by the: Pres.dent’s reorganization plan without Wallace's ad vance knowledge. He wasn’t very enthusiastic about; it at the time, and worked out an: agreement with Hill under which FCA continued as virtually an} autonomous organization. But when Farm Belt Congressmen protested about what they ‘ealled “ruth= less foreclosure policies” of FCA, it was Wallace wha. got the heat. If he’s going to get the heat, Wallace figures he ought to have the authority, too.

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford x

STIGMATISM, the third common, eye error, ig caused by an irregular or slightly wrinkled cone dition of the surface of the cornea. This is the trans : parent tissue in the outer coat of the eye. It got it% name, which means horny, because of its resemblance to highly polished plates of horn. “ You have seen how an irregular spot in a window glass distorts whatever you see through it. Very much the same thing happens in astigmatism. The rays of light are not coneentrated uniformly, Some are brought together more sharply than others. As a res sult, the image may be not only blurred but distorted: There are said to be more than 2000 different varieties and degrees of astigmatism. : - To correct this condition, it is necessary that som@§ of the rays of light entering the pupil be bers mor than others. This is dene by means of a ¢yladric lens instead of a spherical one such as either the convex or concave ones used to correct farsightedness and. nearsightedness. . Astigmatism, however, is frequently found in cone junction with either nearsightedness or farsightedness, In such a case, a single lens is ground to correct bot difficulties at once. . Nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism an double Wision between them make up 95 per cent of a errors of the eye. They are all of them defects focusing the rays of light on the retina. This is n surprising, because it is the focusing parts of the eyH that we are using differently from the way Naturg intended. Instead of using our eyes most of the time for looking at objects 20 feet or more away in broad daylight, most of us use them for hours at a time ta look at close objects, a good bit of the time indoor§ and with artificial light. ‘ - Focusing defects that- may come from this change in the way we-use our eyes are fortunately easily cora rected. All that is needed is to bend the rays of light, one way or another, before they enter the eye. This

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-can be done by the employment of proper lenses to meet the different situations, - ,