Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 December 1939 — Page 15

PAGE 14

i od

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

MARK FERREE

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER Business Manager

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ofS RILEY 5551 \SCRIPPS ~ HOWARD

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1939

STAFF OF HONOR HE Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce deserves congratulations for its policy of honoring outstanding citizens while they are still potent forces in the community. Too often, the honors that men deserve are reserved until they are gone. The Chamber's Staff of Honor is to be augmented on Jan. 9 by seven well-known men, They are: Henry C. Atkins, president of E. C. Atkins & Co. Stanley Coulter, Eli Lilly & Co. research advisor and dean emeritus of Purdue University. Henry L. Dithmer, president of the Polar Ice & Fuel Co. Edgar 1. Evans, chairman of the board, Acme-Evans

Co. Fred Hoke, vice-president and treasurer, the Holcomb & Hoke Manufacturing Co. Hugh McK Landon; vice-president of the board, the Fletcher Trust Co. Franklin Vonnegut, president of the Vonnegut Hardware Co, All of these men have reached the age of 70. They are being honored for having contributed “distinguished citizenship and distinguished service outside their professional and business efforts.” We congratulate them and wish them many years of happiness and success.

MIRACLE IN THE MAKING?

THAT finally touched off the Russian revolution was the mistreatment of the Russian soldiers in the World

arms, food or clothing, forced into misery and slaughter by dumb, grafting and blundering leadership from on high, the troops finally turned. That was the start of the Bolshevik regime. That happened under a Czar. Today history may be repeating under a man whose

title isn’t Czar—but whose absolutism is modified only in |

the titular respect. His name is Stalin. What he is forcing his soldiers to do is characterized by all the ruthlessness, all the contempt for cannon fodder, that brought about the rebellion in the ranks two decades ago. Thousands killed in futile fighting or frozen in the Arctic cold of Finland are the victims of the same haughty disregard for human life as that which ended one Russian dictatorship and set up another, Already murmurs are being heard in Moscow. A defensive and explanatory note is creeping into the communiques. Being circulated about, cautiously and mostly underground as vet, is talk that maybe Stalin after all is not the one true god. Significantly, complete censorship is being re-established on dispatches going out of the country. Therein may develop the explanation for a miracle. On a basis of statistics, Finland, with all her brave performance to date, doesn’t have a chance—because three million don’t win against 183 million. But war is not all a matter of statistics. And so may the imponderables, working within Russia itself, save Finland and bring about the demise of another world conquest.

DIES’ PAY DIRT HE Dies Committee has been guilty of many silly and un-American performances, such as trying to put the Communist brand on everybody who might at some time have joined a consumers’ society, a student discussion group

or an organization allegedly working for democracy and |

peace. Yet at the same time the committee has performed gome very valuable public services—one of which has been to disclose to unsuspecting citizens that in joining organizations with high-sounding names and purposes they sometimes become the dupes of the Bolos who run those organizations. Through its investigations the committee has punctured the pretensions of a great many tin-pot Hitlers, twobit Stalins and other dues-collecting adventurers. For instance, we don’t hear much any more about the Silver Shirts racket. It is no reflection on Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who sent Nazi Bund ieader Fritz Kuhn to jail, to recall that Mr. Dies was the first one who tackled that bozo. Nor does it detract from the good record of Attorney General Murphy and FBI Director Hoover to mention the fact that it was the committee’s disclosures which first pointed to the probability of widespread spy and sabotage activities. From one day’s grist of news are stories of two Russian propagandists pleading guilty to violation of the alien registration law, paying fines of $2500 and promising to leave the country, and of a grand jury preparing to hear evidence against foreign-agent saboteurs in the aviation, automobile and munitions industries. It may be more than a coincidence that the Dies revelations aroused public opinion before things like that started happening. The committee has pulled out several red herrings, but it also has hooked a number of live and squirming fish.

SENATORIAL CALM F all people, members of the U, S. Senate have been complaining about noise. They protested that the rattling of the wheels on their private railway, running beneath the street from the Capitol to the Senate office building, makes it impossible to carry on a conversation. Unlike other matters that come before Congress, this situation was quickly remedied. The Capitol architect saw the American Transit Association which referred him to the Washington Transit Co., which immediately went to work and promised rubberized silence by the New Year. The distance between the office building and the Senate wing of the Capitol is about two blocks. It is a cruel imposition on senatorial temperament to cut off conversation during this brief daily junket. Perhaps the real objection to the noisy trams is the fact that only the most resonant and bellowing members get a chance to. make themselves heard.

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Guild Likely to Face Criticism Unless It Goes to Bat for Movie Writer Fired by the Daily Worker.

EW YORK, Dec. 20.—An interesting situation has developed in the relations between the Daily Worker, the official organ of the Communist Party, and the American Newspaper Guild, The Worker has either fired its motion picture editor, Howard Rushmore, or compelled him to resign because he refused

to condemn uttery the movie, “Gone With the Wind.” According to his story, he quit, and according to the

Worker's own announcement, he was fired,

Either way, Mr. Rushmore is a victim of a type of boss-persecution from which the Guild seeks to protect its members without discrimination, and the case on any other paper would call for his reinstatement or for a strike, a picket line and a boycott of all wares and activities advertised in the Worker. The dispute narrows down to the fact that Mr. Rushmore has been deprived of his job because his political beliefs conflict with those of his employer. He has other grievances, however, which, although trivial by comparison with this great issue of freedom and dignity, nevertheless, must be pressed and redressed, unless, by failure to do sp, the Newspaper Guild create a public impression th&t the Communist Party enjoys special favor, * = F any other New York newspaper were to fire a journalist because his beliefs conflicted with those of the boss, and the facts were openly admitted, as in this instance, there would be no argument about the Guild’s course. A demand for reinstatement would be made immediately, ahd if the man were not restored to duty the boss would be cited to the Labor Board for coercion and intimidation, The advertisers would be denounced as enemies of labor, even though they had contracts covering all their relations with their own employees, The Worker's announcement left no doubt that Rushmore had been “released” because of his beliefs. It did not say that he was drunk, tardy, inefficient or negligent. It said he had placed himself definitely in the camp of reaction as an enemy of the working class. But the Worker and the Communist Party were not the working class. They were the employer and a not too good employer at that, for Rushmore’s salary, when he got it, was only $25 a week. And now he reports that he has not received even that for several months. » = » HE Guild would never permit a capitalist American publisher to pay a movie reviewer as little as $25 a week in New York, and it has taken a firm

' . 1 A i . | stand against the old custom of permitting cubs to War. Sent out into impossible situations, without adequate |

work for nothing but experience. This custom has been abandoned by most publishers, the Daily Worker, incidentally, being one of the few exceptions, Furthermore, the Guild, for the self-respect of its

members, insists that no man shall be required to | sign his name to writings which violate his own be- |

liefs, and this would appear to be another important

particular in the grievance against'the Worker and the |

Communist Party, Mr. Rushmore, working for noth-

ing, lost his job because he refused to write views |

which violated his own for a public which, though limited, nevertheless, knew him to be the Worker's critic,

Inside Indianapolis

Snow and Ice Play Tricks on Autos; The Good Samaritan and the Kitten,

HE snow and ice of the last few davs have certainly proved that old Dobbin had his place.

whichever yours has been, If you happen to be one of those who ride taxicabs and you've been puzzling over higher fares, the comment of one cabby ought to straighten things out. He said: “I try hard to be careful but in weather like this your wheels keep slipping and these meters start

clicking along like typewriters.”

Some of the North Side folk whose houses sit on hills and who have to drive up pretty, winding driveways can’t make it. The cars sit out all night. But the fellow who's in the worst shape is the poor old pedestrian. Even when a car is moving along at 15 miles an hour, you never know what it's apt to do.

signals on em just as they're in the middle of the street, *® » » THIS IS A true story of an Indianapolis cat which, for reasons not yet clear, ran up a prominent North Side tree two nights ago and stayed there, meowing with all stops out. A man who lived nearby noticed it and called the Fire Depariment to see if the laddies would rescue kitty, He stated his problem and the fireman answered: “Who does the cat belong to?” “I don’t know,” the man replied. There was a silence, “We don't mind rescuing cats,” the fireman finally said. “but this is an awful night to take a truck out.” The man agreed. “And our experience,” continued the fireman, “has been that when we don’t know who the cat belongs to and don't have anyone to keep it after we get it down, the cat runs right back up.” We are happy to report, however, that the man

found a ladder, rescued the cat, found its home, and |

gratefully accepted a mug of Tom & Jerry as reward. 8 = -

WE MENTIONED calendars the other day but not calendar trouble, ., . . One home here has one calendar which says Thanksgiving is Nov. 21 and another which says Nov. 28. . . . The Karl C. Wolfe printing people solved it, though. . . Their calendar lists both days with question marks as the background. . . . Somebody started to play tricks on the City Hall boys yesterday. . . . First they called the newspapers

to say that four prominent office holders were resign- |

ing. . . . Talked intelligently, too. . . . Well, it got to the Mayor and, disturbed, he called up his boys. . « « They didn’t know anything about it, either. . . . William Fortune is soon to become a great-grand-father,

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

AVING read exactly 12 editorial comments on the request of Westchester women to radio companies asking for fewer love serials, I am moved to write another, Certainly it would be impossible to over-emphasize the subject. And nothing that might be said could be as tiresome as the romantic dramas themselves. Also it seems a propitious time to point out that it's generally bad business to talk down to women. A good many men are making that mistake these days. The assumption of our stupidity prevails. Although millions of us now graduate from college and compete with the males in every trade and profession, to the average man the old feminine image remains. It is an image of a scatterbrained sentimental creature with the limited understanding of a 12-year-old. Because we follow the fashions, we are as witless as clothes-horses. Because we cook in home kitchens we can’t swallow intellectual brews; and being interested in dieting, we are fatheads—so goes the masculine reasoning when it deigns to think about females in the mass. To quote Ida Bailey Allen, expert home economist, “Most of the heads of radio corporations haven't considered women at all.” “I have met women all over the country,” she continues, “and found them possessed of a high order of intelligence.” Men may be nuts about fishing and at the same time run a successful business. By the same reasoning the woman who loves feminine frills may be

capable of comprehending something of the larger |

issues which affect her family's welfare.

In fact our homebodies are showing a new aware- | ness of their economic importance. They are becom- |

ing articulate. Maybe some day men will study

women instead of business charts. When that hap- | pens, the smart advertisers will appeal to our com- |

mon sense and intelligence as well as to our romantic urges and vanity.

The pedestrian is lucky to get across | an intersection, especially where the police turn the damned for having put crutches un-|the democratic way. Insurance by

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Oh, Migosh!

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES _—

ALL YOURS

tT’s

The Hoosier Forum

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

THINKS LEFT WINGERS GETTING RAW DEAL

By Curious, Bloomington, Ind, From what I can gather by reading the daily papers and through | correspondence, I am beginning to {believe that Wall Street, England. (France and Finland together might |give the U. S. R. R. a good wallop{ing and get that important rail[road before long. | I am curious to know whom the

| Manipulating an automobile over Indianapolis streets | historians will say started that war, has certainly been a hazardous vocation or avocation, (20 years from now—Baron von Man- [these crutches are not sufficient to {enable “free enterprise” to become |

| nerheim, ex-Tsarist, or Joey Stalin, Secretary of the Red Party. Why do I defend Left |ideas? |are getting the raw end of some | dirty Right Wing-owned-and-con-trolled propaganda. "© =» Wn | BLAMES TROUBLES ON "LACK OF COMPETITION | By H. L. Seeger The New Deal may be praised or

Wing

der “free economic enterprise,” which prevailed in America until 1932, If these crutches are now to be termed impediments to recovery, then we ‘may well ask why this “free enter- | prise” produced the collapse of the | system in 1929, and also why four years of Hoover's regime did not bring forth recovery under his “hands off” policy. | The truth of the matter is thai four free enterprise system has been constantly weakened by propping it with log-rolled tariffs which virtually destroved competition from abroad. The system thus became a closed | hunting preserve as far as real com- | petition at home was concerned. | Protective tariffs are nothing short {of crutches for a feeble competitor | These crutches were manufactured {by both political parties for our | “free” enterprise, No politician will dare propose re{peal of our tariff crutches, our farm (subsidies, our bank deposit insurlance, our social security laws, our

[collective bargaining, our housing (acts, our Government underwriting These crutches are now

of loans. permanent fixtures in the “free” enterprise system. However, all

Well, because I think they | |sophy of profits based on scarcity.

| To operate on a policy of abundance

| peacetime planning must be done in

(Times readers are invited to express their 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.)

views in

the stalwart athletic champion of abundance. We are still operating on a philo-

we can allow free enterprise to plan its production at full capacity, if we set up a national industrial and agricultural planning board to plan peacetime production, just as a war production board plans wartime production. Except that

| Government against losses of pro-

ers to absorb the goods, should be a prime factor in insuring 100 per cent co-operation in such program. ” ” ” FAVORS ABOLITION OF COUNTY WELFARE BOARDS By Walker Hull, Freetown, Ind.

I have been reading in The Times about trustees favoring the abolition of County Welfare Boards. I wholly agree with that, but disagree with the idea of doing away with old-age pensions—or rather what so-called experts call assistance. I agree with township trustees that welfare boards are expensive and there is too much red tape. Do away with county welfare boards and their so-called experts and then centralize it in hands of a state board and make it mandatory to give all old, needy people at least $40 a month, . , , Give liberal pension and by so doing help busi- | ness move, Let the investigators get | their fine clothes and gold watch chains and fine cars some other way. But take care of our old people and give them comfort and

ducers, due to failure of consum-

security in their last years.

New Books at the Library

|

or all the treasures which men have wrested from the earth, | iron ore would, perhaps, seem the most prosaic in comparison with gold, silver, gems, oil and lumber. is the raw material of steel is “an industry dramatic, great and

| But ore | steel, and | immense, ruthless.” Ore, like gold, had its fevered [“rush” days in the 1840's and 1850's; [it had its fortune hunters and (visionaries; its “boom towns” on the vast iron ranges of Michigan and Minnesota, terrorized frequently by gangsters and killers. Some of the towns still flourish; others | have crumbled to ruin, and legends | say that rusty ghosts walk through their long abandoned streets. | Stewart H. Holbrook's “Iron | Brew” (Macmillan) is a presentation of the thundering saga of the

pa

OOPR_ 1899 BY NEA SERVICE Wé. 7. RES. U. 8. PAT OFF.

Side Glances—By Galbraith

> 2-29

|

| "You've been eating onions on your hamburger again,”

American steel industry during the past century and the many per|sonalities who played a part in it

| —from the miners, Irish, Cornish, | Italian and Swedish, who defied | |death far underground to bring up| the rich black ore, to Andrew Car- | negie, Charles Schwab, the Mor-| gans and Rockefellers. Of these, | the author finds the humble “figures | near the earth and slag” far more heroic than the “incredible Iron and Steel Barons,” those Pittsburgh millionaires whose vulgarity was expressed in houses built like | castles, in pink marble fountains and solid gold cuspidors. Steel’s “dramas” range from subterranean lakes flooding mines and drowning any number of helpless men, to billion-dollar mergers, strikes and the long bitter struggle for union recognition and rights in “a business that is both the glory and shame of industrial America.” But perhaps the greatest drama is the“gorgeous, startling show, the grim majesty” of Steel being born in Pennsylvania or Gary—a Niagara | of seething liquid metal flowing | from roaring rainbow-colored fires, | “hotter than the devil himself could | | devise.”

RELEASE By RUTH E. STEFFEY

Free at last, you may lift vour arms. Free at last from the burden of! leaves,

| Free to feel once again the thrill— |

Thrill of wind in your boughs, oh trees!

Flaunt your branches, now bare at last— Look about and you'll see them all— Bushes, shrubs, every vine and stalk, Joyous now at the winter's call.

Reach up high to the birds’ playground, Dodge and race by, Exultant stand as you hear the

dip as the clouds

song— Siren song—it’s the winter's cry! Wild and sweet are its notes and

free, Calling bush and vine and tree!

DAILY THOUGHT

And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.—Luke 22:40.

O realize God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against

temptation.—Fenelon.,

’ i

\ i FRIDAY, DEC. 29, 1939

Gen. Johnson Says—

Morgenthau and Eccles Will Give G. O. P. Winning Issue if Successful In Beating New Wallace Farm Plan.

ASHINGTON, Dec. 29.—If the Secretary of the Treasury and Mr, Eccles of the Federal Reserve are in accord with the principal New Deal policy from the beginning, then they are ahsolut€ly wrong in their opposition to the Secretary of Agriculture's “certificate” plan of consumer taxation to give “parity” prices to agriculture, “Equality for agriculture”—fair exchange value for those parts of the farmer's crops which are consumed

on the domestic market—has been promised in every Democratic platform since 1928, : In its simplest terms, the argument is that, since the tariff cannot protect export farm crops from the influence of world prices and world competition, but does protect all industrial prices, the farmer, too, is entitled to some sort of “tariff” on domestic consump= tion. If all consumers, including farmers, have to pay— and receive—by increased price, due to tariff protection, prices higher than world prices for industrial production, why should not all consumers be willing to pay prices on a similar level for agricultural production? #8 8 INCE our whole economy has been built on a tariff-protected industry, it is generally agreed that we cannot immediately go to a free trade basis. That leaves only one answer: “The consumer should pay a ‘parity’ price—or something more than a world price—for agricultural as well as industrial production.” Up to the present writing, I think Mr. Wallace has been absolutely haywire in his efforts to get this higher domestic price for farmers, He has tried to raise the price on the whole crop, whether consumed at home or sold abroad. He has attempted to do this by destroying livestock, plowing under corn and cot= ton and financing the storage of surplus at public ex= pense. The result has been to finance competition from other surplus producing countries and to force consuming countries to greater production. It has priced the American farmer out of export markets he has enjoyed for a century and a half, The storage of surplus by loans to farmers at high artificial levels is yet to be heard from,

» ” » HIS is a “valorization” scheme tried over and over again in the world’s history—and never with success. Nobody knows the actual condition of the stored “security” for these public loans. Agricultural products are perishable. Mr. Wallace may soon be presenting the public with losses—including shaky farm credit mortgages—running into billions. Let us hope not, Certainly the least deadly of all he has ever proposed is his present plan to subsidize domestic consumption of farm crops by his “certifi= cate” scheme. It is entirely defensible in view of the tariff. It permits American farm competition in export markets on a basis of equality. It assesses the cost in the only defensible place—on the consumer. It is the only ray of half-way sanity in this Admin istration’s handling of the farm problem, If Mr. Wal= lace had not at last been driven to this method, the Republicans would have invented it. If Mr, Morgen= thau and Mr. Eccles can prevent Mr, Wallace's plan, the Republicans will make it the principal issue in the next election—and win with it.

Stormy Congress

By Bruce Catton

Budget Battleground for 1940 Campaign at the Coming Session. (First of a Series)

ASHINGTON, Dec. 29.—There will be several storm centers in the stormy weather belt that is going to blow through Congress at the regular ses= sion starting next month. 1. THE BUDGET. With defense costs approaching two and a quarter billions, a rise of $750,000,000 over the current year, every bureau in the department will be asked to take a cut to hold down the total budget. Every one will fight it bitterly.

2. RECIPROCAL TRADE TREATIES. With Sec- ’

retary Hull leading the fight to keep them, and strong farm, industrial and labor groups demanding return to Republican high-tariff principles, the fur will fly. 3. WPA. Does better business justify the cuts that will be actively demanded? Bitter disagreement is in prospect. 4. WAGE-HOUR AND WAGNER ACTS. There is loud vocal demand for amendment; both very hot potatoes in an election year, 5. DIES COMMITTEE. Liberal efforts to discontinue the committee or alter personnel are forecast. Every Congressman who comes up for election in 1940 will be judged by his stand on these and other issues. Any one of them may become the outstanding national issue for campaign purposes. So every Congressman will be inclined to handle them with asbestos gloves.

Economy in the Abstract

Every one of these issues, and others, is caught up in the budget question: When this balanced budget, promised in 1932, and deferred each year since, to be achieved, and how? The tremendous military expense suggests drastis cuts in relief, WPA, and regular government ex penses. But not one of these can be achieved without a bitter battle. Legislators will orate feverishly for economy in the abstract, but when confronted with a chance to knock out (for instance) the $200,000,000 item for roadbuilding, why that is something else again. Those reads are in their districts. A Farm Belt statesman wants to economize everywhere but on the farm program, a city representative may want economy everywhere but in relief, and perhaps slum clearance, Because of these things, every effort to reduce the budget, whether backed by President Roosevelt or others, will meet severe battling at every step.

NEXT—WPA—Will it be cut?

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

OUBLE vision, resulting from what is generally ;

called “crosseyes,” is the fourth of the common eye defects. The trouble in this condition is with the muscles that move the eyeball. If these muscles all have normal and balanced strength, the two eyeballs can be moved in exactly the same direction at the same moment, giving what is known as binocular vision. When a person with binocular vision, which mos# of us have, looks at an object, two images are formed, one on each of the retinas of the two eyes. A singls image, however, is seen with the brain. But this is only true when the image falls on the same corresponding spot of both retinas. Otherwise, two blurred and over-lapping images are seen. This is the kind of double vision persons with crosseyes have, ‘Lack of balance in the power of the muscles that move the eyeball turns one or both eyes either in, out, or down, causing various kinds of squint or crosseyes, with double vision. With this defect it is possible to see when only one eye is used. However, if only one eye is used, the other falls into disuse and may become even more im= paired. Consequently it is important to have the defect corrected before this Impairment of the other eye occurs. Glasses with prismatic lenses are used in some cases to correct the defect by bending the light rays so as to bring the image of each eye on the identical spot of each retina. Such glasses or prism exercises can often train the weak muscle or muscles so as to remedy the defect. Instead of glasses and prism exercises, eye specialists often advise a surgical operation to correct the defect. With this method, a shortened muscle may be cut, or a stretched muscle may be shortened, so as to restore the balance of power between the muscles.

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