Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 January 1940 — Page 30

STUMPED

_i gnarl of strings. Nor does it seem very sport]

~ graph merge. Nothing was done. Recently the FCC again

e Indianapolis Times

gc (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) : 3 - b3 ao . ite : 0 oY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE

3 Pia » Editor | - Business Manager

v

ty, 3 cents a copy; deliv‘ered: by carrier, 12 cents .& week. 3

‘Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month.

RILEY 5551

‘Member of United Press, = Tipps - Howard News3 Paper Alliance, NEA © Service, and Audit Bu- -: Teau of Circulation,

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1940

#LET’S KEEP IT UP! 3 INJO traffic fatalities have occurred in Indianapolis since 1 : Dec. 16. This spotless record was made despite a 1 period of heavy snows, ‘sleet, rain, icy roads—conditions = that add to the peril of the highways. Which gives rise . to the hope that motorists would drive at all times, instead of only occasionally, with the realization that danger is always present. : :

- It is only such day in and day out safety-mindedness, ,coupled with constant vigilance and enforcement by police, and a better spirit of co-operation all around, that will “count in the long run if we are to keep down, and even eliminate entirely, these senseless killings on our streets and highways. : That is why such safety programs as that of the Indianapolis Accident Prevention Council, which also hopes to reduce industrial and home accidents as well, is so important, The council's slogan, “Indianapolis the Safety City in ’40,” can be realized if the movement receives the support and co-operation it deserves. }

TOO SHREWD . ; FINLAND can say very properly, “We asked| for stones and you gave us bread.” It the U. 8. A. is going to do anything at|all for the ‘nation which for over a month has stopped imperialistic bolshevism in its tracks we think we should not attach a

ing to say, “We'll give you credit if you will buy from us”—to specify * that Finland must spend that credit for what we most want to sell, regardless of what Finland needs. |

There is nothing noble about scrambling our agricultural and industrial surplus’ problem with Finl nd’s back-to-the-wall fight against invasion, and then proposing to the beleaguered nation that we’ll lend her money if she will take off our hands what we haven't been able to sell and very much want to get rid of. | If credit is extended at all it ought to be on a basis of Finland's using it for what she requires, to be spent ‘here she pleases and where she can get delivery quickest. Vhen a house is on fire you don’t take a day shopping round for a'sprinkler system. | There may be good reasons under our neutrality policy “why we shouldn’t lend Finland money at all. If so, let's “8ay so. : But if what she needs is guns, let’s not try to sell her beans, fly swatters and carpet sweepers.

“MONOPOLY FOR TELEGRAPH? | IVE years ago the Federal Communications Commission asked Congress to let Western Union and Postal Tele-

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sent a merger recommendation to the Capitol. So Con‘gress is presented once more with the old ‘bugaboo of ‘bigness’ —with the question: : : Is one huge and solvent monopoly better than two Tompeting and financially limping telegraph companies? 3 “The financial situation of the Postal system is precariJous,” says the FCC, “and that of Western U Vie although ‘dess critical, is definitely unfavorable. . . . And there is no “indication of improvement.” The telegraph companies, like “the railroads, have been undercut by outsiders—by cheaper “ong-distance telephone rates and by the air mail. They «are up against it, a A merger would present complex problems. Increased Federal regulation would be necessary, to ‘supplant the regulative force of Western-vs.-Postal competition. The “public would require assurances that the merger would not bring shoddy service, and that economies would produce rate cuts, Labor would have to be cushioned against the

~

sabolition of overlapping jobs. But those problems are not insuperable. As the FCC remarks, Congress already permits a monopoly in the telephone field and “there is no controlling reason for the Be of a different legislative policy for the wire “telegraph.” 2 Labor will be wary. But what has it got to lose? -AT'he telegraph industry today “offers little security for its Zemployees,” the FCC says; last June, Western and Postal’s #and-line employees numbered only 68,000, against 86,827 3 1980. And if Congress approves a merger it will un- ! a carry out the commission’s advice that employees should receive primary consideration” in any consolidation plan. : : : = Senator Wheeler, who is chairman of the Senate Hnterstate Commerce Committee, has come out in favor of ihe merger, provided that labor and the public are safe‘guarded. “It is a natural monopoly,” he says, and today . “Western Union and Postal are destroying each other.” Certainly the problem ‘is one that Congress should ot evade.

F the problems that plague our public officers there seems to be no end, and now the county commissioners it Pittsfield, Mass., are up against a tough one, raised by She fact that dogs running at large have bitten off the tails a number of cows. : The commissioners agree that the county should pay or the damage. What puzzles them is how to set two price ales—one for ordinary cows, the other for well-bred cows. Dur own view, dating fromthe first time we tried to milk )ld Bossy, is that a cow’s tail is a deadly weapon and that ogs who bite off cows’ tails are public benefactors. We oncede, however, that a cow’s opinion may be quite different t that she may consider her tail useful and even ornapental. But if that is so, what are the cows of Pittsfield going to think about a set of county commissioners who

hes 5

Price in; Marion Coun-

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

From Families in Joining Red Party, Ben Gitlow Claims in New Book.

EW YORK, Jan. 17.—Ben Gitlow, the former Bolshevik who once had command of the Muscovite conspiracy against the ‘United States, offers interesting testimony regarding the Communist Youth Movement in a book called “I Confess.” Mr. Gitlow may be remembered as the witness who told the Dies Committee about the use of forged American passports by Communist leaders, the counterfeiting of American money by agencies of the Soviet Gov-

political purposes of money contributed by generous Americans for the relief of victims of the Russian famine. Fan, As to whether the American Youth Congress has been dominated by the Communists, there is still conflict of belief. In moments of unguarded enthusiasm prominent. Communists have jubilantly claimed as much, but Mrs. Roosevelt insists that she has satisfied herself by inquiry that this is not so. It has not been denied, however, that the young Communists tried to seize control or that they are influential in the movement, so Mr. Gitlow’s remarks about the Communist youth should interest the non-Communist youth and their parents. 2 x = “FP\HEY broke with their families,” he writes, “because the family was a bourgeois institution which stood in the way of their Communist activities. Many completely divorced . themselves from their parents. It was not unusual for parents to plead with us that we induce their children to show them some kind- of consideration.”

leaders changed their wives .sometimes as often as one does an overcoat. The young Communists had but to see what their elders in the party were doing. It was no wonder that they defied all moral codes.” Young Communists did not long remain single, but the common-law marriages between them, as a rule, were short-lived. The orgies and debaucheries among the young were spoken about in whispers in the party, never seriously discussed and considered. We felt that the profligate sex relations. ameng the youth were .something we “could not control and that as long as the youth could be depended upon to serve the interests of the movement it was best to leave the matter alone.” ” 2 ” { AX EASTMAN, who wrote an introduction of the book, says the work of the Communist Party in the United States has involved a “series. of fanatical crimes not only against American law or

and ideals. He is one of those who apparently would grant social amnesty to backsliders who participated or acquiesced in offenses against patriotism and decency. He even bespeaks charity or understanding for Gitlow’s opponents who, like Gitlow, were moved “in their factional maneuvers and their dirty trickery in general by super zealotry as well as by the mere thirst of power.” Not understanding Gitlow’s present hostility to the party from the control of which he was arbitrarily removed by Josef Stalin, there may be Americans who will hesitate to forgive a man who felt that “profligate sex relations among the youth were something we could not control and that as long as the youth could be depended upen to serve the interests of the movement it was best to leave the matter alone.”

Inside Indianapolis

The Park Board and Rejuvenation, The ABC, Newsboys and Chairs.

Tos are beginning to look up as far as the Park Board is concerned. The Mayor seems to have “seen the light” on the growing criticism of the board’s operations, which, as we've told you ence or

| twice before, were handled with the apparent view-

point of keeping the public in the dark. We said, too, that nothing at all might be wrong but that it looked like bad policy. Well, the Mayor has started the ball rolling by naming Miss Gertrude V. Brown as a member of the board. The shock of this appointinent-is that Miss Brown is completely non-political and indeed probably hasn't the slightest interest in’ whether the Democrats continue to keep house or not. : And, to top this off; it looks now as if Albert Gisler may become the Board president. Mr. Gisler happens to be one of the people the newspapermen like. They think he’s a square-shooter, ‘The net of all this may be that the Board may suddenly appear to the town as a rejuvenated organization, full of the desire to give the public recreation and, what’s most surprising, willing to have, the public as a partner. ” »

TALKING ABOUT governmental operations, give a hand to the State's Alcoholic Beverages Commission. , .. The three members, Lowell Patterson, Richard Shirley and Harry Fenton are trying to do a good job. . . . For instance, the police pinched a pair of tavern owners on charges of violation.of some sort. . . . The municipal court dismissed the cases on the grounds of “insufficient evidence.”. +The ABC came right back with fines for the tavern owners. . . . The newest thing in excavations is the building they're razing at the corner of Market and Illinois Sts. . . . As a matter of public service, we think you ought to know that the best vantage point is any office window facing east is the Traction Terminal Building. ” 2 »

NEWSBOYS ALL over the world are distinguished for their pronunciation of the name of the commodity they sell. . . . If you've ever listened, you’ve heard “poiper,” “pep-per,” ‘“pay-pur,” ad infinitum. . a a But we think the prize goes 10 the rotund marketer on the northeast corner of Washington and Illinois who cries: “Pie-pie—Giet your Indianapolis pie= pie.” . . . Have you seen the new piece of furniture around town? ... The Indianapolis delegation which went to the Furniture Mart,in Chicago saw it, tested it, bought it,. . . It's a living room chair and it looks just like any you have around home. . . . But out of the bottom comes a partition, the back folds down and you have a single guest|bed. . , . A regular 6-foot bed. .. . No kidding.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

VERY time I have occasion to see how willingly men and women speed to the help of a friend in distress, I am moved to give thanks because our hearts are so much kinder than our tongues. There can be no question about it. At certain high moments we are motivated only by considerate feelings; our sentimental instincts, which lie close to the surface of our nature, come forth and prompt us to good deeds. Only the tongue—that nruly member— plays us false most of the time. |Heedless of the promptings of the heart, it clatters c uelty and evil. This inconsistency of decent people is just a part of our human nature, of course, and constitutes the peculiar charm of mortals. Because we are such mean-tempered and mean-tongued individuals at times, we are surprised and delighted to see ourselves rise above everyday levels to prove we are made of finer stuff. ; It’s so easy, so natural, and alas, prick the absent acquaintance with the scalpel of ‘criticism, or to impale her on the sharp point of what we: are pleased to call our wit. We discuss her whims and

so pleasant, to

faults with gusto, quite forgetting to mention her

virtues. The listener who did not know us well might Suppose we were cold-blooded creatures without a single kindly impulse. i. Yet this 1s far from being true. the average individual is capable of good will.

On the contrary self-sacrifice ‘and Common men and women are forever re-

, pudiating the notion that humankind is made of base

metal—since most of us respond eagerl call of another's need. D gh the am

ntimate that a well-bred cow’s tail is more valuable than if ordinary cow's tail? It looks like class discrimination of he Famkest sort... md

Isn't it a pity to think o

| interludes of real awareness

BS as sentimental la ple do? Instead m

Youth Shed Morals, Cut Loose

ernment and the diversion or misappropriation for

“Loose morals were general,” he writes. “Party |

Americanism but against the party’s own principles |

» ES YS Sel aa, oh oy e En

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

UPHOLDS POLICE IN NIGHT PARKING BAN By Everett S. Brown Any sensible person will agree that night auto parking on the streets is a losing proposition in many ways. Also, it is creating an unnecessary hazard. Mr. Spencer in his article to The Times is so unmindful of the general . nuisance, especially in the residential sections of the City, when automobile owners will deliberately park their cars on the opposite side of the street from their homes, denying other car owners and any of their guests the privilege of parking as they should. I know from my own personal experience that all night street parking is a nuisance, hazard, and

a liability which must be totally

abolished by the strictest of rules and regulations. Chief Morrissey should go after all of them without fear or favor. Clear thinking and good citizens are. with him.

#” # »

PERMANENT WPA POLICY TERMED UNTHINKABLE By Claude Braddick, Kokomo, Ind. The whole question of public relief is becoming more “insistent; and if business recovery continues apace, as it gives every evidence of doing, then the question will soon become clamorous and demand some drastic action. Occasionally one hears the opinion expressed that WPA, and the other government handout agencies, are des-

|tined to be permanent fixtures.

Perhaps this is true. But any government that openly advocates such will doom itself to defeat. It is not alone the staggering cost of such things that renders their continuance unthinkable. Another, and perhaps more important aspect, is coming more to the fore. I refer to the demoralizing effect of these handouts on the character of the recipients themselves. A future: in which so many citizens look upon alms as their right, and accept them shamelessly, is not a pleasant prospect. ; Indeed the’ belief is widespread in this country that the time has already come to make drastic curtailments. Politicians, too, are fully aware of this. But vote-conscious-ness makes them shrink from action.. Setting up the Government gravy train was of course a political windfall. Tearing it down will require political courage—to ‘quote a

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

Times editorial—which is another way of saying statesmanship. ‘Perhaps it will need a bit of diplomacy, too. Something like that of the picturesque, shoe-cobbling philosopher of my hometown boyhood days. He'd be cobbling away, surrounded by the village loafers.

‘ISuddenly he'd stop, lay down his

hammer, and reach for his plug of “Star.” “Let's all have a chew,” he would say, glancing around at the moochers, “of our own tobaccer.” » ” » CLAIMS ONLY 6 STATES RETAIN POLL TAX By Albert Johnson How much does the State License Department get from gall the counties in Indiana for collecting their poll taxes for them? They must get a pretty good “cut.” If there ever was an unjust law, this is it. In the first place, poll tax is out of date. Even our President says that. There are only six or eight states left that

still have a poll tax. The original purpose of the law is served. But if old-fashioned Indiana must have its poll tax, why don’t they cut the age limit down to about 35 years instead of 50? Then let the women pay a poll tax too. They vote; they hold down men’s jobs and about everything else a man does—so why not pay poll tax? I say 35 years instead of 50 be-: cause, if one goes around and tries to get-a job after he is 35 he is told “too old.” Then we ought to be too old to pay poll tax. . = sae FEARS FOR FUTURE OF YOUNGER GENERATION By L. G. McPherson, Lafayette, Ind, It makes me weep when I think of the future .of the younger generation. I don't want to preach about saving money for a rainy day or any of the “Confucius says” philosophy, but when you are working, you should save about 2 per cent of your wages.-You would be surprised what it amounts to. You can attend a $25-a-plate banquet and never miss it. . Ty Moral: Don’t be a Simple Simon and trade your birthright for a horse that. chokes to death on a corncob. When you are working, save 2 per cent of your wages and you won’t have to humiliate yourself by having only a quarter to spend for dinner and have to alibi to your friends that you have stomach trouble and you are not work-

ing on commission.

New Books ai the Library

NE.of the founders of the Communist Party in France, Boris Souvarine later broke with the Party because of ‘what he considered its reactionary policies during the years following the Russian revolution. *Stalin, a Critical Survey of Bolshevism” (Alliance Book Corp.) first published in Frenth in 1935, and just recently translated and published in English (and brought up to date by the author) furnishes a 600-page account of what has been happening in Russia since 1917. 2 The shock of Russia’s entrance into the game of power politics will no doubt render the public ear more respectively attentive to M. Sou-

Side Glances—B

aii. yl LIcOPR. 1940 BY. NEA

says he's th

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aid

INC. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

1-17

"Just look at that young Lemky lad kick up his heels! And his father 4 > laziest critter he ever saw lift up.a hoe!"

{political murder,

varine than it has been toward others who have written critically of the U. §. 8. R. If M. Souvarine reports truly what has occurred in Russia during the last 20 years, then indeed many spectators who have looked sympathetically from the outside while revolutionary Russia strove to establish herself will be bitterly disappointed. The failure of Lenin to establish a democratic socialist government, the weakness and fumbling tactics of Trotsky and his adherents when they tried to oppose the increasingly autocratic policies of the Communist Party, made it possible, says Souvarine, for Stalin to rise to his present position of supreme power. His ascendancy, accompanied by

{the misery of the masses, oppres-

sion of all opposition, and wholesale has meant, he claims, the gradual abandonment of the socialist society envisioned by Marx; and in 1935, when the dictator found himself firm]y entrenched; the period of definite reaction set in. : ' The “miscarriage of Bolshevism” in Russia and the “death agony” of socialist hope elsewhere in the world, concludes the author, should cause us to draw up a balance-sheet

of national Bolshevism, international communism, and traditional socialism, and to examine their “parent doctrine,” Marxism, to see what is dead and what still lives.

SONNET OF JANUARY

By MARY P. DENNY In stately measures Of deep winter treasures Shines the light of January. Snow is shining on the pane North wind chimes a minor strain. Cedar trees and mistletoe Shine out clear in wintér cold. Jewels shine within the fire, Song nofes ring on winter lyre, Radio sounds through shining wire, All the land shines bright and clear In the first days of the year. Songs ring out through hours of time : Ringing far from clime to clime.

DAILY THOUGHT

And now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship—The Acts 27:22.

LA 7 HO stabs my name would stab my person, too, did not the

hangman’s axe lie in

wa

ne way.—

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ohnson

‘New Yorkers: Dominate Cabinet ~ Which Would Be O. K. if They Got There Through Unusual Merit.

ASHINGTON, Jan. 17.—With the appointment of Boh Jackson as Attorney General, there will be five members of the Cabinet from one state—New York—or, if you count Mr. Edison, who. at least used to live there, six. ..Secretaries Hopkins, Perkins, Morgenthau and Farley and now the Attorney General, all hail from the Empire State, There is little. to be said for: the fetish of territorial representation on the: Cabinet if

there is a question of the best brains and ability to be weighed against a question of domicile. But when there is no such question, there is a precedent, hoary with age, in favor of giving some recognition td the various territorial divisions. Mr. Roosevelt cares about precedents te the extent that he likes to break them, just as he has broken many and is as sure as sunrise to break the one about a third term. : ' There is small question between ability and locality in this concentration of New Yorkers in the Cabinet,’ None of the five or six except Mr. Jackson and Mr. Farley is burdened with fitness for .the job. The President could have selected as well from any place in the nation—including Samoa and Guam.

~~ % 8 =» .

R. ROOSEVELT doesn't; care much for able men, but he does care painfully for complacent men, If a man is able and a good yesser his ability might not disquality him, unless it happened to be so great that he took some of the spotlight. Then Mr. Roosevelt would crack him down or sew him up as he did so cleverly to Paul McNutt, who has been as neatly and completely bundled as a caterpillar in a cocoon. With such a stable of Cabineteers as most of the New York delegation, it is of no great importance where they come from. The Department of Commerce, like commerce itself, is a barely tolerated institution. Harry Hopkins had to be gotten out of WPA to prevent an investigation and an explosion. Mr Roosevelt is his own Secretary of the Treasury and of the Navy, and, insofar as it is the partisan political job of the Cabinet, his own Postmaster General. Whether he picked. them from New York or from New Mexico, he wouldn't have chosen anybody for those jobs who would get any ideas about them, He gets all the ideas himself. : .

2 2 =» HEN there is Mrs, Perkins, hut she is there to represent not a state but a sex. Both John ‘Lewis and William Green seem to have some question about what she represents among their people. The record of labor unrest and disunion under her admin=istration is about the worst in the book. ' Mr. Farley's selection was unavoidable. He made the nomination and election of Mr. Roosevelt possible, He has eaten the smoke of his own inward fires, taken his wounds, done his job as far as he was permitted and never released a squawk. : Mr. Jackson falls in the first class discussed here— great ability and fitness for the job and second to none as a yesser, All he has to do is to see that his ability doesn’t get the best of him and drag him into too great prominence. If he can do that he may be allowed to live and might even go the Supreme Court,

Puerto Rico By Bruce Catton

Leahy's Demand for Bigger Sugar Quota May Launch Bitter Battle,

ASHINGTON, Jan. 17.—The effort to restore Puerto Rico to economic ‘health is about to hand the President and Congress a saw-toothed . problem. : Vi Governor William D. Leahy of - Puerto Rico, excommander of the U. S. fleet, goes back to ,the island late this month. Before he goes he wants a showdown. If he doesn’t get what he wants for the island, the President is likely to have to find a new governor. - ; The governor wants two things: Modification of the Wage-Hour law and a thumping boost in the island’s sugar quota. He’ll probably get the former; the latter can be had only by a bitter, complicated fight in Congress. : The goverpor would hike Puerto Rico's sugar quota by at least 400,000 tons: Last year the island’s quota— its share of the American sugar market—swas 743,000 tons, or 11 per cent of a 6,755,000-ton market. That will set off fireworks. 5 Setting sugar quotas is a thorny job, always. The so-called ‘sugar bloc” in Congress does it by intricate debate and trading. In that bloc Puerto Rico, as a territory, has no vote. Politically speaking, it will be utterly impossible to give Puerto Rico 40,000 additional tons—or 400, for that matter—out of any other domestic quota. The only quota that can he cut is Cuba's, which last year amounted to 1,891,000 tons. { : But if Cuba's quota—always defended valiantly by the State Department—is going to be cut for Puerto Rico, other sugar-producing areas are certain to demand ‘similar cuts in their favor too. Trying to take 400,000 tons from Cuba would simply start a cat-and-dog fight that might end anywhere.

.Matter of Life and Death

Governor Leahy remarks that it’s almost a life and-death matter for Puerto Rico. Sugar is the island’s one big industry. If a sugar hand loses his job, there just is. nothing else for him to do. “Of course, we're doing our best to introduce other industries,” he says, “but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the terrible situation that exists, and s it’ll be many yeats before it:does. “These people are desperately poor by our standards. Our people just couldn’t exist on what they have even when theyre well off. The only possible solution is either to.get permission to produce more ‘sugar, or to get a very large increase in relief funds.” Leahy didn’t want the Puerto Rico governorship n the first place. .. . He warned President Roosevelt luntly when appointed that if he found he could not remedy the island’s plight he would resign. So far, the President has backed him stanchly. ak

Watching Your Health By Jane Stafford. “5

HIS time of year used to be considered the whooping cough season, when parents were reminded to be extra vigilant in guarding their chil< dren; especially the babies, from this killer. It may be whooping cough season in your locality, but for the nation as a whole, it has recently been discovered, there is no special whooping cough season. : _- In the fall of 1937 the U. S. Public Health Service for the first time added this serious childhood malady to its list of “reportable” diseases. State health officers each week now report to Washington the number of cases of whooping cough reported to health departments by physicians. When the Federal health officials looked over the figures for the first 11 months, they found whooping cough had set an “amazing” record for being a year-round disease. Throughout the nation, just about the same number of children are whooping each week of the year. 2 This does not mean, however, that, anyone can afford to be careless about exposing children to

| whooping cough. Of every 10 babies who get the

disease, one will die of it. Between the ages of 1 and 2 years, one child in 20 who gets whooping cough will die of it. Children of school age rarely die of whoop» ing cough, but if they get it, they are likely to give i$ to younger brothers and sisters. ol “Children with whooping cough should be isolated. Since this ailment starts much like a cold, with no whooping for a week or two, it is hard to check its spread. It is easily communicable, even in the early, pre-whooping stages, however. Parents are therefore advised to keep young children away from others who have a cold. Be Th Treatment should be directed by a physician, who will also give instructions for disinfecting the patiefit's dishes, nursing and feeding him. i Hint from the Illinois State Medical Soecitty:«Cold ‘or iced drinks should be avoided by the whoopin

cough patient as they.may. bring on seizures; of

-{ cough.