Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 January 1940 — Page 18

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ROY| W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER

President Editor

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1940

BUSINESS IS ONLY HUMAN NIGHT on the occasion of its own 50th anniversary the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce is to pay tribute to 235 firms which have been in business here for 50 years or longer. Fifty years is not long, perhaps, in measuring the momentous events of history, but for a business it is a respectable age indeed. New inventions, new products, new machinery, new ways of doing things have taken a heavy toll through the years. Those concerns which survive have profited by the guidance of forward-looking men who have kept pace with the times. And so, in honoring these firms, we honor the persons who have lived with them, nourished them and brought them through. : There is, in fact, a little something of each of us in the makeup and character of the firm which employs us, be it factory, store, beauty parlor or filling station. That little something contributes to its stability as a going concern. Yes, business can have and does have the human touch. And in honoring these 235 firms we pay tribute to the many loyal men and women, in humble or high capacities, who have served them, and which, in turn, served Indianapolis.

TOO MUCH POWER NE resolution submitted to the United Mine Workers’ convention at Columbus deserves more consideration than the delegates will be permitted to give it. Coming -from the local union at Holden, W. Va., it asks that the U. M. W. executive board be forbidden to take ‘“‘our money to finance political campaigns, regardless of what political faction he may belong to.” The language may lack polish, but the meaning is clear. One local union, at least, has dared to say that a wrong

thing was done in 1936 when half a million dollars from-

the Mine Workers’ treasury—money paid as union dues by coal miners—was given and lent to the Democratic Party to help re-elect President Roosevelt. John L. Lewis has revealed what he expected that money to buy him; namely, the right to dictate the policies of the Democratic Party and to command the subservience of the President. Because he considers that he has not enjoyed that right to the full extent he desired, Mr. Lewis has turned against the President. And Mr. Roosevelt, unfortunately, is in no position to deny that he did place himself under a very heavy obligation to John L. Lewis.For though the money belonged to the thousands of individual union members, Democrats and Republicans alike, it was the union’s executive board—which means Mr. . Lewis—that gave and lent it to the Democratic Party. And no man, be he labor leader or corporation official, should have the power to use other people’s money to buy himself special privilege or political influence. > Mr. Lewis is unlikely to let the mine workers’ convention deprive him of that power. But Congress, which has forbidden corporations to contribute stockholders’ money to political campaigns, should forbid labor leaders to contribute union members’ money to political campaigns.

EMBARGO QUESTIONS

T 12:01 a. m. tomorrow, Washington Time, the State Department will figuratively tear up the Japanese-Amer-ican Trade Treaty of 1911 and consign it, seals and ribbons and all, to the wastebasket. Thereafter our commercial relations with Tokyo will be on a hair-trigger basis—with each government free to apply discriminations, without warning, against the other’s trade.

What happens now?

The talk is all of embargoes. It is argued that the United States is munitioning a country which has violated its treaties with us, which has ruthlessly overrun our friend China, which has flagrantly and repeatedly abused our rights in the Orient. Let us shut off these supplies, the argument runs, and in a few months Japan's war machine will be a wreck. :

The Chinese Council for Economic Research computes that in 1938 Japan got 90 per cent of her scrap-iron and steel imports from the United States; also 65 per cent of her petroleum and petroleum products, 82 per cent of her ferro-alloys, 90 per cent of her copper, 45 per cent of her lead. She also leans on us for certain types of machinery. And of course she is the biggest foreign buyer of our cotton—some of which goes into explosives, and much of which goes into textiles which Japan exports to earn’ foreign exchange with which to buy war supplies. ; t 4 » Obviously, if Japan could be prevented from getting all those things, her war machine would be crippled if not wrecked. But the questions arise: :

1. Are other nations in a position to fill Japan’s needs? 2. If they are, would they do so? Si

We are thinking particularly of England. Normally her strategic interests in the Orient are parallel to ours, but in time of European war there is no telling. President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull undoubtedly have those questions—or the answers—in mind right now, while waiting to see whether the new Tokyo Cabinet is willing and able to improve the treatment of United States interests in the Orient. |

NOT HOMESICK, IS HE?

.JF Comrade Browder thinks he is being sent to prison because he is the Communist Party leader, rather than because he violated a| Federal law, then by all logic he should rejoice that our country is becoming more like his ideological homeland. |

Surely the comr de, on one of his many fraudulently passported pilgrimages, must have heard ‘whispered that Russian quip to the effect that “there can be several parties in the Soviet Union, but on the sole condition that one is in power and the others iin jail.” hs :

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The Indianapolis Times

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler Spelvin Draws Friend Wife Into

As Usual Gets His Ears Pinned Back.

EW YORK, Jan. 26.—George Spelvin, the Average American, has been running a fever about this business of raising money for the Finns, and last night when he came home he threw his wife an argument. He often does this to get straightened out. He uses friend wife for his other self, but she is smarter than his other self—or his regular self, either, if it comes down to that—so she usually bends his ears back. Then Mr. Spelvin adopts her ideas on the proprosi-

tion as his own. Like last night Spelvin said, “It certainly looks suspicious to me.” ° “What is suspicious about it?” she said. “Why, sending all this money to those . Spelvin said. ; : ~ «I don't see anything suspicious,” she said. “That's all you know,” said Spelvin. “You know what they are saying, don’t you? It is a conspiracy L.to get us hopped up and then get us into the war to save the Jews.” “Who has been giving you that?” she said. “Why, it's all over town,” he said. . “The Finns ain't Jews, are they?” Mrs. Spelvin said. “And the Norwegians ain't Jews, too, are they?” 8 o 2 “ 0,” he said, “but that ain't the idea. The idea is the Jews are sore at the Nazis, so we get sucked in to help the Pinns against the Russians, and then the Nazis move in to help the Russians against us and the Allies. So. we win the war for the Jews. That's why you see so many Jews rooting for benefit shows for the Finns.” «Jews like Herbert Hoover,” she said. “He is a stooge for them,” Mr. Spelvin said. “And President Roosevelt, too?” she said. “Are Hoover and Roosevelt partners now?” “Don’t be clever,” he said. “When you run out of arguments you get nasty.” “Well,” she said. “I always heard Hitler said Russia was under Jewish domination, and sometimes you used to say the Communists were all Jews. And now you are telling me the Jews are trying to drag us into a war to lick communism. Why, I can remember when you said the Communists ought to be wiped out, and now that some Jews want to help the Finns wipe them out you are against the idea. You waht to pull yourself together. Are you rooting for the Communists now?” “No,” he said. “I am against the Communists and

fellow-travelers.”

Finns,”

8 8 8 se ELL, the Nazis are fellow-travelers in my book,” Wits Spelvin said. “You said yourself they are going to help the Russians against the Finns and the Allies and against us, too, if we get sucked in against the Bolsheviks.” . ,“And that is what T am still saying,” Mr. Spelvin replied. “What I say is it is a conspiracy by the Russians and the Germans against the decent countries, and they are pulling that Jew stuff on us so nobody will want to help the poor Finns. Like you said yourself, the Finns, the Norwegians and the Swedes aren't Jews or Communists, either, but the Russians are Communists and the Germans are fellow-travelers. So when anybody goes to help the Finns fight Bolsheviks then all the Nazis around here start this propaganda about a conspiracy to have this country rescue the Jews from Germany. That is like I said when I came in. I said, ‘It certainly looks suspicious to me, all this propaganda to keep us from helping the Finns!’ ” «I guess you must be right, my hero,” Mrs. Spelvin said. “Sure,” said Spelvin. “It is one of the most suspicious things I ever saw. That propaganda is all over town.” :

Inside Indianapolis

What Happens When An 87-Year-Old Vet Sends a Cake to a Mere Boy of 52.

N CONNECTION with the Chamber of Commerce’s 50-year celebration JYonight in honor of the firms that old, Strauss’ have turned up with one of the neatest of all the expressions. To all of the firms which are being honored appeared yesterday a telegraph messenger boy, attired in white gloves, and spotless from tip to toe. He asked quietly for the head of the concern. : He said simply that he wanted to deliver a gift personally. Shown in, he removed his hat and took up a position on the side of the desk opposite the executive. | Then he opened up the box to reveal a real, honest-to-goodness cake. And on top he gravely placed five candles, one to denote each 10 years of life. With the little ceremony came a note from Strauss’ saying, “Let's you and I and others who have come through the years together cut a birthday cake.” And at the bottom: “We're 87, going on 88.” : A youngster of 52 like us is supposed to be seen and not heard. Anyway, we took a chance and said “Thanks.” is

| ” # 2 THE EMPLOYEES at a certain office have been debating lately whether it was quicker to cross the Circle by going up and over the Monument steps, or by walking around the base. . . . Well, they finally investigated things. . . . It takes 136 steps to go up and over, 127 steps around. . . . One of the gentlemen who didn’t get a sticker for having his car parked without a taillight solved the problem merely by hanging a nice, old-fashioned lantern on the back of his chariot. .. . A woman stopped at English’s Theater the other day to buy a couple of tickets for the Helen Hayes show and she happened to/mention that she’d spent a harrowing time in New York recently. . . . Seems she’d “Gone With The Wind” in the afiernoon and to a full-length “Hamlet” in the evening.

” ” ” WE WOULDN'T mention names for the world, but we ought to tell the story. . . . There's a firm here which makes signs covering everything from “Keep Off The Grass” to doctors’ office hours. ... . But on its own door is a scrap of paper, printed in pencil, which says: “Please Close The Door.” . . We've just learned that Bill Akin Jr., an Indianapolis boy, is being unfair to Indianapolis musicians. . . . Bill has his own band (in Pittsburgh now) and there isn’t a local boy in the crew. .,. . Seriously, though, the former Butler boy is doing very well by himself in the music-making business. . . . One hotel in Columbus, O., called him back nine times for return bookings. ;

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

EF a society where the cute cuddly damsel stars in fiction and where all the inexpensive clothes are manufactured to fit the vest-pocket feminine e tall girls are at a disadvantage. : Having been one myself, I know what suffering can be endured by the maiden who tops most of her boy friends by half a head; even now, after years of living, I still feel like a tame elephant amid a herd of soft-eyed deer when I charge into a social Tray Where Standing is necessary. ssy, hard-boiled, uncompromising femal always cartooned as big women trampling oe rights of others—especially the rights of men. Although appearance is against us, the portrait is false. Inside, the majority of large ladies are pliant, apologetic, even shrinking,\and so conscious of their bigHoss tha) they exist in a state of perpetual embarrassment. : : Being also aware that coyness isn’t are obliged to keep to the serious nt hee

even in the company of gigglers.

They can’t snuggle with the

average masculine wooer; the clinging-vine attitude!

makes them look definitely , and al - sie mosh of them are as for Sy. mush, hough 1a Now 1f you're really wanting to find dictator types, look among the half-pint folk. Most ht Mh are cute little tricks with fluffy hair and hig innocent eyes, who look at first sight about as forceful as a perch. But behind many of these baby-doll faces hare ig 2 hitched hard as a blacksnake whip. The who upon a man’s knee can more easily master the art snuggle-bunny, who

always a lent

Argument on Finnish Question and|

ming, they

of picking his pockets, and the| iy Js Duciiets, alk :

18

Maw Nature Takes a Hand :

The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly. disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

SOCIAL OWNERSHIP OF MACHINES URGED By Voice From Labor Voice in the Crowd is quite correct that we need the machine. But have we got the machine? Of

course not. Capitalist owners have got the private ownership of the machine, and thus skin the workers who made the machine and run the machine. It is this private owner of the machine that we do not need. The machine is a socially made product and a socially used thing. The employer or private owner is superfluous because he lives .only from skinning the workers and his tasks can be handled by a democratic people’s state.

The capitalist is therefore para-

sitic, the stockholders’ income is un-. earned and begets corruption, dicta-

torial powers, squandering of the people’s wealth, high profits for the employer, low wages for the workers, unemployment and wars. Yes, Voice in the Crowd, we need social ownership of the machine.

2 8 » ‘YARDSTICK’ SYSTEM IN STEEL INDUSTRY URGED

By C. Stevens -

Voice in the Crowd dissents from the opinion of Times Reader who is advocating more government control of steel, saying, “because of the fact that it takzs $10,000 of investment to match each job.” This is also true of most jobs in any line. In agriculture it is doubtless quite as much. Anyway it would not seem to have much bearing on the question. ; V. I. C. also mentions “the $700 annual taxes per worker” but because steel prices are largely monopoly prices these taxes are simply passed on to the consumer who can pay the money quite as well under one system as the other, if he is able to pay at all. The result of unduly high prices for iron and steel adds a heavy burden not only on the consumer but also on other industries such as makers of farm equipment, automobiles, building construction and thus slows up sales. ; : It seems fo the writer that the answer to the question is not public ownership—at least entirely—but perhaps the “yardstick” system which has been applied to the electrical utilities and to a certain extent in other fields. In this way the Government would operate a steel plant or two and the rest would be left to private industry. The Government plant

4

(Times readers are invited to express their 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.)

should not be operated with the idea of putting the private companies out of business but to its costs should be added the regular taxes and from 4 to 6 per cent on the investment. If as V. I. C. seems to think, private industry can operate

more efficiently they should be able

to make a fair profit and:they would have some real competition. #® 2 2 SEES CAPITALISM UNABLE TO GIVE ALL A JOB By R. Sprunger It is evident that the capitalistic owners of industry cannot operate it for the. benefit of all the people. Facts show that the owners are not operating for use and service but for profits of a few. It was once stressed that if the peak of production of 1929 were reached again,

unemployment would be solved and we would have “prosperity.” Production has - approximately reached the 1929 peak and profits have soared above those of 1929. But we still have something like 10 million unemployed and no sign

of prosperity. Many thought war orders would bring prosperity and many would be employed to catch up with Germany in airplane construction. A process was discovered on the West Coast whereby 10,000 workers can build more planes of better construction than Germany can with 400,000 workers. So the only ones to profit will be the owners. ... . We are living in a Twentieth Century “machine age” and the antique methods of a past age cannot be used successfully to operate it. Conditions have changed and our social and political systems will have to change if we are to progress as a whole. ® 9 =

DOUBTS CIVILIZATION ENDANGERED BY WARS By Bull Mooser, Crawfordsville, Ind. Engulfed in the flood of British propaganda, it is difficult for an American to get his head far enough above the flood to take a breath of sane thought. It is time that we stop to con-

sider that there have heen wars

before in Europe. That governments have toppled and empires fallen— but that the people remained. That

they formed new governments and civilization continued on its course, much as it was going before. | As long as there are human beings on this earth civilization will go on. No matter who wins the war the nature of human beings will not be changed—and after all it is human beings that make civilization, not Churchills or Hitlers. ;

New Books at the Library

T= vast country of India, with its teeming and diverse population, was acquired by England accidentally. almost absent-mindedly. Queen Elizabeth's need of military and naval assistance against the Spanish; England’s exclusion, as a Protestant nation, from the Pope’s partition of the New World, the capture of a Portuguese ship, returning from the East. by some of the “gentleman-rascals’ who sailed out of the English ports to do a little semi-patriotic privateering — these and other chance events brought into being, in 1600, the Company of Merchant Adventurers, trading to the East Indies, the first

Side Glances—By Galbraith

I)

of the many great companies which

were to extend England’s dominions into all parts of he world. R. H. Mottram, in tracing the history of the East India Company in “Traders Dream” (AppletonCentury) tells also. the history of England and India through two and a half centuries. The death of Elizabeth, the rise of Cromwell, the fall of the Stuarts—all were reflected in the fortunes of the East India Company. Beginning as a precarious trading venture to unknown and nebulously romantic lands, this increasingly powerful company was transformed, almost imperceptibly, through the influence of national rivalries, the competition for control of India, the growing power of Napoleon, the visions of powerful and imaginative men like Lord Clive

land Warren Hastings, into a vast

administrative machine controlling the life and government of a vast people. : And it was. not until the time of Albert and Victoria, after the Indian Mutiny, that the British Crown took over trom the “merchant company” the control of this great territory. “ In 1858 ended the history of the enterprise “which was intended partly as ‘an outlet for English trade, and came to be the teeming

graveyard of English youth;” which

was “designed to bring back wealth to Europe and act exported untold quantities of e to the East;” which “failed as a business proposition,” but “created a navy and an army.” ;

VIOLETS By VERNE S. MOORE

A gift of violets in the fall

I hoped might wake in you a song. They lavished in the waning light And matched your eyes in color bold.

My heart was in those violets small But now I know my hope was wrong, For soon it withered in your sight When like the sun your thoughts grew cold. .

DAILY THOUGHT

So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against th word of the Lord, which Me kept not. =] Chronicles 10:13. y

FRIDAY, JAN. 25, 104) Gen. Johnson

Says—

It's Difficult to Imagine How, Under Present Policies, We Can Be Of Much Help at the Peace Table. ;

ASHINGTON, Jan. 26.—The State Department is setting up a committee to study our position and interests at any possible peace conférence. Bully! Facts are better than fancies. But how do we get a ticket to the show? Assuming that we don’t fumble, stumble or bungle into a war, where will we stand at the end of it? ol ; It has three possible outcomes: ‘Gangster victory, Allied victory or. stalemate. In the first place, are Hitler and Stalin going to give us a seat at the butcher's block where they will gut Europe? No. They are sure to say: “You were among our enemies in economic if not in military war. You're out of this.” The Allies are already becoming embittered toward the neutrals, as Mr. Churchill’s recent threatening speech made clear. If they starve Germany into sub-

. mission, block ‘Russia and thus win the war, is any-

body fool enough to suppose that they will not impose upon the vanquished a peace at least as onerous as the Treaty of Versailles? Are they going to invite us in {fo temper their revenge on enemies whom they. openly and justly regard as a threat to their existe ence . : 2 #8 ILL they want a moderator called in to deprive them of their spoils and who, having failed to fight for them with arms, comes in at the end of the heat and burden of the day to lecture them on hu-

| manity and self-denial? It isn’t in the cards.

They would invite us only for one conceivable reason—to give, not to take. We could gain nothing because, we would have fought for nothing and, as at the end of the war, would ask nothing. Regardless of that and despite our good-will and economic assist ance, they would think, if not say: “You contributed nothing to share our bloody anguish. You have no place here unless you are willing to contribute some« thing now.” They did that in deeds if not in words in 10819, and after—notwithstanding that we gave them all we had to give. In that event, our only part at the

| peace table would be to. sacrifice on our own interest

made to temper whatever woe is in store for the vanquished. Our people wouldn't swallow that.

® ” ® : HE third possible outcome is the only one where our active participation is likely—assuming, as always, that we take no direct part—a stalemate. "A time might come when both sides would be either bate tered or strangled into exhaustion, with victory probe able for neither and with interior threats and stresses so great that neither could continue. Then, if this nation is prepared and overwhelmingly dominant in strength, it might be called in and possibly could mediate a peace that would restore commerce and destroy the unbearable threat of military armament to the world. : - am That is a possibility and a brilliant one. But how can we possibly do that, if we range ourselves too much and too openly on one side or the other in this war—either on its military or economic side? There is scarcely a possible action “more than mere words” but less than war, that we have not taken to engage in economic war on the side of the Allies. It was all within our strictly legal rights. It was mostly in accord with our sympathies. But on such considerations as have been set forth here, is it the right road to our greaiess eventual possible contribution to permanent

Peace Move By Bruce Catton

Roosevelt Soon May Make Effort To Halt War, Capital Believes.

ASHINGTON, Jan. 26.—There is a distinct chance that President Roosevelt will make a far-reaching move for peace in Europe before spring, Many “ifs” are involved and no decision has been reached. It is known, however, that the President has a peace move in mind, | ; Two important, factors are understood to be move ing him. They are: so ; 1. The fact that in recent weeks he has devoted more and more of his thought to the problém of restoring peace. One recent White House caller, for instance, told friends that “Europe is getting practically all of his attention nowadays.” a 2. The growing belief that a terrific German offen sive will be loosed in the spring. A direct offer of mediation is a real possibility. Be« fore such an offer could be made publicly, of course,

a great deal of quiet negotiation with the foreign

nations involved would have to take place. : The offer would not be made if it were found that there was no chance to get it accepted. If made and accepted, however, such a program would mean active |

participation by this country in a full-dress European |

conference.

‘Six Weeks to Prevent Tragedy’ | ‘In that connection it is worth noting that last April |

_| President Roosevelt in substance offered precisely that, |

In his famous peace appeal to Adolf Hitler, the President asked the fuehrer to make a series of none | aggression pledges for specified European nations, and promised that if this were done he would get similar pledges from those nations in respect to Germany,

After that, said the President, the United States

would summon and take part in a world conference for armament reduction and the abolition of trade barriers. - i i Should the President make such a move this winter he would get the active support of the major peace societies, which’ fought him bitterly last fall on ree vision of the neutrality law. Frederick J. Libby, head of the National Council | for the Prevention of War, has been working actively | for mediation since last September. He believes that if such a move is to be made it must be made soon. “A terrific attack by land, sea and air is coming, and by all accounts the deadline is around March 1,” says Mr. Libby. “That gives us about six weeks in which to prevent an infinite tragedy.” A : Mr. Libby points out that once this much talked-of offensive gets under way, efforts to stop the war by negotiation will be almost hopeless.

Watching Your Health By Jane Stafford a

ILE medical scientists are searching for ways to prevent and alleviate deafness, there is one thing which many hard of hearing persons can do to make their lives easier and happier. ‘This is to learn lip reading. i age Hearing aids have. helped many deafened persons continue their normal, busy lives. Not every hard of hearing person can afford such an aid, however. The story of one such person is told in Hearing News, published by the American Society for the Hard of Hear ing. This particular woman was discovered, by a member of the society, at a lecture by a famous proe fessor. There she sat, “cupping her ear in the fae

miliar strained attitude of the deafened

“hear.” The sad, futile expression on h ‘close of the lecture told how little she

to hear and enjoy the professor's talk. The hard of hearing member introduced this pathetic ! woman to the society's lip reading classes. She since’ become one of the best lip readers in the clas and no longer misses interesting conversations or tures because of her handicap. ~~ ° ~~ Another story is told of an alert, elderly lady although deafened and a semisinvalid, a grew so bad that her hearing aid ceased to be of any help to her. She grew so embittered and depr

“in her town’s intellectual circle until

he

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