Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 February 1940 — Page 18

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The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) 4 MARK FERREE

~ ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER President : Business Managet

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outside of cents a month.

oo. RILEY 8551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1940

* YOUR COUNTRY CALLS! Taare : . H, somewhere in this happy land, as the poet said, the sun is shining bright, That’s what worries us. This is the day when the land could be happier for a cloud blanket So unbroken that no groundhog in all America would find - a shadow of excuse for popping back into winter quarters. January has left us with an unmanageable surplus of frigidity. Snow shrouded all but two or three states. Icicles hung on the orange trees of Florida. Georgia thermometers went 14 points below zero. Rocky Hook Creek, blown out of its banks at Edenton, N. C., froze solid in.its new course. A pan of water turned to ice so fast in Dewey Davis’ kitchen at Asheville, N. C., that it caught an unwary mouse by the What happened in Northern states were better forgotten. Insult was added to injury by reports of unseason*

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- able warmth in Alaska, with roses blooming at Juneau.

Now is the time for all good groundhogs to come to the aid of the weatherman. Groundhogs, be bold! If you ‘see shadows, defy them. Scorn the base thought of holing

~ 'up again and abandoning a shivering U. S. A. to six more

weeks of winter.

FINLAND’S APPEAL INLAND is ready to negofiate “an honorable peace,” says President Kyosti Kallio. No news in that. The world knows that Finland has been ready all along for peace with honor. - She was even ready, before the war started, to negotiate an honorable compromise of the imperious Soviet demands for cession of Finnish soil. But with Russia it was a case of whole hog or fight. Mr. Kallio’s peace remark was no symptom of surrender, It was just a case of keeping the record straight. The real core of the speech was his appeal for outside assistance. As the Finnish Minister in Paris said the other day, - Finland's defense has been a miracle but one must not expect mass-production miracles. Maj. George Fielding Eliot says Finland can probably be saved if provided with 100,000 good troops, 500 airplanes and the appropriate munitions. Perhaps Sweden and England between them will eventually provide enough troops, as ‘‘volunteers” or otherwise. _ They might even spare some planes. But what can Finland's millions of American friends do to help? We should like to see Helsinki take the advice of Senator Pat Harrison, Col. Frank Knox and others, and try borrowing direct from private American citizens. If such a private loan raised substantial sums, surely

our Army with its prior orders would find a way to permit |

quick sales of war planes to the Finns.

~ WHAT LABOR LAWS NEED NEW YORK State legislative committee reports that it has found “employers, employees and the public to be generally agreed that the State Labor Relations Act has been competently and fairly administered in the great majority of instances.” : This is encouraging evidence that a labor relations * law can be enforced properly. It creates hope for the future

of the National Labor Relations Act, as to the administra-

tion of which no such favorable report is expected or deserved from the Congressional committee now conducting

"an investigation. But something in addition to a good law,

ITN PR

{- papers.

* said:

well administered, is needed. For, as the New York committee points out in a paragraph that should be used by. every employer and every worker— ; “The most satisfactory and happiest human relationships are the product not of legal compulsion but rather of voluntary determination among human beings to co-operate with one another. Though we may legislate to the end of fime there will never be industrial peace ang harmony without good faith, integrity, a high degree of responsibility and a real desire to co-operate on the part of all parties concerned. | Without this spirit of good will all of the social, economic and labor laws of man will prove eventually

Philip Murray, vice president, calls the denial cular attention of the Scripps-Howard NewsWe arg glad to take notice of it. We will be glad if

future developments prove that we erred when we said,

: in an editorial last November, that the assessment was for

. ‘political putposes. Our assertion was based on the official

statement accompanying notice of the assessment, which

ear 1940 will be crucial for labor, not only in atters, but also with respect to social-security

“The economic and labor. laid for repressive, anti-social legislation. Our organization

: every adversary.” : ;

In 1936 the executive board of the United Mine Workers had given and lent half million dollars to the Democratic . Presidential campaign. We took last November's statement “to mean that, on the eve of another Presidential year, the executive board was levying funds for similar use in 1940. _ That, it still seems to us, was the plain implication, - But Mr. Kennedy says the assessment was .not for ~ political purposes. We won't venture to say he means that ' the executive board will not give or lend money to the campaign chest of any party or candidate in 1940. But we hope so. a Er fs It is wrong for unions to throw their funds into political campaigns. It was wrong for corporations to do so; and

“the Corrupt Practices’ Act now makes it illegal for them,

.. It gives too much power to a few union executives; involves

too much danger that members’ money will support causes

| which members do not approve. If John L. Lewis and

ner executives of the miners’ union have voluntarily re-

ced the practice, fine.. But th

Price in Marion Coun- |

ered by carrier, 12 cents |

in Indiana $3 a vear; | Indiana, 65

It is now evident that the groundwork is being

By Wesirook Sager

Labor Apologists Who Say That ~ As a Whole A. F. of L. is Ably Led.

EW YORK, Feb. 2.—Most speakers and writers : on the subject of labor organization invariably modify their amiable criticism of racketeering in the unions of the American Federation of Labor with the proviso that, of course, the organization as a whole and its subsidiaries are governed by able, conscientious men and the dishonest union officials is a rare exception to a high standard. From that opinion I have to dissent to the extreme -of saying that. in my opinion, the American Federation of Labor is sullied by extortion and racketeering, much of which is presumed to be legal only because nobody has ever taken the trouble to show that it is illegal, and much of which is just plain criminal. I have recently named two racketeers in control of two big A. F. of L. international unions, but I could name a hundred thieves and gangsters, embezzlers and terrorists who hold office in unions of the American Federation of Labor. They infest the A. F. of L. to such a degree that the organization has negligently lost its right to public respect as a labor movement.

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which, in turn, issue charters to locals, but the parent organization claims to have no authority over its subsidiaries of any degree, and the Federal Government, for reasons of political tact, refuses to interfere on behalf of the rank and file members or the public interest. :

The Bureau of Internal Revenue, which harries honest individual citizens for a few dollars more of income tax and compels them to produce old checks, stubs, contracts and receipts in worrisome and illintended inquiries into private affairs, which are no business of any government agency, has a fixed policy

- of ignoring the books of labor rackets, even though

they are crooked, merely because they possess union charters. > A greasy racketeer up from the pandering and bootlegging trades is protected from inquiry as to his thievings by the assumption that the funds of the union of which he is boss have not inured to his benefit, when it is obvious to any observer that he would not be in the racket if he were not getting his.

2 = =» THE attitude of the American Federation of Labor is demonstrated in one dramatic particular by the case of Willie Bioff, whose history need not be reviewed again just now. Did William Green, the president of the American Federation of Labor, say one word about Bioff when his record was disclosed, when it was shown that this fugitive from a jail sentence in Chicago had become, by appointment and not by any vote of the union rank and file, the boss of the theatrical and movie trades, or- when it de-

veloped that he had become a rich man on a modest union salary? Mr. Green did not.

in the A. F. of L. not counting the rodent enemies of labor and of the public who have been driven out by Tom Dewey in New York.

leadership of the A. F. of L. unions is, on the whole, either ahle or honest. If it were able it would kick out the criminals, and if it were honest it could not co-operate with or even associate with them,

Inside Indianapolis

License Plates and Who Gets What; Be Careful When You See 17,000.

F you drive an automobile, you buy license plates. And buying license plates, you've probably wondered from time to time about the numbering system and what part of the state gets what. Being in Indianapolis, you get the breaks. Yessir. All the numbers from 1 to 130,000 are assigned right here. (The police have the 17,000 bracket.) There are 150 branch cities this year. The home town, naturally, is the biggest. The smallest is Oldenburg, over Brookville way. (Pop. 575.) Oldenburg gets 500 plates for passenger cars, 100 for trucks. We get 20,000 extra for trucks, from 1 to 20,000. After us, comes the southern part of the state. Evansville picks up where we leave off with plate No. 130.001 and running to 157,000. The south central part of the state moves in at somewhere around the 350,000 figure and then comes thie northeast. Then it moves back to north central and the northwest (Hammond, Gary, Hobart, etc.) comes in at the tail end. Lowell's last—=836,100. The requests for low numbers are not as many as vou’d think. Some folks want. their plates to match their phone numbers, others their addresses. The low number seekers mostly want to impress folks with their “pull.” Pay-off, though, is the chap who wants his i to have the perfect poker hand.. Full house stuff,

” ” ” . JUDGE WILFRED BRADSHAW is going to take himself a two-week vacation... . On doctor’s orders. + + + The judgé has been overworking. .. Just as we reported some time back, the machine age has set back the County Treasurer's office. . . .It looks as if there will be at least a two-week delay in getting the spring tax statements ready. . . . General Motors puts out a nice, slick-paper magazine called “Folks.”. . . Our neighbors out at Allison Engineering crack the February issue with a photographic record

of the Allison Camera Club's first outing down in Brown County.

” a 3 IT MAY BE A LITTLE early to miention it, but

the Indians (our baseball team, you know) are getting lined up. . . . Sure enough the training season

will be on us pretty soon. . . . The Indians at this

moment look to have a pretty good infield. . . . Pitching and the outfield depend on the Cincinnati Reds. . . . The catching problem is just that. , . . On the basketball front, I. U. is beating off the folks who would be customers for that engagement with Purdue on the 10th. . , , Sorry, buddy. , , . Everything’s gone.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“HerLAND has a moral right to neutrality and has nothing to do with endeavors to draw us

into battles for which we have not a bility.” Atta girl, Wilhelmina! The thesis of Winston Chuhchill, that the collective security of Europe’s small neutrals lies in united

all parties in Holland. One speaker publicly declared: “The war was not begun in the interests of civilization or for the right of small nations, but for a particular purpose. England and France are not fighting for the Jews or for Ethiopia, Albania, Austria or Czechoslovakia. Neither is England fighting for Poland, but for her own vital rights. Therefore there is no ground for asking Holland and other neutrals to go to war.” ; What makes good sense in Holland right now to make better sense for the United States gh This is not our war. By no stretch of imagination can it be so called. Moral responsibility for its beginning does not lie on America’s doorstep. The wildest cries of swivel-chair patriots cannot persuade us that it is in any of its phases a holy conflict, or

human freedom or any other blessing described by our glory words. gst

the belligerents, it would be the duty of kee still alive upon the earth. y of keeping peace

and there are thousands for our staying out. But war resembles a whirlpool; it puils men it with magnetic force, And now that

e practice should be for-

sel upon schemes for

. He Takes Sharp Dissent With|

HE A. F. of L. issues charters to subsidiary unions,|

But Bioff is only one of the gangster labor leaders

So I don't subscribe to the proposition that the

single responsi- |-

action with Great Britain and France, was rejected by:

that it is being fought to save either democracy or

And if we have any duty toward one or a group of

There are no valid arguments for our getting in,

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Old Faithful!

MARVELOUS BUT

SORTA | MONOTONGUS

fl .

oT >

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

FEARS PRECEDENT IN PERMITTING WOW

By Coram Nobis If a church sells numbers, or

names and then the holders of certain numbers or names win cash prizes, most all high school pupils

will agree that such o procedure is a lottery. . Indianapolis law enforcement officers realize that if they will permit a specific lottery to operate, regardless of its new name, then possibly well known lotteries, such as Honduras, Louisiana, Irish Sweepstakes, baseball and others could complain about discrimination. Someone has said “30,000 people in Indianapolis want to play Wow or Bingo” For all we know, possibly 60,000 “want” to patronize other lotteries, play the ponies, shoot craps or play poker. » » 8 CLAIMS RAILROADS REPAID LAND GIFTS By Voice in the Crowd “Let's be consistent.” It is true that the railroads were partially build with English capital. We had none ahd the English are wise investors. It is true the railroads received land grants from the Government. Land that was worthless without the access the railroads would give

.it. For this land they were to give

the Government its pound of flesh in concessions. The Government got its pound of flesh, ten tons more, and believe it or not, it is still “chiseling” the railroads. All of this does not detract from the glory of the Hills, Vanderbilts and Harrimans. They had to have land and capital, but most of all, they had courage, vision and “guts.” In order to develop front line offense the Government partially subsidized the aircraft industry. This to give the Government the benefit of pioneer service and pioneer capital. This was a big help, however, until they tried to kill the Army by making it deliver the mail. . Nothing need be said of the subsidized merchant marine. No one can have much pride in it. It has

{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.)

written its own record and it is not a good one. No one has opposed Government aid to home building in the Forum. There are two outstanding facts, however, about home building. First, for various reasons ,it costs too much —much more than is just for the poor devil who wants to own or to rent. Second, people buy homes

‘just as they buy shoes—when they

have to. Natural cycles determine the economy of renting or owning property. That this is a law is evidenced by the fact that the Government has been unable to start a home building boom with all of its low interest and long payment period.

There is beginning to be a short-

age of housing. This means that building on a large scale is going to start. If you are in the building business you are sure to be better off if the Government stays out. Private capital is prone to hide in uncertain times. We cannot

half collectivist.

That much must be settled. 5

8 ‘x 8, SPEAKS GOOD WORD

‘FOR THE PIGEONS

By Roy E. David Why rob the pigeons of their home? , , . They kick because the pigeons are in University Square

and the Circle. They want them screened in. These birds as well as

.all others, with the flowers, are part

of God’s gift to the earth to help beautify it, to help create enjoyment and pleasure to the young and

joyment and pleasure is all that

some can have as they may not

afford others. I as yet have failed to see any building here in town caused to be tumbled down by the pigeons or other birds; so let them live and enjoy their lives as we wish to en-

Joy ours... .

New Books at the Library

“FP \HE ship pauses in the broad A pool and one drifts in sight of the city, the slim, graceful towers, the heights of stone, and ft seems barely possible that the little hands

of man would even dare to pile metal and concrete so high, story upon story until they are lost in the high arches of night.” To a foreigner arriving for the first time in this cynical, unrelenting city it is like being heaten within the wheels and gadgets of some terrible machine. But. once he penetrates past this crust. which surrounds New York he. finds an America of which he has heard little or nothing in his own country.

Side Glances—By Galbraith

~ =

* These were an Englishman’s first impressions of America. Hector Bolitho in his book “Haywire; An American Travel Diary” (Longmans) records his three months’ lecture tour. of the United States and Mexico, He chose the word

“haywire” as the title, riot because].

he felt that America was “more or less crazy,” as the word suggests, but because he liked American slang and found this one word “most graphic.” (Chief among his objections to American people and their customs was the “dreary, genteel adversion to slang among the well-to-do-Americans.”) He found Hollywood far more respectable than he had been led to expect: ‘The people were busy, very normal and provincial”; he was greatly intrigued by Greenfield Village and most particularly by its founder, Henry Ford. He thought the American Pullman car positively indecent and about as comfortable as a coffin. In comparing the English youth with the American, he said the American. youth was by far better mannered than their English cousins and that the more he saw of America and its people the more he realized that a sourness had come into the lives of the English that the Americans had escaped. In fact, America far exceeded his expectations. :

In brief though “Haywire” may be |

called a reply to Margaret Halsey’s “With Malice Toward Some.” Hector Bolitho.is. on the whole very kind to America. °

GOLDEN SUNSET By ROBERT O. LEVELL Beautiful golden sunset glow tending your beauty so wide Gradually sinking down below Where the joys of God abide;

The Test and peace that prove ~ dwell pe P So

Revealed in the setting sun won ine love of God that you can .

When the work of day is done.

"DAILY THOUGHT

But when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and sought him, he was {found of them.—II Chronicles 15:4.

WHEN trouble comes from God, naught behooves like patience; for troubles wrc of

progress while we are half free and

old as they watch them. Such en-|.

FRIDAY, FEB. 2, 1900 Gen. Johnson Says—

Development of Vast African Areas As Refuge for Persecuted Races Of Europe Offers a Challenge.

EW YORK, Feb, 2.—How much “white man’s country” remains undeveloped in the world? The question becomes of increasing importance in view of disclosures of German atrocities in Poland where, to make “living room” for German “super-men,” Poles and Jews are in the process of liquidation by the mil lions. If there is nowhere for them to’ go, there is apparently no end in sight for them but wholesale death.

territory in the world but, in much -of it, their chance to live and prosper is slim. White people of the northern races do not do well in the tropics. This country developed rapidly because it was the kind of country best suited to the people who came to it. There is similar country in the Argentine—vast stretches of it owned and controlled by a few families, These people are unwilling to part with their baronial estates and the southern republic ‘as a sovereign nation doesn’t care to admit hordes of refugees. That doesn’t seem right, but it is a political and legal con dition that can’t be forced. nN

RE are other areas in upland Africa in British and Portuguese control. Such information as we

have about it is that it would require a considerable

preparation on the engineering and sanitary sides, but that without too much expense it is capable of

| supporting a very large population,

Foreign private capital loaned or invested here developed our country, Our immigration bars were down. The pioneering breed which spread westward didn’t need as much wet-nursing as modern people might have to have. But our own history is proof that there is, theoretically at least, a solution. to this ghastly problem of men without land and land without men. If there isn't a solution with all the mas= terials at hand, something tragic has happened to the intelligence of the human race. i With modern organization, machinery and method what was done in a haphazard fashion here in a cen-

tury could be done in these new and virgin lands in a

few years. Bean x ia Jour as in South America, the present “owners” of these vast stretches of land in Africa would object, but not with the validity of the national objection of the Argentine republic. The appearance of the map of Africa is no compliment to the nations of Europe.

- They have divided up a continent .among them—

provinces and colonies claimed in ownership and apparently held “in reserve.” Considering the urgency of this case, there should be some way through that difficulty—or else such pretensions to Christian charity as those of England, for example, are hollow faking. With sufficient finance, organization and management, a new and prosperous nation could be created by putting these poor landless people on this abundant land. It is a project sufficiently magnificent to chale lenge any imagination, It should be financially feasible. : : Herbert Hoover, whose enginering and political ex= perience perfectly fits him to head such an undertaking, is reported to| have said -that it so fascinates

him that he would be willing to give up all other in- :

terests and devote the rest of his life to.it.

Army ‘Full Up!

By Bruce Catton

Drive to Bring Strength to 227,000 Ends Months Ahead of ‘Schedule.

ASHINGTON, Feb. 2.—If you want to join the U. S, Army you've got to find some soldier whose time is up and who isn’t re-enlisting. ‘The big gest peace-time recruiting drive the Army ever put on is over—a complete success nearly six months ahead of schedule, . Beginning last July, the Army had to jump its en=

+ listed strength from 165,000 to 227,000. It also had to

enlist nearly 40,000 more men to fill vacancies due fo expiration of enlistments. : It figured on finishing by next July. Actually, the job is done now. : : All of this is a big feather in the brass hat of Ma), H. N. Gilbert, who handles, recruiting details in the Adjutant General's office. - Early in November, Maj, Gilbert was asked what the Army’s enlisted strength would be by the end of 1939. He figured a bit, and then allowed it would be 223,000. When they checked up at the end of the year, they found it was 223,001. They're still trying to dope out how he did it. : Recent stories said the campaign was 'way behind, As a matter of fact, it was so far ahead the Army could have gone far above 227,000 if that had been necessary, - ; 2 = s

Town Lacks Candidates 3

- The famous Government-built town of Greenbelt, Md., gets a minor new headache out of the Hatch act, ‘which rules Federal job-holders out of politics, About 80 per cent of Greenbelt’s inhabitants work for the Government. Pretty soon Greenbelt will have an election to name town officials—and none of this 80 per cent can run for office or do any campaigning. This same problem has arisen elsewhere, notably on some Far-Western reclamation projects, where practically everyone works for the Government. Chances are that some amendment to the act to take care of such cases will be sought. p

» ” »

One unnoticed angle of the La Follette Commit= tee’s investigation of farm labor troubles in California is that it neatly dove-tails with an investigation by the Department of Justice. Civil Liberties Unit of the D. J. was ordered to look into things last summer, after many complaints came in that workers were deprived of civil rights. It sent a man out to investigate, but press of other duties soon called him off. When the La Follettee Committee went out there, however, its chief counsel, Henry H. Fowler, was also an official representative of the Department of Justice. Everything the committee learns, then, is alse learned by the department. If law violations are uncovered, there can be quick action, .

Watching Your Health By Jane Stafford

HE almost universal practice in England of stopping work for afternoon tea has never been widely adopted in this country, but for a number of years some nutritionists in: this country have advocated light lunches between regular meals to decrease fatigue and to promote efficiency among industrial workers. The practice was recently commended by -Dr. Lela E. Booher, of the U. S, Department of Agriculture, at the American Medical Association sponsored Congress on Industrial Health, : da The extra lunches should be planned in relation to the worker’s other meals. They should not be so

‘large as to make his total daily food intake excessive,

Dr. Booher warned, and they should not upset the balance betweén various kinds of foods necessary to health. Vitamins shotlld be remembet 4, even in planning these between meal lunches. They may very well provide an opportunity for getting some extra vitamins into the daily diet. - = : To answer the objection that frequent meals do not allow the stomach sufficient rest, Dr. Booher suggested that .it may be the oversized meal that puts a burden on digestion and makes us dull and iistiess. - Industrial work is often assumed to requife an exe

traordinary degree of physical effort, but actually

much of it requires only an average amount, The

duties of the industrial worker are more likely to be

monotonous than those of other persons, however, and his monotony can reduce efficiency and perhaps make

you teel ‘as tired as if you had expended consid physi hile th worke

Work

There is plenty of sparsely settled and unimproved |

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