Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 February 1940 — Page 10

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The Indianapolis Times

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ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1940

TRADE WINS HE bill to let Trader Hull keep right on trading was passed by the House last night in just the form that the Secretary of State asked. op Now the bill goes to the Senate, where it will give the constitutional lawyers and Presidential candidates of that body an opportunity to strut their stuff. But in time the Senate, too, will pass the bill, for the same reason the House did—because the trade-agreement program is both successful and popular.

SLOWER, BUT SURER HE City Manager Study Committee probably is wise in deciding to urge a constitutional amendment, rather than in placing sole reliance on the State Legislature, and has begun work on its first draft. The constitutional method may be slower, it may require greater missionary effort and- possibly impose greater expense on its advocates. And yet, in the long run, there can be no doubt that it is preferable to the legislative shortcut. That, we need not point out, was tried before with unfortunate results. Written into the basic law of «the state it is difficult to see how any community, once its electorate approves, can be denied the right to be governed under this simplified, efficient and altogether admirable system.

WARSHIPS OFF MURMANSK HOSE Allied warships riding the far reaches of the gulf stream north of Scandinavia may simply be on blockade duty. But then again they may be part of a bigger project. All the recent rumblings in the Near East hint strongly at the possibility of an open Allied break with Russia, and a swift drive to seize or lay waste the Soviet oil centers between the Caspian and the Black Seas. If such an enterprise is actually intended, it is reasonable to suppose that England and France would confine a war against Russia to a single front? Hore-Belisha, the former British War Minister, is publicly demanding decisive’ interventipn in Finland. It's a safe bet that Finland will get help in plenty if the blow-off in the Near East occurs. And that help will have to be delivered via the Far North, so long as Nerway and Sweden

persist in their understandable refusal to transmit foreign |

troops to Finland. That may explain those warships in the Arctic.

OUR CROSS OF SILVER

; E have been studying up on silver again, and our head aches. : At the risk of spreading the pain, we submit a few facts, figures and thoughts: The Silver Purchase Act of 1934 directs the Treasury to try to buy silver until either— 1. The market price of silver reaches $1.29. (That would be one-sixteenth of the pre-Roosevelt price of gold. Remember Bryan and “16 to 1”?). Or— 1 : 2. The Treasury’s pile of silver (at $1.29 an ounce) is worth one-third of the Treasury’s pile of gold (at $35 an ounce). Senator Pittman, the leading silverite in Congress, proclaimed that we wouldn’t need to buy more than a billion ounces of silver to raise the world price to $1.29.

i 1

What has actually happened? \ 1. The Treasury has bought more than two billion ounces of silver, yet the price on the London market is around 33 cents. Economists say it would skid much lower if the United States Treasury were not offering 35 cents for foreign silver. : 2. The Treasury is farther than ever from the statutory goal of one dollar’s worth of silver for every three of gold. - (That’s because it has also been buying all the gold in sight.) Th The odd part is, all this silver and gold we’ve been buying “doesn’t cost anything.” It works this way: The Treasury buys a million ounces of foreign silver, pays $350,000 in cash for it, then prints up $350,000 in new silver certificates, and is right back where it started. Not a penny is added to the national debt. But, say the economists, wait until we try to sell some of that silver, and then the cost will show up because we'll sell at less than we paid. Senator Townsend has a bill to stop the buying of foreign silver, which was indorsed this week by the 12 members of the advisory council of the Federal Reserv Board. : The council pointed out that these silver purchases are increasing “the already excessively large bank reserves.” In other words, they are a potential source of runaway credit, and of inflation. It seems to us that it is time for Congress to pay heed to Senator Townsend's one-man crusade against this foolishness. : Senator Pittman and the other silverites are afraid of hurting the silver interests in their home states. But their concern is with the price of domestically mined silver, for which the Treasury pays the political price of 71.11 cents an ounce. That is an out-and-out subsidy, from which a few big companies, notably the Sunshine Mining Co. of Idaho, profit enormously. * It is apparently useless to attack this domestic subsidy. But let’s stop swapping dollars—which means swapping American airplanes and automobiles and typewriters “and oil—for more foreign silver to bury at West Point. If we must buy to hoard, let’s buy cheaper, more useful materials that might come in handy in a crisis.

BACK TO FUNDAMENTALS

FT'HOSE who fear that America’s young intellectuals are wandering from the safe, well-trodden paths of their forefathers may find a morsel of reassurance in the news from Hartford, Conn. :

~The debating team at Trinity College, in that city, has. ~ selected this subject for argument: “Resolved, ‘tis. better:

to have jJoved and lost than never to have loved af all.”

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler: Real Liberals Are Disheartened by

Dishonest Financial ‘Stand Taken| By Some of Their Erring Brothers.

N= YORK, Feb. 24.—The fatal defect of that| which we have been accepting as liberalism here |

since the New Deal began is the dogged and rather insulting refusal of its spokesmen, most of them writ-

ers, ever to sit down and take inventory. -An inci- |:

dental defect, but one which tends to rile our problems rather than settle them, is the arrogant attempt of such people to read all cautious persons out of the party. : = As a result, liberalism has come into: disrepute

with many who are tPue liberals but find the label}.

taken over by a noisy and intolerant and often dishonest minority. : When I say dishonest I do not mean merely mistaken but willfully dishonest. Proof of dishonesty occurs constantly in the writings of members of. the left wing who. are to the right of communism. Anyone who keeps a check on them soon discovers that they give themselves the better of it in little ways which are scarcely noticeablé at first. We find them, when they want to answer an argument, permitting themselves to state the other person’s contention in indirect quote. This is & familia’ trick. It permits the bleeding-heart liberal to shade the proposition, and he then proceeds to destroy a contention which never was offered in the first place. ” 2 ” :

HAVE seen it done often, even by big-name bleed-ing-hearts and double-domes whom you would give credit for more self-respect, to say nothing of the question of honesty. It is as though a mathematician were to move a decimal point to the left or right to suit his convenience. | In the sector of which I speak there is a constant propaganda to the effect that anyone who dissents on any matter is not merely inclifferent to misery but rather favors it. It seems unnecessary to say that this is not true, but persons so accused are likely to retreat from liberalism merely because the neighborhood has deteriorated. T Economics is a side-show science, like phrenology, but finance is more of this world, and financiers agree that when the public debt reaches a certain point in proportion to the income of the people the cost of the debt becomes unbearable and repudiation ensues, followed by tonfiscation. : ” ” 2

X= liberals of the kind I am discussing clamor for more spending and revile those who think it might be better to pause short of inflation and confiscation. You would think that the less reckless Americans can hardly wait for the day when they will have the pleasure of seeing children starving at the curbs and storm troopers, in shirts of brown and silver, clubbing their parents with bats. On the contrary, however, the conservative liberals—if you will allow me that term—are themselves alarmed at the prospect of the brutalities of a clictatorship arising from the ruins of a complete financial collapse. r | Liberalism, on the extreme left of the group, has come to advocate collectivism as the only salvation, forgetling, I suppcse, that only a few years ago, before the New Deal, all liberals hated regimentation, which is the maiden name of collectivism. Collectivism is what the Germans have, too. Emotional liberals rarely bother to get out a pencil and an old laundry bill and try to figure out how long it will be possible to stand off a crash or what will happen to liberals, with their passion for free and insulting speech, if it continues.

Inside Indianapolis

Charles W. Chase Likes to Ride At the Back of His Streetcars.

ROFILE of the week: Charles Warren Chase, the man who took over a decrepit streetcar line and built it into one of this country’s great street railway systems. If you ever talked to Charley Chase, you'd know how he did the job. He can almost tell you when the cars pass your corner, how many passengers they carry at any given hour, and how old the streetcar you rode on this morning happens to be. Mr. Chase is 63. He's a big man, 8 feet 2 or so, about 190 pounds. He is handsome, with a keen,

‘alert face.® He is a forceful, direct speaker. He clips

his words sharply. If he has a hobby, it's the streetcar company. He is a voracious reader. : He goes through all the newspapers and magazines and he keeps up on the good books. He's fond of Mohawk Valley history and whenever there’s a movie with a historical background he's sure to go. He doesn’t like to plan ahead because he's never sure when he’s going to be tied up. That's one of the reasons he couldn’t get to see Sonja Henie. When he decided to go, he couldn't get tickets, : 2 # 2

MR. CHASE used to play golf, but he gave it up some time ago. His favorite exercise is walking. On nice days he will walk from his home at 86th and College to 63d St., where he cafches ‘the streetcar. Otherwise he gets on the Indiana Railroad bus which goes near his house. When he’s got the time, he likes to drop in at the I. A. C. for a sunbath and

rubdown. He has three big outdoor dogs at home

and he likes to romp with them, | Inevitably, conversations swing around to his three sons, of whom he is inordinately proud. One of his boys, James, is a lawyer, here, lives near his parents. Another, Warren, is in the U. S. diplomatic service, and a third is connected with the Pennsylvania Railroad's Cincinnati offices. Mr. Chase eats well. His favorite food is steak and potatoes. With. Mrs. Chase, he likes to entertain at home. He rides his streetcars a lot and knows many of the motormen by name. ” td ® .

HE CAME HERE eight years ago with a brilliant record. He is very fond of Indianapolis. Typical of him is:the fact that he knows the city from one end to the other. .He goes at his work with such determination that everybody else works hard. j He doesn’t ride the streetcars just to be taking a ride. He usually sits in back and looks behind inspecting the condition of the track. He is one of the city’s most efficient businessmen.

| But he has one inefficiency.. That is in getting him-

i Ratteis, Hes 31% putting it off until he gets -conscious about it and then has to put it ds on his schedule as a “must.” pus 3 dove

A Woman's Viewpoint |

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“M2 is the important figure in the movie pic- : ture, “Grapes of Wrath,” says Time's cinema ommentator. “A bewildered, heartbroken w when the picture opens, a} its close she is an oan able force, holding the crumbling family together

against things she does not even understand, against

agitaions as well as deputies.” ; en—we may well ask—has “Ma” not been th important figure in any truthful tale of mortal oe vail? Her stature never grows less against the backdrop of time. Although revolulions may roll over her head and the seas rise to cover her, some sturdiness and stubbornness born of the earth enable her

to survive—because—well, I suppose, because she is|

a woman, the eternal mother and protector of n Anyone who doesn’t get a theill out of Joad in the movie version of John Steinbeck’s best seller is incapable of excitement. . And ‘not only a thrill. The very deeps of your heart will move and break into waves of emotion while you watch that embodiment

of force—a true mother—meet gad endure and sur-|

vive the Sugeings of disaster. Some g inside you will also sing, if you a woman. Maybe when: you see the Joad li hr the screen you'll be wearing a silly hat and a silken gown. Maybe your hands will be satin smooth and white as milk. Or—which is more likely—maybe you'll be seeking a breathing spell from the struggles of your own drab. existence. Nevertheless you are bound to feel a tremendous elation in the knowledge that you and Ma are akin, stamped by nature with the feminine mark, You'll be proud to share with her magnificent mantle of for she weap it as a noble garment Lg us would like to wear it at certair

and as all of|

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~The Hoosier Forum

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

HOLDS WAR PASTIME OF DERANGED MINDS By H. L.

The Hoover relief program only|

includes one of the warring countries. It is the policy of the Friends to carry relief only to places where distress arises out of the actions of men, not out of acts of God. That field is left to the Red Cross.

Is not war the most serious in-|

fringement on the rights of human beings to life, liberty and happiness? There is no glory in the destruction of human life. That is the most degrading thing any human being can do. It is necessary to cast a halo about this business of carrying.on wholesale murder and call it by a name designed to ennoble it. The act cannot be lifted into a noble action.| If we seriously look at it, it becomes the pastime of deranged minds, more to be pitied than the act of a lunatic—which in fact it is. - It is not relief of the victims we need, as much as relief from its perpetration. ” ” 2 THINKS THE WORLD HAS LOST ITS SANITY By L. Vv. “Life,” wrote Shakespeare with a keen eye for justice, “is'a comedy of errors.” : There is no mistake about that! We are civilized. We believe: in God. We love humanity. Just so much idiotic claptrap—that’s all it amounts to. . For the greatest portion of our wage (tax) today is demanded by governments who must fight against other governments in order to exist. That fighting is the most, expensive item on the budget of the civilized world. We are not only paying for our right to exist, but for our future death in battle, fighting other peopies whom we do not even know. Such an act is not Christian. It is criminal. It carries no ethical values. This present organization not only must be maintained and defended with bullets, machine guns, high explosives, etc., necessary in carrying out the traits of bandits, in slaughtering a few million people, but it also requires the very strictest control over its own people’s thoughts. Civilization represents itself as good, just, virtuous, wise, in fact, an excellent, fine thing inspired by sublime ideals. It calls itself Christian, for it is founded on sentiments of charity, love of humanity, justice for

up the one while the sane cavo

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

all. Help the starving Chinese! Help the hungry Finns! Help the slaughter continue, but never attempt to stop it. Try to stop it! Then you will start something. . “Lock him up,” they'd shout, “He is a pacifist; he is insane; perhaps some sort of madman.” Yeah—jlock he earth with their death dealing instruments. Where is there any sanity in this world today? The answer should be in our universities. But even that is ridiculous.

actually thinks honestly. and expresses what he honestly thinks to students, he is in danger of being dismissed and disgraced for life.

8 2 2 BELIEVES GODOY WAS VICTOR OVER LOUIS By Arthur S. Mellinget After listening te the LouisGodoy fight and the decision, two things stood out in: my mind. First: Louis was outpointed in 10 of the 15

rounds, -as we heard it on the radio. Then when the decision was given.

ears. So there was plenty wrong some place. - Of course we know the

If a professor in any of our universities |

what a chorus of boos greeted our

answer. There was too much money to lose for the inside ring to permit anything else. ; Second: (and most important) what opinion and feeling will Godoy carry back to his home and people? All of the South American countries will share the same feeling that the United States doesn’t mean what it says when it harps on a Good Neighbor policy. There will be much more lost than has been gained by so short-sighted a policy. The people of our neighboring republics are fed up on the Big Brother stuff of the United States.

I am sorry to say that I have to|.

admit living in a country where they can’t give a fair deal in a sporting event. : . 8 8 ADVOCATES NEED FOR GREATER DISTRIBUTION By Bryan Logsdon, Freetown, Ind. The Dies Committee has started a good work and should keep it up. Now the people of the lower brackets are making their last stand. Now they are getting the last crumbs from those of the next brackets. ‘© Under the - present

ness and finance, the income of t

{| Says—

Gen. Johnson #1

The Kennedy Hypnetism at Work!

'Unpatriotic' To Bare 3d Term Plans. HICAGO, Feb. 24.—You can always: tell when don. You can tell entirely apart from the news colnot in direct narrative, but by the drift of their

kind of remote control on them and it works. : We hear that it As quite all right for the State

nations at war when they step on our neutral toes

or, if it does write notes, It is all right, because we want to be friendly -with Great Britain and it makes our people mad when they learn that England is doing much to us. for | which we fought her in 1812. Cis And there is a second reason. Our Ambassadors abroad, Bullitt and Kennedy, are in so thick with the governments of France and England that they can do more in five minutes’ conversation with those governments than note writings from the President or the Secretary of State can ever do. oF ” » ”

F one wanted to start an argument, he might ask I what it is that these international ‘cuddlers have ever gotten for us by reason of the high esteem they hold abroad. Great Brifain is still stopping our ships and taking them weeks out of the way, when international law says she must exercise her rights of visit and search for contraband on the high seas. She is still opening and reading our mail, when international law says it is “invincible.” She has flouted the Declaration of Panama and has shown both by

does not intend to respect neutral waters even: within the three-mile limit. ; : These highbrow reflections of the scarcely .concealed first-bounce opinions of the Honorable Joseph P. do not confine themselves to direct international relations. We are also shown how .they affect, one of our principal domestic questions—the third term. What fools we have been not to see that, with the

to state his intentions now. in # 8 = :

WEE Well, so long as they are not known, the warring nations are certain of what is American policy. If he declares himself out now, American policy would, to them, be “X"”—the unknown quantity.

|| Well, wouldn't that be a sorry note} By maintaining .

their own discretion and initiative in foreign policy, governments play their best game of international poker—which is a term flattering to the bluff and scullduggery of modern international relations, If this is a good argument for Mr. Roosevelt's silence on a third term, it is a far better one for his getting a third ‘term, or even a perpetual Presidency. Of course, this -is the most maladorous kind of tripe. = * It is the business of our diplomatic department to insist on American rights at international law. It is the right of any people in a democracy to know how their agents perform that business. ‘ It is- the duty of Ambassadors to represent their own governments and no other country. Finally, we elect Presidents for the United States of America and not. to order the. affairs of the world. : FE

3d Term Crisis By Bruce Catton we

Possible Garner Entry, 2 onigress ‘Races May Bring Showdown in Ohio.

7 ASHINGTION, Feb. 24 —What happens in Ohio in the immediate future may have a great deal to do with the ultimate fate of the third-term movement. : When Senator Vic Donahey refused to be a “favor

pared omelet and opened: the way for some extremely interesting possibilities. Eo, . Xa To understand those. possibilities, back-track a minute and look at the way things were before Dona= hey bowed himself out. : i Ohio's delegation to the Democratic convention was to have been in the bag for a third term for Roosevelt—although Roosevelt was not going to enter the primary. eH v The Ohio law is very clear on the point that no candidate may- get his name on the ballot without

is a candidate: so to save Roosevelt from the necessity

capitalist system of controlling {iif filing an abundance of papers setting forth that he

higher brackets will be consume and finally there will be millions of people who will have little or no purchasing power. Finally a handful of capitalists will own the earth. The American-born citizen has a constitutional right to enjoy his part of the abundance of what this grand old country and its \people

are producing. . . .

New Books at the Library

HE spirit that, from time immemorial, has enchanted both visitors and ‘residents in Charleston, South Carolina, and the low-

lying adjacent islands, has been caught and held in Francis Griswold’s poignant and delightful new novel, “A Sea Island Lady” (MorTow). t This lengthy chronicle tells the story of a Northern girl who came to the ‘South during the War Between the States as an abolitionist

and a teacher of the freed slaves,

As

Side Glancés—By Galbraith

COPR. 1940 BY NEA SERVICE. INC. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAT, or Li

ther; wher we ling m

Lo -— 2-24

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but who remained to marry into the Fenwick family, aristocrats of the ante-bellum South. Francis Griswold .does not attempt to equal the dash and fire of Margaret Mitchell, but presents a courageous story of simple humanity which straight-forwardly reveals the life of the Fenwick family in particular and of the South in general from the time of the Civil War, through the Reconstruction Period, and down into the third decade of the present century. It could be written only by one who has known the spell of this particular locality and has loved it. Seldom would a book of such gargantuan size, concerning itself with the simple every day matters of loving and living and dying, be able to hold the-reader’s attention. And yet there are but few passages in this narrative that might have been improved by judicious condensation. Pleasing and refreshing, realistic without being sensational, compelling and vastly interesting without recourse to melodrama, this book is more than just another story of the Southern’ Reconstruction.

IN FULL ACCORD : By JAMES D. ROTH No malice harbors near A man with rod and reel. But he is rich of cheer, As he takes up his creel.

A pleasant “howdy’’ as he goes, He's wont to speak to all. ; And his pleasant spirit grows As he heeds the water’s call.

No quibbling or discontent Is his: His soul is free. : There ‘is no strife, nor argument:: He needs no referee. '

DAILY THOUGHT

Wherefore now let the fear of |

the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it; for there is no iniquity with the Lord .our God, nor re-

get over fo the Harti ys |s

vote-getter the Ohio Democrats have had in many a year—was to file his name with the understand-

But with Donahey out, Ohio's delegation can't

horse can be found. Just before Donahey: withdrew, the state Democratic central committee - named

governor in 1938, as its second choice.

Davey Still a Factor Js Taye - But with Dohahey out of the way. the road is wide open for Vice President Garner. to file. (The. matter is under discussion now and will be decided shortly.) And it is perfectly conceivable that in such case Garner might walk off with the Ohio delegatjon, - = One thing that makes it perfectly conceivable. is the presence on the Ohio ‘scene of ex-Governor Martin L. Davey, who fought Sawyer bitterly. two

New Deal for years. : 3 Davey: still has plenty of influence in Ohio. On top of everything else, Ohio has two special elections coming for congressional vacancies. One is in a solidly Republican district; the other, in a district which has been safely Democratic in all but three of the last 25 years. Reports here are that the Rebublicans are due to win both elections. So—if these two special elections should reveal &.

should develop a primary contest likely to go sour for the New Deal . . . the whole thing might go a

&

long way to deflate the third term bodm. ~

By Jane Stafford

JY, pd a young mother anxious at this season especially lest the baby get influenza, ‘a bad ing the baby in a stuffy, over-heated room ot" close to the stove, radiator or other heating applianee. - = and cold, but he needs fresh air, winter and summer, just as adults do. A good way fo keep the air fresh in his room without letting a cold blast blow on him is to open the window at the top. A plentiful ‘supply of fresh’ air without drafts may also_be obtained by tacking thin muslin or cheese-clath over

keeps out particles of coal, soot, dirt or snow. . =. When spring approaches, with its frequent changes’ in weather, mothers need to keep an eye on the temperature and to regulate baby’s clothing accordingly. The extra sweaters and blankets needed to keep him

suddenly turns warm, 3 tell you as an older child can when he feels too

‘warni or too cold. Sg ‘" “Scrupulous care should be taken to sée that : g is ch immediately, warns jie

soiled clothing is y 8. Public Health Service. There is real

He Sells the Idea F. D. R. Would Be

Ambassador Joseph Kennedy is home from Lon= umns. Some of our ablest columnists will tell you—

opinions. Joe uses hypnosis, telepathy, or some other

Department, either to stop writing sharp ‘notes to : not to make them public.

the Altmark and the Graf Spee incidents that she

world situation what it is—so uncertain and all— - Mr. Roosevelt would be both impious and unpatriotic

ey

ite son” candidate, he unscrambled a carefully pre=

of declaring himself, Senator Donahey—the best:

ing that the delegates were really to be Roosevelt's. 2

be delivered to Roosevelt unless some other stalking

Charles Sawyer, the party’s defeated candidate for -

years ago and who has an old score to’ settle with the

strong Republican swing in the state, and IF there. . Watch Your Health = =

cold or peumonia may make the mistake of - keep-.

Baby should, of course, be protected from. drafts

the open windows .or the window screen. This also:

warm on cold days may over-heat him when it > and of course the baby cannot

soiled. ng ‘un-