Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 April 1940 — Page 12

PAGE 12 The Indianapolis Times

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1940

THE HOME SHOW [NDIANAPOLIS has always taken great pride in its '* homes. Thousands of citizens still refer to it as “the city of homes.” This deep-seated feeling is perhaps one of the major reasons for the consistent success of the Indianapolis Home Show, now conducting its nineteenth an‘nual exposition. This 1940 Home Show gives every indication of breaking all previous records. There are, roughly, 100 exhibitors. About 100,000 persons are expected to pass Siroush the doors during the show. It is the best kind of evidence that Indianapolis, despite wars-and depressions, is still prima¥ily concerned with their homes of today—and, of tomorrow. 4

Z.

THE TIME TO ACT 4 ; ONGRESSIONAL battle over the Logan-Walter Bill “opens in the House, with opponents asserting that this is not the time td act. ' They say that a’better plan for controlling bureaucracy may come later from a committee of lawyers named last year by the Attorney General at the President's suggestion. - But this committee promises no final sever before fall, and-there is no assurance that even then it will offer a better 1 plan. It seems much more certain that the Logan-Walter Bill’s opponents want to delay a reform already long overdue in order to substitute :a scheme more acceptable to the bureaucrats—and, therefore, less likely to accomplish what urgently needs to be done. A 2 = = » The history of bureaucracy since governments began shows it always tending to abuse power, always grasping for more power and always resisting any change that does not give it greater power and bigger staffs. The vast American bureaucracy is no exception. That is why the administrators of some executive agencies, and their lawyers, are the most determined opponents of the LoganWalter proposals to provide— 1. A uniform and safeguarded system for exercise of these agencies’ quasi-legislative power to make rules which have the effect of laws. 2. A uniform and prompter system for exercise of their quasi-judicial power to make decisions. | 8. A uniform and simplified system of Federal Court review for their rules and decisions.

» 2 ” 2 8 This, in our opinion, is emphatically the time for Congress to act on these proposals. The Logan-Walter Bill does not threaten the efficiency of the administrative agencies. It does not limit their authority. It requires only that their authority shall be used properly, and not abused. We believe it will bring about a great increase in real administrative efficiency, and so a great decrease in complaints and litigation against arbitrary procedure by the agencies. We are not surprised that bureaucrats oppose it, or .that_they object to even the most reasonable checks and balances on their freedom of action. But what Congress should remember is that the people’s freedom is of first importance—that administrators cannot safely be trusted to operate only under such controls as they are willing to ‘accept—and that, without checks and balances which have ‘not been provided during the mushroom growth of our ‘administrative system but which the Logan-Walter Bill will provide now, bureaucracy will become autocracy. -

- WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS—

JMPORTANT as is the announced discovery of a five-day cure for syphilis we still hope that sometime the med-

ical profession will find a five-day cure for the so-called common cold. oe

150 YEARS OF PATENTS HE Congress shall have power,” said the new Constitution, “. . . .to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and . inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveriest” And so just 150 years ago this month President George Washington signed the law which authorized three |” - members of his Cabinet to issue patents. That was the beginning of the American patent system: In 1836, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress | established the present Patent Office headed by its own commissioner and wrote the general outline of the patent law which ‘still serves the country. And by 1844—three years before Thomas A. Edison was born—the then commissioner felt compelled to report gloomily that the work of his office was just about completed. Practically everything that could be invented, he felt, had been. How absurdly wrong he was! Nobody, today, believes that inventive _scietice has reached its limit. But there are those who believe that some limit should be imposed—that new inventions, new processes, new labor-saving devices have come so fast as to be a menace. Machines, they ‘say, are taking jobs away. from men. We ought to slow down the dangerous progress of science; we ought to have a moratorium on invention. They, too, are absurdly wrong. Inventions multiply man’s power to create wealth. Machines, over the years, make jobs for more men than they temporarily displace. That has been true through 150 years of the patent, system’s history, and it has not suddenly become untrué. We need to make fullest use of the power to create wealth. We need a wider, fairer distribution of the wealth created. We need

; ‘social and economic progress comparable to that in the field “of science. But the great’ institution established by Wash-1

: inthe and Jefferson when the Republic was young is still $ fa fhe early morning of Ha gtsfulness,

Sieh Sd ed

wig #5

Business Manager |

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Since Wagner ‘Act Forces Men Into Union, Government Has Duty To Protect Rank and File of Labor.

EW YORK, April 15. —Nobody on the union side, and I have had many earnest letters from men

how the rank and file of labor are to be

“from oppression and exploitation by the unions, un-

less Government supervision .is imposed. If Government supervision should fail that would

highest authority that we have. Buf, inasmuch as the Government, through the Wagner Act, undertakes

of forfeiting their right to work at their lawful occupations, there must be some public power to protect their interests within the union.

and not always enlightened or honest, would be likely to abuse their powers. There is sometaing to that, but the warning would be more. impressive if the men in command of the big labor organizations had made a thorough effort to prevent ers by union officials. Government officials would be responsible to the nation, but union officials, in practical effect, are not responsible ta anyone if they are strong soueh to develop their powers to the full.

ss = »

poms fault is not confined to the unions of the A. F. of L., although the abuses are more spectacular in that organization. By the tinie a levy for political purposes reaches the rank and filer of a C. I. O. union his rights as a member have been so badly diluted that he has no “choice but to pay his

candidate to whom he is bitterly opposed. The Ham ‘n’ Eggs proposal in California last fall was the blueprint of a dictatorship under which not only the right to picket, but the right to strike, would have been abolished, but the C. I. O, under Communistic domination, pushed through an indorsement which spoke for every member, including many who were members only under Government compulsion.

o ss = = Ie areas of labor organizations where the Federal

compulsion is not applicable, the need for protection still exists. Unions of strictly local character,

certain powers of coercion through the. sympathetic boycott. They would. not be able to assert their powers if they were not part of the national organizations, one or the other, and the national groups therefore have an obligation to prevent the abuse of these powers. This the national bodies fail to do, even in the most flagrant cases, and workers find themselves herded into unions under conditions which result in a reduction of their earnings to the extent that they are compelled to contribute in fees, dues and assessments. All discussions of the problems from this standpoint bring the retort of “labor-baiting.” But it is not baiting labor to consider the conditions which have

arisen during the fierce fight between the A. F. of L.

and the C. I. O. for numbers and money. The: facts are. there. But the conclusions, of course, may vary. Mine is that if the unions can’t give ,their members fair treatment:and protect their rights, and if it is recognized that men | must belong to unions, then they have a right to look to their Government for

pusranices

Inside diarapolis

The Why of Zoning Board Voting; ‘And That Jaysee Election Tonight

| YT'S beginning to look as if the Zoning Board's. habit I of holding private skull practice before regular board meetings is proving a mite. embarrassing. The

‘| custom has been for:|the Board>to gather around a

table in the inner sanctum and decide how theyre going to vote on variance Petitions when they get

outside.

This is what happened when the Board granted the variance for that N. Meridian St. restaurant, only in this case the Board members couldn’t get. together. However, it was known how each intended to vote. Consequently, when Harmon Campbell, the City Council’s representative on the Board, said <‘here” on the roll call vote instead of “aye” or “nay,” George Rooker, the Board secretary, put him down for an “aye” vote. Now, the remonstrators asking for a rehearing are demanding to know in legal language just how Mr. Campbell did vote. Specifically, they want to. know what “here” meant. © Well, now they know.

ce = = THE JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE elects officers at its meeting tonight at the Naval Armory. The campaigning has been almost as hot as the Presidential battle. One enterprising candidate, C. Hollis Hull, sent out postcards to the membership saying: “I can’t draw pictures, but I'm hoping to draw your vote. I can’t think of a word to rhyme with Hull, but who wants a poet on the hoard of directors?” | All this because A. Asher Irwin mailed out cards with a neat drawing on it, showing a smiling chap riding a giant pig along the road to “Director.” And because another candidate had entered the direct-by-mail campaign with cards saying: “Parks will not park on the job!” | | | IL. 8. | JUST BEFORE THE HOME SHOW opened, it was visited by all the performers from the Circus a ii the way at the Coliseum. . . . Nobody can enjo

clown. , . , The bad weather last week drove all of Butler's sports Re ts Ph tennjs, baseball, golf, spring football—into the Field House to keep in shape. . . . It Was finally decided that ;the (Japeiaers needed a little fast OE practice. , . . So they were sent into the litle gymnasium. , . . Now Tony Hinkle has to i a lot of windows repaired. |

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson HERE are: finite million persons in the United

States who tonight.” - I Tifbed. that line from a column by 1 Laird, who goes. on: to: say that if you ha be among those unfortunates don't take up

have difficulty going to sleep aA 2 ex" gram just before bedtime.

delusions. lying to me, besides. I thought all great financiers and statesmen and other Holders of Responsible Posi: tions read themselves to sleep every night with murder mysteries. t least the papers and magazines and book blurbs have been saying so for a long time. Detective - stories, according to pronounced. literary opinion, are ome” syrup for the bright male mind. Now here confuses us f er by reminding that. Shoughy is never conducive to sleep. " As for that, thought is not conducive to anything but worry, is it? | The more you think the crazier you are and if you have got into the. vicious habit of

p. m. you deserve no better fate, than to stay as 'wideeyed as an owl all night. 4 But the psychologists, God bless ’em, are invariably helpful and suggest marvelous things to keep us comfortable, Well-behaved and happy. Last night I resolved to try Dr. Laird’s latest advice. nstead of tuning in on |a dance orchestra I hunted around the air until’ I i a lullaby. While listening I Siped Rind — f >. pages 2 Murat Halstead’s| “Life 0 c ey,” an was just ready to drop off when—bang!| a iret thought hit me. How about t ,999 other wide-awakers who were at the pa perhaps ‘thrashing |

in their bed covers, sending an SOS to old 7

VAD) us

And the minute I began to think, all "| thon. of insomnia, overw

sympathetic ‘with organized labor, has yet shown me protected]

‘be ‘the end of that, because the Government is the}

to force men into labor unions, with the alternative

It is said that Government officials, being human |

the abuse of pow- |

money, even though it is to be used to support a |

{with the price-

looks of a nice, homey Tots like a traveling By

to y citing book or: turn;your radio to a stimulating pro- |

Which gives ‘the ‘death blow to one of m pet | It makes me feel that .someone’s been

es Dr. Laird with his notions and |

thinking right straight through from 9 a. m. to ‘10 |

ound |

operating under charters from the big national or- | i” } ganizations derive from their national parent bodies | H

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

ANSWERS TECHEMEYER ON CITIZENS’ HOUS NG REPORT By Lee Burkett Study of Earl Teckemeyer’s “categorical examination” of the Citizens Housing Committee’s much-dis-cussed report, discloses that our realtor omits every significant fact that contradicts his foregone conclusions, ignores specific data on rentals and tenan{ reactions in government projects, and utilizes the housing question | as a sounding board for his o political convictions. He offers no evidence whatever to support his prediction that “if allowed to proceed | unhampered, private industry can, and will, supply adequate housing at fair prices to those who are in| a position to pay for it.” (While this sounds ambiguous, he presumably refers to the $900-or-less-per-year families with whom the Citizens Housing Committee is concerned.) A lifetime in the building industry ‘has permitted me to observe that periods when business did “proceed unhampered” ere nightmares; rents and building costs sky-rocket-ing out of all proportion to wages, “the building of millions of cheap houses . . . the surplus of housing, foreclosed .contracts, falling prices, shaky banks and lending institutions.” I couldn't have said it better myself.

“Labor Not Unreasonable”

We remember it all too well, and to promise better housing on the same “unhampered” basis betokens something more [cynical than mere dishonesty. Taq willfully invite repetition of that unhappy cycle is to heap insult upon the injury done those thousands who lost their homes in the “unhampered” era. To the nostalgic yearnings for “reduction in costs of materials and especially of labor” I would point out that “Government interference” xing combinations is already -reducing the one while modern machinery plus the masshandling processes most effective on large-scale ‘jobs like USHA projects is achieving the other. The fight of the Cleveland painters for a $1680 annual wage suggests that labor is not unreasonable. Achitectural Forum holds that housing for the lowest third is impossible without ‘Government subsidy. Mr. - Teckemeyer’s well-

ultimate results—a|

(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.)

grounded opposition to FHA home ownership for families with insufficient income, say $900 or less, is the best possible argument for the USHA program. It is criminal to dangle the bait of home ownership before people who really cannot afford it, and Mr. Peter’s office has

approved few such loans due to reluctancé. of lending agencies.

No Alternative Offered The weakness of opponents to

public housing is that. having a vested interest in obsolescence, they

offer no alternative than a costly"

delay. Despite official denials the

shortage grows rapidly worse, and

increasing rents for bare shelter leaves less and less of meager incomes available for food and clothing. Driving about ti : city we find unspeakable hovels renting for $8 to $10 per month and up. Let us compare this briefly with what is possible under USHA: Vincennes, 4% rooms $8.85. Hammond, Gary, Muncie, New Albany and Ft. Wayne, $9 to $12 a month per dwelling. If township trustees must pay $8 to $10 a month for housing unfit for habitation, it is high time we considered economies achieved, elsewhere. The Problem of Flaancing How would a project be financed? Ninety per cent of the bonds issued by a local housing authority

are taken by ‘the USHA, the remaining 10 per cent sold on the open market. Private agencies are eager to purchase them. They are

for revenue only and do not come

within the legal debt limitation of the county, city or state. Having no bearing on the bonded indebtedness of the county, city or state they cannot in any way affect local tax rates. No initial or annual appropriation is required of either city or county for any project of a local authority. A lump sum is paid for city services, similar to the

Side GJances—By Galbraith

all that helmed me 04.7 ain steep | "Y

$7500 paid by Woodruff Place and the $7000 from Lockefield Gardens. Sociologists and! experience .refute the claim that “slums are not houses or streets or places. Slums are in the hearts and minds of the

people . . .” If “the right sort of character could produce an exalted habitation” in the fetid atmosphere

of slums, what wonderful results|.

could be achieved under more favorable - conditions! The plant struggling for life in a tin can on a tenement window. sill blooms and 2 gratefully when transplanted to open soil, light! and air.

Quotes Rotarian Magazine

The November Rotarian, organ of hard-headed ‘but far-sighted businessmen, reports a year after opening of the Ft. Wayne project that relief doctors’ bills are omnethird what they were for the same families the previous year; 82 per cent of the $10.83-a-month: homes. were so spic-and-span you : could enjoy: ‘a meal at their table. Flowers and vines grew abundantly; housewives were canning ‘for the winter. . Tenants chipped in for: community washing machines and lawnmowers; one proud tenant, who formerly occupied a tent on the city dump, requested an officer to prevent neighbors walking across his new lawn.. Yet these neat housewives, ‘ healthy * children and husbands with a renewed sense of responsibility lived a year ago in squalor and despair. Indianapolis citizens must decide for themselves whether this road back to self-respect or the Dead End streets of the slums are most truly in accord with the American way of life.

rE THINKS PEGLER HIT NAIL ON THE HEAD By Citizen Westbrook = Pegler’s articles exposing the corruption inside the Al F. of L. certainly hit the nail on the head. Some of the leaders of

this once great labor organization must now realize that their days of luxury on the Florida sands. are

‘limited. They can console them-

selves with the knowledge that it was a great life while it lasted..

8 8 =n FAVORS GOVERNMENT HELP FOR “JOADS” By Mrs, Frank Nef?

We sure did appreciate. Mr. Denny's column, “Helping the Joads.” Hope he may write more. We too feel those people are Ameri~ cans and deserve a right to live in a decent way. If it was necessary for us to defend: our country, would soldiers be drafted from the Joad’s ranks? They sure would be very fit in body or otherwise. If they are to be made use of in time of need, then why. not provide for them? I. thought the three to five-acre plots a fine idea. I know a little about these people but hope to learn more. Ss “Grapes of Wrath.”

EVENING By VERNE S. MOORE

The naked woods are hushed + Their gayer colors gone The Western sky is flushed Now that the day is done.

Across the mauve background The- sunset colors show The outlines that are found - In the vivid afterglow.

The ritual ‘hour is here . When men come home to stay. As giant trees, austere,

* Lift graceful limbs to pray,

| goid into ‘America, which drives

Gen Johnson

Says—

Congress | Shoul d| Investigate | { FCC, Particularly Mr. Fly's & i Stand on Marketing Televisions j

ASHINGTON, Apri 15 ~Heaven' ‘help’ ‘the poor: radio stations and chains at 8 time like’ this, They have to operate under licenses from a Federa) Communications Commission. It has powers limited by law to prevent conflicts and h of the limited? number of channels open on the air, That is neces- | sary, but it pays scant attention to that limitation of powers. It is presided over by a professional young, | business baiter named Fly, which might, more ap« propriately be Flip. The Commission’s powers are limited but their execution can be deadly. By refusal of a continuation of license it can destroy the value of millions of dol= lars of investors’ money in such great research and, operating broadcasting units as Columbia or N. B. ec’ : Small wonder the radio broadcasting companies are. canny in questioning any unwa tel ‘extension of* powers.

|

; T= most roughshod riding ino our recent hateful

bureaucratic history of the “insolence of ‘office? and the law’s delays,” is flip Mr. Fly's castigation of RCA for marketing a television set before He thought development had gone far enough, not to mention his, confiscation of the radio time to put his own. voice

.| over their station to tell the public what heels they

are. If, outside of the Madden Labor Board, there is. a more emphatic demonstration. of ‘' the necessity of the Logan-Walter Bill, to “regulate. the regulators, this is it. If ever a Federal Commission ‘needed a thorough Congressional investigation this is it. But with this much said for the bed upon which, the radio companies’ limbs are wracked, it is nevers’ theless pitiful and dangerous to the public: to learn the extent of their subservience. _Part of it never can be proved. The story of how Boake Carter was taken oft the air because he expressed epinions on contro=y versial questions which were anti-New Deal must rest’ | in the same conjecture as the story of how Jay Frank-® = lin was put on because he expressed .dpinion that were + % pro-New Deal. Then there is the First, Aedys new | | program of comment. . cruny | 0B 2 8 =» UT others can’t so air opinions by radio, The hew | code manual for broadcasters prohibits the pure # chase of time for the “presentation of controversial® e. issues” except for “political broadcasts during came paigns and the public forum . , regularly presented as a series of fairsided discussion } + « vesting wholly | with the broadcasting station: or ‘network, ”—the latter 1

| phrase meaning submission of: scripts to censorship’:

by minor officials of a pany. | It is clear beyond questi controversial questions should highest bidder, and hence. the | la nothing is more needed than honest, open, free and lusty debate. ' If a commercial sor wants: to pay Jd to put opposing champions on in a|rough-and-fumble-* | discussion, what purpose is there in requiring the E | “forum” type, “regularly presented”? The “forum” type is not; debate, It is only ons stuffed shirt reading one canned speech which an-, ‘other stuffed shirt hasn’t seen—and then he reads his. Since Webster-Hayne and Lincéln-Douglas, “there’s sore decline in Adam’s line of: this Bespawn of eal a7 LY # ; \ Ie

win, broadcasting ‘coms

th t radio time on be sold to: the" gest purse But

T

Business By John T. Flynn

Neutral Nations as. Battleground + Is Offshoot of Economic Folly.

NEW YORK, April 15—The % now reached a stage where it see 2 Eyropean war has its »

weight -to a general world renee trend’ jiward isolation. The strangest, most difficult of forces to e is the force of great economic tren, nds. World } reveals certain eras in which, for some reason, prays force, every political interest, every social movement seemed to produce an accumulation of energies all driving in the same direction. In Europe the war has taken twd directions; One * is a tremendous effort by the empires to plug the | holes through which goods flow to Germany. The other is the hunt for a battleground. - This last effort finds its expressions in the designs 4 of both groups of combatants to involve the neutrals, The warring countries would like to borrow some small nation’s terrain to use as a battleground. The first effect of the preparations for war going on for tha last 10 years was to- surround the. great powers with * seemingly impregnable ‘walls. Germany’ “cannot get into France. France cannot make her way into Gers many. England has surrounded herself with maritime | devices implementing her sea-walls which Germany . cannot penetrate. In short, these great powers, contemplating wag for some years, have, like the oh medieval cities, sur« rounded themselves with batt] ments and 1 fortresses, They are walled nations, L was i] re

The Lesson of Finland | ©.

The only way to fight, therefore, assuming: that they want to fight, is to go out into some ng= tion's yard and fight. But small nations thus-men« aced can build walls, too. Finland proved that. Hence }'there is nothing for the little nations of the world to do—those who happen to be neighbors of the big ones —but to build huge armed walls around their fron tiers just as their. powerful neighbors have done. It is conceivable that a small nation may, given i time, so circle itself with cement and steel that na

enemy can enter save at 3 Salrifice too great to atw .

tempt." Thus: the- tendency of military strategy is in the same direction. as economic, strategy and social strategy. ' The economic syst is being subjected to national controls which means that those controls

| must be protected from .external disturbances. The

monetary systems are being subjected to drainage of nations to get along with a minimum of international trade and also forces them to combine into céirreficy groups. Into allthis are thrust the new cultures, based on. exaggerated na< tionalisms, that tend to shut the frontiers to, ols ine vasion of new ideas. : This is a trend—world wide, powertul. fed hy very section of human interest, It/is the most oppose. And it is a curious thing that those i. most vociferously denounce ‘isolationists” are most devoted to the very forces which are ‘producing isola« tionism, | : ;

Watching Your | Health:

By Jane Stafford

MANY parents trying desperately to keep the Six month-old baby from sucking his thumb’will be relieved to learn dentists have revised or relaxed somewhat their stand on this subject. Dr. L. M. Christie, Washington, D. C., dentist; explained the’ ‘new | viewpoint at the ‘meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In small babies thumbsucking is ho longer. ‘conkid- 1 ered a serious menace to the child’s mouth, teeth-and general health. For the first year or two of the child's life, the habit does not make so much difference as was once. thought. Persistent thumbsucking, however, continued for years until the child is five or six years

"old may cause serious mouth and tooth ‘deformity

with difficulties resulting therefrom. So, while parents ‘of small babies can relax their efforts to stop the thumbsucking, they should be on the. alert.to: se 6

| the child does not ‘continue ‘the habit, as: he

DAILY’ THOUGHT

Go thou™near and hear all the Lord our God shall say: and speak

older. The facial disfigurement of protruding or buclk

‘teeth is serious enough to make worthwhile the efforts -

to stop persistent thumbsucking. Other i however, may result when a child dev I

lk clusion, of which persistent thumbsucking

Sause. .Malocclusion is a condition in which {