Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 May 1940 — Page 8

The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Business Manager

Marion Coun- . 3 cents a copy; deliv rrier, 12 cents

Owned and publishea daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co., 214 Ww Maryland St.

Member ot United Press, Scripps - Howard News. paper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulation.

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

RILEY 53851

Give INGA and the People Will Find Ther Own Way

SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1940

ONLY ONE TRUE CHOICE

HEN the Republican County Convention meets this afternoon, we hope the delegates will remember that it was bossism which almost wrecked the party and cost it its power. If it does not want to repeat that almost fatal mistake, the convention has no alternative except to reelect the man who started it back to respectability—Carl Vandivier.

HITLER ASKED FOR IT—

ND well-nigh the whole world hopes, while it waits in anguished anger, that he gets it—that when the gathering armies find a decisive battleground the doctrine of this man’s infallibility will be destroyed. The reverse may happen. On the record, the situation of the Allies and their new comrades of Belgium and the Netherlands is not reassuring. To date, the master of the air has become the master of the land. And Hitler retains mastery in aviation, by the admission of Winston Churchill. But this time, at least, he is up against armies his own size, and fortifications that give an advantage of the defender. He has gorged himself with small nations. Now, on the soil of Holland and Belgium, he comes to grips at last with the great ones—with the powers that must stop him if he is to be stopped in Europe. For ourselves—and if this be unneutral, it is also too overwhelming a sentiment to be dissembled—we hope and pray that he will be broken on the wheel of his own Napoleonic ambitions. And that brings us to—

THE PRESIDENTS SPEECH

AT Mr. Roosevelt said last night, to the Pan American Scientific Congress, is true. Aggressions on other continents do constitute a challenge to the way of life to which we in the Americas have been accustomed. And we are determined to protect and defend ‘“‘our science, our culture, our freedom and our civilization.” And this cryptic paragraph: “Is this solution—our solution—permanent or safe if it is solved for us alone? That it seems to me is the most immediate issue that the Americas face. Can we continue our peaceful construction if all the other continents embrace by preference or by compulsion a wholly different principle of life? No, I think not.”

It is altogether too poignantly natural for the beleaguered peoples of England and France and Holland and Belgium to give to such words—from the lips of the President of the United States—an interpretation that the facts do not justify. They are defending their liberty and their civilization with their blood—there and now. And we greatly fear that the net effect of such a speech as the President’s may be to arouse false hopes that we too may be fighting by their sides—there and soon. It is well known here—though not understood over there—that preponderant American opinion, while apprehensive over the outcome of the war in Europe, is determined to have no part in it. The United States and the other American republics

will look to their own arms and their own national interests —but they will do their defending over here.

MAN OF ACTION

HE changing of the guard in Downing Street symbolizes the end of an era. Out, with Chamberlain, goes the faint perfume that lingered from the days of appeasement. In, with Churchill, comes the robust atmosphere of action. It would be unfair to suggest that Mr. Chamberlain fell short of Mr. Churchill in the will to win, once the sword was drawn. Mr. Churchill himself, a gadfly in times of peace, was stoutly loyal to him in adversity. But the mark of Munich was upon the old man, and the frail, patient figure seemed miscast in the role of war leader. Winston Churchill possesses the resourcefulness, the electric personality, the grasp of strategy and the gift of dramatic phrase that were lacking in the man from Birmingham. It may be that is too late. Certainly he inherits from Chamberlain and Baldwin the bitter dregs of guillibility and unpreparedness. Year in and year out he warned them, but they remained serene. And now he has the job of carrying on the war with the makeshift machinery they bequeathed him. Once Churchill was asked what he thought should be the attitude of a nation toward its enemies. With that quick precision of his he replied: “In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, good will.” That is a good enough platform for him today.

THE GARDEN TOUR

HUNDREDS of Indianapolis citizens are expected to take part in the sixth annual Park School Garden Tour to“day and tomorrow. The tour accomplishes a worthwhile two-fold purpose. One is that it gives many persons their first glimpses of some of the most beautiful gardens in Indiana. Firsthand study provides many with new ideas in gardening. The Garden Tour has been an effective agent in promoting the cause of civic beauty in Indianapolis. Secondly, the money derived from the tour is used for partial scholarships to Park School. Ideally enough, none of the boys ever aided are aware that they attend school on a scholarship. Only the headmaster and the boys’ families know that the youngster is being aided. The Park School Mothers’ Association is to be con-

9

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Mr. Green Draws Some Criticism

For Failure of Building Service Union To Co-operate in Scalise Probe.

EW YORK, May 11.—This is an opportune moment to put a finger on the sham of William Green, wherein he calls upon the public authorities to prosecute malefactors operating under the fair name and sacred sign of labor with a capital L. A few months ago Mr. Green went to East St. Louis for an official occasion, and in the course of his remarks to the assembled brothers—including, no doubt, a quota of racketeers—showed the boys an expanse of white eye as he called on Heaven to witness that, like Calvin Coolidge’s parson, he stood four square against sin, Then, in an “officer-do-your-duty” tone Mr. Green put it up to the public authorities to arrest and send to prison all unioneers who rob their subjects of dues, fines and assessments, extort money from employers or others, or otherwise offend against the Ten Commandments or the laws of the Unijed States or its political subdivisions. We come now to the case of the predatory racket known as the Building Service Employees’ Union, which has been holding a convention in Atlantic City to calm the confusion arising from the indict ment of George Scalise.

CALISE, a pander, was indicted for extortion by Thomas E. Dewey, and his resignation from the presidency was approved with regret by the same national board, minus one member, which, last January, rejected the same. The member now missing from the board who voted not to accept the resignation in January is Robert Everitt, who has a long but cheap police record compiled over a 20-year career. His convictions were for receiving stolen goods and breaking and entering, and he is now under indictment in Boston with two accomplices—one a counterfeiter, the other a swindler—on a charge of misusing the label of the A. F. of L. In the promotion of a fraudulent publication. His prosecutor is Daniel Doherty, former National Commander of the Amerfcan Legion, and it may be sald to the credit of a subsidiary of the A. F. of L. that his indictment and prosecution were procured by the Massachusetts Federation of Labor, whose leading officials appear to resent the rise of underworld influence in labor circles.

N Atlantic City, however, when Mr. Dewey's agents picked up three officials of the Scalise racket on witness subpenas and tried to catch the union’s bookkeeper the union, far from co-operating, not only obstructed the attempt but denounced Dewey as a political opportunist and enemy of labor, failed to produce the bookkeeper and sounded warning to other such rackets to keep out of New Jersey because the law there permitted the extradition of material witnesses to New York. One of these individuals, incidentally, is Thomas Burke, who was third vice president under Scalise and accompanied Scalise, Little Augie and Charles Fischetti, a cousin of Al Capone, to Cuba in February, 1038. He has now been elevated to the first vice presidency in the “reform” of this subsidiary of the American Federation of Labor.

Inside Indianapolis

Wallace O. Lee, Whose Schedule

Would Kill Any Politician In Town

ROFILE of the week: Wallace O. Lee, whose daily schedule is one that would kill the hardiest politician. Vice President of the Indianapolis Power & Light Co. in charge of personnel and public relations, Wallace Lee travels at an amazing pace day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out. He's been with the Power Co. 30 years. For the last 20 he's been in public relations work. He'll average four meetings a day throughout the year. He interviews between 15 and 20 visitors every day and receives a minimum of 50 phone calls a day. Yet with all this, Wallace Lee keeps on going at a terrific pace. A person in a hurry makes a mistake if he walks down the street with him. For Mr. Lee may stop 15 times in the block to talk to people. Mr. Lee is now 49 years old. He is a handsome man, about 6 feet, 1 and he weighs about 185 or 190 pounds. His hair is still black. He talks rapidly, like he works. He can't sit still. His capacity for movement is astonishing.

” ” Ld

WALLACE LEE HAS PUZZLED many people. But the truth is that there is nothing to puzzle anybody. The man is as open as any book. You are always seeing the real Wallace Lee in everything he says or does. His job in life is doing things for other people. He has done literally thousands of favors for people. He has never asked for one in return. The list of organizations for which he works (and works is the proper word) starts with the Boy Scouts and goes on through the Red Cross, the Civic Theater, the Community Fund, the Symphony, the Saddle Horse Association, Sunnyside Sanatorium, the Flanner House and on and on. You'd never guess it and he: will deny it, but Wallace Lee is a sensitive person and although some persons may at times have hurt his feelings he has never, in turn, been heard to utter a word of criticism. Truth is, he’s never been heard to say a harsh word about anyone,

” ” » MR. LEE'S MAIN OCCUPATION in life is his job. Then comes his family and his home. He is wild about his children, Luana, who is married; Mary Louise, who is soon to he married; Wallace Jr., now about 13, and Nancy, now about 8. Mrs. Lee takes Wallace's devotion to his work in good humor. He has a lovely home in the country north of the city. On it are his horses, his miniature golf course, his pool, his tennis court. He's proud of the log cabin which contains his father’s relics. His father was an Army captain who had been a professor at the University of Mississippi. Typical of Mr. Lee is his choice of a dog for his farm. It's Just dog, no pedigree, no rank. He likes it and that’s all that counts, He is always in dead earnest and he doesn’t like to joke about the things he’s doing. He's a good horseman, but he is not terribly interested in general sports. One reason is he's never had time. Around the Power Co. Wallace Lee is known as the man who has never failed to help when somebody's been in trouble. And in his office sits a little testimonial to that, a silver carafe which reads: “To the best boss in the world.”

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

A CHALLENGE to American women has been flung down by Pearl 8. Buck. “I believe,” she writes in a recent issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal, “that the whole question of war is a woman's question and we can decide it if we will. If the 37 million women of the United States will not go to war on a particular occasion, there would be no war.” Certainly not one of us will disagree on that. War is peculiarly woman's business. since she creates life which its chief aim is to destroy. It seeks to tear down the home which, in spite of change, is woman's real and only world, It disrupts the even tenor of her ways, altering the deep rhythm of life, and thereby giving shock and insult to something fundamentally stable in the. feminine nature. These pleasing theories, however, are not likely to save us from impending catastrophe. For they are pleasing only so long as we hold the thought of what women want. The grave question now is: What will women do? Will they have the courage to act as their instincts urge or will they, against all sense and sensibility, submit their minds to men? Alas, the times have bred few Lysistratas! Submission to masculine will, even in “matters which touch the happiness and welfare of her children, has been the woman's way for thousands of ages. There are now a few evidences of rebellion which may in

time work the miracles we hope for, but I fear the

day is not yet come when women as a group

gratulated on its growing enterprise. We hope that this week-end’s tours set a new record.

can stand for a principle which their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons oppose.

SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1940

\

Gen. Johnson Says—

He Disagrees With New Dealers Who Contend Dean Landis' Article Has Torpedoed Logan-Walter Bill

EW YORK, May 11.—The temptation to a cole umnist in a controversy is great to sidestep the midnight oil by citing some adversary brief on one side or the other, extol the author and then go into a spasm about how he has torn the contrary argue ment to tatters—without telling how. I have done it myself. It seems to be the only method available to commentators who want to supe port the bureaucracies in their effort to kill the Logan-Walter Bill which proposes to put some limit

The Hoosier Forum

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

CLAIMS 40% LIVING IN HOVELS HERE

By Ernest Morton, Secretary Workers Alliance,

I would like to reply to the Attica, Ind, man who doesn't believe President Roosevelt's statement pertaining to the housing problem. If that gentleman will look me up the next time he comes to Indianapolis I will gladly show him that at least 40 per cent of the people here are living in hovels which are not fit to stable a horse in, They are not only poorly housed, but also underfed and are in actual want of sufficient fuel and clothing. Most of these people gladly would work for the money to obtain what they need but the opportunity is lacking. I would also like to quote the following words from a speech made to our members recently by Judge Wilfred Bradshaw: “Ninety per cent of the juvenile delinquency comes from homes where the parents are poverty-ridden and destitute.” » ” »

FINDS BRADDICK RIGHT ON TOWNSEND PLAN By Voice in the Crowd Braddick is on the right end of the Townsend Plan debate. He realizes that to divide the aggregate income does not make it greater, it does not increase purchasing power and it cannot create any more prosperity than any other taxation and confiscation.

How in the name of common sense can you increase aggregate purchasing power by taking earnings and purchasing power away from the earners and giving it to the non-earners? Under the Townsend Plan you would not increase purchasing power or prosperity in just the same manner as you would not have any more rock broke if you broke all of the big ones into little ones, or bologna if you sliced it thick or thin. What keeps the Townsend Plan alive is that a top organization lives on its donations from the aged and a lot of politicians who would willingly ride the hearse to get into Washington, egg it on with promises they cannot keep. The hope for proper care of the aged poor lies more in the direction of prosperity from less taxes that discourage capital investment rather than a plan of more taxes that might ruin the incentive to do anything with surplus savings.

(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.)

THINKS RANK AND FILE WILL REMOVE GREEN By Charles H. Mathes, New Castle I read the letter of a reader in your paper May 8th and I am

amazed at the lack of vision displayed. In this enlightened age a man speaks against organized labor and at the same time bemoans the fact that his two sons are forced to work until 2 a. m. without extra pay. Pegler has proved nothing but the fact that the A. F. of L. is dying because its leaders are not real honest to goodness labor leaders but misleaders. I think that the rank and file of the A. F. of L. will remove some of sald leaders—including William Green-—at their next convention, As for the reader I advise him to go to the public library and resume his education. He needs to read some labor books so that he may see that the Bill of Rights will be preserved only as long as labor unions exist. Fascism, Naziism and all of the undesirable forms of government which suppress civil liberties and the individual rights are the results of unions being destroyed. As for his sons, I advise them to

investigate the C. I. O. and find out the benefits that organized workers enjoy. * ® 8 = FORECASTS BREAKING OF ALLIED EMPIRES By a Reader. War is the sport of Kings. The disintegration of the British and

French empires is proceeding at a rapid pace. No empire ever survived that was built on force, and the subjection of other nations or peoples. Those who live by the sword surely perish by the sword. Imperialism masking under the banner of democracy creates and maintains a “caste system” of society to sustain itself in power. The caste system cannot develop the loyalty necessary to maintain a government founded on it. It spews hate for those who seek justice and equality. This war will break the British and French empires just as the last one broke the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg dynasties. No help that democratic America can furnish to the last of the empires can save them from dissolution. We had better save our resources to supply the world democratic state that will arise on the ashes of present day imperialism. We need to keep our heads cool, to make every man a King indeed. w » ”

POLES TRAVEL FAR BUT FIND BATTLEFIELD By Observer The international situation in a nutshell: Driven out by Nazis, Poles

are reorganized in France, trained by the Allies, armed by the British,

and fight in Norway against those same Nazis.

New Books at the Library

IRGINIA KIRKUS, in “A House for the Week-Ends,” (Little) writes for those of us who lean toward country living, but whose bread and butter must be earned in the city. Just how, when and where to lead this “double life” is the message of her newly published book. She firmly restrains her imagination from soaring among the clouds; and her feet are very squarely planted in the soil of her Connecticut country home. She recognizes the problems of a house for the week-ends and tells how she has met them in a very

1940 BY NEA

Side Glances—By Galbraith

oe, we. +m fle. CE 70

“This is leap year, Dad, and I'm afraid Betty is going to ask me to

> ellie

§-il

marry her. Can a gentleman refuse?"

practical down-to-the-earth manner. What and where to buy, costs, reconditioning, water supply, sewage disposal, how she has met the help problem, are some of the many phases which she discusses in interesting detail. . : She very thoughtfully has included lists, many of them—kitchen equipment, garden accessories, household tools, needed linens and bedding, emergency first aid necessities, comforts, under which she includes the very large items of a furnace, an electric pump, water heater, ice-box, and other luxuries which pampered city dwellers do not easily give up. “A House for the Week Ends” is a helpful as well as a very readable book. Those who are now setting out to find “a small white house with a view, a brook, an apple orchard, a Dutch oven and L and H hinges . . . it should encourage, guide, comfort, console and amuse.”

TRIBUTE TO MOTHERS - By OLIVE INEZ DOWNING It matters not how rugged seems the way How trials irk or tribulation frets

A mother’s helpful word casts ray, when all else

A Sotn{orR) a guide, a leading star— From days of lullabies sung soft and low, She points the way, the luring heights afar, And teaches us the best of life to know,

All honor 2 her due, praises sing, : To her eyes bring naught but ha beam

ppy » / On Mother's Day let gracious tributes ring And crown her with your love : and deep esteem.

her

DAILY THOUGHT It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich nian to enter into the kingdom of God.-—Mark 10:25.

IT 18 ONLY WHEN the rich are

sick that they fully feel the impo~—Colton.

v

tence of wealth.

on the rapidly growing arrogance of administrators in | regulating our daily lives by decrees, ukases and ime | perial rescripts. The latest gun wheeled into battery is a lecture | printed in the May Harvard Law Review by Dean | Landis of that school, Frankfurter disciple, late offi- | clal exonerator of Harry Bridges and aforetime Feds eral Trade Commissioner and chairman of SEC. » ” ” HAVE the greatest respect for the learning and ability of Dean Landis but, as a lawyer, I can smell the difference between a partisan one-sided brief of hot advocacy and an objective scholarly discussion. This document has all the earmarks of the former, none of the latter and ample internal evidence, of the combined brain and legwork of the legal department of many an alphabetical agency in Washington. This is perfectly O. K., but it is a pain in the neck to read columns of comment commending it as a master torpedo which with pure logic will sink the Logan-Walter Bill “without trace.” The subject is pretty hard to discuss in lay language but, boiled to its bones, the brief makes four principal points: (1) that some of the older bureaus are excepted. Dean Landis asks why the threat of absolutism is feared in the new and noé in such old bureaus as the Interstate Commerce Commission. He ought to know. There is where the abuses have appeared but he hints it is just antie New Deal.

. » @ E writes: “Motifs in symphonic movements are frequently carried out by the sinuous trilling of the violins and not by the blarings of the brasses, (2) That by using the word “decision” rather than “order” in providing for judicial review of an officer's action, the bill creates confusion of meaning and may open up trivial court cases. (3) That by using the words “clearly erroneous” or “otherwise unlawe ful” instead of “not supported by substantial evi dence,” in providing for court review, another field for examining byreau action might open up. (4) That in any bureau bossed by a single individual the bill provides for a board of review to which an age grieved person can promptly appeal administrative action by a single officer on charges of illegality or capricious or arbitrary action, This is attacked bee cause in one subdiyision of one department (but no in others) a similar agency is already working. That is the essence of this master-brief. I¢ doesn't even discuss other vital provisions of the bill such as those requiring a public hearing before issuing regulations having more force and wider bearing than many laws. Some of it i8 oute right quibbling over words and all of it is pure conjecture.

Business By John T. Flynn

Court's Ruling Against Price Fixing Brought on by New Deal Experiment

N= YORK, May 11.—The Supreme Court says it is illegal for private business concerns to get together to fix prices. There is really nothing new about this. It is an ancient rule of the common law, And when the Sherman Anti-Trust Law was ed, while it banned all restraints on business, it really added nothing to this one. What makes the decision important, and what made the whole case necessary, was that seven years ago this Administration undertook not merely to suspend the Anti-Trust Laws but to overthrow the whole course of common law on the subject of private price-fixing. ) In the early days of the Administration, one of the sights for the gods was the almost weekly lectures by the President to the assembled and awe-struck newspapermen on the subject of controlling competi= tion. He would have charts, tables and memos supe plied to him by the publicity-economists of the NRA, He would point out how our productive capacity exe ceeded our needs and that some means must be found to retrain its use. Its excessive use demoralized the price structure. We were suffering from low prices, The NRA was designed to get prices up—among other things. So were the AAA and the Commodity Surplus Corporation. They didn’t go up fast enough through various direct and indirect agreements and through various sly devices—production control for one. Then the President devalued the dollar. If we can’t get prices up one way we will do it another, he cried over the radio. The price level of 1926 was fixed as the goal. Well, prices did go up. Then the President's advisers declared that the recession of 1937 was due to the increased prices. And, at that, they never went to the 1926 level.

Sees Lack of Consistency

Now all that hag been thrown into the scrap heap where it belongs. The Department of Justice has embarked upon a series of prosecutions under the Sherman law which the President tried to junk. The Department began this only after Attorney General Cummings was junked. The Department is right— but the President has never taken any part in this campaign. He remains utterly mum on it. But while the Justice Department prosecutes varie ous groups—as it should—for attempting to fix prices, on another front the President supports various kinds of price-fixing schemes, the Commodity Surplus Core poration for one and the Bituminous Coal Commission for another—both schemes to raise prices and keep them up. . So what is our policy now? Are we convinced that prices ought to be raised and kept up? Or do we think-they ought to be left alone? What has become of those sparkling lectures in the White House on the necessity for restraining the production of the abundance which we were trying to create? It is time we began to think our way through this and have a policy about it.

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

TEW women need to be urged to get rid of spiders I if they invade the home, although there are some who cling to the superstition that it is bad luck to destroy a spider. The reason for the superstition may be that certain species of spiders are beneficial bee cause they are the natural enemies of many injurious pests and do a rather good job in destroying them. The black widow spider is particularly feared and has lately gained considerable notoriety. She can be recognized by her sleek black body with the red marking, shaped roughly like an hourglass, on her under‘side. She gets her name from both her color and the fact that she kills both her mate and male off spring. ? The black widow, in spite of her reputation, is said to be timid, shy and retiring, biting only when cornered and cut off from all avenues of escape. The general feminine fear of spiders may be ree vived by the recent report of a baby girl who got blackwater fever from a spider bite, although the spider in this case was not a black widow. . Directions for ridding the house of spiders have been issued by the San Francisco Department of Health in a useful booklet, Household Hygiene, Ace cording to these directions, the thing to do is to destroy the spider webs in cellars and attics, using a cloth-covered broom to brush them down and paying attention to crevices, joists and the like. Kerosene spray is said to be effective, but of course you are warned to be extremely careful in using this because

of, tho danas: of fre.