Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 May 1940 — Page 10

PAGE 10

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Give Light and the People Will Find Thetr Own Wap

MONDAY, MAY 13, 1940

THE CENTRAL COUNT

Now that primary vote tabulation is complete, it is clear that there are no basic weaknesses in the system of central counting as such. Fully 75 per cent of the delays originally encounteréd are directly traceable to incompetent personnel. When the unfit were finally eliminated the count speeded up tremendously. With the experience of the primary behind them, those responsible for the count should take steps now to avoid a repetition of these errors in the next central counting.

INVENTORY NEEDED

T is easy to criticize the Allies for having let Germany outstrip them in armaments. But what of ourselves?

If in the near future a foreign power or coalition were to attack the United States, or another nation in this hemisphere, many soft spots in our defenses would be exposed. Congress has been voting billions for the Army and Navy, but new weaknesses seem to bob up faster than old ones are corrected. Congress, and the public, seem willing enough to provide all the defense money that the professionals of the Army and Navy demand. And yet it is apparent that we are ill prepared. The Army is far short of the essential equipment for even the modest “initial protective force” of some 400,000 men which it proposes to throw into the field overnight in the event of an invasion, Of course the Navy will see to it that nobody lands on American shores, it is argued. And that is probably true. But “probably” is not enough. The art of naval warfare is moving at a snail's pace compared with the art of aerial war. Even Secretary of the Navy Edison confesses concern about the vulnerability of battleships to bombing attack. The British Navy for the moment stands as an outer line of defense for us, but who can say what will happen to the British Navy in the next few months? Winston Churchill wrote, of Britain's warships: “Open the sea-cocks and let them sink beneath the surface, and in a few minutes—half an hour at the most—the whole outlook of the world would be changed. The British Empire would dissolve like a dream.” And so would the smug doctrine of American invulnerability. » » It seems to us that the public is entitled to an inventory and accounting of our defense establishment and plans. Not by the admirals and generals; while it is commonly agreed that the men of our high commands are exceptionally competent, they are after all the creatures of a caste and a tradition.

Inside Indianapolis

Congress should provide for a general re-examination |

of the whole defense picture, either through a broad-gauge

joint committee of the House and Senate, or through a |

committee pooling Congressional and “public” intellects.

Such a committee should find out, and let the public know, the answer to such questions as these:

Is our coast-defense artillery adequate to beat off a |

hostile navy, if our own Navy should be engaged elsewhere? | | | transactions on the New York Stock Exchange. You |

Are antiquated organization and bureaucratic moss responsible for the faulty warship designs which are revealed from time to time? Is Army-Navy jealousy damaging the efficiency of our aerial defenses off-shore, and preventing full co-opera-tion in landing-party maneuvers? Are we in danger of being strangled by shortages of tin-rubber and other vital imports, in case of war? Are we paying proper attention to our defenses of Alaska, whose outlying islands might be stepping-stones from the Orient? Is it true that the United States does not have enough anti-aircraft guns to protect a single great city? And if so, what is being done about it?

Whereas in 1917-18 the Allies were able to equip the |

A. E. F. with the artillery and rifles and planes that we could not produce in time, would we be able to equip our selves in “the next war”? Are the Army and Navy getting adequate information from the European war, and are they applying this information to the improvement of our own defense equipment and plans? Endless other questions suggest themselves. . » » » » The people want to make our defenses impregnable. But they will want to know where the money is going, and whether they are getting their dollars’ worth. It is time for a full-dress investigation—not a muckraking expedition, but a fact-finding survey to seek out our weaknesses and expedite their cures,

‘FIFTH’ COLUMN

ANY a reader of European news has wondered about a the origin of the expression “fifth column,” so widely used just now. Dr. Marcus Schromm of New York City asked the editors of Time magazine for information. Time's reply: “Inventor of the historic phrase was Franco's Gen. Emilio Mola. Said he, in a broadcast after the fall of Toledo: ‘We have four columns advancing upon Madrid. The fifth column (sympathizers within the city) will rise at the proper time.’ Loyalist response: Wholesale executions in Madrid.”

HE FOUND A SPACE

JUST as soon as we find time we're going to organize a campaign among automobile owners for sending letters of congratulation to the newly appointed postmaster at Harrogate, Tenn, His name is Park A, Carr,

| | a fatal fascination for repetition.

Billy Mitchell

By Ruth Finney

Former Head of Our Air Service, a Prophet Without Hener, Could Say 'I Told You Se' if Alive Today.

ASHINGTON, May 13.—If Gen. Billy Mitchell were alive today he would be saying “f told you go.” He spent the years from the World War to the time of his death warning this country that air force was the only kind of force that mattered. All it got him was a court-martial. Gen. Mitchell was chief of what air service this country had during the war. He came back with a

vision of what was going to happen in the years just ahead. He warned that all navies were obsolete; that aircraft was the only effective means of coast protection; that neither armies nor navies could exist in wartime unless the air is controlled above them. On Wednesday, May 8, 1940, Winston Churchill admitted in effect that Gen. Mitchell had been right. Churchill told the House of Commons that the British Navy had been unable to control the Skagerrak because “the immense enemy .air strength . has made this method far too costly to be adopted . . .” But the prophet was without honor in his own country. His counsel was ignored. His demonstration that his air service could sink naval surface craft was belittled. He was demoted. And finally, when he gave a stinging interview accusing the high command of inefficiency, incompetency, eriminal negligence, and almost treasonable administration of national defense he was court-martialed. ® =» = EN. MITCHELL, writing in 1021, said: “As a prelude to any engagement of military or naval forces a contest must take place for control of the air. The first battles of any future war will be air battles. The nation winning them is practically cer tain to win the whole war because the victorious air service will be able to operate and increase without hindrance.” . The air services, he said, “will eventually be able to sink any warship, so there is no use maintaining these expensive instruments.” ‘ In that year, before any successful flight had been made across either ocean, Gen. Mitchell predicted that planes would carry passengers on regular schedules across the Atlantic and Pacific and to South America. He added that transportation of large bodies of troops across the ocean by seacraft, as during the last war, would in the future be completely impossible. He predicted that aerial siege might be laid against a country to prevent any communication with it, and such a siege would shortly starve an insular power into submission. He urged establishment of a single department of national defense wtih Air, Navy and Army Departments under it. y = ” - E insisted that any system of defense against aircraft from the ground alone was fallacious. He suggested, for a plan of campaign: “The only effective defense against aerial attack is

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Face To Face

I wholly disagree with what you say,

The Hoosier Forum

but will

defend to the death your right to say it.— Voltaire.

to whip the enemy’s air forces in air battles. In other words, seizing the initiative, forcing the enemy to the defensive in his own territory, . . .” Possibly the most ominous of Gen. Mitchell's pre- | dictions was this: “If a nation ambitious for universal conquest gets off to a flying start in a war of the fu- | ture it may be able to control the whole world more | easily than a nation has controlled a continent in the past.” In 1934 Gen. Mitchell was still warning that the Baker Board and the Federal Aviation Commission were minimizing air power and imperiling national defense. One of his last prophecies: “In future wars it will be too late to organize an | air force after the contest begins.” In 1936 he died.

(Westbrook Pegler’s regular column will appear tomorrow.)

| That Roosevelt Rumor, a "New" Numbers Game and the Long Count

HERE'S a rumor bouncing around town like a Jackrabbit that if the United States should

| happen to get into the war before the November elec |

tion, there just won't be an election and that Mr. Roosevelt will continue to be President. It’s just another one of those crackpot stories with You'd never think

| folks were so gullible until after you hear them re-

peating yarns like this one. 2 = * THERE'S A NEW STYLE numbers game going the rounds and it already has picked up considerable players. It's based on the number of stocks and bond |

| pick a number and you're told that if you hit you get |

paid 500 to 1. Just like all the other rackets, you | name your own price, from a few pennies on up. » = = {

WE LEARN FROM OUR Butler agent about the tragedy that befell a freshman who was careless enough to leave a 32-page term paper laying on a table in the Campus Club. He missed it a short time ! later and galloped back madly, only to find it had disappeared. The Butler Collegian went so far as to make a public appeal for the return of the mss. Its title was “Farm Tenancy in the South,” which the | Collegian referred to as “a lost cause at any rate.” | ow ou |

THE REPORT THAT THE NEXT Central Count will be held at the State Fair Grounds is not without | some foundation. The Manufacturers’ Building is | being mentioned now, but there is also a chance that | it might be put into the Coliseum. We trust that you | did not miss the fact that the Election Board was | finally forced to fire several score of the workers be- | fore the count could be moved into second gear. “ o i THE CHICAGO-BOUND MONON roars through Broad Ripple at just about 5:20 every evening, whistle | open, smoke pouring from the locomotive. A very | pretty sight indeed. Well, it’s a sight that a lot of | folks are aware of. Almost any evening you piek, | you'll find three or four cars parked right up there, little boys waving excitedly as the train roars on through. And, as could be expected, the engineer waves right back. Who said the good old days were gone?

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

" ODERN woman goes around with a chip on her shoulder,” a noted psychiatrist contends. (Why are the mental specialists forever studying our motives? Do you suppose they think we are really crazy?) “She would do better to spend her time at home.” the gentleman continues, “there to learn the secret of democratic living of which the home is a perfect example.” But, Doctor, what good will the secret of democratic living do, if those who know it are not allowed to apply their knowledge to its political and economic rms? Theories about women are almost as numerous as women themselves. And quite as puzzling. Usually | the theorists dump us all into one heap and then | preach about a particular type of which they disapprove. Unfortunately for the doctor's argument, a very large number of women these days have no home. Naturally, then, they can’t stay there. Their knowledge of democratic living must come from other Souleet, many of which appear singularly undemocratic. Modern woman is confronted by several very cold facts, which the theorists never bother to mention. The coldest, perhaps, is the economic situation. Mil

[might see it if he would but look.

through the Indianapolis slum]

(air force on the move is

SAYS PROOF EXISTS OF WIDESPREAD POVERTY By Voice From Labor,

The writer to the Forum who requires such quantities of proof

(Times readers are invited to express their in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letters short, so all can have a chance. Letters must

views

If he can’t accept President Roose= velt's estimate that one-third of the people are ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill« : : housed, how is he to know except be signed, but names will be by getting out and seeing for| withheld on request.) himself? Suppose he should take a trip py experience they learn that mili-|

tarism gets them nothing and that |

areas. the homes of the WPA workers, takes from a quarter of a century

those on direct relief, also the un-/on and usually a number of wars. | derpaid factory workers. ... The Pope by pious and devoted otly pursuing proofs, he fairly {efforts is in no better case as a!

floors opposition with this stunning | demand: “And more proof of com- Peacemaker, unless he, as has hap- | enlists his people]

munism’s prosperity than Russia's | pened before, diet of horse meat. black bread and |which would be approximataly half cabbage soup.” To this dyed-in- the church pepulation of the world, necessarily be unhappily unconvine-|of the religion of Jesus Christ as ing. He couldn't believe the eco-|the world has ever experienced. nomic trend in the Soviet Union has This same religion admonishes that | been upward while it has been | prayer and faith without work is of | downward in the capitalistic no avail countries. | The Catholic Church has also the He could read in the same issue [greatest force of trained youth in | ter, May 4th, 1940, on page 6, the force, its influence, as likewise, | praise of Mr. John Van Zant, native democracy? Events will decide. | of Indianapolis, returned from an | Force is the dominating factor eight-year-stay in Russia. . today, or fear of it. He could read the works of recog- a nized authorities: Sidney and Bea-| CRITICIZES PEGLER trice Webb, George S. Counts who | \ have been in Soviet Russia, The | ON KLAN REFERENCE Encyclopaedia Britannica, The World Book Encyclopaedia. ” ” ” SEES PEACE PLEAS FUTILE IN MILITARISTIC WORLD |

By Liberty Just how, in view of events, any-

By Jean Woolsey If I am not mistaken, Westbrook Pegler has always inferred that the| “class struggle” did not exist in the] United States. But in The Times he enters the struggle on the side of crime, bigotry and ignorance, and his usual vituperative utterances

Suppose he should call on| ( th

are happily in keeping with his choice. First, he point out that “the KuKlux Klan is planting its members in unions of the C. I. O. with the purpose of . . . gaining control and converting them into company unions.” Next, he states: “The C. 1. O. permitted the Communists to sneak into their unions under orders from Moscow and with the purpose of gaining - control and converting them into Communist fronts.” He concludes: “But as between e company union and the union controlled from Moscow there is a choice. The company union is

| American and wants to live and,

living, must provide jobs. The Moscow union is Russian and the) mortal enemy of the company and the jobs.” I can only say to Westbrook Pegler that the Ku-Klux Klan repre-

jof The Times which carried his let the world. Has the church lost its | Yet, if one stops to consider, the

real issue is involved in that seemingly ludicrous struggle. Mr. Peg- | ler is no doubt a very smart man, | and perhaps he is getting on the Ku-Klux bandwagon early. ” ” ” WELL, ANYWAY, IT SEEMS THAT WAY By Sunday Driver It is estimated some 52 million people will ‘be on the highways in their cars during vacation periods this summer, any 51,500,000 of whom can be found on a given road any Sunday afternoon.

one can be so naive as to believe | that President Roosevelt, the Pope | or anyone else could have the slightest influence upon the mili tarists of Central Europe save they have a first class navy, army and

‘New Books at the Library

bevond C\PRIGHTLY, humorous and prac-

It has b the policy of tnis| tical: useful to potential homehas become the policy o s | a nation not to recognize goyern- makers as well as to the experienced

ments set up by force and Russia | hOusewife, Dorothy Draper’s “Decois the evidence. Soviet Russia was rating Is Fun” (Doubleday) is writnot Fe zu ved until President ten by an experienced decorator, a Roosevelt sent an ambassador to! y ’ Russia. Trade restrictions might be Clever woman and a very human resorted to but that is no deterrent | Person. to primitive society when they take | From her initial chapter, “Decoover. They had nothing before, and [ration of Independence’--and she they do not know how to conduct |stresses getting away from the drab an economic or social-political evo- and the “color that will go with lution after revolution as even Ger- |anything” school—to her final exmany is the concrete evidence until |hortation on getting “the house you

Side Glanc

the comprehension of competent observers,

| | | |

lions of American husbands want nothing more than to support their wives and children in coinfort and to leave them well provided. Such desires and dreams, | however, are unattainable because most of these hus- | bands ang fathers can’t earn enough to realize them. | I believe it is also true that their wives place present | and future security above everything else. Altogether, this is a bad time to encourage grass- | hopper tendencies in any group. Girls and women are often forced to support themselves, as well as dependents, whether they like it or not. It seems strange thalgso many men refuse to admit the fact,

(RVI! > = NEM 5. FAY.

"T here go ourt bees, Pa—killing another sale!"

want,” she runs a charming and inspirational gamut. With “five powerful friends” to guide us-—-courage, color, balance, smart accessories, and comfort—we learn how to get started; absorb information on color, walls, doors, and fireplaces, lamps (always buy in pairs, if possible, for the sake of balance) bedrooms, baths, gay ways and means to our favorite indoor sport of eating, living rooms which really reflect the needs of all the family, outdoor terraces and rooms for play; and, not least, realize the bride's golden opportunity to cash in on her wedding presents and really start at the proper place, the beginning. All of these subjects lead to even more exciting ramifications; how to disguise with paint and varnish, to enlargé with mirror, or to remodel and glorify with practically nothing at all but ingenuity and your own hands. Whether you have but a few dimes—the five and ten is an amazing reservoir—or the rsoney to build a palace, taste, originality, and thought work wonders in the fashioning of the home for yourself and those you love. From basic principles of decoration to the tiny details of correct home embellishment “Decoration Is Fun” will prove a valuable guide on “How to be your own decorator.”

COMPASSION By VERNE S. MOORE Only a rose that withered in the

morn, Only a babe that died when it was

born, But the tender God, our ultimate goal, Saw the fading rose and heard the crying soul.

DAILY THOUGHT

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.~Isaiah 1:18, 17.

» “ HE THAT HAS ENERGY enough to root out a vice should go further and try to plant a virtue in its

i Otherwise he will have his

grain toefined cereal prod

MONDAY, MAY 13, 1940

Gen. Johnson Savon

Borrowing Words of Lloyd George Against Chamberlain, He Suggests New Deal Give Up 'Seals of Office."

EW YORK, May 13.—The fat's in the fire and our Navy is in Hawaii, Our miniature Army is relatively equipped with bows and arrows. We are quibbling about the design of a rifle already adopted and in production after years of experiment. It appears now that the Navy has known the facts of its weakness against bombs from above, mines from below and secret foreign building programs for some time—without admission before the crisis.

Surely there was no ignorance in this Government about the absolutely inefficient equipment of our

Army in almost everything needful for modern war"

and its own grotesque inadequacy. Everybody is now squawking about our lack of tin and rubber and our failuresof action in motorizing and mechanizing our Army. This column has been squawking about it for five years. Seven years ago this writer had written into the Recovery Act ample authority and appropriations to do all these things as a combination measure of re-employment, recovery and defense. That was the year Hitler started. It was the year that the Administration gave most of that $3,300,000,000 to Harry Hopkins for raking leaves,

HE situation is a grave one. In such experience as I have in war direction, I never tried to minimize the extent of disaster. There is no cause in my judgment for panic. I say that deliberately after a good deal of reflection but there is grave cause for pulling ourselves together. Can anyone tell me he is satisfied with what we

have done about airplanes, tanks and guns? Is any-

one here satisfied with the steps we have taken to train the Army? The two foregoing paragraphs were not written by me. They were recently spoken by Lloyd George of England. They fit. There are other applicable words in that speech. “The nation is ready as long as its leadership is right,

They can well be written here for us.

as long as you say clearly what you are aiming at, as

long as you give confidence to them that their leaders are doing their best for them. I say now suddenly that, the Prime Minister can give an example of sace rifice, because I tell him one thing, that there is nothing that would contribute more to victory in this war than that he should sacrifice his seals of office.” » " o

HO is responsible for our pitiable preparedness for kicking up ill-will in the Pacific and send-

ing our fleet there against a non-existent if nos -

manufactured danger? Who is responsible for the sapping of our financial strength for defense by saddling it with monstrous debt and unbearable taxes?

Of whom can it be as well said as against Chamber- . lain, that the nation is ready as long as its leadership

is saying “clearly what you are aiming at?” There is certainly no support in this record for the silly slogan that if the war flares closer we must perpetuate the fourth New Deal. This Administration should promptly get better or get out—‘"Sacrifice its seals of office.” It is better to say this now than later when we may be staring full into the fire that Enge land faces.

Business By John T. Flynn

Terms as False the Argument Our Woes Are Due to Lack of Frontiers.

EW YORK, May 13.—At least once a month some person troubled about our national state tells us we are in our present trouble, and perhaps al the end of our rope, because of the passing of the frontier. There is a sort of notion that in another

'the-wool doubter any answer must against as savage a militaristic foe sents, to me, the mortal enemy of ge it was the frontier which saved us from depression

and enabled us to grow. I have never had much patience with this frontier theory. I do not mean that the advantages of that great reservoir of new land was not a large one, It aided us, but in a way quite different from that implied in the lamentations of those who fear that we are doomed because there are no more frontiers, The capitalist system has a way of rejecting parts —parts it cannot use. These parts happen to be human beings. And the capitalist money economy now and always has tended to have more workers than it could use. This was true in a simple capitalist money economy like ancient Athens. It is true today, When these unusable persons are thrown out, we say they are unemployed. One way to deal. with them, of course, is to put them on a ship and sent them out of the country. That is what Pericles did. He took them out of Athens and settled them in small colonies in the islands of the Aegean Sea. Rome did much the same thing. The part played by this was to remove a number of persons completely outside the social organization in which they were unemployed. As soon as they were gone, the capitalist system proceeded to develop another collection of unusable parts. It does this whether it is functioning in a vast territory like our continent before the turn of the century or in a small crowded country. It arises out of a fundamental defect in the system that we have never tried to correct. That defect is that the whole population, actively working, always produces more goods than it produces purchasing power,

Where the Fault Lies

The frontier theory merely tended to drain off some of the population—and not always the unemployed ones—and to form them into new and wholly separate communities little related economically to the old ones.

As soon as this happened the same :,

old laws went to work on the new communities as. :

well as the old.

Depressions came along with about the same fre- v

quency as now and lasted longer or shorter periods depending on other factors. But it was always some other factor that ended the depression. They were not ended by the frontier. And always the force that ended the depression was a new access of purchasing power either from a sudden flow of foreign. funds or a fresh flow of domestic funds through rising credits inside our borders. In every case the recovery would have come even had we had no frontier, It came from a force that we have paralyzed this time through ignorant and stupid behavior both by Government and by private business interests. Our problem lies in understanding and putting to work the mechanisms of the economio system under which we live. The frontier has nothing to do with it. :

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

NCOURAGEMENT for housewives trying to keep their families nourished on: very limited : food

budgets appears in a report of experiences of 100 in-

digent or near-indigent Detroit women, While attending prenatal and child welfare clinics, these women kept a record of their food purchases for their families for a two weeks’ period. These records compared with plans suggested by nutrition authori ties for adequate diets at minimum costs. The amount required to purchase the adequate diet at minimum

cost was estimated at 25 cents per person per day.’

Food expenditures of the Detroit women for their

. mtn

families averaged 21 cents a person a day. Comparison -

of the food the Detroit women purchased for their families with the suggested diets showed that these women managed to do very well in supplying their families with adequate diets. The diets of the families contained about the recommended amounts of meats, eggs and cheese, fats, and leafy, green and yellow vegetables.

PRUE EI CSR

The Detroit women spent each food dollar on the '

21 cents for milk, 20 cents for 16 cents for grain products

average as follows: vegetables and fruits,

(bread and cereals), 11 cents for fats, 5 cents for =

sugars, 12 cents for meat, 8 cents for eggs and cheese,

and 7 cents for accessories, such as tea, coffee, flavor= |

ings or condiments. The diets would have been improved, nutrition au thorities stated, by spending more for milk and less for sugar, and by increasing the proportion ucts, ;

of whole=

LA ’ ie