Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 May 1940 — Page 19

The Indianapolis Times

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THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1940

——

FREDERICK C. FAIRBANKS

EATH has cut short the administration of Frederick C. Fairbanks as president of The Indianapolis News. Mr. Fairbanks had served less than two years, succeeding his brother, Warren C. Fairbanks. We at The Times had come to respect and admire Frederick Fairbanks for his character, his gentleness, his honesty and good-will. There can be no question that, had his health permitted, he would have become an effective and powerful force in the life of the community. We extend our sympathy to the family and to his associates at The News.

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE

"(GOVERNMENT control of everybody and everything.” Thus succinctly a London headline described the law which Parliament received, debated and enacted yesterday, all at one sitting.

Power to direct all commerce, to dictate industrial production, to close factories and conscript property or even destroy it, to draft labor for any purpose and at any wage. Absolute control over banking. A 100 per cent tax on excess profits. Democratic Britain turns totalitarian to meet the threat of invasion. So will democratic America if it is ever similarly imperiled. And that may happen, unless we take heed while there is still time. Britain underestimated her danger, dallied with her defenses, tolerated bureaucratic inefficiency, depleted her substance to satiate pressure groups at home, bickered, disputed, procrastinated, appeased, trusted overmuch in the theory that if bad came to worse she could fight her battles on the sea and in other lands. Now she faces the imminent possibility of fighting her enemy on her own soil, for the first time in 900 years. It is an allout war to survive.

We don’t have to get ourselves in England's fix. We don’t have to drift until we too will be forced to surrender the liberties we profess to cherish. Thanks to geography and to the fact that the Allies are engaging and depleting the only European power that might possibly challenge us, we still have time—time to do the only thing that can insure us against being drawn into war, time to make ourselves so strong that no combination of bandit nations will dare attack our shores or our vital interests. But it is getting late. We too have underestimated our danger, dallied with our defenses, tolerated inefficiency, and wasted our substance spending money we haven't got for things we don’t need. In the words of Rep. Bruce Barton, we have grown “soft and selfish,” have divided ourselves into pressure groups “so much concerned with what they can get” out of Government “and so little concerned with what they can give.” ® 5 2 = We can rise to this emergency, as Americans have risen to every crisis in history—and we will if we think what we have is worth fighting for. But it will mean foregoing pressure-group selfishness. The immediate job is to restore vigor to our industries, from which we must draw the weapons of defense. That cannot be done if capital holds back for guarantees of big profits, or if Government clings to policies that destroy even the chance to break even, or if organized labor insists blindly on ever-shorter hours and on the exclusion of apprentices even where skilled workers are actually scarce. The task is one that should commend all the capital and manpower of the nation. To mobilize our idle and lagging forces requires industrial leadership of the caliber which this country has always boasted. And it is up to the President and Congress, as directors of our destiny, to commandeer that leadership —men who know how to gear up our industries to produce in mass quantities the weapons our armed forces must have.

RIGHT, MR. LANDON

LF M. LANDON'’S position, as he stated it after his conference with President Roosevelt yesterday, is thoroughly sound. Unless and until the President eliminates himself as a third-term candidate, Republican leaders should not consider a so-called coalition government. This country, in our opinion, does not need a coalition government—even a bona-fide one—and certainly not at this time. What it does need is a vigorous, intelligent opposition party, ready to co-operate with the Administration in necessary measures, but alert to challenge errors of the party in power. By bringing Republican leaders into his Administration, but holding himself free to take the third-term nomination now within his grasp, Mr. Roosevelt would not be shating responsibility for defense preparations or adjourn-

ing partisan politics. He would be disarming the opposition

party for the benefit of his own partisan cause. Certainly Mr, Landon and other Republicans consider their country above their party, but certainly they would not give their best service to either country or party by making themselves politically impotent.

ONE AVENUE

NDIANAPOLIS always has responded generously to every Red Cross appeal. The present disaster in Europe, probably the greatest in all history, is no exception. Contributions of $24,409 have already been received for the relief of some “five million pitiful refugees clogging every road into Central Southern France.” The Red Cross is the one avenue through which you _ cati extend aid now. ;

RR —

SATISFIED NOW?

WHER , by the way, t

are the geo who were calling : ‘this & phony war?

go di

Our War?

By Ludwell Denny

'No,' Say G. O. P. Candidates Who Answer F. D. R. by Insisting Emphasis Should Be On U. S. Defense

ASHINGTON, May 23.—The President has failed to blitzkrieg Republican candidates into acceptance of his anti-isolationist foreign policy. Hitler’s bloody sweep through the low countries and northern France, and the President's shrill cries that the United States is in danger, have only increased the demands of Republitan candidates that we keep out of Eurcpean war and concentrate on defense of this hemisphere. What will happen if and when Paris falls and actual fighting is carried to England, is a matter of guess. Some of the President's supporters, who insist that this is “our war,” predict that large-scale German bombing of England will inflame American sentiment and force the G. O. P. campaigners to change. Meanwhile the leading opposition candidates, Dewey, Taft and Vandenberg, continue their attack on the ground that the President's policy tends to the war-like and that his defense methods are belated. Second-string candidates follow the same general line of criticism. # #5 = F the three Republican leaders, Democrats have expected Taft to come around first. Vandenberg has long been an isolationist leader. Dewey began last January by underwriting Roosevelt foreign policy, but switched to the isolationist position during the Wisconsin primaries and won. Since then he has gone the limit of opposing American participation in European negotiations, and of opposing modification of the Neutrality and Johnson laws to permit Allied loans. But Taft was one of the eight Republican Senators who voted last fall for Roosevelt repeal of the arms embargo. Although in April he started the campaign criticism of the President's foreign policy, he has not been as vigorous as Dewey or some others. Hence the importance of Taft's speech this week in St. Louis. In reply to the sensational statements of the President to the Pan-American meeting and to Congress, Taft went farther over to the isolationist side than ever before. In view of his following St. Louis declarations, it is difficult for those who know him to believe that Taft will retreat on this issue: “Let's stop playing with the idea that we may enter the war, and devote ourselves to a genuine program of defense. . . . “Our going to war would be more likely to destroy American democracy than to destroy German dictatorship.” $# & 4 ND here is Candidate Vandenberg’s reply to the President: “No matter what our sympathies, we must keep America out of these wars and out of foreign policies which would drag us in. Overnight, our entry would precipitate a virtual war dictatorship in our own America, which would cancel out our liberties almost as completely as they have disappeared among the victims of conquest. . . . Wendell Willkie says: “This present Administra- | tion has proved itself incompetent to defend us from | ourselves. We care not, therefore, trust it to defend us from strangers.” Bruce Barton says: “I cannot see circumstances under which I would vote to put this country into foreign war. To do so would be to abandon our own democracy in an effort to defend and preserve democracy abroad.”

Inside Indianapolis

G. O. P. Ready for the "Big Push"; Democrats Now Talk of Dark Horse

HAT first ballot in the Republican state convention roll call in the Governor race tomorrow should be a dandy. There are six candidates. All of them are claiming big blocks of delegates. Glenn R. Hillis of Kokomo claims he will go over on the first big push. But the experts disagree. They say it will take at least five or six roll calls before a cheice is made—some go as high as 15. Swapping of votes went on fast and furiously in the downtown hotel lobbies today. Many delegates came here unpledged. Most of them will go easy on that first ballot, waiting to see which way the wind is blowing. = ” = AND SPEAKING OF POLITICS, one Democratic big wig expressed his judgment that the “real” Dem-

vet. threat, he said. “It's going to be a dark horse.” was the way he put it. And the prophet would say no more. 2 2 = IT'S JUST A LITTLE incident, but it's the kind of a story that makes you feel good all over. Police Chief Morrissey and Mayor Sullivan were driving on W. Washington St. the other night. Ai Mount St. the Chief stopped the car suddenly. An elderly couple was standing on the curb, afraid to cross the street in the heavy traffic. Mr. Morrissey and the Mayor stepped from the car, helped the couple across the street and waited with them

street car motorman smiled in surprised recognition. The elderly couple said thanks. But they didn't recognize their benefactors. You see, they were blind. ” ” 2 A GOOD MANY CITIZENS have lately been attacked without provocation by a good many mosquitoes and have thus had their first unpleasant warning that summer is upon us. Stories are circulating that the mosquitoes this year are earlier, larger and bite deeper. This may all be true. Reports are that they are especially vicious just after sundown, and that attacked persons are still scratching at noon the next day. The truth is that you have, generally, within your own power the control of mosquitoes. They breed in little puddles of water, such as might collect in the eaves of your home If that water stays there through the incubation period, the mosquitoes develop, and when they begin to fly they are enormously hungry. Since we have had so much rain, these puddles | have remained filled with water and the mosquito generations have gone on a mass production basis. That's why there are so many:

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

AS events move towards social chaos in Europe, one truth is more than ever clear. The United States is the last stronghold of democracy. Will those who love it keep it so—or will they, against all sense and morality, plunge its people into the madness which swiftly shapes itself toward such horrible ends? We exist in a fog propaganda; the witch, hysteria, rides the wind. Nerves are taut and emotions keyed high. Against the panic let loose, reason itself staggers. y Yet, even under the Body blows which send it reeling, Reason still cries that this war will settle no issue. Hitler may win—but, even 80, he will lose. The Allies won in 1918 and today, 22 short years later, they are fighting with their backs to the wall against the same foe, the foe they claimed so proudly to have defeated. y In listening to current opinion one must be aware of the sharp cleavage which separate the thinking of old men from that of women and most young men. One thousand students at Cambridge openly rebuke the senior member of Harvard's History Department who advocates that we pour out our money in the Allied cause; women all over the nation are pleading for sanity in their meetings, condemning the defeatist attitudes of those who say we ¢an't keep out. Why can’t we? Who is going to force us in? Who but ourselves? That question is being asked by mothers such as the 10 in Cincinnati, who recently organized the Sons of Mothers Forum, its sole aim to keep American boys out of European trenches. The movement they have begun is growing fast. Other cities have other kinds of organizations. But their purpose is

the same. They are pleading for America to listen to the voice of Reason. gt

ocratic candidate for Governor hasn't been mentioned None of the boys now in the field are really a |

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we THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T APPROVE OF CAANGING HORSES!

IN MIDSTREAM / '

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I wholly disagree with what you say,

The Hoosier Forum

defend to the death your right to say it.—V oltaire.

but will

SEES DISCREPANCY IN EIGHTH WARD VOTING By Charles W. Tyler In the ninth precinct of the eighth ward on Primary day 193 Re-| publicans had voted when the polls closed at 6 o'clock. The returns of the official Canvassing Board show the following| results (taken from the Court House records) :

Congressmen 259 Prosecutofs ............ 264 Sheriff : . 24 Coroners 222 Surveyor 226

(Times readers are invited

to express their views in these columns, religious conexcluded. Make

your letters short, so all can

troversies have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

few blitzkriegs against small defenseless nations, themselves. Let's have a greater national defense program, make our country

safe from aggression, and let

Commissioner—_

First District Second District (2) Committeemen ...

All of these offices called for “Vote for One Only.” Do you suppose there is any person that can) explain how these candidates re-| ceived more than 250 votes when! = 0 only 193 Republicans voted? [FAVORS CROSSING IN Perhaps many a defeated candi- MIDDLE OF BLOCK (date would have been elected if this . |sort of “juggling” of votes in the BY OPterver Central Counting and Canvassing| The antics of the culprits manBoards had taken place in all the aging the newest device which cruises about the street under the

other 341 precincts. supervision of the police, or safety

228

like to handle our own if some of

Americas.

time wooing Russia and Italy, who | if I remember correctly, put on a|

: (for it is the safest and the sanest as they see fit, and as we should | way to guard the welfare of the

! | populace. such proportions arose in our own|

Europe settle their own differences

makes them wild, no doubt, is the | way the last group of pienickers

board are comparable to those of Hitler. Do the stupid lawmakers realize that when a person attempts to cross a street at, a corner they must look at least 16 different ways whereas if a street is crossed by a pedestrian in the middle of a block they only have to watch two ways. It would not he too great a hardship on automobilists to slow up or stop in the middle of each block to allow the pedestrians to cross in safety, or is this such a machine age that the automobilist is to be considered a member of the Hitlerized column and allowed to kill and maim at his pleasure. The middle of the block should be made the proper crossing place,

» ” ” YEP, IT'S SURE TOUGH ON THE WILD FLOWERS By Frank Lee

Out in the fields, the wild flowers are beginning to bloom. And what

drenched them in catsup and pickle juice,

{AGREES WITH LINDBERGH |ON DEFENSE POLICY | By Thomas H. Bernhardt

New Books at the Library

Put me on record as being in accord with Col. Chas. A. Lindbergh's |

: {sane peace and defense policy. until a street car arrived. They helped them on. The | > B 8 Dy

|was happy to learn that there are] still some people who are not afraid | which lay off the coast of New tu tell the truth, when all about us| England, lived Johanna Fair, couraare growing hysterical, with cries to geous daughter of men who had aid the Allies with loans, greater | for generations gone down to the shipments of munitions, use of our|sea. Sylvia Chatfield Bates has fleet, ete., ignoring the risk of get- | written her story in “The Floor of ting involved. | Heaven” (Harcourt). We should stop and think of how, During the “Great November little we accomplished by losing so| Gale” Johanna had stood in her much during the last war. We| warm Kitchen while the storm should then ask ourselves why we| roared over Ler sturdy roof-tree, close our eyes to brutality in one | Watehing the foaming crest of a hemisphere, and are aghast at what| great wave break just over the happens in another. Then, seek an ridge beyond the house. Her feet answer to why England is engaged land the clean floor were wet with in destroying Germany for her it. But she was not afraid, for with deeds of aggression and at the'same | her was the man she loved, he who

Side Glances—By Galbraith

Wri gay

"Adenoids? Well, you cdh just bet that's something he inherited from his father!" wy

COPR. 1940 BY NEA SERVICE, NC. T.M. REO. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

Oo" the tiny island of Speedwell,| was but lately a stranger, who was

strong and brown and gentle, and who had sought the sanctuary of the Island in a storm. Ben her husband was not there. So often, now, he went on his mysterious trips in the black ketch, the Libby Maxon, and once he had with him a girl whom he brought to the farm house, a girl whom Johanna welcomed with cool, sweet formality, and fed, and housed in the neat upper room for the night. Lately Ben's excursions had become frequent, and more often Johanna was left alone, caring exquisitely for her little house, and cooking and eating her food in solitude, with only herbeloved animals, her dog and cat, the cattle and Ben's money, to comfort her. While Ben, becoming more surly, bore in his black eyes the look of some secret or fear which rode him constantly. Then to the Island had come Piers April, tender and considerate, and suddenly there were tremendous complications. The story sweeps on against a backdrop of sea and sky, of great winds and a succession of the seasons. This idyll of love and loneliness, of tragedy and its final surcease, fashioned with precision and delicacy and a great simplicity, the reader will not forget.

THE BIRDS’ BROADCAST By MARY P. DENNY

The birds sound a broadcast in May Through all the glad hours of day. Songs of the chickadee sound in glee. Carols of robins ring out free. Tones of the gentle brown thrush From far off blackberry brush. Songs of the meadow lark From the green farm lands wide, Warbling sparrows from the road side. All join the grand broadcast of May, On the light wings of the spring air Life rings in joy and hope everywhere.

DAILY THOUGHT

The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak the word. only, and my servant shall be healed. — Matthew 8:8. .

‘HUMILITY {s the solid founda-

un of all the virtues.-Cumfumiyz.

>

ne THURSDAY, al 23, - Gen. Johnson Says—

Co-Operation of Government With Industry Needed More Urgently Than in the Trying Days of 1917-18

ASHINGTON, May 23.—At the end of a luncheon of B. M. Baruch with the President, Steve Early warned newshawks not to begin guessing that there would be a new war industries board. He added that the Government is much better organized than

it was in 1917, I think Mr. Early ig partly right. But the statement carries hints which, if intended, are altogether wrong. The War Industries Board was an over-all

control of our entire economic system, including demand and supply, price and production, transportation and commerce. We were organizing a “nation in arms” for total war by overseas attack. That required us to shoot the works—to make many times the effort we are called upon to make today for defensive preparation. It is true that we do not need to repeat precisely the war industries organization. . It is also true that governmental organization is “different” from that of 1917, but Steve is also re= ported to have said it is “better.” If that means “better to get the maximum effort and production out of industry,” it is nonsense. n n ” VEN in a 1018 effort, its “differences” would make unnecessary some of the major 1918 organizations, The AAA could handle food supply without a food administration, The RFC, SEC and Maritime Commis= sion render unnecessary any War Finance Corporas= tion, Capital Issues Committee, Shipping Board and Emergency Fleet Corporation. But that this Government is better organized to do this job of rapid industrial production for rearma= ment could be described as a colossal though ghastly joke—if it were not so tragic. In this phase of this war our sole battlefield is on the industrial front. The demand, in quantity, is not a fraction of the demand in 1918, but the demand for speed and co-operation is many times multiplied. This Administration for seven years has built up every barrier it could invent against both. Passing without comment its many laws restricting financing, maximum effort by clogs on speed-ups, overtime and high-pressure management, it had attempted to sub~ stitute political regimentation and Government com= petition for the profit motive, which was the only known gas to make our industrial engine go at its best.

» UR captains in this first battle are to be found in industrial management. Our fate for the mos ment tests in their hands. These are the men whose morale and enthusiasm were so lately encouraged by calling them anti-social, anti-American, copperheads, Tories, economic royalists and modern Lord Macaulays—the group whose co-operation was sought by Government to stop the illegal bootlegging of “hot” oil and, when it was given, was rewarded by criminal prosecution on charges amounting, depending on their sentences, to felonies. ; Of course they will co-operate. Every American will. But for reasons already given and ethers, to say that this Government is “better organized” to use it than that co-operation was in the World War shows just sheer ignorance. No. we don't need a War Industries Board, but we do need some glimmer of industrial sense, undere standing and experience in Government.

Business By John T. Flynn

He Wonders If Defense Program |s Giving Us "Emotional Blitzride™

EW YORK, May 23.—If there is going to be a. real program of national defense it might be a good thing not to give the American people the im= pression that they are being taken for a ride. And - as the figures emerge about this 50,000-plane plan ’ it is difficult to escape the feeling that we are being given a grand emotional blitz-ride. It is really a shame to attempt to reduce all this to figures. But in the end it is not the mouth of the orator that shoots down the invader, but the bullet of the soldier made in a factory by men with gauges and calipers and paid for by the dollars of other citizens. The President told us that of the $890,000,000 he wants for this great armada, $545,000,000 would be for the Army. Assuming that this is for planes, I have pointed out that this would buy only a small part of the vast number of planes projected. But today we are informed that only $89,000,000 is for the purchase of new planes. The average cost of an Army plane, according to one of the leading aviation experts, is $65,000. Therefore this sum will buy only 1400 planes. Reports from Allied sources in this country are: that to date the Allies have ordered 4000 planes abt - a cost of $600,000,000. That is an average cost—with equipment—of $150,000. The Allies are behind in the orders here now. Yet they are ordering another 4000 planes. If their orders are taken, it is a simple fact that the airplane face. tories of this country will be unable to take any, more orders for planes for America. It is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build the factories first and, Capt. Edward Rick. enbacker, World War pilot, says we cannot look for any production until 1942. '

Hardly a “Minor Item” :

According to a formula offered by E. P. Wright in an article in Aviation Magazine, it would take about 450,000 men to produce 4000 planes a month or] 48,000 a year. That is only direct labor. It does not ° include equipment or all that labor in airplane plants which, as in the automobile industry, takes place | outside of plane manufacture. Apparently we would have to quadruple our plant capacity to do what the President is talking about, even if we quit taking orders from abroad and ended all private airplane manufacture. And to make all this even more bewildering, along ° comes Maj. Gen George Breet, chief of the mate rial section of the Army. saying, “Let's make it. 100,000 planes a year.” The cost of 50.000 planes would be around $3,000,000,000 to put it mildly. It would ba; a lot more by the time we got through arming them," building fields, training and equipping pilots. Fifty thousand planes a year would ‘mean nearer. four billion dollars and 100,000 would mean eight billion. And this is what the President calls a minor detail. It makes one .wonder if these men know what they are talking about or if they are just taking us all for a lot of suckers. .

Watching Your Health

By Jane Stafford

OR variety and vitamins in spring and summer meals, the housewife might try serving wild greens. Since they can generally be had for the cutting and Sathering; they will help out with the food budget,

Among the wild greens that the housewife may be: able to serve as a change from lettuce and spinach are: Water cress, dandelion, stinging nettle, marsh marigold, dock, milkweed, chicory, wild onion, lamb’s quarter, summer mustard, pokeweed, sorrel and purs-

"lane or pursley. The availability of these will vary:

according to where you live, and it would be a good idea to check with your local health department about, the safety of wild greens in your neighborhood. Resi= dents of San Francisco, for example, are warned by their health officer against water cress, and the sala o this green except from certified sources is pro~All members of the wild carrot family should avoided. This includes Queen Anne's lace and other related plants with dissected, leafy foliage, having white or yellow umbrella-like flowering apd essing Ad Iaaves of

a strong odor when crushed. Stems LJ plants with woody stems should also be aveided. Only the tender young leaves of plants should be selected for eating. By the time the plants are im flower thei flavor will be too strong. The greens, like those you buy at the market, should be thoroughly

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