Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 May 1940 — Page 9
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Give Light ana the People Will Fina
SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1940
WILLIS AND HILLIS
T'S Willis and Hillis to head the Republican state ticket this fall, and not a bad combination from the point of view either of euphony or of getting votes. As important as anything else to the Republicans is the fact that there are no serious wounds to heal in the gelection of Raymond E. Willis for the U. S. Senatorial nomination, or of Glen R. Hillis for Governor. Mr. Willis was nominated by acclamation when two other candidates, neither a serious contender, withdrew frorn the race. Mr. Hillis’ strength was so evident on the first ballot that the convention stampeded to his camp before the second ballot was well underway. If it is not quite as strong a ticket as the Republicans could have presented, it still remains a good one. And the Republicans will be doubly effective because they are not split and torn by internal rows. The result of yesterday's convention ought to give the Democrats something to think about. The phrase “Hillis and Willis will kill us” may have been more colorful than accurate. but it indicates what may happen to the Democrats unless they get out better candidates than any mentioned so far.
INTERVENE? WITH WHAT?
E'RE continually bumping into people who want to know whether, and how soon, the United States is going to intervene in Europe. They can't seem to shake off the notion that what happened in "17 is bound to repeat itself. They don’t realize, apparently, that we have nothing with which to intervene—even if we wanted to—except our Navy. Our Army? Only 80,000 mobile troops, aside from aircorps personnel, are available today in the United States proper. Such is the testimony of Army authorities. Our airplanes? The fighting in Europe has shown that most of our existing planes are obsolete, and Maj. Gen. H. H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Corps, says only half a dozen or so could be modernized. Our Navy? We simply could not afford to send it into European waters, against the enormous risk of hostile bombing fleets. The Navy must be kept intact to defend our own shores. But surely we could raise a great army “overnight,” as in 1917, it is argued. So? In 1917 we had the men but not the equipment. It took two years, then, to convert our industry for the production of munitions. The A. E. F. was actually equipped, in large part, by the Allies. And today the Allies have not been able to supply even their own forces adequately. Entirely aside from the question whether we would want to intervene, we are not prepared to do so. It will take a year and a half or more to spend the money now being rushed through Congress. And after that money is converted into weapons and trained forces, we will then have little enough as a start toward safeguarding our own hemisphere.
HOME-GROWN RUBBER
RESIDENT ROOSEVELT has asked Congress to give the Agriculture Department a million dollars with which to investigate the possibilities of growing rubber in the Western Hemisphere. Columbus’ ghost is probably chuckling. For when Columbus discovered America he also discovered rubber. South America is the native soil of this versatile substance. It flourishes now in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies only because far-sighted Englishmen saw the possibilities and gent seeds from the Amazon halfway around the world. Today South America produces only a piddling quantity of rubber, compared to the enormous output of the Far East. And the United States, instead of depending on its sister republics of the New World for this commodity, leans on the Orient. Ford and others have been experimenting with rubber plantations in South America. A million-dollar expenditure by the Government might give these ventures the impetus that is needed to reinstate rubber as a great American product. Our chemists have already released us from dependence on imported silk; the Army says it is even using artificial fibers instead of silk for parachutes. If the Americas can raise their own rubber, we will have taken another long stride toward safeguarding our essential sources of supply. Perhaps Mr. Roosevelt will do something next about utilizing Bolivian tin and freeing us from dependence on the Orient for that essential product.
WE CAN HELP
ANY an American feels helpless horror over what is happening in Europe. Some, would like, if they could, to give direct aid to the Allies. Others, opposed to doing that, would like to do something for war’s victims. But the very immensity of the tragedy tends to make anything individuals in this country might do seem hopelessly ineffective. It is not so. We can help, without endangering Amerjcan neutrality and even—if we feel that way—without partiality to either side in the conflict. We can give to such causes as that of the American Red Cross, now attempting to raise a war relief fund of at least 10 million dollars. The amount is inadequate. Millions of refugees, homeless and orphaned, face such suffering as it is almost impossible to imagine. We can’t save all of them. But many of them we can save, and the more promptly and generously our momey is given the more good it will do.
+
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Lindbergh's Speech Weakened By Failure to List American Ideals and To Note that They Are in Peril
EW YORK, May 25.-Charles A. Lindbergh's speech from the coluds of detachment contains, if I may coin a Goldwynism, omissions as emphatic as any remarks he made. He was confident of this nation's ability to repel any invader, a revival of the American character, but nowhere did he mention American ideals or note the existence of heavily armed enemies of those ideals. “The greatest inheritance that we can pass on to our children,” said he, “is a reasonable solution of the problems that confront us in our time—a strong nation, a lack of debt, a solid American character, free from the entanglements of the old world.” Now, Col. Lindbergh never has been a sentimental man, and allowances may be made for the iciness of his temperament. But almost any other American addressing himself to the nation on defense, patriotism and the difficulty of getting along in the same world with sworn enemies of the very ideals which animate the character that he seeks to revive would have added something to the inventory of that inheritance. After all, those ideals are what all the shooting is for. » ” » “PI HEY (our forefathers) won this country from Europe wtih a handful of Revolutionary soldiers,” he said, failing, however, to note that the
| inheritance which they passed on to his generation
is the United States Constitution. They passed on to him freedom of religion and speech, a republican, parliamentary government, immunity to seizure by nocturnal gangs of raiders in brown or black shirts and to imprisonment or death without trial by order of a dictator. He also derived the right to own property—of which latter he has acquired no petty amount, start= ing from scratch. It may be admitted that this lastmentioned right has been considerably impaired of late and assumed that Col. Lindbergh, among others, views with alarm the tendency to change the writing in that clause of the sacred heritage, Ordinarily a man should not be held accountable for things he doesn't say on matters which he doesn't even mention. But Lindbergh was givirig a summary of the things that are American to him and worth preserving, Therefore his omission of these most sacred American heirlooms was as conspicuous as any of the things he did say. n EJ » VEN when he said that the world, beyond question, was facing a new era and that “our mission is to make it a better era” he still refrained from putting in a word for the preservation of the liberties which distinguish the United States from Germany and the conquered countries under the Nazis. Hitler calls the Nazi era a better era, and Mussolini and Stalin say the same for the era of fascism and bolshevism in their respective countries, and Lindbergh's exhortation to “place our own country in a position of spiritual and material leadership and strength” might have been taken from an oration by any of the three. There was nothing distinctly American about that. Twice in his address the Colonel accused his own country of interference in the internal affairs of Europe, and while it would be dishonest to claim that any nation represented by William C. Bullitt has refrained from interference wherever he has found himself, there are facts to prove that interference here by the Germans, Italians and Russians has been much more impudent, persistent and dangerous.
Inside Indianapolis
T. E. (Pop) Myers, the Gentleman Who Runs Our Speedway Races
ROFILE of the week: Theodore E. Myers, the man who runs the Indianapolis Speedway and who is more widely known as just plain “Pop” Myers. Pop is now 66, a six-foot tall, erect 170-pound man with white hair neatly pasted down, ruddy complexion, a ready smile and twinkling blue eyes that see many things behind their glasses. Mr. Myers was born over in Wayne County and went to school in Richmond. The automobile bug bit him in his youth and he came to Indianapolis, got himself the job of personal secretary to James A. Allison, one of the Speedway founders. The track had just been started and was having its troubles. Mr. Allison threw up his hands, sent his young secretary over to take over and run the show. He's been doing it ever since. In 1914, after the fourth 500-mile race, he was named general manager. In 1928, he was elected vice president. His home is right on the Speedway grounds, that pretty house you may have seen as you near the golf course. ” ” ” POP MYERS’ JOB IS A year-round one. He has to see that the big plant is kept in shape, that the golf course is operating smoothly, that repairs are being made, tickets printed, etc., ete. On race day he probably sees as little of the race itself as anybody at the track. He is always too busy supervising the ticket gates, traffic and answering questions. One year, he even helped direct traffic when there was a particularly big push going on. He is fond of people, and is a genial host. He has the faqulty of making people feel comfortable around him. He is easy going and he isn't aggravated easily, although when he does get angry he can give an offender a royal lacing with a few well-chosen words. He loves flowers and his house is always filled with them. He gets more kick out of studying seed and plant catalogs than actually working in his garden himself, although he will probably try to deny this. o ” ” ALTHOUGH FE HAS NO children of his own, he has always looked upon Steve Hannagan as a son. He calls Steve “Son” and Joe Copps “Grandson.” He doesn't go in much for amusements now, although he used to. He once was an excellent dancer. He has a, habit of remembering friends on their birthdays with cards or telegrams. He smokes cigarets and likes good food. He is particularly fond of strawberry shortcake and English muffins, He was one of the founders of the I. A. C. and holds card No. 3. No. 1 was held by Harry Stutz and No. 2 by Henry Campbell, both now dead. Mr. Myers has been a deacon and trustee of the Second Presbyterian Church for years. His two biggest worries are accidents on the track and rain on race day. And nobody can ever remember Pop riding around Pte Speedway in a race car. Chances are he never as.
A Woman's Viewpoint
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
vou will read Eve Curie’s article, “French Women and the War,” in the May Atlantic Monthly, and then if you will scan carefully the industrial mobilization plans of the U. 8. War Department, you will be more than ever confused over all the whoopla that goes on about the right of women to work. Believe me, there's no question about the right or the wrong of the thing when war is declared. All the women in Europe, who such a short time ago were ordered into the kitchens by the dictators, are now ordered out again. Miss Curie paints a weird picture. A nation’s entire agricultural and industrial system in the hands of women! When five million men leave fields and factories, who else is there to work but their wives and children? Germany’s feminine forces have been mobilized since Munich. And don't fool yourself into thinking Uncle Sam will be any more gallant, if and when this country steps into the martial mess. The scouts have been scouting; statistics are in print; investigations have been made—all tending to discover where feminine talent exists, and this talent will be mobilized for patriotic purposes exactly as manpower will be drafted to fight. Doesn't the whole thing make our scraps about working wives seem fantastic? For the signs how point to women as the future saviors of commerce and industry. It stands to reason that the country whose women know the most about both will have PE Je CUNES Ws Wik Hi Wate! Wak Sa veyer won. :
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
—— ee
{ N
SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1940
This Much We Can Do
LR Cc BE ¢
The Hoosier Forum
1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—V oltaire.
TERMS LINDBERGH'S
VIEWPOINT TLLOGICAL By George W. Curtis Col. Lindbergh is a great master in pouring cold water on important issues in which he is not a schooled expert. If he had confined his remarks to the possibilities of airplanes, all could have considered him wise. We have military experts who have given advice to our Congress. Just why he expects the public to/and apparently connected in some accept his counter viewpoint to me manner with the recent German is as illcgical as securing the serv- invasion of Holland, Belgium, etc. ices of your doctor or dentist when | Miss Thompson has advised the you have been arrested for murder. Republicans to pass up the coming 1 trust-the public remembers his Presidential election and simply to attempt to prohibit the Government indorse Mr. Roosevelt for another
from canceling the unjust airmail term or two, Now I'm advising contracts. them, here in this space, to do
nothing of the kind. Watch closely and see whose advice they follow. That will show you!
(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.)
LAUDS REPUBLICATION OF
ERNIE PYLE COLUMNS uw By Claude Braddick Since Ernie Pyle’s doctor told him | THINKS JOHNSON NEEDS he needed a change of scene or LARGER “TRON PANTS” something, and ordered him on Va-|By Another Reader cation, many Times readers are| Shame on you “Reader,” in learning anew that Ernie has writ- morum of May 22d! What a coldten some mighty sprightly and en-|pjpoded, merciless treatment of our tertaining columns, as well as some go0q “Iron Pants!” You suggest erudite and inspiring ones, in the that he be returned to the Army. course of his rambling career. |What would they do with him? I The policy of reprinting a ©00l- |}, 5 petter and more humane umnist’s outstanding works, as oc- suggestion. casion warrants, is commendable. Bring in a riveter and a mew They, like others, should be judged |; of iron pants, much larger by their best works; not by their| . “ne good General has simworst, or even their average. Mark :
ply outgrown his pants and his circulation is impeded. Too much blood getting into the brain. Why wouldn't he see red? He would and he does, which accounts for his deterioration from a first class
columnist to a mud slinger and a monkey wrench thrower. But don’t be so merciless, ‘‘Reader.”| With ice packs to the head and a new pair of ‘pants, our General will soon be back to normal. Yours for justice, tempered with mercy. 5 n ” THINKS PRESIDENCY SHOULD BE ABOLISHED By E. F. 8.
How shall we have a ‘true” democracy and make it work? After | a logical analysis, we find that the | Presidential office and its ramifica- | tions are the direct causes of our defects. ' If we would remove the Presi-| dential office, we would have a leadership of Congressmen, It is a known fact that deification of | Presidential nominees tends to obscure Congressmen who really make the laws and this results in a Congress of “follow the leader” right or wrong. This would make the public “Congressmen conscious” instead of “President conscious” and would result in a high caliber Congress. This should absolutely prevent dictatorship and be a ‘“‘true” democracy.
Twain lives in Huckleberry Finn; not in the final literary prune, “Is Shakespeare Dead?” But if Ernie found it a grievous task to shape material in a thousand different places, what must be
New Books
Anton Scherrer’s task in weaving a thousand yarns about one place alone! With all due respect, it seems to me that Mr. Scherrer’s illness was easier to explain than Ernie's. I used to think I'd like to be a|
By THOMAS L. STOKES (Author of “Chip Of My Shoulder’)
OUTHERNERS, if I am a good sample, have always been a bit sensitive about New England and its
columnist; but that was before I people. New Englanders meant learned that columning was a haz- | “Yankees,” God-fearing and hardardous occupation. I'm recovering working, and we felt they looked nicely now. And anyway, a writer's down their long noses at us in the influence is not always directly pro-| South. portional to the number of readers| Their traveling missionaries came he has. down and analyzed us. There was Take Dorothy Thompson, for in-|much truth in what they said, and stance. At last account her read- perhaps that had much to do with ers outnumbered mine by quite an|our sensitivity. appreciable amount; vet I stand| It is fitting now that a Southernready to prove to any skeptic who|er at last should take a look at doubts it that my influence on the New England and tell us about it. thought and actions of the people is |It is most fitting that the Southernfar greater than hers. er should be Jonathan Daniels of For some reason not quite clear,|North Carolina. He has the see-
Side Glances—By Galbraith
INC. T. M. U. 8. PAT, OFF.
52
“You're competition. | haven't collected damages on one hit cow
fe i SS \
As through the hall of fame you
| For to another one you cling—
; | e {1 the death that makes the martyr. since you put your shanty in front of my place. “+ Napoleon. : ;
ing eye and the warm heart and we learned how honest a reporter he is when he took a very realistic look at his own land in “A Southerner Discovers the South.” In the journal of his second expedition, “A Southerner Discovers New England,” Mr. Daniels wandered from one end of Yankeeland to the other. He found in New England many points of similarity with the South. He found farmers struggling against almost hopeless odds, willing and eager to get help from the Government, despite a long tra-| dition to the contrary. He found tenement dwellers—many on relief who once were employed in a textile industry--now languishing because of competition from the South and other low wage areas, He found absentee ownership. He discovered that little more than a third of New Englanders now are native Americans of native parents — “the Connecticut
Yankee is often a Pole.” Yet he also found traces of the strain that | produced statesmen and writers who | “made-—and make—I think, the! truest aristocracy America ever)
possessed. Mr. Daniels continues to point at the weak spots in our democratic fabric. It is a book for Americans to read and ponder—and delight in. Many are the little stories which reveal New England character. As, for instance, of the Vermonter who came out of his barn across the road into the first might of spring entering the house, he set his milk pails down and said: “Wife, it's too beautiful a night to stay in the house; I think I'll go out and kill a hog.”
VOICE OF LOVE By SUE FREEMAN CHAPMAN 1 turn on my radio, for I am alone,
come into my home. : There's your voice now so soft and clear . As it comes to me on the air. But I'm not glad; my heart is sad When I hear you sing,
While I sit alone and stare, and make love to your voice on the air.
DAILY THOUGHT
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. «Mark 8:35.
IT I8 THE CAUSE and not mere-
Gen. Johnson Says—
Charges Administration Kept the People Ignorant of Nazi Strength And of Our Own Arms Weakness
HITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va, May 25. Senator Pittman is reported in the Western press to have said in the Senate that the President couldn't have presented his defense bill earlier because it would have been unpopular. This 18 being written in transit. I can't check on that or its content but it seems incredible. This Administration has never hesitated to ask for appropriations by billions for far less defensible
purposes because they might prove “unpopular.” It has been willing to ask for “all the money there is for any purpose whatever.” Seven years ago it didn't hesitate to ask for and to get $3,300,000,000 and authority to spend any part. it desired for defense--specifically to motorize and mechanize the Army, which Hitler was just beginning to do. Yet it didn’t use the money for that--only for boondoggling. ” ” HESE handouts could only have been popular with people who were going to get them-in other words relatively small minority pressure groups. How could they have been “popular” with the vast majority who have to pay for them? The Senator certainly did not think that alibi through. But suppose it were true that “unpopularity” restrained the President from his highest duty the necessity for which, as he, himself, explained it, has been Known for years-—what would vou call that? “Popularity” is another word for “political strength.” You couldn't call it anything but playing polities with the safety and security of the United States, Finally, it is pure tommyrot to say that any proposal to provide defense, clearly, bravely and truthfully, shown to the American people to be necessary could ever be “unpopular.” Not a dollar asked for and proved necessary has ever been opposed by our people. " " » HE cold blunt fact is that the country was nok told the truth by the Administration about (a) the tremendous strength of German arms (b) the lamentable weakness of England and Prance (¢) the languid and totally inadequate status of our own defense. This can't be excused on the argument that these things were not known to the President. They were known-—or at least had been frequently and urgently reported by some of our most experienced authorities. How can we explain this deadly dangerous failure and neglect? ‘“‘Unpopularity” won't do. 1 prefer the kindest interpretation, which 1s, in this field, ineptitude, inefficiency and inability to understand. Tt certainly is no recommendation for a continuation of the same disqualifications in a third term in this dangerous world of surprises, alarms and deadly destruction. There is far more reason for a change in leadership than there was for England and Prance to replace Chamberlain and Daladier. Unlike those countries, we can only get rid of our incompetents every four years. Must we wait for some disaster to fire these blunderers?
Business By John T. Flynn
Is President Serious, Or Could Politics Be Behind Defense Clamor?
EW YORK, May 25-~When the President talked to Congress about providing for 50,000 planes and *asked an appropriation of more than a billion dollars, like many Americans I began to ask myself some questions. Not being a military expert, I did not know the answers. So I went to some experts. I wanved to know: Is the billion dollars to build airplanes? Can you build 50,000 airplanes for a billion dollars? How are we fixed to build 50,000 airplanes? And after we build them how much will it cost? The first information I got was that it would cost not less than three billion dollars to build them, not including equipment. Then 1 learned that af the price England and France were paying for planes three billion dollars wouldn't bwy half 50,000 planes. However, with the best information I could get I wrote a piece saying that we must not think we were being let in for a billion-dollar program but for at least a three-billion-dollar one. 1 wondered if I had made a mistake. I felt that the President Dg, to have said something about the cost of all this. However, asking further I was informed by aviation production experts that the smallest amount 50,000 planes could be built for was not a billion or even three billion but six billion dollars. And now the head of the country’s air forces put the price at seven billion. So the President told Congress he wanted to plan immediately a program for 50,000 airplanes, which he must have known would cost seven billion, yet said nothing about that. I am further informed that we must figure on an
| army of pilots, mechanics, helpers, laborers, attend-
ants and other ground workers of 30 men per plane. That would make 1,500,000 men—an army almost as large as the one we sent to France in 1917—and that for planes only. With the 750,000 men the Governe ment is talking about in a regular army establish ment, we are actually talking about an army of two million men.
Are We Being Kidded?
There is no way to get an army of two million men in America save by conscriptiom=-universal military service. And the cost would be staggering--billions every year, for men, supplies and equipment, I find these figures, fantastic as they seem, confirmed by official statements, for a naval aviation expert says that a force of 10,000 planes will require 320,000 pilots and men-—which is 32 to each plane At this point I ask myself a question. Either the President is actually talking about precipitating this country into this 50,000-plane program and an army of two million men, or he is kidding us, or he is ignorant. With his access to army facts, I cannot believe him to be ignorant. And then I remember that there is such a thing as politics. Is all this terrifying of the American people, all this talk about 50,000 planes and a standing army of airmen and mechanics that means conscription in times of peace, part of a political game? Either the President really means to do this or try it, or he is feeding this to the American people for some concealed purpose, What is the purpose?
Watching Your Health
By Jane Stafford
TT child, or adult, too, for that matter, who seems to have one cold after another, summer ang winter, may be an allergy victim, Dr. Albert V. Stoesser, University of Minnesota researcher on allergy, points out in a report to the Minnesota Public Health Association, You hear a good deal about allergy these days, and most people know that hay fever and some forms of asthma are allergies, Dr. Stoesser defines allergy as “a natural sensitiveness of the human organism to a chemical or physical substance which is harmless to most individuals.” It is like the old saying about one man’s meat being another man's poison. Pollens, foods such as eggs, wheat and milk, feathers, horse dander, cold, heat and even drugs may be responsible for the ‘allergic symptoms. Sneezing and runny or stuffy noses or asthma are not the only symptoms of allergy. Hives, headaches and eczema are other fairly common ones. . Allergy, or rather a tendency to it, is usually in-
herited. = Grandfather may have asthma, father or
mother may have hay fever, and Junior may have eczema. Or they may all have the same kind of allergy. Since a tendency to the condition is inherited, Dr. Stoesser believes efforts should be made to prevent its development in children. Certain foods and other substances known to cause allergy should be avoided by
the child whose parents or grandparents have an