Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 May 1940 — Page 14

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~" INDUSTRY AND DEFENSE

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The Indianapolis Times Poi (A SCRIPPS:HOWARD NEWSPAPER) . ; MARK FERREE

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RILEY 5551

~ TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1940 i '

HE United States entered the World War neither equipped to fight nor prepared to equip itself. By Armistice Day, it is true, ‘we had “passed a miracle.” . We had two million men overseas and our industry was in high gear. Flo ed But it had been a painfully slow and scandalously wasteful process. Without the guns and planes supplied by the Allies, our Army would have been in miserable condition, EE | | We are not at war today. But we are up against the same problem of procurement that would ‘confront us in “ wartime. We are unprepared; we are determined to build up our defenses; we want to do it with the utmost speed; we are appropriating borrowed billions to do that. Yet it-is apparent that there is nothing speedy about the present, progress. Army officers testify to “the long, .and maybe tragic delay” in converting money into munitidns. And there is no indication that the men now in the Administration know how to speed up the process. In such circumstances, why cannot some peacetime equivalent of the proposed war resources administration be created, to serve as an expéditer of Army-Navy orders? So far in Washington, the disposition of the Administration is to let existing agencies and officials try to do the job, with the advice. and assistance of public-spirited men of affairs. But it seems to us that there is a spot where _men like Knudsen and Baruch, men who know industry, should be called in as responsible administrators rather than as advisers to Messrs. Morgenthau, Hopkins, et al., “who may or may not recognize a machine tool when they see one, Se ( We should like to. see the President name a man who knows industry as “administrator of industrial preparedness,” and give him elbow-room to get results.

QUESTION WITHOUT ANSWER

E have a letter from an inquiring-minded friend who recently spent some time in Sidney, a western Ohio town of 12,000 people. Business in Sidney, he tells us, looks pretty good. : ‘y . Several machine tool plants are operating 24 hours a day. An aluminum ware factory and a bus body plant are

” working full blast. So are a number of minor industries.

Most of the merchants seem to be doing well. Yet the local office handling unemployment compensation and re-employ-ment lists .500 men as unemployed, ahd 310 persons in Shelby County are on WPA : These figures aroused our friend's curiosity, and he asked permission to check over the card records of the 500 men who are listed as unemployed. This, he says, is what he found: rh ; About 100 of them have part-time jobs, but want more money. : ; : About 50 are boys of 18 or so, living on their parents’

; farms, who have applied for factory jobs. A good many

of these are buying automobiles and want to earn money to ‘keep up the payments. ’ : Nearly 75 are listed as “construction laborers.” Most of them, however, are really farmers who got their status as construction laborers by working on WPA and state highway projects. Some of them live on farms now and work part-time as “hands.” A good many of these 75. also, are buying cars. . Another group—“the inevitable group,” our friend calls it—also numbers about 75, These are men who have found from four to 15 jobs through the re-employmen; office but, for one reason or another, couldn't stay on 1 payroll more than a few days or weeks. +. That leaves about 200 of the 500 men. And most of the 200, according to our friend, are actually not able to worl.

- Some are crippled or in poor health. Many others are from

55 to 65 years old. Undoubtedly, they need money, but their chances of earning much would be poor in the best times that ever were. “Just what constitutes unemployment?’ our friend wants to know. Of course, he acknowledges, Sidney, O., is not the United States. Conditions in great cities, or evan in other towns of Sidney's size, may he very different. But he is more skeptical than before of the estimates which plage national unemployment at nine million or 10 million

or 12 million or even more. _ Perhaps, he thinks, those figures include a good many million people who are working part-time, or aren't fitted for the kind of jobs they want, or are incompetett or lazy or disabled. Perhaps what we call the unemployment problem is really, in large part, a quite different sort of problem.

We can’t answer our friend's question. And the strange

- thing—considering that for 10 years people have been

saying that what constitutes unemployment is about the most pois thing this country needs to find out—is that, so far as we know, there is nobody in the whole United .States who can answer that question.

’ ® THE WEST INDIES SIR GEORGE PAISH, English economist, proposed in London the other day that Great Britain swap some of her West Indies possessions for American airplanes snd pilots. : oe : If he meant that this Government should send over Army and Navy planes and officers—in return for, say Bermuda or Trinidad—he is proposing nothing less than cur intervention in the war, No such deal can be considered. _ But if England, or France, or The Netherlands, want o sell some of their Caribbean outposts for cash, that is another matter. They could use the cash to buy planes from ) concerns in this country—but not from the Gov-

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ered by carrier, 12 cents |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES | Steady Advance

Fair Enough By Westbrook: Pegler :

Rearming, If It Is to Do Us Any

begin to move into this hemisphere, in collaboration with their friends, the Japanese, the Italians, the Russians and assorted Latin-American elements who hate the United States. ; : ; Although Col. Lindbergh would call it hystefical chatter, already, there is solemn speculations as to

render it to the Germans by way of appeasement or send it over here to act as an Atlantic Navy for us anc, incidentally, to keep it alive and in their own hends. a It would be very nice for the should do this last, but it would be on them to do so. : - Anyway, whatever is to happen | will happen 50 soon that Mr. Roosevelt will still be President when it does happen and that brings us to the fact, or mere probability, if you prefer not to accept the fact Just yet, that the precious half-year of time remaining of his present term has got to be used for rearming and not just wasted on political strife and rivalry. -

0.

S. A. if they

X 7HETHER we like, Mr, Roosevelt or not, whether we trust his felections of men for important Jobs or have confidesice in his ability to get things done, this half-year| must not be run down into the lower half of the Blass with nothing done. Better a little done than nothing~dones at all, and one thing that can be done without ting for the factories to make the switch-over from paper clips and mashie’ niblicks to the tools and vehicles of war would be the creation of a draft plan and the preliminary training of a great army even without arms and engines. . One reason why Hitler's army hits so hard is that every young n in the Reich has had to spend his time inthe phony labor corps which drilled with spades ‘and, entering the army, was hardened | physically and accustomed to life under discipline. There probably are other ways in which this time can be utilized, such as the schcoling of mechanics and specialists in other lines, ” » 2

HE British have gone totalitarian for the time being, with a promise to themselves that they will get their freedom back and a mental reservation consisting of two words, we hope. They may be forced to decide that restricted and regimented life under & head man is better than disorganization, disorder and want under the democratic ‘system.

The United States may face the same future. Nobody knows what we face, because we haven't decided what we are ‘going to do, but it takes no for tune-teller to foresee that from now on there will be not only a new deal but a new kind of game in which we will have to learn the values of the cards ‘as a starter. ee he Mr. Roosevelt is stubborn, reckless and improvident, and I will agree, too, that he is the one who is playing politics with the fate or safety of the nation, but we can’t get him out of there until the first of next year at the earliest and are stuck with him during a period that simply cannot be allowed to run out with a record of nothing, or nothing much, done.

Inside Indianapolis

Young Men and Jobs, a Letter From Berlin and Other "War Notes'

. O one under 35 need apply.” : This sign at the Allison Engineering Co. employment office shows that the:effects of Europe’s war are being felt strongly in Indianapolis. Several days ago, Mayor Sullivan issued a statement denying that young men were being refused ‘jobs because pf

their age. However, at least one other. big manufacturing concern here is taking on only men over 35. For instance: A few weeks ago, this firm employed a young man still this side of 30. Eight days ago, one of his neighbors of about the same age

| applied for a job. He was turned down—too young.

” ” 8 AND SPEAKING OF WAR: Nish Dienhart recently received a letter postmarked Berlin and addressed to “Superintendent, Municipal Airport, In. dianapolis, Ind.” The pamphlet was printed in German and Mr. Dienhart is having it translated. The incident recalled, however, that several years ago a group of Germans inspected the airport here, walked off with a map and never returned it. . + The price of diamonds here are up 10 to 25 per cent and may go higher, according to one merchant. There" are several contributing factors. For one thing, England has cut off the supply in her South African mines and ordered all stones sent’ to Britain for use in fine tool manufacture. , . . Don’t be surprised if any day now" a vigilante group is announced to greet’ any unfriendly fliers who might parachute from Hoosier skies. A large organization is reported backing this civilian preparedness move. . . . An Indianapolis man’ just back from Ohio says he took a ride in an Airacobra, the Allison-motored pride of the U. S. Army. Surprising ‘thing is, he said, that the fighter now has two motors with a cannon firing through each propeller shaft, and five machine guns. When first announced publicly, the craft had but one motor. . . . And that’s enough war notes for one day. : 2 ®.»

THE CITIZENS GAS and Coke Utility employees are having trouble getting a date for their annual July picnic. For the last two years, Assistant General Manager Dean Burns has pickéd the date and each time rain has cut in on the festivities. And the “heat” was turned on Mr. Burns. “All right, let some one else pick the 1940 date,” he replied. He's stuck by it, and so far no one else has shown the least desire to take over his role.

|A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Cus A. LINDBERGH is still a Lone Eagle. His powerful challenge to war-nfinded leaders sounded a new note of patriotism. He speaks with i the voice of reason.. Will America listen? Certainly Col. Lindbergh's past behavior entitles him to our attention. No amount of belittling has ever swerved him from a course which he believed to be right for himself or his country. Flagrant persecutions followed many of his statements and warnings—all of which were later proved accurate. Remembering how ineffectual, how "worse than futile, our 1917 foray to save democracy in Europe proved to be, it seems incredible that reputable leaders should urge us to repeat the mistake. After such 5 stomachache, will we dine again on the same baoney = There is something shameful about the penic hin Biges now Cg our East. Jitters definitely n-American are evidence—an attitude opposed the Valley Norge tradition. BD =o as we paint ourselves? Are we t; as weak i . tain political leaders imply? uly : Ao If so, then anybody could take us and we should deserve to be conquered. People with our assets, geographical security, wealth, historical backgrounds rich in courage and Iuture of promise, should show a bolder face to fear. : Because certain events are happening in Europe— events which every student of ry has foretold— events ih Bre the ShVidus results of obvious causes, and none of our making—we are off the deep end, shaking in hysterics, gibbering with fright. P Our danger is within, as Col. Lindbergh reminds us. How easy it is to see that, when attention is firmly fixed on: Europe, cults fnimical to democracy can work their devilment among our poor and disil~

Good, Must Be Done Under Him | |g

EW YORK, May 28.—An opinion prevails that | [. should the Nazis win in Europe, they will soon |

whether the British would scuttle their navy or sur- |

unwise to count | gi

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Are we actually as yellow |

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Whether We Like F. D. R. or Not |}

: { » A ® - The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will défend to the death your right to say it.—V oltaire.

HE'D CHIP IN ON NEW PANTS FOR JOHNSON By ©. L. McConnell, Greenfield

I notice suggestion for larger pants for Gen. Johnson. Count on me for contribution. I stipulate though, they come above his ears.

One reader suggests Army. Heaven forbid, with the troubles they already have. The General puts one in mind of a moralist, when they get too old for the type of immorality they specialized in, they throw a wicked pen. The General, too old to fight, wants to take on the President, ‘being sure of course the President will ignore his drivel, the same as I (if I had the brains to be President). I feel for the General. I'll- be in - senility myself in 25 years. I'll then bend an oar for his silly views. ve

In the meantime the General

Scout knife until his blood pressure subsides. » ” » » ABSOLVES CAPITALISM, BLAMES POLITICS FOR WAR By Voice in the Crowd ‘

This seems no time to debate against the weak case of Socialism, this is; a day when men who love liberty “end tolerance, and who respect the legends of right living as they have been handed down to us, can wonder gravely and in awe as to whether human rights or any rights are to remain on the face of the earth for the common man. Eight hundred years of depression and ' oppression followed the destruction by the Hundred Years of War, . We now live in a time when you may see all of the fruit of human effort that has been conserved since the time of Christ, consumed in the single year that is to follow. Unless we can keep the light of Faith, Hope and Charity alight on .our own hallowed ground, there will be no dawn after the present war; righteousness and justice will have perished from the earth. Poverty will be rife and the strong will trample the weak in order to sustain® themselves. The finest human speci‘mens will have died in battle and the fathers of the following generations will be those who were physically and mentally unfit to be. used in the war. It is not Capitalism that is in flames, it is tivilization, and dumb indeed are they who enjoy the blaze. It is not capitalism that has brought on this war, it has been

should surrender his pen for al

‘| gold at $35 per ounce.

~ (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.)

brought on entirely by political blunderers who once gone wrong must keep on compounding their errors to keep the truth hidden. We have had our share of political blunders and if we do not keep politics out. of our “Defense Program” we may 'see some .very serious times because armament and politics are dynamite. 5 I wish to tell Voice from Labor that Russia is capitalistic. It is a State capitalism, Its capital has been enhanced because we buy its Its people are not treated equally. cal and military leaders buy at the best State owned stores at favored prices while its poor are barred from those stores. Its labor is not paid equally, the efficient labor gets a bigger reward and is favored in many ways not extended to lesser labor. The less efficient labor gets the poorest wages: and pays the highest prices at the poorest State owned stores. Labor that does not. meet with certain standards is carted off to Siberia. You do not read these things in the Communist tracts. You can not carry 8 newspaper across the Russian frontier, the Russians are not allowed to listen to anything from the outside, they are a deluded people. The masses were kept poor and illiterate under the Czars, and physically, mentally and spiritually they are now subjected to the political State. What difference does it make if the Russians are supposed to own their natural resources, if they cannot use them? You would have to go into 75 Ritssian homes to gather up as much iron as is in the average American basement and garage, to say nothing of the radios, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and labor saving gadgets that clutter up the average American home. I say it is time for the Russians to go to Rllssia and for Americans to watch. with intentness that which goes on here. . : {

Side Glances—By Galbraith

"I. wouldn't : th

lusioned By minding others’ : Tani. a ding th business, . we

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obi a Lo —— 2 8 x * «/ ) ’

{coPr. 1940 8v NEA SERVICE, INE. 7. W. REC. U: 8. PAT, OFF. : be too critical of your dau

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aban RE= > 528 | ghter’s clothes—I remember

URGES TRADE SCHOOLS AS DEFENSE MEASURE By Mrs. C. B. K. In order to save this country and the morale of our youth it is time our @untry set up trade schools in every key city of the country to teach our boys and girls trades, free of charge.

relief dollars for training we would w have skilled mechanics and hor and die makers, which our country is so short of now. But it is not too late, start at once, use our regular day sschools for night schools and keep our.youth going. These older tradesmen are not going to live forever. Start training the younger people so they can keep up where the others left o ;

off; 4 Let’s start making quality merchandise instead of quantity. But

Its politi- |

'| Meitzler goes slumming with me,

Alas for me.and all my dreams

‘I can’t make folks believe that I

thing any man doeth the same

| ‘Ephesians 6:8. i |

let’s get going quick. The Germans were not: sleeping while England, France and the lother countries were dancing and going to tea. Every man is trajned to step along and knows when and how to move next. We do not want to be Germany but we have too many white collar men and too many unemployed and no ore has a trade. We have got to learn to use our hands and brains. 8 on » SUGGESTS TOUR TO PROVE HOUSING STATEMENTS

By Ernest . Morton, Secretary . Workers

Alliance. For the benefit of James R. Meitzler of Attica, Ind., I wish to repeat and clarify a statement which I

ing ‘authorities’ reports, more than one-fourth of the dwellings in Indianapolis are inadequately housing almost 40 per cent of the city’s population. This is a statement of proven fact and wasn’t meant for propaganda. I offered to prove this

fact to Mr. Meitzler and that offer},

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still stands. This housing condition isn’t. affected in any way by Russia, Hitler or WPA. However a recent survey made by WPA showed 32.42 per cent of the local housing as substandard. (Times, page 1, 5-20-'40.) Some of these houses could be made into fairly decent dwellings with proper repair and remodeling. Many of them are built of scrap boards, tar paper, tin, etc, and are mere hovels. : If Mr. Meitzler doesn’t believe my statement then all he needs to do is accept my offer and_go with me through Indianapolis‘any weekend. As for WPA we of Workers Alliance are glad to have it, and our only complaint is that it doesn’t employ enough people. I am an unskilled laborer on Wea dnd don’t get enough money from it to buy a good car like the WPA workers of Attica own, so ‘if Mr,

and expects to ride, he

had better bring his own car. a

ALAS A By JOSEPHINE DUKE MOTLEY

I know a lot of people . Who think they are pretty fine| And bait their friends until they Swallow sinker, hook ‘and line.

‘Such sport must be a lot of fun . E'en though the joy be brief; ‘Yet when I try to put on airs, I always come to grief.

Of being thus and so;

7’

Am more, than plain old Jo;

DAILY THOUGHT Knowing that whatsoever good

or free.— :

shall he receive of the whether he be bond

tion.

| the President certainly left the

| competent as itself.

If we had spent the billions of].

TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1940 Gen. Johnsor Says— |

Time Now Is the Essential Thing; Harry Hopkinses Not Qualified To Direct Our Defense Program

EW YORK, May 28—There have been so many trial balloons sent up from W juggling and jockeying with national defense, that it might be a sucker trick to shoot ‘at the one about Harry Hopkins “co-ordinating” the /defense effort. It seems too incredibly absurd to consider seriously, but pression with the industrialists whom the Secretary herded into the

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| White House, that Harry is anointed for the job.

' ‘Anti-aircraft shots from the press surely shot down the “cBalition” political jugglery and even though this balloon may be punctured by the President himself before this writing gets into print, it is a threatened blunder of such serious) magnitude that. it is worth at least one burst of tracer bullets, . The rearmament problem is the deadliest this country has to face. It is purely’ a time problem. Through the most astonishing neglect ever charged to a political administration we have been left open to possible enemies while this Administration literally swung round the circle of the whale world affronting ati d reprisals with a gun that wasn’t loaded—counting on friends as inThe problem is to “fill our hand” as they used to the wild and woolly

in West—meaning get ready to) shoot. . : sf * x =» | Ji, TE still have time to do it but only a mastere

. piece of industrial co-ordination and produce tion—a task for specialists who un erstand our. induse trial book to the last comma. % So we call in Harry Hopkin the greatest waster of billions in our history. He is a man whose life and training have been such tha thro gh complete ignore ance of it, he distrusts our ‘industrial system only a little more than it distrasts him..| Moreover, this is a killing job—a 24-hour-a-day job+—and Mr. Hopkins, never very robust, is in shattered health and physically unable to give more than a lick gnd a promise to his more-or-less stuffed .shirt sinecure as Secretary of Commerce, i -

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| ® » =» | 2 IE the mothers of this country hope to avoid not nerely the conscription of their sons to slaughter in the path of the ruthless modern mechanized Attilla, but also the certain sacrifice of them by the hundreds of thousands to no purpose whatever, they will wake up to our scahdalous lack of defensive equipment and inefficiency in getting it. j f this job of rearmament is permitted by Government to be done by putting the right men in the right places then, with the barriers of our broad oceans, we can keep the terror in Europe out of the new world without fighting a great war and merely because we can make ourselves too dangerous to attack. If it isn’t done promptly there is not much use in doing it at all, We shall not merely have to fight, but to fight under such conditions as we now| see destroying civilie zation in Europe—hopelessly, pitifully, disastrously,

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Business By John T. Flynn on i Manner in Which Defense Is to Be Paid For Should Be Settled Now

EW YORK, May 28.—While the confusion about .N what thé cost of an air armament program will’ | be still remajns unsettled, nevertheless the manner of paying for it, as a matter of business, ought to be settled as quickly as possible. | : ] | The sums already approved by the House amount 1$3,282,000,000 for the Army : Navy this year. This

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includes the sums asked in the regular military appropriations plus some of the ad by e President in his message. ; K ‘This is a billion dollars more than the President originally asked in his first Army and Navy estimates

at the beginning of the = However, the reader

itional sums asked.

ust not be confused as to the meaning of these sums. hey do not include any important amount for the st plane program that the President has.asked. If e are to have those 50,000 planes, or any part of them, rther appropriations must be made. Apparently the fantastic hs figure which the resident used has been brushed aside by the Army

Army and Navy estimates, $1, is now making a start in that direction by considering bill for $144,132,000 to start on the Navy's share of hese 10,000 planes. But if the whole program is caried out it will be $1,400,000,000.] . must/be found some=«

They must be paid by the American people. can be raised in only on€/of two ways—by taxes

made recently. According to hous-|: [7

pt to finance military preparedness by bor« It is the easy way. But it is the way to ! rrible losses in the end. ° ingress ought to make a fundameéntal decision about this—namely, that what« ever we do about national defense we pay for it as we go along—cash on the barrel-head. ’ If Americans are really in earnest about being in danger, if the menace to America is so imminent and terrifying as it has been painted, then surely they should not shrink from paying for their national safety. ; | If this is pald by taxes it must be eitier in income taxes or excise taxes—taxes on commodities, sales, etc. Already the. excise taxes are a deadening load on purchasing power imposed at the very point where they do the most harm. This deaves us with no al= ‘ternative save income taxes. ° A__But ‘whatever is done, the decision ought to.be ‘made at, once. Business, in the end, has to bear these taxes. To leave the question of how the bills will be | pald hanging in the air is merely to introduce another element of uncertainty into a situation already suffi ciently bedeviled by uncertainty.

Watching Your Health: | By Jane Stafford | | : 5

OST men and Fomen by the time they reach their 40th birthday or soon after, begin to have a little trouble in reading the fine type in the telee phone directory or on a restaurant menu or even the daily. newspaper. This happens to those whoge . eyesight has previously been. good and | who haye never needed eyeglasses. Such a person is sometimes mistakenly said to be o "oid farsjghted. He is really growing presbyopic,

or/ “old sig 2 dition is ‘due to loss of asticity, or) hardening, of the lens of the eye. It is perfectly normal, and nothing to worry about. In order to* read with comfort. the person with this condition needs properly fitted eyeglasses, ~ Presbyopia, however, does not always show up at exactly 40 years of age. Even if it has not appeared, everyone should have a careful and complete eye examination at the age of 40, advises Dr. LeGrand H. Hardy of Columbia University. ‘ : . Reason for this advice is that at this age the doctor in making a routine examination of the eyes frequently detects early s of disease in the eyes or elsewhere. Much suffering and expense can be | saved by treating these conditions at this early stage, Among the conditions which can be detected in examinatibh of the eyes by a physician are hardening of the arteries, high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease. Hardening of the arteries so slight that it cannot be detected otherwise can be found in the arteries of the eyes: With an instrument called the ophthalmoscope, ‘the physician can look into the L In na sl ‘optic

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