Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 August 1940 — Page 8
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PAGE 8 The Indianapolis Times
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1940
LET'S NOT BE TOO LATE F this country were at war, or in plain danger of invasion next week, Congress would pass a conscription bill within 24 hours. And with only a handful of dissenting votes. But the debate drags on day after day over the BurkeWadsworth Bill to apply the selective service principle for military training now. Over and over again opposing Senators say they would favor war-time conscription, but that they can’t abide the idea of peacetime conscription. They declare that compulsion to serve in the nation’s armed forces in a time of peace runs against the grain of the ideals on which our republic was founded. The argument does not stand up historically. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who had much to do with the founding and enunciating ideals, both favored obligatory service in a citizen-army as an essentially democratic and practical means of self-defense. The argument does not stand up as a matter of common sense. If citizens owe a duty to serve in time of war ~—as they admittedly do—they owe an obligation to serve effectively. If we were to wait until a powerful enemy, or combination of enemies, were at our gates, conscription would then be too late. Several weeks are required merely for the paper work of registration. Then more weeks for the selective draft of men. And then months for hardening and disciplining and training men to fight with the complicated weapons of modern war, ”
= = ” E waited once—in 1812—and the White House and the Capitol were burned, and at Blandensburg, Md. a hastily mobilized American Army, though it outnumbered the invading British force 3 to 1, was routed. The American soldiers of 1812 were not less brave than the British. They simply could not hold their ground against the trained fighters from overseas. And those were the days when wars were fought with squirrel rifles and simple cannon, and when this country boasted a population of expert squirrel-hunters. Today we have a vast reserve of manpower trained in the simple arts of driving plows and automobiles, jerking soda, operating typewriters and peddling insurance and real estate. But they don’t know the front end from the
hind end of a tank; they know nothing of the intricate |
Inside Indianapolis
The more who are trained, and the better they are | trained, the less likelihood their training will ever be put |
mechanism of the monsters of modern war, nothing of the methods of supply and communication or of actual combat.
to the awful test. In the world of today the only sure guarantee that our country can remain at peace is to make ourselves so strong that no possible combination of enemies will ever dare draw us into war.
THE NEW FUND MANAGER
IRGIL MARTIN, newly appointed manager of the Indianapolis Community Fund, has been a member of that organization for the last three years. Those persons who have worked with him have found him to be an able, sincere and far-sighted welfare worker. His promotion was well-deserved. We wish him success.
WILLKIE AND THE WPA WE think the WPA has a pretty convincing answer to Wendell Willkie’s charge yesterday that its rolls are being increased for election purposes. The fact is that last April, when Congress was considering the appropriation, WPA Commissioner Harrington stated plainly that his program would be to have about 1,700,000 persons on the rolls in July, the same number in August and the same number in September. He added that there probably would be a small increase in October,
ana a further increase in November, but that these would |
be due, not to the election, but to the seasonal increase in need as cold weather approached. The average number actually on the rolls in May was 1,981,637. That dropped to 1,755,526 in June. It fell to 1.611,213 on July 3, and had risen to 1,708,154 on Aug. 14, and the WPA says it will remain near that point through September. The average, then, is close to the estimate Col. Harrington gave Congress in April, and it seems a fair assumption that the increase between July 3 and Aug. 14 was, as the WPA contends, for reasons other than political. Col. Harrington gave Congress his “unqualified assurance” that any increase in the rolls beyond his estimates would be solely because of unemployment needs. We see no reason to believe that he has broken his word, or that he intends to break i*. If he keeps his pledge, there will be no foundation for charging that WPA is following the pattern of other autumns with, as Mr. Willkie pointed out, sharp increases in election years and sharp decreases in non-election years.
ONE-DAY FLIER BEFORE the achievement of Miss Angel Stevens, a 24-year-old Los Angeles stenographer, we stand lost in admiration. She began taking airplane lessons at 5:15 a. m., and at 6:31 p. m., same day, successfully completed a solo flight. Her idea, she says, was to prove that “learning to fly is easy and safe, and does not require a college education.” Maj. Al Williams might scoff at the notion that Miss Stevens actually “learned” to fly in one day. And we confess that, before going aloft in a plane with this gifted young woman at the controls, we could wish her to have a little more instruction, say two or three hours at least. Yet certainly she did much to prove her point—and, incidentally, one of our points, which is that practically nothing frightens members of the so-called gentler sex these days.
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Ickes Credited New Deal With Kansas City Cleanup, but the Fact Is Newspaper Took the Initiative.
EW YORK, Aug. 24—When Harold Ickes goes into one of his political tantrums it takes days and days to pick up after him. We haven't had a man since Huey Long who leaves as much debris of as many kinds. But willing hands make light work, as the fellow said, and today's doing will just about complete the job of sweeping and tidying after his recent defense of the dignity of the Presidential office. In the course of that seizure of statesmanship Mr. Ickes, defending, in a negative way, the corruption of the Chicago and Jersey City gangs, declared that the New Deal, or Social Democratic Party, was responsible for the reform of Kansas City and the imprisonment of Commendatore Tomaso Pendergast, the honored friend of Benito Mussolini. With that mighty and reckless swipe Mr. Ickes knocked the statue of truth off the family whatnot; for the fact is that the party of humanity avoided the initiative in the proceedings against Mr. Pendergast. The party of humanity had knowingly accepted the political benefits of Pendergast’'s grafting and vote-stealing machine and did not turn against the Commendatore until a staff of first-class newspaper reporters and writers, under the direction of Roy Roberts of the Kansas City Star, turned up the evidence and compelled the Department of Justice to act.
HE prosecution was then conducted by Maurice Milligan, the Federal District Attorney, with the good and hearty co-operation of the intelligence unit of the Internal Revenue Department—an ornery and intractable bureau which is hell on facts and evidence and, generally speaking, insensitive to politics as is sometimes the case with the Department of Justice, The political sensitiveness of the Department of Justice was apparent in the celebrated second Louisiana purchase. There the intelligence unit got together evidence on which indictments were returned against some of Huey Long's colleagues, and one crook was sent to prison. But after Huey was killed and the surviving thieves came out to parley under a flag of truce Mr. Ickes’ party of humanity made a treaty with them, the details of which are not known, because it was not an open covenant@&openly arrived at, but a furtive political job. The effects were plain, however.
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R. ICKES' party made fellowship with the crooks who now consider that they had received a Federal charter to rob both the Federal and state Governments and really went to town. They were thieving away like city slickers at a county fair, with no interference from Mr. Ickes’ party until Mr. Jim Crown, the editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. like Mr. Roberts in Kansas City, also assisted by good reporters, caught them so flagrantly and scandalously that again, as in Kansas City, there was nothing to do but prosecute. Mr. Ickes chided Wendell Willkie because Moe Annenberg, one of the master erooks of the age, was a Republican publisher and side-line politician of no petty influence and boasted, with reasonable pride, that it was the party of humanity which turned him up and sent him to prison. That is correct, but he forgot to say that the crooked horse-gambling system, of which Annenberg was the national boss, has for years enjoved a status comparable to that of a necessary public utility in Chicago and Jersey City under the toleration of Mayors Ed Kelly and Frank Hague, whose political collaboration Mr. Ickes enjoved in bringing off, with such illustrious success, hoodlums’ old home week, or party convention, in Chicago.
Henry Ostrom, Contractor, Happy
In State Civilian Aviation
ROFILE of the week: Henry Evan Ostrom, the 53-year-old contractor, who has just been named co-chairman of the Indiana Civilian Aviation Committee. Henry Ostrom has been interested in flying for years, now owns his second airplane. He doesn’t pilot it himself but he used it to go to and from big construction jobs in other cities and it was only natural that when the big aviation preparedness job came along he would toss everything else aside to help. Mr. Ostrom is a dynamic, blue-eyed angular-faced man who isn’t happy unless he’s working. His thinning, graying hair just won't stay combed. About 5 feet, 9 inches tall, he weighs 165 pounds and he doesn’t get fat because he’s on the go too much. His hat usually is askew on his head, his tie twisted. Too nervous to sit still and have his shoes shined, he gathers them in a market basket and drops them at the shoe shine shop.
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THERE IS AN AIR of intense earnestness about him. When he talks on one of his pet subjects, he cocks his head to one side, holds his listener's attention with his eyes and gestures with his shoulders and his elbows. His mind works fast and he wastes no time getting to the point. He doesn’t care much for fiction, but likes biographies of successful men and women. They've got to be successful, though, because Henry Ostrom can't bother with failure. He's fond of the ocean and keeps a marine clock on his desk. As far as radio is concerned he is partial to symphonic music and humorous programs. He smokes a cigaret on rare occasion, doesn’t care for liquor, but he is a regular coffee toper. un & ” HE IS WILD ABOUT Lis two grandchildren— aged four and one—and will tell you about their latest antics at the first invitation. Since the aviation program started, he has shunted his business affairs to a back seat and has spent virtually all of his time on the flying program. Director of the CAA Non-College Pilot Training Course, he is deeply interested in seeing that the Government’s work is spread among the youngsters who couldn't get to college and who want to learn to fly badly enough to give up most of their nights. He thinks flying is safer than motoring and has all but given up driving an automobile himself. He likes to have somebody else drive anyway. Then he can “rubber” all he wants at the building jobs he passes.
A Woman's Viewpoint
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
SUPPOSE every person is moved by particular sights, sounds, odors. Certain little things bring lumps into the throat and stir within us unremembered sorrows whose origins go so far back into our racial past that they cannot be explained. I'll tell you what my three tear bombs are, if some day you'll disclose yours: the cry of wild geese in flight; the call of the whippoorwill, and a lonesome abandoned little house. The big ones never bother me. But what's more fun than a goed cry? During these vacation weeks near Creede, Colo, I've gone around with a vague sadness clutching at my heart, feeling weepy between our interludes of fun. Old Creede, itself, is enough to make you wail with woe for men’s lost illusions. In the old prosperous days it was tucked into a narrow mountain crevice, and during the 90s more than 15,000 men and women struggled, played, loved and went quite mad over the gold which was then being dug from its earth. Now there is nothing left to remind one of all that rich life and glamor except a few tumble-down shacks, some odds and ends of rusty machinery and the ruins of an ancient office building. The Creede of today—a straight, short street of groceries and liquor stores, filling stations and a church—has moved into the open and snuggles against the towering mountain, its mother. And all through the countryside, in the most unexpected places, one stumbles upon lonesome cabins which disappointed miners or tired sheep herders left long ago. Only one—that occupied in 1890 by Col. Creede who discovered the rich vein of gold which brought prospectors running from every direction—is preserved with a huge placard across its front.
|THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Order of the Day!
| SEES OPPORTUNITY FOR
Post | Wendell Willkie's acceptance speech, !
| I somehow gained the
| return.
SATURDAY, AUG. 24, 1940
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say,
defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
but wilt
(Times readers are invited to express their 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.)
INDEPENDENT VOTER By Raymond H. Stone Independent voting will 1940. The conventions in Philadelphia and Chicago have prepared the way for this wave of independence of party lines. The two rallying posts in Indiana are the Congressional district and the office of Governor.
views in
mark
critical times indeed and for that very reason we are interested in electing the man whom we believe can most capably help us weather them. It is my opinion that the President should speak for himself.
= = MERELY AMUSED BY ICKES’' SPEECH By Catherine H. Pyle Having just listened to the Honor-!
u tJ ” ble . Ickes’ | able Mr. Ickes’ response to Mr SAYS WILLKIE BORROWS
ROOSEVELT IDEAS
that it was supposed to make Willkie |BY I+ B. Hetrick, Elwood, Ind. followers fume and gnash their| Mr. Roosevelt, his New Dealers, teeth; however, although I am pro- and brain trusters, have surely ac-
Willkie through and through, Mr.| ; o hla Ickes’ ranting merely amused me, | iplished the next to impossible;
He resembled nothing so much as a |t@King a dead thing and bringing small boy with a specified number |it to life again, at least until war of mud-balls to sling within a given came to our relief to help solve the time. . .. unemployment problem. Once Mr. Ickes mentioned that| yes he saved capitalism from the the people “were entitled to know effects of its own sins and yet proswhat it was all about,” with pering in their sins and now they reference to Mr. Willkie's pledges|cyrse the hand that kept it alive so and it would seem to me that the it could continue in its age-long people, after seven years of thelj,jtjative, incentive and animal inpresent Administration are certainly | ciinet to pile up profits for the last entitled to know something of | dav : rs ety renin oaoioq| There never was such unprececertainly bring in a very satisfactory (dented prosperity in dividends to If a businessman had in. | Stockholders in the various capi|taiist industries, so the newspapers say, which prosperity is more or less enjoyed by a vast number of the rank and file all because the brain trusters discovered a concoction that kept capitalism alive, but Mr. Roosevelt failed to get his prescription patented.
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impression |
vested it, I daresay it would. . . . Mr. Ickes stated that Mr. Roose- | velt had no time for debates at such | a critical time in history. At such a critical time in history, it should be absolutely essential that the] people have specific and current
knowledge of the plans, the beliefs ‘ and the proposed programs of the| And now comes Mr. Willkie and
men from whom they are to choose |SWiPes these formulas and I think their leader, Mr. Roosevelt has| the Dr. Townsend old-aged pension always been able to find time for Plan also which was overlooked by occasional “fireside chats.” . . . Mr. Roosevelt. And yet, at least Mr. Roosevelt found time for an 350 thousand people attended the acceptance speech the very night | Willkie gathering at Elwood to hear that the Chicago Convention de-|3 man say something they thought cided (?) to let him accept. I am |nho other man ever said, and that sure that Mr. Willkie would be ready |too right under Roosevelt prosperity and willing to debate in any locality [wherein everyone present was able and at any time of the day or night to pay his own way to and from which the President might select.|and most of whom owned new autoWe all realize that these are very mobiles.
Side Glances—By Galbraith
-
HES.
ROR. 1540 BY NEA SERVICE, ING. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OF. 8-24
"My ears are twitching for the town's latest gossip—let's go in and have another finger wave."
INDORSES READER'S STAND ON DRAFT By M. D. M. I think Jim Barnhart's opinion on the conscription bill should be put on the front page, where the con- | scription followers could read it. As I am the same age and without
dependents and also without anyone I could go and live with if I
was out of a job, I totally agree with | Mr. Barnhart. | | Would all businessmen give all lover five dollars profit to the Gov-| fernment for the defense fund? That lis all we will have, five dollars for pleasure. We really wouldn't have that because there would be bills| to pay that we have acquired beforehand. Most people will spend five dol- | lars a night for pleasure. Now how |
could anyone have the heart and | nerve to ask an American youth to | work and get only five dollars a | week for pleasure? I would willingly do that if] every businessman would take all yver five dollars that he spends for nleasure and turn it over for defense. ” ” ” POPULAR VOTE FOR CLEVELAND EXPLAINED By Claude Braddick A Times reader questions my assertion that Grover Cleveland won the popular vote for President three times in succession. Any good reference book (available in public libraries) will show that Cleveland was so honored in 1884, '88 and '92. At no time, however, did he run for a third term, having lost the electoral vote in 1888 (and hence the election) to Benjamin Harrison. A similar contretemps, according to Gallup Polls, is in the making today. Mr. Roosevelt is shown in a 51 per cent popular lead, while losing the election to Mr. Willkie by a rather top-heavy electoral vote of 227 to 304. Such polls, however, no matter how scientific, are open to considerable error: and sentiment is constantly shifting. November will show whether Gallup is right, or The Times reader who signs himself “Doubtful” and predicts a Roosevelt victory. os on ” FAVORS DEPORTATION OF HARRY BRIDGES By Mrs. W. J. M. Ever since the release of Tom Mooney from prison his constant companion is Harry Bridges which proves that he does not deserve freedom. Harry Bridges is the most dangerous criminal ever allowed in this country. He has ruined all shipping, not only in California but the entire Western coast, and is responsible for all the strikes, yet he is not deported. The newspapers have the power to have this done, yet I have never seen one mention of it in The Times.
THE DAY By MARY WARD
The morning star Which brightly glows Seems fairer far Than the yellow rose.
And there is grace At noon to see In every place It seems to me.
Then as the sun Drifts down the west The day is done And that seems best.
DAILY THOUGHT
Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme.— Mark 3:28.
PARDON, not wrath, is God's best attribute.—B. Taylor.
Gen. Johnson Says—
Acquiring Bases O. K., but People Will Not Stand for Any Deal That Might Directly Involve Us in War,
Y ASHINGTON, Aug. 24.—Getting air and naval bases, from Iceland to the South American “bulge” should have the unified support of this country, It is a move in the direction we must go—which is to make our defense independent of the strength of any nation but our own. Tbe only criticism of it is the inexcusable delay and lack of foresight in not having done it long ago. But what we are giving for them its something
else again. It has not been revealed. Neither have the details of our defensive deal with Canada. Canada is a nation at war. She has gone across the seas to attack a European power. It puts us in a position of saying to Europe: “American nations can attack you but if you counter attack them we will fight you.” . Perhaps in view of our geographic and strategic problem, that can't be helped. But do our Canadian and British secret understandings go further? There was some implication in Mr. Churchill's report perora= tion that they do—British and American ‘“co-opera= tion” in war rolling along like old man river, which is a symbol for fateful inevitabilfty—the *flotillas of 1941,” which sounded like a promise of American naval intervention, » » o ‘AR. ROOSEVELT is reported to have scouted the idea that there is anything in the deal for bases about our detaching a part of our insufficient Navy—>50 destroyers—to fight on the side of Britain. But things that Mr, Roosevelt scouts, like his third term ambition, have a curious and tortuous way of promptly coming true. No matter how it may be disguised or how warlike lawyers now split hairs, the detachment of those destroyers is so clearly direct participation in this war that two years ago, examining the question coldly, there is not an international lawyer on earth who would not have regarded a contrary view as preposterous. From his Chicago “quarantine” speech to the pres ent, there has not been an act of the President inconsistent with an inference of his willingness, if not his intention, to mix this country up in the wars of both Europe and Asia. On the contrary, with increasing tempo and intensity, every act has been completely consistent with that aim, ’
R. Ickes, Mr. Wallace and others have empha= sized Mr. Willkie’s “indorsement” of “our foreign policy.” Mr. Ickes has suggested that this is like the . awful 1936 campaign where there were no issues except “the New Deal is good but I can deal it better.” The New Deal boys, hell-bent-for-a-war-crisis-before« November, had better look that thought over care=fully. Some of Mr. Willkie's Republican and Democratic supporters in New York are also minded to involve us in foreign wars. But most of this country isn’t. Especially that great strength of America from the Alleghanies west and, as I read his utterances, Mr. Willkie isn’t. Q The bulk of Americans are for anything at any sacrifice that will make this country so strong in ° its own right that it can defend itself. No issues? The New Deal is creating for its opponents the greatest issues of our times. As understand Mr. Willkie's position, it is “everything for total defense but not one step toward involve=ment in foreign war.” Any contrary position, no matter how clearly disguised or denied, will lose disastrously.
Business By John T. Flynn
Poor Government Machinery Bigger Enemy of Democracy Than Hitler.
ASHINGTON, Aug. 24.—A visitor to Washing= ton these days might well suppose that de= mocracy in America has only one enemy—Adolf Hitler. But there are plenty of enemies of democracy in this city. Most of them are not people at all—but practices, bad habits, gawky institutions. Nobody bothers at all about any of them, One of them is the crude and clumsy machinery provided for the operation of our democratic society-— machinery that holds up the deliberative and administrative processes of the Government until if becomes slow, unresponsive, unintelligent and venal. At the top is Congress. It has nearly 500 members. They are—by and large—fairly intelligent. But that is too large a body of men to deal day after day with difficult problems. The next is the patronage system in Congress, Congressmen ought to examine and understand numerous complicated problems of Government, But they cannot possibly find time to study these ques tions because the Congressman has most of his time taken with: the job of being a labor employment agency for his district and a commercial representa= tive of its business interests. But this patronage system poisons not only Con« gress as a deliberative body but the administration of every department of the Government which it touches. It makes effective and honest administration of bureaus difficult and, in places, impossible,
Five Reforms Urged
Then the two-year term for Representatives com= pels members to spend a large part of their second year campaigning for re-election, Five reforms would work wonders in the direction of making our democratic government more efficient, and democracy can die from inefficiency as well as from a conqueror. These reforms are: (1) Reduction of the num« ber of Representatives to 150; (2) election for four years along with the President, to avoid hostile Con-gressional-Presidential relations; (3) reduction of the Senate to 48 members; (4) a law making it a felony for a Congressman to solicit a job or a contract for his constituents (Senator Byrnes, I think, once fathered such a law), and (5) a comprehensive civil service system, in which there would be no exemptions save for a few key administrative chiefs. But above all covering in politically appointed employees to a classified protected service should be prohibited, - If to this we could add regulatory commissions chosen by some form of competitive scrutiny for fitness and character, and wholly unconnected with poli tics, we might begin to see a safer direction for our limping democracy.
Watching Your Health
By Jane Stafford
OW that Junior and Sister have reached schoad age, parents must remember to be on guard against appendicitis. Not that there is anything. about school that is likely to bring on an attack, in the way that going to school exposes the child to measles and whooping cough. Under the age of five years, however, acute appendicitis does not occur very often. After that age cases occur more and more often with each year of life. People over 60 seldom have appendicitis, and young and middle-age persons are the ones most likely to have it. It attacks children of school age often enough. however, to be a child health problem, It is now the third cause of death among children between 1 and 14 years, killing about 10 children out of every 100,000 population each year in theUnited States. There is no way of warding off an appendicitis attack, nor any kind of vaccination against it, There is, however, a good way—an almost 100 per cent way —of saving the life of a child or adult with appendicitis. That is by prompt operation at which the ine flamed, diseased appendix is cut out. The operation for removal of the appendix in {tself is associated with a mortality (death rate) whieh is practically nil. The deaths which occur are found only in those patients in whom a peritonitis has developed from rupture of the appendix. . Cathartics and purgatives are responsible for many needless appendicitis deaths, because they hasten the onset of peritonitis. If your child has a bad stomach ache—the sam applies fo adults—do not give a cathartie, 5
cesses ERE