Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 December 1940 — Page 8

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14,180 ~~ {|

LABOR'S PART IN DEFENSE

yilav GREEN, president of the A. F. of L. ina New |

York speech calls for more labor representation in defense agencies. He cites the vital part labor. is. playing in England and demands similar influence here. In the meanwhile, hot speeches in Congress attack labor, initiation fees for jobs, strikes in defense industries, jurisdictional shutdowns, and Communist sabotaging. Restrictive legislation is demanded, one anti-labor zealot going even to the point of talking about concentration camps for those who spread dissension and stop production. Never before in our observation have politicians: so openly attacked labor—not the working man, ‘ but his leadership. Why? Of course labor should be represented in defense and play the same important part as it does in England * Why, therefore, the argument, and the two extremes in point of view? The answer, as we see it, is that certain new elements have entered into the labor scene that did not exist in the World War days when Samuel Gompers and the labor leadership of that time performed such a statesmanlike service

- and received the consideration that labor now feels it is

not getting. a.» . : Racketeering and communism weren't issues in the labor picture then. They definitely are today. That makes a lot of difference. While both have been belatedly, not to say begrudgingly, condemned by the leadership at the

_ top, they have not yet been eradicated. The jurisdictional

gtrike, which Mr. Green in his New York speech assailed as something the country can ill afford “in this hour of preparedness,” is nevertheless very much in our midst. In other words, so long as those infections are tolerated, no matter how much deplored, the public and Congressional attitude toward more labor representation in government is going to be very much “from Missouri.” Yet labor with its house properly cleaned could be the most potent and effective force in the whole defense operation which, boiled down, is labor in the broad definition of | the term. So we suggest to Mr. Green and Mr. Philip Murray of the C. I. O. that labor’s vulnerable spots up to now are too much like Mark Twain’s weather, about which there has been much talk but nothing done. And to labor’s rank and file we recommend that only by pressure from bottom toward the top will the correctives be achieved which will bring to labor its full measure of representation in all national and defense affairs. Otherwise labor will go farther and farther toward the dog-house which is now located on Capitol Hill.

HINT TO THE BRITISH F the British think the Johnson Act is any bar to their

obtaining loans and credits in this country, they may find in the latest Gallup Poll a hint on what to do about it.

The question: “If England offers to pay its World |

War debt to the United States by giving up islands or land near the Panama Canal, would you approve our accepting this offer?” Those expressing an opinion voted: Yes, 88 per cent;

no, 12 per cent. : If such a trade were made, the war debt wold be | wiped out and England would not be subject to the re-|

strictive terms of the Johnson Act. In the matter of these defense outposts, England enjoys a sgller’s market.

FINLAND'S REWARD HEN Finland refused the drumhead demands of Moscow and chose to fight rather than compromise her national integrity, the English cheered her on, as did we Americans. But kind words were not enough. Help from England and elsewhere was of the too-late-and-too-little variety. Finland fought on, with great valor and resourcefulness, until she dropped in her tracks. And today we have almost forgotten those place-names’that were so familiar in the headlines last winter—Suomussalmi, Viborg, Petsamo, Karelia, Lake Ladoga, the Mannerheim Line, Helsinki. : Finland shot the works at impossible odds, suffered terrible casualties,” and finally was broken at the wheel. And

now it looks as if she has been abandoned by those who _ were once loudest in applauding her.

What does she want? Only this: The privilege of importing desperately needed food, clothing, medicine and

- gasoline through the British blockade—in her own vessels,

via her own Arctic port of Petsamo. Finland is no Belgium or Poland. She is not occupied “protected” by German troops. There is no question of food for Finland being grabbed off by Hitler, or being used to feed workers in plants that make guns for Germany. And yet it is said that England is strangling with red tape the Finnish requests for clearance of proposed imports from this country. It fioes not seem to make sense.

REVISING OUR SIMILES AA/E USED to say “cursed like a trooper,” or, more recently, “cursed like a stevedore” or “like a truck driver.”

Those hackneyed old similes need revising, according}

to Arthur S. Colborne, New York president of the Anti-

ae Profanity League. Now it’s the women, and especially “so-

ciety women” who" do.the most fluent cursing, Colborne says. We trust he means “cafe society,” assuming that there's any difference. At any rate it is interesting to note his suggestion that bad language is most prevalent among .those who should, in theory at least, know better. We apologize to

~ cavalryman, dockman and trucker. - Hereafter, let the simile

be “cursed like a Aightelth debutante.”

Fair Enough

By Westbrook: Pegler -

Leng-Werd Intellectuals Must Be|

- Getting Soft—Munching Chicken

In a Hotel on the ‘Unfair List!'|

EW YORK, Dec. 14—We had something on the order of a contretemps in our city the other night, when a group of our long-word intellectuals ‘sat down to fang chicken at one of our best hotels under the auspices of two of our butchers’ paper .magazines, to wit,.The Nation; whose editor is sud the New Republic, whose edi> is ‘Mr. Bruce Bliven '(prort Blether, I believe). I was not there, ‘and I rely on the ‘New York Times fof my big, general facts, but avoid details be-

question the famous accuracy of that fine paper, The Times’ lead

the Nation and the New Republic

would not accept that figure with out a certified circulation audit. . For my own brother I wouldn't settle for more than 250 readers. However, I think we may take it that sucha dinher was given, ‘that 400 persons attended, including the readers of both publications, and that Dr. Frank Kingdon announced, just before speaking, that they were. gathered in a hotel which was on the “unfair list” of the New York Hotel Trades Council of the A, F. of L. This information had not been received, however, until too late to transfer the dinner elseWhere, and the announcement expressed regret that “we have helped to destroy union standards hid patronizing a hotel on the unfair list.” 2 8 8 , OW, this constituted a terrible problem of moral responsibility, and, as one who heard many grave discussions of a similar but, fortunately, purely hypothetical case in Loyola Academy, Chicago, I simply have to believe that the sponsors are guilty: of a grievous multiple willful wrong. It seems to have been agreed that it was wrong to crunch food in an “unfair” place and, according to my teaching, those who had been informed of the verboten were morally obliged to warn the other unsuspecting persons ‘ere the first sip of sin-tainted tomato juice passed their innocent lips. Yet, by The Times’ account, those who did know the facts calmly sat there, but with what inward agitation we can only suspect, and let the others err from, as it were, soup to nuts. I just don't want to think of what William Green and George Browne, of the executive council of the A. F. of .L., would say of this, but I do know that there have been other cases in which ordinary workingmen were cast out of the fold of the A. F. of L. and deprived of their living for less. Why, there was a man in Milwaukee whose wife bought milk for her baby from a certain “unfair” dairy because that dairy sold superior milk. Now the man’s baby gets ho milk at all because his union took up his card and got him fired because his wife crossed a picket line.

2 ” n I WOULD guess that Miss Kirchway and Mr. Bliven (pronounced Bléther, I believe) could be fined a year’s pay and thrown back to the bottom of the extra list of available union editors of magazines, at the very least. What .do you suppose went on in the consciences (plural) of those who sat there watching all those others unsuspectingly chopping the heads off the canned asparagus with the sides of their forks and tossing them in? How do you ‘suppose their own food tasted as they chatted away with a pretense of social unconcern? I read that the hotel man said it was ail a mistake—that the hotel wasn’t unfair. But that wouldn't abate the moral responsibility of those in the know who thought it was and admitted as much afterward. Do you know what I think? I think these fine, horny-handed warriors in the class struggle are softening up. Too much tomato juice, too much halffried chicken with the whiskers on, too much demi-

*-

‘tasse and salted almonds, too much “Mr. Chairman,

ladies and gentlemen.” moral fiber.

Business By John T. #lynn

FDR Unlikely to Advance Funds to Britain Without O. K. of Congress

TEW YORK, Dec. 14. —No man goes into a bank with a balance sheet of his business unless: he is after money. Therefore, despite the assertions that the British Treasury official who called on Mr. Morgenthau has not asked for a loan, we may be sure that something of that nature is on the fire. _ -The Johnson Act and the Neutrality Act will not prevent the President ‘ from - doing something like this provided he féels sure enough of himself to defy Congress and well-defined policy. The Johnson Act, passed in April, 1934, prohibits “persons” in this country from buying bonds or obligations of foreign governments which are in default on | debts to us. But the term person is defined to mean-any individual, corporation or partnership “other than a : public corporation created by or pursuant to special authorization of Congress.” Therefore, in the absence of any other prohibition, this law merely prevents loans to defaulting governments by private persons or corporations and does not prevent U. S. Government corporations from making them. The Neutrality Act prohibits any person in the

It does something to .the

- United States making any loan to or purchasing or

exchanging any bonds or obligations of a government declared to be at war by the President. Here again it is probably a private person which is thus restrained. There is nothing, therefore, that would prevent the United States Government making such a loan. But. it might be well to recall that the United States Government is not the President but rather the President and the Congress.

48 8: T= ‘question then, ‘whether the Government corporate agencies can make loans to Britain de-

pends on whether the grant of power by Congress

to thern iricludes an authorization to do that. Certainly there is nothing in the Stabilization Fund legislation which would permit the use of that fund to make loans to Britain. The Reconstruction: Finance Corp. does not have within its grant of power any authority to make such loans. The Export-Import Bank might claim it but it has not sufficient funds to make the amount of loans Britain ‘desires. But’ aside. from all these considerations the Government’s policy against loans abroad to belligerents is well established by the Neutrality Act so that, if not the lefter, at least the spirit of that act seems to caution the President against action Without the consent of Congress. ‘There is another consideration even more ihe perious. On March 5, 1917, Ambassador Page cabled President. Wilson, pointing out the absolute necessity of loans to Britain to avoid an economic collapse of our trade. But he recognized the meaning of such loans: “Of course,” he wrote, such credit unless we go to war with Germany.” He conceded that such a credit would mean war. And in view of the fact that this is so, would the President, aside from any legislation, take responsibility to commit an act of war without the Sppteval of Congress?

So They Say—

EVERY NATION'S women want peace—we have

no patent on the wish for peace. But I believe we |

ought to think, not in terms of a hundred years, but of a hundied days hence—Mary Winslow, U. S. representative on the Inter-American Commission . of Wornen. oh * * * THE FUTURE of money administration in the United States should be devoted to stimuldting the distribution of wealth, so- that the output of

"100 per cent capacity can be absorbed as produced. — ; Sir Ghatlos Morgan-Webh, Sriiish h visiting economist,

fe

hip ol

Miss Freda Kirchway,|

cause, for once, I am given to] °

gan, “Four hundred readers of

attended a: dinner,” ete, and I

“we cannot extend | -

A Ho Fry YAY. 1 TE

The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.— Voltaire.

ATTACK ON TAVERNS By An Indianapolis Mother

ministers for taking a stand against

much worse than the saloon was in

the old days as only men went in those places. . Now mother and the boys and girls go in taverns! Why not have petitions all over the city to close the taverns as well as those on the East Side? It’s high time the Christian people and all good moral people of our city woke up and did something to close all taverns in Indianapolis. They are doing no good, but much evil,

nN a #8 COMPLAINING OF CARS DRIVEN WITHOUT LIGHTS

By T. E. Inman Por the attention of Mike Morrissey, the Mayor, and his so-called “Safety Board”: : If some of these “hot shot” cops would pay more attention to drivers without. lights or cabs running around all night with parking lights on there wouldn't be so many deaths. I go home every night at 1 a. m. and see a dozen or more each time. No one can see them; let alone an elderly person.

3 vi pf PLEADS FOR DEPENDENTS OF THOSE IN SERVICE By Veteran of Two Wars

The article in today’s paper in connection with the friendly suit for possession of the apartment of the man who is away in the Marines evoked various reactions among a group of veterans who lunch together each day. The statement was made in the article that the wives and dependents of these men would (or: should) make an effort to readjust their living status. This brings "up the question, “WHY should they do so, or even be asked to do so?” If the apartment or house in.question was de-

his family BEFORE he was called, why should his dependents be asked to change their mode of living? In most cases the change would be downward in the scale of living. What effect will it have on the morale of these men if they know that their dependents are being

LAUDING THE PASTORS FOR

I wish to thank the Methodist],

taverns in Indianapolis. They aref

cent and fit for the service man and:

"(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.)

asked to double-up and improvise while they are gone? Let the property owners give something to National Defense as

well as the men who go into service. There should be strong’ censure

‘| for any owner or agency who even .|attempts to enforce action of any

sort against the family of any man who enlists, is called, or inducted into service. If the property owners feel that they should have relief, in cases of this sort, it may be that a tax moratorium could be. effected by the Legislature on any property occupied by the family of a service man. Students of history will recall that the complaint of Washington's soldiers and the complaint of soldiers since the dawn of time, has been that they were worried about the condition of the folks at home. The Lawyers Association should appoint attorneys to defend free of charge the dependents of any serv-

‘|ice man sued on ‘any sort of action which is caused by his absence.

Oe a A LOUD BOO FOR A TRAFFIC EXPERT By P. R. R. Engineer ; The traffic problem in Indianapolis is practically solved. There will be no more accidents caused by some no- -brain auto -driver because

it seems that we will have an expert on traffic before long providing some worthy politician can be found that does not know a green light from a red one. That is the way our city is being run at the present time. The city of Columbus, dg, has a safety director and, likewise all large corporations and all questions of safety are handled in a businesslike manner. I myself am an engineer but not a safety or traffic engineer but I am required to: obey all traffic- and safety rules ‘on the P. R. B. and if I do not, dens

Side Glances—By Galbraith

RT MSO vg Yo MD. CE PATO. l don’ t think you'll have any trouble getting a ‘date, Youngs man— : our e photo favs 4,6ung all day

ap

| truly ia resay, bk. the. geain:i8

sticker ang this sticker cannot be fixed by some ward heeler. ; I must tell someone in authority why and be penalized accordingly. We can have less traffic fatalities whe we get rid of the sticker fixers and get a Chief of Police that will tell the boys on the motorcycles to go get them regardless of the high

‘lor low license number. So dear tax-

payer just let the city add the salary of an expert politician to| ‘the city payroll under the guise of traffic expert and you can keep on paying and paying. We have plenty of traffic laws and. traffic signals and plenty of good police. All they need is [the words, “go get them.” on MORE TRAFFIC POWERS URGED FOR POLICE By E. J. C., Crawfordsville, Ind., Excepting the item of publicity for people who seek it at small cost, all “campaigns to curb auto killings” will be fruitless until: 1. Dealers are made responsible for selling cars to the irresponsible and ignorant; 2. The police in every community are given authority to say who shall drive motor cars. Let the police and no one but the police issue licenses and arrest every driver who has no police permit and we shall

minimum. Let critics say what they will, the fact is well established that there

reHable known as the police.

and certain stop in those hideous fatalities caused by reckless folks on wheels. : . Our State ‘Législature has the power to do what is suggested here. Will Indiana take the lead in making travel safe and pleasant? 2 # 8 | A HEATED RETORT ON THE ‘BEAUTIES OF BOMBING’ By N. A. R.

Possibly the most sickening thing about the totalitarian countries is their effort to paint war as a glamorous, even an esthetically beautiful thing. It ¥ not. It is true that while gazing into its grim face mankind manages to show. sometimes its best as well as its worst. But. war itself is ugly and evil.’ : A screwball Futurist poet in Italy, one Marinetti, has now joined Vittorio Mussolini in apostrophizing

{the beauties of war, saying, “We are

very happy in the atmosphere of Mussolini’s war.” This happiness of a 64-year-old “poet” in Rome | is

.| probably not shared by all the poor

little lads yanked out of their homes in Naples, Milaii or Sorrento to die in flaming Koritza. And fortunately, those peoples who know war as a grim and dirty business always manage to do quite well in ‘the long run against those who have been fed on a pap of its alleged beauties.

LITTLE PARCEL By DANIEL B. STRALEY Go swiftly, Little Parcel, - To a modest door. Knock softly, yes, thrice softly, Tread lightly o'er the floor. Pause by the quaint old rocker That near the window stands, Then snuggle, closer snuggle Into the thin, pale hands."

Stir not if they caress you * Or tears upon you fall,

‘| Nor if the lips in tremble

An unworthy name recall. God speed you on your journey. . Do not, I beg, delay, But to her hasten with my love : To glad her Christmas Day.

. DAILY THOUGHT

‘Watch ye and pray, lest ye. enter into temptation. The spirit

_ weak —Mark 14:38.

~ IT 18 ONE THING to be

cut so-called trafic deaths to sa 3

is no body of public servants more] § than that organization|{ Make this| organization responsible for public| & 8 safety in regard to traffic, and give| § to it the power to regulate that] g traffic and there will be a sudden] §

| gained fame as a pn aniiamide

Says—

The Term Appeaser Loosely Used Being Applied Now To Those Who Urge Invincible Defense at Home

oy Ul 194 J

- Gen. Johnson ih

EW YORK, Dec. 1 —out of the Administration

are coming private warnings that one great Amer-

ican danger just now is organization and daily growth

of “appeasers” and thélr cunning propaganda to stir up Punks sentiment for “appeasement.” It isn't easy

to define just what is meant by this use of the word. Appeasement, as a byword, grew out of _ the series of settlements with Hitler. acceded to by France and England, where] on the alliances - had made with such little nations as Austria and Czecho-

many in a cordon sanitaire of steel” and to preserve the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. They tossed those little nations 2 the Nazi wolves because there Jos nothing else they could db, They h Sllowe themselves to become too weak and Germany. e too strong to do anything else. i very word “appease” taken with the circumstances of those settlements, implied that there Flii some right on the Nazi side. The appeasin cessions were used not as a truce to gain time for out defense. They were used:as a narcotic assurance to the British and the French of “peace in our time” with an effect that they went on snoring while Ger many became stronger and stronger.

2 ” ” E have never been in any such position.

were not a party either to the Treaty of Versailles lor the moral obligation of the British and

they welched ance, at least,

slovakia, in order to “ring Ger *

)

We ?

the written obligation of the French to protect |

those small mid-European nations. We had no part in the appeasement provisions except as our Government encouraged them. We have no obligation now growing out of any of these circumstances to fight or to prepare to fight for any nation but our own. Some of us began to insist that we prepare, years before {Munich and with growing insistence ever since—insistence on our own weakness, on the great threat growing in the world, and the absolute neces= sity for American rearmament. Many, if not most of those who took this stand believe that we are not even yet arming effectively. We have preceded and supported every move to speed and increase total defense to the point of American invincibility on this side of the world. Our only point of difference with other equally earnest and sincere Americans is that we do not believe in either the necessity or the wisdom of scattering our defense over more territory than we can ‘guard, do not believe in putting our country into a military situation in which its defense depends on

the strength or the weakness of others—their blun- s

ders or successes, » 2 2. : E do believe that, whether Britain wins or does

not win, we shall never be safe again without

adequate defense of our own, that part of our strength is our financial soundness and that we cannot weaken it by undertaking to finance the wars of others at a cost which, in & long war to which we are a party, could rise as high as one hundred billion dollars. | | If that opinion and record is what is meant by “appeasement,” we regard the word as an epithet without argument. We think that the people who use it, lon their own records, have been real appeasers and that our weakness and danger today are traceable to their opinions and policies over the years, but not to ours. Emotion and propaganda have reached a point where, even to express such opinions as these, is said by some to be of itself “appeasement”—or worse— a columrnism, defeatism, almost treason. Suni Johnson has sadly said, this is the direct pe 3 for the United States to foreign war. He might have added “the blindfool road.” I don’t believe it. The American people have yet to be heard. Mass madness is not upon us—at least not yet.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

preterm the most dangerous outgrowth of the preparedness program is the widespread encouragement of feminine sharpshooters.

=

The men who do most of the encouraging show

a surprising lack of common sense. boarding-school girls and housewives, stenographers and filing clerks, to take up target practice in a big way. Gunning as a hobby is recommended. We observe the rise of this no-

only on account of the potential peril to husbands and sweethearts

welfare is menaced. : If there were some way of ‘teaching women to shoot without § giving them access to firearms, all might be well. That being im-

possible, we may expect the laws about owning and carrying deadly: weapons to be eased up, with the.

customary consequences. There'll he an epidemic of deaths from accidental trigger pulling during amorous episodes and drunken brawls. It has been said that the soak at the steering wheel is the greatest public danger. A good runner-up is the drunk who occupies the same room with a loaded revolver. And most of the revolvers are loaded. Thousands of children have had an untimely end because their papas and mamas thought guns were handy things to have in the house in case of emergency. And many a well-intentioned fellow has felt the sting of a bullet because he didn't have sense enough to know that the average female should never be trusted with an automatic. She may be a crack shot und still be emotionally unable to handle a gun wisely. As you have doubtless guessed, the idea of women's shooting clubs as a national-defense measure rubs me the wrong way. Aren't the men to be depended on for anything? If we've come to the place where housewives have to leave the dishes in order to practice sun toting, we're in a bad way.

Watching Your Healih

By Jane Stafford

HBkem amotint of the chemical remedy, sulfanilamide, T used in the Unifed States during the past year is estimated at 187 tons, according to a statement

| from the Illinois State Medical Society. The drug

They urge.

is so well known that its name has become part of our ,

every-day vocabulary. of chemically related ‘drugs which have been developed in the last few years. A great many such drugs have been made, but not all of them have proved useful and some are still under investigation to determine their remedial possibilities. The ones chiefly used besides sulfanilamide are sulfapyridine and sulfathiazole. Sulfanilaziide was first used and is still used for treatment of diseases caused by the hemolytic sep tococcus. ‘This particular type of streptococcus has th Wer of breaking up the color pigmen as hemoglc bin in the red cells of the blood. . Of all ths strep those caused by this Remy 8 fanilamide hus also been used ailments. |

most every cisease known to mankind, for many of

Sulfanilamide is one of a series .

treptococcus, . Sul= in treatment of other In fact, 3 hus probably peel Hed or A

.r<

tion with some trepidation, not

but because the general public :

t known

s infections in man, the most severe are

which it is worthless, although in some it has prove Pat

invaluable. Sulfapyridine is the °

which assis

year has b