Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 January 1941 — Page 12

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ROY w. HOWARD .: RALPH BURKHOLDER

' PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

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Give Light and the People will Find Their ows Way TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1941

; THE THIRD INAUGURAL

N an occasion so heavy with history, the history-to-come

~ , of prodigious and unforseeable events, it was fitting ‘that the President should look beyond the details of immediacy and take a. long view.

In his Third Inaugural he put aside the manner of the hustings, and donned the robes of philosophy. He spoke

: - not as prosecutor, nor as advocate, but as the prophet of a profound faith—a faith in democracy.

Wea PEASE I TE SERRATE RAK Ls ae RIN EIT Sh ON FE sea TAC an

Gn hE WTR ER RR A aE

Democracy, he said, “‘is not dying.” And it “cannot die.” “The democratic aspiration is no mere ‘recent phase in human history. It is human history.” “In the face of great perils never bef ore. encountered,

. our strong purpose is to protect and to Derpeiniate the in-

tegrity of democracy.” In ordinary times the President’s words might have been unremarkable. In quiet years, the praise of democracy sometimes seems a barren, formal business; As Mr. Roosevelt said, “the privilige of our freedom is (such an old, old * story.” . But even as the President spoke, the arch-enemy of democracy was huddling with his accomplice, incubating ‘no doubt some new and fearful blow. The news of the

Hitler-Mussolini meeting came through the ‘loudspeakers in the stands at Washington as the President, his third | under way, reviewed the quadrennial parade past the:

te Whitie House. What blows these next four years raay bring to our friends across the seas, and to our own way of life, are beyond mortal vision. But the Presideni’s address should replenish the will-to-resist of peoples everywhere, slave or free, embattled or precariously neutral. The near future contains, inescapably, hard days and grievous perils for democracy. We say to all its partisans, and to the President particularly: Go with God.

VICHY DOES AN ASCAP | |

new taking an anti-British tone, charges that England has| stolen a lot of things from France, including Canada, India, Egypt and the words and music of “God Save the

g’ ! | Before referring this item to the Department of AntiClimax, we venture the mild hope that the authorized ‘spokesman won’t happen to think aboui where we got the music for “My Country, 'Tis of Thee.” ! {f ‘

= CUT IT OUT!

E mean, let's stop this foolish business of calling each . other names when we don’t see ¢ye-to-eye about our Pp ables, Names like ‘“warmonger.” Millions of Americans favor a course which - admittedly involves danger of war. But they believe that their course wculd be less likely to get us into war than any other that’s open, and more likely a keep us out. They may be wrong, or right, but they're honest. Men like President Roosevelt and Secretary Stimon and William S. Knudsen don’t want to sell us down tl e war river, . They're not warmongers. They're patriots. || And names like “appeaser.” Other millions of Americans favor different courses, and modified actions, which also admittedly have their dangers. But they contend that reir courses would be the least dangerous. They may be rong, or right, but they’re honest. Men like Senator Wheeler and Senator Johnson and Ambassador Kennedy and Col. Lindbergh dort want to make a craven deal with {itler at the expense of America. Yheyes not Spbdescs. They, too, are patriots. | Nearly 24 years ago a handful | lof Senators ad Rep‘esentatives voted against war. Most of our people called them wrong and many called them “cowards” and “traitors.” But a time came when many Americans concluded, with shame and regret, that the handful had been brave and [right and that it would have been better for the country if [their view had prevailed. :

| Among the handful was Senate Norris. to | believe that this war is different from that other—ithat to insure British victory we should take risks in 1941 which he opposed taking in 1917. His judgment may be challenged, but he wasn’t an appeaser then and he isn’t a war-

| monger now. He was, and he is, a patriot.

The time will come when we will regret the ugly things

| mow being said. The important fact is that a course must

be chosen and followed. And we're most likely to choose the best course, and to follow it unitedly, if we make our

: choice calmly, advancing our own opinions with a little

Yhumility and conceding that contrary opinions may be just (as honest and as much worth consideration. Debate? By all means! But hame-calling isn’t debate. Epithets aren't arguments. They inflame passion and stifle thought—and we'd better be thinking while we still have time. These waters are perilous |enough without figating in the lifeboat.

Let's cut it out!

GOING UP | aT NHIS is merely to take brief note of one of the milestones past which this country is whizzing. .The Federa. Govrnment reports that it had 1, 111, 530 civilian employees not counting WPA workers and CCC boys) in November. Chis figure, an all-time record, represented an increase of ,189 since last, summer, an increase of 539,438 since 1933. The record undoubtedly was broken again in Decainber, will contitie tobe broken quently Sader the current

| do. anything about it.

He happens | it was a Godsend for the politicians in power in this.

country. It gave them one more spurt of spending. ;

Fair Enough Ey Westbrook Pegler.

Answering & Laboring | Man ‘Who Protests That He Looks af a 'Boil' And Gives All Labor a Bad Name

EW YORK, Jan. 21~This is going to be one of ! those dull, nagging pieces, so if you have anything better to do suppose you gkip it while I mutter away. It is an answer to the main points of a leiter from a man who signs himself Ray Glore, and says he lives in Cincinnati, and is a union carpenter. .The problem in answering letters in pring is to give: tlie letter writer . roon: to state his case and reserve space for the reply.” This requires condensation, ‘becsuse people do run on when they take pen in hand, and I am not exactly terse myself, as you may note from the

fact that I have been babbling all

this time without, going into my

Well, this ‘man says I have been pointing to a hoil on the neck of the & PF. of L. and yelling, “Sce,’ he is rotten through and through,” and insist that the grafting and racketeering have occurred mostly in two cities— Chicago and New York—and, as fa" as he recalls, in only three others--Cleveland, Miami and Los Angeles. 4 New York and Chic:go, he says, aie politically rotten and wink at grafiing and racketeering, but are not the United States nor representalive of the U, S. A. central. labor bodies whose leaders handle their affairs to the complete satisfaction of the members and the general public, and then he says I have created an impression that “all unions and all union fen are, if not actually crooked, at lzast shady characters.”

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HEN he wants me to tell him how the A. F. of ‘L. can constitutionally rid itsclf of two of its high political bosses who are, in his opinion and mine, big slobs, discover men who could clean house if elected to office anc line up enough honest, capable

local leaders to do the job at the riext general con-

vention. He wants me. to do that when the bulk of the A. F. of L. press has met all cisclosures by defending or excusing the accused and denouncing the accuser. Well, so here we go: First, I haven't said the A. F. of L. was rotten through and through. I said it had become a froat for a rogues’ gallery of crooks, no less for their lack of criminal records, and I have proved, and the recent New Orleans convention substantiated my proof, that the natiohal organization can’t or won't I say it can but it won’t. Next, the five cities mentioned are by no means all. I add Jersey City, Trenton snd Newark, and, for that matter, practically all of New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Dayton, Boston and my correspondent’s home town of Cincinnati, as well as upstate New York, which is a Jot more territory than he allows.

» ” ”

UT I am writing strictly by esr at the moment, A and not from my mountainous file, and I am a little embarrassed by the lack of # definition of the term “racketeering,” | because I have a feeling that some practices whicli I call rackefeering are to him legitimate union methods, But as to Cincinnati, for example, how did it

| come that the delegation named to try to intimidate

horized spokesman for the Vichy Government, just | N aut p J | boycott for printing this stuff inclufled representatives

the editor of the Cincinnati Post with threats of a

of three of the most notorious racket unions in the country? And how much protest did Mr. Glore make against the rise to power in Cincinnati of the crooked, double-crossing renégade cop Jack Dempsey, who

later went to St. Louis as treasurer, no less, of the | ironworkers and reraains there today, as such

Do you suppose our Iriend dcesn’t know of the rottenness, including dynamiting, in Dayton, close by? I am not impugning his sincerity, but I can't believe he doesn’t know, so I will just assume he didn’t canvass the situation very carefully. Why argue whether New York and Chicago are politically rotten? I claim Tom Dewey has made

| Manhattan clean, and that Brooklyn is improving

under the Messrs. O'Dwyer and Amen. As to the other boroughs I just don’t know. Chicago, of course, is simply terrible, and the differerice is that the people of New York sare not ¢omplacent. whereas the people of Chicago have abandoned hope. I would like to snap this off with a dazzling flash of my inimitable wit, but I ain't got no more room.

Business By John T. Flynn

Budget Should Be Balanced, but The Politicians Won't Permit It

‘EW YORK, Jan. 21.—The Brookings Institution thinks that the national budget ought to be balanced. Of course, every sane authority in national finance thinks that the budget cught to be balanced. But unfortunately the Government is not being run by sane authorities on national finance, but by politicians. The difference between a politician and ga statesman is that a statesman tal:es a broad and comprehensive view of national interests, including a look into the future. The politician is interested chiefly in' his political skin and hig view does not go beyond the next election, And when the next election is along way off he does not even look that far. The next

election, however, is in November, .

1942—which is only 22 months off, What is persistently overlooked in this whole socalled crisis is that it is intimately mixed up with the economic jam of this country and the dilemmas in which the Government itself. It must never be forgotten that the principle of

Government speriding of borrowed money had just.

about run up a gum stump at the end of 1939. The war may have been a great disaster for Europe, but

borrowed funds.

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N fact, it enaljled them, as they whipped up the:

hysteria, to spend far moie than they had been spending and to borrow it all. The Brookings Institution may be right that the budget ought to be balanced. Hard ag that would be on the taxpayer, it would save the country. But it would ruin the politicians in power. And certainly the Brookings Institution does not expect the politicians to do that. To balance tiie national budget would require, as things now stand, national] taxes in excess of nine billion dollars over and above the present rates, including the two boosts made last year for this year’s budget. But it would require more than that, for to

| this nine billions would have fo be added the billions

that will be spent for arms lor England. ‘This may run as high as four or five billions—some think more. What ts.more, there is not the slightest doubt that the Governmen! will have to add several billions to he bills to take care of rising prices of materials and abor. Who will pay all these additional’ taxes to balance this budget? The Brookings Institution ,thinks it

| might be done out of the increased income that will | result from the defense program. But that increased

income will be due to the spending of borrowed money rather than ta: money, and if the bills are paid out of taxes the income will not be increased so much. The budget ought to be balanced—but - dont expect the politicians to do it.

So They Say—

: HOW PROUD we are of America, where we: are in’ the citadel of freedom znd still enjoy liberty of speech, press, and religion.--Mayor Edward Blythin

of Cleveland, insel foreign=-born, to a group of

foreign-born citizens

He claims that there are thousands of locals and |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES The Spirit of 1776!

of vi CONGRESS IST SESSION

TUESDAY, JAN. 2, 1941

HR. 776

note

"A BILL

FURTHER TO PROMOTE THE DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

The Hoosier Forum

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

DEMANDS POLICE ACT AGAINST BASEBALL POOLS By Wondering

Instead of raising such a rumpus over the punchboards, which are very small in comparison with sale of baseball tickets, Mr. Blue and the Police Department should concentrate on said ball tickets, which is a much bigger fraud than even horse bookies and dice games. These baseball tickets are in every poolroom and cigar store besides many of the taverns and cafes in town. There are also many ‘men peddling said tickets from door to door. This has been a going business for many years, and as I understand the police are! instructed to keep a close check on all such places in their "districts, it seems queer they have never noticed this thriving business. Now that Mr. Blue has started to root out the punchboards, marble machines, horse bookies and dice games, why doesn't he crush the body of this life blood-sucking octopus, namely the baseball ticket menace? ” ” » REF. EVANS URGES REFORM, NOT REPEAL OF POLL TAX By H. H. Evans, State Representative ‘ There nas been talk in some sections that the Poll Tax Laws in Indiana should be repealed. Let me give you some figures that will show and convince most anyone that the

Poll Tax Laws cannot be repealed without placing a heavy burden on real estate. In 1939 in this state the following figurss show what was collected and the division of government in which these collections were made. cess teris] i... $740,000 Counties 313,755 Civil Townships.... 3,391 Civil Cities ........ 246,305 Civil Townships ... 20924 School Towns 133,315 School Cities 157,826 317,065

aressnns tls .81,651.900

In this matter males only paid from 21 years to 50 years of age

rand it has gone so far that in some

places the poll tax has been as low as $2.50 and the highest has been as high as $6—in other words it has

(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.)

turned out to be a racket on men between the ages of 21 and 50, In 1931 a bill was passed requiring the poll tax receipt on men between the ages of 21 and 50 before they could get their driver’s license and plates for automobile and we are informed that more than 50,000 men in the state transferred their certificates of title to women to avoid the law. House Bill 99 provides for a uniform poll tax on men and women in the state between the ages of 21 and 50 not to exceed the sum of $1.50 on each such poll. Both of the women representatives in the House signed this bill—Mrs. Downey and Mrs. Coons. It is a sensible law and also the repeal of the Poll Tax Law. ” ” EJ TERMS LEASE-LEND BILL GRAB FOR MORE POWER By Edward F. Maddox My opinion of the “Lend-Lease Bill” is that it is just another power grab. It is just one more step in the new game to capture control of the wealth and energies of 125 million Americans. That has been stated as the avowed purpose of this Administration and the Lend-Lease Bill will about do the trick. According to the Attorney General the President already has the power to transiér our military equipment and has done so, then why all the haste, confusion and mystery about danger to our national defense unless the new powers are granted? Such tactics are no surprise to 22,000,000 Americans. We saw the danger long ago. And who will be appointed to administer: the new powers? Will it be LeftWingers of the Rex Tugwell type? Congress should inquire who

Side Glances=By Galbraith

wrote the Lend-Lease Bill This is just another bold attempt to establish one-man dictatorship in this nation by using war-scare tactics.

” 8 8 PAYING A TRIBUTE TO A REAL AMERICAN

By Curious

Apparently the population in genera: never heard of or doesn't give any heed to the old Greek axiom: Mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a strong body). Many people are unemployed these days because they are unemployable.

They have become or always were degenerated human beings. There are many jobs in the steel mills for good healthy, active, strong and keen minded men that pay $50 a week for 40 hours and right on up. But many American men are worse off than a horse or a mule because tney apparently have neither brains or brawn and I con=tend it is a fallacy that any man can be all brawn and no brain because a nan who has good brawn will take care of his brain and vice versa. Last pay day when I cashed my check in the bank I saw another man cash his check and it was for only two weeks but the amount was $411.39, minus the reduction for Federal old-age benefit insurance. That’s what I call a real American, both in brain and brawn, » ” ” A THOROUGH SCRUBBING FOR THE LEGISLATURE

By Daniel Francis Clancy, Logansport, Ind. “Women Will Ask Legislature to

headline. doesn’t it'll be about the only thing in the state that those boys won't

through. I sometimes wonder if the abbreviation “Rep.” stands for Representative or Reprobate. “ ” ” 8 DEFENDING EDUCATED MEN WORKING IN MILLS By Mrs. Interested I would like to voice a word in answer to Furious whose view was aired in The Indianapolis Times Jan. 13. I am saying nothing about the father whom Furious spoke of, but when he said educated men had no business in mills it shows how very little he knows. He made a very narrow-minded remark when he said educated men should be able to get office jobs. Many men in the mills today are intelligent and etficient enough to hold down good office jobs but they can’t get them and they take anything they can get. They have to live. Regardless of how much education a person has the office’ jobs are few and far between. It is a shame that foreigners are allowed to come to this country and take jobs which rightly belong to the Americans who are supporting this’ country. We have too many foreigners in this country now.

KIND FATE

Clean Statue of Morton.”—recent | i Well, if the Legislature

have cleaned by the time they're 3

Gen. Johnson Says— -

Churchill's Talk and Hearings of \

House Committee Aim at Shifting War Power From Congress to F.D.R,

ASHINGTON, Jan. 21.~What a show we had last week, a continuous expert process of timing and fireworks on both sides of the Atlantic. The ef« fect, if not the purpose of it, was to draw us closer to battle by transferring the war-making power from the Congress to the President—a President who was so recently elected on the pledge of last Oct, 24: “We will not participate in foreign wars.” . Three key Cabinet members were trotted out. All emhasized their opinions that, unless we do participate in a foreign war, we shall be in immediate danger of disaster. One stressed the fact that wars aren't declared any more, they are just started, An-« other remarked that the President already has power to start one with an implication “so Y iheretcre give him power to fight it.” All of which boils down to something . like this: “The aggressions of Hitler have amended our Constitution. The executive, and not the peoples” representatives in Congress, has the war-m 2 power.” This was ballyhoo for a bill which permits tis President with no further authorization from Con=« gress, or any appropriation, to send billions of dollars worth of scanty existing American armament to any fighting country he selects anywhere on the face of the globe and regardless of the effect to denude our, own defense. When it was suggested to the old war-horse Har Stimson, that surely some limit should be put on this complete war dictatorship when there is no war, he contested the suggestion. We must give dictatorial powers to meet any emergency, especially as the crisi§ is probably eny time in the next 90 days. y

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| the meantime, the great British war chancellor, Winston Churchill, using the sardonie presence of fanatical Harry Hopkins, seated on a stage in Scot= land, as a sombre figure of America (God save the mark) addressed to this lank McCarthy a demand for our participation. But no men, not in 1941, just ships and guns now to meet a present crisis. How about sending men in 1942? So poor old Bill Knudsen is trotted out. He say® he only knows how to “make things”—which is true. He hasn't studied the law for which he testified. But they. squeeze out of his self-confessed orance an opinion that our only safety lies in Britain. He cons ceded our lingering failure in industrial mobilization in a pitiful admission that we can’t send England what Churchill asks from current production. Yet Mr, Stimson says: ‘Ninety days.” So what? So obviously we must strip our Army and our Navy upon which, in the last analysis our whole safety lies, of the armament in which they are fatally deficient. Yet Secretary Knox and the Presi« dent both say that it is grotesquely absurd to hinfg’ that they would ever use the requested powers to transfer any part of our Navy—notwithstanding the fact that immediately after a similar scoffing denial of such an intent, we did transfer 50 destroyers. With« out saying anything at all, we had previeuisly trans ferred hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of artillery, tens of thousands of rifles and pistols and maching guns and mountains of munitions. ,

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HIS country is unanimously for aid to Britain as part of our defense, but only as part of it. A far greater part is impregnable defense of our home« land, care not to extend battlelines too far for safety, insurance against tying our destinies to European war leaders whose actions we cannot control. This generous public opinion for aid to Britain is being used to fuddle and befool an even more emphatic public opinion, that we shall maintain an impregnable independent defense and not participate in foreign wars. We are being made ridiculous in the eyes of the world by saying, that we, the strongest nation on earth, can’t’ protect our own—that our safety depends on another country. The man who numbered that bill “1776” had a cynical humor. Some of us thought that 1776 was the year of our independence. Let's give, not lend, to Britain all that we have to give without disarming America and without ene tangling our destiny in any alliance. Let's face the problem fearlessly and honestly and stop this mean, undignified, outrageous trifling and and deceit with the courage, faith and patriotism of the American people—and their confidence in their leaders. J

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

VERY question has two sides. Only by looking al both can we arrive at an intelligent conclusion, Since the complaint of a woman on relief was printed in this column, I want to give the reply of a relief investigator who has served as such for several years. “I do not blame the deserted woman,” he says, “for feeling as she does. In her circumstances I, too, would feel like slapping some= one. But she should aim at those who cause her troubles. “The relief investigator is ree quired to ask all those questions about financial resources in orden to keep his job, ‘although, I think, he could get the answers by morg diplomatic and indirect methods. “It is too bad that this woman and thousands like her do not realize that rules and regulations for investigators core from county snd state relief associations, Who in turn are dominated by legislators, “The politicians, in response to pressure from people who care nothing about the misery of inade« quate relief, try to keep as low as possible the approe priations for relief. The administrators, in attempts to keep within the amounts allocated by legislators, demand that each recipient be thoroughly and cone stantly investigated. Thus the allowances to each recipient can be kept or reduced to the absolutg minimum. “So, you see, even if the investigator improved nis interviewing technique, the woman’s circumstances would not be materially improved. Those who hava’ worked for adequate relief have always been told that the tax burden would be too large to supply it. Yet witness now the amounts granted for armaments.” When everything has been said on this question, the success of all our deals, old or new, depends upon one thing: Are we kind to each other? No regulations will ever work if we leave out this simple formula for the improvement of society. And there is yet another truth which those who love the democratic way of life dare not overlook, Man is what his habits make him. Habits of dependence, fostered through several generations, are certain to breed a race of incompetent, unreliable weaklings. I believe we must not allow our poor to live upon doles. Somehow, some way, they must have jobs and be persuaded to take pride in them, or a dictator will be necessary and inevitable.

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