Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 January 1941 — Page 18

PAGE 18 : |

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way "FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1941 |

v

LINDBERGH ON THE STAND

: (COL LINDBERGH'S testimony in Washington fell into two parts: His expert ‘evidence jas an authority on aviation, and his opinions as a citizen on Internatiogsl

politics. His prepared statement was confined to aviation. And,

keeping in mind his qualifications in [this field—certainly ‘his pre-war appraisal of German airpoyer, rebuffed in some quarters at the time, has been violently/€onfirmed—it seems to us that this document was more onvincing than the recent scary testimony of Secretary of War Stimson. In Mr. Stimson’s opinion, “We are in very great danger of invasion by air in the contingency that the British Navy is destroyed or surrendered.” | "In Col. Lindbergh’s opinion, “an air invasion across the ocean is absolutely impossible at this time, or in any predictable future.” And the details of his statement on this point, which we need not recapitulate here, are convincing. (For example, “if England is able to live at all with bases of the German air force less than an hour's flight away, the United States is not in great danger across the Atizntic

‘QOcean”). It is true that Secretaries Hull and Koos, in discussing the danger to us of a Hitler victory, have put primary emphasis on the possibility of the Nazis striking circui~ ously, through Latin America. On this point Col. Lindbergh, disproving “pacifist” charges, testified: “We shou'd ~ go to war with all our resources if any attempt is made ‘to establish an air base in either North or South America.” With Col. Lindbergh’s estimate of the purely physical . danger to our shores, or rather the lack thereof, it is hard to dissent. But with some’of his views outside his own specialty, voiced in response to Congressmen’s questions, it is necessary to disagree—while acknowledging the sincerity that animates them. In particular, we can’t go along with his expressed helief that the United States has no interest in the outcorne of the war—that it’s nothing to us whether the one side or the other comes out on top.

FOUR MEN DIE

(OBSCURED by the news of slaughter abroad is the to ry of four men killed and 14 hurt in a coal mine explosion near Welch, W. Va. This is the country’s worst mine ¢isaster of 1941. But in 1940 there were many worse-—two of them in West Virginia alone killing 99 miners. Here is more tragic proof that state inspection of mines does not prevent disasters. We hope no addi- | tional evidence will be needed to convince Congress that the miners should be given the better protection for which they plead, through adoption of the pending bill for Federal inspection of coal mines.

WHY THE DELAY? '

Two weeks ago the 19 A. F. of L. building trades unions announced that they were going to adopt a system: of maximum initiation fees for men secking jobs on defense projects. We commented then that this step, if talien, would be a good start toward correcting an outrageous situation. | Well, the step has not been taken. At least, the building trades unions have not made public any new sciedule of fees. And though we have tried, we have not heen able to get from them any information about when, if ever, a new schedule ‘will be made public. ~~ Why the delay? The system under which men wanting to work on Army camps and other defense projects are compelled to pay exorbitant union fees— ranging up to $50 or more for laborers and $200 or more for skilled workmen— is so obviously a racket that every [day it continues is a new affront to decency. The new schedule ought to be adopted now. It ought to be published, so that the people can judge whether it is reasonable. And then the unions should refund the uareasonable sums they have already colletted. If they don’t do that voluntarily, Government compulsion would be justified. One labor leader tells us that this racket has unjustly enriched A. F. of L. union treasuries|to the tune of at least 20 million dollars in a few months. | He's a C. I. O. man, and may be prejudiced. But if the A. F. of L. unions have taken only one-half or one-fourth of that amount, they've taken many times what thpy can conceivably be justified in exacting from men for the privilege of working at temporary: jobs. There’s no law compelling unions to make public reports on their financial matters. Unless the building-irades unions act quickly and openly to remedy their fee system and to disgorge their ill-gotten gains, there will be public clamor for such a law.

BEFORE IT BEGINS

Miss HARRIET ELLIOTT, who | represents consumers’ interests on the National Defense Advisory Commission, has just offered businessmen some thonetighly sound ~ advice. ; Writing in approval of the stand takey by furniture manufacturers in an effort to kepp . prices stable, Miss . Elliott said the defense program demands that business A profits come through large sales volume rather than through price boosts. The “very great temptation” to advance

prices “just a little” should be resisted, she cautioned, for—

“It develops into a vicious circle, ‘and the time to halt that movement is before it Begins.” tod

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FINISHED BUSINESS

carrier, 13 cents

| Mail RE ari rates |

‘might like Sam as a “oss, but

| ‘statement of its financial |position. | tempted to float such a loan without having the books | and affairs of that corporation examined and audited,

i F I i i

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Foreseeing the Day When the Labor Problem Will Be Solved Because All of Us Will Be Working for "Sam"

EW YORK, Jan. 24.—Never | mind ‘whether I dfivocate such a course. Dc¢ you want to know whet I think will happen to our labor or union problem by the time we come out ofthe ether? Well, it is my idea that the Wagner Act will never be amended ih any important particular and, of course, never repealed, but that it will just scale off and be forgotten, because by that time we will have our own adaptation of the Nazi and Communist system of handling labor questions. By then so many of the people will be employed directly or indirectly by the Government that wages, hours and pay will be established by the Government and the right to strike will be abolished. It wiil be recognized as a fact—which /it certainly is—that the | strike is a modified form of war and that, of coui'se, people cannot he permitted to make war on their own country.

So there will be arbitration. and, probably, concessions to the workers, varying according to the political strength of the Administration. But strikes will be out. Moreover, most workers will like this arrangement, because people don’t like to strike and will be glad to get rd of the racketeers and bossy agitators who jerk them around nowadays. & » # 'LREADY, from over on the left, from voices which invariably sing in praise ¢f the Roosevelt government, you can hegr discussions of the suspension anc eventual abrogation of the right to strike. Mayor La (Guardia, a Socialist in his time and now the political [patron of the only representative that the Commujists ever had in Congress, is against strikes by workers on the municipal transit lines. Sidney Hillmar, a man of similar political |persuasion, is against strikes on defense projects, anil the New Leader, a Socal Democratic paper, says “it is not by rigid formulas that rights can be ascertained but by the willl of the people, preferably acting through process of law but, when that fails, operating in cruder ways.” n other words, if vou strike, well, how would you like some castor oil or how would you like to be trafisported to a concentratign camp up around Darnemora? Every obstacle to the production of defense of derocracy, no matter whether it is labeled ‘rights of private property’ or ‘tights of organized labor,” must be overcome,” the New Leader says. Now, of course, I know this paper doesn’t speak for the Administration, but I would like to bet you soniething that it speaks for the future and that once thiz condition is accepted for | purposes of preparedness and/or war it never will revoked, no matter Wht happens to Hitler, {The idea that I have is thet without ever saying so (this Government has always been socialistic in sorte unformulated way and that the Administration has a sneaking approval of the Nazi and Communist me hod of handling labor and funding industry from a (rovernment office. ® 8 =

OF course, what with the expense of running the ’ preparations, and possibly a war teo, and giving Britain what she needs, industry will become nationalized, too. Business will be so deep in hock that the Go; ernment will just take over, and labor, therefore, wil! work for Sam, wlio might be a pretty good boss, at ‘that. He is a pretty tough boss in some of his services where politicians don’y have to meet union conditions or demands and wan; to make good records for themselves, but no worse than many private emplovers, and he has fo slack seasons. The workers nobody is going to ask whether they like him or not. Nobody is going to ask them whether they want to go to work for him. They will think they are working for private industry, but will suddenly realize one day that Sam owns the industry or runs it with his money. The contention that Government contracts should be withheld from unfair employers can be applied to plants controlled by unfair unions, too. And, of course, over on the left they have long taken it for granted that when the Government is the customer the Government can dictate the labor conditions. It can revise them up as easily as it can revise them

doym, too I am better on big,

Don’t ask me for the details. lumpy general ideas. And don’t get petulant now because this system, in a genel ‘al way, is Hitler's and

Stalin's. Pate, as Miss Anita Loos vote, keeps on happen-

ing these days.

) : . | Business By John T. Flynn Report to Congress on Britain's Assets Doesn't Jibe With Facts N EW YORK, Jar. 24—One of the inexplicable

episodes of the present battle over the Lends Lease Bill is the statement made to the House Com-

| mittee by Secretary Morgenthau about the present

financial position of Britain in| this country. The more the statement is studied and compared with other available data 01 the subject, the more mystifving it becomes. It is, indeed, so mystifying that the committee can hardly afford not to recall Mr. Morgenthau and subject him to a thorough examination about the whole thing. What Britain is after is about tiaree . billion dollars’ worth of arms from this country, without raying for them. If necessary, she is probably ready to agree to pay for them in kind when the war is aver. In effect this is a loan. It is a loan for three billion dollars—a vast sum of money. It is a loan, scause the United States will have to pay for these ar ‘ms and borrow th: money from the American people in order to do so. Now there is a good des] of evidence here as to England’s ability to pay for what she wishes to buy. But she now urges us to lend her, on the theory that she is unable to pay. Her Treasury Department submits a statement to the Secretary of the Treasury. He {vas here for a few days or maybe a week in secret conference with the Secretary, presenting the figures in support of his contention, Now the Secretaly preserits these figures to the Congress to support a loan that apparently will run es high as three billion and maybe much more. It is obvious he has not checked the figures. He has not had the time.

” ” | o ow if the mcst reputable banking house in America was asked to float a loan of just 50 millions for the greatest and most highly honored industrial corporation in America, it would ask for a But if it ate

Mr. Roosevelt's Securities and Exchange Commission would probably lay the groundwork for prosecuting it —and properly. Yet we are asked to lend three billions—maybe four billions, maybe 10 billicns—to Britain on a mere statement of her Tireasury--a political official—without spending a day in checking it. This would be bad enough. But when we know, as we do, that this statemerit of the British Treasury official is in violenf;, conflict with facts just published by our own Federa! Reserve Board, we must conclude that our Secretary of the Treasury is not giving too

much thought to protecting the one client he is paid .

and sworn to serve-—~the United States of America.

+ I propose to offer some figures to show the striking’ conflict between th: Secretary's strange statement and. the. facts. as undersiood here. :

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So They Say—

IF OUR CIVILIZATION Is to. be saved, the reIaith of America’s young must. be ‘chaplains. |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ‘Caesar's Ghost!!

’

1 IPERAT 10

FRIDAY, JAN. 2, 1941

DOT SWORD OUT AN START SOMETHIN

i iad rT

The Hoosier Forum

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

‘FASCINATING,’ SHE SAYS OF ERNIE’'S ARTICLES By Mildred Michaelis In answer to ‘No Friend of King George.” I don’t know whether you are a man or a woman as you were evidently ashamed fo sign your name to your article about Ernie Pyle. But whoever you are, why you have to blame Ernie Pyle for the way the British acted 20 and 40 years ago is beyond me. Personally, I am a daily reader of Ernie’s, and I think his articles are beyond reproach. They're the most interesting and most fascinating articles I have ever read, and I'm sure I'm not the only “Times Reader” that thinks so.

® # = LAUDS OUR HOSPITALS AND THE WHITE CROSS GUILD

By Dollie Moore McHuron, member of Sun Rae Guild.

Something about the White Cross Guild: Every three seconds of the day there is a patient crossing the threshold of some hospital for treatment and there are nearly 7000 hospitals in the United States. Figure out for yourself how many people are treated each day in our country, and no other country in the whole world affords the complete hospital system that this country does. We should be especially proud of our hospitals here in Indianapolis. It is the work of the White Cross Guild that helps to make possible the large amount of free and partpay treatment received by thousands of people each year. These service minded women donate one or more days each month in making all kinds of surgical dressings, bandages, etc. They also do sewing and mending. Every guild is a unit in itself, having its own officers, program, etc, and some guilds have special work such as the Library Guild which takes care of the library hospital and the Garden Guild caring for the hospital yards. These guilds are not a denominational organization as they are formed in various clubs and communities as well as churches. Their membership is now something like 2000 consisting of 42 units. They give cultured women a

(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 withheid on request.)

rare opportunity to render a Christian service in a great cause.

» # 2

DENIES BRITISH ARE FIGHTING OUR WAR By G. R. Re: Mr. C. H. Dallow’s contribution to your Wednesday Forum. All legislative acts of the local parliaments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Union of South Africa and Eire require assent given through the British hereditary crown’s appointed governor. If my British cousins want a non-tax paying but plenty gimme ruler that is their business. With Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan on our hands, we have enough to keep us busy with our own tax evading rich. However, I am not of a mind to toady in any way to “By the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.” To be a genuine aristocratic lady over there, a woman cannot ever have earned money in ways that are respectable here. If they want ammunition to defend their, to me, odd standards of society and pomp, then their most benefited class must feed the kitty, in, perhaps, the form of loss of power over those Atlantic islands, or some such indemnity, which specific form may safely be left to our Mr. Louis Ludlow and some others whom we hire for that purpose. But don’t try to kid me about their fighting my battles. It's their own skins they are looking out for. ” ® ” PLEADS FOR A CHANCE TO EARN A LIVING By John E. Haley To the people of Ingiapapolis: I have been living in Indianapolis

26 years, in fact all my life. I have tried to live an honest life and have

Side Glances=By Galbraith

business. I -have been employed since leaving high school up until last October. Since then I have been all over this city looking for work. But all I hear is what experience have you had. Now how do they expect you to get experience if they don’t give you a job so you can. Yes, you can go to school and learn a trade but what are you going to eat on while you are learning. I myself have a mother, father and sister to support. My father is unable to work because of an operation. I know of men who have come from other states who haven't had one. bit of experience and boys out of high school who have gone to

|'work in one of our biggest factories

as soon as they applied for a job. Why is this? .. There are 30,000 men and women in this city who are unemployed and are just as capable of doing the work these outsiders are doing. I think something should be done about this because I for one would like to have a job. Is it any wonder that this city is so full of crime?

878 » CITES HANDICAPS FACING ARTIFICIAL LEG WEARERS By Charles T. Barnes

of society for a chance to make a living? When Congress let us down

when they passed the Wage-and-| §

Hour Law the artificial leg wearer

chose to call us, cannot hire us because of the insurance companies. It’s true there are some cripples working in private factories. I, too, have worked in factories, but I had to sign compensation exemption papers to get it, then work for less than the man next to me in order to get off relief for awhile. Now the WPA doesn’t seem to want us. Yet our taxes are the same as the more fortunate. The thing for the artificial leg wearers to do is band together and make a protest to society for our rights. The Constitution reads speech, pursuit of happiness, and justice for all. ®.8 = INDORSES ATTACK ON BASEBALL POOLS By “Good for Wondering” I wish to shake the hand of the person who wrote an article on the baseball pool tickets on Jan, 21. This vicious form of gambling should be stopped and wiped out for good. . . . If the police department does not wish to co-operate in ridding our city of this racket, then Mr. Blue should investigate the reason for

| this laxity. . . .

.- JANUARY SHINES By MARY P. DENNY January shines in glory bright Far in the glow of winter light. In glory and beauty to Heaven's height. Glories of the white snowflake Over. the glittering bright frozen . lake. Sparkle of sleet and ice in winter alr

Shining in beauty everywhere. Drifts of snow over the brown grass Where the tiny gray rabbits pass. January shines in the cedar tree Where the tones of winter shine

free All gid bf New Year to you and Shining and shining ‘in radiant Reaching away through day. and nigh

DAILY THOUGHT

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, “because thou hast seen Me, ‘thou hast believed: Blessed. are: they

‘ that have not seen, dnd yet have

kept my nose out of other people’s|.

In answer to Mr. Black's letter| § last week. Why plead to the people] §

or the cripple, as the employers]

free

Gen. Johnson Says—

F. D. R. Terms lt Nonsense That

He'd Transfer Part of Navy but Why Does Bill Provide for Just That?

ASHINGTON, Jan. 24.—The President says that any suggestion that, under the Lease~ Lend Bill he might transfer part of our Navy to another nation is a “cow-jumped-over-the-moon”

idea—meaning, we may suppose, Mother Goose non=- -

sense or a palpable impossibility. “Hi-diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.” "He also says that he never even considered using the Navy to convoy American shipments to Britain. A great deal of confusion is creeping into this debate. There is nothing in the Lease-Lend Bill about convoying ships. Providing they are not violating the Neutrality Act and the President's own proclamations thereunder, by entering proclaimed war zones, or otherwise, American ships can still sail the sea. If there is danger ot illegal interference with them by another nation while they are in pursuit of their law-

‘| ful business, the President doesn’t need any additional

authority to protect them with naval convoys. There-

fore the convoy argument is not properly in the de-

‘bate on the Lease-Lend Bill, But this “cow-over-the-moon” business is something else again. There is no authentic record of any cow jumping over any moon, but there is a very recent and rather startling record of a President transferring a very substantial part of our Navy, to wit, 50 destroyers, to a belligerent nation. It was done without any specific authority.

8 8 #

HERE is also a considerable record of diddling public opinion just before election or during the debate on hotly contested legislation by promises that were quickly forgotten—for example, the 1933 promise not to violate the gold covenants in our bonds and money. That was the highest - diddlediddle in all our economic history. But there was no remedy. All that happened was that “the little dog laughed to see su sport and the dish ran away with the spoon.” If there is no intention to transfer any part of our sorely needed armament, why is it necessary to grant unlimited authority to do so? With a little paraphrasing and transposition, which does no vio. lence to its intent, the 1776 bill authorizes the President” to sell, transfer, lease, lend or otherwise dispose of X Xx X any weapon, munition, aircraft, vesse} or boat Xx x x any component material Xx x x any other commodity or article for defense.” © This “includes any (such defense) article x x x manufactured or processed Xx x x or to which the United States x x x has or hereafter acquires title, possession or control.” This transfer may be made to the “Government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”

HE terms of the transfer ‘shall be those which the President deems satisfactory and the benefit to the United States may be payment or repayment in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory”—for example, a few kind words or, under the common law of consideration in England and our country, so slight a thing as “a peppercorn, a nut or a bunch of may.” There is no doubt about it, the bill in its present form includes outright donations to the President of the power of gift of any or all of the defense resources of the United States, the power to wage allout economic war and a very substantial patt of the power to wage undeclared military and naval war for any cause or without cause and for or against any nation anywhere in the world. There has been no showing of necessity for any such drastic delegation of power, any such abdication of Congress. The argument is not against that assertion—not that such powers are not granted by the bill—but only that such extreme powers will not be used. “High-diddle-diddle.”

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

A STRONG feeling of kinship with humanity helps the individual to bear his own burdens. The perennial moaner has lost, or never had, this feeling, therefore he believes Fate has singled him out for trouble. He thinks of himself as the only miserable being on earth, and naturally his sorrows are magnified This is why people are able to endure mass catastrophes with better grace than they bear petty individual grievances.. T here grows up within them a sense of fellowship. Each needs the other desperately; each must show valor or the whole group gives way to despair. We are susceptible to mass courage, just as we are susceptible to mass hysteria and mass cruelty. It seems a pity, however, that we so seldom display moral bravery in ordinary times, and must face dangers as a group before we can act our best as individuals. It is merely lack of imagination which prevents us from developing this close friendly feeling when the days go peacefully. Life is drab, calling for no dramatics, and the injured innocents multiply like locusts in a dry summer. Whenever I hear the old hymn, “The sun shall never go down,” I am reminded that, even on our earth, it never does go down. It shines upon someone all the time. While we are enveloped in night, other men and women gaze joyously upon the dawn and are blessed by the warmth of the bright day star. And so in our turn shall we be warmed and cheered it we can endure the gloom and darkness for a while. Personal sorrow is borne bravely only when this thought can remain uppermost in mind. Everyone has grief. Financial worries, the frets and fears of life, beset us all, falling often upon the luckiest ‘when they are unaware. For, as the poet x is the common fate of all.” sna From an acute sense of kinship with hun in trouble is born a sort of courage, higher than, t courage which drives men to physical. ‘combat; .. yr a valor of spirit, challenging us to endure what other have endured since the world began and to star under blows which for countless generations ry of earth have borne. an Therefore, trite as the words may. unalterably true—in thinking of . others we forget our own. Thus we : not only with man, but with God,

Questions and 4

(The lnZianapolis Times Service question of fact or information. search. Write vour questions « inclose a three-cent postage cannot’ be given. Aa Ty Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth 88.

Q—What disposition was ma late Lord Lothian? - «

Lincoln mated. The ashes were { Cemetery on Monday; | honors, and placed in a battleship Maine, where rangements for final disposi

tablished in 1935 at of law, science, medicine, The student enrollment is Q—What is a “barge ¢ A—A vessel for towing on the Great Lakes. ve Q-—Please .give the f

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