Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 January 1941 — Page 9

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«fp RILEY (551 Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Woy MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 1941

$65,000,000,000 S° now a bill is introduced to hike the legal limit on <he national debt by another 16 billion dollars, and leaders of| Congress and the Administration see no reason why it shouldn’t be put through in a hurry. : A few voices, here and there, suggest that first it : might be a good idea to survey the country’s whole fiscal problem. For example, they say, a joint committee of the ranking members on the appropriations and taxing com‘mittees of the two houses of Congress ought to get togetaer and study out a consistent policy, so that a legal debt limit would have some meaning. These cautious souls think plans should be made to head off a disastrous inflation of prices, and to insure continued full value for the defense bonds and savings stamps the people will be urged to buy. | But Congress is mighty busy, and $65,000,000,000 as a new legal debt limit sounds like a good round sum. After all, aren’t we planning to spend so much money that the national income will shoot up to a hundred billions pretty soon? And why waste time worrying about what the debt limit should be? Hasn’t Mr. Roosevelt told us that it’s cnly

B fmonitor,” anyway? ¥

: | HOW’S THAT, MR. GREEN? VWILLIAM GREEN, on the radio Sunday afternoon, pro"claimed in ringing tones: “The American Federation of Labor has enlisted for the duration of the emergency.” ' Okay, Mr. Green; that sounds very fine. And now will you put some heat on your A. F. of L. building-trades unions to cut out their rotten practice of extorting unreascnable “initiation fees” from men who want to work on defense projects? : | Candidly, Mr. Green, we don’t believe you will. You'll take the tack taken by George Masterson, vice president of your building-trades department, who had the crust to say, on that same radio program, that “the stories about exorbitant fees are exaggerated.” Or you'll mumble about how the unions are “autonomous,” and how you can’t give them orders—the same alibi you dodge behind when it’s : proved that some of your unions are lousy with racketeering. ; { You must know, Mr. Green, that this fee-extoriion thing is the biggest racket yet.. The unions have collected millions of dollars from men who, in many cases, aren't even admitted to membership. A great many of these men get fired, for no good reason, as soon as their fee install ments are paid, and the men who replace them also have to fork over. The unions have talked about scaling down the fees, but they don’t act. Pretty soon the emergency defense projects will be finished, the poor victims of the racket will be back on the street, and the union treasuries will be full of dirty money. + ‘| Congress is beginning to get mad about this thing, and many members are for a law requiring strict open-shop on all defense jobs. We don’t like that ides. But if this and other anti-labor legislation gets enacted, you can take & lot of the credit, Mr. Green—you and other great labor leaders who aren’t leading. . One thing, though, you could do, Mr. Green. So long as your building-trades unions continue to demand this price for “co-operating” in the defense program — this price squeezed out of needy men, many of them getting their first chance in years to earn decent wages—you could stay off the radio with speeches about how the A. F. of L. has “enlisted for the duration.” | We wish you would. We hate to get sick at the stomach oh a Sunday afternoon. : |

THE BUREAUCRACY REPORT EARLY two years ago the Attorney General, at the ' President’s suggestion, appointed a committee of lawyers and experts to study the administrative procedure of Federal departments and bureaus and recommend improvements. The fact that this committee was on the job was used as an argument against passage of the Logan-Walter Bill and later, by Mr. Roosevelt, as an argument for that bill’s veto. : . Well, the committee finally has crashed through with a report, and its chairman, Dean Acheson, is now ready to move on to a new job as Assistant Secretary of State. | The body of the report fills about 1000 typewritten pages. There are more than 400 pages of appendices, “describing important phases of administrative procedure.” ere are 130 more pages of detailed recommendations for changes in the 33 Federal agencies—out of some 130— which were studied specifically. (It may be assumed that the committee found plenty wrong with present methods.) . We won't pretend to have given this enormous docu- > ment a thorough examination. We've read, so far, just enough of it to gain the impression that it is in general a good piece of work which should become. the basis for prompt action.

+

SING, BOYS, SING! : “HE WAR DEPARTMENT is getting out a new official ' song book, designed to help “maintain a high morale in the Army.” It omits the celebrated “Mademoiselle From 'Armentiers,” but will include, among some 60 others, the old favorite beginning with, “Oh, the minstrels sing of an English king—" Sh 7 . We won’t be surprised to find tha: the War Department, being nothing if not pure-minded, has done a little § revising and expurgating on the balance of that ballad.

| : NOT BRONX CHEERS, EITHER NAAYBE a Congressional Medal of Honor wouldn't be the | right decoration, but a grateful country must not fail to recognize John Shea, 23, of New York’s Bronx. | To get in shape to leave for camp with his National Guard company, he spent 1014 straight hours in a denist’s phair, getting three teeth extracted, four others lec, five yns cemented and i and two new remcvable

repair adnstalled.

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Fair Enough - By Wesibrook Pegler

Public Indifference "to * Rakeoff

By Unions From Defense Workers “A Grave Reflection on Our Morals

EW -YORK, Jan, {7—Some months ago I remarked that the American people were so far gone in such vices as graft and deceit by public men, so comfortably adjusted to profiteering on public office by relatives of high officials, that, in words of one syllable, they just don’t give. a dam. Some of my fellow citizens | were wounded sore by that observation, but not as much, I think, by the fact itself as by the open recognition of it. You call a con-man a speculator or a cafe trollop a glamour girl end nobody’s feelings are hurt, but (hey are what they are just . the #ame, as well we know and they, too. And, similarly, .if you Just [sort of gold-plate our na- | tional, popular immorality in civie affalis as an amiable frivolity people don’t riind. On the contrary, they think it rather cute or mischievious, although we know it all amounts to a jerrible burden of graft that comes out of the work and earning; of the citizens and a cynical condonation apd encouragement of wrong, This sales {alk is by way of introducing a discussion of a condition that, could not exist in any land whose people ‘were not tod sloppy in their morals to care. I refer {to the exiortion of millions of dollars from Americar. citizens hy labor unions, mostly unions of the A. F. of L., in return for permission to work on camps, arsenals and other works having to do with the national defense. | 2 = = T the bas¢ we have the fact that workers are allowed to brganize for collective bargaining, which is an honest nactment| in that respect. But these A. PF. of L. unions have been forcing men to join up at extortionati: rates, and the American people and the Congress, {which knows their mind, are so tired of studying out things, so| discouraged in the matter of insisting on their rights| and protesting, that nobody is doing anything about'it. So a few private and, in some cases, viry exclusive organizations are carting off tons of nioney which the people pay into the Treasury as taxes and the Treasury pays out to the workmen as wages. : : The so-called hod-eafriers’ union is a spectacular example, althcugh, of course, the carpenters and electriclans and ail are getting theirs, too. hh The hod-carriers’ is| the common laborers’ union. It has not held a natipnal convention in 30 years, but it has been .charging common pick-and-shovel workers $50 initiation fee plus dues. If we assume for a figure—:ind not an extravagant figure, by any means—that £0,000 such men have been put to work that would mean a rakeoff of $2,500,000 for that union alone, without! reckoning in the dues at all. Whose right of collegtive bargaining is this, anyway? Was it intended fo protect the workmen or to provide a graft for &| private organization? The workmen don’ want to join. They don’t rally round the union collector and implore him to be their bargaining agent, Personally, they would much prefer to part his heir with | spade and save that $50 per head plus dues, which would buy considerable shoemileage for their kids dr gin for their innards come Saturday night. 2 = ” UT they have-to give up to this stranger who shows up on work bf the United States Government, and if the contractor puts them to work without the giveup this stranger will jerk his head at the strangers representing | the carpenters’ and electricians’ union g#nd they jerk the job, anq the soldiers can sleep undér the stars. : This eommon laborers’ union is one of our pretties. Over in| Pennsylvania it bestrode the big highspeed highway job and took first cut at the pay of the poor, horriy-handed sidehill dodgers of the farms and mines, many of them just getting off .relief or public doin’-ajound jobs, who had muscle to sell and, by happy chatrice, a place to sell it. * But. in Chicago it issiied a sheaf of charters like a deck of cards/to a dirty blackhander and gunman of the Colosimo.Capone e¢ivilization named Mike Carrozzo, who was such a low and notorious gorilla that even in Chicago he couldn't get naturalized until his third attempt | The locals, be it remembered, get most of the graft, paying only & small divvy to the international, and the local may be one hoodlum, as in the case of Carrozzo, who was in himself about 30 locals, accountable to fobody, arid one of the richest men in town in ready cash. But what's the use?| The Americans don’t mind. Tt is the quaint, corrupt American way.

Business

By John T. Flynn

Britain Hag Billions of Other Assets Besides Those in U. S.

EW YORK, Jan, 27.—I have tried to point out that, according fo our Federal Reserve Board reports, Greaf, Britain qught to have in this country to pay for her purchases here more than eight billion dollars of assets, less about a billion and a half dollars which she used to settle her balances last year. This is what she should have if cur Reserve Board has not made an amazing statistical blun-

der, But Britain should have available to pay her bills a great deal more than this. According to her own figures she has something over four billion dollars of assets at present sterling exchange rates. She | has $8,800,000,000 in her | various dominions and dependencies.| She has a lot more in Asia and Europe, jwhich we need not,consider since their value may be now extinguished by the war. Here, then, is $12,80(,000,000 of assets—gavernment bonds, railways, oil wells, mines, stocks and corporate bonds—which, can be converted into dollars. It is entirely possible that any attempt, to convert these into dollars quickly would result ‘n shrinkages .in value. But they do not have to be converted quickly. The British can have g year or two to do this. And they do not have to be all converted—only about two billions at the most to make up her so-called dollar deficits here this year. || Congress vill certainly want to know why an empire which his such yast liquid and semi-liquid re=sources should tell this Government that she will order nothing more after Jan. 1 because she can pay for nothing riore. If she can pay for nothing more, it is because she refuses to use the resources she has to pay.

i Fd » ” HAT Congress should insist on having is more complete data. [am satisfied that the total convertible resources ¢f Britain are not as large as these figures! indicate,| There is some duplication. There are strinkages in value. But there are still many billions available. Congress should ask the Federal Reserve Board to furnish the cata on which its figures are based and should then seek to learn what has become of all the assets of Brifain listed by the Reserve Board if Mr. Morgenthau’s| estimates ‘are right. © This is no small maiter. It means that the United States, which|cannot pey its own bills, which is forced to borrow nirie or 10 billions of dollars this year, and which has nd funds to pay these bills of Britain and must borrow ‘the money to pay them, should do this while Britain has so many billions available to pay

her own bills to fight her own war.

Of course the bill is high. But after all, war is expensive. England began this war without consulting us and, 8; Mr. Kennedy says, did not and has not stated her war aims. And she still has the money to pay: her bills, Why should we pay them when doing so means the risk of war? We should at least know all the facts. |

So They Say— .

I HAVE NEVER liked democracy for I am temperamentally /hostile to the heavy taxation visited on e well-to-do.—The Very Rev. William Ralph Inge, retired “Gloomy Dean!” of St. Paul's, London. i . $$ = * FOR ALL I CARE gbout this desert, you ! I myself am —Gen. Francesco

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The Hoosier Forum

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

ASSAILS STAND TAKEN BY COL. LINDBERGH

By H. S.

And so Lindbergh wants neither side to win the war and wants peace as soon as possible. That would of course mean that the Nazis are to keep everything they have grabbed so far. Or does he think they would give up their loot unless they are licked? No wonder that the Nazi press praises him and that not a few people call him a Nazi. And he wants Uncle Sam to stay out. I assume that he is a Christian. But I wonder if he ever heard the story of the man who fell among the robbers and was rescued by a man from Samaria? Is it Christian not to help people attacked by cut-throats?

2 |» |» TERMS WILLKIE REALIST, GENTLEMAN AND GOOD LOSER

By Vox Populi Hats off to Wendell Willkie! He can see that if we are to stop Hitler and his idiotology from spreading to this hemisphere, we shall -have to grant the President powers similar to those he would have in waging war. Stopping Hitler by measures short of war requires executive authority even greater than that exercised by Wilson without question. ’ It was for this that Roosevelt was elected to a third term by the American people. Willkie is a realist, a gentleman and a good loser. Hats off to him! ” ” A SLAM AT EVANS FOR POLL TAX STAND

By Warren A. Benedict, Jr.

The loquacious representative from New Castle is now arguing for a poll tax on women as well as men. Part of the “mandate for the people,”. I presume. He claims men have transferred certificates of title to their cars to their wives in order to get their license plates without paying their poll ta¥es. Since these men must show their poll tax receipts in order to get their drivers’ licenses, I am afraid that argument does not hold water. : The bill is preposterous. It simply means, in the overwhelming majority of cases, that husbands would have two poll taxes to pay instead of one. In other words, more taxes.

(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.)

Is that a “mandate of the people”? Or a ruse to collect more taxes to provide more jobs for “deserving” ward-heelers? The veteran representative should acquaint himself with the facts relative to the poll tax. It is on its way out throughout the nation, being retained for the most part by only the poorer and more backward states. In all likelihood this added tax on the women will not pass; but should it, it would prove a terrible boomerang to some politicians who imagine they are being guided by a mythical “mandate of the citizens.” ” ” » WILLKIE A ‘TURN-COAT, PASTOR CONTENDS By the Rev. Daniel H. Carrick Wendell L. Willkie is the greatest turn-coat and political sleight-of-hand performer and underhand

worker ever known in American politics. It is clear to the public that Willkie and Roosevelt had an agreement before the eleetion which turned out to be a third terma for Roosevelt, the most atrocious thing that ever took place in the United States. It is very clear to the American people that Willkie is representing the war -gods of America and is working in the interest of Great Britain only and has never had a patriotic heart. Roosevelt never was a Democrat, for it is impossible for a New Dealer to be either a Democrat or a Republican, for the New Deal setup is a borrowed setup from European politics. . . . Willkie has indorsed Roosevelt and wishes to make him the “temporary dictator” of America at the expense of our American liberties, yet there is no war declared. Suppose Roosevelt does declare war after he is made dictator for a definite time, what will happen to we American people if he should surround himself with an Asiatic army from

Side Glances=-By Galbrith

”~27

Russia and wish to continue forever a dictator, arranging for his family to follow in his footsteps? Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the President's wife, recently said that “we should be willing to give up our liberties, for we could always get them back when we want them.” . . . + eee CITES DECAY OF ROME AS WARNING TO U. 8. By Arthur S. Mellinger I would like to add a few lines to Ed F. Maddox's “Lend-Lease Bill.” This is just a clever way which England will tell us after it is over that she doesn’t owe us anything. She leased the bases and fought our battles so she will say she doesn’t owe us anything. How long is our memory, “New Dealer?” Can't you remember five years back? Every time I hear about an indispensable man, I think back about 2000 years when there was a great republic known as Rome. This republic began to get into difficulties in many ways. But the worst was that men began to decay. The man who could give the biggest feed got the job. Now this continued until a man by the name of Julius Caesar came along. He saw the situation and did something about it. His work was so effective that he became a real indispensable man. The people began leaning upon him so much that his life was the only thing between the Roman nation and collapse. Brutus, in a wild fit of rage, killed Caesar, the indispensable man in that far off day. Rome crumbled rapidly into oblivion. Can’t you see the fallacy of depending upon one man to think and act for all? When he gives out there is danger, for no one can take his place. . . .

» ” ” CONTENDS CIGARET BELONGS TO SATAN By Bert L. Rodgers Yes, Miss Cutter, it concerns thousands of clean thinking people, their rights and liberties are denied them to inhale pure fresh air into their lungs when everywhere they are compelled to breathe the poisonous fumes of cigarets. Mr. Stark has stated real facts when he mentioned cigaret smoking is giving women a bloodhound facial droop. According to your article it would make one to believe cigaret smoking is a virtue. Still nastier is a fat bobbed-hair woman with a reeking cigaret between her lips, it gives her a cat-fish facial look (“beautiful”), The smoker's brain is harmed when the thousands of nerves controlling the brain are being narcotized. The cigaret is a Satanic thing and belongs to the devil. . . .

THE SILVER HEART

By FREE LANCE O, little dime with a silver heart Swing gaily on, to play your part With millions of others, wending their way To the great White House this very day! os March with these shining silver dimes Until their music rings like chimes Into the hearts that are sad and ill, March and sing with a bright good

will— . On, on, little dime of the silver heart

Help this grand cause, for, you are a part!

DAILY THOUGHT

And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity.— Leviticus 5:17.

to him

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BUT HE WHO never sins can

Gen. Johnson Says—

Agitation for Confederation of

English Speaking Peoples EvidenceOf Flabby Thinking in This Crisis

ASHINGTON, Jan, 27—On the face of it, war is a form of madness ss all the sages have said since the beginning, or as Emerson put it, “an epidemic insanity, breaking out here and there like cholera or influenza, infecting men’s brains instead

of their bowels.” That can’t be helped by talking about it, but its secondary infec tion of people who are not yet in

the affected area and who have: never fought and never will, passeth understanding—and the female of the species seems more deadly than the male. Miss Dorothy Thompson is leading: a new crue sade for “Union Now,” trotting out a lot of expatriates to argue for a new nation of “English-speaking peoples.” The idea is to copy the union of the American colonies under the Articles of Confederation, which attempted to bind together the American colonies in and after their revolution against precisely such a “union then” before our Constitution was adopted. It is not beside the point to suggest that the distinguishing feature of the Articles of Confederation was their utter futility and inadequacy. ” ” »

T was a “league of friendship.” As Max Farrand has written, “Congress might declare war but the states might decline to participate in it; Congress might enter into treaties but it could not make the states live up to them! Congress might borrow money but it could not be sure of repaying it; and Congress ° might decide disputes without being able to make the parties accept the decision. The pressure of necessity might keep the states together for a time, yet there is no disguising the fact that the Articles of Confederation formed nothing more than a gentlemen's agreenrent.” + * Exactly the same remarks might have been niade about the League of Nations. In this country, the great laboratory of experience, it was proved beyond peradventure, not only that such Articles of Confederation will not work but also, by the Constitution, what changes are necessary to make them work. Why then from this country should have proceeded such a repetition of proved error as the League of Nations and, to a greater astonishment, why now should proceed a suggestion of repetition of the Articles of Confederation for the “English-speaking peoples?” ” ” ”

URTHERMORE, what community of economic, " military or political interest necessarily follows the language that nations speak? What is to become of our “good neighbors”. and all-American defense when we leave out of this “union now” the Spanish and Portuguese speaking peoples of North, Central and South America? Where do the hundreds of Asian, Malayasian and African tongues of the British Empire fit in and our own Tagalog, Moro Ilocano and Illingote dialects? It is about the craziest pipe-dream yet advanced, but as this war mania spreads we can expect more and worse proposals. People who have the nerve to number “1776” a new bill practically authorizing our naval and military re-union with the British Empire, can't be expected to know’nor care that they propose to cancel out the Declaration of Independence, repudiate the American Revolution, dilute our strength with the world’s weakness, finance a new world war even to the bankruptcy of the United States and pave the way for bolshevist revolution and the triumphs of communism—everywhere in the world. With every week that passes, events more plainly suggest that the old fox of the world’s mad shindy is sitting cannily in the Kremlin waiting for the defenders of every other form of government to destroy themselves as a prelude to his own effortless triumph.

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A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson ‘F times of war prepare for peace,” cautions Eliza beth Parkhill Jordan, in a recently published booklet called “War’s End.” It deals with large affairs, but do we not live in a time when large affairs affect each individual destiny? None can deny it. Nor does Destiny withhold its heavy hand from the helpless heads of women. Therefore one of the most powerful chapters in Mrs. Jordan's book is addressed directly to us. “Good women of the United States,” it begins, “I see you sit ting in church every Sunday morning, millions of you, faithful and dependable. You keep the churches going, Things are not right in your world and all of us realize it, but what are we doing about it? Are you a good woman? Then take an interest in politics. Begin in a small way, right in your own district. Find out for yourself the faults. of the system. And when you get into politics don't be tarred with the same stick of greed and selfishness that smears too many people there, but if you are a good woman think of government as a place for absolute honesty.” From many sources comes the same challenge. Even the wisest men of our time are saying that the fate of our nation may depend upon the behavior of its women. Over and over again they point to an obvious fact. The middle and upper class housewife has more time to study political issues and influence voters than her husband who uses every ounce of strength to earn a living. Certainly we cannot escape the thought that we have moved far «from the security in which ‘a mothers lived. Ours is a world of tremendous haz= ards. And we. shall betray our children, indeed, if we refuse to look at thes Fazarc. i RS - However, there is alsohope, for we have the power to better conditions in our country and in the world. We can Jearn to vote intelligently if we set our minds to it. "And something even mote important—we can refuse to accept the mandates of men when our hearts tell us those mandates are evil. Women in the United’ States have had the vote for 20 years, but the majority have lacked belief in their own convictions. Thus they have continually repudiated their best instincts and so lost what slight =. influence they might have possessed. There's no use in being good, Sisters, unless we can make that good= nes a strong force in society. And, of course, the same thing goes for upright men everywhere.

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive research. Write your questions clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St.,. Washington, D. C.).

Q—What causes the various pictures that appear to be on the moon? A—A vivid imagination can turn the mountain and crater shadows on the moon into the face of the “Man in the Moon,” the “Woman in the Moon,” another woman in the moon apparently reading a book, or a rabbit standing on its head. Numerous other popular myths have arisen from the positions of the moon's shadows that are visible to the naked eye. With a telescope, however, most of the shadowy markings disappear and mountain ranges, canyons and ime mense craters appear. Many of the craters are 50 to 60 miles across, and some are more than 100 miles in diameter. . Q@—=What poem contains the line, “When you were a king in Babylon, and I was a slave’’? A—“To W. A.” by William Ernest Henley. It 1s included in his “Poems” under “Echoes,” No. XXVIIL, Q—I have seen hunters leave their firearms out-of doors when they retire for the night during subzero weather. Why? . A—The only reason that we can surmise is that the guns used have telescopic sights, and if brought inside a heated building the sight lenses would become foggy and sight would be impaired. 3 ‘ Q—Who established the first Sunday School in the

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