Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 January 1941 — Page 18

. PAGE 18 The Indianapolis Times

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ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERRE!Z ~ President Editor . Business Matager

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«<P> RILEY 55il

Give Light and the People Will Pind Their Own Way THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1941

DEATH OF A DICTATCR

IT is too early to tell whether the military brilliance of «Little John” Metaxas, who died yesterday, has saved Greece. If Hitler should put the heat on, Italy’s fumbles might be retrieved, and the independence that Greece won in the 1820s cancelled. But, whatever the end of the story may be, history will honor this man who exposed the fable of Axis infallibility and set in motion a sequence of events that has revolutionized the strategic situation in the eastern Mediterranean. ; He was “premier for life”—a dictator—it is trye. But ‘the world could better have spared certain other gentlemen

who have used their dictatorships, not for defense, but for.

plunging the world into a cauldron of hate and misery.

LINE Of LEAST RESISTANCE

ESTIFYING for the bill to boost the national debt limit * to 65 billion dollars, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau told a Congressional committee yesterday: : “At this time our whole effort should be concentrated on national defense. One step which the Government should ‘take is economy in non-defense expenditures.. All such expenditures should be re-examined, with a magnifying glass to make certain that no more funds are granted than are absolutely essential.” We'd like to believe that what Mr. Morgenthau advocated will be done. Congress. will ‘have to raise the debt limit. But along with that, ‘Congress ought to reduce the ordinary costs of Government. taxes, and to go all the way—instead of only part way, as this bill proposes—toward the necessary reform that will tax the interest on future issues of Federal and state bonds. . But we are not hopeful, either for economy or for adequate taxation or for a thoroughgoing attack on the evil of tax-exempt Government securities. We agree with Dr. Edwin W. Kemmerer and other economists who pointed out, a few days ago, that: “As a method of financing a great national emergency like war, inflation is the line of least political resistance.” : Therefore, we fear that Congress and the Administration will follow this line of least political resistance in financing the great national emergency of defense. Failure to economize, failure to tax adequately, failure to pay for armaments out of revenue rather than borrowing—all these tend to produce inflation, as the history of all nations has proved. But these failures are the easy way. Easy, that is, for a while. There is a powerful grcup in the Administration which, regarding spending as a virtue and economy as a vice, expects to produce great national prosperity by spending borrowed billions. undoubtedly can produce, temporarily, a feverish appear-

ance of prosperity. What it will promote later is another |

matter.

SENATOR OFF THE TRACK

SENATOR SMATHERS of New Jersey, noted for his loyalty to Mayor Hague and the New Deal, in that order, has had the bad judgment to introduce in Congress a resolution proposing admission of Cuba as a state of the American ‘Union. We do not understand this aberration of the Jersey statesman, but its folly is easy to comprehend. Strange as it may seem to the Senator, the people of Cuba are proud of their status as a sovereign nation. They aren't askihg to join our Union. And the people of other Latin-American countries, whose friendship and confidence we need, should not be given the false impression that “Yankee imperialism” has designs to absorb one of their number. We're glad Secretary Hull has promptly made it clear that the Smathers resolution iz “completely contrary” -to Administration policy.

~

AGAIN, MR. GREEN N an adjoining column is a letter from William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, protesting a recent editorial. In reply to Mr. Green, we say: As we predicted in the editorial to which you object, you take the tack that it is “false” to charge your A. F. ‘of L. building-trades unions with operating a fee-extortion racket and collecting unreasonable sums from men who seek jobs on national defense projects. We prefer to adopt the charitable theory that you don’t know what is going on in the organization of which you ‘are president. We suggest that you inform yourself. You will find if you care to look for facts, that, if anything, we have understated the scope of this rotten racket and the extent to which it has unjustly enriched the treasuries of your unions. It was all very nice to hear officials of your metaltrades and building-trades unions repeat their promises of a “No Strike” policy for the national defense program. As a matter of fact, we applauded these promises editorially ‘when they were first made some two weeks ago. Af the same time, we also applauded another promise—the promise of the building-trades unions to adopt nationally uniform maximum initiation fees for defense projects.

But’ this latter promise (which, incidentally, seems to |

us to have been an admission that the present fee system is wrong) has not been kept. There has been no public announcement of new maximum fees, and no move to refund the exorbitant fees collected under the present system. Of course, Mr. Green, your “impression” that we want Congress to adopt compulsory open-shop legislation is completely wrong. As we stated, in the editorial which you protest, we're against that idea. And, as we also stated, if such anti-labor legislation gets enacted it will be largely

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ered by carrier, 12 cen's |

It ought also to increase |

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler - . Hod Carriers Never Hold Elections

Or Conventions’ and Leaders Are Always "Away" —Miami for Instance

EW YORK, Jan. 50.—I am going to tell you some more about the union racket which is shaking down the poor pick-and-shovel stiffs in the great national effort to spread freedom everywhere, on which President Rooscvelt vowed that nobody would

anc-shovel shakedown is the Hodcarriers’ and Common Laborers’ Union, and it is the sweetest graft of all, hecause the boys just go alcng cuietly and mysteriously, never holding elections or conventiohs but always collecting the money, and whenever you try to ges in touch with them they are away. It is like trying to nail a plank oa a cloud of smoke to dnvestigat?® the hod-carriers’ and commor. laborers’ racket. You know it is there, but when.you try * to touch it, it ain’t. | This union now claims 250,000 members. That much I dic get from the woman who answered the phone in Washington, where the headquarters were established last April after many years in Quincy, Mass. Joe Moreschi, the boss, or international president, explained to the local Chamber of Commerce in Quincy that he was raovingz the business to Washington to be closer to tlie public pulse—obviously a misprint for “purse,” inasmuch as his boys have been extorting from $25 to $50 per head from American citizens desiring to turn ¢ few spades of soil in the building of cantonments, powder plants and the like. 2 8 =» HE boss, however, is not in Washington, and neither is the s:eretary, Achilles Persion. - They are out of town, anc will be gone for a month. Guess where they! are. Out in the snow heartening their loyal followers is they chip the frozen soil with picks to earn’ a féw eating-bucks for their families? You know! better than that! Mr. Moreschi and Mr. Persion ar: down in Miami to confer with themselves on solemiu affairs of labor with a capital L, in a sereis of deliberations which will include an accredited representative of the Chicago underworld. You would think that a big international union of the A. F. of L. would leave some imprint, if only a scar, on a city the size of Quincy after 20-odd years of official residence; there. The teamsters and carpenters are pretty imporj.nt in Indianapolis, for instance. . But in Quincy, Mass., the pick-and-shovel racket was very. aloof. Mr. Moreschi was generally “out” or “away,” and the local people know little tbout him or his union, except that the union c.d build a three-story ‘edifice. for its headquarters. He became president after the death of Dominick D’Allesandro in 1526, and “became president” is about as good a term as can be used to describe the process. The rgnk and file were not consulted, nor has their opinion. “een asked on any question since the last convention in 1911,

8 2 #

ORESCHI “became president” and president he remains, and nowadays, according to the claim of his own office iti Washingten, his central treasury draws tribute from 250,000 American workmen-—some of them willing suckers, of course, but others victims of plain extortion. fis 3 At the rate of 3% cents a month per member, which was the same graf: that was extorted from the building service worke:s by George Scalise, that would yield $1,050,000 a vear to the international treasury, and we don’t know how many years this graft has been rolling in or wha; has been done with any of it beyond paying the salaries of about 20 office hands at headquarters and a miserable little death benefit ranging from $50 to $200. This union is so roften that even the gorillas of the movie employces’ recket may look with envy and admiration on the larcenous effrontery of the racketeers who run both the international and the dirty little shakedown }ocals| which carry the message of organized labor down to the pick-and-shovel stiffs. But the other A, F. of L. construction unions, which collaborate with it and give it aid and comfort by their standing agreements ‘to strike jobs struck by the common laborers, gre only a little less guilty.

That formula. |

Business . By John T. Flynn

"Silly" Dollars to Finance Defense Now Worrying Our Fiscal Experts

EW YORK, Jan. 30.—The silly old dollar sign, which the President said he was glad to see knocked out of thé picture, seems to be bothering the Government financiers. : Between mow and July, 1942, the United States : Gavernment is going to have to go out and put the bee on somebody for $11,500,000,000—maybe a little more or less. I say maybe a little more or less. But it may be a great deal more. Because this figure does nct include the money we are to spend to pay the war bills of Great Britain. That may run to as much as three or five or more billions. And of course we will have to borrow that too. In short, big-hearted Sam, who in the next 18 months is going to run himself in the red over 11 billions to pay his own bills, is going to have to put’ himself deeper in hock to pay Britain's Gills, | : And the question is getting hot—how will Uncle Shylock borrow this money? Four years age a United States Senate Committee, after long hearings and much puklicity, warned the Government and the Pechle of the’dangers inherent in unwise war financ-

g. . We have kicen borrowing the money for recovery at the banks afd that-is easy now—but full of danger in the end. We can borrow the money for the defense progran: at the banks. That 4oo will be easy, but it will be far inore full of peril, because, first, the borrowing will be enormous compared with the recovery: borrowing and, second, it will be superimposed on thei recovery borrowing.

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ORROWING at the banks creates bank deposits —bank inoney. It creates enprmous new floods of purchasin: powe;. When this happens the pressure on prices becomes irresistible and they soar. Then everything gets out of kilter, prices get out of. balance, the cost of defense rises, wages and materials go up: and ve are'in grave trouble. And so the Government finance experts are struggling with the problem of borrowing that money without borrowing it from the banks, Because it is borrowing from banks that causes .all the trouble. | ’ My own guess is that what the economists and the financia! experts look upon as trouble the politicians will l50ok.upon as paradise. They want to create purchasing power. They want to generate a boom. | Messrs. Rex Tugwell and Gilbert and Ezekiel— Governmen: econcmists—have already stated that what this nation reeds is at least 12 billions a year in Governnient spending to prove that this practice as a policy is a sound way to create purchasing power. An: now cur Government financiers are trying to: fint a way of spending 12 billions without creating new purchasing power. ; Getting this money hy taxing is th hard way. Getting it by low interest private borrowing from individuals is also a hard way. The Government wants to clo it the easy way. Doing it the right way would ruin the boom and spoil the war, So we will do 1t the easiest way in the end.

So They Say—

THE ONLY ONES who can survive in the present world are those who are accustomed to great disappointment or those who can gracefully themselve: to great A Henry

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¥. Ashurs! on retiring from long ser’

be allowed to profiteer. The picke-|-

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Hi Say—!

rman Sie

Ps

THURSDAY, JAN. 30, 1941

2 FRI 2

The Hoosier Forum

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

A STRONG DISSENT TO PASTOR'S LETTER

By Spencer Grant It has been estimated that fewer people attend church now than did a few years ago. In reading the Rev. Daniel H, Carrick’s article in the Hoosier Forum on Jan. 27th I can readily see why . :

#2 = = WILLIAM GREEN REPLIES TO OUR EDITORIAL

By William Green, Federation of Labo I protest the publication of the editorial bearing the title, “How’s That, Mr. Green?” in The Times of Jan. 27.. Its intemperate character reflects the feeling of hatred which the one who wrote it entertains toward the American Federation of Labor. I interpret this attitude as in keeping with the general anti-American Federation of Labor policy which the ScrippsHoward papers have manifested for quite a long time. I presume it made you “sick at your stomach” when you heard it repeated in radio addresses last Sunday afternoon by representatives of the American Federation of Labor, that the metal-trades organizations, whose members are building the new Navy. guns, tanks, defense material of all kinds, had announced a “No Strike” policy, and that the building-trades organizations had done likewise, in order to advance the defense program inaugurated by the Federal Government. Your editorial is founded on hate, not facts.” Your charges that build-ing-trades unions, which have voluntarily adopted a “No Strike” policy, are engaging in a fee extortion racket, are false. : I gain the impression from your reprehensible editorial that you would have Congress adopt com=pulsory legislation providing for the open-shop. If that impression is correct, you can ‘be classified as among the open-shop, reactionary employers and the anti-union labor forces of our country, I recognize that no good purpose can be served in writing to you, I am doing so only because duty demands that I protest. Your editorial will be brought to the attention of all national and

president, American r.

(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.)

local unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, so that they may understand the attitude of the Scripps-Howard publications toward them.

EJ » ” THOSE CIGARETS AGAIN! 'AND HOW ABOUT A PIPE?

By J. C. M. To begin with, Mr. Rogers, I defy you to find a breath of pure fresh air in our fair city at this time of year. (City fathers please note.) Anyway I would much rather smell cigaret smoke than our ,present brand of fresh air. I don’t seem to remember Miss Cutter painting such a rosy picture of the habit. So far as I can see, she was merely defending her right to indulge as she sees fit and questioning the fact that smoking makes a pagan of a Christian. I doubt very much if you or Mr. Stark are qualified to judge that. I think I presented my opinions before of the far-fetched resemblance drawn by Mr. Stark and since yours falls into the same category, I see no point in repetition. I wonder if either of you gentlemen object to a pipe. .

8 2» ANSWERING PEGLER ON DEFENSE JOB FEES

By Lee Roberts This is an answer to Mr. Pegler and whoever wrote the article on William Green. I have belonged to the Building Trades for three years. Three years is not a long time but it was before this defense program started. I paid $75 to join my organization and when I have served my appren-

ticeship I will pay an additional $25

be

Side Glances=By Galbraith

# | ‘Neath

for my Journeymen’s Card. I also pay monthly dues. When this defense program started the Building Trades couldn't supply men. The men placed on these jobs were given working permtis, For our own protection we were forced to take these men in our organizations and try to make union men out of them. We cannot take these men into our organizations for nothing. They have to pay the same as we did. What would we do when this rush is over if these men who have been taught our trades would go to work for 50 cents an hour? All unions affiliated with Building Trades have agreements calling for well over $1 per hour. It would take only a short time to tear down the conditions that union men have been fighting for years to build. When we try to protect these conditions we are condemned and called crooks in an article called, of all things, “Fair Enough.” . The initiation fee has been $100 in my organization for more than 25 years. It has not and cannot be increased. ” ” ”

NEGOTIATED PEACE SEEN AS MERE TRUCE By Claude Braddick, Kokomo, Ind.

would please everybody but the Nazi-Fascist-Japanese-jingo combination—and Col. Lindbergh; a Nazi

N-F-J-J combination; and a negotiated peace would please nobody but Col. Lindbergh. For the “greatest good to the greatest number,” then, we may set down British victory as most desirable, a Nazi victory as second, and negotiated peace as least desirable of all. In my own inexpert opinion, a negotiated peace would be only a truce in which all the nations would enter immediately upon a mad and ruinous scramble for armaments, ” = ~8 A DIG AT JOHNSON FOR AID BILL STAND By W. H. Edwards, Spencer, Ind. Gen, Hugh “Ironpants” Johnson has broken out again with that dreadful rash, Hate Rooseveltitis. .. . But now he currently is gnashing his teeth at his former friend, Wendell Willkie, for no other reason but that Willkie chooses to cast aside partisan politics and show his Americanism. I really feel sorry for. the old “Gink”; he backed the wrong- horse in the November race and, so, lost out in a chance of being made Secretary of War. Well Hugh, I didn’t vote for F. D. R. either, but so many others did vote for him that your ballot and mine were snowed

under. Unlike you, I am standing by the verdict of -the electorate,

NEW DAY AND OLD

By SEEDY In rising light of early dawn, In scent of ox-turned, fragrant sod And robin’s lilt o'er dewy lawn, New day, from nocturne drowsy ao” Awakens, lifts her rainbow gaze And sings the glad unstinted praise; In truth, Thou art a wondrous God.

In waning light of eventide, In tall-plumed, swaying golden rod twinkling stars strewn heaven-wide, Old day, from heavy labor’s hod Lies down fo rest in moonbeam’s

glow ; And dreams of Thee woth clea:ly show; In truth, Thou are a wondrous God.

DAILY THOUGHT

Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, whica I com-

ald shieo this. 4ay, 10 do ther

A

‘I gather that a British victory ]

victory would please only the]

Gen. Johnson Says—- Li

Draft Is Working Smoothly, but

More Flexibility Seems to Be Needed In the Classifying of Married Men

ASHINGTON, Jan, 30.—A quick glance at the : Selective Service Administration’s record to date indicates that it is going forward efficiently and well and with general popular approval. When you stop to consider that what we are dealing with here is outright conscription supposed to be in direct conflict with our Anglo-American traditions of democracy and personal freedom, this condition speaks volumes for the excellence with which the job has been handled. . This is a cause of understandabie satisfaction to this writer, because the whole system follows without many important changes the plans and policies worked out by trial and error during the World War. The biggest single causes of dissatisfaction are Army medical rejections after draft boards’ acceptance and the lack of uniformity among the thousands. of local boards in taking or deferring married men. In this respect the law leaves Mr. Dykstra with less discretion than we had. The fact of actufl dependency of wives and children rather than the'fact of marriage is made the deciding circumstance. The question of dependency is one of the relative degree to which a family is dependent on its head. The law puts.that up to the local boards and not-to the director.

LJ 8 ”

VV ERE the wife and husband both have jobs, is she “dependent”? Where the wife and husband have ample income apart from his work, is that dependency? Where the husband is a no-good bum who never took the trouble to support his family, should he escape service on the ground that he is married ? ? If the answer to such questions is left entirely to the local boards, there is bound to be a very wide difference in result. This created the toughest problem in the World War draft also. It makes more noise than the facts warrant. Then there were 4.8 million married registrants. Four million, four hundred thousand, or 90 per cent, were deferred. Many / of those not deferred had no claim filed for them either by themselves or their wives. In hundreds of cases, a wife would drag some worthless loafer in and demand that he be taken. In some of these cases the demand was recanted on the ground that the threat of service had made a perfect husband. The net result of that experience was a gradual and continuous relaxation of the rule in favor of not breaking up families. wheréver it could be possibly and justly avoided. After all, under the classification system as it was worked out in 1918, none of these men was excused from the draft. They were only deferred in favor of taking first all men who had no family ties whatsoever. ’ /

MAN who had only a wife who was not necessarily dependent wouldn't be taken from her while there were available single men . without dependents, except in the case of recent hurried marriages obviously contracted to avoid the draft. A man with a wife and child whe were not dependent, would not be taken until all single men and all married men with non-dependent wives but no children had been called. A married man, whether or not he had children, who didn’t support his family, was classed as a single man and one who was dependent on his wife, rather than she on him, was in a class by himself which by the famous “work-or-fight"

service.

and the most poetic justice of the draft, but that flexible classification finally worked to universal satisfaction. To the extent that it can't be repeated under the present law, the law should be amended to permit it. What is the use of retracing old errors when a better way has been so exhaustively proved. The success of selective service is entirely dependent on public confidence in its perfection and fairness, sympathy and common sense.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

OOD news as well as evil comes from Europe, The solid, conservative Church of England stirs like a sleeping giant. If it ever awakens to a realization of its total strength and resolves to use that strength for social reforms, we may expect a great spiritual renaissance. ‘ Post-war aims have recently been made public and there seems to be a gathering together of re- : ligious leaders who are determined -to make themselves heard. The following paragraph states part of those aims:

“Christian people should take the fullest share in public life, .both in Parliament, in municipal councils, in trade unions, and all other bodies affecting the public welfare.” Fine! The same thing would sound good to American ears. Our church spires pierce the clouds above every city and hamlet, yet, being honest with our own hearts, dare we assert that any religion, whether Catholic, Jew or Protestant, plays a proud part in the management of our state or national affairs? It makes little difference what creed we follow. The thing that matters most is whether our religious principles have meaning’ where they are most needed -in the market places and the political arena. When coniined only to ritual, or charity or to lifting mortgages from handsome edifices, they have slight influence upon the American way of life. The story of the birth of all religions is replete with heroism. What powerful forces opposed Christianity in its infancy! How swiftly its adherents were mowed down by sword! What martyrdoms were suffered! Yet for every Christian destroyed, hundreds arose to preach the strange and stirring doctrines of ‘the Carpenter of Nazareth. : : We still preach them—but with what weak and; timorous voices. In every American community thou sands of good men and womeq are afraid to “stand up for Jesus” except in Church. They close their eyes to the evils around them, lest enemies be made. They lock themselves in their closets to pray while the young people in their cities

are exposed to countless temptations which could be eliminated if religion were a vital and living force. And in every community, nowadays, we find many Christains too spineless to lift their voices against the defeatism which slowly, but surely, drags their nation to war. They are silent, even though they should know that if the Church abdicates ohce more upon this issue it will have proved itself too weak in ethics and courage to merit salvation.

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer ny question of fact or information. not involving extensive researth. 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—Has the birthplace of Andrew Jackson been finally determined? A—Andrew Jackson was born in thé Lancaster district of the Waxhaw (New Lancaster County, South Carolina), a pioneer settlement on the North Cards / lina-South Carolina line, Marquis James in his biog - raphy, “Andrew Jackson: The Border Captain,” makes an exhaustive study of the documents extant, and declares the weight of evidence is that Jackson was born March 15, 1767, in the Crawford house, then and now on the South Carolina side of the boundar¥ which was then in dispute and was not determined until 1813. Q—Please name the different kinds charges issued by the U. 8. Army? ; A—General provisions, disability,

ity = dependency, fraudulent enlistm ; mh, 1 unfiin lack

(or traits

order we finally put first on all lists for immediate ,

This problem created some very amusing situations

puichage, minor-

73

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of service dis- 8 ;