Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 February 1941 — Page 20
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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1941
SPEAKING OF WAR— Her HE final figures on accidents for 1940 are in, and they
are a national reproach: 96,500 dead, 9,100,000 injured. : : Lig : That is probably more than the dead and injured in Britain as a result of air raids{ Our dead are just as dead, our injured suffered no less excruciatingly.
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“NOT GERMANE” REP JERE COOPER (D. Tenn.) was in the Speaker's chair. He had been well coached. So when Rep. Maas (R. Minn.) offered an amendment to the Lend-Lease Bill, authorizing the President to negotiate for Britain’s Western Hemisphere possessions—at a price that would wipe out Britain’s war debt and leave her as much as 10 billion dollars to buy American munitions—presiding officer Cooper was prepared to rule, and he did rule— “Not germane,” he said, because the amendment dealt with acquisition of territories. Not germane, apparently becytis it was a plan whereby, at the end of this war, the United States would have something to show for the wealth it had thrown to the winds of Mars. We are to go all-out supplying ships, planes, tanks and guns, with no limit to the ultimate cost to U. S. taxpayers—but a Congressman is ruled out of order for suggesting that we try to get in return therefor some real estate and defense bases close to our shores and to the Panama. Canal. ; Not germane, although two proponents of the LendLease Bill had previously argued against the Maas amendment 6n the ground that this specific grant of authority wasn’t necessary, because the President, if he wanted to, could acquire those bases anyway, under the broad and undefined powers already in the bill. ~ Not germane, Rep. Cooper ruled—and so 435 elected Representatives of 130,000,000 people were denied their right to vote on this simple proposition. " But the question will come up again when the LendLease Bill is before the Senate, where clever parliamentary tricks don’t work so well. So, there will doubiless be a
~ yea-or-nay vote.
BY THE WAY, MAYOR INCE Mayor Sullivan has announced his intencion of attending the Conference-of Mayors in St. Louis later this month, we respectfully suggest that while he’s there he investigate that city’s successful smoke abatement drive.
GRADES, WAGES AND EDUCATION FTHE report of the Indianapolis public schools’ survey, published in this newspaper yesterday, deserves more than passing attention. These highlights we believe are »significant: 1. That there is a definite co-relation between the
grades of school pupils and their earning power in the busi- |
ness world. : 2. That more than four out of every 10 pupils ente college. Io 8. That 80 per cent of our pupils remain in Indianapolis. : 4. That two out of every 10 purchase their 6wn homes within 10 years of leaving school. The report is significant because it bears out the efforts of Superintendent DeWitt Morgan to shape in practical form the careers of youngsters entering high school. No . longer are the Indianapolis schools preparing all pupils alike for colfege whether they intend to go or not. Where a youngster has no intention of going to college the effort is now ‘to prepare him as much as possible for a practical education to assist him in his working life. It seems to us quite clear that the Indianapolis Public Schools systemNs on the right track.
AVIATION GETS A JOB BACK ITH America pouring billion after billion into military ~ %' aviation, it is something of a surprise to be reminded in a dispatch from Washington that the office of Assistant Secretary of War for aviation is still vacant, and has been for eight years. : - The office is finally to be given an occupant,"we are . informed, in the person of Robert A. Lovett, a New York banker who was in naval aviation in the World War. — When you consider that our present program calls for turning out 37,000 warplanes for the United States and | Great Britain by mid-1942, to say nothing of the personnel and facie, i is obvious that Secretary of War Stimson can make good use of an assistant secretary devoting all his time to aviation. We still think the Government should go whole-hog in its new emphasis on aviation, by establishing a unified air force under independent command, leaving to the Army and Navy only such aviation' units as are needed for close ctical co-operation with the land and sea forces. It is quite possible that our aviation would have been in better condition today if it had been running its own show for a period of years, instead of playing second fiddle to the champions of battleships and infantry. © We are pure this country will have a unified air force _gome. day. Germany and England both found that the best ay to attain maximum effectiveness. | ile, we are glad to note that aviation is no g orphan treatment in Washington—and we
TE ’EM Department announces omoted to the temporary rank of major. Should ‘be described as a major development in the upbuild-
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that 1013 captains have.
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
After Pioneering Trip to Florida And Some Close Calls With Death.
EW YORK, Feb. 7.—This place was a sort of LV jook down there, if’ you remember where you make that square turn to right by the entrance to Key Largo and start down the straight road toward Key West, about five or 10 miles down, on the left- . hand side, toward the sea. Distance fools you along there with those green water ditches by the road and jungle, but for a long way before you came to this place they had signs stuck up on stakes about their wonderful stone crabs and wonderful turtle steaks and pompano, So we finally came to it, and, like I say, there was this girl, or rather she was a woman about, maybe, 22, in slacks and a kitchen apron, and this little kid was playing all alone in a little clearing, & kid maybe 3 .or 4. She was not bad looking but kind of sloppy from around the kitchen, and the place where you eat was in a screened place with screen walls but a ‘ganvas roof, and these people lived in a little shanty-looking place out back. So we got talking, like, you know, you get talking with strangers, and it turned out she came from North Dakota, and here it was up around 100 degrees and back where she came from probably 40 below, but she says they can have Florida but give her where she came from, because she wasn’t any Daniel Boone, and pioneering was out of her line. 3
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OSQUITOLS, brother, they eat the meat off your bones in kloody big hunks, and if you get a flat along there at night it was worth your life to stop, because they would be attracted by your lights and your sweat, and sometimes you could see those conks— what they call the natives—working naked to the waist and thei! hide would be just black with mosquitoes, but the: coriks they hardly feel it on account of something int their blood. But if you arent a conk it’s murder, where back in Dakota if you kill a mosquito you have it stuffed and put it in a museum, and, furthermore, one night just lately, they had a painter on the roof and it like to scared her crazy.
speaking, although I read where people said like that in books, so I thought for a minute it was a, you know, a house-painter got drunk and went out lallygagging because, like=I say, she was pretty good looking, although she had her husband there, except he was down the 10ad when we was there, chopping down weeds and can: with a machete and setting out more signs about hi; wonderful crabs and turtle steak. She heard this painter screaming and came out and saw the bilge in the canvas where he was sitting on the roof, so she gave him a jab with a mop-handle, and before hes husband could get a shot at him he sailed off into the weeds, and you could see his white belly just as pretty in the moonlight, but his claws ripped the canvas like someone cut it with a razor,
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O we said it was a cute little kid, and she said that was another thing why she wanted to quit pioneering, | because the week before the husband heard a rattle in the weeds where he was setting out those signs and turned around and sloughed a rattlesnake over the head as big as an inner tube with his machete and brought it home at noon and threw it in the yard. Then after lunch he went back to put out more signs; and he said after work he was going to skin it and make a wonderful snakeskin belt or sell it to some tourist, because it was practically enormous and no holes in it like when you shoot them. So a little later she looked out the kitchen door, and there was the. little kid playing around the rattler and trying to pet it, and the snake was coiling up and coming around from the sock on the head with the machete, because it wasn’t dead but only stunned. So she near died of right, but she quick grabbed the old man’s automatic off ‘the bureau and ran back and whammed (tha snake, and she had to take a terrible chance on killing her own kid, but she didn’t, and while she was at it she let the snake have five or six more. | | And so when the old man came home that night he raised ‘the roof for shooting the beautiful snakeskin full of holes—so, brother, she was all caught up on that pioneering stuff, and we didn’t blame her, and, moreover, don’t ever fall for that turtle steak; it's blue like a football bladder, and you just as soon eat a felt hat,
Business By John T. Flynn
It's a Mistake to Assume We Won't Repeat Mistake of 1917
EW YCRK, Feb. 7—There seems to be a feeling that ‘America is now about to repeat on all fronts the performances of the last war. Those who refuse to believe this take the view that America has learned its .esson too well. The error in that assumption is based upon the belief that what we did in the last war was something new—that we were quite ignorant in the presence of novel conditions and acted out of sheer innocence But actually the greatest mistake we can mszke is to suppose that we are abont to
time. We are really about to make g mistake for the fourth or fifth time. And what is more to the point, we are about to make ‘a mistake that the world has been making regularly since the dawn of history. Hence we must rot be surprised at what may look like our invincible stupidity. The truth is that in this war, as in all wars, money starts to run around very loosely. There is plenty of it. The mien who spend it are in a hurry to spend it, And men; being what they are, can always be expected to have an itch for-this easy money.
# # #
AKE the shipping business. All the scenes and events of the last war are being enacted over again. There is a scampering around the world for vessels for the war trade. Old ships are being bought up by speculators at low prices and being sold to Britain a: high prices. This will make a = story some day. ) While we are talking about checking the dictators, American ships are being taken out of American registry, transferred to other flags and chartered to Japan ‘af exorbitant prices to haul supplies and oil from America to Japan. Some of the prices exacted are said to be 300 and 400 per cent higher than the regular prices. In the meantime arrangements are under way to
merchant | ships as possible for British use, so that when the war ends poor old sappy ‘Uncle Sam will wind up with a smaller merchant marine than he had when the war began while Britain will end, despite the losses, with a larger one. All this flows along as sweetly and naturally in obedieiicz to the laws of nature as water running down i ill, :
So: They Say— IT Iii COMMON to speak of the newspapers of today as purely commercial enterprises managed with a singie ¢ye to profits. The facts of the study suggest that for most of the press of the United States this
is a slander.—Dr. E. L. Thorndyke, Columbia University psychologist. | *
*® . I WANT THIS war to end by negotiation, before the inert, women and children of the world are debauchiéd and demoralized; before the wealth and treasures of the world are destroyed, and before human rights and liberties are lost forever.~William
Rhodes Davis, international oil operator. { - * *
.. FRANCE has been the cross roads of European development. . . .- This geographical fact of a central positions cannot bé changed even by HH Bourne, og -emeritu Wi
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Young Mother. Yearns for Dakota
the high grass and
I never headd anyone call a panther a painter in’
make a mistake for the second.
take awsy from the United States as much of its |
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
The Emergency!
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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.
A WORD OF REBUKE TO THE REV. CARRICK
By Rowena Applegate
I've always hesitated writing to the Forum, but the Rev. Carrick’s letter of Jan. 27 demands a rebuke because any indiscretion by anyone connected with the church always brings reproach on the church . . . Any man who can forget he is a Republican or Democrat and think of America first is a true patriot. Remember, Rev. Carrick, being a Republican does not give one the license to practice bigotry and intolerance. , . .
# nn =a : BRANDS DEUEL ARTICLES
AS PROPAGANDA By Frank J. Murray, South Bend, Ind. The propaganda articles of Mr. Deuel remind us of the propaganda atrocity stories spread in the first World War. There are only two things necessary to plunge a nation into war: (1) that they be convinced that it is their war; and (2) that they be taught to hate the people or nation the war mongers and propagandists want them to fight. Mr. Deuel is, in my opinion, innocently or otherwise, doing a double-barreled war propaganda job. However up to date he has not. mentioned any atrocities that are worse than what happened to the Jehovah Witnesses in this state and our neighboring state of Illinois, nor the treatment accorded the prisoners in the Philadelphia prison, nor the treatment accorded the 11 to 14-year-old boys in the Colorado prison, the description of which was carried in Friday's papers. Perhaps some propagandist in Europe, fomenting hate against the United States, could use these happenings to paint our countrymen as beasts that should, in the name of civilization, be slaughtered. If we are going to war we should do so in a purely factual manner.
we arrange to conquer a country which has something we want, and God forbid that this ever happen, and two, that we are attacked by a foreign country. It should either be a war of our own making or a war of. defense. We should not be plunged into a war through the propaganda of a third nation. The enemies of the youth of this country, and youths are the ones who will do the fighting and the]
It should be our war either because}
(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious con< troversies excluded. Make your letters short, so.all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be _ withheld on request.)
sacrificing, are of three kinds: (1) a nation or nations that make an attack upon the U. S.; (2) countries that through propaganda try to convince us that their wars are our wars and through a propagandahate program create hatred of the people of the nations they’ would have us fight; and (3) our own im-perialistic-minded war mongers. » ” EJ
CHARGES F. D. R. SEEKS TO BOSS THE WORLD By Rose Gordon Levan, East Chicago, Ind. You've no doubt ‘heard that old joke they used to spring before dictatorships were made to be such a threat to our way of life. It went like this: “I'm going to rule the world,” said Mussolini. “The Pépe told me so.” “You certainly are ' not,” sald Hitler, “because I am. God told me 80.” - “Why Adolf,” said Roosevelt, “I never told you any such thing.” Now however the Lend-Lease bill —which I have read very carefully and also listened to all the testimony I could get—proposes to make the President of the United States the supreme authority in the world. We are to be the world’s policemen —and the exercise of the power as to who and what shall be done and where thcse powers shall be exercised will rest in one man. Just think—one man supreme authority of the world. So that joke is no joke after all— FDR is trying to play God. And if this bill is passed and we become a world judgment and punishment seat, we'll be inviting a ceatury of trouble. And this is more than we can chew, brother. Unfortunately the Lend-Lease Bill will probably go through. We've lost our heads, poise and perspective. We follow a leader who preaches not insight, but moral issues. Our indignation has turned to malice land it’s heat we want—not light....
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SUPPORTS PROPOSAL TO AMEND PENSION ACT By Jos. A. Droll I see in your issue of Feb. 3 where James R. Meitzler opposes the repeal of the lien on pensioners hemes. I would like to ask Mr. Meitzler to put himself in place of an old man who has lived in the county for 30 years and paid taxes ever since, who bought a small home in 1928 on payments and was laid off in 1932 and not being able to find work and what little money he had saved up was all spent from 1932 to 1935 and then became totally disabled to do anything, having his and his wife’s insurance policies cashed to keep from losing the home. ; The have one son, the only child, who began making $17 a week and has been keeping up payments since 1935 and now as the last insurance money is gone, does Mr. Meitzler think it is right to keep this young man down all the time? I think Mr. Meitzler is one of those fellows who think everyone for himself and the devil for us all. This home is not paid for yet. R
” ” ” URGING THE MOTTO . AMERICANS FOR AMERICA By J. B. B. It seems to me that our own people in America have a wild idea of Americanism. We must be BritishAmerican or a Fifth Columnist. Has
that the Rev. Daniel H. Carrick and
right to American ideas as any Roosevelt, Morgenthau, you or I? Why do we either have to be British or Nazi? Can't we be just an American for America? 28 8 DOUBTS U. 8S. CAN FOLLOW A MIDDLE COURSE By Henry Preil, Anderson, Ind. ‘We hear a great deal these days against loaning England additional war credits. We are told, for instance, that the country has a poor credit rating—they didn't pay us back the last time we loaned thém money. It is said we can’t afford the money. It is claimed England still has considerable assets she hasn’t even touched yet. vr But it seems to me these people don’t care to let their mind dwell long on the probability of England being defeated by Germany—as she surely will without these muchneeded war credits. There is no middle course—no path of comfortable neutrality—for us. Either our world is going to be ruled throughout by dictators, each holding his place. by ‘virtue of incessant warfare and bloodshed under the inhuman ‘doctrine of hate; or we'll he. ruled throughout under the principles of democracy, striving for a possible peace in the future and profiting by past mistakes.
BE STILL AND WAIT ;, By ELEEZA HADIAN Impatience, my heart, Is the escort That leads you forth To quicksands of Wrong decision. Impatience, my heart, Whipped by hurry and anger Takes the short cut To hidden pits of failure And self-destruction.
Impatience—burning— ‘Will blight the fruit Before it ripens To golden truth. Impatience, my heart, Is company For thoughtless youth. Amassed wisdom shuns it . As a bitter enemy.
DAILY THOUGHT
Therefore I say unto you, What . things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, 3d ye shall have them.—Mark
it ever occurred to these readers] i
Gen. Hughj;Johnson have as much | i
— FRIDAY, ET 1041 (Gen. Johnson Says—
We're Told Hitler Threatens Our
Freedom, Yet 'Union Now' Group Would Give It Away to Britain
ASHINGTON, Feb, 7T—The subtle and gradually increasing urge of pressure groups to get us into the war has been very clever and effective but, thus far, it has lacked one needful thing—an answer to the fateful popular question “for what?” . T'6- postpone and defend against attack? Certainly we are all for that, but we are not attacked, We are threatened, in greater or less degree, and there is not a thinking. American who does not believe in and support immediate all-out preparation of defense, including ald to Britain to the precise extent that it will defend us—and no further. But it is a pretty hard Job to convince our people that we can keep out of war by getting into it, that the way to defend ag a threat of war is to make war ourselves, especially when we are not ready for it.
What is needed by our war-minded men is some slogan of high purpose like “make the world safe for democracy.” That one is just a little like offering cheese to the mouse caught in a cheese-baited trap. He doesn’t want any more cheese. So the trial balloons are going up -on another one—"“union now.” #8 =» : ; WROTE a piece on the ballyhoo for a federation of English speaking peoples. In it I used the expression. “Union Now” and said that what is now proposed is to unite us with the British Empire under something like the Articles of Confederation under which the 13 Colonies fought the Revolution—which means, of course, in addition to “Union Now,” “War Now.” I argued that all the “articles” made was a League of Nations proved by both them and the later international league to be futile and unworkable.
That column drew indignant denials including one from Clarence Streit, the. author of “Union Now.” These denials complained thet the proposal is not to entangle ours with the destiny of other nations in any futile league. No sir. We are going all the way into an united states of earth, in which America is to be only one state among many bound, not by weak articles of confederation, but by a document like the Cone stitution of the United States.
The distinguishing features of that Constitution are—no secession; control in a superstate of interstate commerce, all foreign relations, taxation and spending, the right to make war, to keep troops and ships of war and the denial of those rights and controls to the several states—including the U, 8. A. All right, If I misconstrued Mr. Streit, I am sorry, But I didn’t misconstrue the others and I didn’t mise construe Mr. Streit very much. They say, and so I think does he, that this is only an eventual result. Right now all we need is “Articles of Confederation” with these other nations but (as in and’ after out revolution) “as soon as the war is won” under the new confederation, we shall create with them a real federation, on the plan of the American Constitution and rub Uncle Sam out as an independent entity.
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r is all consistent. First these people sell us into a war When it isn’t necessary and, without waiting for Mr. Hitler to sell our country down the river, they want us to do it ourselves, We commit national harikari, dilute our strength with the weakness of the world and dissipate the wealth and advantage our fathers fought and labored to create here, to the four winds of heaven and the five continents of earth, ‘Boy ain't that somethin’. I always knew that the fear and hysteria of war is like the fear and hysteria of a house fire—in which a frantic man once threw his baby out of a third-story window, left his watch and pocketbook on the table and rescued his feather pillow—but I never dreamed that it could go these lengths. It is going these lengths. There is a Lease Lend Bill in Congress now to give the President cone trol of about 50 billion dollars of our wealth to save the world. "His passion is to control things and he never yet has reproved these ardent supporters of him and of “Union Now.” We don't know where we're going but we're on our way to the loss of American independence. We are told Hitler will seize it, Here is a proposal to give it away to Britain,
A Woman's Viewpoint
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
TEE witch hunts have begun. Incredibly we are on the verge of repeating our performances of
the last war, when out of the county councils of dedense developed the Ku Klux Klan of disreputable mgmory. My own State, Oklahoma, has a very bad record on those counts. Yet ,if that were the whole of the story its citizens would not need to blush so often for its honor. Unfortunately, however, both before and since the shameful interlude, its political history has furnishd horrific and iniquity. 3 This is written because at presént' certain Oklahoma legislators are on the front pdge charging college professors with spreading subversive doctrines and thus endangering democracy. How the gods must chuckle! Politicians investigating educa~ tors for signs inimical to the welfare of the Republic! It is possible that some of our professors are crackpots, since schcol teaching groups do not rise much above the level of the society from which they emerge. Others may have been misled—and still others may actually exert a bad influence with deliberate intent. : : Thinking people can and do deplore the rise of pernicious doctrines on the American scene. But, being thinking people, they can hardly ignore the fact that some of the causes of such happenings can be traced directly to the disgraceful shenanigans of certain types of lawmakers and office holders. ' The political racketeer does more than spread discontent; he incites rebellion. And when the pot calls the kettle black, we're all somewhat besmirched, aren't we? a Unfortunately, Dr. Gallup has not taken a poll on the question, but if he did we should probably find that the people distrust the general run of politicilans as much as they do the general run of edue cators. In the interest of truth it 1:ust be said that the scandals which have come from too. many of our legislative halls have made the very heavens smell, If that doesn’t harm democracy, what does? Maybe we'd better get back to funidamentals. Protests of patriotism, witch hunts, rabble rousing, never yet killed an idea or bolstered a Republic. We can admire senatorial zeal, but our Oklahoma Capitol, at least, will need a deal of sweeping before it is rid of the unsavory political filth left there by the past une democratic antics of some of our legislators.
Questions and Answers
. (The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer ny question of fact or information, not involving extensive ree «search. 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. O.). Q—What religious denominations are represented in the U. 8. Army by Chaplains? A—Baptist, 20; Catholic, 32; Congregationalist, 8; Disciples of Christ, 4; , 6; Lutheran, 12; Methodist, 24; Presbyterian, 14; Reformed, 2; United : Brethren, 1; Evangelical, 1; Universalist, 1. * i Q-How do Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler compare age? ‘ . A—Stalin is the oldest; born Dec. 21, 1879; Muse So, born July 2¢, 1883, and Hitler, born April 20, Q—Are postmasters required to open all mail to inspect it for possible lottery tickets?
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