Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 February 1941 — Page 20

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The Indianapolis Times

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214 W.

"FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1941 ~

‘

FEES vs. SALARIES WE are glad a Marion County epilator at last Ios 3 taken the initiative to end one of the most indefensible political practices remaining in this county—the

ancient fee system. There may have been a time, early in the county’s his-

. tory, when the fee system served a useful purpose. But

that day has 16ng past. Now such offices as county treasurer, clerk and sheriff are regarded as among the juiciest political plums in all of Indiana, for they net some of these incumbents sums i ii all the way up to $50,000. In 1938, for example, the county clerk’s income from all sources amounted to $21,572, the sheriff’s $52,331 and the county treasurer’s around $30,000. That's handsome

~ money no matter what the dollar’s worth.

4 % 3 Je,

3 FA

~The bill introduced by Rep. Thomas E. Grinslade otf "Indianapolis would abolish the fee system, place county officials on a salary basis, and return to the county general fund all fees now being retained by officeholders. The bill ought to pass unanimously. Our only regret is that it cannot be made retroactive.

A LADDER TO ALASKA

ANADA'’S plan to install a string of airpiiis, pertiaps seven of them, between Edmonton in Alberta and

‘ Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory, is important news to

the United States. * © These stepping stones will enable American fighter planes to reach Alaska under their own power. Bombers .ean ‘do that now, but pursuit planes lack the range. Once these airports are ready, and assuming as we may that the close defense collaboration of the Dominion and this country will continue, we will be able to rush all types of planes to our Alaskan outposts in jig time if the need arises. The Canadian announcement made no mention of the long-discussed highway to Alaska. Perhaps this air-base chain is being adopted in lieu of the road. But if an Asiatic power were ever to make a stab at Alaska we would need both forms of communication. We hope the highway project has not been pigeonholed by the U. S.-Canadian Defense Commission.

GOOD INVESTMENT

"THURMAN ARNOLD; the trust-busting Assistant Attor-

"ney General, asserts that a Federal grand jury in New York is “constantly uncovering startling instances of German control of defense industries as well as illegal pricefixing among American concerns.” It is probable, he adds, that vital military information has been given to foreign companies though -patent-license agreements with American firms. Mr. Arnold is asking Congress for a million dollars, in addition to the current $1,325,000 appropriation, so that

he can impanel more grand juries and employ more help to

speed investigation of various industries, especially those producing war materials, where there is evidence of price increases, artificial shortages and foreign control. He wants to “change the scale of ‘enforcement from the present intermittent attack upon one or two industries at a time to systematic enforcement of the anti-trust laws throughout American industry.” Congress certainly should grant this request. The money Mr. Arnold spends in fighting monopolistic control

.of materials and prices is one of the best investments the Government makes. sumers and taxpayers. Extension of the work is ssperniial |

‘It insures manifold savings to con-

to national seus. i a

SMOOT'S LAW

EED SMOOT of Utah, to whom death has com2 in Flor- |

ida, exerted great influence on the Government of the

* United States.for a very long time. On balance, we think,

. this influence was not for the best. Through 30 years in ~ the Senate, it seemed to us, he often devoted tireless industry and a high order of ability to being about as wrong as a statesman could be. On one point, however, Senator Smoot was as rishi as rain. Discouraged by the failure of his efforts to promote Governmental economy, even under Republican Administrations, he put into words what deserves to live in American history as Smoot’s Law of Government: > “The cost of Government will continue to increase, I care not what party is in power.”

LADDIE

E aren’t ashamed to say it. To us, the saddest story ‘in Yesterday’ $ paper was about the death of a dog

gas Laddie.

Human beings were killed in England, in Greece, in|

~ China—human beings for whom we have great sympathy.

~ Laddie, either.

But we had never seen them, and their deaths brought to . Us no sense of personal loss. Well, we had never seen Why should we feel that his death was personal to us? His master was sent from Chanute, Kas., fo an Army

camp in California a few weeks ago. Laddie, left at home,

was inconsolable. He refused to eat. His weight and his strength dwindled. It was feared that he would die. So afew days ago he was sent by airplane to join his master— and yesterday, still joyful over the reunion, Laddie did

die, despite all ‘efforts -to restore his strength by forced |

feeding and blood transfusions, : Perhaps it’s because we've owned dogs and have er lieved—have wanted to believe—that they loved us as Laddie ed‘his master. Perhaps it’s because Laddie typified those lities of loyalty and devotion which we know we should

splay and which sometimes, to our shame, we neglect |

; show. Perhaps it’s just that we're foolishly sentimental ut dog, Anyway, the story of Laddie’s death hit us ( else i

ered by carrier, 12 cents

| May Adams, Los Beles, in trouble with the h &

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Here" s a Story Behind the Story— It Concerns That Colored Boy Who Fought the Germans at Verdun

EW WORK, Feb. 14—This little colored kid was @ one-man League of Nations. He had on French pants, a Foreign Legion blouse and an old American campaign hat, and he was just all odds and ends, and, moreover, he was, in a very practical

and dangerous sense of the term, a deserter from the French army. He had just got tired of the French army and, in avery informal way, had resigned to accept a better connection. i As he told the story, he had never intended to join the French army, anyway. What really happened was that the French army anschlussed him. Back in Norfolk one day he went down to a ship to see a . friend who had found a good job as messboy on a cargo boat, and the frierid talked him into going for a boat ride to Europe, which seemed a good idea at the time. But “when the ship docked in France and he went ashore

pushed him into a soldier's suit, and the next thing he knew he was a Senegalese soldier. It took him a long time to learn enough language to ask his way around, and the manners and social customs of his comrades offended him terribly, but there- was nothing he could do about it, and then day he was up in the line facing the Germans arbund Verdun. | 2 "n a HERE are many standardized stories of the American colored boy who fell in with the Senegalese or Tell out with them, but this boy was real and he told his own story. He had been in several actions and never had been hit, but one winter day several of his toes froze, so they sent him back down, and soon, to his alarm, he was. all well again and about to be sent back, It was just then that the Americans moved into the region to start training and organizing, and this kid resigned from the French army. He attached himself to an American major as servant, and the major gave him some shoes and underwear and a place ‘to sleep and plenty to eat and he wa$ very happy. except that occasionally, when he was at all carclegs in his: cleaning and sweeping, the major would say, “Well, I can see that you don’t care about this man’s army, so maybe I had better send you back to your outfit.” That would straighten him up. He said soldiering was completely out of his line, anyway, and, although he hadn’t ever been much afraid in the trenches, one thing did just tyrn him inside out. That was the way those Senegalese would use the bayonet. He didn’t mind shooting at those German boys and a man could get used to shells, but to run up to a man and stick him with a bayonet was something he simply couldn't do and could hardly bear {0 see it done. oe 8 8

‘™ a houseboy,” he said. “Answer doorbells, mow the lawn, wait table, anything like that. I was a houseboy back in Norfolk until I went for that steamboat ride. I never did aim to stick anybody with a bayonet.” ' I retained a mental movie, with sound, in color, «f the soft voice saying that he was a houseboy, his ragbag uniform, his fear of displeasing the major, who night send him back to the French army, where some officer might not be feeling too hot that day, and might have him court-martialed and shot for desertion. The major himself probably would have been guilty of Something for aiding, abetting and herboring, but, then, apparently, he had no intention of tirning the kid back to the French and was just going fo gentle him along and possibly enlist him in the! American army, although at this time he was Just a guest, so to ‘speak. The major is a heap of general now with three stars on his flag, the same being Lieut.-Gen. Hugh Drum, and it’ was a mistake to ask him what had become of the little deserter. Many a story is spoiled by checking with those whe are concerned, and that is what happened to this one. Because Gen. Drum said that to the best of his recollection, which is very sharp, he had never even heard of the little colored houseboy from Norfolk,

Business By John T. Flynn

Fears Arms Sending Will Bring Serious Economic Crisis to U. S.

EW YORK, Feb. 14.—Those few Americans who continue to worry about the financial plight of this Government are urging that every effort be made to restrain the plans of the Administration forces in Congress to raise the debt limit to 65 billion dollars. By whatever amount this limit can be kept down, it will be a partial victory for sanity. If history teaches one lesson it is this—that no power apparently can check the fatal energy of a nation bent on destroying itself. An immense fog has been blown over the domestic scene by those who I contend are pushing the country on to war, so that those «grave difficulties of our own, which vexed men’s minds so sorely two years ago, are utterly forgotten. It is only a year ago that men in Congress who are now leading the clamor for more billions for England, were predicting the destruction ‘of this country if we went further on what was then ‘called the Government's spending orgy. Now those same men are leading the fight for a spending orgy beside which the extravagances of last year were a form of parsimony. The theory of conservatives who opposed Roosevelt’s spending program was that it was piling up a ngtional debt which would impose a terrible tax |burden on business, discourage investment and tend to inflation. Either they believed what they said or they were fooling the people. As a matter of fact, they were right. But now they seem to feel that the ‘case is different if the Government spends its borrowed funds on a good cause. 3

” ” »

UT is it? A man with a small business which .d brings in an income of $1000 a month, who insists on borrowing and spending $3000 a month foolishly, will go bankrupt. If, however, he borrows and

he will go bankrupt just the same. All the dire things the economy-minded conservatives were saying about Government spending a year ago. are still sound, and the fact that the money being spent is three times as great and is being spent for a European war ‘instead of feeding starving Amer-

| icans does not alter that fact.

Of course this will not seem sound to the Tugwell-Ezekiel-Henderson school of economists, who have told the world that this Government is going to show how to produce prosperity through tional defense and who say the only trouble with the Roosevelt Administration is that it spent only three billions a year on recovery instead of 12 billions. That school is in the saddle now and running along with it is that

| strange collection of economic royalists who are

whooping it up in Washington today for more and more billions. Slowly they draw the country along, and all together they will continue until they sink this nation ‘to its ears in an economic crisis beside which the 1933 crisis will seem a mild form of boom.

So They Say—

AFTER THE ‘War, the Western Hemisphere is certain to become the-cénter of civilization. Any civilization, ‘any civilized living, means building. ~-Thomas §. Holden, president the F. W. Dodge Corp.

» * *

I LIKE THE German people, but I have no respect for Hitler and the Nazi flag.—Municipal Jusge Ida

to see the sights, some Frenchmen grabbed him and |}

spends $3000 a month on perfectly noble charities— |

ate |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ‘Feel You Could Go a Couple of Fas ast Rounds?’

FRIDAY, FEB. 14, 1941

2 ant,” ew =

“a”

Heegleocucs »

The Hoosier Forum

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

FEARS U. 8S. MISSED THE BUS ON WILLKIE By Sideline Sittin’ Lil

And to think we might have had this man for President! A man big enough to step over narrow party lines, to envisage the welfare cf the country as a whole, not as small squabbling unrelated groups. Disregarding utterly the sure displeasure of his party and their possible retaliatéon, surely he would never stoop to the snappish retort, the petty purging of those who disagreed with him. We seldom see men of his type and fineness in the political cauldron; I fear America has missed a bus. #2 8.8 ASSAILING THE OPERATION OF OLD-AGE PENSION LAWS By J. E. Nichols : I saw the little white-haired old gentleman in the alley again this morning, and saw the other one yesterday. Carrying old baskets or

paper bags, they have been reduced to visiting the garbage cans hack of grocery stores and salvaging decaying fruits and vegetables. “Poor old fellows;” exclaimed a man who was with me. Those enfeebled old fellows plainly are unemployable, and look deserving. One perhaps has been a poorly paid “working man,” the other a minor office employee -or salesman. I call them gentlemen for their not having taken to beg-

.|ging or stealing, to rioting in the

streets or shaking their fists at the State House, or at those churches so energetic against bingo and pinball machines, but so complacently oblivious of the egregious injustices and inexcusable sophistries of our national Social Security Act and Indiana’s Old-Age Pension Law. Yes, we have a national “Social Security” Act, with an “old-age assistance” section appended, also a State Old-Age Pension Law. But the two combined don’t pay enough to live on; the Government’s “oldage assistance” ‘is contingent on the obtaining first of a state oldage pension—and just you try and get it. I haven't tried myself, but have done’ a little snooping, and don’t hesitate to say that if. the whole disgusting business isn’t already a precinct worker’s political racket, the set-up of the system is such that it can’t help becoming one speedily. It is. time that the method and procedure of applying for an old-

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letters shori, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

age persone “investigating,” granting and refusing of them, and the persons being awarded or denied them, be given a little conscienticus study, and a wide-open explanation and airing by the newspapers and public. t J = o A WORD OF PRAISE FOR THE DRUGLESS DOCTORS By Charlotte C. Huston After reading the spoutings of Inquisitive in this column I wonder if he is inquisitive or just prejudiced? When I think of an inquisitive person, I picture one who in-

quires into all sides of a question with an open mind and gn judges fairly from his findings. This person evidently has not done that. If he had, he would know that the drugless profession has more harmless healing methods than 'the so-called regular physicians. In fact the regular physicians had no method of healing certain pathological conditions of the spinal column except surgery or plaster. casts until very recently when one of their number discovered that by manipulation of the vertebrae the condition could be corrected. The drugless physicians have been using light therapy for many years, while the regulars are just now recognizing its merits. “Medicine is curiously indebted to non-medical men for many of its innovations,” Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes said. In mentioning Hippocrates, I wonder if our friend knows that he used drugless methods, too. Our Founding Fathers made one great mistake in forming the Constitution when they did not give the people the same freedom of healing as they gave in worship, speech, press and other vital privileges included in the Bill of Rights. Then the A. M. A. Trust could not compel our young men who are entering into the service of their country, to be

used as guinea pigs. . . .

Side Glances=— By Galbraith

Py rida mor {7h

SO)

1941 BY

"Don't pay

it's because of a

3 attention, himeeit ha seems to. be sowing at you, false thayen't enough :

DUBS LEASE-LEND BILL THE BANKRUPTCY ACT ‘By Lester Gaylor The House Resolution 1776 is falsely called the “lend-lease” bill. A much more truthful title would be “America’s Bankrupting Act of 1941!” It is not the main object of this un-American bill to help Britain, but to create a vicious dictatorship over these United States! By the

\ enacting of this dictator bill, the

American laboring man will sell his right to bargain for his services. The dictatorships of the world have shackled the working man and the same will likely be true here if we allow this dangerous legislation to be enacted. The British-inspired and Britishencouraged propagandists feed us the nonsense that American security depends upon our aiding Britain. These are fairy tales. . .. George H. Cless Jr. served in our diplomatic service in 1917-19 from England to the Balkans. He computes our accumulations of 150 years in physical assets at 80 billion dollars. He states that the last eight

conservative figure of 120 billion in a blank check for this dictator bill, ited power for unlimited spending.

anced ‘budget for a smoke screen war to create dictatorship! Notice Cless’ further comment: Last year nine million farmers proQuced nine billion dollars—but! The Government pickpocketed the people for 18 billion dollars! For the same period, labor payments of 400,000 corporations amounted to 28 billions—and 65 per cent of this was taken by our great, unwieldy, “spread - over - all-creation” bureaucratic Government! We are contributing an average of $600 per family for the upkeep of tig parasitic Government! ...

#2 mn ALL WASHED UP ON GEN. JOHNSON

By Cornelia Perkins ,

At long last, after long, truly hard trying to be very big, fair and tolerant, trying to “see both sides,” toward Gen. Hugh Johnson’s column —giving him his fullest American privilege to think and say what he believed—we are quite now “all washed up” with his unspeakable pettiness, ill nature, yes, sheer nastiness, relative to Wendell Willkie! It grows increasingly disgustingly annoying, bluntly! We did not vote for Mr. Willkie, but we do respect and admire him for his courage and independence, much! The campaign is now long since over, and Mr, Willkie is now merely “the citizen Willkie,” and a great American of whom we can, at least, be sincerely proud!

I BEAR WITNESS

By THEMARA TEGOUR

If you can invest laughter In Sisyphean sweat of labor, If you can harvest seed Of joy from the rock-bound patch of weed, . If you can extract treasured gold From ga flower’s bud-tight fold. If you can gather song From the hubbub of mocking throng And exalted by your might Lay claim to sun and stars of night; Yet, if humble, awed and mute You can wait on a cricket's pleading lute. Then, you are poet !—though you ever Assemble words to tell: the wonder to the world;

. your name, Gracing, monumental halls of fame.

DAILY THOUGHT Woe unto the world hecause. of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh !—Matthew 18:7. AR He that falls fn into sin is &

* | |that grieves a

t it,

years of government has cost.us a| i this peacetime. By giving Roosevelt | & the President would be given unlim- 3

Our treasury could not stand the] § strain of a 10 times higher unbal-| §

Though you never fnd—gildeds=|

Gen. Johnson

Ag gilts Department at Co

ASHINGTON, Feb, 14 ~It is belatedly gratifythat the Department of Agriculture

is now considering the “two-price” system of dispos-

ing of farmers’ crops-~both as to domestic and foreign consumption, For export trade it will buy up the surplus which no home market con~ sumes and- sell it abroad for the best price it will bring. To increase domestic, consumption, it will extend the food-stamp plan for surplus products, which is also a ‘‘two-price” system giving lower ¢

prices to the poor to insure an

adequate diet to all our people and to remove the American reproach of “starvation in the midst of plenty.” As T understand it, although the details are riot yet plain, the public, all of us, will pay for the discount Below market prices on the food stamp sale of butter, eggs, citrus and other fruits, meats and fresh vegetables—and even cotton—for the poor. I can't see much the matter with that, much as I dislike the growing cost of Government. This column began boosting the food-stamp plan long before it was an=nounced and as soon as Henry Wallace told me about 5 ez only regret was that I had not thought of it Ss ” » ”

BELIEVE George Peek and I did think first of the “two-price” system on export surplus—way back in 1921, It, is almost a necessary corollary of our: tariff system. We have maintained here; partly by - the tariff, a structure of prices far above that of the rest of the world. No tariff and no purely domestic device can keep on that high level the prices of sur--plus crops—wheat, cotton and animal fats. This is: because the price of the surplus fixes the price of the whole crop whether sold abroad or at home—and nothing that can be done at home can prevent that dire result. The net effect is that, while all the rest of our people enjoy the higher American standards, the farmer producing export crops is thrust outside our tariff walls. In equity there is no argument against ‘his haying a “parity price” (6ne for what he sells on the domestic market on the same high level charged for what he buys) but there is no good argument for his receiving such a high price for what he produces in excess of domestic requirements which must be: sold in export. Neither is there any excuse for any demand that the rest of the American. public should, out of their pockets subsidize a lower price to for-: eigners for this export surplus. : ?

» ” o

HERE are only two alternatives, and one of them is abortive. The sensible one is”that now suggested, to insure an American price for the part of. the crop consumed at home and to sell the surplus. for what it will bring. The other is what has been attempted for the past eight years—to jimmy up the American price for the whole crop by loans, by restriction on acreage, by storing unmanageable surplus, and other inventions. , It kept up precariously the American price, but it constantly threatened the American markets by accumulating an unmanageable surplus. It priced American farm products out of world markets they had enjoyed for a century. It financed their competition in other countries to increase their low-¢ost production and has probably resulted in a permanent loss, for example, of at least 4,000,000 bales or at least 25 per cent of our production of cotton. : All this was as plain eight years ago, before the harm was done, as it is today. It was all constantly urged in this column from its beginning. It is some satisfaction to see it tardily adopted. But it is in part the same sterile sort of satisfaction of seeing the stable door locked after the horse is stolen.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

OTHING is stable in this unstable world—not even bridge rules. After six long years of hard work Ely Culbertson, Contract Plenipotentiary Extraordinary, has revised and in many cases, reversed himself on bidding. And what a dither the lady fans are in! No consideration has been shown for our feelings. Mr. Culbertson’s pronouncements fall into bur bridge luncheon circles with the horrific impact of an incendiary bomb. We have stocked a good supply of the old rules. We have score pads and books on hand, and more important still, we have: mastered to a degree the regulations on: bidding, the overcall, the double and redouble and how to behave when vulnerable. Naturally, then, it’s upsetting to get news that the great Culbertson now finds himself in error. It would never occur to us to doubt his motives, of course. We know that any changes made will be only for the interest of better bridge and not because his sales may be falling off a little. Indeed, when a suspicious individual even hints at such a thing we raise a chorus of protest. The indefatigable Ely has spent six good years of his life, working, toiling, slaving, only to teach and to serve. No doubt he has burned midnight oil, and in some weary moment an iluminating revelation has come which will alter a whole industry, Be that as it may, we have another job on our hands. We must learn all the new rules, just when. we flattered ourselves we had almost mastered the old ones. There'll be no escaping the compulsion—for we've seen that light in the feminine fan's eye before, as she deals and asks, “Do you play the new Culbertson?” You bet we do. We'll play it or bust, and between sewing on. Bundles for Britain nightshirts and knitting for the Red Cross our minds will mull over and, we hope, finally assimilate the new no trump opener.

Questions nd Ahswers

(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—We recently adopted an abapdoned baby boy who is about two months old. He was found by the police when he was only a few days old. How can we prove hie citizenship, since no trace of his mouger

was S, fqundo he Nationality Act of 1940 provides that a child of unknown parentage found in the United States, 1s

child was not born in adopted <sen. was only found, it is safe to