Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 February 1941 — Page 10

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> RILEY 5551 Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

‘MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1941

‘RIDING A ROCKET

HE new 65-billion-dollar national debt limit will be only |

a temporary stop-sign. Spending on the present sched-

ule, plus nobody now knows how much lend-lease spending | § to aid Britain, will carry us to it in perhaps 17 months or a iH little more. The next limit will have to be maybe 80 bil- I

lions, maybe 100. i Unless, of course, the terrific speed of this rocket ride into astronomical debt scares some sense into us. It is mildly encouraging to see that some members of Congress are already getting scared. Debate on this bill produced a good many suggestions even by Democrats that we really ought to curb the borrowing by taxing more and by cutting non-defense spending to the bone. / Certainly we ought to do both. We ought to turn toward fiscal sanity for the sake of the thing that is fundamental to national defense and internal security—the credit of the Government. But unless the demand for that turn comes from the people there is grave reason to doubt that: Congress will ever make it in time to avert disaster.

® = s x = WE believe the people back home are waking up. They are increasingly ashamed of the pusillanimous position in which they are being made to appear. They are told that Britain is fighting in their defense and that they must provide Britain with tools to do that job. If patriotism and intelligence are alive in the American people, they are not going to aceept forever the cowardly theory that they can avoid all sacrifice by buying the tools on credit and passing the bill on to their children. 118 We believe they are eager to make sacrifices, that they would cheerfully accept the burden of higher taxes for de: fense, and that the tax program should serve the additional! purpose of compelling Congress to cut non-essential spending. 3 A sales tax won’t do that. Aside from its gross unfair: ness, a basic fault of the sales tax is that it does not create tax-consciousness. Either it is collected invisibly or, if collected through stamps or tokens, it soon ceases to be - onerous because it takes its toll in driblets. It trades upon that trait of human nature which makes a dime a day seem so much less than $36.50 a year. That is why it is so popu: lar with timid legislators. The tax that does create tax consciousness is the in: come tax. Ask the man who pays one. Too many don’t. | : # # =» a F Congress would muster the courage to make the Federal income tax what it should be in this emergency—by raising the rates and broadening the base—that would serve two essential purposes. It would hit not only big incomes, but also the more numerous medium incomes and millions of small incomes (but hit them more fairly and honestly than would a sales tax), and so it would produce revenue to pay at least part of the defense bills now being charged to future generations. And it would create such tax consciousness among thie American people that their demand upon Congress for an end to reckless, wasteful, unnecessary spending would bécome irresistible. : : : |

FOR ‘THE SKIPPER’ THERE are few high schools in the world which have such a degree of alumni loyalty, of student pride and of unity as Manual Training High School of Indianapolis. No small part of this cohesive spirit is due to one man— E. H. Kemper McComb, for 25 years principal of the South Side school. I]

Saturday night, more than 3000 alumni gathered to.

oberve the school’s 46th anniversary—actually to. honor Mr. McComb on his 68th birthday and the anniversary of his becoming principal. For weeks all Indianapolis has buzzed with the news—the alumni have been getting ready to commission Marie Goth to paint a portrait of (The Skipper.” Saturday night they let Mr. McComb in on the big secret. Touched deeply, he twinkled and stuttered like a high school boy himself. | The best thing that could happen to Manual would be for another 25 years of “The Skipper.” ; :

INVESTIGATE NOW | A LF M. LANDON has charged that a “dog in the manger” attitude among some big industrial organizations is handicapping the defense program. | Senator Truman of Missouri made similar charges in Congress last week and proposed a Senate investigation of all defense contracts. ~The Administration might not welcome an investigation of defense contracts at this time. Yet investigations will come—plenty of them—as they did after the World War. By turning on the light now, instead of later, Congress might prevent a repetition of such scandals as were exposed after the World War, might save much money, and might speed up defense. na

NO PLACE FOR POLITICS : 8 ILLIAM L. AUSTIN, Director of the Census, has reached the age of 70 and is retiring. He became a clerk in the Census Bureau nearly 41 years ago, and has - given years of faithful, effective public service, culminating

he deserves the country’s gratitude, - . : : J His chief assistant, Dr. Vergil D. Reed, is to he in charge of the bureau until a new director is appointed. Indeed, Dr. Reed has earned the right to that appointment - —but he happens to be a registered Republican, and Washington politicians are assuming that the job will go to someone else who, like Mr. Austin, is a Democrat. ~~ That is a wrong and unfair assumption. Democrat Austin was promoted, for merit, by Republican as well as Democratic Administrations. We hope the present I':mo-

cratic Administration will reward merit and put Republican |

Reed into this job, about which he knows more than any

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ty, 3 cents a copy; deliv. [ ered by carrier, 12 cents |

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Tells the Big Shots in Washington Just What's Wrong With the U. S.

A TEW YORK, Feb. 17.—George Spelvin, American, being summoned to Washington to give his views cn the state of the nation, took the stand and spoke a8 follows: ; A. (By Mr. Spelvin). Well, now, I ce am glad you asked me, because the way I look at it as a 100° per cent citizen, why, the most of us, all we want to-take and do is live and let live, but you have to be on your guard all the time these days, because, - for instance, like my wife always trades at the cash-and-carry store, because I feel sorry for the little fellow who can’t meet their prices, but, still and all, if you can get a can of soup for 11 cents in a chain store and it costs 13 cents at the independent, well, I notice if the Government wants to buy a new battleship they don't pick the ‘highest bidder, and it is the same way with the working man when he can get two dollars an hour you don’t see them working for a dollar, and he would be a fool if he did. ;

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UT I can’t see why we can’t work it out so can just live in our own country and, if you pardon: the expression, why, to hell with all th foreign nations, and why should I pay taxes so we can practically give that money away to all kinds of foreigners, whether it is to make it so they can buy our goods with our money or fight a war, because if you mind your own business and keep in good shape we don’t need their trade, and I get sick and tired of all this talk how you have to look out for the foreign vote or the different religions, because, after all, this isn’t a foreign country and everybody ought to be an [American or a foreigner, and no two ways about it, but all you hear is this and that about foreign groups and isms, and all the time we keep on letting in more foreigners to tear down American ideals, and the first thing you know you have to apologize for being an American or somebody will start a rumor that you are an appeaser or a fifth columnist, But what burns me up is the way Hitler squawked about the Versailles Treaty when you see what he did to the Poles after he licked them, and compare that with how we sent all that food over to the Germans efter the last war, and there again you come around to giving our money away to foreign nations, because, like President Roosevelt said, taxes are the sweat of the American workingman, but we give the Germans ‘hundreds of millions to build new roads and swell apartment houses for the German people, and now they call us a bunch of dirty warmongers when they used our money to build all those tanks and planes

land we didn’t even have a division of soldiers in the

whole American army and just a lot of old farm implements for tanks, and now Hitler is saying we

| were looking for a fight.

O if you want my candid opinion, as a 100 per cent American, well, it seems to me like there ought to be some way to stamp out all these foreign isms, and I want to tell you, gentlemen, a good wife is everything in a man’s life, and if you have a good, sensible wife and not a gadabout gadding ahout like a gadfly all the time and bothering their heads with lectures and all this and that, why, there is where you get your answer to the youth problem, because an old-fashioned mother doesn’t need the Government to tell her how to raise their children when you-can’t tell who the Government selects for this work, and some Communist will be telling them God is a fake, and it just stands to reason the parents ought to take care of them so they will know what they are up to. And I Want to say to you, gentlemen, it certainly makes my collar boil when a man works hard for years trying to raise a family to be decent, Godfearing Americans if you have saved some money and a banker steals it we all agree he is a crook and probably goes to prison, but then the Government grabs your money to give it away to foreign nations and pay some people relief so they can turn up their nose at a job, and when election time comes, why,

‘naturally they are going to vote for the one who is

giving them my money, so all I say is let the people work if they want to work and never mind whether they belong to some union, and why don’t the Government ever have any sympathy for the ones who do have a job or a private business and raise their own kids and pay their bills instead of all the time worrying what the unions or the foreign groups are going to think? Senator Nilly (Ind., Ind). The committee thanks you, Mr. Spelvin.

Business By John T. Flynn

Evidence Multiplies That Fascism Has Paralyzed German Capitalism

EW YORK, Feb. 17.—No one in the business world was surprised to read in the financial columns that the General Electric Corp. had sold its shares in the great German electrical company, Siemens & Halske A. G. Nor was it a surprise to learn that securities for which they paid over $22,000,000, were Sol, for “something over $10,000,If General Electric got that much—however great the loss—it may consider itself fortunate. Other American corporations— notably the du Pont company— has done the same thing and taken similar losses. Perhaps these sales may be attributed to the fear of approach ing war, but this is not likely. At least, these sales would - be inevitable, war or no war. The truth is that something is happening inside Germany which gets not nearly so much notice as it should in this country. Hitler's Fascist system was, in its first phase, like the Italian fascism—an effort to subject the capitalist system to controls that would save it. That is why men like Thyssen and the Ruhr steel masters got behind Hitler and financed his way to power. But slowly they learned, as the controls were applied, that instead of saving capitalism they tended to paralyze it. And, as fast as one section of industry became stunned and stalled, the German Gove ernment had to take it over in fact or in essence. » o #

HEN the Fascist system subsisted on Government expenditures of all sorts to create work— war work and peace work. The war work gradually, of course, became the most important. But gradually

after taxes was taken in enforced loans to the Gov ernment.

tically impossible and even non-existent. And as private investment died, first here and then there, the Government moved in, Now ‘the Government has moved in on so wide a front that it is becoming increasingly : difficult to distinguish Fascist Germany from Communist Russia.

There is no more room. for the private investor in | | Germany, and so the private investor from the out- |

side world is withdrawing as fast as he can. All this has a strong bearing on what will happen ‘in Germany when the war ends. Either there will be a complete collapse of the regime and a return to capitalism without fascism, or Germany will become communistic.

is this which Russia is probably waiting for.

So They Say—

THE SADDEST commentary on this whole situation is that the people did not have the opportunity last November to vote on this question of how close we shall get to war.—Alf M. Landon, former G .O. P. Presidential candidate. * *

* WERE THE NAZIS to control Europe for only decade, they would destroy some nations beyond hope of on.—Dr. Reinhold Niek

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Mr. Average - American Spelvin:

In other words, private investment became prac« |’ )

It'is difficult to imagine either happening without violence. And it

DIANAPOLIS

A —————

~ Come On,

Toots—Let’s Go!

Hecgroer,

The Hoosier Forum

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

INDORSES OPPOSITION TO A SALES TAX By W. H. Richards

Your editorial in opposition to the proposed sales tax in your issue of Thursday voices the sentiment of thousands of citizens. Of course there must be taxes, and heavy ones too, for it is necessary to pay all the legitimate expenses of government as well as to cover the waste that is spent by our misrepresentatives, and to avoid taxing those who are most able to pay, the tax must be on the poor. The sales tax is the very worst that can be collected, for it throws the burden upon the poor who, buying in small quantities, would pay considerably more than the 3 per cent while the rich who buy larger quantities at lower prices would pay only the 3.per cent tax. Also the family with small income must spend every cent of it for a bare living and a tax on the whole income, while the large income group, spending only 10 or 20 per cent of income would pay only on that amount. If this infamous bill is passed by our Legislature, it should spell the political doom of every representative who votes for it.

” ” » ANOTHER REPLY TO MR. MEITZLER’'S CRITICISM By J. O. Bradley, Noblesville, Ind. I am a young old man of 71 who never loafed or was lazy and who has been a taxpayer for the last 50

years. At 14 I worked in a sawmill. Prior to that, during my school days, I hoed corn for 25 cents a day and sawed wood at the same price. Show me a boy this day and age who would work for those wages. I worked 25 years for the American Straw Board Co. and about 15 years for the N. O. Nelson Co, in the foundry—hard work—until I was past 60. Lazy? Well, not hardly. The panic hit them and me also. I was paying on our home and trying to put our boy through high school. What were the results, Mr. James Meitzler? I had to go to the Home Owners’ Loan Corp. to save our home (and still in it), take the boy out of school to hunt work to help us to make both ends meet. We had a little laid up, but taxes, insurance, sickness and the necessities of life took all. . . . Now, Mr. Meitzler, four years ago this month I took a job of night watching at $8 a week. Would you

(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.)

do it? Or work for that? I'll answer that for you. No! Why should you censure an old woman or an old man who has had his hardships and has done his bit toward making this country so you, yours and the younger generation would and could have smoother living and better chances? . .. I have not as yet asked for an old-age pension. But if the Government says I am entitled to one, I would hate, Mr. Meitzler, to hear you say I've been a loafer, a bum and lazy. You sure would have to eat as well as swallow your versions on an old man’s claims and a poor woman'’s. . tJ ”n ” PREFERS HOME GUARD TO ADDITIONAL POLICE

By Ray Henricks It is generally believed that the fall of France was caused in part by politics in defense. One of our learned legislators the other day said, “Hitler is not attempting to invade Indiana, we do not need a State Guard.” Then he introduced a bill to add 200 more state policemen. Two hundred additional patronage jobs. At a savings, he said. The salaries of that many police would aggregate nearly one-half million per year. They may be installed for the “emergency” but don’t kid yourself that they will ever be let out. ? The State Guard members are volunteers without pay. The State is asked to equip them only. There would be more than a thousand men available at a per man cost of less than one hundredth that of the political police. There have been militiamen since before our country was founded. They have always given a good account of themselves. Should you allow a political machine builder to change your heritage of security, especially at a time like this? There is more danger to the United States from within than from without. Don't trade security for patronage. Don't trade your

birthright for vote getters.

taxes became almost confiscatory and what was left ||. :

"Here she. comes!

Side Glances=By Galbraith

I've been tryin ing io .ask ma

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to pass her for an hour, and i | hink |.own the road ~~ truck’ :

FINDS MOTHERS BITTERLY OPPOSED TO WAR By Alice Riggs Shoemaker, Cicero, Ind. In reply to Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Florence Kerr. There is absolutely no place in the hearts of we American mothers for war, and millions of wus absolutely. resent war and we are bitterly opposed to war and our American motherhood being drafted into war and we will fight for our democracy to the last mile of the way. . . .

Living as we have for 164 years under a Constitution—of the people —for the people—and by the people, we have learned to love and worship a democracy which gives us life and liberty. There is not one American woman today who would not fight by the side of her son or husband if it were necessary to do so in order to preserve our democracy. The wife or mother’s place in democracy is not in ‘the front ranks of the firing squad but in the homes of American families to train and

worship God. .. .

uniforms that is their ideas. But to my mind’s eye I would prefer to see our American women in a

nice house dress with a big apron ||

Of. se 1 say no, we do not want war and if Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Kerr want to wear a uniform and be a captain, then let them go to Europe and follow the European ways and not try to bring Europe to America. » ” » URGES SUPPORT FOR BILL AIDING CRIPPLES By P. J. M. Are the crippled and handicapped people of Indiana getting a fair deal? Provision has been made for the aged, blind and dependent children, but none for those who have had the misfortune to lose a leg or an arm or to be otherwise handicapped. We are living in -a time when existing laws, namely compensation law, will not allow us to be hired by industry. Then there is a law that

think any self-respecting person would want to. : Thus you have only direct relief if you can get it. The Indiana Rehabilitation Department will give training to the handicapped only after a showing that his training will fit him for a job. Thus we have a paradoxical condition limiting the Rehabilitation Department in train-

‘ling.

What is the use of training one for a job that will never materialize? There are many jobs in the defense setup that we can do Why does the Government itself discriminate against us? There has been a bill entered recently for financial aid for the handicapped in the Indiana Legislature. Those who are handicapped and those who are interested in legislation of this kind, get in touch with the Senator or Representative from your district and tell him to support this measure. ; . . This is Senate Bill 169.

SIGNS OF SPRING

By OLIVE INEZ DOWNING Pussy willow buds are swelling, Soon witch-hazel bloom will burst, Signs of spring are all about us In her charms she is: well-versed. 5

Sugar camps are being opened, And we hear the lilting meter Of the titmouse, in the tree top, Chanting gayly—"“Peter, Peter.”

‘Trees are waking from their slum-

bers, : : ‘Neath the loam plant life is stirring Gladsome awaits the springtime, As her gentle winds come purring.

DAILY THOUGHT

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their Lia now their sorAy th x

bring up our children to love and | sss If Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Kerr i

think that the women of Europe]: look so stately and grand in their |}

says you must not beg. And I don’t|

Gen. Johnson Says—

Britain Can Defend Isles Alone,

But Will Need Our Men if Her Aim Is to Crush Hitler on Continent

ASHINGTON, Feb. 17.—“Hitlerism must go.” That is the only recorded and announced war aim of the British Government. What does that .

be crushed and defeated on the continent of Europe. '

more effort than any commentator I know painstakingly to study his authorities and to run his con- * clusions back to their ultimate roots in history, surveys the triumphs of British seapower and concludes that since, in his view, seapower is the ultimate answer, Britain is supreme and Hitler is doomed.

acy of Admiral Mahan's thesis. The record of the centuries also’ challenges it. If it is determinative, we would not be ° a nation. Hannibal and Alexander the Great would never have been mentioned and Ghengis Kahn would have no place in history.

of great masses on land is silly. : 2 8 =

T is true that ours and the British economic sea war strangled Germany in 1918. But not alone. A military pressure on land, equal and finally superior - to hers was necessary and we, who had been repeatedly told—just as Mr. Churchill says today—that all we

undershirts.” And we sent them to the tune of 2,000,000—more than the British ever devoted to this immolation in France. Now Mr, Churchill says—Mr., Willkie says—cor= recting an earlier slip of the tongue by Mr. Churchill, that we shall not be asked to send men. Horsefeathers! It is quite true that, at this phase, ships, convoys, the stripping of our own-ocean navy wholly inadequate for a two-ocean war, are all that Britain needs to de= fend the isles of Britain. ;

F the defense of those isles means the defeat of the : Germans and the destruction of Hitlerism in Europe, then it is true that Britain needs no Ameri-

ler on the Channel is not the defeat of Hitler and . Hitlerism in Europe. That defense of Britain can be. accomplished without American troops. But the de- - feat of “Hitlerism on the continent of Europe” can< not, and the representation of any authority to the contrary is false. : ~ Moreover, if our true object is the defeat of Hit--lerism on the continent, and our true belief is that Britain, once secure in defense of her island and her empire by her seapower, aided by ours, will not at-

. tempt a land attack across the Rhine without our aid,

we are the greatest zaniés and suckers since the good |

We can defend Britain by aiding her. achieve her aimg without joining her. On the high seas we have a decided interest. In the interplay of European politics, we have none whatever. .As this column has too frequently repeated for its own good, “Look down, look down that lonesome road before you travel on.” Who speaks for America?

We cannot:

The Times are their own and not necessarily those of this newspaper.

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HAT we witness now in our country is not an All-Aid-to-Britain movement ‘but a shove toward total war. The common people are lashed

never fight. x

so doing perhaps to help: its cause over all the earth, ours is that nation, nid The most soul-sickening aspect of the present mood is the’ sight of Protestant clergymen: moving from pre-war pacifism, using = arguments which are. sophistries when examined undef. any religious microscope. The: militant churchmen hdve gone s0. far already as ta start a new pub<. lication, “Christianity and the Crisis,” whose pure. (is always true of the current one?). pi and—any one should be able to un. ompelling urge to fight against a. threatening evil. There can be no quarrel with the: individual preacher on this score. It is not his desire to give battle we deplore. It is his use of the. cloth to incite others to fight. wt This makes him a warmonger and clergymen wars: mongers are more reprehensible than any other sort.. The Roman Catholic Church regulates its affairsmore wisely. The present Pope, like his great pre= decessor, has stood Arm for peace while international tumults swirled about his head. Everywhere else it is the same. The Catholics leave war-making to politicians and use their priests for more constructive work. And even though the Church does not use its wide authority to force peace, it pleads and prays for it continually. After this war ends—as all wars finally must— the broken and disillusioned Catholic soldier can return to Mother Church, as a penitent sinner who has disobeyed her commands and ers the consequences. But what of the broken and disillusioned Protestant veteran? His is a truly tragic fate, for he comes home to the worst of all defeats—a deep distrust of his religious leaders who translate the Gospel one way during peacetime and another way during times of war. Life may be of no consequence to our militant churchmen when a great cause is at stake, but surely the faith which gives life meaning must be preserved at all costs. The Protestant Church is on trial today before God and before the people. Is it going to put Christ in uniform again? ’

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, mot involving extensive re- . ‘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. C.).

Q—What policy was most characteristic of President Coolidge’s Administration? A—Enonomy in Federal expenditures. Ji Q—When an air-mail letter is sent from the Unite! States to Honolulu, with & 6-cent stamp how far does it travel by air? : A-—To the nearest Pacific port, thence by steamer, ' Q—Do plants have senses? , 1% a A—A professor of botany at the University of Towa says that plants respond to temperature, light, . tact, shock, pressure, tension, - gravity, electricity, wounding, gases and liquids, and in fact, the only sense that plants are known to lack, is hearing. ~~ © Q—Where is the highest astronomical observatory, in the world? . . {3 A—At Fremont Pass observatory in Colorado, altitude is 11,318 feet. It is a branch of the ¢ College Observatory for study of the sun's coro without an eclipse. we ok Q—In what order have German tanks been ployed in the present war? A—Heavy tanks

There is no question that seapower is a necessity . for modern imperialism—for defense against it, which itself is a kind of counter-imperialism. But to say - that seapower can contro] the strength or movement

Lord in his infinite judgment created Simple Simon, ~

A Woman's Viewpoint

into emotional irenzies by the keen whips of propa« ° ganda in the hands of many who themselves will :

poset will be to prove that THIS is a righteous war

mean? That, of course, means that Germany must

" Walter Lippmann, who makes .

Charles Beard has persuasive- ;. ly challenged the historical accur- ,

would ever be asked for would be ships and goods,. - were finally desperately called upon for “men in their .*

can troops at this moment. But the repulse of Hit-.

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Editor's Note: The views expressed by the columnists in

* ¢ » ’ > . 3

Yet if ever a nation was sit- | uated to keep the peace, and by :

i] .