Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 February 1941 — Page 13

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

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RILEY 5561

Give Light and the People Will Fina Their Own Way

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1941

UNH-HUH? N Italian newspaper, Popolo di Roma, cautions the American press to go easy on reports that Italy soon may be eliminated from the war. “Perhaps some surprises are in store for our adversaries,” it says. “For example, far from retreating from the war, Italy might intensify the battle and throw. into it all her war power, energy and resources.”

BROWDER THE CRIMINAL

. THE Communists, of course, will yowl that the Supreme Court has now become party to a capitalist conspiracy to railroad Earl Browder to jail. They have no case. ~~ Browder broke a law of the United States. He traveled to Russia on American passports obtained by false statenients. The purpose of his journey was contrary to the best interests of the United States. In Russia a crime of this sort would long since have been punished by liquidation of the criminal.. Here Browder has been permitted to remain free for many months, meanwhile being a candidate for President, while he sought by use of fine-spun legal technicalities to escape punishment. The Supreme Court has swept those technicalities aside. Maybe the four-year prison term is unfortunately severe, in that it may create unthinking sympathy for Browder. He deserves none. The fact is that he is going to prison, not for being.a Communist leader, but for being a criminal. His followers who cry that he is being punished because he is a radical are really contending that radicals should have special privilege to commit crimes with impunity. The Supreme Court and the American people take no stock in such an’argument.

THEY CAN'T EAT INTERNATIONAL LAW

HE American Government appears to be as dead set as the British Government against Herbert Hoover's proposal to send food to hungry People in, Europe’s small democracies. - The obligation belongs to the German government, says Sumner Welles, Undersecretary of State, who adds that international law requires Hitler to care adequately for the ~ citizens of all countries his armies have occupied. This accords with the position of the British, that they are fighting to free these countries and will take no chance of losing ' the fight by relaxing the blockade.

Well, it is a heavy responsibility our Government is |

taking, for it has been free to say that Hitler observes: no international law that he finds it convenient to violate. There can be no real belief, in the State Department or at the White House, that Germany will caré adequately for the victims of Nazi aggression. Mr. Hoover has narrowed his original proposal. He asks now only that a test be permitted in one of the small countries, Belgium, to find whether people there can be given American food without military advantage to either Germany or Britain. He would have soup kitchens, supervised by a neutral commission, which would feed no Germans but would distribute 50,000 tons of food a month to a million Belgian adults and two million children. » HE Hoover plan would require both Germany and Britain to permit passage of relief ships. It would require the German government to agree not to requisition Belgian food, and the Belgian government to pay for the American food. Mr. Hoover says there would never be more than about a two weeks’ supply of American food, per-

2 8

haps 25,000 tons, in Belgium, and if Hitler grabbed it all |

we treet’s mind a few weeks it would be only an infiitesimal addition to Germany: 8 Tas Yer) Juuch Ju Wall Sires

larder. It is hard % see what great risk Britain would take by permitting such a test, and if it succeeds, an extension of the same plan to other occupied countries. If Hitler did grab American food, or Belgian food, the experiment would promptly be abandoned as a demonstrated failure. The people of Belgium would have more reason than ever to

hate their conqueror. and to do all they could to aid the | drive, now rapidly getting under way. Therefore there

British cause.

As it is, they and the people of dther occupied tertile tory are likely to blame Britain for their hunger—to loge

sympathy for the nation which proclaims that it is trying

to liberate them but at'the same time refuse to sanction an:

attempt to save them from starvation. The British are fighting for their own lives, and we can’t blame them for not being wary of any plan that hey believe might handicap their efforts. But it does make us a little uncomfortable to find a spokesman for our own Government so readily announcing that we must leave the hungry little democracies to the ‘tender mercies of Hitler and international law.

DO WE PROGRESS?

OES the world move forward? Sometimes it seems not, when wars multiply in number and destructiveness, when social problems pile up and seem insoluble. And yet it moves. Shall we ever return, think you, t¢ the sort of conditions, described by Dr. Walter N. Polakot’ in a recent United Mine Workers’ Journal, which once prevailed in Scotch coal mines? Ancient reports of an

/ investigating commission of 100 years ago told this:

“One girl . . . began work at age of 10, is now 17, and works 12 to 14 hours a day; her father gets 12 shilling: every fortnight for her work . . . another girl began at th: age of 8 to work from 2 a. m. until 1 p. m. . .. ‘I have had

the strap when I didna do my bidding.’ . . . This girl had to |

travel the height of St. Paul's Cathedral with 114 hundred ‘weight on her back.”

; Yes, black as some Phase of the future look, there are

ered by carrier, 12 cents

Fair Enough By ‘Westbrook Pegler

Court Ruling Calls Attention to Fact Picketing May Be Unfair to Employer And Public Should Be Sure of Facts

TEW YORK Feb. 18—Inasmuch as the United :gitates Supreme Court recently split two ways on a simple issue I see no reason to maintain my usual bashful reticence on the case involved. [Ete admitted fact is that the Carpenters’ Union broke an agreement to arbitrate a . dispute. with the machinists’ union over the division of work on a construction job in St. Louis, and not only struck the employer, who makes beer, but declared that he had been unfair to organized labor. No part of the Supreme Court found that the employer actually was unfair, and even the majority opinion, written by Justice Frankfurter, admits that the carpenters, having agreed to arbitrate, nevertheless refused to do so and struck. I am about concern myself with the truth or falsity of the public| representation by the carpenters that the employer was unfair in these particular circumstances, a representation which damaged the business of the a to a serious extent, and the duty of the public to investigate such claims by labor organizations which Justice Frankfurter describes as “a familisr practice in these situations.”

o n ”

' AM unable to determine with absolute conviction whether Justice Frankfurter meant to suggest that, because this claim was “familiar practice” it was allowable and worthy, or to point an evil which, in his mind, invites remedial legislation. By the tone of the context which, incidentally, sounds to me like legalistic couble-talk, I am given to suspect that he does not ‘disapprove but is inclined to regard the claim made in this particular situation as a mere fib. It will ‘be remembered, that nowhere in his long, and to me, cloudy essay on the case, did he positively find thaf the employer had been unfair and that, on’ the confrary, he did say that the carpenters, “having agreed to arbitrate, nevertheless refused to do so. The minority opinion, written by Justice Roberts, with the concurrence of Chief Justice Hughes, finds that the majority of the court has, in effect, repealed the liability of unions for damages inflicted on innocent parties in the prosecution of interunion disputes, anc, I would add, in contempt for their agreement. | In this case the employer was either fair or unfair, and if he was fair, then the representation by the unign to the contrary must have been a falsehood, which wrought serious harm to his business and violated his rights, which are no less precious, not only to him but to the whole community, than the rights of any union. FJ t 4 » Mx citizens have suffered great financial loss from the presence of pickets carrying banners declaring them to be unfair when they were, in fact, not; only fair to their employees but courageous deferiders of the workers’ right to remain free, unorganized men. The power of the picket line to destroy the trade of a store or the popularity of a prpduct has been wickedly abused many times. It may be used gs a weapon for blackmail as the Supreme Court surely must have heard by now, and this fact puts it up to thé public to hear both sides of any dispute and ignore pickets and flout boycotts when the facts acquit the

enipl oyer of wrong.

It is not good citizenship to assume that because

lia union says an employer is unfair he deserves to be

shunned by his customers, for he and those employed

‘by him may be the victims of conspiracy, falsehood land a racket.

Of course, Congress can, and now, probably will

redress the situation, but that will take time, and meanwhile the public may be reminded that it has a weapon for justice in its own hands.

Unions have déne much to discredit their picket lines and boycatts, and the burden of proof should now be assumed by them, \ . | I Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists in this tiewspaper are their own. They are not necessarily those ¢f Ihe Indianapolis Times. s

Business

| By John T. Flynn

Market Pessimism Probably Due To Belief End of War Is Near

™ EW YORK, Feb. 18—Amid financial pages ALM sprouting with good news about rising business everywhere, the stock market persists in its pessimism anc stocks go gaily down. Why is this? There is, of course, always a good deal of romanticism around Wall Street. But by and large the men who buy and sell stocks are terrible realists. And it is impossible to escape the feeling that a lot of very grim realism is doing business in the minds of the financial fraternity these days. One phase of this has to do with the possible ending of the war. In spite of a good deal of sentiment for Britain in Wall Street, there is an immense amount of robust pessimism about her chances of winning the war. The question of a negotiated peace, which ago, keeps cropping up again and again. It is not, so the hard-headed speculator will tell

you, a choice of a negotiated peace between Germany’

and Britain or a dictated peace by Britain, but a choice of a negotiated peace between Germany and England or a peace dictated by Hitler. And there seems to be a lot of confidence in what Wall Streeters all Britain’s practical common sense as well as in ner courage. : : 2 nn : HE longer the war lasts the worse they believe it will be for Britain, and they think this will be

even more true after Germany begins her Spring

are men in Wall Street who believe that the chief aim of the present Lend-Lease bill is not so much to bring actual United States aid to Britain as to give her a better position from which to arrange an ending of the war, This feeling of an approaching end to the war is at the bottom of the market weakness. Some men believe that the war’s end would not slow up war industry here, but on the contrary would tend to speed it up. They feel the “ coming” motif

would be worked as long as possible. But more feel

‘They fe®l that the tremendous British propaganda drive for ail would suddenly halt, and that America would also suddenly get very realistic about her own interests; that the fury about preparedness would soon die down to be succeeded by headaches, quarrels, resistance to strong-arm methods tolerated in industry a little while the war is on, and a general reaction. The ominous ghost of peace spreads its wings over the market.

that it A survive only a short time.

So They Say—

THE EQUIPMENT that the British are now receiving from us is the equal of and in some instances superior to the best produced elsewhere in the world.

—Col.tJohn H. Jouett, president, Aeronautical Cham-

ber of Commerce. E . * * THE MOST tragic thing about this (world situation). is that we have created it; made it inevitable and in-

~ escapable.—~The Rev. Dr. Joseph R. 8izoo, New York

‘pastor. . % *

‘OUR YOUNG MEN play a bit of football in school, then go out to work, marry and start getting fat.— John B. Kelly, head of the national physical fitness program. * hd *

THERE IS NO such word as “hopeless” in a diplo-

mat’s dictionary.—Japan’s Foreign Minister, Yosuke

Matsuoka. ® * -. WE AMERICANS are not going to have peace just because we love peace. W. Lamont,

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

- The New Recruit!

TUESDAY, FEB. 18, 1941

The Hoosier Forum

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

ADDENDA ON MASTERS’ OPINION OF RILEY By May Louise Shipp

Perhaps those who read on Thursday last The Times’ agreeable article on the Contemporary Club may be interested in a more complete account of the opinion voiced by Edgar Lee Masters in regard to Riley and his verse. When in November, 1916, Masters, a speaker for the Club, arrived in Indianapolis, his first act. was to carry flowers to Crown Hill that he might place them himself on Riley's grave. Sensitive in a high degree, it was a shock to him that the body lay in the chapel and not under the good gracious earth which Riley loved so well. Mr. Masters greatly admired the poetry of Riley which, better than any other, he thought represented the all - things - work-together-for-good optimism of the rustic and small town mind. Riley, he said, had gotten into and under that mind,. had revealed its quirks and turns as no one else had done. “I know that is true,” said Mr. Masters, “because I was brought up with the kind of people he describes. I feel it in my bones. But the philosophy that underlies it is at fault. It does not last out. I have seen too many people suffer from the optimistic mood, from that ignorant faith in life out of which he has made his revealing verse.” The words quoted may not be accurate but the meaning is exacily that of Mr. Masters.

2 ” a

URGES MORE DISCUSSION ON FOOD STAMP PLAN

By A. 8S. Mellinger The “Food Stamp Plan” needs a

lives in a township in which are located a lot of truck farmers. That he is trying to be a trustee for the locality he represents is not to be questioned.

The reasons Mr. George gives bE that it would increase the cost of administration and out the allowance of larger families. Mr. George said "also that the people of Perry Township ought to know their own needs better than Washington; also they were getting along very nicely the way they are doing it. The plan has the approval of the State’ certifying agency, the Surplus Commodities Commission, and all the trustees except Mr, George. So what! The State certifying agency and the Surplus Commodities Commission are nothing but rubber stamps of Washington; as to the trustees, I know only one

little more discussion. John George

(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 bé signed, but names will be withheld on request.)

personally, and he is certainly a rubber stamp for everything ‘that comes out of Washington. Did the reporter go down into Perry Township and talk to the taxpayers to get their side? Certainly not. I am for feeding the needy, but I am opposed to keeping a lot of people on “easy street” who will not try to help themselves, and are encouraged to believe that they deserve a good living whether they do anything or not.

FE SUSPECTS ROOSEVELT 1S A MORAL REFORMER By Rose Gordon Levan, East Chicago, Ind. Recently the President was said to be profoundly shocked by the statement of Senator Wheeler to the

effec Syiias the Administration policy would have us plow under every fourth -American boy or something like that. That the Presiden® should be publicly shocked and vilify Senator Wheeler stirred some old memory—and I reread an old book to interpret flag-fiying feeling. In a chapter called “Man Is Known by the Dilemmas He Keeps,” Everett D. Martin says: “A man stands revealed both by the things he strives to gain and by those he seeks to avoid. The thing that most easily shocks him is usually that which he himself is struggling to overcome. It represents something to which in his secret heart he can say neither yes nor no. His dilemma troubles him. He seeks to .avoid the inner gnawing by carrying the fight into the open. He turns his personal conflict into the appearance of a public issue, and you have then the moral reformer.” All of which would indicate that PF. D. R. has considered entering the war with men as well as materials. One could hardly refrain from applying the words “moral reformer” to the President after his recent speeches in which he declared we must make the world safe from fear, want, for speech and for worship. That puts him into a po-

sition of No. 1 reformer and mis-

Side Glances=—By Galbraith

COPR. 1941 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

NALS

a-/8

"Can't you heat a bottle for baby Mithout frying yourself a seven-

men who can do the work properly:

‘marble.

sionary of the world, especially since he proposes to do it with the help of all the material and social resources of the United States.

” ” ” RESENTS CRITICISM OF CLOVERDALE, IND. By Jas. A, Petro, Evansville, Ind. - Why do some officials look over a mountain to investigate a mole hill? Just recently I picked up a newspaper in Cloverdale, Ind., to find glaring at me a Grand Jury's criticism of this small town and recommendations that the town employ additional police and that a Justice of the Peace be located here. Now it’s really nothing to me. I don’t live here, but visit here quite often, on my rounds as salesman for tobacco firm, and this town has always impressed me as being a clean little town, friendly folks, and a quiet mannerly place. This is quite opposite to the town in which this paper was printed and in which the Grand Jury met. I have - occasion to travel in that town, too, and as I am not too nice to admit I like a dice game and failing to find one in Cloverdale go to this nearby town or city and have been in craps games and stood beside the Justice of Peace of that town or city and after he threw the dice I made a few passes myself.” Why didn’t the Grand Jury investigate this condition? I noted the article of J. A. Andrews in your Feb. 4 Forum and wonder if it isn’t the same city he referred to. . § 8 8 PROTESTS QUALITY OF WORK AT COURT HOUSE By W. M. I am writing you in regards to work I have seen done in the Court

« oo

House. I think it is a shame and |

disgrace to the city{to have such work done when there are skilled

They say they can’t get skilled mechanics. Those are the men who can’t get work. . My husband has been at his trade for 39 years. He is a decorator. I don’t mean a common painter. He can do art paintings of scenery, he can do marbling the way it should be done, and graining that imitates any kind of wood. The marbling that is done, my little girl could cio better; it looks like everything but imitation of My husband is 60 years old, but he is able-bodied and willing to work and can do more than lots of men in their 30s. My husband worked on WPA at Ft. Harrison and was laid off two years ago and other men stayed on and some were laid off and got right back on again. Some stay on two or three years at a time. My husband went to see about getting on again. All he gets is “we will do what ‘we can” and that is the end of it.

FEBRUARY SONG By MARY P. DENNY I will build me a tower of song All in a glory true and strong A Shille through the silver winter

put Ras the minutes and hours of

days. A blaze with the glory of the sun, Of the cycles of life in duty run. Tones of the morning and the night Of the sheen and glow of sun and

star. Strains of the winter and fall and

pring of the joy of life in everything of te shining bars that nightin-

s sing And iy deep refrain of the winds

ring Glistening in tones of the days of the year Slow rising, a crescendo far and clear."

DAILY THOUGHT

Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus 25:17.

THE TRUTH cannot be made out, what is false is ‘through fear. — Quintus

clear

Gen. Johnson

Says— Gompers Held Labor Aloof From

Politics and Industrial Control, but Present Leaders Reject That Policy

ASHINGTON, Feb, 18.—On more than one oc casion during the World War when suggestions were mawe to the late great Samuel (ompers, that labor should have a voice in industrial management, he always shook his head—just as he always shook his head at suggestions of labor's greater participation in partisan politics. His reasoning was clear and": n may fairly paraphrased thus: “If labor is a party in manage~ ment it partakes in one of the great responsibilities of manage~ ment, namely profits. It is the business of labor organizations to see that workers get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. In hard times capital gets no wages. It can afford this for long periods of time, Labor cannot. We want nelilier that responsibility nor that sacrifice.”

As to close political affiliation, the argument was. a that parties must compromise on a vast assortment. of issues which are not the direct concern of organ~ . ized labor. That concern is always to champion the cause of the workers, It must work politically, but it must do so in the manner that serves it best. It is not served best by entangling its fate with any political faith where often the demand on it may be. “everything for the good of the party” when at tiraes - that “everything” may be all W the disadvantage of labor. ’ ” ” »

TET always seemed to me a very sound philosophy . for a labor leader. I have heard Mr. Gompers - expound it several times, Perhaps I didn't get it ex< - actly right, but that certainly approximates its gene: eral direction. 4 It all seems now to be in the ashcan. In the defense set-up, organized labor, at least insofar as it is represented by Sidney Hillman, demanded and got an authority over industry in control of war production (which is all production) on a par with industrial management at least insofar as it is represented b Mr. Knudsen. Neither of these good men is co! pletely representative of his group, but this Bir duumvirate control was certainly intended to signify at least partial labor management of industry. : As Frank Kent has pointed out, there are many. . signs in this direction and almost none in guy contrary direction. Philip Murray, head of C. I. O., has proposed a plan, whereby the sadly lacking IR ? tion of all-out American industrial mobilization shall be supplied by topside committee control of whole industries—committees in which labor and manage-~ ‘ment shall be equally represented in more or less. dictatorial administration of each regimented ine.

dustry. ” » ”

1 == is no doubt that the selection of organized labor's man, Mr. Winant, as Ambassador to Great Britain was a concession to the belief that Britain is headed even faster than we toward administrative control of industry by organized labor with management having perhaps a secondary voice. In this arrangement we are to have, in addition to an Ambassador to Britain, an industrialist as minister, but his position, unlike the equality in control sup= posed to exist as between Mr, Knudsen and Mr. Hillman, is to be distinctl iy second fiddle. There are many other indications of this trend, not the least of which is the earning reports of industrial companies for 1940 which show that taxes are already taking about two-thirds of all industrial earnings, in some cases closely crowding payrolls as the biggest slice of gross income. This is the result -before the vast prospective increases in new corporation war - taxes are applied. In our march toward the condition of complete socialization «©f our economy where, exactly as in Italy, Germany and Russia, nobody works for himself, everybody works for the state, and the state is a single man or a single dominant group, “it is later than you think.” Some nations arrive at the hateful effect by one path, some by another—but the result is the same in all cases and, in, the, elegant figure of speech of Al Smith, “ng matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney.”

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HE story of a broken heart always hag reader appeal. When the heart belongs to a dog pining * to death for his master off to military training camp, can’t you just see us scrambling for our hankies? It was a sweet, sweet story, and I'm sure you read * it with a lump in your throat, | Laddie, the 10-year-old Airedale, taken by plane from Chanute, { Kas., to be with his master at : ; Camp Ord, Cal, drew crowds of : dog lovers to the landing fleld. ‘7 Cameramen and reporters and © tender-hearted spectators met : him at the airport, for everybody » a wanted a glimpse of the faithful ? animal who, grieving over the sep- 2 aration, had dwindled from 40 to © 25 pounds and was. literally at . death’s door. The reunion was ace 3 complished, but the story ends : unhappily. Laddie did not recover from his long : . period of starvation. How moved we are by loyalty! It is the rarest, the : i most admirable of qualities, and the virtue we praise oftenest in the dog—perhaps because it is the one ¥ we most lack. For look at the way we deal with it in purely © human relationships. It’s silly for lovers to pine : away and die when separated, we say. What folly : for a woman who has lost her husband in death to : mourn him long; she’s indulging her grief, which ¥ is deplorable and selfish, Remember that stodgy old English Queen, Victori 8, 5 worshipping the memory of her dead Albert for 40 years. - Did you ever hear anything so queer? Not ¢ ¢ only faithful, bi t actually in love with him the whole | enduring time, We've outgrown that sort of sentimentalism, we | say, and preen ourselves over the thought. So, in # our day, we see men and women rushing fresh parte # ners to the altar before the departed ones are come fortably buried, and the modern custom of swapping old loves for new is regarded as a mark of superior ine § telligence. Friendship, too, is a wonderful thing, except that we have so little time for it. We simply can’t afford | to bother with the Smiths any more. Father's busi : ness interests make it necessary to be nice to Mr. and Mrs. Jones instead. Perhaps something more than our surface emoe tions is moved when we weep over a dog’s faithfule # ness. Maybe we cry because we realize, for a moment, | that. the love of which dogs are capable is something | we can no longer achieve. Or achieving it, we have § not the courage to be proud of it. : It’s all very fine to glorify canine virtues, but why § don’t we cultivate them within ourselves?

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Bervice Bureau will answer question of fact or information, not involving extensive | # .search. Write your questions clearly, sign name and 4 inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal : cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Services Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St., Washington, D. C.). :

Q-—Did women who lost their citizenship rying aliens regain it when the law was Sept. 22, 1922? i A—Unfortunately no provision wag made. to store the citizenship of women who lost their ¢ ship by marriage. American born women who their citizenship may apply for repatriation, and th who were citizens, before marriage hi. Raturalizzyion of a parent, must apply for natu

Which Vice President of the United resigned from his office? : ; A—John C. Calhoun.