Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 February 1941 — Page 12

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

~ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1941

«DIREFUL SPRING, OF WOES UNNUMBER’D” SPEING, the good green goddess of life and love, is being

harnessed by Hitler. and Mussolini for purposes alien to |

her nature. “In a short while spring will come,” cried Mussolini, and

then *the fun will begin.” Hitler, exulting that ‘/spring "ig in the air,” warns that “from April on our enemy can ex-

pect other things.”

It is hardly news to the British that there will be the devil to pay this spring. What seems important is Hitler's

emphasis on his ‘new U- boat campaign rather than on invasion threats. He said his submarines had knocked out 215, 000 tons of enemy shipping in two days, and indicated that this was just a curtain-raiser on an all-out battle of blockade which has only waited on the training of U-boat crews. German figures on torpedoed tonnage are usually subject to discount. But there is no discounting the reality of the U-boat threat. Only the other day a “neutral naval source” in London predicted a drive by 600 German subs against ‘the ‘ British lifelines. England’s naval strength, much of it occupied in"the Mediterranean, is woefully thin for convoy purposes—even with the 50 destroyers she got from us, and with’ her own hurry up construction and repair of warships. 8he would be better situated to combat this menace if she: could regain the Irish bases which she gave up only &. few years ago, but neutral Eire declines adamantly to unhand them. It seems certain that we may Spark-probaiiy soon after the Lend-Lease Bill is enacted—heavy pressure from : London for the ‘transfer of additional American warships, or ‘their. use under our own flag for convoy duty. It will be argued that American production of weapons for England is bootless if the weapons must be transported with inadequate escort through periscope-infested seas, and ‘that all the barbed wire ‘and pillboxes and courage in the world cannot protect a people from invasion by hunger. The final phrasing of the bill may determine whether, when the time comes, the decision as between saying no to England and leasing (or risking) units of our navy is to be made by Mr. Roosevelt alone, without reference to the views or fears of Congress and even, if he sees fit, without the approval of tlie Navy’s high command.

NEWS TO MRS. ROOSEVELT N her always interesting column Mrs. Roosevelt {ells of the skeptical care with which she investigated before writing about the m mipers’ hospital at Montgomery, W. Va., which is doing a remarkably fine work although it appears to receive no aid from the Government. It seems to Mrs. Roosevelt to be too good to Lie true. The miners pay $1 a month and for that small sum receive complete and excellent hospital care for themselves and their families. She searched long and thoroughly, but the First Lady could find no flaw in the plan. “The only explanation,” she concludes, “seems to be the great care taken to. eliminate waste.” That formula is not exactly a secret, as applied to hospitals or to other enterprises. However, in ore most important enterprise it has gone out of fashion in recent years, and we can understand how the discovery that it can be used, and that it works, was such a surprise to Mr. Roosevelt's wife.

ACCENT ON SACRIFICE

HE price of democracy and peace on this hemisphere is based on our being more willing than the Nazis to sdicrifice our goods, our time and, if need be, our lives.” So séid Vice President Wallace at Des Moines. % We're glad to hear the accent placed on sacrifice, and we hope other leaders will join Mr. Wallace in a determined effort to disillusion those Americans who still believe they cén save democracy and peace and their lives, not only withoft sacrifice but with financial profit. © As a matter of fact, we think, the number of Americ#ns who believe that is small. Yet none of us, excepting only the men who have gone into the Army, has bzen asked te make any real sacrifice. On the contrary, we have been agsured that by arming ourselves and Britain, and paying the. bills with borrowed money, we can avoid war and attain prosperity. ; % The British Government, preparing to raise the normal rate in its income tax from 421% per cent to 50 per cent, worries over the inflationary tendency of the borrowing that i is still necessary. What the British people are paying. ig blood and tears we know. : What they are paying in toil d sweat we may judge from Ernie Pyle’s story of the a Scottish shopkeeper, called back after 18 years to his old trade as a gaugemaker, who cheerfully works 12 hours a day with only one day off every two weeks. : But here, where we hope to avoid giving blood and tears, we are not being called on for much increase of toil and sweat. We are having a great business boom. . In 1940, says the Department of Commerce, goods and services were produced in record volume, and 1941 promises ta be better. The income-tax bills—of the comparative few who pay income taxes—will be somewhat bigger this year, but the normal rate remains 4 per cent. And we are told that fear of inflationg is absurd; that the Government cannot further seduce its “ordinary expenses, which have been reduced hardly at all; and that restrictive tax measures should be voided since they might prevent the national income from Facing higher levels. ¢ We believe most of the American bectle rotomdly strust the theory that they can have safety without sacrire. We believe they would welcome a courageous call r much more of toil and sweat and taxes. For they know t continued failure to pay that price for democracy and will bring disaster, probaply upon thernselves and

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Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Picturing the Hardships Faced by Our Recruits as They Prepare for The Task of Keeping America Free

T. DIX, N. J, Feb. 25.—Along toward dusk of a windy day last week a group of several hundred | young civilians moved along a frozen road parallel to the railroad siding, carrying small satchels and bundles. Many of them were without hats and some wore jackets instead of overcoats. They were more a crowd than military unit, although they kept ranks of a sort, for they had left home only that day to join the Army and, in all probability, to fight in a war against Hitler's Nazi Germany and possibly Japan and, before it is over, against God only know what mixed aggregation of young men of other nationalities and races.

A soldier in uniform walked:

ahead, leading the irregular column against the biting wind, and the absence of a band, the absence even of a flag, emphasized the .dreariness of their induction into the Army of the United States as darkness gathered over the rows of winterized tents in which they were to spend their first night in the The Army was busy with other duties and,

physical comfort as the post affords for the others, including shelter under canvas, which is not as miserable as it may seem in print, even in cold weather, an issue of bedding which now includes a mattress, and a warm evening meal.

” # 8

‘FTER supper they would return to their tents, ‘most of them strangers to one another, and bed down for the night in strange surroundings, beginning a strange new life, and the next day they would receive uniforms and kit and begin to learn the difference between a general and a sergeant. So it goes, and it has been going for many a day, not only at Ft. Dix, which lies in bleak country down toward the Jersey coast, and the picture of the straggling civilians walking toward a highly probable war was reminiscent of those dark and bitter Communist cartoons of the Art Young type of young men marching obediently into the maw of a monster labeled capitalist war. Yet this war has been started by German bolshevism at the signal from Bolshevist Russia, whose disapproval might have prevented the horrible attack on Poland, and the capitalist American nation only now, warse luck, is beginning to make an army to defend, not capitalism for its own sake, but the liberties which exist only under capitalism, against the armies of the dictators. That the free world of capitalism might melt from under their feet in the cause of such a war, what with the cost of arming and fighting and drop them all into the savage world of Hitler and Stalin, is a mocking possibility. Should that come to pass, the survivors would return from war to existence under a regime unimaginably worse than the discipline of the humane, different and rather conciliatory officers of the new American Army.

” ” ”

HE cold, the wind, the gloom of evening on a re- _ mote rural plain combined to stir in the imagination a sense of discrimination against these young Americans called on to abandon their accustomed life while other men, indistinguishable from them, including men scarcely, able to speak the language of the country, hurried past, bound from a day’s work at high wages, building barracks and warehouses for the Army. To be sure, the first night of a young civilian in the Army is always to be one of loneliness, and the ordeal known as beast barracks at West Point, in which the recruits are taught etiquette and squads east, is one that graduate officers always remember with a strange pride in their own moral gameness. And be it said, too, that the new men, individually, seemed. not at all depressed and made themselves at home with no outward symptoms of self-pity. But the inequality of the sacrifice is too evident to be. overlooked by any civilian, to say nothing of the obviousness of this inequality of the soldiers themselves. The polite political pretense which civilians so eagerly accept at face value, that these soldiers will serve only a year and only for purposes of training, is at once a sedative to the soldiers and a sop to the conscience of the civilians. That management or money would sulk or that union leaders should be entreated not. to delay the manufacture of weapons, planes and vehicles, and thanked for not doing so, is a wicked and dangerous imposition on those who trudged along the frozen ruts of the churned clay road this winter night.

Business By John T. Flynn

U. S. Will Have to Be Strong To Cope With Post-War Problems

EW YORK, Feb. 25.—One hears now a good deal of talk about “after the war.” After the war, what next? Then you hear that we might be in for something like we had after the last war. The something referred to is the boom which got under way around the early part of 1923. There is nothing Americans are so much interested in as our. post-war position. The world is going to be in a pretty sorry state. Just what form the trade rivalries will take is not easy to forecast. But one thing is certain, and that is we cannot escape the duty of making ourselves strong at every point. And there is plenty of reason to say that we are doing : = almost everything under the sun to weaken ourselves. When the last war ended there was an immediate let-down in business. It did not become manifest here at once. The War and Navy Departments kept on ordering and buying goods on an enormous scale. It took time to demobilize our armies. And hence the war boom did not collapse at once. It was 1920 before we began to notice the severity of the drop and then by 1921 things were going down fast. However, around the early part of “1923 a rise began. The depression was short-lived. There were several reasons for the rise. One of them was that the war left Europe frightfully disorganized. She needed all sort of things—new machines, new houses, new goods of all sorts. And we had those things. ” ” 1L.SO we were quite proud of the discovery that we had become a creditor nation. Hence im-

mediately we begin to do, on a peace-time basis,

what we had been doing on a war basis. Our bankers began lending large sums to Europe and to the rest of the world for rehabilitation, for starting new industries, for supplying shortages. This played an Biporean; part in our rise from the post-war depreson. This will not happen this time. First of all, in the years since 1923 Europe and parts of Asia have become highly mechanized. American mass production methods have found their way into many countries. Europe will not need to call on us for so much as she did before. But aside from that, Europe’s credit, which has been dead for some time, will be, if possible, even deader when the war ends.

The patios for this post-war trade which helped

rescue us last time is not so good. However, we need not worry much about this. As long as we can face the facts and know them we can protect ourselves. Our job is (1) to buckle down to the problem of increasing the purchasing power of our own country by normal and wholesome means; (2) to build up We exchange of goods between this country and all o South and Central America.

So They Say—

I THINK we can depend on the average American’s sense of humor to see the ridiculous side of attempts to play prejudice of group against group,— Dr. Newdigate M. Owensby, Southern Psychiatric ation. ; I CAN SEE

* * Ad NO problem existing

cal

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES - Unfinished Business: .

- A i

The Hoosier Forum

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

URGES A STATE BOARD TO CONTROL PENSIONS By William Rupert, New Castle Pension and relief money should be controlled by a State Board so that the needy would get justice in every county and part of State be-

cause the State furnishes most of the money. Some State men and some county men don’t want distribution changed —might rose their jobs and salary. They say it is working. So is the bee's sting working and the more it dislikes a fellow the more it works its sting. The more Joe Louis works his arm the harder it is on the other fellow. The more a mule works its legs backward the more danger back of him. We want a more helpful and forward State working so that the needy would get a decent amount in every county and part of the State, for this is the purpose and intent of all social and public relief money. So let's work for equity and jus® tice to the actual needy as we do for others and class. ” 2 ” OFFERING A PLAN ON FREE SCHOOL BOOKS By. Ralph P. Crousore, Greencastle, Ind. Just a thought toward the free books for school children. I notice the legislators having difficulty in arriving at a workable solution and not spend too much money in doing it. Just as a suggestion toward a workable plan the legislators might consider some such plan as this: 1. Have the State purchase the Senior High School students books and use them thereafter and let that be the start of the plan. 2. That the present books of all other grades of Common and High School shall be retained or rather continue to be used until replaced with new textbooks in: future years. 3. That all parents who leave the {2 books with the school at the end of the school year shall receive a receipt for them and shall be furnished free books, except for replacement fee, for the following

year upon presenting receipt which

Side. Glances— By Galbraith

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

would be honored by any public school in state. 4. That there ,be’ a replacement fee charged each pupil each year, of say $1, this dollar would be far less than the taxpayer now pays to buy books for his child, and would be a simple foolproof method of collection as each school would of necessity have to turn into the replacement fund $1 for each child enrolled, each year. This plan plainly*~stated would work in this manner. In my own case for instance, I have a daughter in the first year of high school and would be glad to leave her text books at the close of the schoal year and know that the sophomore books would be free except $1 replacement fee and her junior and senior years each $1 replacement. To start the plan, students books for senior year should be purchased by the State so that the parents who have purchased them shall receive their money or the greater part of it, for their .child out of high school will no Ionge be offered free books. . . . .

” » 2 SUGGESTING A HAVEN FOR VERNE MARSHALL By Norman Glenn, Frankferti, Ind.

Not long ago, Walter Winchell remarked that Verne Marshall, because of his action toward any aid to England, was becoming very unpopular even in his own home town. If while bitterly denouncing the White House, life becomes too miserable for him out there, let me suggest, that he move’ to Indiana where he may feel more at home. First, I suggest that he move: to Noblesville, a nice quaint old pldce where another distinguished savior of ‘America has -migrated because

i. COPR, 1944 BY NEA

INC. 7. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

prospects looked much brighter. Verne may make a good Silver Shirt. Second, Verne would feel much at home around Indiana's Washington Congressmen who stand against the world in fighting anything Rooseveltian. Third, he would here find a state congress leaning over so far-back-ward that they can’t see where they are going. Fourth, if at any time he may crave company, he could journey up to Michigan City prison and exchange ideas with another ex-lead-er who led a Hoosier movement to save America from something for somebody. Lastly, if a fair talker, he could advertise himself as a good afterdinner speaker for anti-New Deal banquets—and the demand would solve his board bill. So, Verne, if you feel oppressed out there, come to Hoosierland where we see nothing and hear nothing, where we shoot those darn newfangled ideas before they get us. Yes, sir, pappy got along without ’em, grandpappy got along without ’em, and great Jehosaphat, we can get along without ’em too, yessiree.

#0 8 CONSIGNS BRITISH EMPIRE TO PERDITION

Hoover, Willkie and Roosevelt— when the naws reminds me of their concern for Europe and Britain I don’t know what to think. It’s beyond me, I'll admit, but I think our national leaders should be more concerned abou! our own Americans who are in need. Let Britain go to hell! Let ‘he British Empire collapse! When it does, it will not only end “Mediterranean Slavery,” but will also end slavery—British slavery in India also. The appropriation for the Aid-to-Britain Bill could be used to a far greater and better advantage by extending more relief aid to our needy Americans Why deprive this ‘nation and its people to save an Empire of monocled snobs who have always held us in contempt, and have even asked our travelers abroad: “When are you yellow Americans going to

help us?”

» 2 ” A REBUKE TO THOSE OPPOSING WAR AID BILL By Margaret Stearns, Reese, R. 4, Box 364

In regard to your open letter to Rep. Louis Ludlow, from Mrs. Helen Eck, there is just one question I would like to ask the lady. Do you understand fully just what it would mean to this country if Britain were to be defeated? Then if you do—how can you, a woman, oppose the Lease-Lend bill which is America’s very first and strongest line of defense against the Axis? Party politics at such a critical time is trivial. Wendell Willkie has really come through like a real thoroughbred and has made thousands of friends by so doing. You who are either so prejudiced or so pitifuly misinformed, that you fail to see the great and imminent danger our country faces would do better to hold your speech. .. .

UNFOLDING LIFE By ELEEZA HADIAN

These are the things I seek Yet, these the things I shunned

The sirength of silence The knowledge of “I do not know” The power of pafience, Understanding of solitude The vision of tranquillity . Indifference of truth And greatness of humility!

. DAILY THOUGHT

And the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses oges—Numbers 1:54.

HE WHO obeys with modesty JProats UTI oF Liu sume SY

By Clarence F. Lafferty, 2003 N. Keystone Ave.

TUESDAY, FEB. 25, oar Gen. Johnson

Says— Military Experts Agree Invasion of Britain Will Fail, but Split on How Nazis Can Be Beaten in Europe

ITTSBURGH, Pa., Feb. 25.—In a friendly debate with. Maj. George Fielding Eliot in Pittsburgh Saturday on war possibilities, two of the principal schools of so-called thought were seen in pretfy clear profile. On a few basic guesses there was esomplete. agreement; that this country is in no danger of invasion in the mea-" surable future, that Germany will not be successful in an invasion - of England this year and that her chance of doing it later will probably decline, that there is no prospect that England will: lose her* mastery of the ocean this year, _ So much seems to be a pretty general consensus among fairly: well informed students of the problems of the war as they affect us. Beyond that, there is disagreement. Maj. Eliot, who is one of the most painstaking of our military critics; is also one of the leaders of those who feel that it is to our ine terest to “keep the war as far away from our shores as possible.” He quotes the authorities to the general effect that the real line of defense of a great sea power “is the coastline of its possible enemies.” i

. FR

E, therefore, believes that the place foi our navy at least to threaten is the west coast of Europa and Africa and the east coast of Asia .and Malayasia. He has advocated our getting naval bases in Africa and the Cape Verde and Azores Islands and extending our naval bases in the Pacific far to the west. The effect

of all this is a practical naval alliance or pool of naval

strength with Great Britain. Between the two nations, as he correctly says, da, control of every dominating point on all the oceans;. England itself, Gibraltar, Suez, Aden, Singapore, Corregidor, Capetown, the Falkland Islands, Panama, Honduras, Hawaii and all the great American basis on both coasts. Coupled with the superiority of the two fleets, he thinks no land power can at length prevail. To all this he adds, and his adversaries. agree, that England alone could never retake on land, the German conquests in northern Europe; ‘that it could be done, if at all, with only a new A. E. PF. of millions, which he does not favor, and that Russia is no great threat on the German east flank. :

To fhost of that, the opposing argument is: “O. K., but how is the war then to be won by Britain?” "Hi premises leave only the one answer and he makes it frankly—economic strangulation of Germanized Europe by a British blockade and battering of Germany from the air, naval frustration of Japan in Asia’ and the Indies. 8 4. ‘ HE opponents say: “Economic strangulation uns accompanied by military attack never yet won a war. A combination of both did beat our Confederacy and whip Germany in 1918. it was a long, slow process. In this case, without constant military pressure requiring of any enemy the consumption of tremendous quantities of scant supplies, it would be interminable and extremely doubtful’ of result. Furthermore, since we are undertaking to finance this world-wide military, naval and economic strategy and to become not. only the arsenal but the larder, banker, guardian and good neighbor to half a world, it would work our economic ruin. It is an= other “great experiment noble in motive,” but it takes in too much territory for even our resources. . “If we perfect our own defenses and shorten our

lines, our naval, military and air strength will be

multiplied in comparison with a strategy of buttering them so thin across the whole globe. We can become impregnable. Half a planet is enough for one nation to undertake to finance and defend. The difference in cost is tens of billions. The, difference in risk of war and disaster is immeasurable. Aid Britain? Yes, up to two very definite limits; that it does not weaken our own defense, that it does not involve us in & world-wide war the cause of which we can’ control. The Eliot argument does both.” There are two proposals. “You pays your money and you takes your choice.” ; :

A Woman's Veco By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

WH do you suppose started the notion that women can’t get along together? - It is so ancient it is moss-grown, and I for one suspect it was originated by some male who fancied himself so al luring that the girls would be fighting over him, At any rate, it is one of those. hoary hand-me-downs which, ale though daily refuted by fact, cone tinue in circulation. When femininity began to

heard it often: “Women can’t work together in the same office. They'll tear hair before they get started.” That's what everybody said. - And take a peek at the offices now. “No house is big enough for two women,” is another remnant of dark age ideology, and ‘it was accepted without question during the time when nearly every household did hold two women--the sweetly simple Victorian age, when old maid aunts and grandmothers had to move in: with relatives or go to the poorhouse. Nearly every family included some forgotten or. broken down skirt, who not only got.along with her. female relatives but did a good deal: to help them get along with life. As a matter of cold fact, women are as agreeable in groups as men, who, in spite of all their talk, are usually engaged in some kind of murderous strife, financial or martial.

It would be interesting, I think, to experiment :

with the idea. Let two or three men live together in the same house for six months and then take notes. Because living together, when applied. to women, means literally what it says—constant contact the. entire day. But when men dwell under the same “roof, they only sit down to meals together and go to their separate bedrooms. The rest of the time SR are out: at’ work somewhere and naturally never get intoeach other’s hair. At present women work side by side ‘amiably inthousands of big and little organizations, in. school buildingings and offices. They seem to lke each.

' other pretty well, as mortal liking

goes, Anyway, it's a little tiresome to have: to listen. to. talk about women who can’t get along on the, house, especially when it is . Se eacast by =, can't get along on the same same planet, Editor’s Note: The views. ex d by eo i VR th ar their own.’ Sr ry 3m

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