Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 March 1941 — Page 22

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FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1941)

Gen. Johnson

an RE —— —— ngs iar ltt

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

The Policy of the United States

PAGE 22

Ta: 1ndienapolis Times alr Encush

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE | President Editor Business Manager By Westbrook Pegler

Says— SraPon Couns | Visit to North Carolina Cantonment 3 cents a copy | Proves Workers Can't Be Forced

Billion Britain ty, 3 cents a copy; deliv- | 7 § a Huge

NT a iii Into Unions if Not So Minded. : Sum But Considerably Less Than : nd What We 'Leased' in Last War,

Mail subscription rates ASHINGTON, March 14.—Seven billion dollars outside of Indiana, 65 | TT ——

Owned and published [ for a daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co., 214 W.

Maryland St.

Member of United Press, Scripps-Howard News-

BRAGG, Fayetteville, N, C, March 14.—Well, Sir, you just would be surprised to learn how simple this proposition is whether you join a union as a preliminary to catching a job on a big Government |

in Indiana, $ a year;

cents a month.

Give Light and the Peoples Will Find Their Own Way

paper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bu- E

reau of Circulations. RILEY 5551

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1941

" MRS. ROOSEVELT ON LABOR

"benefit the employer and make for better mutual under- |

WE reprint, and heartily indorse, what Mrs. Roosevelt said in her “My Day” column yesterday: “To me, organization for labor seems necessary because it is the only protection that the worker has when he feels that he is not receiving just returns for his labor, or that he is working under conditions which he cannot

"accept as fair,

“I also feel that dealing with organized labor should

standing. “Believing in this principle, however, does not mean

that I think the decisions made by groups of workmen or

their leaders are always correct. I do not expect from them infallibility and superhuman qualities, any more

“than I do from politicians or from Government officials.

“There have been and are abuses in the labor move-

- ment, and I think we should fight them. The people who

loses the ideal which lies back of all unionization.

' envelope would be $1.50, from a $40 wage

uncover these abuses, and speak fearlessly about them, show courage and perform a civic duty. I think, however, they

only the abuses they attack, not the fundamental right of | ~ organization for mutual support.

“A union organization fails in its full duty when it This ideal, it seems to me, is an unselfish interest in those who are not as strong as others in their ability to help themselves, and in a willingness to suffer to obtain for others the rights you may have already achieved for yourself. “I do not believe that every man and woman should | be forced to join a union. I do believe the right to explain the principles lying back of labor unions should be safeguarded, that every workman should be free to listen to the

| building operation in a community where the people |

don’t.

one of the biggest in the country,

contracts the unions were allowed to provide the help until they ran out of men. When all their members were at work and stil] more men were needed, non-union men were hired. Quarters and service buildings,

shops, sheds and laundries, have been building to

ished and it is safe to say that the union hardly picked up a five-dollar bill here.

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neighboring region embracing five counties, who had time on their hands, anyway, during the winter, | and such skill as a man needs to keep his buildings mended and replace any that burn down.

having to do with the construction of buildings and roads, mains, sewers and all the other work that con-

men have been welcome, no man has been barred because he didn’t belong to a union and refusing to do business with the collector. The work is now in the

| the carpet-bagging unioneer.

48 hours a week, plumbers $1.25 an hour and laborers 30 cents an hour. That is correct—30 cents an hour for laborers, mostly colored farm hands, or only $14.40 for a 48-hour week, and the bargaining agent on their behalf was the Department of Labor—a fact which apparently gives official support to the contention that living is cheap around here, as it should be, considering the sort of living it is; but, anyway, this employment has been a windfall for almost all concerned

the fort.

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plea of organization without fear of hindrance or of evil | circumstances, and that he should have the right to join |

“with his fellows in a union if he feels it will help others and, |

incidentally, himself.”

TAX ON SALARIES T'S going to be tough on a lot of people if the proposed 5 per cent special defense tax on salaries is adopted. Under the plan suggested, salaries less than say $25 a week would be exempt—but the Government's “take” from a $30 pay $2, and so on. Experts say it would yield 314 billions additional revenue |

It seems to us it would be fairer to seek the same |

« amount of revenue by broadening the base and hiking the |

+ largely be taken out of the dinner-pails and off the backs

: cut down the fearful toll of mine disasters in states whose

: year’s crop. Exports have fallen almost out of sight since

rates of the regular income tax. But at least this much can be said for the proposal: | It would be better than a sales tax. For a sales tax would |

of employees who earn less than $25 a week, And it would be better than passing the burden on to | future generations. The boys who are in camps drawing $30 a month are fulfilling their obligations to the country. | We who enjoy the greater comforts of home and a job should be willing to pay part of the cost of security.

MINERS’ BILL ON ITS WAY

HE miners’ bill for Federal inspection of coal mines passed the House of Representatives yesterday, with-- | out a record vote, and with only minor amendments. Since a similar measure was unopposed in the Senate last session, prompt Senate approval of this bill is regarded | as certain, and President Roosevelt is known to favor its principle, It probably will become law within a few weeks. We've been boosting this bill because it is needed to |

own inspection systems are inadequate and inefficient. Under it the U. S. Bureau of Mines will have authority to make inspections as to health and safety conditions and to publish its findings and recommendations. We hope the new law will fulfill the expectations of its | sponsors, the United Mine Workers—that it will remedy | conditions which have long disgraced this country and | which in 1940 contributed to the deaths of more than 1500 | men in coal mines.

BALES

E share the keen interest of Southern Congressmen in | the suggestion that fireproofed bales of cotton might | be used for building air-raid shelters. A seven-foot layer of compressed cotton, weighing only a fraction as much as a similar Jayer of concrete, would offer much more resistance to bombs, it is argued. This country’s steadily mounting stock of cotton on hand is now above 16145 million bales—more than a normal

the war began. Domestic consumption is up, but is expected to use less than nine million bales this year, and a new crop will soon be coming along. The cost of storing cotton under Government loans has become a heavy item, now about $20,000,000 a year, and the warehousemen want more money. The farmer may feel that he didn’t raise his cotton to be an air-raid shelter, but hope for putting a lot of it to any other use seems to be getting more and more remote.

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS STANLEY WESTGATE, 190-pound Detroit policeman, suffered a broken leg when his 114-pound wife tossed him over her head in a jujutsu demonstration. Jockey Conn McCreary got a divorce at St. Louis, charging his

gion, and it has been moving along swiftly toward a day, soon to come, when the contractors can drag their clutter off the big military reservation and clear out, so that the soldiers may really settle down to prepare to finish that war. The speed of the work undoubtedly has been the greater for the absence of business agents. Haggling over minute questions of jurisdiction, such as that in Dayton, where a whole job was shut down because the C. I. O. sent in four electricians of special skill to do a specific job, and they were protested by the job-trust in power. The North Carolina workers and a scattering drawn from a few other Southern states just refused to have any truck with the unions, reducing the question of its simplest terms, which have been fogged out of sight by arguments in the last few years. No man's right to join a union was contested, but most

| of the men stood on their right not to join, and their { right, as American citizens, to work at their legitimate

occupation, nevertheless.

accommodate a force of about 65,000 men. The work | began last September and is now 87 per cent fin-

stitute a big cantonment for soldiers, and while union |

final stages, so this is one big Government defense | . 3 a 2 } ,, whi ost t oss to | fail in their full duty when they do not point out that it is | job, at least, which has been an almost total loss | In a way, however, they all had the benefit of col- | | lective bargaining, because the pay was established | {| by the United States Department of Labor. ters have been drawing 90 cents an hour and working |

Carpen- |

who otherwise would have been earning, in round | numbers, nothing during the months consumed on |

HE job has been a lucky break for the whole re- |

| | CONCEDES FAULTY

|gards to Senator Wheeler

They are mostly of Anglo-Saxon stock, and mostly

native not only to the United States but to the region, and many undoubtedly have relatives and friends in uniform living in the barracks which already are turned over to the Army. Patriotism is rife among them. and foreignism and the sabotage of a defense

| work as a means of advancing the narrow interests of | any group would have been regarded as something on | the order of treason to their way of thinking,

Business

By John T. Flynn

Reports From Germany Indicate Fiscal System Heads for Crackup.

{is that before we can j effective attack against the internal

| |

aren't a mind to join and pay. If | they aren't a mind to they simply |

such as hospitals, warehouses and movie theaters, |

HE carpenters are almost all farmers living in a |

Altogether about 45,000 men have been hired and | paid for more or less time at 65 different occupations |

I wholly disagree with what you say,

The Hoosier Forum

defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

but will

(Times readers are invited to express these columns, religious controversies Make your letters short, so all can

ECONOMICS BROUGHT WAR By W. H. Edwards, R. R. 2, Spencer, Ind.

Although TI can’t agree with Mrs. | R. G, Levan’s laudatory letter in ye-|

their views in

excluded. (Forum I do thoroughly agree! with her that “The Real Problem” | which brought about the rise of} Hitler and the most vicious, destruc-| tive war the world has ever known | was bad economic leadership in| | our own nation as well as in other getting nowhere fast, she chanted nations; a rotten

March 10 Lip Marc ) have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be

withheld on request.)

the final results of which are as yet undetermined. . : As a former admirer of Senator ue picture. For America is not Bl Wheeler, one who voted for him for dark cave; it is a land of light Vice-President in 1924, I that his obstructive tactics towards extend the range of our own sight

. [ - 3 C y is ! . | problems of out national safety i by looking through the eves of a great disappointment to me. .

My reason for differing with Men of splendid vision, Spinoza, | Senator Wheeler (and Mrs. Levan) Einstein and many others whose! make an

forama that was in no respect a |

Germany. Could the equestrienne,

evil of economic rottenness we must ir : Nig aae | first destroy the brutal, treacherous, | live oy re oie | unholy external evil headed by Hit- | 5042 ler. { From the back of her mount she It is true, as Mrs. Levan states, saw Herr Hitler as an effect of a| that even if we do destroy the deeper cause and concluded that! present Hitler there will be other therefore, we must not fight him!| Hitler-like, murderous dictators rise This sort of reasoning would restrain | into power, unless nations unite on|doctors from combatting disease, | a workable plan for the advance- | since disease is but the painful effect

EW YORK, March 14.—Financial observers are |people of all nations. Such a plan Would it not go hard with men and

becoming increasingly interested in what is going on in business inside Germany. It has become the fashion here to talk about the great economic vigor of Germany and her Fascist economy when the war will end. More than once journalists have even said that Germany was pay-

ing for her war as she goes along

in order to avoid the dangers of inflation or collapse when it is over, . Better informed observers do not admire Germany's system and its alleged vigor as much as these journalists and military men. As a matter of fact, the process of inflation inside Germany must be moving at a pretty rapid rate. Of course Germany does not tell us too much about such things. One has to guess

| a little. But here is a fairly good basis for a pretty

sound guess. There are three great branch hanking systems in Germany and some lesser ones. The Commerzbank, one of these three larger banks, has just published a report for last year. The report shows that deposits increased during 1940 by 40 per cent. This is an enormous rise. The reason, of course, is obvious. These deposits could onlv have risen as a result of loans—government or private. It could not

| be the result of private loans, since the same report

shows that commercial loans decreased from 652 million marks to 487 million marks. The bank itself has been buying public securities and private individuals have been buying them and borrowing at the banks. In other words this “great” and “efficient” German economic system, which is going to knock us out of the world’s markets after the war, is lumbering along on no new or novel devices but on the same old wellworn scheme of the capitalist system which has gravely weakened or ruined every capitalist nation that has tried it—some several times—and will, of course, do the same thing in Germany.

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ERMANY, in spite of Mr. Hitler's mouthings about the end of capitalism, is a capitalist country. It is stiil, as far as possible, doing business through private owners, very severely and cruelly hampered and shackled by government regulation. And it is still running up against the difficulties of this system, multiplied several times when handicapped by excessive government control. It has resorted to taxation until that power is exhausted. This is the good old way under all systems. Then it has resorted to the equally good old way of borrowing at the banks. This in turn adds to the paralyzing weight of the taxation, since new taxes must be raised to service the loans. It is possible to keep this up quite a long time as long as there is a war and a dictator. But when either of these—the war or the dictator—goes, something new must be found. And in spite of all the preachments of Dr. Funk, Hitler's economic minister, no new way has as yet been announced. It begins to look now as if the way Germany will

wife embarrassed him by “touting” race information sup- | posedly obtained from him. Harpo Marx couldn’t remember | in court whether it was in 1936 or in 1937 that he married | Susan Fleming, former Ziegfeld Follies girl. And the manager of the New England Fresh Egg Institute asserts that nine out of 10 housewives don’t know how to boil an egg. : But Joseph Raphael of Chicago boasts that in the 58 years he’s been married he’s never eaten a meal that wasn’t prepared by “the best cook in the world”’—his wife,

meet her post-war problems will be Joe Stalin's way.

So They Say—

HITLER did not release the workers of Germanv from bondage to the bankers but forged anew chains to enslave the working class.—Matthew Woll, A. FP. of L. vice president, ® * THE U. S. has made the mistake of being South America conscious only occasionally.—James A. Farley, returning from a trip there, _

“

| | |

| |

| { | | |

could be worked out by political, | hobby-riding ladies if doctors let |

financial and economic leaders of |them die because they had violated |

ale} leading nations around a council [Some law of health? But the gal-|

table. if the members of that council [10Ping lady heedlessly ignored the| gave their loval devotion to per- | obvious fact that Christian civiliza-| manent peace as the objective|tion Will be wiped out bv those monsters sprung from the dragon's sought. . . « teeth of past mistakes if valiant men | do not keep them from working] TERMS U. S. LAND OF their will on the world. LIGHT, NOT A DARK CAVE Finally the lady-knight from East | : o . oi {Chicago entered the lists to rescue By Edna G. Vonnegut, 5324 N. Delaware St. Senator Wheeler, who. so she said. | Mrs. R. G. Levan of East Chicago, |“has gone up to see things as they| wrote a letter to the Forum to show are in substance.” The climaxing | off her erudition and to exercise blow of her lance was, “If reason. |

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scription.

| her hobby which she implied related | logic, justice, common sense were [to the defense of economic justice,| not discredited as ‘appeasement’ we {but which looked rather like those !could see where the real problem | | earousal steeds “made in Germany.” (lay. ...” If Senator Wheeler, when | Using me as a mounting block, he went “up,” saw Herr Hitler agree-

| young man.

ing or giving Britain to help her save herself from Hitler. Actually, the figure is not so important now that we have decided on all-out aid. It is unques= tionably just an overall figure plucked from the air, It couldn't possibly be a result of statistical estimates of specified munitions. In the first place, nobody knows what direction the war will take or what we shall be called upon to send or where, In the second place, it is impossible to spend seven billions more than have already been contracteq for in one fiscal year or two. In this uncertainty, the Ade ministration decided to make the figure high enough to give it a free: hand in any direction and, since Congress has decided to do that, the outside figure of seven bil lions was probably the wisest and frankest request that could have been made. The Administration already has authority ta spend 32 billions for American defense and has been trying to spend it by steam shovel methods, and yet

| its estimates for total spending to the year ending

June 30, 1941, is only 6.4 billions and, according to Arthur Krock, for the next year ending June 30, 1942, only 10.8 billions—and it is spending as furiously as possible,

u ” ”

T is inconceivable that many of these seven bil« lions could be spent in addition for a good many months to come. Finally, if there is a tendency to goose pimples about this stupendous figure—seven billion dollars—we lease-loaned a larger amount, 9.6 billions, in the last war and never batted an eye, It may be said “Oh, that was a loan of money." As a matter of fact, about all that was ever paid back was equaled by our post-war loans, public and private, most of which were defaulted. As a matier of further fact, much of it was just about what is proposed here. We sent more munitions than dol lars abroad. There is one way in which we could spend that money. We learned it in the World War. That is to permit price inflation in the months ahead. In that way, we could spend the billions easily enough and we would have to pay them back—but we wouldn't get the goods. For example, in 1918 and 1919, we did manage

| to spend the prodigious sums of 123 and 174 bil«

| lions.

| lions worth respectively.

But in terms of pre-war dollars, that bought in war-like goods just 7.4 billions worth and 8.5 bile If that could have been

| prevented we would have saved about 13 billions, | The lesson from all that is that an appropriation | of seven billion dollars for Britain isn't half so dis

plication of Plato illustrates Alexan-|

der Pope's couplet: “A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” »

” »

ASSAILS WINDSOR'S PLEA

| FOR MORE U. S. CASH

By G. R., 2034 Kenwood Ave,

Shame on the Duke of Windsor |

and everyone who stands up for him in his assertion that we should

loved—money. He is past 40, lives well, but does he earn his way?

leadership that | what she called “The Parable of the | come across with more of that] generated an inevitable reaction. Gaye" describing an American pan- | which is the root of all evil when |

My husband is 40 and has had

one week's work in seven months,

house on contract at less valuation, but must pay

ances taxes.

The Duke and Duchess raise

sons, ages 8 and 10.

some canned milk money for the native children of the Bahamas, when she isn't busy with her imported hair dresser.

Part of our house is in good con- |

dition. We are renting that, but the tenant who is 19 years old, is having difficulty getting, work apparently because he lives in Indianapolis, not Kentucky, and hiring

(ment of economtc justice for all of some violation of nature's law. him would do something or other to

the labor market here, We are living on borrowed money which must be paid back, but according to the Duke we are not paying enough tribute to him and his. If something doesn’t break soon my boys will face starvation because we “own” property, which

makes us support relief, but denies | #

us any of its benefits. * ® = WANTS TO BE DRAFTED, BUT FEARS REJECTION By R. L. T., 2920 N. Olney St. I have no objection to the conA year's active military is a fine thing for any It teaches him inde-

training

|she got on her steed | from the wrong side; for T am not {Mrs. Alex Vonnegut,

typical American crowd.

| Then riding ‘round and ‘round! The jousting Mrs. Levan's misap-

ludicrously

the words | | quoted from my letter were not in| lit, and T am not “the typical crowd voice,” IT am only a voice from a

ing to the establishment of justice— economic, social or legal—then we . : ; ig (but I'll still be rejected after the must conclude that like the dazzled physical examination. I am not

bullfrog “up” on the bank, the Sen- | bet ' : J ABET ator's mind has beer stunned by the | IRaITied, have nothing whatsoever

A : nul } | to hold me to my job. Another per[Nai yt Solver an Tie. ‘son I know will be taken away from {natea by Sunshj il. a business that will have a very hard time getting along without him, if

Side Glances=By Galbraith

it gets along at all. This person's parents are de-

The doctor has written to the local board and told them that this per-

3-1 8 <)

JOT |

EVIE. MOC 7.3. 0. 1.8 "You won't mind, | hope, but we'll all have to go and see my husband's lathes and what he's doing fo speed up the defense programl™

son’s father is physically unable to carry on the business if his son is taken by the draft. They say they will give him six weeks to train another man to a job that took him nine years to learn thoroughly. Now I ask you, do you think it can be done? Why should this man go and leave behind a mother, a semi-invalid father and a business that may flop without him, and I stay behind? This conscription will be just another adventure that I will be no part of while others that are physically able to go don’t want to. It all sums up to this: One who would go, can't! One who can't go, must!

MEDICATION By ELEEZA HADIAN

Like a sugar-coated pill That the suffering infant gulps To correct a bo@y-ill, For refractory grown-ups A beauty-disguised Tablet-hiding a snug sermon, Is the poem!—devised To entice the adult human Into absorbing whole, Truth, to heal the unseen, Festering ills of the soul.

DAILY THOUGHT

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. —Matthew 6:13,

3 A oa iB ¥ . bE FN of iy / ’ Nef AL 2

i to the base

ment MANY a dangerous temptation

comes to us in fine gay colors, that

pendent upon him as is his business.

confess 'where I and all others are free tol We are buying an old run-down than tax

free and |

(pendence and discipline which he] | probably couldn't get if he didn’t go. I am perfectly able to go but Tor

one thing that is trivial in a way,| evil. Yet they possess a kind of innocence which if

{clear of all liens and encumber- |

writings are “verboten” in Hitler's prize-winning dogs; we are rearing | The Duchess | Mrs. Levan, have been day-dream- manages to spare some time and |

astrous and important as preventing a run-way pricq structure on our own markets, 8 =u =»

E are not doing much about this except a lof of talking. There are a good many forces working that slipped war-inflation over on us in 19172 impending shortages, Federal cost-plus contracts and frantic counter-bidding for a dwindling supply of labor in some areas, such as those that doubled the estimated costs of the cantonments. A good many labor leaders say that profits of business are soaring and that labor is entitled through higer wages to its share in the gravy. That is one sure way to still higher prices. No one of these and similar forces may mean much separately but put them all together and they can mean a lot. The annual reports of most great corporations show higher gross profits than last year but after deduction of greatly increased laxes, net earnings are about the same. We learned toward the close of the last war how to control and even reduce inflation but it requires a wise, combined and determined effort on many fronts—organization of industry to integrate it with Government, a wide system of priorities, price con= trol and conservation and substitution of uses. It requires an adequate organization for the CO-Opera« tion of lahor and management. All this is being more clearly recognized but almost nothing has been done

about it. Fditor's Note: The views expressed by eolumnists in this They are not necessarily those

newspaper are their own, ;

of The Indianapolis Times,

‘A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

T will be hard for Ernie Pyle to come back to that Indiana farm and not find his mother there. And each time such a woman passes from life a little bit of the old American spirit departs, too. Ernie’s mother was not a modern woman in any sense of the word; she was a farm housewife and proud of it. Whati she didn’t hold with she didn’t hold with. You could take it on leave it—and her also. But she knew the true meaning of the word “home,” because she had helped to make one and had dedicated her life to keeping it &

are but skin-deep.—Matthew Henry, :

~ { i

haven of peace and happiness. Hen feet were rooted in the good earth, and she was wise with the wisdom that comes to those who hold fast to the eternal verities. To such women, things are either good or bad, and there is no compromise with!

the usual endowment of minds that can distinguish between true and false values, and how few of us can’ do that in these days! Such characters stand like rocks in a weary landg eternally true to themselves and eternally loyal t others. Now, when so many of our women strain themselves to “keep up with things,” when every win of opinion can sway their thinking, and when most of them know Roberts’ Rules of Order much bette than they do their Bibles, the Mrs, Pyles of the land grow in our esteem, Although it has given us many benefits, the net freedom seems to have deprived us of poise. We ar victims of some inner tumult and not so sure of our selves as women used to be. Economie changes, of course, are partly responsible, but we cannot escape the conviction that great characters do not emerge from a society where imitation and bootlicking are sa widespread. Ernie’s mother probably would be surprised to find herself praised for her naturalness, but, in a country where so many women would rather be fashionable than right, just hearing about her kind renews our faith in the old simplicities for which, even while we refuse to admit it, most of us yearn,

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Burean will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive ree .search. Write your questions clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St, Washington, D. ®).

Q.—Did Queen Victoria ever visit Ireland? A.—Not until 1900, when she made a three weeks" visit to Dublin to show her appreciation of the gale lantry of the Irish regiments in the South African War, It was one of the last public acts in her life. Q.—What are the combat elements of the new U. S. Infaniry division, and what is its authorized peacetime strength? A.—Three infantry regiments of three battalions each, the battalion consisting of three rifie companies and one heavy weapons company; two field artillery regiments, one of three battalions of three batteries each, totaling 36 75-mm. guns, and one of two battal« ions of two batteries each, totaling 16 155-mm. howe itzers. Peacetime strength is 436 officers and 8517 enlisted men. Q—Are there names for the people of Massachue setts and Connecticut, corresponding to the names New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians? A—No, v

nie