Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 March 1941 — Page 10

PAGE 10 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

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Seo RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1941

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ROOSEVELT ON UNITY—TWO KINDS

NE of the most significant parts of President Roosevelt's historic address before the White House correspondents was that in which he philosophized on the democratic concept of unity. Among a free people unity is something greater than the blind obedience of dictatorship. It is the product of disagreement, paradoxical as that may sound. It is fashioned from debate: hammered out of controversy; when any given controversy is settled by majority rule, unity is attained. But that doesn’t call a halt to future difference of opinion as new questions arise. Hence, as the President said—“The decision of our democracy may be slowly arrived at. But when made, it is proclaimed, not with the voice of one man but with the voice of 130 millions . . . We do not have and never will have the false unity of a people browbeaten.” The debate over the Lend-Lease Bill “was not limited to the halls of Congress. It was argued in every newspaper, on every wave length—over every cracker-barrel in the land. It was finally settled and decided by the American people themselves.” The essence of democracy—as distinct from autocracy —is that everybody knows more than anybody. The mills grind slowly, but exceedingly fine. » ” n y s y “There is a difference,” Mr. Roosevelt continued, “between loyalty and obedience.” That is why, over the longhaul, democracy survives, while obedience, forced by threat and extortion and suppression, blows up. Unity therefore does not mean that, having settled one great issue, we all cease to speak, or that when the President calls upon us to put aside all differences he refers to future questions that may evolve. Rather, that as issues have been threshed out, and the majority has spoken, there be no grouching. In times less tragic, when the irritations of domestic controversy bore in upon him, the President achieved little fame as a putter aside of personal or political differences. But his speech to the correspondents seemed to be to have about it a quality of inspirational leadership that represented Mr. Roosevelt at his best—as one who has risen above the irritations, to as fine an expression as we have ever read of what democracy is all about; of tolerance toward others, the same kind of tolerance to which he himself is so greatly entitled in these critical hours. Such tolerance is the cement of real national unity. He alone is in the best position to wield the trowel by which that cement is spread. Tolerance, by its very nature, must always be bilateral.

PATRIOT

AMUEL SHER, a naturalized citizen, operated his drygoods store in Cleveland at a loss last year, and so was legally exempted from the income tax. However, he insisted on paying $52 to the Government. “It ought to be worth at least a dollar a week to live in a country where one is protected by the Bill of Rights,” said Mr. Sher.

WAGES, PRICES AND LABOR PEACE

HE country will welcome the great emphasis now being placed on prevention of strikes in defense industries. We hope the President’s new national mediation board will be oustandingly successful in arranging fair settlements of labor-management controversies. Industry and labor will serve their own best interests, as well as the country’s by co-operating enthusiastically to make the President's plan work. If it fails, Congress will certainly insist on legislation which neither labor nor industry would find so easy as the voluntary co-operation now asked. Labor has a historic—and justified—reason for reluctance to agree to any restriction on the right to strike in times such as these. It is the fear of being caught without a wage-increasing weapon if the cost of living begins to soar. So, along with the emphasis on preventing strikes, there should be just as much emphasis on preventing inordinate price increases. During and after the last World War prices and wages chased each other up a dizzy spiral. From 1915 to 1920 the cost of living was more than doubled.

Wages went up, too, and there were many strikes to force them up. But for millions of workers wages did not keep pace with the cost of living. We don’t blame labor for fearing a repetition of that experience. All of us should fear it. It was ruinous. And all of us—labor, industry, distributors, consumers—should recognize a common interest in keeping another such spiral from getting started. Government action to control prices may become necessary. But the better way is through self-control—through a general realization that another price-wage spiral can be prevented and a general determination not to create one by acting as if it were inevitable.

NO HELP FROM THE HEN

HARLES McCOMBS, a poultryman ak Stanley, N. Y,, is displaying a hen’s egg shaped like a question mark. This is disquieting news for students of the science of ovicular prognosis. In early 1939 a farmer near Zanesville, O., found an egg plainly marked with the letter “W,” which obviously meant war. Another egg marked with a “P,” produced about the same time in North Carolina, created some confusion, being variously interpreted as an omen of peace, prosperity, pestilence and panic. But an egg shaped like a question mark! Can it be that Mr. McCombs’ hen is as uncertain as the rest of us about what's going to happen next?

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

Mrs. . Spelvin Elaborates on Her Senate Testimony with Some Special Emphasis on the Divorce Question

EW YORK, March 18 —Invited to elaborate her previous observations on the state of the nation, Mrs. George Spelvin, American, appeared before the committee in Washington and spoke as follows: (By Senator Nilly, Ind, Ind.)—Mrs. Spelvin, I believe you take the view tha$ in your view the trouble that causes so much of our trouble is because the American home used to be the foundation stone of our sacred heritage, whereas you sometimes now find the cause of our trouble right there when the parents fail to

A. (By Mrs, Spelvin)—Well, Senator, that all depends, but we have been married 25 years, and after you have a couple of children sometimes you are tired, so you lose your temper, but if you are going to run down to some lawyer and get a divorce every time somebody gets sore, well, pretty soon we wouldn't have any homes at all, and then there is alimony, and Mr, Spelvin is no Clark Gable, but I don’t believe in ail these broadminded ideas and I don’t see how anybody can get a friendly divorce, because if I ever get a divorce I will be good and sore, and I will make it plenty hot for him, , .. Q. (By Senator Nilly)—Do you mean . , .

(By Mrs. Spelvin)—Well, if you put yourself in . my place, why after all these years, and I know I am not any society beauty around the expensive cafes like some of these divorcees always running out to Reng like a 50-trip ticket, so naturally it is a case

of something different when it comes to breaking up | :

a home if you aren't good looking and the children are grown. up. ... Q. (By Senator Nilly)—So it is your view that. , .,. A. (By Mrs. Spelvin)—Well, you can’t lay down any fast and loose rules, but if a woman is smart she certainly won't stand for any funny business, so the first thing you know some pretty little thrip with a nice figure, but not a grain of sense, and all she wants is a good time and a fur coat and it makes no difference what happens to the wife if some silly man will shown her a good time and you just have to realize that men are fools, especially around 50 years old, and a wife doesn’t have to act like a detective although otherwise that first thing you know they don't ever come home any more with one excuse after another, so in my opinion. . . . Q. (By Senator Nilly)—Then we are to understand that. . .. = ” ” A (By Mrs. Spelvin)—Well, you simply have to . realize that people are not alike, but if you are going to get a divorce every time somebody calls you a fool and things like for God's sake shut your bazoo and go to sleep or the husband gets tight and tells the same old story you have heard for 20 years over and over, why, nevertheless, the home is where you raise your children and what kind of children will they be if they know the mother and father are living with somebody else, and nowadays some parents get married over and over until it is just like a lot of chickens on a farm, and nobody knows who anybody else is any more. . . . Q. (By Senator Nilly)—But in extreme cases do you think. . .. A. (By Mrs. Spelvin)—In a way, yes, but then again if you know your man it seems to me when you get married, well, your single days are over, and if the wife can stay home day and night and sometimes the wife likes to see a movie and how does she know where he is going when he stays out late, but just because you have a little fight it is foolish to think you have to get a divorce at the drop of your hat, and I wish you would just tell me how people know they are in love before they get divorced if they are minding their own business while they are still married to their regular wife or husband before they even get divorced, and if that is what you mean, why the answer is positively no. . .. (By Senator Nilly)—On behalf of the committee, I thank you, Mrs. Spelvin.

Business By John T. Flynn

German Troubles Like Our Own— Business Shies at Taking Risks

EW YORK, March 18.—Dr. Walter Funk, the Rexford Tugwell of the Reich, the Economic Minister of Mr. Hitler, is sore. He is sore at the businessmen. In fact he is saying the same thing about them that some of our own Government officials were saying about our businessmen very recently. It seems that businessmen in the Reich are refusing to invest their funds in risk enterprises. And, says Dr. Funk, when busi= ness refuses to take risks private business comes to an end. Jesse Jones when he was RFC czar, Harry Hopkins when he was Secretary of Commerce, and various other New Deal leaders have rebuked American banks for not lending their funds and American businessmen for not assuming the risks of new investment. The trouble which Dr. Funk is having in Germany is very significant. far as Germany in taxing, disciplining, drilling and regulating business and in limiting its profits Dividends are limited to 6 per cent. Taxes take nearly everything. When a businessman wants to invest money he has to lay out the blueprints for the government. Maybe the government will tell him Germany does not need that new business—a conclusion which necessarily depends on the decisions of some bureau chief. Instead the Reich would rather have him put his investment in the Herman Goering Steel Works. This suggestion is barbed with the deft insinuation that if he knows what's good for him he will adopt the advice. Of course no businessman wants to take risks in such a business® world. Hence he doesn't do it. Hence Dr. Funk sees private business passing out. And that is saying nothing less than that fascism is a failure, for it is a plan to operate private business under government regulation. The successor to it will be communism. I{ would be interesting to know just how serious Dr. Funk's misgivings are.

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PALLURE to keep private investment moving in the Reich, except into government securities, is not the only disappointment of Dr, Funk. He has a great little scheme for borrowing by the government without creating inflation. His scheme is to force big corporations, when they have large surpluses arising out of profits on government business, to buy Reich bonds from the banks. The corporation gives a check to the bank which wipes out the corporation’s deposit to the extent of that check. But that isn’t working either, because bank deposits, as I pointed out recently, have increased enormously this year through government borrowing. And of course this must be so, because private business just will never have enough surplus profits to make any important impression on the government's immense loans at the banks. . All this is important in its bearing on what we will see in Germany when the war ends and she attempts to shift to a peactime economy.

So They Say—

YOU MAKE MEN love their government and country by giving them the kind of government and the kind of country that inspires respect and love.— Prof. Zechariah Chaffee, Harvard Law School, * * *

"WHEN private business does not take risks it gives itself up, and then we no longer need private enter prise.—Walter Funk, Nazi minister of economics, * * *

BEFORE the jury of its own ideals, the mind of America stands on trial.—Dr. Alan Valentine, president, Rochester University. »

THE NAZIS hate to be hated. —Daniel J. Mahoney, American newsman just back from France, _

No country has ever gone so |

. THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ~~ = Matsuoka Has a Nice Visit With Hitler

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The Hoosier Forum

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

HOPES FOR PASSAGE OF ANTI-NOISE ORDINANCE By Mrs, C. M. Darby, E. 70th and White River Dr. The proposed Anti-Noise Ordinance if adopted would be a blessing to thousands. If you wish a change from the nerve racking noise of unnecessary auto-horn blowing then come out to White River between Broad Ripple and Ravenswood : : Beach and listen to the noise of the [211 that before; Ju was said to have (come from Berlin. numerous boats, small and large | Just what motivates Mr. Denny? that race up and down the narrow He is too intelligent not to see that river for a distance of five miles, British and American interests are throwing waves that endanger the|the same in this war, and that the lives of canoeists and swimmers and | United States is as vitally concerned filling the air with deafening noise. [5g Britain in defeating the Nazis. There are a few beautiful boats that | Why then does he use this line? do not disturb but add charm. On moonlight nights the rest of 2 2 = those who must work is disturbed DEFENDS MOTORISTS by loud talking and yells of the | AGAINST ‘TERROR’ DRIVES passengers. The peace at the lakes] has been destroyed by the boat BY H. L. Matsinger, 6047 Crittenden Ave. nuisance. There should be quite a| As a brand new resident of your revenue from this locality where fair city, I seem to have landed there are so many dogs. In the | hack into one of these sporadic

summer it is the boats. In the] : . winter it is the barking of dogs | terror campaigns which plague mo-

night and day. We also have the |torists everywhere. auto-horn nuisance, so please, Mr. | Police officers and their superiors City Councilman, undertake for us are. in weneral. an unimaginative also who would like to have some | ?'® g wi iz . rest in the few remaining years lot. Let the accident rate rise a litbefore we go hence. tle, and verily, it is the motorists

» ©» & who are at fault. No cognizance is A REBUKE FOR WRITINGS taken of the fact that very few moOF LUDWELL DENNY torists jump the curb to attack By B. W. Frazier, Garrison, N. Y. pedestrians upon the sidewalk, nor If one were an out and out Nazi, |that most accidents occur at spots and not a patriotic American, it|Which are not duly specified cross-

y a i” walks. would be a pleasure to watch Mr. Very little consideration is given

Ludwell Denny execute his crafty (to the fact that the primary purand subtle plans, slipping into his |pose ot a paved roadway is to faciliarticles a little bit of poison here, tate the flow of vehicular traffic, and

; " seh > {that to slow it to a snail's pace is to 9 litle thers, Ib varies day by day |invite disaster, since a fretful driver but it is always there.

is not an attentive driver. On March 3, for instance, he is : It seems to me, and I come from Qeleatisi. The poor Greeks, we all{ywhere we really ‘have a volume of eS rit, Saat, vole soihsont Srl nu ey streets are inadequate to handle the equipped to give them adequate help. traffic attempting to use them. And Ah! The defeatist. What a dis-|on some, of which Keysone Ave. is aE he De he geelts to cre-}5 notable example, no provision Ale ih Sa rouble was that we whatever is provided for pedestrians. a ous. he same thing about Ths js a narrow street, just large she Gens Jiomselyes a few months enough for .wo-lane traffic, with soft . C a 1em now, stlllishoulders. just where is a man supgoing strong and on the offensive. posed Jo, y P Bre day petore gg Wat unix A 20-mile an hour limit is asinine ritish. is time it was Yugo-|for a car in good mechanical condislavia. Poor things, they would like | tion, if all other factors are equal. Or ET 0 |r he ay SEriyel Mata pee S. pect to fight to the|trian is fine or passing a re last Yugoslav, etc. We have heard!light or crossing at other than duly

Side Glances=By Galbraith

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

views

a1 8Y NEA they'd just leave all the troubles they talk about to you and

me and old Nellig=we'd lick ‘em, wouldn't we, Pop?"

marked crosswalks I will be willing to admit that a logical approach has been made to solve the traffic problem, s ” ” CONTENDS LABOR SEEKS ONLY FAIR TREATMENT By William M. Taylor, Morgantown, Ind. Many of our representatives of various branches of Government are openly advocating a cooling off period of labor before resorting to strikes. The attitude of A. F. of L. craft unions in the Dayton, Ohio strike (discrimination against C. I. O. members) does merit some action. And while I do not uphold such unwarranted . strikes as that I would like to present some facts to be considered. Would any person be so narrowminded to hold to the belief that 50c per hour is enough pay to pro(vide a living for a family? It did [take a strike (after 60 days negotia(tion) to get 62'2c per hour, at the Vultee aircraft plant. Consider the pay of these workers who are asking for increases and you will find they are unable to provide a half decent living. : How many corporations engaged in the defense industry have gone broke? Workers are not asking for the profits, but merely asking for pay sufficient enough to keep the wrinkles out .of their children's stomachs. When corporations take the attitude that workers are slaves and not entitled to living wages, then I ask in all fairness, is the worker striking by choice, or is he forced to strike? To charge a worker with being un-American because he demands a living wage is the language of a fool. The C. IL O. is not a sabotaging organization. It is an American born union holding to American principals of giving an honest day’s work and demanding an honest day's pay. Records will prove beyond any doubt that 99 per cent of strikes would never have occurred had the management bargained in good faith. . . . Before putting the lid on labor, if some heat will be placed on the employer, I am most positive the cooling off period wi'l not be needed. Labor Las a res; ibility in the defense program but labor maintains that management has the same responsibility. Let management come clean and you will find labor more than willing to do their share,

” ” s PROTESTS BUDGET CUT FOR CARE OF TUBERCULAR By Jonathan Williams, New Albany, Ind. The Republican legislators have seen fit to increase their expenses while in session from $10 to $15 per day, but they feel less than $2 per day is needed to feed, house and give medical attention to the unfor-

tunate tubercular affilicted of the State to regain health, save life and safeguard society, by slashing the budget, already very low, so half of these now receiving treatment will be sent home to further spread the disease.

A SMILE

By OLIVE INEZ DOWNING As on the flinty course of life We join the ranks and files, The motivating power that counts Is true friend's cheer and smile.

The yoke may be a heavy one, With burdens hard to bear— The weight will be the lighter made By trusting ones who care.

So as we journey down the trail, Beset with baffling wiles, The firm and narrow way we'll

tread, Inspired by friendly smiles.

DAILY THOUGHT

Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God! Him shalt thou serve, and to Him shalt thou cleaves and swear by His name.—Deuteronomy 10:20.

WHEN the truth cannot be clearly made out, what is false is increased

TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1041 Gen. Johnson Says—

What's Needed in Defense Effor¥

Is Leadership That Will Assign Everyone a Definite Part to Play

ASHINGTON, March 18.— Appropriating or authorizing the spending of vast quantities of money in record time without much, if any, dissent is an indication of unity. American democracy demonstrated in 1918 that it was more efficient in e'ganization and production of defen sive power than regimented Ger= man autocracy. The appropria=’ tion of money, as planlessly done then as now, was a means to that end—but it was not that end. Anybody can authorize spend=ing in any quantity—without even stopping to consider where the money is coming from or what the effect of it will be. It can be done with a few pen strokes. It is easy, too, if sufficient authority is granted, to get out a decree, providing that no more aluminum, for example, shall be used for civilian purposes, that no more civilian automobiles shall be made and no more planes furnished for any but military aviation.

But these spectacular, easier ways are not the final or even necessarily the efficient methods of do= ing the tremendous job ahead-—the job of gearing the all-powerful American industrial machine up to the disgorging of the required avalanche of war material necessary for the purposes to which we are committed,

5 ” #

OR can that purpose be accomplished without a far better organization and unification of Gove ernment with industry and labor, of industry itself, labor itself, and of the whole people, through planning and leadership, to a combined and even inspired purpose to one single end—a maximum effort to do its part “to fight the war, to win the war and above all, for America, as we understand it, to survive the war.”

That just isn't being done quickly enough or thore oughly enough to do credit relatively to our own past experience or comparatively with British or German experience. Consider the question of organization of industry to counsel with, receive the demands of Government, and meet them, industry by industry, in a completely mobilized effort with the greatest possible speed and the least waste, confusion and dislocation. To do that there should be a representative committee of each great industry sitting in Washington constantly with a representative committee of the Government sup= ply departments under an impartial chairman repre= senting for the President, the whole people of the United States. Nothing of the sort exists. Interference with normal employment and produce tion must be done fearlessly wherever necessary—but with care and wisdom. Preservation of civilian morale and our economic system is also a principal war policy. Take the question of the aluminum shortage, if any. Tons of aluminum have been dise tributed to American homes and factories over dece ades. How much of it could be salvaged and re= claimed now? Nobody knows. But if, under proper governmental guidance, the Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations were turned loose to find out by a quick canvass, house to house, factory to factory and scrap-yvard to scrap-yard, we perhaps would know in a week or two. on ” ” AYBE that wouldn't produce much aluminum but it would do something more of infinite importance. It would convince our people that em= ployment in aluminum fabrication had not been needlessly sacrificed. It would give every one of these boys and girls and, to some extent, every household in this country some little part in this united effort. That is the kind of psychological sparking of the whole people that has been almost wholly lacking in the slow-moving, uninspired effort. Similar moves should be made to find something for civilian organizations in our great nation of congenital “joiners” to do to advance this whole defense effort. Give everye body something to do. Another thing that seems to be overlooked. There is a limit to which this taxing business can go with= out invading the area of diminishing returns’ and glowing up the whole effort or on the other hand, saddling our economy with an even greater burden, possibly to the point of complete collapse—inflationary prices slowing effort still more and imposing far heavier loads on those least able to bear them than any taxes that could be imagined. In these and many other vital respects we have not moved in this crisis with enough intelligence to do the job. Leadership is still disordered, disorgan= ized, bewildered and lagging.

A Woman's Viewpoint

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HETHER we like it or not, I believe the passage of the Lend-Lease Bill served notice to the world that we assume responsibility for Great Britain's war. At the first sign of England's weaker= ing, it becomes our war. It is now our war, and Bill 1776 may be as important a figure in our history as Year 1776. It may herald a new and more brile liant future; it may be the be= ginning of the end of the America we know and love. It has been an interesting exe perience to watch a hundred and thirty million people push themiselves toward war against their will. For the will of America is still set against participation in foreign conflict. Nine-tenths of the persons I question on the sub ject will express hot repudiation of the notion that we must send men to Europe. So we find ourselves in the unpleasant position of being committed to a cause for which we do not want to fight with men and blood. And, while I may be wrong, I contend that wars are not won that way. They are won only when the people believe implicitly in the rightness of their armed aggression. No mate ter how wrong their behavior may be, from an ethical standpoint, it must seem right to those who battle, or no victories follow, We can only hope that what those who supported this bill tell us is true—that by giving all aid to Britain we shall keep war away from our shores. There is no way of proving which side was right and which wrong in the past passionate debate. Time alone will give us the answer, The fact remains that a country which turns itself into an arsenal for other fighting nations can ne longer call itself a peaceful land. Step by step, we have walked into the trap of Mars, and the jaws are ready to snap upon us. Whatever the outcome of this fateful move may be, we, the American people, can blame no one bug ourselves if the end is disaster. We can only pray God we have chosen the right way.

Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists in this newspaper are their own, They are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times

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. C.).

Q—Who was Robert Dollar? A—A famous shipowner and former President of the Dollar Steamship Co., one of the largest operators of ocean vessels in the world. He was born in Falkirk, Scotland, March 20, 1844, and died May 16, 1932. Q—Are Social Security taxes deductible on the Federal income tax return? A—The excise taxes imposed upon employers by the Social Security Act, as amended, are deductible, but the taxes imposed on employees are not deductible, Unemployment compensation contributions, required under a State Law, if officially classified as taxes, are deductible. Q—In what year and under whose sponsorship did Congress abolish trade in foreign-born slaves? A—In 1808, under the prompting of Thomas Jefw

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