Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 March 1941 — Page 14

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The Indianapolis Times

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

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reau of Circulations. RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1941

STRIKE—OR SABOTAGE

NLY 24 hours after President Roosevelt warned that defense production ‘must not be obstructed by unnecessary strikes”’—a warning which drew more applause than any other portion of his speech—his words were put to test at the Bridgeville, Pa., plant of the Vanadium Corp. of America. The results constitute a shameful chapter in the history of organized labor. Sidney Hillman, Associate Director of the Office of Production Management, telegraphed officers of the striking union asking that they permit the loading and removal of two carloads of finished materials, “of the utmost importance to the national defense.” Mr. Hillman is not only co-administrator of defense, but is on leave from a high C. I. O. post, and the strikers are C. I. O. members. Mr. Hillman's request was followed by a similar appeal from the regional C. I. O. office, which told the strikers it was a “patriotic duty” to facilitate shipments of the materials. But the strikers refused. It was necessary for Governor James to send 35 motor police to the plant to protect 17 foremen and officials who went through the picket line and loaded the materials. 8 2» 5 The Vanadium strike, now in its sixth week, is an outlaw strike. called in violation ef a contract and in defiance of the regional director of the C. I. O., who warned the strikers that they had forfeited their rights to C. I. O. protection and were the victims of “irresponsible leadership.” The Vanadium company is the nation’s largest producer of ferro-vanadium, a vital alloy in producing many types of armament. At the direction of defense officials the company employed six watchmen to guard against sabotage, picking them from a list of approved applicants furnished by the Federal Reserve Bank. The union said its members should have been employed, although its contract exempts confidential positions and although the regional C. I. O. director warned that his office “will not interfere with the company prerogative of employing police to conform with regulations set forth by national-defense authorities.” Thus the plant is struck for doing what the Govern-

ment told it to do. »

Shortly after the strike started, Sidney Hillman told the House Judiciary Committee that he had authority to tell a labor group: “You are not co-operating with national defense.” and he added, “believe me, that’s plenty.” That's exactly what he told the Vanadium strikon the same day that President Roosevelt said defense be obstructed by unnecessary strikes of workers.” strikers paid no attention. ch is proof that it takes more than words to handle on like this one. is strike smacks of sabotage against the GovernIt is a blow to defense and to the cause of organized ['s time it was dealt with accordingly.

» uy

ers

} . no LU {1101

FOOD FOR FRANCE AND FINLAND T looks as if Great Britain is about to relax, at least tentatively, its ban on the delivery of American foodstuffs to unoccupied France.

If that is so, it will take a hardhearted person to crit- |

icize the decision. America has the food to spare. and the money (sequestered in this country). men are hungry; they “have attained the limit of physical according to Ambassador Henry-Haye.

France has the ships,

endurance,”

als & v . Only a few days ago Britain, in approving a shipment |

of canned milk, medicine and children’s clothes to Vichy, France, demurred at 300 tons of oatmeal, and this part of the cargo was omitted. But now, whether under pressure from President Roosevelt, or because of Admiral Darlan’s angry threat to convoy foodstuffs with French men-of-war, or because of a studied and fundamental change of policy, it appears that two shiploads of wheat may be passed through the blockade. Mr. Simms’ dispatch from Washington today (Page 2) suggests that the British strategists may have been put-

ting undue stress heretofore on the military importance of | the blockade insofar as it concerns food; that Germany is |

in a position to feed herself, and that she is using her control of European larders for political ends. If Germany can’t be starved out, then Anglo-American collaboration in the starvation of Unoccupied France is not only brutal but futile, and politically dangerous because such

a policy tends to alienate friends in France who may one |

day be useful.

o n o Another hungry corner of Europe, Finland, gets good news from Washington. Jesse Jones indicates that the Export-Import Bank will lend the Finns $5,000,000, much of it to be used in buying American food. Assuniing that England will let the foodships through to Petsamo, we will now be able to shake off that fair-weather-friend feeling that has been troubling our conscience in connection with the Finns, who were beyond

praise a year ago but more recently out of mind.

THE BIGGEST OF THEM ALL

N 1933 the Grand Coulee Dam was nothing but a bale of blueprints. Next Saturday, two years ahead of schedule, it will start turning out electricity. It is the largest man-made structure in the world— bigger than Boulder Dam, four times as big as the Great Pyramid. Congratulations are due the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation. Grand Coulee’s electricity should be useful in defense industry. Grand Coulee should also be useful, in these times, as a token to the world of America’s capacity for getting big things done ahead of*time,

And French- |

| almost as much this year.

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

America Has a He-Man Army A-Building All Right and Could Use Some Good Publicity to That Effect.

T. BRAGG, FAYETTEVILLE, N. C., March 19.— The readers, if any, of these dispatches may have wondered lately why they have borne the date line of Ft. Bragg and Fayetteville while dealing only in the most general terms with affairs of the Army. The explanation is that I thought I would do some pieces about the Army, which is really an amazingly good one to the naked, inexpert eye, and much further along now than its daddy was at a corresponding time in the effort of 1917. But I spent a few days at Ft. Dixe, down toward the southern coast of Jersey, then a week or so in Washington renewing acquaintance with a lot of officers drawn 2 in from everywhere to work in the j War Department, including Gen. Marshall, the four-star Chief of Staff, and finally came down here a week ago, and I still seem unable to back into the story. I think the trouble is bashfulness in the presence of a story so big, awesome, solemn and, I am afraid, ominous that, for the first time since old man Conkle

sent me out to work the stockyards fire in Chicago in |

1910, IT am suffering from buck fever on an assignment. 4 ” 5

HIS Army is enormous, and the soldiers seem so much better than I expected to find them, the morale is so, good and the program is pushing along so well that I am afraid to trust my own judgment. Incidentally, I have discovered an almost pathetic appeal for newspaper and magazine publicity to arouse the public to the fact that such an Army does exist and is growing day by day and may have to fight the Germans and not necessarily on German

soil, and a fear that the publicity, when it does come, |

will be unsympathetic or possibly nasty. An example of nasty publicity occurred recently when some Congressmen returned to Washington after a personal tour of several of these big camps, and, in the words of another Congressman, whose name wasn't given, was said to have backed four generals against a wall and to have fired questions at them in such a manner that they looked as though they would have preferred to face a firing squad. Well, in the first place, so far as anyone here knows, there was no other Congressman present to bear witness to the interview, which did take place all right, and, in the second place, nobody is backing any of these generals against any wall. Anyone who tries anything like that, whether Congressman or whatever, will get popped right on the nose. Tt is all right for a Congressman to ask question about the Army, but no officer or enlisted soldier would be worth having who would let any civilian back him against a wall and make a quavering monkey of him. 4 n nN

DON'T know why any officer should be afraid that our papers and magazines might knock the Army, but probably we have here an example of the influence of the jerked-English and low-down school of journalism which consists mostly of affectations plagiarized from the god-awful, nerve-racking fidgets of Time Magazine. If any officer is falling down on his job, the Wdr Department probably will boost him

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Well Mussolini ‘Made the Trains Run on Time’|

aside to make room for some hustling ambitious party |

who can turn out results. After all, such men as Marshall and Henry Stimson are Americans, not Ger-

mans, and no Congressman or journalist is any more |

eager than they to do this job efficiently and fast or to eliminate incompetents. Undoubtedly many officers will be relieved as the effort goes along, just as Pershing relieved unfit men in France, and it stands to reason that a lot of these casualties will be guard officers who are over their heads in rank and probably, in some cases, better politicians than soldiers. Moreover, it would be a horrible thing to keep a mediocrity or incompetent in a command to the jeopardy of soliers’ lives and the national safety just to placate some state political machine, Nor do I mean by this to suggest that the guard officers are inefficient as a group but only that, in view of the employment of the guard as a political army in Louisiana and Rhode Island in recent years, vou naturally expect to find in it some officers who don't measure up. Well, here we are at the end of the line and still I haven't gone into my piece about the grouping and organization of the new Army which I have been studying for days and days and still don't grasp and, therefore, assume that you don't, Well, tomorrow is another day.

Business By John T. Flynn

Business Greatly Stimulated, Yet U. S. Has Only Started te Spend.

EW YORK, March 19.—There isn't much room for doubt that business is on the march. How

| much of it is due to some natural energy inside of

business and how much of it is due to the war? The answer is easy, but apparently some persons have doubts about it. Several financial observers have called attention to the fact that, in spite of all the vast arms appropriations, the Government hasn't succeeded in spending very much of it. As a matter of fact the Government has actually spent plenty, though only a fraction of what it plans to spend. Since last July 1. the deficit has mounted to $3.746,000,000. This is large, but it is only about a billion more than last year. The expenditure, however, has been different. For instance, last year we spent in the sare time about a billion on WPA projects. We have spent But WPA spending is quite different from arms spending. When the WPA spends money the expenditure does not involve very much additional expenditure by business at the moment. But when money is spent for arms, ships, planes. the sums put out by the Government at first are only a small part of what is actually spent. The Government frequently is not called on to pay for many months and even longer after the producers spend the costs of production. n n zn

S matters stand. we have roughly $3,500,000,000 spent on the Army and Navy personnel and supplies and construction. It is a safe estimates that at least another billion has been put out by business—and possibly more—on the contracts awarded. They will ultimately be paid by the Government, but that does not show up in Government bookkeeping yet. - As an example of this, in New York City alone about $350,000,000 has been loaned by the commercial banks over and above outstanding loans since last September. when the armament program got under way. I have not seen the total for the country as a whole. But it is probably over half a billion—the first real increase in bank loans in 10 years. Also, the RFC has made loans of $274,000,000, mostly connected with the war effort. Each month now national defense expenditures will rise at a rapid rate. When they will reach their peak it is difficult to say, but certainly they should be bowling along great guns by July—no matter which way the war goes, since even if the war ends the spending will go on for a while. In forming an opinion on how long the war spending will last, even should the war end, it must be remembered that the Administration must keep up spending or face a terrible crisis.

So They Say—

STATUS QUO is Latin for “the fix we're in.”— William S. Knudsen, defense commissioner.

* »

WE TALK with our employees personally.—Henry rd.

* * *

WE ASK simply that the Ford Motor Co. obey the law.—R., J. Thomas, U, A. W.-C, I. O. leader on the threatened Ford strike,

| and women should be free to join Service,

{out if they so willed and neither awakening in this country.

{

| misleading figures about fifth col-| atonement of bloodshed of breaking pe jeopardized in the first place, or| §

1 wholly disagree with what you say,

The Hoosier Forum

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

but will

TAKES ISSUE WITH FIRST LADY ON UNIONS By James R. Meitzler, Attica, Ind. Mrs. Roosevelt said, “I do not believe that every man and woman should be forced to join a union.” If she had used the word any in place of the word every, her statement would have been worth something. As it stands one is forced to infer she believes that the ma-

(Times readers are invited | to express their these columns, religious con- | excluded. Make | your letters short, so all can | have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be

views in | |

troversies

withheld on request.)

the less fortunate. And what the second will bring may tame the alligators. . . « n n n STANDS BY HER GUNS ON THE WAR ARGUMENT By Mrs. R. G. Levan, East Chicago, Ind. From the criticism following my recent contribution to the Forum it

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1941

Gen. Johnson Says—

Gen. Wood Is a Great Patriot and t's Mark of Hysteria to Attack

Him as Nazi 'Transmission Belt.'

ASHINGTON, March 19.—In the gentle debate on getting into war, Dr. L. M. Birkenhead said of the America First Committee “whether its members know it or not and whether they like it or not (it) is a Nazi front . . . a Nazi transmission belt,” with an intimation that it is also anti-Semitic. Columnist John Flynn resented that as a “smear;” Now the editorial page of the New York Herald-Tribune says “Herr Hitler's approving citation by name . . . of Gen. Robert E. Wood . . . lends a certain added point to the brisk interchange. ... Here is Adolf Hitler himsel{ head Nazi of them all, using theie (America First's) acting chairman’s name for exactly that pur= pose.” The word “purpose” here refers to “feeding the American people the vicious arguments of Adolf Hitler.” The editorial continues, in part, “they (members of America First) should, in

| short, do something positive to prevent their being | used in that way.”

What Hitler said was: “The fact that the American Gen. Wood before the investigating committee of the American Senate testified that as early as 1936, Churchill told him Germany was getting too strong again and. must be destroyed in a new war, established firmly in history the real responsibility for present developments.” u HE fact is, of course, that Allied indifference and

the vast offensive German rearmament beginning not in 1936 but in 1933 and not what Churchill

u 5

told Wood, or any inference therefrom, is responsible | for “present developments.” | in any sense a ‘“‘transmissicn belt for Nazi argument”

But as for Wood being

—the mere assertion of such a thing shows how fag

| hysteria has blacked out fairness in this country

Churchill didn’t tell Wood any such opinion in confidence. In the most remarkably prophetie

| speeches ever made in Parliament from November, 1932, to the beginning of this war, | published in his book, “While England Slept,” he fore-

many of them

told exactly what has happened and urged England

| to all-out armament as the only means to stop Ger-

many. He shouted it from the house-tops. I am

| glad to repeat that from the very first issue of this

| |

|is apparent that Forum writers,

jority should be coerced into unions. { must never admit having read any- |

If this is a free country then men| | the FBI and the any union they desired or to say | Committee there would be a great We in those have in

Joining or not joining should in-| have fringe their right to work. In all the elections held in factories over the country nowhere when a majority decided against unions was compulsion put upon anyone. Let a union win and all become slaves and pay tribute to that union.

Billions of dollars are being spent, our young men are being trained in a nation-wide effort to preserve liberty, yet we find the unions barring willing workers from their

more confidence {three agencies than we

posing as experts. | 8 4 |FEARS PROPAGANDA SWEEPS | VU. S. TOWARD WAR By Iva B. Poulson, 2540 N. Buckeye St.,! Kokomo, Ind. | The preservation of {democracy will not be found [Bundles to Britain—nor in {Lend-Lease bill number 1776. Hu- | jobs unless their wages are garni-|manity never learns from experience | sheed by a union. And at Gary|else we would not we find the officials of law, the | chatter that we hear spread through | mayor, city attorney, and chief of |lies and propaganda of war hysteria: | police agreeing with the SWOC to| History runs in cycles to repeat. | arrest on charges of assault and|In the year of 1916, we the people | battery all workers trying to get to elected Woodrow Wilson, the Presitheir jobs. dent that would keep us out of war. » In the spring of 1917 our-beloved | ' 5 is country was led to believe that to A WORD OF REBUKE TO enter Yani would bring | A RADIO COMMENTATOR prosperity to our shores—“The war | By W. H. Edwards, R. R. 2, Spencer, Ind. to End War,” “The War to Make | A prominent radio commentator, the World Safe for Democracy.” At | Saturday afternoon. quoted some what price did America pay

” ”

in!

thing older than some stories in thing less superficial than Pope, at the risk of being labeled a “showoff.” May 1 say that I regret having

was very general even though it was an individual who provoked it. It was somewhat amazed at the vehemence of the rebuttals although TI enjoyed the sputter. And instead of making an acrobatic hobby-horsewoman of me, I'd have

Dies the Saturday Evening Post or any-|

statements of radio commentators. | mentioned any names; my criticism |

American | wished that Mrs. Edna Vonnegut

had outlined what she would con-|

Platonic parable To me it is not only legitimate and all history for an understanding of present problems and for wisdom in solving them. 1 believe, with the British liberal] editor Cyril Connolly, that “against all evi-

be improved, even to the extent of learning from the mistakes of others.” But every time the war fever takes hold of us we say “this is different” and we generate a white-hot moral zeal to save democracy without trying to learn how it came to

umn possibilities in South Ameri- the commandment, Thou Shalt Not without even trying to find out if

ca. One reason why his figures | Kill? i were misleading is that he gave! And here we are in the spring of only the numbers of Germans in! 1941 again being swayed to believe | those countries. He said nothing that this is our war.

the action we are taking will not further endanger it. From any review of history it is certainly doubt-

| about the Italians in several South and do not believe that this is|like to kid ourselves we are except

and Central American {of the world. |

jump to the con-| But as one who loves America I|

than that of the Germans. We shouldn't

countries, | America’s war. Neither do I believe | in technological fields. . : | whose numbers are much greater that one nation can police the rest, The present was fathered by the

past and the roots of this struggle go back into the past for at least a

| clusion that all people of German would say do not be swayed by every | century and a half. The parallel for peop |

|or Italian blood are in sympathy wind that blows, by everything we this age lies in the period of the]

|South and Central America, as NN

writers should be more than | Right now we're on the biggest |

words and writings are not decep-| we will find ourselves facing more | tive, | poverty—economy struggles. The It seems pYobable that if we, the first World War brought relief in- | John Q. Publics, had access to the|vestigators at paid political made files of the Military Intelligence'jobs of $140 per month to pesticate

Side Glances=By Galbraith

| |

OFF. : _ 3-19 statement before you shout "Nonsense! Nonsensel' *

"Let the speaker finish bis

Reformation which had been preceded by an age of corruption, moral decadence and political aggrandizement on the part of the Papacy. The Reformation was an age of reaction against the decay of Renaissance Catholicism. Had the reformers waging the wars of the Reformation a spirit of reasonableness as urged

usually careful to see that their|economy drunk and when we sober | by Erasmus, a century of wdrfar? |

might have been 2voided and not. have been plunged into unimaginable poverty and misery. “We underestimate not only Hitler, but the dynamism of what he stands for. Fascism and communism both arise from the decay of international capitalism, and . . . unless capitalism has such a Reformation the decay will continue,” says my British liberal editor. If I alone authored that theory and parallel, I'd again be labeled a crackpot and showoff, but that thought also

comes from British people who are| Hitler. |

now being bombarded by (Horizon Aug. 1940). It would seem that Ernie Pyle is right—"“the farther you are from it (i. e, the war) the sillier people get.”

SALUTE TO SPRING

By JANE SIGLER

I found your footprints in the snow, For everywhere vour small feet go Some brave green thing begins to grow. I know that you are very near, By ice-fringed streamlets I could hear Your rippling laughter, sweet and clear. And as I wandered up and down Among the rushes, dry and brown, I glimpsed the hemline of your gown. Soon I will see you standing there In robes of green, divinely fair, With pale spring blossoms in your hair.

DAILY THOUGHT

The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.—Deuteronomy 28:35.

FORTUNE is less severe against those of lesser degree, and God strikes power. —Seneca,

the sider a correct application of the]

fall for every | but desirable to scour all literature |

| dence, human beings can learn, can!

column, March 15, 1905, and continuously exactly the same warning has been repeated with exactly the same prescription for our safety : Robert E. Wood, able soldier with a most distin guished record in the service of his country, woutd not, and this very printed record declares that he did not, advance any argument to favor Hitler. That record also shows the cruel twisting of this flimsy incident to discredit a good man ” ” »

ARK TWAIN wrote of what he called the rule for a million years ahead. “A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; the others will outshout them. , . . Before long vou will see this curious thing: The speakers stoned from the platform and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers but do not dare say so. And how the whole nation, pulpit and all, will take up the war cry and shout itself hoarse and mob any man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.” George Washington had something to say on the same subject, in his farewell address: “Excessive pars tiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another causes those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, whe may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.” It can happen here. It happened in 1917. TI seems very clear that now it has happened again.

since, here

’ . WN A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

RIGADIER GENERALS are rushing in where even advice to the love-lorn columnists fear to tread. Latest outburst on the subject of delinquent hus=<

| bands come from Alabama's selective service director

I never have ful if we are as enlightened as we |

[Burope in the 18th Ceatury would |

what is weak with less

who, it is reported, stood up in public the other day and advocated that healthy men refusing to support their families should be slapped into the Army. That's telling em, General! A strong dose of Army discipline would be fine for some of the civilian good-for-nothings, and plenty of modern husbands come under that category. Nobody has much sympathy for the big, lazy lout who won't assume partial responsibility for feeding his own chlidren. So maybe, in time, we can round up the loafers and inf= prove their manners and morals with some rigid military training. Nagging by the lit= tle woman probably would be as welcome as a birdsong after a year of listening to the top sergeant; a complete reform might even be the happy result. But, frankly, we doubt it. And, from the masculine point of view, we feel the General was a little indiscreet, Life nowadays is pretty tough going for men, any=way you look at it. If they won't tackle military traine ing, they must get married, and if they marry, it appears, they will have to support their wives. It's a fight on their hands in any case. Honestly we feel sorry for them. The poor dears are working so hard for freedom and democracy, and it looks as if they were going to have mighty little of both, at least for the war's duration. Personally, we don't hope for much after ward, either, but the times are not propitious for saye ing so. : If it were not so tragic it would be funny to sea men continually digging pitfalls for their own feet, Their machines have taken their jobs away from them; their beautiful cities have transformed them from independent individuals into commuting strap= hangers; their most thrilling scientific discoveries have turned to death in their hands: their battles for human freedom plunge humanity more irrevocably into regimentation and slavery—and their struggles to avoid the insatiable demands of their own women= folk may now cast them to the generals. How do you suppose they manage to get theme selves into such dilemmas?

Editor's Note: The views expressed bv columnists In this newspaper are their own, They are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times, ay "

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Burean will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive vee 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 said, “TI would rather be first in this little town than second at Rome”? A —Julius Caesar when in a small village in the Alps, which he was crossing on his way to Spain, said: “I would rather be first here than the second at Rome.” The story is told in Plutarch's “Life of Julius Caesar.” Q.—Was Columbus the first person who believed that the earth is round? A Pythagoras (580-500 B. C.) was the first per= son to advance the belief. Later, Parmenjdes (516 B. C.) represented this theory, which was accepted and clearly established by Aristotle (384-321 B. C), Many others from Aristotle to the Dark Ages believed in the sphericity of the earth. Q.—What is the speed and range of submarine torpedoes? A. —They are capable of speeds up to 36 miles an hour for four miles and higher speeds for shorter distances. At lower speeds they have ranges up to 10

| miles or.more,