Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 April 1941 — Page 10

MONDAY, APRIL 21, 1941

PAGE 10

a

The Indianapolis Times

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> RILEY 351

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NMONDAY, APRIL 21, 1941

THE BATTLE FOR OIL EPRESSING dispatches from the Balkans should not obscure the importance of Britain's military occupation of Iraq. Hitler probably would be glad to trade many Greeces for one Mosul-Kirkuk oil field. The oil of Iraq is the main reason among many for Hitler's Drang Nach Osten, as it was of the Kaiser's Drive to the Bast. Planes, tanks, and submarines with which the Nazis have won their initial victories, and hope to win the war. cannot move without lubricating oil and gasoline. Despite Germany's production of synthetic petroleum, and the natural supply from Rumania and some from Russia, oil shortage remains her most serious problem. The problem of Britain, likewise dependent on oil, is not one of reserves but of delivery. Virtually her entire naval and military effort in the Mediterranean, Africa and the Near East floats on the black flow from the Irag-Palestine pipeline. Neither tankers nor time for the transport from American or East Indian fields are available. Britain's fleet, her most powerful weapon, cannot hold the Alexandria-Suez lifeline of the empire for long without Iraqui oil. But Iraq is more than oil. It is the center of the Middle Fast, strategically and politically. And Hitler has made it the hub of fifth column and Arab anti-British activities. Just as the British Col. Lawrence of World War fame was the father of fifth columns in the desert before, so todav Hitler hopes that an Arab revolt will shift the balance of power. With the Nazis behind the successful Iraqui coup d-etat of Rashid Ali Beg Gailani, and fanning the oid Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, the Britich landing at Basra comes none too soon—if, indeed, soon enough. Equally important is its effect on Turkey and her silent partner, Stalin. Turkey is Hitler's road to Mosul and Bagdad—an to Suez. Certainly the Turks, who are now being isolated rapidly by Hitler on the north and west. will not block that road unless the British guard their Iraqui flank.

TEMPTATION IN TAXATION

J ,ONDON newspaper commentators, reports the United Press, are calling the new British budget “immoral” because: Miss A earns $2000 a vear and pays an income tax of 2624. while her friend, Mr. B, earns $4000 and pays $1524, their total tax being $2148. If they should marry, Mr. and Mrs. B. earning £6000, would have to pay the British Government $2304.

taxes. We've found plenty of other things in our income-tax blanks, but this horrid pitfall isn’t there. In the United States, at present rates and the same net incomes, Miss A would pay $40 income tax and Mr. B would pay $112 more, but Mr. and Mrs. B would pay only $136, thus saving 316 a vear after the wedding bells rang out.

BUT HOW TRUE IS IT? PEAKING at a Jefferson birthday dinner in New York, Federal Security Administrator McNutt said:

“Far more of a threat to defense production than | man mind, given the same environment and circum-

strikes either by labor or capital is the loss of man-days in industry resulting from sickness and accident. vear 1940, loss of labor power was 70 times greater from these causes than from strikes.” It's a vivid statement, but how true is it? The Labor Department reports 6,412,000 man-days of idleness trom strikes last vear. Seventy times that would have meant 448 810.000 man-days lost through sickness and accident. To be ultra-conservative, say only half the strike mandays, or 3,206,000, were lost in manufacturing, mining and construction, the industries where stoppage of work most

directly affects defense production. Then—if Mr. McNutt's |

statement means what we think most people would take it to mean—there were 224,420,000 man-days of idleness in

But average employment in these industries was less than 12.875.000 in 1940, meaning about 18 days of idleness per employee from these causes. We don’t believe the average employee in these industries lost more than 3'4 five-day weeks last year because of sickness or accident, or anything like that much. Whatever the true statistics, however, we quite agree with Mr. McNutt that sickness and accidents should be combated — and that destroving labor's freedom would not be the right way to attempt solution of the strike problem.

tory for weeks and months. Sickness or accident in one factory doesn’t choke production in a dozen others,

Much sickness, some accidents, are sadly unavoidable, | But |

though every sensible person wants to prevent them.

There no evidence that sickness and accidents increased near'v as much, Most strikes are avoidable. a country whose whole future may depend on production now, unimpeded by any avoidable cause, is not well served

is

by attempts to prove that the strikes are really an insig- | . i

nificant threat to its safety.

STILL EXCELLENT jRGNG all unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor to adhere to a strict no-strike policy during the national defense emergency, President William Green says: “Ry giving service, by avoiding strikes, by making such sacrifices as the exigencies of the situation require now, you may avoid making greater sacrifices in the future.” It is excellent advice. ago, at a time when organized labor might have avoided some of the mistakes since made—at the time, incidentally, when Mr. Green was denouncing newspapers as enemies of labor because they offered this same advice.

So, the argument runs, Miss A and Mr. B | are given incentive to “live in sin” and save $156 a year in! | armament is paralleling the road we traveled in 1917. | Even in many small details now almost forgotten we

For the | | labor settlements are taking. | began to rise slightly in most things and swiftly in { others and threw the price structure out of balance.

| formidable threats were made.

! these profits.

| assisted in raising some. : : h 5s | increased, prices were boosted to take care of them. these industries last vear because of sickness and accident.

| Threats are made,

It was excellent advice months

Aviation

By Maj. ‘Al Williams

Air War Se Far Has Proved That

200 Flying Fortresses Would Give |

U. S. Complete Naval Security

FEW hundred Flying Fortress bombers would provide complete naval security for the United States against sea invasion. And that's the only way an invasion could reach us. What a bargain!

If any nation was ever blessed by clear-cut object lessons, without losing precious possessions and thousands of young men, it is the United States. A few hundred Flying Fortresses are worth their weight in prayers. With them we could meet any foreign fleet. or combination of foreign fleets, start smashing it 1000 miles off either coast and finish the job before anv vessel could get within half a day's steaming distance of our shores. Everywhere this war has tried to go, it has found airpower there first. In Norway, the Skagerrak, the North Sea, seapower was thwarted, broken and disbanded. For years, and even in spite of the record of this war, Americans have been told by naval experts that battleships, greatest of seapower’s weapons, could not be sunk by air hombs,

HERE was a catch, for who cares whether battleships are sunk, if they are put out of commission by air bombs? And the record proves that they have been—by air bombs and submarines.

What about seapower in the Mediterranean? I am still doubtful about the claims of repeated naval victories in that area. Why were British warships sent to Alexandria, Egypt, for repairs of damage inflicted by air hombs and subs? Because they could not be repaired in England's naval yards, which have been under constant bombing attacks from airpower. Why are British warships being sent to the United States for repair? Because airpower has destroyed seapower bases. Any force which cannot defend. preserve, and maintain its own bases is doomed.

*

= ” » HESE are cold facts. We have not time \av hates or emotion. The machinery we build now will decide our future as a nation. How can it be said that British warships control the Mediterranean when German forces were landed in Africa? Remember, about 70 tons of cargo must be landed with each invading soldier. Those troops must have crossed the open sea—in the face of seapower held at a distance by some sort of airpower.

We had better realize quickly that seapower (the | old kind of huge warships) is through for work within |

range of shore-based airpower. Give us airpower—American airpowel is what the British soldier cried for in Norway, in France, at Dunkirk and what the British sailor cried for in the North Sea and the Mediterranean. And that's what the English man and woman and child are crving fer now. Give us a fev hundred Flying Fortresses, each carrving four 2000-pound bombs, each bomb good for any kind of a warship

(Westbrook Pegler is on vacation)

Business

By John T. Flynn

Labor Settlements Parallel the Course Taken by U. S. in 1917

EW YORK, April 21 —It is becoming almost un-

canny how our pathway along the field of re-

I think it was Mark Twain who said that he once wrote a letter to a man answering a certain argument and then 25 vears later wrote another letter to a different man who had made the same argument. Mark had completely forgotten the first letter. But some time later, going over old papers, he came upon both letters and:*was amazed that, although 25 years intervened bhe-

do the same things.

tween them, he had written his |

thoughts down in both letters in almost precisely the same words. He took it as a proof that the hu-

stances, will react in the same way all the time. The latest evidence of this is the course which In the last war prices

Immediately there was a lot of talk about controlling | Various plans were suggested, and the most |

prices.

ing was done, Profits were not being made in all industries, but plenty of profits were being made in some. And the

| flaunting of these profits soon convinced workers, peo-

ple of all sorts, that they should get some share of Hence widespread demands for a share in the spoils began to agitate labor.

y ‘5 »

EANTIME the Government itself in certain cases, instead of acting to hold prices in check, actually Then, as wage scales were

This ease with which producers could boost prices to take care of higher wage scales rendered producers quite complacent about those increases, and the wage

| increases took away the workers’ indignation at price | increases.

Very soon the whole price structure was so much out of kilter and in such swift motion that the “cost plus” contract was devised to protect the manufacturer and contractor. Government didn't take a hand until it was too late. This is what is happening now. No day passes without a violent outery from officials about prices. But when the Government acts it is usually to increase prices.

| doubt with some assurance somewhere that employers ‘ | will be able to recoup out of increased prices. NothBut when he says the country should show 70 times | h | tr ices s y that nothas much concern for the health of workers as over strikes | TONNE prices are so politically unpopular that in defense industries, we think he's confusing the issue. |

Sickness or accident doesn’t close down a whole great fac- |

So They Say—

ing is done, because the only means available for con-

ing will be done.

I SOMETIMES wonder who invented the name “medium” and “light” tanks. . . . The transmission

| alone of the medium tank weighs 760 pounds-—as | A ber and extent of strikes has increased since 1940, | much as the combined weight of two automobiles. — the number and a eased since 194 | Willlam 8. Knudsen, defense commissioner.

have And | | the evolution of civilization is a long-term process | There will be many centuries | James T. Shotwell, director Carnegie Peace Founda<

* » »

TIME MAY be against us in the present crisis, but

tion. * * *

SOME PEOPLE speak of social gains as though | | they were nothing but little luxuries, like cigarets and | lipstick, which we should all be willing te give up in |

the name of patriotism.—Gen. Philip B. Fleming, Wage-Hour Administrator. *

- *

WE LET girls marry at 18 and manage their own

affairs; we have no right to tell them they can't | drink. —Hareld G. Ward, Democratic Illinois State |

Senator in debate on bill to prevent women drinking until 21.

* » *

BACK OF WAR is the wrong kind of politics; |

back of that is the wrong kind of economics; back

of that is the wrong kind of moral standards; and |

back of that is unbelief. —Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, Calvary Episcopal Church, New York. LJ - . HISTORICALLY speaking, democracy it not on the defensive; it has all the other schemes on the defensive, for it is the only conception of Man that is

Man-size—Frederick Bair, superintendent of schools, B s

Airpower

PRE INTIANATOLIS TIVES

’

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES =

The Call to Arms!

ws

T

I wholly

he Hoosier Forum

disagree with what you say, but will

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

'A WORD OF PROTEST [AGAINST DEFENSE STRIKES [By C. A. Byers, Anderson Every day we hear the cry of our Government calling for the co-op-eration of every man, woman and child. Most Americans are more than willing to give till it hurts, but | what is the purpose of all this sac-

rifice if our officers and lawmakers Soviet Russia and because they are | permit saboteurs and racketeers to|first politicians and secondly Amerclose our plants and tear down the |icans, sabotage will continue wide{spread throughout America.

{very thing we are trying to build. Our President and our Secretary] of War and others say that they] {cannot use force because this is a|

|Democracy. Again they insist labor | TO ANSWER MR. BRADDICK

{should be given a chance. It seems)! to me that other laws have been passed in order to hurdle other| {emergencies or perhaps this isn't an| |emergency. | | Please Mr. Lawmaker, close the] barn door before the horse runs away.

{words, thanks, but not true.

$4 48 SOME COMMENT ON | THAT CHINA AID CONCERT

| By Lester Gavlor, 4531 Sangster Ave,

A United Press dispatch under a | Washington date line of April !discloses that Mrs. Cornelia Bryce |Pinchot, Mrs. Franklin Delano | Roosevelt and Chinese Ambassador Hu Shih have backed down on a China-aid concert. The affair was| {to have been a co-operative ¥enture [between National Negro Congress] land the Committee for Aid to

feel that justice lay somewhere between the two sides. . . . 1 reckon the cost of going to war and oppose ccnvoys. It may mean economic ruin and perhaps the loss of the very democracy we are fighting for. But not to convoy would make us out to all the world as niggardly, cowardly, pusillanimous and dishonorable after all the meddling we have done.

(Times readers are invited to their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make your letters short, so all can

Letters must

express

have a chance. be signed.)

{too far along it for any turning | Germany

i,

Our spokesmen have forced the hand of the nation unless we deal out a new hand of leaders all around, gifted with insight and a real desire for a just peace which would be more than a cloak to let us indulge in our hatreds, In a word, leaders who are really enlightened. There isn’t anything : pretty in either picture, but if the By Mrs. R. G. Levan, East Chicago President thinks we're complacent, Because Mr. Braddick in his let- | he's misreading badly, ter of the 17th makes an attempt at | ¥ KF #

being reasonable, I take pleasure in SUSPECTS WAR SCHEME replying. However, I cannot agree |N SHIP SEIZURE about being “brilliant,” etc. Nice By M. §. L.

Can it be that the seizure of for“Whether this course is wise or eign ships in our ports is just a not,” says Mr. Braddick. referring to [scheme to get Germany to declare our foreign policy, “we have traveled |, on ys? A declaration of war by would simplify matters for | President Roosevelt, mainly the con- | question.

” " ”

DEEMS IT A PLEASURE

back.” That's the point. We have all along furthered misunderstanding and widened the # 8 8 breach between belligerents. We | DOUBTS F. D. R. CAN KEEP

have provoked those on the other | | . side of the fence without a shred | PROMISES ON WAR of the tolerance of which we boast. By A. K. K.. Indianapelis We have bolstered the hatred and| The most pathetic things in the

urge for war in “democratic” na-|papers these days are the letters

{ it.

But, of course, noth- |

(tions and shown gn impatience with

Cliins: [their slowness in declaring it.

|* The National Negro Congress is a notorious Communist ‘organization |

demanding or pleading that the]

| The British had blundered and |President keep his eampaign prom-

As |

after Hitler.—Prof. |

and the possibilities are the Com=« | mittee for Aid to China is of similar nature since the Roosevelts |specialize in promoting un-Ameri-{can organizations and ideologies. " The reasons the triumvirate of[fered for their withdrawal of sup{port were because the hall (Uline Arena) “discriminates agaiyst Ne-| groes” and because splitting the |proceeds between the Washington | Committee for Aid to China and the {National Negro Congress amounts to “fraud on the public.” What a strange, even weird, sense {of ethics Communist sympathizers (have! The fact that the National Negro Congress is rankly communistic is completely overlooked — or | | “evaded.” | Because the Roosevelts have con|sistently courted the radicals of

Or we'd have realized that if We qa, eyes to facts won't help.

ineutrals, mediating as our

bungled every crisis from Versailles |ises “to keep us out of war.” ‘on, by making an unjust peace and [though any President then aot enforcing it, by sabotag- that! For it is the pressure of ing the mechanism to enforce peace, | . . and part of the time by a ruling | events beyond his control or our class purpose not to do anything borders that determine our war

which might endanger trade and | entry. territory. : : Today we face this single simple We either couldn't or wouldn't|faet: If England goes down our understand the fundamental causes. way of life goes with it. Shutting The

must save the British Empire from ,niv answer now to brute force is the oblivion which the stupidity of | force. To be bold is safer than to

\its own ruling class was hastening pe timid and vacillating. True, we

it, we could do so only as absolute | .ye Media- | tion Board settles disputes between | labor and management. And that is by learning the exact nature of

i iv i | the schism and patiently adjusting England is a hollow mockery.

the differences. , . . w ; , ; | We cannot let her down. The President wouldn't find us so| An more—whether we like it or

apathetic if so many of us didn’t | whether we are ready or not

lost the years which pacifism and idealism took from our armaments. They must be made up. When the time comes to convoy we must convoy. Otherwise aid

Side Glances=By Galbraith

The labor settlements are being made bevond a |

—from now on it is ourselves and England, to right the world and then to run it. The totalitarians have left us no other choice.

” » ”

1941 BY NEA SERVICE. INC. 1.

"Study? Shucks, I'm half dead! Mother and Dad had another

PAT. OFF.

SEES PROPHECY IN WORDS OF AN OLD HYMN By K. T. 1. Indianapolis Remember the old hymn, “From Greenland’'s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand”? We never knew then that those were going to be the boundary of the American defense zone.

TO A GARDENER

By JANE SIGLER You ask for tools and one small piece of land To call your own. There in the fertile mould You trace your patterns with a careful hand And watch a verdant miracle un-

old, with beauty springing from each barren spot. And when you have to lay your "trowel down, I pray that you may have a little plot In heaven just for gardening, and your crown May be of golden flowers that have grown From bright celestial seeds your hands have sown,

DAILY THOUGHT

4:2

could do

crowd of cutups in last night—anniversary blowout!"

MONDAY, APRIL 21, 1941

New Books

By Stephen Ellis

Gen. Johnson Has Wrapped Up His Whole Philosophy and Thinking In Small Volume, 'Hell-Bent for War" «g TRUST that it outlines at least one point of view *

writes General Hugh J. Johnson in the last paragraph of his new book. “It may be a wrong point of

view, but it is one that at least should be given

momentary consideration before we plunge over the . precipice, - ‘hell-bent for war'” His book, “Hell-Bent for War" ‘is not a collection of favorite columns, which appear daily in this very spot in The Times. Columns have their virtues and their defects, too, And one of their major defects is that it takes a great many columns to provide a continuous and unbroken thought, Any newspaper columnist who at« tempts to expound his philosonhy in toto is bound to drive his editors to distraction and his readers away. - Old Iron Pants has done the smart thing, He has wrapped his whole philosophy and thinking into one small volume and whether you agree with it or not you've gat to admire and respect his forthright ness, his pungency and his clarity of thought in following through his argument. ” " on

UGH JOHNSON puts up a mighty argument against American participation in World War 171, To him one "crux of this whole situation—the gues< tion of whether we are to finance and engage bhloodily in a new World War to the probable total bankruptcy and possible military and naval humiliation of the United States—is the truth or falsity of the slogan ‘Britain is fighting our war.'” “There is not,” he argues, “and there never has been any altruism among nations. No government has ever conducted its affairs in the interest of any people other than its own.” And from there he carries the argument on in vigorous and unyielding opposition to participation in the war, including convoys. & 8-8 F YOU ARE one of those who wants to understand what the opponents of “all-out” American aid are trying to say you will do well to get yourself a copy of Iron Pants’ book. Nobody has been .able to present the case more skillfully, Hugh Johnson may have his faults, but he can certainly present a case. And, agree with it or not, here IS a case. He makes one point that this writer goes along with one hundred per cent: “ .. Just the same, a man of some little experience in these matters will have a right to discuss them at, least until we really go to war or the censorship closes down. . . . It is one last critical look before we leap, That at least is justified.”

*HELL-BENT FOR WAR, By General Hugh 8, Joh : Robbe Mert Co., Indianapolis; 135 res: 1.50, wlmsons The

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

REE speech usually is praised most highly by those who are to be found on the majority side of controversial issues—and therefore never need it, They love it, of course, and devotedly, but not enough to make it a part of their pattern for living. It's a good deal like our gold pile in Kentucky—we like to know it's there, even though we don't use it, ' The individual speech is in precisely the same fix, generally speaking. Most of us bury it out of sight somewhere. We refer to it as a treasure; we write. papers and make speeches about it. The politicians always drag it into their declamations, and at every luncheon and bridge table the ladies haul it out and pat it approvingly, to show they are really and truly fond of it. But that's about as far as most of us go. When it comes to exercising our right to speak our minds, we are as timid as rabbits. It's so much easier to keep still, or to scurry to cover behind some nice safe platitude. And we aren't the only ones. The men are as bad. You'd better lay off this free speech stuff, they say, or it will interfere with business: people won't like you. And so, while we exhort one another to prize and defend these liberties, when the moment arrives to prove they are ours, we become regulation ‘“yes-men,” and you wonder sometimes whether we deserve them. It's a sure thing that many individuals ready to die for free speech have never heen known to use Millions of good American citizens are letting themselves be shoved into a war they disapprove only because they are so accustomed to running with the majority that they are uncomfortable anywhere else, Yet isn't it obvious that Liberty can be destroyed by dry rot as well as by foreign foes? To hecome a vital part of natinoal life it must be used as well as defended. Only that person who has been on the unpopular side, who has stood firm with the minority, can ever really appreciate what freedom of speech means, for he is the person who has honored it by his loyalty. The rest of us only spout hot air when we talk about it.

right of free

Fditer's Note: The views expressed hv columnists in this newspaper are their own, They are not necessarily those of The Indianapnlis Times,

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive te 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, Washingilon, D. C.),

Q—How many United States citizens have joined the Royal Canadian Air Force? A—Approximately 1200, up to March 1, 194] Q@—What United States coins were often popularly called “White Cents"?

A—One-cent pieces issued from 1857 to 1864, thak

were composed of 88 per cent copper and 12 per cent nickel and had a light color. Q—Where and when was Rex Harrison, the actor, born? Is he married? A—Born Huyton, Lancashire, England, March 5, 1008, son of William Reginald Harrison and wife, Edith Carey. Educated in Uppingham, Married to Noel Marjorie Collette Thomas. @—Who played the role of “Mrs. Carter's’ son Im the photoplay, “The Lady With Red Hair?” A—Johnnie Russell, Q—Did J. P. Boyer hold the office of President of the Republic of Haiti for life? A—In 1818 he was acclaimed President for life, but in 1842 a widespread revolution compelled his resignation. He fled to Jamaica and then to Paris, where he died July 9, 1850. Q-—Is there a Masonic memorial to George Wash« ington in Alexandria, Va.? A—The George Washington Masonic National Memorial Temple, erected in Alexandria, Va. is in=tended to be a lasting tribute to Washington the Mason. It is a lofty structure designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett of New York, that is conspicuously located on a hill. From a square base with a Greek temple portico, a series of three cubical units is capped by a steep pyramid. On each face of the several units are triple openings. Q-—Isaiah 37 and II Kings 19 in the Bible are identical. Which chapter was copied from the other? A~It is believed that Isaiah had access to the court records from which the account in II Kings was taken, and that he incorporated the story in his prophesics. Q@— officer prisoners receive their pay while in captivity? A-=The capturing country is bound to pay them

at the same rate as officers of corresponding rank

in that country receive and the amount paid them is ultimatély reimbursed by their own goveynment, Q-—How many Negroes are enrolled in publie ntary and secondary schools in the United

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