Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 May 1941 — Page 10
PAGE 10
The Indianapolis Times
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MONDAY, MAY §, 1841
WILLKIE ON NAME-CALLING
N/ISE and salutary comment in a befuddled national crisis comes from Wendell Willkie. Though declaring for convoys, and taking a position completely opposite to Mr. Lindbergh's, he warns, as a national danger, against indulgence in personalities at a time like this. The sterner the time the greater the danger. “The people are confused,” he says, “and are searching earnestly for information and leadership . . . . are walking around in the dark and can't find the direction in which to go until given the light of facts to guide them. And I don’t think it contributes to leading them to engage in personal controversies with those of a different viewpoint. “For instance I completely disagree with Col. Lindbergh’'s viewpoint, but in the words of Voltaire, ‘I do not agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." ” Freedom of expression has been named by President Roosevelt as the first of our four liberties. National unity can be attained and maintained only by tolerance toward the other fellow’s right of opinion. For in a democracy there never will be complete unity of viewpoint, It behooves us all therefore to remember that there is a vast difference between abuse and argument, Mr. Willkie has performed a statesmanlike service in underscoring that fact at this time. For this is a time when what we as a nation should do weighs heavily indeed on all of us: a time when no one, regardless of his opinions, should be classed as a traitor for trying to do his own thinking.
MORE RISKS WHILE America apprehensively watches the Battle of the Atlantic for dangers of our involvement, and measures the growing tension in Singapore-Manila waters, a third threat is rising fast. For the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa are not as far away as they seem. Unlike the situations in the Far East and the North Atlantic, of which we have been uncomfortably aware Yor many months, there has been much less understanding of Mediterranean developments. That is partly because of distance, and the fact that fewer direct American interests seemed involved, Now Hitler, unexpectedly challenges all that. By consolidating his new air and submarine bases in the Mediterranean, by bringing up more troops and machines than possessed by Wavel, and by fanning Arab revolt in a dozen British desert strongholds, the Nazis are preparing apparently for their greatest offensive since last spring. The stakes are tremendous—politically, economically, strategically. The Mediterranean and Asia Minor lifeline of the British Empire would add a compact block of Africa and Asia to the Nazi domain. Their oil, minerals, and food, needed by Britain, would make Hitlerland almost selfsustaining. But the American concern is even more immediate: 1. A vital part of the British fleet will be in that anticipated battle—and win, lose or draw, will come out smaller than it went in. 2. American supplies, and some American merchant and naval ships, are believed to be en route to the Red SeaGulf of Aden danger areas, which President Roosevelt banned as a combat area last June but opened to American shipping three weeks ago. 3. If the battle of the Eastern Mediterranean comes, the battle for the Gibraltar-Canary-Dakar Atlantic bases can't be far behind. And President Roosevelt has left no doubt that he considers them potential take-off bases against this hemisphere, The American public will be fooling itself if it thinks the danger of direct involvement is limited to the hazards of American vessels in the North Atlantic.
TOO MUCH OVERHEAD
STATE Department report, based on information submitted by organizations soliciting funds for relief in war-ridden countries, indicates that in too many cases overhead costs—administration, publicity, etec.—take most of the money. One group, announcing itself as composed of young New York socialites, took in $1212 at a cocktail party, dance and fashion show, but spent 98 per cent of the receipts on administration and has sent nothing to the British people it had intended to aid. In two other instances, overhead took more than 90 per cent of the collections, and in several more from 40 to 80 per cent. Administration costs for organizations of this kind ordinarily should not exceed 25 per cent, according to the National Information Bureau, which investigates such appeals for funds. And many of the large agencies are doing notably better than that. We don’t doubt that the great majority of all war-relief efforts are inspired by the best of motives. But this is a field in which fine humanitarian impulses and enthsuiasm, unless backed by sound judgment and careful planning, can do more harm than good.
WILL AMERICA BE TOO LATE?
“WW HEN I look at the tragedies of Europe, when I look back and see their people finally getting together, uraking as magnificent a fight for the things that men Wve as could be made, but too late, I wonder about America. America is going to get on the job, but the question is whether it will be too late. “It never has occurred to, it never has gotten through the egotistical hide of, the average American that there is at this very time a chance of America being licked, a ehance of it joining the list of the democracies whose course before their destruction was identical with ours now, except that we have assumed a sort of world-wide responsibility when we are not even prepared to defend ourselves nat those whose power we challenge.” Hatton Sumner
’ x
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Only 12 Per Cent of Arizona Open To Freeholders, the Rest Is Held in Trust by Ickes in Behalf of the U. S.
UCSON, Ariz, May 5.—~When I said the other day that, from the look of the map, it seemed that half of the area of Arizona was withdrawn or always had been withheld withheld from private ownership, I was giving the testimony of the naked eye, and ae little more than the half of Ne a Why, this isn't a state at all. Arizona is just a ward of the Federal Government, with only 12 per cent of the land open to freehold, the rest being held in trust for the nation, so to speak, by Harold L. Ickes, and by the so-called state itself, largely as grazing land for lease to the cattlemen who nowadays are turning from grazing to the boarding-house business, known as dude ranching. But Mr. Ickes obviously is the head man of Arizona, being the biggest land baron of all time and when you consider the mortgage power of old Squre Whiskers in Washington through his various other agencies that make jobs and deal out money you realize that the Governor, whoever he happens to be at any time, is just a sort of district manager, Moreover, another man horns in there below Mr. Tckes, but obviously above the Governor, who represents a powerful continuing interest and doesn't have to go to the polls to beg for his job. He is a fabulous person named Lou Cates, or Rawhide Cates, of the Phelps-Dodge Co, which runs the copper industry and thus just about governs that little part of Arizona which doesn't belong to the Department of the Interior and the incompetent minor called the state, » 5 » PrELES-DODGE has big copper mines, both open craters and tunnels into the mountains. Harry Lavender, who runs the big pit at Morenci, asked me to go over and look at the neat homes and the whitecollar hotel which the company has built for the help there, but I was busy loafing, so I can't rightly say whether they treat the people mean, as John Lewis doubtless will aver, or tuck them in bed with a motherly Kiss at night. However, I see where the company lost one of those Felix Frankfurter decisions in a labor case in the Supreme Court the other day, so we will have to assume that Phelps-Dodge is a dirty man-grinder and in line to be taken over one of these days as an essential industry in trouble with the unions. They had bad union trouble here in the last war, and when it reached a certain point down at Bishea what did certain persons do but load a whole lot of Communists, then known as I. W. W.'s, into boxecars and ship them out? You can't do that to Communists any more, and, under Frankfurter's decisions, if you don't hire them you have to put them on the payroll for life, provided they can show they hold union cards. Inasmuch as this is
near the Mexican border and a lot of Mexicans are |
Communists and miners, you just add the whites of two eggs and see what Frankfurter's decision can mean to the one big, free industry of Arizona, d & 8 ELL. this just about winds up the series about a state that isn't rightly a state at all and has no more right to two Senators than a little boy has to a harem, except a little historical note about Ft. Huachuca, where the officers’ restaurant is run by a Chinese named Mar Kim, who inherited the concession from his father who started it ‘way back in 1882, when Huachuca was a cluster of tents and shacks, Mar Kim's father, named Sam Kee, came over from San Francisco in those davs to start a laundry for the miners around Tombstone, but after a few days he found the work too hard and drifted down to Huachuca, where he opened a cook shack. From the profits and probably by dealing a little fan tan and lending to busted officers Sam accumulated so much that one day in the ‘80s, when Congress forgot to appropriate for the soldiers’ pay, he walked into the colonel's office, planked down $10,000 in gold and said: “Pay ‘em off. Soldiers broke; how can 1 make any money?" So the colonel paid off the cavalry, who spent a lot of it with Sam Kee, anyway, and when the pay finally came through it was delivered intact to Sam. Mar Kim says his old man, age 88, is still living in Hong Kong.
Business
By John T. Flynn
Plight of Cotten Highlights One Of Baffling Problems Facing U. S.
EW YORK, May 5—Certainly when we look at some of the problems that this nation has to solve thev seem, to put it mildly, utterly baffling. Take, for instance, the problem of the man who grows cotton. In 1927 our cotton farmers sold 9,487,000 bales of cotton abroad. In 1938 they sold 4.581,000 bales. Since the war began they have sold probably only 700,000 bales. Thus we see that the war distributes its blessing most unevenly. The scrapiron dealer and the steel maker may exhaust their capacity to meet orders abroad, but the cotton farmers see only darkness. Of course if this were just a war condition we could look forward to its ending one day and to a resumption of the old trade. But we see that in 1938, before the war hegan, we sold abroad only half the cotton we sold in 1927. One of the causes is the pressure of foreign competition. The Brazilian cotton farmer sells his cotton for about 60 per cent of the price asked by the United States farmer. And while these prices, anc those of other countries, push us out of the market we exhaust our ingenuity to keep our own prices up. And co it is as clear as anything in this world can be that, while we keep our prices up, we will never regain our foreign markets, It is also as clear as day that the more we lose our foreign markets the more cotton we will have to sell at home. And the more cotton we have to sell at home the lewer the price will be here: And the lower it is here the more the Government will have to pay in subsidies to keep the price up. =” ” ” LL this is well known and is old stuff to men in the cotton industry. But it is a good thing to state it here in its stark simplicity, in order ta
realize how serious this problem is and how we are |
doing nothing about solving it.
Back of these hard statistics are human beings |
—small farmers whose hope to eat depends on raising cotton and selling it. .
Certainly the problem can be simplified at least | Either our cotton farmers must stop |
to this extent. raising coiton to ship abroad or they must stop pegging the price of cotton. If they stop raising cotton to ship abroad, hundreds of thousands of them must quit raising cotton altogether, Because our own market will not keep them all alive. If the price is allowed to drop great numbers of them also have to go out of business and the Government will have to feed them. What is the remedy? It must be one of two things. Either we must peg the price of the home market and let farmers sell abroad for. what they can in world competition, or we must let economic law take its course until the product is reduced and the weak are winnowed out and, in the meantime, take care of the victims of this process. Nothing could be cillier than what we are doing now—paying the farmers subsidies on all they raise within their quotas and piling up vast unusable surpluses each year, yet never coming any nearer a solution of the prchlem.
So They Say—
RIGHT now, when even minutes are vital to the preparedness program, every accident throws a monkey-wrench into the defense machinery, and amounts to unintentional sabotage.~Col. John Stil«
well, National Safety Council president,
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
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MONDAY, MAY 5, 1941 |
‘Fifty-Fifty Again, Joe?’
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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.
ASKS IF F. D. R. LACKS FAITH IN PEOPLE By R. G. L., East Chicago
Every once in a while there are strong indications that President Roosevelt lacks faith in the judgment of the people of this country. In Mrs. Roosevelt's column My Day of April 28 occurred another such tipoff. In Winston Churchill's speech of last Sunday, she says “one must admire a man who can trust the people of
commenting on!
(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious confroversies excluded. Make yout letters short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed.)
to express views in
| |purposes alone, Germany has an | nounced she will sink all ships
events that are made to occur, to bring about the desired ends. Why don't our newspapers all over the country have the full amount of courage necessary come out in strong, forceful language, and as the saying goes, give the “low-down” on current issues. Some of your columnists like John Flynn, Gen. Johnson, etc, do not mince words in bringing some of this Government's subterfuge to
{ light—why don't our newspapers do | likewise ? his country so completely that he|bound for England and their con-|truth!
Are they afraid? It's Is there any reason to be
can tell them stark naked, cruel|Vovs. It's time to stop this piddling. afraid of the truth?
truths, unafraid.”
Two can play this sinking game. |
Our newspapers can wield a tre-
One is not apt to note attitudes! Convoy aid to England and sink all, mendous amount of good that would
and things unless they are in contrast with things that are familiar. Her statement then, plants a strong suspicion that Mrs. Roosevelt's husband does not trust the people of his country. For it is no secret that we have been told everything but the stark naked, cruel truths we ought to know. Hair-raising doses of propaganda alternating with large doses of soothing syrup do not give us the impression of being “unafraid” either, (“Evasive” is the word.) » ” ” FAVORS CONVOYS
TO AID ENGLAND By George 0. Davis, R. {, Brazil Charles Lindbergh says 100,000,000 Americans don't want war. That's true. None of us want war. " But if Hitler should win we know what would happen. Our fear of what would happen in that event has caused us to appropriate $30,000,000,000 for defense and begin conscription. And England still going strong. None of this is paid_for. We have not even begun to pay. Should Hitler win, conscription would become universal. High taxes for military purposes would consume the major part of sur income. We would get guns instead of butter. the Germans. But should England win and Hitler be destroyed our fears would vanish. We would have high taxes to pay but the rat hole would be stopped. England must have arms to win. To keep the war on the other side of the Atlantic we have voted $7,000,000,000 for England's aid. Such aid will do us no good at the bottom of the sea. It can help us only when it gets to England. England has not enough warships to protect it. The President has proposed a naval patrol for warning
We would become like!
commerce destroyers, ” » » THINKS CITIZENS NEED ‘CONVOY’ PROTECTION By James R. Meitzler, Attica
I agree with the President that (our ships need protection. But I | would say in the air and on the high seas. Also our citizens. That protection should be against seizure, searching and any damage that might be inflicted against our citi= zens or all property by any or all foreigners and nations. Our President, Congress and Senate should be (past, present and future) convoyed and protected against all foreign propaganda and unreasonable political pressure of any one| or group of people. It seems to me that the Administration's attitude toward Charles Lindbergh and Hugh Johnson is just a mild imitation of the dictators. I believe in free speech and press as long as it isn't treasonable. Also that a person doesn't have to be a contemptible rubber stamp in order not to be a traitor. Any human can be in error sometimes. God is the only one that is perfect. The judgment, assertions, reasoning, and decision of many should be better than thatiof one or two. That is why we have so many Congressmen and Senators. Why should anyone have to be a rubber stamp in order not to be a traitor?
$ 8. SLAMS ATTITUDE OV NATION'S NEWSPAPLRS By Mary J. Hayes, 101 N. Drexel Ave.
Why do not our newspapers come out more strongly against Administration tactics when it is known be-
be immeasurable, but if they do not print these things, they might as well be muzzled, and God forbid that we shall ever see the day when our newspapers do not print the things that are to be printed. This is something on which I have heard countless opinions expressed. Numerous persons have expressed the belief that our newspapers could do more than they have to bring these issues more to
many who are misguided by propaganda fed with the expressed intention of misguiding the people. . » n o
HOOSIER ARCHITECTS AND THE I. U. AUDITORIUM
By W. C. 8, an Indiana taxpayer
ate ceremonies, enlivened by quarrels between muralists and archi-
payers of Indiana to take stock in
of their money has been spent.
As far as this building is concerned it is perhaps too late to comment on the expenditure for the Benton murals. Many of us think of them as ugly burlesques but, no doubt, some members of the world of art will continue to tell us that we do not understand them — possibly true. . The building itself is creditable, being designed in an age-old style with which everyone is familfiar. The completed work, however, appears to be no better than it would have been if the project, costing over a million dollars, had been entrusted to any one of the leading architects of Indiana. To ask why New York architects
yond a question of doubt what they (are trying to do to the American | | people? Our newspapers really realize what is transpiring, and|
Side Glances=By Galbraith
had to be employed seems to be a fair question. Other new buildings
state supported schools, Indiana and Purdue, have heen designed by Indiana men. Costing much less than the new Hall of Music, these buildings are attractive in appearance and seem to be sound in construction. The money spent on them for services of architects, engineers and draftsmen was expended here at home. : I do not feel that Indiana architects are superior to the best men in other states but having seen a great many of the new public buildings built in various parts of the country, I am sure that there are some more poorly done but none any better in design than the work of our leading men. Have any of the new buildings that were designed by Indiana architects been found to be faulty in any way? Or is there to be a change of policy based on the theory that the “greenest grass grows on the farthest hill?”
HARBINGER By MARY WARD A small section of an acre, In fact not more than a rod, Though the bush it holds is a shaker Of wealth above the sod. A windy yard beyond it The terrain is bare and brown, But the bush, the sunrise found it, A treasure of gold set down. And I, forgetting springtime, Is only a step away, Discovered all this new, sublime Forsythia bloom today.
DAILY THOUGHT
I will sing praise to thy name; O thou most High.~Psalms 9:3.
£5 . 8 =»
to
the front, and clarify them for so
Now what the large and expensive | § Hall of Music at Indiana University 3 has been duly dedicated with elabor- | § tects, it might be well for the tax-|§
the project in order to see how some | =
erected in the last few years by) including |
Gen. Johnson Says—
Defense Output Not Perfect Now,
But There Is Evidence That the Production Goal Is Within Reach
ASHINGTON, May 5.~In criticizing particular aspects of the defense program, especially in industrial production, no impression should be taken that, over-all, a great fob Is not being done—teo costly, perhaps, helter-skelter without doubt and lack~ ing in some places. But there is getting underway the miracle of armament output that was almost in sight in November, 1918. This American industrial mae chine when geared: to this pure pose has no potential equal. in all the rest of the world combined, The first trick is to get it tooled up and started. The second is fo get it into balance. An airplane is no good without guns and ar= mor. Guns and armor are no ARR good without proper ammunition. ARR None of the armament is any good without trained pilots, observers and gunners, Getting far ahead in any of these indispensables is no good until the rest catch mp. : Take the example of our World War production of the famous French 75 mm, field piece. The secret of that marvelous gun was the cradle or recuperator —a massive steel forging yet as delicately machined as a watch for interfor air and fluid chambers and ducts. The French engineers who brought us the drawings
| were sure that only skilled French artisans and never
our mass-production methods could do that job, And they were skeptical, too, about our ability to machine the gun-tubes to their own finess of rifling,
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S a proved performance, in three separate face tories, the Rock Island Arsenal, the Dodge Brothers Automobile and Otis Elevator plants, those “cradles” promptly began moving off the production lines with the speed and continuity of dressed hog in a Chicago packing plant, where our peculiar insti tution of modern mass production had its birth. Algo in several plants new techniques were developed which began piling up gun-tubes in their stockyards like cordwood. Yet the charge is true that we delivered little American-made artillery in France and had to buy that equipment there. Why? Partly because pros
| duction of the intricately difficult parts: of the gut | was not balanced with what should have been ridiculously easy ones—wheels and carriages.
There was another incidental reason, that the French had passed the peak of their man-power and their peak produce tion-power overlapped it. They had gun-manuface turing capacity that would otherwise have been idle and they preferred to have us furnish the steel forge
| ings and other components as ‘replacements’ and fine
ish the guns themselves. A similar story was true of many other munitions —of shells, because while we got far ahead on forging and machining, we lagged on boosters and adapters and shell-loading plants—of airplanes because, while we attained great engine production, we never could settle on design, ‘ » " »
UT toward the end of 1918, the sky wag clearing everywhere, Things were getting into’ balance, In a few weeks the great American industrial machine would have been disgorging munitions in such quan= tities and excellence as would have left no doubt of the outcome of any war. . Our present program is equally unbalanced. Th lagging parts are ammunition, guns and tanks, espe=cially the heavier and more complicated ones. We shall be ineffective until balance is achieved but that is actually in sight. If the desperate shipping situa tion that was discussed in this space recently can be saved for a few months, an overwhelming flood of military equipment will be flowing out of our produce tion lines. \ It is cruelly misleading to tell people that this efe fort is satisfactory today but. it would be equally* mise leading to give them too gloomy a picture for the future. Every day of delay in our outright engages ment in war is a day of gain. If enough days can bs gained, our danger will pass because we shall be so strongly rearmed that no nation will attack us.
A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Y mail is full of plaints from young people who claim their parents don't understand them, Sometimes the recitals of their wrongs, real or fancied, turns the heart sick. Their folks spy on ‘them; open and read their prive ate mail; in short, behave exactly as parents ought never to behave if they want the confidence and love of their children. % One need look no further. for tragedy, because these adolescents, lost in a world of adults who ree fuse to take the trouble to listen to them or consider their wishes, are as worthy of our pity as any persecuted story-book heroine. The most deplorable trait of humankind is man's irrepressible desire to stick his fingers in other people's business, He begins it af a very early age and carries it through a lifetime,
This trait is the chief cause of so many broken homes. Husbands and wives simply will not permit each other to be individuals. They resist any thought of life outside the domestic circle,. They can't bear the notion of individual privacy, they resent th notion of any sanctuary of mind or spirit into chen the beloved one may not be followed, Indeed many of us are jailers by inclination, and with this complex £0 general, what could marriage be but a prison house? g When parenthood comes, these unpleasant quali lies are augmented. The child is a mother’s possese sion. “He belongs to me,” she says to herself. “He is all mine: God gave him to me.” This is the come mon attitude. » And so, even though women are willing to sacrie fice their lives, to work themselves into an early grave and to commit every extravagance of maternal love, many refuse the one thing a child most needs and wants—liberty. To loose her hold upon an adolescent son. op daughter—to think of herself as a friend and guide rather than a mentor and boss—is the hardest task a mother faces. A plea for ability to do this should be included in each of our prayers.
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: tee search. Write your questions clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal adyice eannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteanth St,, Washington. D. C.).
Q—Did George Washington lay the cornerstone of the White House in Washington? 8
A—An erroneous legend states that George Washe ington himself laid the cornerstone of the White House in 1792, on the 300th anniversary of Columbus® landing at San Salvador. The cornerstone wat lai on that date, but the records show that Washington was in Philadelphia.
Q—Why did the U.'S.’ Treasury cease minting three-cent pieces and three-dollar gold pieces? \ A~—Because the three-unit coins did not fit readily into the decimal system. Also, the silver three-cent pieces, like the gold dollar and the half-dimes, were too small to be practical, and the similarity of color of the nickel three-cent piece and the silver dime, led to frequent confusion. i Q—How much snow will equal one inch of rain? A~—Generally 10 inches of snow equals one inch .of : rain, but when it is very wet and sticky, 7 or 8 inches may yield the equivalent of an inch of rain; when light and feathery, 2 or even 3 feet are required. = § _ Q~In hew many deaths in the United States ir 1939 was hurger or thirst the immediate cause? ~~ -