Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 May 1941 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1941

THE LEWIS THREAT

OHN L. LEWIS now threatens the country with another soft-coal strike shutting down all the mines, North and South, which reopenéd May 1 after a full month of idleness. Lewis, forsooth, is “not impressed” with the progress of negotiations between the United Mine Workers and the Southern operators. Unless an agreement satisfactory to him is reached by next Tuesday, he will order the miners out again. The defense program is still staggering from the paralyzing blow dealt by the April strike in this most basic of industries. Lewis is willing, if not eager, to deal a second blow. He has no quarrel with the Northern operators. They have met his demands. He is negotiating with the Southern operators under a temporary agreement providing that the wage-hour terms of a permanent agreement, when reached, shali be retroactive to April 1. That protects the Southern miners from being penalized by prolonged negotiations. Yet Lewis grows impatient. He employs this threat— it means a strike in the South and a sympathy strike in the North. Does he direct it against the mine-owners alone? We think not. We think it is directed against the Government of the United States. We do not forget that, only two weeks ago, Lewis publicly warned the Roosevelt Administration “not to expect too much co-operation” from labor in the national-defense program until labor—meaning the Lewis branch of labor—is given greater power in Washington. We say that Lewis has too much power now. We say that the time has come when the President should speak to the rank-and-file of labor, over the heads of unionism’s power-greedy bosses, telling the workers that men like John L. Lewis are leading them and their country to disaster. We believe that an appeal from the President, addressed directly to the men and women among whom patriotism resides, is needed to keep the coal mines open, to stop the new wave of strikes in key defense industries, and to save labor from the drastic restrictions which otherwise an outraged public is certain to demand.

GUNS OR MONUMENTS?

HILE we are talking about saving that billion from non-defense expenditures why not make a start right now with a few millions? Anyone with any business experience knows that the way to cut is to begin with the nickels and the dimes: with the lead pencils and the taxi

fares, the stationery and the long distance telephone calls. That's where you find the dribble. Otherwise you exhaust | your energy arguing whether, as in this case, a billion can | be saved, and, like as not, decide it can’t be done—and so | save nothing. | We think a billion is a pathetically small objective to | choot at: that at least two or three billions of loose fat could be pared off ; and that in the process our Government would become correspondingly stronger, because we would become leaner and fitter. But it will never be done unless it's done item by item. So let's consider monuments. Of all the spending proposals at a time like this, these stand out. Already on the monument and memorial list are over $6,000,000 suggested appropriations. These range from $1000 for a plaque to the inventor of the steel plow, to five million for the Benjamin Harrison National Forest in Indiana. Rep. Reece (R. Tenn.), a member of the Republican family of economizers, would spend an as-not-yet-estimated sum for an Andrew Johnson memorial. Rep. Flannagan (D. Va.) would toss in $50,000 of taxpayer dough for something nice to commemorate Gen. William Campbell, of the Revolutionary War. An equal sum is urged by Rep. Culkin (R. N. Y.) as a tribute to Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown of Sackets Harbor, N. Y. Rep. Hare (D. S. C.) is more modest in his appraisal of the services of former Gov. Andrew Pickens as those services relate to a monument to be erected near Edgefield, S. C., but he comes up with another one for $50,000 for Gen. Andrew Pickens, at Pendleton, S. C. , Rep. Smith (R. Me.) grows generous to the memory of Maj. Gen. Henry Knox, late of Thomaston, Me., to the tune of 25,000 bucks. And so it goes. Now, just as a practical start toward that much-men-tioned billion, we suggest that all these honored dead, who have waited quite a while already, can wait some more. Or, to put it another way, that here is over six million dollars we know can be saved.

MR. McGILLICUDDY’S DAY

Y decree of the City Council and the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Philadelphia will celebrate next Satur-

day in honor of a young man named Cornelius McGillicuddy. |

Mr. McGillicuddy’s youthfulness is not a matter of years. He was born in 1862. He began his advance to fame in 1883, as catcher on the East Brookfield (Mass.) baseball team. He became a professional player the next year. He has been manager of the Philadelphia Athletics since 1901, and has led that team to nine American League pennants and five world championships. But Mr. McGillicuddy, at 78, remains young in spirit and active in baseball. And, if you have to look down into the second division to find the Athletics just now, their boss is still high in the hearts of Philadelphians. So he’s going to have his special day, and George M. Cohan (who got his start in North Brookfield) has written a song for the occasion, Mr. Cohan has done well for the Grand Old Flag. What more appropriate than that he should hymn that other

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Bob LaFollette Long Recognized as a Friend of Labor But Senator Gives Only One Side of the Picture.

EW YORK, May 14.—Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, the chairman of the so-called Civil Liberties Committee of the Senate, made a speech last week in which he referred to “some obvious fallacies” in the understanding of the reasons for strikes in the defense industries. These must be exposed, he said, and I suggest that while we are exposing fallacies we consider the faliacy of Robert M. LaFollette. Many public men get by indefinitely an past performances or early publicity. Senator Norris, who once spoke with the most sonorous piety about the sanctity of elections, saying, “if we wrongfully influence the voter we are striking at the very foundations of free government,” was one of those who recently attended the disgraceful ceremony in the Capitol in which a statue of the late Huey Long was unveiled to mock those very principles. Other attendants at the same evil affront to free government were John H. Overton of Louisiana, whom Huey Long elected by fraud and whom Senator Norris did not exert himself to expel, and Allen J. Ellender, another member of the late dictator's corrupt and terroristic gang. = = = STOR LAFOLLETTE, however, has been going along smoothly, posturing gracefully and accepting bows, and cannot be blamed for thinking himself quite a master of deception. He has been making vast publicity for Senator LaFollette through an investigation of “violations of the right of free speech and assembly and interference with the right of labor to bargain collectively.” In his New York speech he saiG the adoption of Jaws to bring labor unions under legal controls would constitute a legislative lynching bee, blamed employers for the majority of defense strikes and said the notion that strikes are an enjoyable exercise for the worker is so silly that it would evaporate automaticaily. He is clever, but he can be analyzed if you refuse to let him confuse you. In the first place, of course, labor unions, as he knows, are as guilty as any employer ever was of violations of the right of free speech and of the worker’s parallel right not to join a union, but the Senator doesn’t go into that. He is serving his reputation and promoting his career with his political following by pretending to believe that employers only are guilty of wrong against workers and of violence in union troubles. To me employers for the majority of defense strikes, of course, is to confuse the question, because rarely do we get to the bottom of the causes of such strikes and, moreover, penalties already exist for guilty employers. He only insists that it would be “lynching” to adopt laws whereby professional, irresponsible unioneers could be punished equally for equal offenses. And, of course, nobody ever has contended that workers enjoy striking, so that strawman blows away on a gust of the Senator's own hot air. ” 5 2 N the contrary, he knows that thousands of strikers have bitterly resented the compulsion to strike at the orders of their union bosses. But Senator LaFollette couldn't be expected to go into that, because he has been getting away with an act for years and doesn’t expect to be challenged. I notice in one of the reports of the Senator's long and expansive hearings a reference to the Little Steel strike at Johnstown which will indicate how fallacious he is. This portion undertakes to expose as a fallacy the “rumored invasion” of Johnstown by 40,000 mine workers, and the Senator obviously helieves that by editorializing he has reduced the danger of that invasion to a mere myth. But the files will show that at times John L. Lewis wired President Roosevelt warning him. of this invasion and attempting to disown responsibility for violence that might occur. So the threat was not so tallacious, after all. Senator LaFoliette has had a good press for years, but all public men should be called up for periodic reputation inspection. Many of them develop a disease that might be called pernicious fallacy.

Business

' By John T. Flynn

No President, No One Man Should

Have Sole Power to Devalue Dollar.

EW YORK, May 14.—In the midst of so many things an old friend bobs up—the power over

the gold content of the dollar.

That power—within limits—now rests in the hands of the President. And his power, granted by Congress, is about to expire. Secretary Morgenthau, of course, urges that this power be renewed. The question ought to be disassociated completely from the personality of any individual President. It involves the grave question of whether such powers ought to be put in the hands of any man. The power is lodged ny the Constitution in Congress. And this power is so fraught with potentialities to ruin a country that it should never pass out of the hands of Congress. This is particularly true at this time. There is no consequence after the war which seems so likely as a wave of agitation about money. The vast debts of the various European powers, the general business chaos, their lack of gold is going to force them to experiments with money—new experiments and old ones. In this country we shall have to face that issue. Can anyone doubt -that on all sides will spring up apostles of all sorts of money panaceas? Some adjustments will have to be made along this line. They may turn out to be moderate and considered adjustments. They may become queer—to put it mildly. One thing is certain—we cannot trust the decision in the hands of a single man. We cannot permit an impulsive decision about so grave a matter, Congress should take this power back now. It cannot be urged that this power in the President's hands is a war power. It is no such thing. It is not necessary to defense.

8 n ” Y own mail is ample testimony of the rise already of the money tinkerers. More different kinds of plans are already being nursed into strength to save America from debt and to bring abundance. There is in Washington a group of men who like to call themselves devotees of what is obscurely known as the “new economics” who are powerful and who are already preaching dangerous doctrines about public spending as a permanent policy and whose new economics consist chiefly in rejecting out of hand all the well-established laws of economics as a basis for their political theories. They are more popular now than ever. They will be more powerful when the war is over. Ard they are close to the throne. Of course the Chief Executive cannot devalue the dollar very much more under his present grant. But the theory of Presidential power over the dollar ought to be scotched now while it is possible to do it. The President cannot quarrel over any meanness of Congress in granting him powers. He might well agree in return to drop this one,

So They Say—

THE IMPORTANCE of political stability in all the countries of the Western Hemisphere at this time can hardly be exaggerated. —Secretary of State Hull, *

THERE I8 NO bridge between the Bible and “Mein Kampf”; no quarter. There is only one road for ut.—Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Zionist leader. % * *

THEY'RE damned hungry over there.—Edward Leébzeltern, officer of a U. 8. relief ship, just back from

great andy imperishable American institution, Grand Old

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Month of May!

The Merry

Kiss AND MAKE UP=~

MAY

MNITLER

0.5 MR conv ————— TRANCE MAY CaP TuLATR

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1941

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BEFORE IT ENDS!

/ | SUGGEST WE { COOK UP ANOTHER DEAL _ (2 EIRST ?

The Hoosier Forum

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

UPHOLDS THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH By Mrs. Helen Mori Eck, R. R. 17 Box 164D At an organizational meeting of a minority two evidently professional hecklers tried to interfere with business. It seems to me that a democracy to survive (if, indeed, it is still alive) such interfering with ligitimate opposition meetings for organizational purposes should be stopped. We prate and prate of free speech, | free press, and the ability to meet in groups (especially minority ones) as the inalienable rights of all. Then, when these rights are exercised, slurring remarks and worse, insinuations are made. People in high places it seems are the greatest offenders. How can we have opposition in| the democratic way when we cannot | meet freely and discuss with people | of like opinions? There is a time | and place for everything.

$$: 8% =» ; SUPPORTS ARGUMENTS OF ISOLATIONISTS By G. K. Smith, 218 S. Audubon Rd.

Boiled down to its simples: terms, the controversy between the America First Committee and its opponents shapes up thusly: The America First people are concerned with the danger to our free institutions, such as free enterprise, private property and civil liberties, inherent in the “all out” aid to Britain as proposed by the interventionists. The interventionists, on the other hand, are concerned with the possibilities of a Nazi invasion of the U. 8S. in the event of Britain's defeat as well as the danger to our economic life evolving from a Hitler dominated “slave” labor. There is hardly a responsible military authority in the country to maintain that a well-armed America could not utterly repel any invasion force sent against us. Fearful interventionists must assume that, in face of a threatened invasion, our Navy would remain tied up to the docks, our air arm would squat placidly on the ground, and the President would seize upon the occasion as an excuse to go on another fishing trip! As for the economic threat, it is

|been “slave” labor; but it wasn’t

doubtful if Hitler could further depress the wages paid to European! labor even if he wanted to. Euro- | pean and Japanese labor has always

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

until a war came along that this fact was seized upon as an excuse to get into war, yet American labor has competed successfully with this same “slave” labor all along.

DENIES ENGLAND FIGHTS OUR WAR By Harry Clay, Brightwood

I am an isolationist. I think we should take the great Washington's advice and keep out of any European entanglements. One of the most foolish assertions of some of our people is that England is fighting our war, for our democracy. She is not even a democracy herself and what we have here is what our forefathers suffered, died and fought | this same England to attain and | hand down to us. She is the greatest land grabber the world has ever known. She has crushed weaker nations and taken their lands until today she owns one-fourth of the populated land of the earth. A few years ago England sent troops to South Africa, where they slaughtered the Boers | and took their land away from] them. Our forefathers had to whip | her twice before she would keep her gory hands off us. Even during our Civil War, England was so anxious to save our democracy that she built warships for the South. England is fighting for England and nobody else. And if she can fool us again into sending our sons over there to save her hide, that is all she wants. After the World War she refused to pay us the war debt. She referred to us as Uncle Shylock, profiteers, and money grabbers. We are also being told by the war mongers that if Germany wins she will take all the world markets from us and without markets we perish. How foolish. Here we have the grandest and richest country in the world, built up by work and minding our own business (except

Side Glances=By Galbraith

1918). We are independent and can produce a grand living for all of us. Now if we should lose every market on earth would we just sit down and starve right in the midst of

plenty? I am the father of three sons, all of military age, and I would not give the life of any one of them for the whole of Europe. | Let us prepare so that no nation | will dare molest us and then if any | should we would all be willing to make any sacrifice. 2 = ”

DENIES POWER COMPANY OPPOSES DAYLIGHT TIME

By Francis M. Hughes, Chairman, Day-| lizht Savings Commitiee, Indianapolis | Junior Chamber of Commerce

It has come+to the attention of our committee that some of the | citizens of Indianapolis aré under | the impression that the Daylight | Savings Ordinance now pending before the City Council is being opposed by those interested in electric lighting. We believe that this false impres- | sion should be corrected in fairness to the Indianapolis Power & Light Co., which company we know is making no effort whatsoever to oppose the introduction of daylight saving to the City of Indianapolis, even though their summer revenues would be materially reduced by this action. It is a matter of fact that petitions have been circulated among the employees of the company and that such petitions bearing the signatures of several ployees favoring daylight saving have been submitted to the City Council. The officers of the Indianapolis Power & Light Co. have assured our committee that the popular sentiment of this community is paramount in the company’s consideration, and that the company will willingly accept any decision that is made with reference to daylight saving in the City of Indianapolis. # n n CONTENDS BRITAIN NOT GETTING ENOUGH HELP By B. T. In an editorial you blame the Government for kéeping back information about the position of Great Britain. Why ask the Government? Read the news in your own paper and you will know how desperate the British position is, that the British are not getting enough of help from anywhere, that everything is being done in this country |

|

by subversive elements to jeopardize | any kind of assistance England may | get from here. 1 fail to see any constructive criti- | cism on your part. You are blow-| ing hot and you are blowing cold, | but you never state definitely what | policy the Government should pursue. Shall Hitler he allowed to de- | stroy England and then have him | on our neck to cope with—if we will be able to—or shall we help England for our own good?

UNKNOWN EQUATION

By ELEEZA HADIAN Night! I have searched the hours, I have touched its comfort— I pool now the darkness To measure its depths.

Earth! I have walked the lanes, I have known its thrill— I take now a handful To question its weight.

Death! I have fought the fear, I have sought its shadow— I wait now the baptism To measure its mercy.

Night and earth— Death and night? Eternity meeting earth!

DAILY THOUGHT

An ungodly witness scorneth judgment. —Proverbs 10.28.

hundred em- |§

Gen. Johnson Says—

Present Law Operating Fairly and

Blanket Deferments in the Draft Are Likely to Prove Disastrous.

ASHINGTON, May 14.—The drive for “blanket deferments” from the draft or Selective Service is the worst thing that could happen to the system, Senator Vandenberg seems to be leading the assault on the ground that deferments for “married men has not been absolutely uniform.” Why should they be uniform? Why should a man otherwise eligible be able to dodge the most solemn obligation of citizenship by changing his marital status? Marriage isn’t the question. Dependency is the only question in which the public and the Gove ernment should be interested. _ On this question there has not been regimented uniformity among the boards, but if the cases of resulting hardship were examined under a microscope they wouldn't amount to 1/100 of 1 per cent of the total selection, Selective Service headquarters and the Army itself, after induction, is alert to see that no final injustice is done. : The alternative to entrusting the question of relative availability for military service to committees of neighbors familiar with relative conditions is te try to do the trick by blanket exemptions enacted by Congress. . It never did work. The stench and the scandal of the Civil War draft—which ruined it and made it fail—was the creation of automatic privileged classes. The two great errors of the World War draft was a blanket exemption for ship-yard workers and another rule for the selection of married men on whom their families were dependent but where the parents of the wife were “ready, able and willing to support the dependent family.” ” ” ” T pressure for blanket deferments now for such all-inclusive classes as “students, mechanics and married men’ is becoming overwhelming. The draft regulations are exceptionally genérous and aware of the relative urgency of every national need. No students, for example, were draftable under the original act until July, 1941, the idea being not to break up the academic year. As to students or apprentices in traihing for the highly technical services of modern war who can demonstrate that they are making proper progress in that training, all are subject to deferment as is every man who is already qualified and can show himself to be in any way a necessary man in a necessary industry. All these general rules and policies have been and are being worked out by the Selective Serve ice organization in the closest possible co-operation with the Knudsen-Hillman organization in OPM. This is not as has been recently suggested in seve eral editorials and in the President's press confer ence of May 2 any belated act of planning or dise covery by Selective Service. It was intrinsic in the 1918 act, carried forward into this one, and has been practiced since the beginning. ” ” ” HE real trouble is that since Selective Service has no director, it has no voice. Its printed record on these subjects without a word of comment would be enough to set the critics back on their heels. But Mr. Dykstra, its titular head, has never been on more than a part-time basis, is now not even on that basis, His assistant, Gen. Hershey, is after all only an ase sistant and could not now, without a considerable assumption—which would probably be kicked back in his teeth—take any forthright position or change any principal policy. But the fairness of this draft is a deadly serious matter. If political pressure groups of special privilege can use their hokum methofs to escape the most serious and sacred obligation of citizenship, one of our greatest strengths will become a rotten reed and a stench to heaven. Perhaps the attempting verpetrators of these blanket exemptions from ‘military service haven't stopped to think about the kind ot majority group resentment they are courting. The ségment most interested and most hurt by these compulsory sacrie fices are wives, mothers and sweethearts. Theirs are

| the jealous eyes that will be watching these slick

evasions in favor of other groups than their own. At the last reckoning they are going to have to be answered, and if I were fenagling with this draft, I would rather consider answering a cageful of tigers.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

READ a good many newspapers from all parts of the country. It has been interesting to follow the controversy over Charles Lindbergh through “Letters to the Editor” departments. They seem to stack up about 50-50 for and against, And from everywhere tHe argue ments are the same. Over and over and over they are repeated. The people who admire Lindbergh and his stand admire him extravagantly; those who dislike him often allow their dislike to become rage. . However, this natign-wide con troversy amounts to a great deal more than the way you feel about Lindbergh or the Administration, The issue is as rlear as the sun in a cloudless sky—it is the issue : of free speech. And here we find an amazing inconsistency on the part of the Lindbergh haters. Most of them urge us to fight for democracy. They want us to go to war so that we may bring freedom of thought and expression to Czechoslovakia, to Jugoslavia, to Greece, to Norway and to China—in fact, to all those places on earth where it is endangered—and in the same breath they ask that it be suppressed right here at ome. It is hard to reconcile their arguments with demo cratic principles. It is harder still to comprehend their attitude about freedom. In view of our apparent confusion it seems to me every citizen should sit down and re-define that word, We ought to know what we are talking about when we call ourselves the champions of right, the soldiers of liberty. . For actually no man loves freedom of speech who 1s not willing to grant it to his opponents. No indi vidual advocates liberty unless he wants it as much

”

| for the other fellow as for himself. Any attempt to

curb discussion in our own country disarms democracy and is subversive propaganda of the worst order. ; When we yell for free speech for ourselves and deny it to others, our cause is already lost.” In this respect most newspapers set a good example for their readers—to a certain extent, at least, they try to give bol sides of every question and space for all to be eard.

Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists (pn this newspaper are their own. They are net necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times :

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eannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Burean, 1013 Thirteenth St., Washington. D. C.). Q—What do the five stars on the fly of the Ause tralian flag stand for? i A—The Southern Cross, a constellation. Q—Who wrote the song “I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now”? A—The music is by Joseph E. Howard, the words by Will M. Hough and Frank R. Adams, 1909. . Q—-My two brothers and I became ¢itizens through the naturalization of our father in 1920, 8ince we all need proof of our citizenship, and it is impossible for each one to keep our father's naturale ization pgpers, may we have photostat copiés made? A—1t is illegal to have photostat copiés of naturalization papers. Each of you should apply to the nearest Naturalization Office for a “certificate of de rivative citigenship.” : . Ce Q—How many miles or jailton were in operation