Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 May 1941 — Page 18

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«> RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Ther Own Wap

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1941

MELL OF A HESS EVER was there such a field day for experts, dopesters, prognosticators and journalistic and radio E. Phillips Oppenheims as that which has been heralded by Hess. Not even the Hall-Mills murder case, with the pig woman, Willie Stevens, and de Russey’s lane. ; So, since everybody is taking a shot at the solution, why not let our fancy go free and wander with the explanation which carries the last inhibitions. Here's the most fantastic we've read or heard: That Hess was Hitler. That Hitler is, and has been all the time, a myth. That Hess discovered Hitler. That in Hitler all he found was splendid vocal equipment; a born orator, with excellent lungs, larynx and epiglottis. That Hess, not Hitler, wrote not only Mein Kampf, but every speech Hitler ever delivered. That Hess furnished all the brains and Hitler all the noise. That Hitler was a stooge who, because of the build-up by Hess, became a frankenstein monster and at last threatened to destroy his creator. Hence, Hess hit for Loch Lomond. And so, with Hess gone, there is no Hitler any more, except the shell. While we are having our fun with the greatest mystery story of our time, why not go the limit? The “Hess is Hitler” version seems to do that, though we're still open for suggestions. Why not wolf a welsh rarebit, and, in your nightmare, try to dope out a better one.

HITLER PREPARES HT LER seems to be preparing carefully for the Battle of the Middle East. While he concentrates fresh Balkan panzer divisions in Libya and strengthens his new Greek and Aegean bases, his fifth columnists stir Moslem revolt against the British. The threat of Afghanistan, strategic gateway to India, to join the Iraqi uprising, and the call of the exiled mufti of J erusalem for an Islamic holy war, are invaluable aids to the Nazis. ; But with characteristic caution der Fuehrer is withholding direct military relief from his Iraqi puppet, apparently until he completes deals with France for Nazi passage through Syria and with Russia for encirclement of Turkey. Russia seems faced with the choice of supporting Hitler's drive in the Near East or of defending her Ukraine from Nazi attack. Since the Russian Army is inferior to the German, and since co-operation with Hitler in Asia Minor may produce more spoils for Stalin a la the scavanger hunt in Poland, there is a tempting set-up for another NaziCommunist deal. : Stalin’s help is not as essential to Hitler now as in September, 1939, but it can greatly increase the chances of Nazi success. Even if Russia did not march from the northeast, to support the Nazis advancing on Asia Minor from the West, Stalin could immobilize Turkey by diplomatic pressure and by cutting off essential military supplies. Turkey is the only major ally the British have left along the Empire lifeline. Hitler's Balkan victories have isolated Turkey on the northwest and west, while on the south are the Axis island bases, French Syria and the Iraqi revolt. If Turkey is betrayed by her largest neighbor and closest friend, Russia, she has little chance of defending herself or shielding Britain's Mosul-Haifa oil and Suez. So Britain's position in the Middle East is increasingly difficult, as Prime Minister Churchill hinted to Commons in pledging last-ditch defense there.

THE DUTY OF CONGRESS

WO illuminating articles have been written this week by Charles T. Lucey of our Washington staff on the subject of non-defense economies. One, telling of the Scripps-Howard Newspapers’ poll of Congress on Secretary Morgenthau’s proposal to cut one billion dolars from “normal” Government expenditures, reported that a large majority agreed with the idea but that it seemed apparent no real savings would be made unless President Roosevelt, himself, specified where and how. Today’s article gives an insight into the political factors behind this Congressional reluctance to take the initiative for economy. It revealed that only about 7,000,000 persons pay taxes directly to the Government, while nearly 13,000, 000 receive money directly from the Treasury. This latter and startling figure omits all men in the Army and Navy and includes only the civilian Federal employees, the WPA workers, CCC and NYA enrollees, and the recipients of farm payments, pensions, -and other cash benefits—all of whom get their “take” out of the Government's non-defense budget. ’ Since each of these groups constitutes a powerful bloc of voters back home, it is not hard to understand why Congressmen are loath to take the lead in pruning non-defense items. Yet it is with Congress that the responsibility lies. The Constitution gives solely to Congress the power to lay taxes and appropriate money. Congress is responsible for the fact that only a small percentage of voters are subject to the income tax, the only visible levy that touches the pocket nerve. And Congress, by its appropriations, has built up the large and growing pressure groups of citizens whose pocket interest in Government is on the receiving end. True, Congress has followed the President's leadership both as to tax policy and spending. And Mr. Roosevelt should exert his leadership to bring about a realistic basebroadening tax program, and a hard-headed retrenchment on non-essential spending. If he doesn’t, history is likely to record his Administration as the one that started the republic down the bankruptcy toboggan. But whatever the President does or does not do, Congress cannot escape the responsibility which the Constitution placed in its exclusive custody. And individual members who admit the need for economy but lack the courage to do their duty without being led should go home and stay

there, and let their constituents send to Congress someone.

who hashe Statesmanship to do What has to be done,

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ered by carrier, 12 cents |

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

‘Rumored Invasion' of Johnstown Was No Myth as La Follette implies, But a Real Threat as Record Shows

EW YORK, May 15.—In yesterday's essay on the fallacy of Senator Roberti M. La Follette I made a slight mistake in saying that John L. Lewis, at the time of the steel strike at Johnstown, Pa. wired President Roosevelt warning him of an invasion of the town by 40,000 of his mine workers and attempting to disown responsibility for violence that might occur. Lewis did not wire President Roosevelt to that effect, but telephoned Frances Perkins, the Secretary of Labor, and Govenor Davey of Ohio that “somewhere in this land there should be authority to prevent the contemplated butchery of our people in these mills tomorrow.” He was speaking of the struck steel plants in Ohio, where his C. I. O. pickets were trying to prevent other men from going to work, and what he plainly meant was that there would be butchery if the workers tried to go to their jebs. He wanted the mills closed by the powers of Government where the pickets and the Communist revolutionaries had failed to achieve that effect for him. However, Senator La Folletie’s report on the situation in Johnstown employs quotation marks around the “rumored invasion” of the ‘troubled city by Lewis’ coal miners, and what I want to show is that this was not an imaginary danger but an actual one.

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USSELL PORTER, the New York Times reporter on the scene in Johnstown, wrote that “Mr. Fagan (the oresident of District 2 of the Mine Workers) said 40,000 was a conservative estimate of the miners who would come from the western and central Pennsylvania coal fields to attend a mass meeting cf the C. I. O. stzel strikers tomorrow,” at which Philip Murray, the chairman of the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee would be the principal speaker. In the face of this threat Governor Earle, the New Deal's own boy in Pennsylvania at the time and a man who had momentary though juvenile aspirations to the Presidency, did for Lewis just what Mr. Lewis wanted done. Remembering, no doubt, the time, in 1922, when a telegram from Mr. Lewis to the miners at Herrin, Ill, was closely followed by the massacre of 26 unarmed, captive men, Governor Earle obligingly closed the mills by the armed forces of the State. The “invasion” was not a mere “rumor” but an actual plan to march 40,000 massed partisans into a scene of contention already marked by some bloodshed, and Lewis was permitted to save his face and escape moral responsibility for anything that might have happened when the Governor surrendered to his union. The men who had been working and who apparently wanted to continue to work obviously were not planning to attack 40,000 coal miners, plus the steel strikers who were out of the plants, and the ideological desperadoes who had sneaked into the situation ahh o without the welcome and indorsement of the » ” ”

I’ civil war had broken out, followed, as in Herrin, by massacre, it would have been a mistake to seek the aggressor on the side of the non-strikers. As to whether the C. I. O. would have dared to assume the responsibility for this meeting in these circumstances, We can't ever know. Governor Earle cracked down on the victim of the implied menace and the situation dissolved. In the Herrin case Lewis’ telegram to his miners told them they would be justified in regarding the

non-strikers, who, incidentally, were members of an- |

other union, “in the same light as they other common strike-breaker.” : After the massacre Lewis deplored the bloodshed, denied that his first telegram could have instigated it and said the ranks of his mine workers had be=n

do any

“infested with thousands of detectives and secret |

service operatives whose employment by the coal companies depends on their ability to provoke violence and disturb public tranquility. This may have been true, but the community was intensely partisan to Lewis’ union, and if Lewis had legal evidence to sunport his charge it is strange that not a single murderer of the 26 men ever was punished. Of course, this is old material, but it all bears on my contention that the “rumored invasion” of Johnstown by 40,000 men was no myth and, in a Congressional document, deserves presentation without the discrediting suggestion of quotation marks.

Business By John T. Flynn

Hopeful Sign Amid Confusion Is Willingness to Act on Price Rises

EW YORK, May 15.—One healthy sign appears amid the clouds of confusion, It is the rising willingness to do something about checking the inflationary forces which the defense program is setting off. Some of these suggestions have to do with discouraging the expenditure of funds on varicus kinds of consumer goods. Ovhers attempt to deal with the problem at the source. The suggestions made may not be the wisest ones, but at least they indicate an understanding of the objective, an awareness of it and a desire to deal with it. One proposal is based on the theory that inflation can be halted it the cost of certain consumer articles is increased. For instance, a tax of 20 per cent on automobiles is urged. This will yield revenue, it is said, and at the same time will discourage the spending of money on cars. t Is a plan to increase the cost of cars artificially by adding a tax to the price, so that people will not buy so many cars. How that will increase taxes I do not know— since, if the object of the tax is successful, the yield will be cut. On the other hand, this solid fact cannot be avoided. If autos are thus taxed, so that buying of autos will be decreased, this will not decrease the amount of funds in people's hands with which to buy things. The purchasing power will still be there, and will seek an outlet somewhere else. Human nature being what it is, low-income groups, when they are suddenly endowed with increased income, will seek to spend it. i autos are too expensive they will buy something else, , ” ”

HE other idea along this line is to put an end to instalment sales, as these will stimulate buying excessively. There is a good deal more merit to this. But the crux of this problem dees not lie in making it difficult for people to buy this or that special article, The problem lies in removing a large part of the income created by the Government's spending from the hands of the people before they can spend it on anything. I know this sounds cruel. Merchants will hunger to get their share of it. The people themselves will relish their newly founded riches and will not want to see them removed in taxes. But, the people, if they are interested in defending themselves rather than making a picnic of national defense, will submit to the sacrifices necessary for these double purposes. For this reason there is a good deal more merit in Mr. Keynes’ proposals for deferred savings. But that is far from being the wisest solution of the problem. Of that, more in another column,

So They Say—

CAPITALISM is so powerful today because it has supplied, and still supplies, the dynamic force necessary for disciplined, organized human effort and development.—Lord Londonderry, in The Rotarian, * * »*

IF THE future of America means anything to us, otal defense means also the defense of the American

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Just a Song at Twilight!

WRB

~

The Hoosier Forum

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

ANOTHER REBUKE FOR THE FLORIDA SENATOR

By S. B,, Indianapolis

Your readers feel heartened when they read editorials courageously exposing men like Senator Pepper of Florida. This advance agent of the White House is ready and willing to engage our country in war at once all over the world. His unholy outbursts on the floor of the Senate are indeed a danger for the well being and safety of our country. 4 # #4 | URGES DEBATE BETWEEN

|

| LINDBERGH AND WILLKIE

(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.)

| United States in the Revolutionary, | Civil, and World Wars, We will sacrifice, pay high and higher taxes—anything necessary. to save America, but we demand a square | deal such as the great Teddy Roosevelt fought for. A square deal for

| too, gets things done!

ing attention to the mountain of tanks and guns that went with them, Mr, Roosevelt will scornfully point out that only a boob would expect him to send these “observers” abroad without adequate means of protection!

Admire Hitler's dynamism if you will; but for good or for evil—by | hook or by crook—Mr, Roosevelt, |

n 2 BRANDS PEPPER'S SPEECH HYSTERICAL By Mrs. R. A. H., Indianapolis

Senator Pepper's hysterical speech demanding that American youth

Col. Lindbergh and all Americans. I wish you would propose that Let Mr. Roosevelt iearn to practice | Lindbergh and Willkie debate the what a much greater American said, |issue of war and peace in the sam? “With malice toward none, with

[By J. B., Indianapolis 1

hall on the same night. This would be in the real Amerlican way.

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RESENTS ROOSEVELT’'S SLAM AT LINDBERGH By Arthur Campbell, 2827 E. Washington St. So Col. Lindbergh is a Copperhead! (Says Mr. Roosevelt.) Mr. Roosevelt should understand that there are many more millions of such “Copperheads” in this country who are better Americans than Mr, Roosevelt, We believe in Washington and Jefferson and Monroe's ideas. Work for, live for, if necessary die for America! But not for the British Empire or to make Mr. Roosevelt a world ruler. We demand this country be prepared for its own defense, as it could have been if Roosevelt had listened to Col. Lindbergh when he returned from Eurcpe in 1937. But the “Indispensable Man"—F.D.R.— was too busy wasting our birthright on projects such as the Florida ship canal, T. V. A. and the Passamaquody Tidal project. We owe Britain nothing! The British owe us plenty! We despise Hitler and his wnole setup. Neither will we agree to any dictatorship in this country such as Roosevelt is slowly setting up. We can defend this hemisphere from any aggressors, but why slaughter millions of us who would be sent to Europe in an attempt to save the British Empire and then get kicked again. My ancestors came from the British Isles 200 years ago but I

|charity for all.” Let Mr. Roosevelt remember that most of us are swayed by patriotism. We believe in America First!

8 & =» THINKS ROOSEVELT OUTSMARTS DICTATORS By Claude Braddick, Kokomo, Ind.

America is fortunte—or unfortunate, as the case may be—in having at its helm a man who is quite as adept as the dictators in playing at the “war of nerves,” and who half the time outguesses even the prince of dictators and has him on the defensive. This is the more remarkable when you consider that Roosevelt must condition or “soften” (and sometimes bamboozle) the public into approving each step he takes, while the dictators have no such handicap. Take the convoy question, for instance. Mr. Roosevelt, pressured 'by public opinion, has gone on reclord against them. So when convoys {become a virtual necessity, what does Mr. Roosevelt do? Why he institutes and rapidly expands a system of armed “patrons.” And no matter how far these patrols are extended, or how much they come to resemble convoys, they will never be anything more than “patrols.” Certainly never “convoys.” I have no doubt that when and if it becomes expedient to send an army abroad, Mr. Roosevelt will smilingly insist that he is not “sending our boys to fight on foreign soil.” How absurd! He is merely

{“‘spill its blood” all over the world | to preserve the British Empire was startling. The Senator also de{mands that America, a professedly Christian nation, bomb the women and children of Tokyo. Senator | Pepper is a spokesman for a coun-! try whose President has been called | the “great humanitarian,” yet he advocates Nazi methods of warfare. I noted that the impassioned Senator did not say that he was enlisting in the British army. Canada certainly should welcome this | mighty warrior and speed him over- | seas. Senator Pepper is not too old! for ‘active duty. Having offered the American] Army, Navy and resources to this | foreign government can it be that] Senator Pepper means to give his all-out-aid to Britain from behind | the safety of his comfortable desk in Washington?

R88 OFFERING A SUGGESTION ON NATIONAL DEFENSE

By J. I. M., Indianapolis

Raymond Clapper “Congress is sluggish” but is closest to the truth when he says ‘“President Roosevelt is trying to be Wooc'row Wilson and Bernard M. Baruch.” Aid to England and our own defense program will remain unsatisfactory until we have some honest self-appraisal, starting first with the White House and down to the man in the factory. Let the President lead with a statement to the country that the job must be done regardless of effort required; that he is limited in the amount of work he can do; that the job for which he is best fitted

complains

am an American who believes in sending a couple of million men to free speech, free radio, free press, police certain areas and look after and an “unpacked” Supreme Court. American interests there. And when My people have fought for thelsome bold reporter insists upon call-

is captain of the ship of state; that] he knows very little about build-

Side Glances=By Galbraith

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YT. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

"But we'll keep our enggpement a secret until you ; a. more like 18]" : -

|of the soft notes of May | Sounding in one spring strain.

ing tanks, bombs or guns or how to get the best production from ma-| chine tools, labor or factories. Knowing his limitations, he was,! therefore, delegating the power to do these things, placed in his hands by Congress, to those whose life work qualified them for these tasks. That power would be theirs without | interference and with full backing of the White House as long as the | goods were delivered. Next, trust these appointed men. There is no monopoly of patriotism. Give these men, masters of produc-| tion in their various fields, the right | to establish their own nonpolitical | working force, free from the Harry | Hopkins type, and watch the wheels of American industry gather speed and become the greatest force in the world. Today the crying need is for performers rather than idealists.

BROADCAST OF MAY

By MARY P, DENNY

The blue bird chants it lay Through all the days of May. A chant of life upon the wing Of all the birds that sing. The glad brown thrush Sings from the blackberry brush. The rabbit swings in the grape vine And the tiny gray rabbits Join in spring's bright line. And from the grass the cricket Prolongs the lay of May. A cadence of the grass and tree

DAILY THOUGHT

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.—Psalms 9:9.

SWEET is the remembrance of

begin to look

goubles when you are in safety.—

_ THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1041

Gen. Johnson Says—

Ickes Turns Columnist But Doesn't

Do a Very Good Job of Defending Roosevelt's Attack on Lindbergh

YY 2sHiNoTon, May 15.—Secretary Ickes has frequently said he wanted to be a columnist (he calls them “calumnists”) and now he has gone

and done it for the N. A. N. A. His first offering argues that the people who critie cize the President for implying that Lindbergh is a “copperhead” as an impairment of free speech, are convicted out of their own mouths of wanting to limit the President's right of free speech. If Lindbergh's right of free speech included a right “to flay the President's foreign policy,” Mr, Ickes thinks that the President’s right of free speech included a right to call Lindbergh a copper head. “The Bill of Rights,” says Mr. Ickes, “protects the blacke guard to the same extent that it does the gentleman.” Boy, how glad Harold should be of that! Of course anybody that criticized the President for calling a man of opposing opinion any name his imagination could invent, and based that criticism on any legal restriction on such billingsgate, doesn’t know his law. There is such a thing as the law of libel and the President has no more immunity from that than any other citizen but, while the President never took any laurels as a lawyer, he is lawyer enough not to come right out and accuse a respected citizen of treason, He does such things by adroit innuendo, as in the reference, in respect to Lindbergh, to Vallandingham, who was tried without a jury and banished for make Ing a violent pro-peace ‘speech while this country was at war and fighting for its very life.

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§ Bai still remains also an unwritten law of personal satisfaction for an unbearable insult oy any man to another man, delivered face to face, “When you call me that, smile,” may not be listed among the legal rules in text books of criminal law but it is so firmly written in the hearts of he-Amer« cans who make most juries that it might as well be, The President has been known to say. that another man who criticized his actions would have been called by a third man “a liar, a coward and a cad.” But that also was an implication, and after all he is President of the United States. No, it is no limitation on the President's right of free speech, under the Bill of Rights, the law of libel, or ‘the unwritten law of personal satisfaction that aroused criticism when he answered an earnest and Sincere argument with an epithet—when he sought to use his high and almost sacred office to blast with a lethal, unfair and untrustful word the character and standing of an heroic American, I don’t like to use the words because English is good enough in 99 99-100 per cent of the cases and because they have other and inappropriate implica tions, but there is such a thing as “noblesse oblige” which means something like “your position above your fellowmen prohibits of the gutter.”

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CO far as I know Lindbergh never used a disree AFspectful word toward the President. This country is not at war. Lindbergh used arguments against our going to war. He was arguing for no less and no more than the President had repeatedly promised he would not do, but that all the world believes ha Is trying to do as fast and as hard as he can induce public opinion to follow him—however reluctantly. As this column has repeatedly pointed .out, it does not agree with some of Lindbergh's arguments but it does respect his utter fearlessness in making them, It will fight for his right to utter them until we have taken the last fateful maniacal step into the bloody turmoil of a war we did not start. for “a nation whose interests are not at all points parallel With ours, in a policy which underwrites those interests whether they are ours or not, on a course we cannot control, whose aims we do not know but the cost of which she shall have to pay regardless of its ruinous effect on our country, “It cannot possibly advantage our position but it is very hard to see that it will not bankrupt our economy, destroy our democracy and nazify our form of government—no matter who wins.”

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

J\Y ht military experts say we are unprepared for war because we lack armaments. In time, this

condition can be remedied. But the layman knows \

we are unprepared for war on another front, and in my opinion this Tacs should be faced boldly by our eaders.

As a people we are united in our determination to defend our own country against invasion: we are as one in our wish for British victory; every humble hamlet holds a few individuals who are doing some kind of work for England. We are bound together in resistance to totalitarianism, But we have come nowhere near unity on the question of sending troops to Europe or patrolling the seas. The Lend-Lease I : : Law was enacted after bitter deates; not even its most ardent advocate can deny that its passage was made possible only because the people were repeatedly told it was the only wa, We bad to keep out of the shooting. y S opponents warned that such would not case; but the bill's supporters made promises, be ihe said England would not need men but only wanted Irachines: ow WE Rea it stated that promises of annot be odor, Lammy ept because events shape the That is true. But it would be foolhardy to i $e tesing hong the Fommon people that, Harare ived. wou 3 igoelieg Ht d be worse than foolhardy; it . After all, human memory is not that short. Less than two years ago most political leaders were busy building up the notion that the war then just begin ning was none of our business. Moreover, the people knew too much about the way they had been misled into the other war, European diplomacy and European strife, Last November they endured one of the most dise turbing Presidential campagins of their history, in which both major candidates pledged solemnly that this would not become our war. It takes longer than six months to undo the work of 25 years. We may not like the situation: it may, as some say, be a perilous attitude. Nevertheless it confronts us, and to those who are not deluded by their own emotions, it is more plain than any facts now coming out of Europe.

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

Questions and Answers

(The indianapolis I'imes Service Burean wil) answe: 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 advice cannot be given, Address The Times Waskington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth $t., Washington. D. (0).

Q—Where can I find details of British propae ganda disseminated in the United States prior to our entry into the first World War? A—"“The Road to War” by Walter Millis is, pere haps, the best known of several works on the subject, Q—Give a formula for fireproofing fabrics. A—Borax, 10 ounces; boracic acid, 8 ounces; water 1 gallon. Immerse the article in this solution; squeeze out excess fluid and dry. Q—When did the practice of electing Presidential Electors by popular vote become universal throughe out the Union? A—South Carolina was tie last State to adopt the system, in 1868. Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, began the, practice some time prior to 1824 and it

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