Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 July 1941 — Page 11

"on the holder.

Washington

WASHINGTON, July 4. — On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. - This was. the beginning of an experimen{ in government. The guiding ideas were that all men are created equal and that government should exist to secure the rights of men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. More completely than ever before in history, and on a larger scale, this nation has attempted to build up those ideas. It attracted millions of oppressed from other lands. During the 19th Century and the early years of the 20th, these ideals seemed to be spreading throughout the world. Practically all change in government was in the direction of the American experiment. There were long steps toward it in some countries, as in Scandinavia and in England. There .were shorter steps toward it in other countries, as in pre-war Germany. But in whatever degree, the movement was in the direction of equality, liberty and greater opportunity for happiness. In every quarter of the world there was evidence that the democratic way of life was the desired goal, and was the direction in which nations were moving. ” os ®

Chaos Brings Dictators

This movement was interrupted after the World War. In the chaos following more than four years of war, existing .government broke down in some countries, notably in Russia, Italy and Germany. Countries which had strongly democratic institutions weathered the period of chaos with less change. The less democratic countries cracked. It was not entirely a ques‘tion of victory or defeat. Italy and Russia, both on the winning side, cracked.

Where the chaos was greatest, dictatorships ap- . peared and set about restoring order. In the process forcible measures were used and force became the rule. Democratic methods were increasingly regarded with contempt as futile. The dictatorships achieved increasing momentum and soon became established

systems.

The German dictatorship, having the advantage of

By Raymond Clapper

operating in a highly industrialized nation far advanced in technology, soon began preparations to re-. verse the defeat of the first World War and to embark upon a program of conquest and expansion which has brought it now to the point where it dominates most of the continent of Europe and challenges the balance of world sea power by the threat to Britain. In- this campaign of expansion, the dictatorships have had the democracies at a serious disadvantage. Democracy has been under the dangerous illusion that compromise was possible, and that, as Thomas Mann once said, the dictators could be won over to the idea of peace and collective reconstruction by forbearance, friendliness, or amicable concessions. The British government was completely under this illusion until it was too late. By the time the sad truth was dis-| covered that this treatment would not work, Germany had developed her army and air power to a point of superiority over the military strength of France and England. They were forced into a succession of diplomatic retreats and finally into a succession of mili-

tary retreats. » # 8

Our Democracy Menaced

Victory carries prestige that reaches far beyond

the battlefield, dnd the victories of the dictators, chiefly the Cerman, have tended to cause a loss of confidence in the democratic way. We forget the inefficiency of the Italian dictatorship and the Russian dictatorship and bow in awe at the success, of the German dictatorship, wondering whether democracy is

strong enough inherently to withstand the rigors of

this fighting world. If Germany completes her victory, there is doubt

that democracy could survive even here. The severe

economic measures that would have to be taken, the government control over business that would be necessary, the limitless debt that ‘would be required for armament, all would make it difficult for us to continue our traditional methods of operation in government or in any other phase of life. The demoeratic way -of life is the most satisfactory to live under. It provides the greater freedom, and every human being wants freedom. But unless it is secure from attack from without, unless it is free of the threat of attack, it operates with difficulty. That is why the defeat of Hitler is necessary to insure perpetuation of the kind of life we have enjoyed in America .since 1776.

Ernie Pyle is on vacation. He will be back on. the job in a few days.

A LOT OF FOLKS around town have been gazing in awe at the 400-foot-high gas holder up on Northwestern Ave. and muttering to themselves about what

might happen if an airplane happened to hit it. We just asked the gas company. Oh, they told us, you don’t have to worry. Nothing would happen. Nothing much is what they meant. You see, it’s this way: "You can conipare the gas holder to, say, a beer can with an extra top inside the can working up and down like a piston. UNDER this piston is gas. ABOVE it is nothing but air. So, if the tank has a lot of gas in it, the piston is near the top. If it has very little, the piston is near the bottom. Well, if an airplane hit above the piston, nothing would happen at all (except a hole in the tank and a busted airplane). If it hit below the piston, the gas would escape out of the tank and there would be “a large flame” on the outside of the tank. No explosion, mind you, just “a large flame.” But you haven’t been the only one worrying about that stray airplane. The Civil Aeronautics Authority got to thinking about it, too. That’s why the checkers The CAA said the top part of the holder had to be painted international orange and white, checkerboard fashion, in 14 foot 3 inch squares. Anyway, .we've decided airplanes ought to stay

The Labor Picture

WASHINGTON, July 4—There is no dearth of labor news in Washington these days, as you have no doubt observed. It rains labor reports every time you stick your head in an office or your feet under a desk. z . What all these reports add up - to is an uncertain sum, but they're

not manna from heaven and Senator Byrd's barrage of verbal brickbats hasn’t so much as put . a dent in Fanny Perkins’ tricorn hats which still ride serenely high. Jubilantly, Madam Perkins announces that total | civil, -non- - agricultural ‘employment has reached a new all-time high of 38,278,000 as of May 31. ‘That's 800,000 more jobs than the peak of 1929 and three million more than were working a year ago. Wage increases of 9.2 per cent affecting 600,000 workers are reported by 1679 manufacturers. The chewing tobacco and snuff employment index is down to 52.6 but for all industries it’s 124.7, if you

_ believe indexes, and for the aircraft industry the

index is 6221.7 as against the 1923-25 normal of 100. What more could you ask?

Peace in the Shipyards

Sidney Hillman, head of the labor division in the Office of Production Management, adds his notes of OPMism. Working agreements covering 400,000 employees in the shipbuilding industry are practically signed, assuring no strikes or lockouts for a year. Similar stabilization agreements are being worked on between the Government and the building trades to cover defense construction projects. Aircraft machinists, pattern-makers and C. I. O. aircraft workers are being invited to sit in with aircraft manufacturers and the OPM so that wages-hours-and-working-conditions agreements can be

i _ stabilized for that flighty industry.

Ford has signed. The San Francisco machinists

Fhave gone back. The home-brew Communists may

quit agitating. Coal, steel, rubber, glass, textiles, metal manufacturing and other industries have worked out collective bargaining.agreements that mean peace for a year at least. No wonder Hillman feels like crowing a little about

My Day

HYDE PARK, N. Y., Thursday—The Fourth of July seems to me to have a special meaning this year. They were young men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence. . Back of them there ‘must have been old men, women and young people in the Thirteen Colonies, who agreed with them, and were willing also to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor “for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Few of them envisioned the great nation they were founding, nor could they possibly have imagined the world which: would exist in the year 1941. But the feelings which moved those young men are the same which must move both men and women today, if we are going to meet our new problems with the same spirit and determination as our ancestors did in 1776. Durigusly enough, it is again a. question of liberty Which is 5 sole to weld us together ;

Inside Indianapolis (And “Our Town”)

away. It's healthier—‘“large flame” or no ' “large

flame.”

Buzz, Buzz

SOME FOLKS HAVE been asking, too, about the new radio station WISH and when it was going to start operation. The station people have been working night and day for Weeks and right now are testing their “pattern.” Radio stations, you see, don’t just send out their programs helter-skelter into the clouds, They have to send them out in a clover-leaf pattern and right now one chap we know is just driving around this whole area checking the signal WISH is sending out. He marks down where the signal is clear and strong and where it starts to fade. No, you'd better not fool around trying to get it. It’s not music—just a plain, ordinary buzz.

One of Those Things—

THIS IS ONE of those odd things you run into every once in a while that simply can’t be explained. Jim Tucker ordered 205 leather-bound copies of the Indiana Acts made up for officials and friends with their names stamped on the covers. When he got the books, he checked and found he had received only 204. He made another check of his records and discovered that one ordered for Rep. H. H. Evans was the missing book. He made a note to call the printer next day. Next day he picked up the newspaper to learn that Mr. Evans had died the night before.

By Peter Edson

the record of labor relations over the first year of the defense effort. Things looked bad after the December. and January lull in labor troubles. February, March, April and May were bad ones. Secretary Perkins, by the way, attributes a lot of those spring strikes to the fact that corporation earnings statements showed so much war profits, which encouraged labor to try. to get its share. Even the National Defense Mediation Board shows a lighter docket, as at the end of June, than for some weeks. The docket changes from day to day, but on one typical day the list of cases before the board showed but half a dozen disputes, only one was a strike and only one involved a defense industry.

Cap and Gowners Get Jobs

The 600,000 or more June graduates are, according to Washington reports, experiencing less trouble in snagging jobs than they have {or years. Graduates have been drags on the labor market since the class of '32 but now there is a demand for them as apprentice labor, permitting semi-skilled workers to step.up in more advanced jobs. The CCC has such a rapid turnover that it almost appears to be going out of business. By July 1, 246 camps will have been closed, and the enrollment for May was 6000 under that for April and 51,000 under a year ago. In its defense training program, boys learn a few fundamentals of auto tinkering, then leave for regular jobs. There are 75,000 CCC vacancies and no takers.

Jottings From Here and There

The 20 million pounds of scrap aluminum which the Government hopes to collect July 21 will release enough other aluminum of higher grade to complete 2000 fighter planes. Depariment of Labor has issued a study to prove ‘that efficiency of British labor declined when hours of labor were over 56 a week. . . « Peak of defense employment is now expected to be reached in March, 1942, when there will be two and a half million more jobs than there are now. The Navy is buying 120 million pounds of canned goods next year, including four million pounds of jam. . . . British armed forces are supposed to have lost only one-twentieth as many men as they did in the same period of the first World War. . . . When the American Youth Commission conducted a survey to find what young folks do with their spare time, only one answered, “I think.”

By Eleanor Roosevelt

in Germany and Italy, if they were free and knew the truth, would want to fight their brothers of other nationalities. They have no liberty, they must believe what they are told, and thus must act according to al. pattern laid down by the dictators. Therefore, in turn, they force the people of conquered nations to do the same, It is true that for a long time both Germans and Italians have been accustomed to receiving orders. None of us who has traveled in these countries can forget the frequent “verboten” signs and “non passare,” which is the Italian equivalent. If you are directed in every step you take, you cease to function as a thinking human being. But that does not mean that if you had an opportunity to think, to know and to be free,’ you would not choose liberty instead of despotism. War spreads, and on this Fourth of July, those of us who long for peace, and yet who would not give up liberty even to obtain peace, must remember that made the men of 1776 so strong. It was the formulation of an ideal which they thought would bring them a better life. Perhaps that is something which must be done for Europe and Asia today. The people

, I: of those countries will only win their revolution if

they have a world which they understand and which the ‘pursuit of

Armory s00000. . . .

skates for a few spins. Slim fell they tried the “Whip” introducer.”

Impressions of America are presented in the following story written for United Press by Geoffrey A. H. Birt, British flying cadet in training at Southern Field near Americus to become a Royal Air Force pilot. Before the European war started in 1939 he was a reporter for the London Daily Mail.

By GEOFFREY A. H. BIRT

AMERICUS, Ga., July 4 (U.P.).— 1; was a travel-worn group of young L.glishmen who descended into Americus a few weeks ago. To

reach this southern town we had left the island fortress of our homeland and sailed safely through the Battle of the Atlantic to this great continent. The night we arrived on the mainland we all climbed on deck to.see the lights of the town, for -we had not seen lighted streets, houses or electric signs since Sept. 2, 1939. The ble.ckout had become such an integral par: of our lives that on the first. nigh¢ ashore, while walking down a main street ablaze with lights, I crouched in a corner to light my pipe before realizing that here there were no air raids.

Sing Dixie Songs

Long train journeys followed, longer than we had ever experienced. Southward we came through legendary Dixie singing the songs we had so often sung at home — “Old Black Joe,” “Way Down in Tennessee’ ‘and “Kentucky Races.” ln ice cream parlor here, to our surprise, proved to be a drug store. I suppose one gets dyspepsia on one side of the shop and a cure for it on the other. We were introduced to Judge Williams. Our notion of a Judge was a man with a large wig and red

sentenced murderers to be hanged. Therefore we were overawed when

table and proved to be kind, agreeable and interesting.

See First Ball Game

Later we walked through town and shouted “hey” and “houdee” to the chief of police. If we had done this in England we might have started . something. fy first baseball game was an ordeal since I now can reveal that I did not know the difference between a pitcher and a catcher. It struck

ity ‘would make them invaluable in a “tough spot” throwing hand greDe I watched that game in shirt sleeves, eating peanuts—which we call monkey nuts — drinking soft drinks and shouting lustily at what I thought was the right moment. Baseball seems to be a game in which the two teams chase and jeer each other in and out of the arena in quick succession, staying on view only long enough to take one or two swipes with an Indian club at a leather ball. Everyone hoofs and shouts and wisecracks,

~~ Likes Houses, Too I think I am going to like base-

ii% Hath to sirive for Shemasives to aWialn His, HN on

Riverside Amusement Park is a rope’s toss from the Naval

1. Sailor William Vaugn gives Miss Margo Richardson a few pointers on how the Navy would find the range. 2. John (Slim) Neel fits his date (Miss Beulah Madden) with roller

once, Beulah twice.

3. John Puryear only knew Miss June Shelton an hour when John observed that the “Whip” is a “great

4. The penny arcade will always be the sailor's favorite feature be it in far away Manila or Riverside Amusement Park. 5. Dick Epps takes Miss Florence Hill on a busman’s holiday.

Lights, Ice Cream ‘Parlors,’ Baseball Amaze R.A.F. Cadet

“well played, sir — damned good shot” or to give a discreet handclap. Our first Sunday here we visited an American home. Our homes are all built of brick or stone and we looked forward eagerly to investi-

wooden houses and meeting their owners. We also had the experience of sitting en a porch, an essential feature of all your homes but which are practically unknown in England.

THEY'LL SCAN SKIES FOR BIGGEST STARS

A study of the largest star in the

gating the interior of America’s].

summer skies will featuré the July meeting of the Indiana Astronomical Sqciety at the Johnson Observatory on W. 72d St. Sunday night. Observations will be made through the 10-inch Waters telescope under the direction of Walter Wilkins and | Clark Hicks. All the stars and constellations will be located and discussed during observations that are to start at

Reporter Casey Back From Wars Nursing Injured Leg

By ROBERT M. YODER

and The Chicago Daily News, Inc. CHICAGO, July 4. — Robert J.

robes who divorced actresses and| |

the Judge. invited himself to our

‘me that the players’ throwing abil-|.

sundown. Attention will be centered on Ras Algethi, the largest star yet measured by astronomers. ‘nt is 690,000,000 miles in diameter, or 800 times the size of the sun. Astronomers say that if Ras Algethi were hollow there would be enough room inside to hold the earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars. The public is invited to attend.

HOLD EVERYTHING

Casey, world-roving reporter for the Chicago Daily News, has come back from the wars wearing “the last suit made in Paris,” nursing a game leg incurred in a raid on the Suez Canal, and full of enthusiasm for electric lights, which he hadn’t seen much of in 22 months he has spent in the thick of the fighting. Mr. Casey arrived in New York on Tuesday by steamer from Bombay and points east after one of the

longest periods of continuous serv-

ice any American correspondent has put in. On the scene almost from the . opening gun, he witnessed the Lattle of France, moved on to Lon-

don, went from England to Africa and from Africa to the Near East. Today, in Chicago Mr. Casey was figuring his mileage for the entire expedition, the last leg of which covered 17,500 miles. If he had had any luggage, it would have borne labels from Ireland, England, France (where he pierced the Maginot Line by taxicab), Germany, Luxembourg, Holland, Nigeria, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, - Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, the Union of South Africa, India and Trinidad. But he traveled light, having lost all his possessions except one suit and a typewriter when bombs dropped a girder through his be. in the Hotel Regis in London. His stay in the Hotel Regis, in fact, was one of the highlights of the whole trip, Mr. Casey recalled. As he was leaving one evening, a bomb blew away the front. Stepping back inside, he slept on a divan while another bomb blew off the top two stories. Then he climbed to his room but was driven out by an air-raid warden, who explained that.there was still a time bomb just ve the shattered ceiling. It was a combined air raid on the Suez Canal and a train accident, however, that annoyed him most, since it put him out of action for 10 days. He was returning from Alexandria to Cairo when the bombers came over to blast the canal... The reporter was watching from his train door when the passengers, a crowd of - Egyptians, decided to ‘get ' off. Their rush threw Mr. Casey between the train and a platform, where he was dragged for 10 feet before the passengers finished their escape. The mishap injured his left leg, and suggested that it was time— after being under fire in Paris, Lon-

‘don and Egypt—to take a rest.

Heading home, he found he had to travel a route taking fim roughly

to him. After. making a forced landing at an: oasis airport named.

to clear the flying field of obstruce tions in the form of 50 giraffes. Back in Chicago, where the lights burn at night and the sirens don’s scream their warning of bombers overhead, Mr. Casey said he found himself with a’ “totally fantastic” feeling of security. Safe from bombs and, other perils for the first time in nearly two years, he was enjoying the unshaded windows, the soothe ing roar of city traffic and especially the lighted streets, as a re.narkable and novel experience. “I feel a little like Christopher Columbus,” he said. “This is a very nice country you have here.”

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—How is Luftwaffe, the German word for air force, pronounced? 2—Are zebras light colored animals with dark stripes or dark ane imals with light stripes? 3—In which novel by George Eliot is “Maggie Tulliver” the heroine? 4—Which of the 13 original States of the United States was settled last? 5—Which European canal was once named the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal? 6—Which is the third largest city in population in the United States? - 7—How many Amendments to the Constitution were . ratified by State conventions instead of by the State legislatures?

Answers 1—“Looft’-wof-fa.” 2—Light with dark stripes. 3—“The Mill en the Floss.” 4—-Georgia. 5—Kiel Canal. 6—Philadelphia. 7—One, (Twenty-first).

8 8 BB ASK THE TIMES

. Inclose a 3-cent stamp for res ply when addressing any question of fact or information tO

Geneina, passengers and crew had i