Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 July 1941 — Page 14

Boa?

a

RE EE

PAGE 14 The Indianapolis Times

; : (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHQLDER MARK FERREE President : ‘ Editor Business Manager

Price in Marion County, 3 cents a copy; deélivered by carrier, 12 cents a week.

Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month,

Po RILEY 8551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Wap

Owned and published B= daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co, 214 W. Maryland St.

Member of United Press. Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1941

JAPAN THREATENS WAR APAN has pulled another fast one. So has Hitler’s puppet government in Vichy, if dispatches from that capital are accurate. Petain, by agreeing to “temporary” Japanese occupation of southern Indo-China and its naval and air bases, has invited war in the Pacific. Those bases are stepping stones for Japanese conquest of the Philippines, Singapore, the Indies. The United States and British governments view this belligerent provocation with the greatest concern. The Vichy and Tokyo alibi, that this is only a defensive move to prevent British seizure, is absurd. It was worn out by Hitler in other Axis aggressions. This is Japanese conquest no less because it is abetted by Hitler through Petain. Both London and Washington have gone to extremes to placate Japan. They have held to this long-suffering policy when powerful public opinion in both countries condemned it as appeasement of the blindest and costliest kind. Thus President Roosevelt has been attacked for allowing large oil shipments on which Japan floats her conquests. We believe the President has been wise in his patience with Japan—the effort for peace is worth the price even if it fails. But we also believe that the Tokyo aggressors are making a fatal mistake in thinking there is no end to the patience of the President and people of the United States. ‘Some day-—and not long at the present rate—Tokyo is going to start a war she cannot finish. We hope she will draw back before it is too late.

WHY ILLITERATES?

HE Army is worried about the large numbers of selectees who are unable to read and write. Many thousands of young Americans do not have the Army’s minimum educational requirement of four years of elementary schools. How can this be? Most of the states have had compulsory education for 20 or 30 years. A child begins school at 6 or 7. So why shouldn’t practically everybody in America.under 30 be able to read and write? Is it possible to forget how to read and write? doesn’t “compulsory” education compel?

Or

MR. WELLES LOOKS AHEAD HEN the war that was to have ended war and saved democracy was over, the chief statesmen of the winning powers sat down to make the blueprints of a permanent peace. Their hands were guided by vindictiveness, and jealousy, and acquisitiveness, and fear. And the result was the most enormous failure in the history of mankind. The sequel of their blundering is being enacted before our eyes. But does this failure prove that all efforts forever after to bring some logic into this disorderly world are futile? To say yes, to confess the inadequacy of all the world’s wisdom, would be to condemn mankind to an eternity of selfdestruction. It would be premature to start work now on detailed specifications for a postwar world. Nobody knows today how much of this world will be left above ground when the war is over. Any seer who undertook today to catalog the problems that will confront the architects of the next peace would be a fool or a faker. But it also would be foolish to give no thought at all to the future, to that far day when the cease-firing order confronts the world once more with the opportunity to mend its ways. We are glad to see that Sumner Welles, Undersecretary of State, is.thinking about the future.

)

¥ $a 5 ‘8 #8 Mr. Welles, in his speech at Washington Tuesday night, blamed the failure .of the League of Nations on (1) “The blind selfishness” of some Americans, (2) “It’s utilization by certain powers primarily to advance their own political and commercial ambitions,” and (3) “The fact that it was forced to operate, by those who dominated its councils, as a means of maintaining the status quo.” The League, Mr. Welles said, “was never enabled to operate as its chief spokesman (Woodrow Wilson) had intended, as an elastic and impartial instrument in bringing about peaceful and equitable adjustments between nations as time and circumstances proved necessary.” Next time, Mr. Welles said, “some adequate instrumentality must unquestionably be found.” And whatever form it may take, he said, he was convinced of the need for (1) Arms limitation under rigid international control, and (2) Establishment of “the natural rights of all peoples to ‘equal economic enjoyment”; i. e., access to all nations to natural resources and raw materials. ea We hope other American statesmen are also thinking about what is to happen when the shooting stops. The United States has assumed so much responsibility in this war that it cannot escape sharing in the responsibilities of the peace. And we'll be poorly equipped to accept such responsibilities unless in the meantinie we have done a lot of thinking and soul-searching and debating about ways and means of helping to organize the affairs of this miser-

able world in a more sensible way.

CAT TAX?

OT even young children, it seems, are unworried by taxes nowadays. An 8-year-old we know owns and loves with fine impartiality two cats—one whose alley ancestry is untainted and another who is possibly half Siamese. The other day she went to childhood’s fount of all wisdom and said: “Daddy, when they put on the luxury tax, will I have to pay taxes on my cats?” Daddy reassured her, at least temporarily: “No, Baby, no tax on cats. Not yet. But give 'em time, give ’em time.” >

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

It Looks as if Army Debate Wil Stir Up Some Things About Our Old Heroes That We'd Rather Not Hear.

EW YORK, July 24 —It looks as if nothing would be sacred, nor any reputation safe, by the time the present emergency is pushed away on the library shelves to provide material for a new generation of debunkers. Up to this time in the United States only a few grubby scholars have had the impudence to suggest that the embattled farmers of the Revolution and the heroes who saved the Union in the '60s were not unanimously and constantly loyal and brave. These low characters silently rebuked by public opinion and their scandalous pot-boilers vanished somewhere, probably onto the two-bit trays of the sec-ond-hand bookstores, although our professional soldiers were allowed occasional peaks at the facts when they had arrived at an age when they could know the truth and still retain their faith. Certainly young Americans were not taught in school that Gen. Washington's soldiers had a discouraging tendency to roll up their issue blankets and go over the hill when their time was up regardless of the military situation of the moment. And the Memorial Day parades of the G. A. R. were not marred by any thought, much less by audible suggestion, that among the thinning blue ranks there might be some drawing pensions who had checked out promptly in the face of the enemy because their enlistments had expired. ” 2 ”

HE discussion of the need to extend the term of the present emergency forces beyond the year agreed upon has compelled advocates of the President's stand to bring down out of the clutter in the national garret humiliating information which it had been hoped to conceal or deny forever. In order to prove that armies which sign on for brief, stated terms of service in times of military emergency are unreliable, it has been the painful duty of loyal patriots of today to damage beyond repair one of the most beautiful traditions of the nation. The Daughters of the American Revolution could endure the resignation of Mrs. Roosevelt, delivered as a political rebuke, but the gruesome possibility that some of the patriotic sisters may be in the club on the basis of service by ancestors who took it on the lam before the Red Coats is something really serious. Can it be that a lady who has never tired of repeating that her noble forebear fought with the father of his eountry must now be compelled to admit, under pressure of facts from the archives, that the old gentleman only went for a brief outing with the general and scrammed at the moment when the struggling republic needed him most? In this column business one receives many letters from individuals who are proud not enly of their own Americanism but grant themselves a little dividend, an advantage over the sons and daughters of the Johnny-come-latelies, by reason of the fact that their ancestors answered the call to arms in various wars back to Bunker Hill. 2 2 ”

T IS nice to be able to trace back one’s ancestry through a long line of native Americans, although the number of those who claim to be able to do so seems remarkably high, when it is remembered that a famous Frenchman wrote about 50 years ago that the average American didn’t know who his grandfather was and was likely to boast if he did. This aspersion was neatly returned by Mr. Mark Twain, who admitted the truth of the statement, but said that the average Frenchman was tickled to death to know who his father was. * Apparently the fact must now be admitted that many D. A. Rs and others who take pride in the fact that someone in the family line served with Washington or Grant are able so to boast only because realities, which were notorious and painful then, were quickly and kindly forgotten. Many of the warriors went home while there was fighting yet to do and without being hurt and some without ever having fired a shot in anger or hearing one fired. And this fact had to be dragged out in the interests of patriotism and national safety long after the heroes had been laid away in honored graves. Probably it will not be necessary to go into minute detail and show who the individuals were who resigned from the great wars of the republic when their time was up. That would be a needless cruelty to many living Americans.

Business By John T. Flynn

U. S. Morally Bound to Spend Security Taxes Only for Those Who Pay.

EW YORK, July 24—Reference has already been made here to the plan to raise money for national defense by increasing the Social Security tax. The enormity of lack of moral perceptions in this proposal is a little breathtaking. The Social Security Board is set up to provide men and women with annuities when they reach a certain age. This must not be confused with the old-age benefits which are paid to people who are now arrived at the helpless age. The money paid to these latter is a pure Government gratuity which is supplied— or should be—out of general taxation. But the old-age annuities in the Social Security system are something quite different. There is a contractual relationship between the Government and the insured. Those who pay their good money each month are buying old-age benefits. It is nothing less than a crime for a government to use any part of this money for anyother purpose than for old-age benefits for those who pay for them. Yet from the beginning this system has been befuddled and bedeviled by rates that are utterly out of focus when considered alongside the cost of operating the system. The first appalling blunder was to make the rates so high that over a period of years the insured workers and their employers would pay into the Government 47 billion dollars more than it would pay out. in benefits. It took a long time, a lot of words and lots of arithmetic before it was possible to convince the House Ways and Means Committee that this was a grave injustice against the workers. ” ” ”

S a result, and after a long fight, this 47-billion-dollar fake “reserve” account was abandoned and the White House admitted it had made a “mistake” in establishing it. The result of this was to freeze the rates at the figure fixed fer the first three years. This has saved to date perhaps a billion dollars to workmen and their bosses. But now men in the Government are coldly proposing that the Government shall charge the working people of the country more for their Social Security and that this excess shall be used, not to give them more Social Security, but actually less, by spending this money on some other purpose. : Under all circumstances a government owes it to itself, to its people, to its future, to preserve some degree of integrity in its dealings with its own citizens in its fiduciary relationships with them. This regime came in on the heels of one of the most hectic and disastrous eras in our financial history due largely to a breakdown in fiduciary relationships in private business. Is the Government now going to imitate those it denounced so justly and frequently seven years

ago?

fl

I

So They Say—

WE CAN HAVE the necessities of life and all-out defense, too. But we cannot have the luxuries of life and all-out defense, too.—Robert E. McConnell, chief of conservation section, OPM. : { - *® ® GEN. LEAR had better put in his time attending to his duties instead of following the girls in ghoess tor

around the course on Sunday morning.—Sena

were |

' THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES — Another Pincers Movement!

The Hoosier Forum

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

SUGGESTS A WAY FOR NATIONAL UNITY By K. W. Kistner, R. R. 14, Box 320

There has been much talk by the Interventionists, who would sell the U.S. down the river to save British imperialism, about national unity. Most Americans desire unity. However, much to my surprise, there has been no suggestion that the easiest way to achieve national unity would be for the minority interventionists (see all the polls) to come around to the position of the majority non-interventionists. That would be the democratic way to which the interventionists also give lip service. f J 2 2

CLAIMS ICELAND A PART OF THIS HEMISPHERE

By E. 8. Q., Indianapolis. Some misunderstand our occupation of a naval base in Iceland. Iceland is historically and geographically a part of the Western Hemisphere. Hence its occupation comes with the Congressional plan to protect this hemisphere and is not a dictatorial act by the President. First, Iceland was declared by Secretary Seward in 1868 a part of the Western Hemisphere. Secondly, Iceland is south, not east, of Greenland—a land admitted by all to be a part of the Western Hemisphere. A longitudinal line from the most eastern part of Greenland passes 55 miles east of the most eastern part of Iceland. Iceland then, is in this hemisphere. Hence Germany has no right to object to our presence or to include it in a combat zone.

# 2 8 OPPOSES EXTENDING DRAFTEES’ SERVICE

By L. F. O., Indianapolis. Gen. Marshall is an honorable man. They all are honorable men. But their attempt to force further service upon the selectees is not an honorable campaign. It can only be concluded that there never was an intention of releasing the selectees. And Gen. Marshall's story that this present move has been suddenly forced by “the international situation and its rapidly increasing threat to our security” is so much bunkum. With Hitler extremely busy on two fronts and the British shipping losses at the lowest point since January, how can it be said that

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

the unions’ right to riot. If he loves the WPA’s he has been strangely silent since the unions went on strike at Jefferson Barracks to keep reliefers off the job unless they paid from $56.50 to $105 to various unions for the right to work on a defense project. Mr. Taylor assumes I have always owned a farm although I stated my first job paid $4 a 54-

the threat is increasing? I feel that the majority of Americans are sick and tired of being fed on phony reasoning or being railroaded and bogey-manned into things that are against their principles and better judgment. Our selectees believed, and were led to assume, that they would return to their homes and jobs after one year, For the Government and the Army to try to weasel out of that tacit promise now is a dirty trick indeed—and Congress should never allow it!

” ” AMERICA FIRST AIMS ARE CITED By N. L. B., Indianapolis.

We of the America First Committee have been called ostriches, emotionalists, Nazis. To those allegations I smile. If trying to solve America’s problems. before we undertake to puzzle out the troubles of the European continent, if trying to stop this country from attempting to become the world policeman, if trying to keep American boys at home, if trying to save America first—is being ‘a Nazi, then I—and the America First Committee—unreluctantly plead guilty to that charge. : The life of one American boy is worth more than the fate of any European government. That's Americanism.

” 8 DENIES CRITICIZING RIGHT TO ORGANIZE By James R. Meitzler, Attica, Ind.

I have never written one word against workers having organizations. My “belly-aching” has been about the criminal brutalities of union picket lines. Mr. Taylor says he protested my WPA and pension parasite statements. I remember him only as coming into the picture when I listed a number of

union atrocities, with: a defense of

as Ra

j COPR. 1941 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REC. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

"We'd better shoot all jhe smiling sequences this afternoon—I

nderstand the boss is going to slice her

Side Glances = By Galbraith

a enna

gor

salary tomorrow.”

hour week; that I have worked many 10-hour days for $1. But he states if I found myself walking down the road, I couldn't even get started buying a farm. Although it is a common supposition of the unsuccessful that property owners big and little were born with it, the truth is the great majority start -with nothing. And if Mr. Taylor has his way, they must buy the right to work from a union. When Mr. Taylor starts his factory, he will find out how much wages have to do with the cost of production and price. Farmers cannot sell unless labor is paid, nor tan labor be employed unless the farmer is also paid. Mr. Taylor denies saying “The world owes us a living.” My words were that “Mr. Taylor in his specifications of a decent wage follows the world owes us a living principle.” He and his unions with all their money, muscle, brains and skill, instead of providing jobs for themselves, demand someone supply them with work at $2200 a year. Is union capacity for management limited to organizing gangs for rioting? In contrast, on July 4 there appeared in The Times a news article telling how Otis Hitch, 55, and Albert Waggoner, 32, started the Garfield Tool & Engineering Co. with $2000 in second-hand machinery and $3400 cash, their savings. They have taken the chance the unions decline. They may fail and lose all. But if they succeed, they will be denounced as greedy grinders of the 40-hour per week toilers, and Mr. Taylor will demand they play Santa Claus. 8 THANKFUL ARMY HAS NO PEGLERS. By 8S. E., Indianapolis.

It is a pity that a great newspaper like yours seems compelled to have writers like Westbrook Pegler, who seems fo be unable to. start an article unless he insults and throws filth on groups of peotple who would never otherwise know that he exists. Mr. Pegler's remarks that the Army is composed of “obstreperous grocers and haberdashers” as expressed in his article of July 13, should make all grocers and haberdashers throughout the country thankful and happy that, while they may be obstreperous, there are no Peglers in the Army, obstreperous or not.

2

FLIGHT By JOSEPHINE DUKE MOTLEY

Your wings have touched the ceiing of desire, And now you fall to earth, a broken

heap. Though+flight is over, memory will keep Inviolate the flame, like living fire;For those who touch the sky, earth is but mire, A gutter draining dreams that never reap The gleanings of what they would like to keep; It is of dust the one and perfect sire. The pag, of man that rises is his soul, . The golden spark which to his body - clings : And poises it for flights beyond control Is but an anchored destiny with wings; 5 ; So while life lasts there is no flight supreme But ends in earth-bound crash and broken dream.

DAILY THOUGHT

Owe no man anything, but to love one another.—Rom. 13:8.

THINK NOT of love as a debt—

dye in May or in December.—Flor- £ Coates, -

A

|

fray iy 24, or Gen. Johnson Says—

Rumor Gen, Hershey Faces Ouster Seems Incredible, Yet Why Is He Still Only Acting’ Draft Director?

EW YORK, July 24—Arthur Krock wrote a colN umn recently about the hope of some nth New Dealers to supercede Gen. Lewis Hershey as.director of selective service—the draft to you. I was a little chagrined because I was all wound up to do that myself and I don’t like to be copy-cat. But since it Lappens to be my specialty and certainly is a matter of national interest invading many homes and having other angles; I think I shall take a crack at it anyway. As a matter of fact; Gen. Her= shey is not now and never had been .director—only “acting” die rector. Dr. Clarence” Dykstra, president of the University of Wisconsin, was the only -directqy appointed. That appointment was partly nth New Deal monkey, business, too. The obvious appointment was Maj. Gen. Allen Gullion, Judge Advocate General, with Gen, Hershey as deputy. It was obvious because Gen, Gullion had been a key-man in the first draft and knew the problem fore and aft, and because all prece= dent pointed to a quasi-judicial director with enough military knowledge to act as a balance between the military and civilian requirements of the problem.

8 » 2

OR this reason, in the highly successful draft of the first World War, Judge Advocate General Enoch H. Crowder was also head of the draft. Avoidance of an all-out military man and the military type of control was indicated by the failure of the Civil War draft due to many military press gang methods.

But the New Dealers wanted a finger in that pie, | They wouldn’t stand for Gen. Gullion, They thought Dr. Dykstra was in their camp. So he became director. Gen. Hershey, then a colonel, had no actual experience in the draft, but had so soaked himself in study of the World War draft that he knew and believed in its principles as well and religiously as Gen. Gullion. Dr. Dykstra made him assistant. It all turned out perfectly. Dr. Dykstra. at once perceived that the plans were as carefully and correctly prepared as was possible and that Gen. Hershey was ideally suited to carry them out. So he wisely and unselfishly delegated all his authority to Gen. Hershey and has himself been little more than a name in the organization, having been almost continuously absent. : In the meantime, the draft has been the best executed of all the defense efforts. It was in no sense experimental and no socializing theories have been given a place in its administration. The process Las been entirely democratic, the blunders and fail» ures are few, and the country has complete confie dence in its administration. It does great credit to Gen. Hershey, just as giving him the opportunity to do the job does great credit to the wisdom and patriotic unselfishness of Dr. Dykstra.

” 2

UT if ever a man deserved credit and official rec= ognition of his fine work for the ‘country hy promotion and appointment as actual director of his own work, that man is Lewis Hershey. -He is not a particularly ambitious man and cares nothing for fuss, feathers and military title. He would doubt= less be entirely satisfied to let the situation rock along as it is in his position as “acting” director. No harm would follow if that were done. . But if, as some observers suspect, an inexperienced civilian of ultra-ntkx New Deal type of social experimenter were brought in to take Dr. Dykstra's place and began theoretical meddling with an operation that is being well done, it would cause the greatest dismay and dissatisfaction in the Army, and as Mr. Krock says (and I agree), throughout the country. : There are signs and rumors of such an event, but, on all the facts, it seems so unwise, unjust and just plain cock-eyed that I can’t believe the President would consider it for a moment. And yet, why has Gen. Hershey been for so long only “acting” director?

”®

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

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

T WOULD be interesting to know who paid for the page ad in the July 21 issue of Time which was signed “Russell Birdwell, N. Y. C.” It ended in a demand for a declaration of wae against Germany. But the reader marched up to that declaration through an avenue of flowery language about democracy and decency and the rights of free men. In trumpet words it was declared that the world belongs to the “good people” (whoever they are). Then Mr. Birdwell gave us & surprising little glimpse into the minds of his good people by say ing: “Personally, I don’t understand the kind of free speech we have nowadays. I don’t know what free speech is. But I know what it shouldn’t be. Tt was defined once by a great justice who declared that free speec:, even under a deinocracy, did not permit men and women high in the walks of American life to scream fire in a crowded theater—the fire of isolationism—the fire of appeasement—the fire of defeatism. : “There are many things I don’t understand,” Mr, Birdwell continued, “but what I think is unimportant. When I was a child I did not always understand my parents but they were invariably right. I don’t always understand my country but I am willing to follow it passionately and joyfully to my grave.’ This seems to me to express perfectly the perfect Fascist, mind—a mind willing to go wherever the leader directs, a mind ready tc deny those who oppose its views the right of discussion, a mind whose cone cept of patriotism is exactly similar to Mr, Hitler's —the earth belongs to the “good people.” Mr. Birdwell’s credo also expresses the desire for us to “bequeath to our children a good world”—and that wish seems to bear some slight resemblance to the Fascist dream, too. Right now, I'd be satisfied if we could be sure they'd get a decent U, S. A. Young people must feel a little groggy when those who make such appeals to their patriotism talk in terms of universe instead of country, and when the phrase “America First” is transiated as treasonable by men and women high in the walks of American life.

Questions and Answers (The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive ree search. Write vour questions clearly. sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth St. Washington D. C.)

Q—To what did the political slogan, “16 to 1" refer? A—Tt was a rallying cry of the Democratic Party in 1896, alluding to the advocacy of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a legalized value ration to gold of 16 to 1, by William J. Bryan, the Democratio nominee for President. Q—When were automobile road maps first made? A—The first ones are believed to have been made by A. L. Westgard about 1904-6. Q—Is the film actor Tyrone Power a descendant of the Irish character actor of the samé& name, who was famous in the last century? A—He is a great-grand son. The elder Tyrone Power was a foremost delineator qf Irish characters on the English and American stages in the 19th century. The present actor is the third member of his family to bear the name. Q—Are Federal Reserve notes obligations of the United States Government? ; A—Yesy and they are also first liens on all the assets of the issuing Federal Reserve Bank.