Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 July 1941 — Page 10

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The Indianapolis Times (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Business Manager

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MONDAY, JULY 28, 1941

THE PHILIPPINES—FIVE YEARS TO GO HEN the Tydings-McDuffie Act was passed by Congress in 1934, it looked as if the United States was preparing to wash its hands of the Orient, at least as far as political connections were concerned. Under that act, the Commonwealth of the Philippines is scheduled to become a sovereign republic on July 4, 1946, The Filipinos will thereafter, according to the law, be free to work out their own destiny—and to save their own skins if a predatory Japan picks a fight. But much water, and no little blood, has flowed under the bridge since '34. The scope of Japan's ambitions has become plain. There is little doubt that possession of the Philippines is among the long-range goals of the Tokyo jingoes. And the Filipinos are alive to that fact. Many Filipinos, in consequence, are more and more dubious about the forthcoming independence for which they struggled so long (with the help of certain economic groups is this country which don’t like duty-free Philippine competition). There has been much talk of modifying independence into a dominion status, with this country agreeing to assist in the defense of the islands when necessary. But there has been no move in this direction by the Philippine Government; independence has been a shibboleth in the islands for so many years that such a step, until recently at least, might have been politically awkward. Today, however, the situation is changing fast. The United States is practically an ally of the British and Dutch, who possess rich empires in the Pacific. We have suddenly abandoned our practice of turning the other cheek for Japan. ~ And now with the blessings of the Philippine Government President Roosevelt takes charge of the island's Army. In any event, the situation in the far Pacific will probably be ugly for a long time to come. Before 1946 rolls around it will probably seem wise to undertake a realistic revision of the Tydings-McDuffie Act—by and with the congent of the Philippines, of course.

‘WILL BE BORNE CHEERFULLY’ I laying out its program for $3,529,000,000 in additional taxes, the Ways and Means Committee says: “There is convincing evidence that this burden will be borne cheerfully in the light of the overwhelming importance of national defense to the continued freedom and security of the United States. .. “The risk to life and property from an inadequate preparedness would make even a much heavier burden attractive by comparison.” That is true. The people have long been far ahead of Congress in seeing the necessity for sacrifices. They would shoulder new burdens even more cheerfully if Congress itself would give some evidence of trying to bolster the nation’s financial structure on the spending as well as the taxing end. When he started budgeting the defense program, President Roosevelt said the Government would not have to spend as much for other purposes. And when Treasury Secretary Morgenthau asked for the new taxes, he recommended that Congress slice at least one billion dollars off non-defense expenditures. But nothing was done about it. Both the President and Mr. Morgenthau rested on their oars. And Congress, instead of economizing, appropriated some $80,000,000 more than was spent last year for nonmilitary activities. According to the committee's own estimates, the deficit for this fiscal year will be $10,900,000,000, even with the new taxes. It is true that in this fiscal year only a little more than half of the potential yield of the proposed new taxes will be realized. But it is also true that in this fiscal year the big armament expenditures will only just be getting under way. So the prospect is for a much larger deficit next year, and the next. It is not too late to do something about the non-defense expenditures. Congress will doubtless remain continuously in session, and it could not serve the country better than by using a fine-tooth comb on the non-essential fripperies and luxuries of normal government expenditures.

EVE IN UNIFORM

(CLOTHES make the woman, even in wartime. Perhaps the Churchill cabinet, being a man’s government, could not be expected to remember that along with all the other ~ war lessons. But now that lagging feminine spirits have been brought to the Prime Minister's attention, he has moved in on the Battle of Women’s Morale by appointing a modern young lady Major General of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, as the Army’s female cooks, clerks, chauffeurs, and bottlewashers are called. Gen. Mrs. Jean Knox thinks the trouble was that better-dressed women’s organizations were getting all the dates with the soldiers, so the girls just wouldn't volunteer for the A. T. S. By putting more oomph into the uniform, the General says she will jump the number of recruits from 40,000 to 100,000. “You have to give women the smartest uniforms possible to get the best work out of them,” says Gen. Jean. “A woman is affected by the way she looks.” Though weak on feminine psychology, the gentlemen of the government are long on logic. If the young ladies of the auxiliaries serve best who are dressed best, why wouldn't it work with Mother and Grandma whose morale 4s the strength &f the home front? " So the British War Relief Society is appealing to

| 2 Americans to give good clothes, especially nice underwear

‘and hose. ; “It is hard, you know, to keep up your morale without a single pair of stockings,” we are told by the B. W. R. Having consulted the ladies in our office to make sure his is fact and not propaganda, we hereby extend our hearteditorial agreement,

Fair Enough om By Westbrook Pegler

Wheeler's Campaign Is Motivated Chiefly by Hatred for Roosevelt and Americans Should Keep This in Mind

EW YORK, July 28.—I think it would clarify matters for all of us on both sides and in the middle to recognize that Senator Burt Wheeler of Montana hates President Roosevelt with an overwhelming passion and that a man in his frame of mind, which he has not merely expressed by indirection but openly admitted, is incapable of sober reasoning on the President's course in war or toward it. The Senator, who said that Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War, was ga-ga with age, is himself no less ga-ga and I should say considerably more so with hatred and would be fighting just as wildly on some other issue if the war did not provide a dramatic and dangerous controversy. Wheeler doesn’t merely disagree with the President or despise or detest him, He hates Mr. Roosevelt, personally, as a man and as President, and will never let himself be found dead, much less alive, on the President's side of any issue, whatever the consequence of his opposition to the people of the United States. |" How can anyone presume to say how Wheeler feels toward the President? You talk to him 10 or 15 minutes some time and you will know. He will not hold out on you. His is one of the classic hatreds of history and admitting that Wheeler and many another American have good reason not to indorse Mr. Roosevelt's government, his politics or his personality, you have to realize that Wheeler's mental condition is far more heated than that of a man who is merely sulky, sore or righteously indignant.

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E rages and damns and sputters, and splatters spittle and sweat at the merest mention of the President or his policies, and his campaign to wreck the morale of the Army, Navy and Marines and discredit the professional judgment of the best soldiers we have in a time of undeclared but very practical war brought to us by the greatest military power in

he hates. To serve that hatred Wheeler might sabotage the safety and future independence of the United States and turn the Army into an undisciplined rabble of confused an rebellious armed gangs like those which brawled through Germany. He might bring down in a bloody wreck the whole edifice of the American Government which, inhabited though it might be by

and lazy campus petulants of the Ivy League, is, nevertheless, in line and structure, the same beautiful form cof popular rule that it ever was. He might invite the Germans and Japanese right up to the territorial waters of the United States, but he will discredit and vanquish if he can the man he hates as heartily as most men love their country.

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O though Wheeler carries on, as no doubt he will and provokes local councils to unwise acts of patriotic exasperation, such as the denial of his right to speak in public, the fact to be remembered is that he is not fighting for every fourth American boy, as he pretends, but against the man he hates. If Wheeler has his way he will plow under many more Americans than might be lost fighting Hitler for his program leads toward revolution and civil war, with "an unreliable and half-trained army of malcontents turned loose on their own people under upstart leaders and the inevitable invasion and “protection” of an utterly disorganized country by Adolf Hitler. Wheeler, Lindbergh and the rest of their company set their own judgment on miltary matters above that of every professional soldier of recognized standing who has expressed an opinion on the position of the United States in this war. But Wheeler doesn’t trouble himself with military arguments. Like the President, when he undertakes to pack the courts or humiliate his legitimate enemies by dirty innuendos released as gossip, Wheeler is fighting free-style to lick the man he hates, though the United States be licked as well by a foreign foe in consequence. The people will be able to judge this conflict better who bear in mind that one man’s hatred of another is at the bottom of the great campaign of 1941 to prevent the American nation from arming against enemies advancing from both sides of the world.

Business By John T. Flynn

Building Industry Likely to Be Hard Hit as War Program Is Stepped Up

EW YORK, July 28.—The industry that may be hit hardest by the war program before the year is out is the building industry. » This is subject to some important modifications. The building industry includes various categories. First there is the material industry. This would include steel, lumber, cement and various other products. Of course, this section of the building industry is not hurt. The needs of defense have already made so large a demand on many of these building materials that they are showing heavy rises in prices and supplies are becoming scarce. But these supplies are not going to the private building industry, and as time goes on they will go less and less into that field and finally stop altogether save under special Government permit. Tken there are the building contractors and subcontractors. As this situation develops, they will probably begin to suffer a severe relaxation in their activities, save a few large contractors in place where large war structures are going up. For civilian purposes, however, the building contractor and sube contractor, as the war effort reaches its height, will have hard going save in a few spots. The building laborer will find himself in the same fix, but his condition will be very much ameliorated by his ability to find work, if Le is willing to take it, in other places—chiefly’ war-stimulated industries.

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HE effect of this, of course, on the general supply of housing will be very important. The lack of adequate replacement in housing during the last 11 years was already on the verge of producing a marked shortage, enough to begin to affect rents. But if building of both houses and office space goes into a holiday, as must be expected, the end of the war effort should find the country in a rather serious way for necessary housing accommodations for families and small business enterprises. The effect of this, of course, will be to produce a heavy upward movement in rents. So that one may say that the man who invests in a house or an office building now at an economic price will be perhaps in the safest position of any investor when the war is over, This does not mean that any housing or business property investment is a good one, It does mean that a wisely chosen one may turn out to be the safest depositary of savings, first because of the shortage that will eventually develop and second because of the threat of inflation.

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

So They Say—

AS REGARDS photographs fabricated by the Germans, showing dead bodies, it is well known that wherever the Gestapo appears there is no shortage of dead bodies.—Russian official communique. - * ,»

VOLUNTARY co-operation is the American way.

—Albert W. Hawkes, president Chamber of Commerce of the U. S. :

the world's history is a campaign against the man

nasty opportunists from the purlieus of Union Square |

The Hoosier Forum

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

FAVORS LUDLOW'S WAR REFERENDUM By Harry Clay, Brightwood What a pity that Rep. Ludlow’s bill for a referendum on war was never passed. The bill would let the people vote whether we would declare war on some other country. But a provision should be made in this law, if passed, so that those who voted for war should be the first to go and should have to go right in the first lines where the bullets fly the thickest. With a law like that I think a poll would show about 99 44/100 per cent against war. This little bunch of 5 per centers who call themselves the Committee for National Defense and are working night and day to get this country in war would “right about face” so quickly that tifey would jerk their heads off if they knew their own vote meant going and fighting. But when they know they and their sons won't have to go, why of course they will fight to the last poor man's son.

8 8 =n VOICING A DISSENT TO LIFE GUARD EDITORIAL By Harry C. Ent, 1415 Commerce Ave. . . . By virtue of your top editorial of Wednesday, July 23, regarding the life guards of the Indiahapolis public | swimming poois, I must say that

you have lost my confidence. If there is no more fact in your daily editorials than there were in those statements about which I have personal knowledge then I have been innocently misled for years. To begin with you are doing the young men and women a gross injustice when you “go off half cocked” with such phrases as ‘“political sops” and “jobs for ward; heelers” together with a gross misstatement of facts. My son is one of those life guards and I am personally acquainted with many more of the 29. My boy, Pat, obtained his job this year because he was satisfactory last year, and last year because he had served as life guard two years at the Riviera Club and one year at Camp Crosley because he passed the examination of the Red Cross and because he was capable and enthusiastic about his work. And his political connections had nothing whatsoever to do with it. To begin with he is not of age and cannot vote. His dad, speaking for myself, is not a Democrat and .did not vote

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

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the Democratic ticket last year, and neither of us know who is ward chairman or precinct chairman and do not care. As for a ward heeler healing anything with a $70-a-month job he should pass that on to irresponsible editorial writers and sneak out the back door. There is not a laborer in my employ who works as many hours for as little pay as a life guard receives. Now give them due credit. According to your own statement there have been 470,000 swimmers served at the city pools in a single year and yet in eight years this is the first drowning in a supervised pool. "This fact alone proves the fallacy of your statements branding the boys and girls as inefficient political appointees. Investigate the status of

‘others such as the Shelhorn girl,

the Hawkins. girl and many others who do not know a soul in the City Hall, but who have the confidence of the three well-known, capable and sincere men who have the responsibility of the safety of thousands of children, Middlesworth, Merrill and Dean. ” 2 5 UPHOLDS WHEELER'S STAND ON WAR By Jasper Douglas, Indianapolis My heart aches for poor old Senator Wheeler. He has gotten in dutch with the Administration for mentioning the plan to arm Iceland a few days before it was broadcast to the whole world. As yet, there has been no one able to answer his able arguments for arming America for defense and keeping out of Europe's war, and the interventionists have had to resort to name calling and dirty smears, but now they have pinned on him this awful crime. Something over two years ago our President in a world-wide broadcast enumerated a dozen or more islands and other spots where he said an enemy could establish bases for attack on this country. Had any ob-

Side Glances — By Galbraith

OPR. 1841 BY NEA SERVICE, NC. T. M. REC. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

"I envy the peace of mind that

little snooze—but must all th

enables you to drop off for a rea of you snore at once?’

scure citizen given that information to a potential enemy he would have been guilty of treason, but it was all right for the President to do so to get the country in a frenzy for war for the profits of bankers and munition plants. 1 have read Mein Kampf and am convinced that Hitler had not the slightest idea of ever attacking America. Qur boys were taken for one year for training. What for? Was it not that they would be prepared to become real fighting men when Roosevelt has succeeded in getting us into the fracas It would be unwise now to let them go home and start all over again to train a new lot. These trained boys will have to be held in the Army and very soon will be sent to kill other boys as good as they with whom personally they have no

quarrel.

TERMS FLYNN ECONOMIST OF THE OLD SCHOOL By A. Craig, Mars, Pa. Allow me to back up Pat Hogan in preferring Al Williams to John T. Flynn. Maj. Williams knows his stuff and his prodding no doubt will help the air-minded people in the publice service. - But Mr. Flynn is old school on economics and thinks Henry Wallace must be wrong because the

latter is of the new school. Mr. Flynn thinks the combination of income taxes and Government loans

flation in England, Germany. In order to make the tax-borrow

all personal incomes. must be put on an allowance, measured by what he needs to supply himself and his dependants with the necessaries of life. That means the same scale of living for all who have enough to keep themselves in health, no matter how much more they have. Part of the excess will be taken in taxes. The rest must be invested in Government bonds. With all this enforced saving, estates will get larger and graduated inheritance taxes will in time pay the expenses of Government.

fending ourselves against Hitler

Priorities will regulate the amount of consumption goods that can be made and the budget will supply just enough money to buy them at fair prices. That will stop inflation, and nothing else will. Democracy, in a good many minds, means freedom to use private property. “Shall I not do what I will with mine own?” We shall have to abandon that. The general welfare is more important than the rights of private property. This is an emergency.

” ” HE'S KEPT BUSY WATCHING 2 FRONTS By M. M. C.,, Indianapolis How can we concentrate on de-

when we must be so constantly on guard against our own Administration’s maneuvers?

CRUCIBLE

By VERNE S. MOORE Baby in the middle of his bath, Cannot leave him now, Pies are burning in the stove, How I long to vent my wrath And let my pent up feelings go. Agent knocking at the door Keeps on knocking, knocking, knocking, Waiting, waiting, saints above! Husband home for luncheon in an hour. 0, my, iheghs are shocking, shockng

Do you think a heart could burst? DAILY THOUGHT

Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned ?—Prvoerbs 6:27.

which Mr. Wallace agvises will not| §

prevent inflation. But that is the] method which has prevented in-|j}

method effective it is necessary to|® use the income returns to budget|$ Every person| §

FIRE 18 the best of servants:

but what a master! —Carlyle, .

Gen. Yohmsen Says—

The Baruch Board Functioned Well Because It Was a Well-Knit Unit and Very Strong on Mutual Confidence

EW YORK, July 28—Do you know why the donation of all-out powers by declaration of a “national emergency” instead of a limited authority to keep draftees, national guard and reservists in service by a technical statement, that the “national interest is imperiled” in strict ac= cordance with those service laws is indicated? It is because the overhead organization at Wash ington has shown no aptitude for unlimited powers. Gen. Marshall said that he doesn’t want any “political clubs” in the Army petitioning Congress to influence legislation—and he is absolutely right. The Army can’t be a debating society. Buf he is completely silent and ree markably complacent to the Naw : tional Guard and Reserve associe ations which operate, outside the Army, in Washing=

-ton, to advance the interests of particular compo=

nents regardless of the interest of regular soldiers— and the results they are getting are destroying the morale of the Army. : Leon Henderson short-circuits and by-passes Bill Knudsen and OPM by ordering a 50 per cent zeduction in automobile production without consulting OPM and says he has as much authority to do it as B. M. Baruch had in 1918. That is not true. Mr, Baruch had not only control of prices and civilian supply subject to continuous supervision of prices themselves by the President, but also control of pri=orities, commandeering and conservation. They all go together. Mr, Henderson has them not.

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RIORITY, commandeering and“eontrol of transe portation were what gave Mr. Baruch his power, Without some combination of them the job-can’t ba done. Everything except price control are under Mr, Knudsen, if anybody. They all must be used-in coe operation, There were three reasons for the remarkable suce cess of Mr, Baruch. One was that all the great control boards were interlocking. Nobody could go off on a tangent or an adventure of his own without consulting correlative interests and, if there was any conflict, it had to be presented in the presence of another agency affected before a board controlling all related efforts in that area—and not by any backdoor, self-interested access to the President. This was true from bottom to top of the system. The natural result was that few conflicts ever got by the initial stages to harass the President. They were all composed lower down. The second, and I think the most important, was that the heads of the great areas of effort, food, fuel, finance, transportation, Army, Navy, lease=lend (Allied purchasing) and civilian supply were men of good-will. They trusted and respected each other. There was none or precious little of the back= stabbing, self-interest and personal ambition or radical economic and political theory and objective that seems to curse Washington today. New Dealers out to cut the hearts out of industrialists—and so forth.

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HE third was a cohesive system of organization from bottom to top which adhered to a single principle—an interlocking board representing all interests in each particular field before which all con= flicts had to be discussed; an administrator in each field charged with full responsibility and authority therein whose voice was final except for appeal to the next higher board and chairman, clear up to the President. The result was an almost complete absence of either conflict or confusion. I recall only one case on the War Industries Board and only three throughout the whole system that had to be taken up to annoy the President. A result of the present chaos is a tragic interruption of production and a threat to civilian supply, small business—the backbone of our economic sys= tem which this column has constantly predicted and which is now becoming visible and terrifying to the whole country. Realistic reorganization of this mess should be number one on our order of business.

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A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HE discussion about the rights of illegitimate babies has brought interesting and significant responses. They are significant, I think, because they show how trends are changing for the better. A Ft Worth reader believes every respectable wome an should hold herself responsi= ble for helping one unfortunate woman. If we did this as sisters instead of uplifters, it ought to do much good. The fans generally display fhe charitable attitude. Even thosa who hold to the conventions do so with a gentler touch—they want to protect the institution of marriage rather than condemn the outsiders. A composite sentiment was put into words by a small-town woman in Pennsylvania: “I only want to stress one point—sympathy. Illegitimate children can never be defended as theory; the practice can never be okayed or condoned, but when such things happen the only way to solve the question is the way our little town solved it only a year ago. “The girl was popular here, a senior in high school, and naturally the community was shocked when the scandal broke. At first there was a definite drawing aside of the feminine population. Then we took a second thought. The church ladies went to call; not stiffly—they just wanted to see the new baby. You know how we are in little towns—we always do like to see new babies. Well, here was a new baby, even if it didn’t have a father, and it was just as sweet as any other child. Isn't there always something about a baby that makes you want to laugh and he happy? “So the ladies told the mother to stop her crying. They urged her to go back to school and get her diploma, for she would need it more than ever with a little one to care for. They prevailed upon the school board to let her return. “Easter came and some people were taken into the church. Among them was a nervous young mother with a sister beside her to give her courage. Then she graduated quietly and has been a useful citizen ever since. It could have been different, but the women of the town wisely figured she had been through enough hell and decided not to make it any hotter. That's my plea regarding illegitimacy in every case. It can always be helped by the personal touch,”

AJ

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureanm will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive research. Write your 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—Does the United States pay rent to Britain for bases received under the Lend-Lease Act? A—No. The leases are for 99 years and are frees from all rent or other charges except compensation that the U. S. may agree to pay the owners of private property lost or damaged through establishment of the ases.

Q—How many newspapers and periodicals are published in the United States by Negroes? A—A recent report from the Department of Commerce gives the names and addresses of 339 newspapers, magazines and bulletins.

Q—Is quassia wood used to make bitter beer? A—It is not used now for that purpose, but thera are reports that in ancient times, before the advent of hops, it was used as a bittering agent. Q—Did we have ‘“gasless Sundays” during Worldq

War 1? -A-=Yes; in the autumn of 1918.