Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 July 1941 — Page 12

PAGE 12 The Indianapolis Times

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RILEY 5551

TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1941

AFTER THE FREEZING ORDER?

WHEN the United States froze all Japanese assets in this country, and Britain and Holland followed suit, it was generally assumed that this amounted to a virtual trade embargo. Now there is some doubt on this. Last night the State Department assured the Japanese Ambassador that under present conditions the United States would not hold Japanese ships and their cargoes which enter our ports, despite the “freezing” order. Earlier the Japanese Foreign Office organ declared the freezing “should not’ be viewed with alarm.” Our State Department points out that the action is not an embargo, but a system of control that is highly flexible. Not to be outdone. the Tokyo Finance Ministry, in commenting on its policy under the retaliatory Japanese freezing of American assets, says that “much elasticity will be given—in the light of application in America of the freezing decree against Japan.” ” = What about oil, so necessary for Japanese war and aggression? Almost 90 per cent of her supplies come from the United States and the East Indies, which could be shut off under the American-British-Dutch freezing orders and the Dutch abrogation of the Japanese oil agreement. It was on this subject that President Roosevelt last week made his past-tense justification of permitting American shipments in order to prevent Japanese attack on the East Indies. Now, when asked if that old oil policy has been changed, the President is vague. There is the same doubt about silk—Japan's chief export, for which we are the largest customer. Lacking an official statement of policy, the American silk manufacturing industry is guessing that Washington will issue permits for at least one-third of the normal imports, or roughly the amount of business handled by American-controlled importing houses. It is a little bit like the time Washington killed its trade treaty with Japan, and announced that thereafter economic relations between the two countries would be on a day-to-day basis—but nothing happened. Or like the famous ex-port-license system, which was advertised to shut off all American “aviation” gas to Japan—but continued to let through even more gasoline adaptable for Japanese aviation

purposes.

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= 8 Because of that record the Japanese during the last year have believed that the United States was bluffing. Wars often start because one Government thinks the other is bluffing, and is mistaken. The Kaiser started through Belgium believing that Britain would not fight. Hitler might not have attacked Poland had he been certain that Britain was finished with appeasement. This newspaper has supported the President's policy of patience with Japan, because we thought the peace effort was worth the gamble and because we thought the risk of a two-ocean war with a one-ocean Navy was unwise. But we believe there is danger in making threats which the Japanese interpret as bluff. We don’t think the President is bluffing today. In fairness to Japan and to America, if that is so, the President should make it clear. A frank policy may prevent war; a devious diplomacy may cause a Pacific conflict.

MRS. CURTIS A. HODGES HE death of Mrs. Curtis A. Hodges has taken from the Indianapolis scene a remarkable woman—one who gave her energies and her time to every worthwhile cause, sincerely, honestly, fervently. : Her activities spread over a wide range of affairs—as one-time president of the Indianapolis Parent-Teacher F ederation, as a Liberty Loan speaker in the first World War, as head of the Girls’ Federation of the Third Christian Church, as treasurer for several years of the Y. W. C. A,, as a divisional chairman of the ¥ aen’s Department Club, as vice president of the Indiai.. t'ederation of Women’s Clubs, and as the active leader of several smaller women’s groups. Women of Mrs. Hodges’ caliber and willingness to work for the community are all too rare. Her death is a distinct loss to Indianapolis.

ONCE AGAIN, THE WARNING EOPLE have almost stopped talking about whether we shall have inflation or not. Now the usual topic is, “How much inflation?” There are still many people not averse to it. Farmers want much higher prices (inflationary). Organized labor, in fact all labor, wants higher wages (inflationary). People with things to sell generally want higher prices (inflationary). Stock market speculators want higher prices (inflationary). There has been considerable gradual inflation ever since 1930, stepping up at a faster pace recently. Up to now, most people like it. But economist Irving Fisher is ‘only one of many to warn that while it has been fine up to now, the time has come to begin applying the brakes. One way in which every man can have his hand on the brake is to buy defense bonds, thus keeping his spare money out of the scramble for increasingly scarce goods, which puts

prices up.

LAST CHANCE TODAY DAY is your last chance to do your bit toward making Indianapolis’ aluminum collection campaign an unqualified success. There is no need to emphasize again how badly every pound of scrap aluminum is needed for national defense. Or how each old pot and kettle and percolator will release just that much virgin aluminum for use in airplane manufacture. if you want to do your bit now, one of the best ways

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

A 'Punk' in New York Is a Pal of a Great Man in New Jersey and a Ruling Power in State of Florida!

Ni YORK, July 20.—You know how one casual idea suggests another and you go bouncing all over the country without moving out of your chair? What I mean is something like this: Last week Frank Erickson, the gambler, gets into a jam over in New Jersey. Somebody slugged a guy and busted the guy's chin and they tried to cover it up but LaGuardia got wind of it and LaGuardia hates Erickson, so he needles up a prosecution in New Jersey so now Erickson has to stand trial. This is strictly cheap, tosspot stuff and unimportant but Erickson is the big magnate in the Wall Street of the horse-gambling racket which operates in Frank Hague's : town and he is also head man, one way or another, at the hoodlums horse yard in Miami, otherwise known as Tropical Park which has been a gangsters’ political principality for years and years. . Wall Street of the horse-room racket is a fairly correct description of the thing which has been going on in Jersey City all this time. Frank Hague won't stand for any vice where he is boss and they practically won't let you put your arm around a girl in J. C. unless you are lawfully wedded to her. But they don’t regard the horse-room thing as a vice so J. C. is the big national headquarters of a very distinct department of the criminal underworld, and the graft must be something enormous.

WoL. Hague is supposed to be a simple, rugged man of the people but he doesn’t spend much time sharing the squalor and the summer heat and winter cold of Jersey City with his subjects. He keeps a winter plant in Florida and a home on the Jersey shore for his summer vacation and a big apartment in New York the year around, all on a very modest salary as mayor of Jersey City and he spends so much time around the horse-yards that you would think he was practically painted on the walls. When Tropical is running he is right there among the mob day after day but of course his pleasures are subject to interruptions in the interests of the party and humanity as on that occasion when he and Ed Kelly of Chicago collaborated with Harold (Square Guy) Ickes in Chicago to nominate Mr. Roosevelt for the third term. In Florida, the horse-tracks have a strange hold on the government of the State and this Erickson, whom LaGuardia delights to call a cheap punk gambler and whom the New York police have orders to shove around, is bigger in a way than the Governor and the Legislature although he doesn’t even live in Florida. He just runs the old hoodlums track which formerly belonged to a mob of New York bootleggers and assorted criminals but seems to have come to him on the bounce in a crap game or some similar transaction. 2 = 2

HE Florida tracks turn in a big pot of easy money as mutuel and other taxes to the state treasury every year and this money is divided evenly among the counties and of course, back in some of the jungle and dry-grass counties where people are few and some of the few have thumbs on their feet, that easy money greatly eases the burden of local taxes. Then, for another thing, the members of the Legislature have a habit of attaching themselves and their constituents and their no-account in-laws to the track payrolls and these jobs are political patronage so a statesman who gets his share of jobs is expected to look after the tracks when bills are introduced which might impair the earnest patriotic efforts of guys like this Erickson to improve the breed of horses so that our brave cavalry boys may have only the best mounts. We free people certainly play some funny tricks on ourselves in the operation of our beautiful democracy. A cheap punk in New York is a substantial financier and associate of the great, plain man of the people just across the river and, in Florida, by virtue of his control of a rack track, is one of the great governing powers of a state in which he isn't even a resident:

Business By John T. Flynn

Veterans Pensions Start Modestly But Soon Could Reach Deluge Stage

EW YORK, July 29.—The Senate is going to have to pass on the veterans’ pension bill passed by the House. This bill gives a pension of $40 a month

to every veteran of the last war who is now above 65 years and who put in at least 90 days of service at home or abroad. How many veterans are above 65 now I do not know. They are probably not numerous. The amount which will have to be paid out now is not enormous. That makes it easy to pass such a bill. But in that measure are the seeds of a vast ext:nsion of the present system of government by subsidies —one which may stagger us yet by its vastness. This country went through a long siege of pension legislation and politics after the Civil War. When the world War legions were formed it was the hope of President Wilson that such a chapter would never be written again. Therefore a plan for adjusted compensation was worked out which was to serve in lieu of the pensions system. Inevitably, when the depression got well under way and countless thousands of veterans became needy, a demand for paying off the soldiers’ compensation—the soldiers’ bonus—became insistent. The veterans who favored it were too numerous to be ignored in a political government, and that bonus was paid. But inevitably that money has been spent by most of the veterans and now the demand arises for pensions. It begins with veterans who are arrived at the age of 65. It will soon be reduced. and slowly the veterans will arrive in vast numbers at these ages. Because it can be done at what seems a moderate cost now a bill to pay these pensions slips through the House with great ease. But before his chapter was written many a billion dollars will flow out of the Treasury—along with all the other dollars flowing out now. : . 8 » =» ; HERE is another phase of this pension system to be discussed. We are now organizing huge armies ostensibly for national defense. If this nation

yields to the demands of those who urge war there | will come into existence an A. E. F. that will make | the old one look like a piker’'s army. And inevitably

this vast army will have to have its pensions.

There was an interval of about 35 years between

the end of the Civil War and the end of the SpanishAmerican War. But the interval between World War I and World War II is only 25 years. So a time will come when we will have, perhaps, two of the largest armies in the history of the world on pension lists, plus whatever existing armies we have at the moment in actual service. The time to consider these grave implications of the future is now. While we are building up a huge debt interest payment, a huge annual subsidy payment to all sorts of groups, and a vast national army, we might consider the effect of plunging the country once again into two seas of war pensions.

So They Say—

A CHILD who feels unhappy or unloved not infrequently reacts to this state by a kind of gluttony . . . what is true of children is generally true of adults.— Dr. Carl Binger, Chicago physician. * ® »

® THERE MAY be days ahead when the cash will make you a good deal happier and a good deal more

.—Miss Har-- :

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES ou Alley Oop—and a Couple More

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TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1941

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The Hoosier Forum

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

NOW FINDS LONDON IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE By C. V. Cross, 1541 Blaine Ave.

I just read that a New Deal geographer has dug up the fact that the “Western Hemisphere” starts at Greenwich and that Greeuwich is 25 miles east of London. It looks like somebody slipped one over on the United States when they put across that limitation of our arms to the Western Hemisphere.

$8 8 OBJECTS TO HANDLING OF STRAY DOGS HERE

By Mrs. Cornelia Perkins, Indianapolis

Could any really humane civilized human being, with even half average compassion and feeling, take issue with those who, in sheer pity and indignation, protest at the cruel manner at times in which this city of Indianapolis takes care of its stray dogs, et cetera? Shame, deep shame, on any such city! This particular protest is brought on from reading an article in one of this city’s daily papers this week on the way these stray animals suffered so cruelly and unnecessarily in the “inquisition” dog-pound truck during intense heat, all because drivers were not supposed to take dogs in to pound until later on in| the day! What so-called ‘“authorities!” What is the matter with the humane society here? What's the matter with “a lot”? It is unspeakably shocking! In common decency cannot something be done by some “higher-up” authority to prevent such repetition, as well as other merely humane, decent correctives as practiced in many other civilized cities? = = 2 VIEWS ISOLATIONISTS AS WISHFUL THINKERS By A. C. Ayers, 209 W. 26th St.

The calm tone of N. L. B.'s letter deserves an answer. The term “ostriches” is given the America First Committee because they refuse to accept the fact that America cannot remain free if the rest of the world becomes Nazi-dominated. They seemed to regard the East-

ern Hemisphere as some distant

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

views in

planet and they take the stand that nothing that happens there can remotely concern us. When one

nation has set out to conquer and enslave the world, and even though that nation is well on the way to succeeding, they still say, “It’s just a European affair.” They are called emotionalists because their decisions are based on their emotions. For example, take the decision to -stay out of Europe so that Hitler can win, but when he comes over here we’ll show him what-for! As if we could successfully defend this continent single-handed against Hitler after he has the strength of the whole rest of the world | of him. That's emotional. or w* thinking, it seems to me. They are called Nazis because with their stand they are aiding Hitler. The America First is Hitler's special delight. At a recent dinner in Havana, the German charge d'affaires, Herr Tauchunitz. pulled a Wheeler by announcing Germany expects “new leadership” in the United States, one who, in about six months, will make an intervention for peace with Hitler. Is that what you want, N. L. B.? Do you want us to share the fate of every country which has “made a peace” with the Nazis? o ” 2 A TRIBUTE TO THE VISION OF HENRY FORD By Voice in the Crowd, Indianapolis A fellow wonders what built the Ford enterprise if it was not the initiative of Henry Ford. It has been established that Ford was a poor mechanic working for small wages in Detroit. In my time I have known men who worked with him before the Ford car was built.

Side Glances — By Galbraith

Oh

boy! Here comes. the blasting. committee!’

He was the first man to have a vision of poor people owning automobiles. He worked on the idea of building a lot of cars, paying good wages and giving the automobile buyer more than his money's worth. In that day the automobile was supposed to be patented and a syndicate in New York held the patents. Automobile manufacturers had to be licensed and pay a royalty to the syndicate. They denied Ford the right to build cars by denying him a license. Ford did not believe that the patents were valid nor that the American public should be denied the low-priced car. He went ahead and built cars, and gave the users a guarantee that they would be immune from litigation on the Selden patents. He built an automobile exactly to the patent specifications to prove to

the court that the patent was net

‘n a practical useable automobile.

1e court decision freed the indus.y of royalties and saved the people billions of dollars, because the patents could have been kept alive by succeeding improvements. Ford build the great efficient Highland Park plant and forced his competition to build better cars for less money fur years, {o the great benefit of the people's pocketbook. He had visions of greater savings and when he proposed the River Rouge plant where the production lines would start at the ore dock, his stockholders took out an injunction against such a visionary display of “initiative.” He bought out his stockholders and met Lis greatest success without them. The savings that Ford made by bringing the ore down by boat instead of bringing in the pig iron and steel by rail from Pittsburgh and the. Calumet have been real savings that have meant growth to the enterprise, larger employment always at fair wages, and a great increase in American purchasing power. His earnings have always been plowed in to give greater developments and greater employment. He could have retired to a life of ease 30 years ago, but he kad built up a responsibility to the people and he still lives up to it. More than a million people depend for their living on the Ford enterprise. Ford succeeded because he had vision and he is a shining example of the equality of opportunity. If he could rise from the bench to his height, anyone with tke same vision can do likewise. Perhaps he had a vision when he signed up for the checkoff and denied independent men the right to work. Who knows? He believes in independence.

TO YOU

By MONDALENE JOHNSON It did not seem the night we met That we should say goodby— The Pais gainsay that we should par For reasons I know not why. We had so little then to say Time sped on fleeting wings Perchance again the time will come When we sHall say those things. But though we find the distance great Remember this, my dear— Time passes swiftly, my thoughts alone Will hold you always near.

DAILY THOUGHT

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.—Romans 12-21,

IN MEN whom men: pronounce

Ger. Johnson

Says—

Repeating the Warning Concerning The Danger That Confronts Little Business in Our Defense Effort

EW YORK, July 29.—As this column has free quently pointed out and as is now becoming more apparent in the news daily, various shortages in material, services and supplies are threatening ever more seriously to crumple up little business in this country like a tin-can which the kids have been using for a “shinny” puck. There are no adequate words to describe what a tragedy that could be. Not merely the appeal from the National Small Busi ness Association, which esti . mated a resulting threatened une employment of more than 16 million, but reports coming to me by the hundreds in my fan mail

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from other sources indicate that —

this process of wiping out small enterprise has already begun. It has begun not merely in small merchandizing but also in small manufacture and small service estabe lishments. They can’t get the material to proceed. Shortly they won't be able to get the needed power and transportation. Weeks ago after a trip through the West, we , warned of the threatened disastrous congestion in elevator and storage facilities for small grains and the probable freight car shortage to move it. Now this also is becoming a major national problem.

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HESE things, serious as they are, will not merely effect a revolution in our economic system toward monopoly and paralysis. They will also tend to choke and exasperate our whole civilian population— and God knows there are enough other influences working in that direction. Among these are the dilemma of the draft time-extensions, the coming fight over price-control, the danger of shooting war in the Pacific, the political inequities of the new tax bill and other and lesser things too numerous to mention. This column is not crowing “I told you so,” but every one of these developments including a reputation of the assertion by most military experts that the Nazi campaign in Russia would be a three weeks* push-over was more or less emphatically insisted upon here long before the facts developed. No, it is not to crow but it is to wonder why things so obvious to a little experience and information couldn't have had a little more effect in shaping policy by officials who are supposed to have all experience and authority.

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AKE this threatened starvation of small enter= prise in this country as an example. When it was so badly and spectacularly announced thaf America was to become the “arsenal of democracy,” why couldn't there have been computed approximate= ly what it would mean to supply the steel, ships, air planes, aluminum, copper and so forth for the whole world, how much our supplies and facilities could produce and how much would be left for our civilian population which, after all, it is our first and greatest duty to protect? If it isn’t, why are we in this war at all? There is a perfectly simple answer to that question. We didn’t make that calculation because we didn’t have any competent and co-ordinated organization to do that work and then lower our sights and balance and ration the scant supply to the most necessitious uses—including those of our own people. As is shown by recent proofs of the uncoordinated cross-purposes in top-side controls, which have also frequently been noticed in this space, we have no such organization yet. : It is the principal weakness in our whole provision for defense—and it could prove fatal. It is “later than you think” but it is not as yet too late.

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

HE first and most-to-be-mourned casualty of this war is the word “appeaser.” Take a look at it —a perfectly good word with noble connotations has been stripped without mercy of its honorable reputation and made to mean something evil and hideous, I think we may live to regret the treatment we're giving it. For although appeasers may be in bad repute politically they are wonderful people to have around. At home, for instance, one talented appeaser is more valuable than a housefull of standpat fighters. And business could not exist a day without the use of compromise, Carried to its logical conclusion, the meaning now put upon concilation may prove dangerous to society and to marriage. Let us suppose that the children of our time absorb and accept the notion that the good per= gon must never give an inch to one who is in error, and that to appease proves oneself a slug, a simpleton or a snake in the grass. Wouldn't things be in a pretty mess? For home and business, in fact for every endeavor to which men and women collectively set themselves, must be conducted with diplomacy, not defiance, Therefore if we should be unfortunate enough to kill the appeasement idea for good, society would become a madhouse, politics a pitched battle and the world a worse bedlam than it now is. Nobody really wants to hold hands with Hitler— but can’t we fight him without altering the Anierican language? Aftef the war 1s over, we'll probably need some expert appeasers, since peace terms and world trade require mediation and compromise. It will be tragio if the ability to get along with people we do not approve is regarded as a permanent Benedict Arnold trick, and I shudder to think what will happen to the American home when the appeasers desert it.

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive ree 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 Washington Service Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth St., Washington, D, C.)

Q—When and where was John L. Lewis born? What is his nationality? A—He was born in Lucas, Iowa, Feb. 12, 1880, the son of Thomas and Louisa (Watkins) Lewis. Both his parents were born in Wales. John L. Lewis, therefore, is an American of Welsh descent.

. Q@—How many spectators could be accommodated by the Circus Maximus in Rome? A—After Julius Caesar's.improvements in the Circus Maximus, it is said to have held 150,000 people. After it was restored and enlarged by Claudius, it probably accommodated 250,000. Additional accommodations added by Constantine brought the total capacity of the amphitheatre to 385,000 spectators, and including the crowds that could stand outside, on the upper slopes of the two adjacent hills, and have a distinct, distant view of the arena, a possible audience of 485,000 could be accommodated. : Q—When was the first charter for a railroad issued in the United States? A—In 1815, John Stevens of Hoboken obtained a charter from the State of New Jersey to build and operate a steam railroad between New Brunswick and Trenton. The charter expired without the railroad being built. @—How many American soldiers were lost on troop transports to Europe during World War I? A—Surprisingly few. No American troop transport was lost on its eastward voyage, but three British transports were sunk with a total loss of about 370 American soldiers. About 360 American soldiers were lost when the British steamer Otranto collided with another ship and drifted onto rocks. Several American

1 digine, I find so much- of sin and

troop ships were lost returning from Europe, but the loss of life was small. 1

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