Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 August 1941 — Page 16

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"PAGE 16 The Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERRER President Business Manager

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reau of Circulations. RI LEY 5351

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1941

PEPPER—AND ARMAGEDDON

HE Senate votes to add 18 months for those who, failing to read the fine type, thought they would be home in a vear. The logic for the extension seemed unanswerable. The year limit didn’t make sense from the start. 1t meant dismantling the Army just when it was getting good. he sin of the whole sorry chapter was a sin of omission; a political sin, chargeable to Congress, not to the military, which had the logic on its side. The draft act was passed just before an election. It called for one year's service, unless—the unless, referring to certain circumstances that might arise. The politicos took to the hustings stressing the “year of training” and leaving out the unless. What happens to

the politicos who failed to put all cards on the table will be | written, come November, 1942. It's their funeral, and a | lot of political undertakers may be needed. But out of all | this, we'll have an Army. = yar about after those extra 18 months? That brings | us to Senator Pepper. “Talking about these boys going home,” he shouted in | the debate on extension. “They will be in the Army for at least five vears, and maybe 10, and maybe a generation.” Furthermore, the Senator predicts 100 billion a year | and calls the 40 billions already authorized a drop in the bucket. “Gird your loins,” he erties. “We are just approaching | Armageddon.” And then he sways into some perfervid elocution that would shame Savonarola—“"how long is it going to take to shackle Hitler, to bind his arms and legs | with the chain of society's retribution, to throw him back into the impotency of the Teutonic forest where he may find companionship with the pagan gods of an earlier day, before whom he kneels.” A glint of glee seems to sparkle throughout Pepper's rhetoric, and we don’t think he'd get along so well without an Armageddon to howl at. But we aren't by any means serene regarding his prophecies—if he and his forensics are going to continue to grow in influence in this country. He | nay be, to switch a phrase, righter than you think. Rut we hope he isn’t, in this latest outburst, exactly what he is so often cracked up to be—the White House

\ Spokesman.

= = = ® »

in money,

LOST—ONE WIFE

i terrible misunderstanding at home.

CALIFORNIA tourist stopped at an Ohio town the | other day and reported he had lost his wife. He thought she and the children were asleep in the back | of the car but when he turned around to ask her about stop- | ping for the night she was missing. Investigation developed that 40 miles back he had | stopped at a filling station for oil and gas, that his wife | awakened and went to the rest room. When she returned the car, her husband and two children were gone, Of course, he went back and got her. But doesn’t the incident emphasize how too many Americans see this country—=sleeping in the back end of the car and having nothing much but a speedometer reading to prove.they have been on a trip. Yes, but—"0h boy, we made 600 miles one day!”

A VETO. AND A MIRACLE

Y a skin-of-the-teeth margin the House of Representatives has reluctantly voted to sustain the President's veto of a pork-barrel road bill. The Senate, to its shame, had voted to override the veto.

| and his memory { terse quotation, cut ‘ At this point, only a few blocks from the office,

The facts in the case, briefly, are these:

access roads in military, naval and industrial arcas, plus

- - » » i 825,000,000 for strengthening bridges and widening roads

in kev sections of the defense highway network. He emphasized that the money should be spent without reference to the formula whereby Federal road funds are ordinarily divided among the states on the triple basis of population, area and post-road mileage. So what happened? So the Senate passed a bill for the spending of 250 million, instead of the measly 125 asked by the President. The House, getting into the spirit of the thing, called the raise and upped the total to 287 millions. Worse, the bill as passed provided for divvying among the states according to the old formula, without reference to the obvious fact that defense highway needs don't coincide with the population, area or post-road factors. So the President vetoed the bill. In the Senate on Wednesday, when a motion to override was made, the only worth-while defense of the President's position was made by a Republican, Senator Vandenberg. He called the bill a “gravy train.” He said Mr. Roosevelt on this issue was “completely and eternally right.” He chided his colleagues for being fearful lest “a sinister precedent shall be created by saving a hundred million dollars.” But the Senate voted to override. Miracles, however, can still happen. In the House yesterday the veto was sustained by a five-vote margin. Congratulations are due to those who, by voting to uphold the President, showed some concern for the fiscal predicament into which this country is quickstepping.

GNARLED HANDS BACK TO WORK

A PLEASANT byproduct of an unpleasant emergency is the return to work of many middle-aged—and older —people whose abilities had gone to waste, unwanted, in recent years. The Social Security Board says about 2500 persons a

month are giving up their old-age insurance benefits tem- |

porarily in order to return to work. And those are all men and women past 65. Many thousands in their 40s and 50s and early 60s are also getting a chance to put a shoulder to the wheel of defense—and to feel that they are, after

Mr. Roose- | velt on June 2 asked Congress to vote £100,000,000 for |

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

With a Fine Show of Patriotic Fervor Spelvin Tries to Help Ickes Solve Gas Crisis but Comes to Grief

ASHINGTON, Aug. 8—Driving to the office today, George Spelvin, American, felt a glow of patriotism as he thought of Harold Ickes’ appeal to the people of the seaboard to use less gasoline and determined to do his bit for his country in this matter, regardless of his opinion of Mr. Ickes, which is not idolatrous. Accordingly, Mr. Spelvin decided that, for the moment, there was no more effective way open to him than to lift another patriot on the way to work, thus saving the fuel which a taxi or bus might consume in toting that particular passenger a problematical distance. He had read somewhere that Mr. Ickes had urged loyal citizens with cars to pick up others along the way and it seemed to him that this would be the most pleasant branch of the national defense. Soon after turning the corner from home, Mr. Spelvin saw an attractive young woman waiting on a corner and he was just mentally fixing to pull up with a polite greeting when it suddenly occurred to him that his motives might not be understood. Therefore, feeling that he was a bit of a coward in the face of public opinion and had shirked a patriotic duty, Mr. Spelvin stepped on the gas just in time to catch out of the corner of his eye the fading radiance of something that plainly had been a very pleasant smile of acceptance from an unusually nice littie number. = = 2

OWEVER, he was now pretending that there had been no intent whatever in his little maneuver toward the curb and he drove on, mentally booting himself in the flask and speculating whether she was married and if so whether her husband was a big.

| dumb, jealous brute or some weedy little squirt who

would just happen to be looking out a window and

——— “THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Do We Hear Footsteps?

take the number of his ear and raise a disgusting row. |

Or, Mr. Spelvin thought, talking and discovered that

he might have fallen to

she was a friend of a |

friend of his own ever-loving and the talk might have | got around that he was in the habit of picking up | cuties for reasons of his own and using as a mere | excuse the plea of patriotism, which, of course, had | been called the last refuge of the scoundrel and un- |

doubtedly is, although not in all cases.

Or perhaps | | he would have said that he was planning to do this |

every day now, going to and coming from work, both, |

and she might have volunteered to collaborate fully in this fine loyal program and the silly little thrip might lose control of herself and jump off some bridge or take gas or something on realizing that it never could be and cause an awful mess of publicity and a

pen that way.

Things do hap-

As Mr. Spelvin drove along. regretting his lack of patriotic courage, he saw a colored man in overalls | who actually gave him the thumb, but he was really | so deep in his thoughts that he slid right by without | thinking. And, on the next corner, he saw an elderly woman whom he recognized as a gabby sort who was | always on committees and very unreserved in her | discussion of her tripes which topic not only bored but |

actually displeased. So Mr. Spelvin passed her up, too, telling himself that, not even Ickes himself, would expect that sacrifice and that, if so. he would be glad to send Mr. Ickes her name and phone number and

let him do the fetching. = HE thought he could wish neither of them worse luck and his conscience let him off because. after all, the actual crisis was still far overseas. If

~ Ld

i {

It ever came to a real national emergency whv he, |

George Spelvin, would do his duty lovaliv. the moment things were not that urgent. : Still Mr. Spelvin accused himself of sacrificing the national interest for his own reputation and peace of mind when a true citizen ought to brave the jeers of the rabble in a time of national peril and ev en go

But

for jhave little or

{when their earning capacity and cannot afford to give to the U. S. 0.| i But a} word

to his grave dishonored for his loyal convictions and |

wait for history somehow to vindicate him one distant day. Thereat his body would be moved to Arlington honored in death with a beautiful, in stone, . .

Mr. Spelvin, on the bold Impulse of the brave man suddenly whipped over to the curb and singled out a lady marbe 35 and was just about to invite her aboard when the lady called him all kinds of a word ending

in “ouse” and a silly-looking ape and told him to be |

missing or she wi Ss i ided y rp Tl e would slap him lopsided. Brother, : Arriving at the office five minutes later, Mr. Spelvin introduced the subject of Mr. Ickes and his fuel economies and said he thought it was all a lot of propaganda and, moreover, this pick-up-a-passenger business was absolutely immoral and going to cause a crime wave, including blackmail, sure as hell.

Business By John T. Flynn

Many Factories Face Ruin Unless |

They Can Get Share of War Business

EW YORK. Aug. 8—Recently Peter Nehemkis Jr, assistant to the chief of the contr vis the OPM. made the following tract Stiga “By the end of summer. one-third of American industry will be obliged either to change over to munitions or stop operating.” The shadow of this phenomenon has alreadv cast itself ahead of the event itself and undoubtedly accounts for the great number of letters on this subject which come to me from small businessmen everywhere. Here is what they see. These men are the owners of small factories. That is, they have plants that employ from 50 to 500 men, some of them a good deal more. They are not just little neighborhood shops, but enterprises which once upon a time would be considered big. Altogether they employ more than 18.000,000 people in this country.

Sav

chinery. But slowly the war program is depriving first one and then another of those raw

which they need in their business.

their supplies. be obtained from Japan, and the aluminum utensil

needed for planes, etc., are exampies. = = 2 HESE priorities will increase in number.

country must close—or get war contracts. But they are not getting war contracts. They are asking for them. They are pleading for them but cannot get them. Surveys have been made in various cities and states and regions and these surveys show that only from one-fourth to one-third—and in some cases less—of these plants have been able to get contracts. The contracts are going to the big producers. It may be that the struggle for haste induces Army and Navy procurement men to pass over these small concerns. But certainly the nation owes something to itself —it owes something to the duty of kepping alive and intact so vast a body of producers through this crisis. The war effort may be important. But other considerations are also important. One of them is the producing machine that supplies 130,000,000 Americans with their innumerable needs and that supplies 16,000,000 workmen—and a population of over 60.000.000—with their bread and butter. That | is not to be ignored.

So They Say—

LIFE IS perpetual motion, nothing remains static save death.-Dr. Don Luis Quintanilla, Mexican min-

all, of yse in this world. A

i {

| |

i i

i his criticisms have been justified. ; jeast.

{a delightful topic of conversation!

{URGES FRIENDLY NOD | TO SERVICE MEN

LD IE a Satis

FRIDAY, AUG. § 1941

Gen. Johnson Says

Decision to Curtail Gas Sales in East Shows a Lack of Careful Planning; The Use of Oil Barges Is Suggested.

ASHINGTON, Aug. 8.—As is becoming quite apparent this seven-to-seven gas station business isn’t doing much more than cause a lot of inconvenience to people who don't watch the clock and read the papers, creating considerable unemployment, bitterly pinching the business of gas distribution and making everybody sore. The trouble is that we haven't been told the facts and the suspicion is growing that Mr. Ickes didn't take the trouble to get the facts before, as Paul Mallon remarks, he set out to “Ickesate” everybody. As has already been demonstrated by other commentators, the average annual use of gas by non-commercial automobiles is about 650 gallons a yea: The threat to ration to five gallons a week would mean 260 gallons a year, This is a cut of 60 per cent and not the 33': per cent Mr. Ickes says he is aiming for. Apparently the Secretary didn't even make a barn-yard, dead-reckoning calculation before he began his specialty of threatening and ranting. As everybody knows, there is no shadow of a threat of shortage of American petroleum products. This whole business is due to a wholesale raiding of the established American transport system of ocean-going tankers to give them to the British. This savagely restricts but does not necessarily destroy the transportation of petroleum from the mid-continent and gulf ports to the Eastern seaboard. It doesn't destroy it because there are other methods of getting the oil East. ” ”n 8 NE is through railroad tank-cars. Another is by motor trucks, a third is by pipe-line. There is a fourth, the subject of this column, which will be presently discussed. The trouble with all these alternatives is vastly increased cost as compared with tanker transport. Railroad tank cars cost three times or more per barrel to move a given tonnage. Pipe line costs are in between but easily double ocean costs. Furthermore, to construct the necessary additional pipe lines would take a long time and use four million tons of steel—a strategic shortage item. In this problem, I have been astonished to learn that no serious consideration has been given to a fourth possibility before turning to a well-known easier way of putting arbitrary and searing heat on a long suffering public. I mean towing petroleum products to the East coast in barges.

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to thedeath your right to say it.—Voltarre.

(Times readers ars invited to their in these columns, religious controversies Make your letters short, so all can Letters must

COLUMN ON FADIMAN By Mrs. R. K., Indianapolis

As an ardent admirer of West-| brook Pegler, I am at a loss to] justify his attack on Clifton Fadi-| man. I believe Mr. Pegler requires | a course in elementary psychology.! Doesn't he know that when people | nothing they have Communistic tendencies and are willing to share with everyone, but increased greatly.

express views

CONCERNING PEGLER'S | excluded.

have a chance. be signed.)

capital amount to something, they fund—that is, in money. will share nothing? | friendly greeting, a friendly If personal animosities must bei/to a lonely sailor or soldier costs aired in your newspaper, let us nothing and sometimes is hear both sides. It should prove more appreciated. I know whereof I speak, having served over eight years as an enlisted man in the Navy. Many a time I felt

for your readers. $ # # THINKS MRS. R. SHOULD STAY WITH PRESIDENT

By A, A. P.. Indianapolis Mr. Pegler has written caustical- to say, I found more friends. And about our First Ladv. I think | that was in the days before fifth ve : columnists were heard of, or known

attitude of civilians.

{before the present war increased

interest in us. o

constructive.

Little boys who serve ice cream 2 nicely at small town functions] ‘ aren't exactly national news. The | OPPOSES FURTHER books you read and the books 1 APPEASEMENT OF JAPAN read and our reactions thereto are gy a. B. 1. Indianapolis scarcely of national importance.| T} verwhelmin majority The time or the place where we} 38/0 : PAR TIA BDH ty meet our relatives (with or with-| the American people learned with out the aid of a plane) are rela- (satisfaction that the Administration HYSIY Snimhongns 53 old, events. intended to freeze Japanese assets in r. Pegler missed some- ; ; ivy] : = {her stablis Y thing when he omitted to suggest here and to establish a licensing

Se : _isystem for all trade with Japan.| that Mrs. Roosevelt's place is bY The licensing system could be used the President

supporting him IN tn establish a complete embargo on the greatest task that any Presi-|gqoq4s coming from and going to dent of our country has had thrust japan. | upon him. And if that is not her| Almost immediately thereafter we role, there are plenty of slums in learned with disappointment that Washington, D. C. Could she not|Japanese ships would he granted, become interested in these unliv- docking facilities and clearance in| able places at her own door- {American ports. This means merely! step? continuing the old appeasement Mr. his policy. There is no argument for punches. sending oil, for example, to Japan| or doing any other trading with her, except the arguments for appease-| |ment, and events have clearly proved |

Pegler has pulled

” 2 ®

{powers is dead wrong.

By J. P. M.. Indianapolis | ¥ : | When President Roosevelt

ex-

our boys in the armed services of permitted the oil companies to sell | our country would try to know|oil to Japan in the past in order]

them better, their morale would be to prevent her from seizing the Notre Dame give his “Facts Versus

industry, which cannot get aluminum because it is |

And as | they do we will see that situation which Mr. | Nehemkis describes when a third of the plants in the |

Side Glances = By Galbraith

They constitute a tremendous part—the | largest vart—of the industrial machine of the nation. | They depend, of course, upon a steady flow of raw | materials and upon the inevitable replacement of ma-

COPR. 1941 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. R

"Young man, when | get oft your bus don't let me forget that |

have three packages, two suitcases and a husband!"

Kee hia eS AA i AT YE

Many people

like a pariah among my own countrymen because of the

Among foreigners, T am ashamed |

of |

|that appeasement of any of the Axis QUOTING SOME “IFS” | | ON RESULTS OF WAR

If people sincerely interested in plained that the Government had BY Mrs. Helen Mori Eck. R. R. 17,

| Fancy” lecture at World War Memorial for “America First” here are some ifs I would like you to have:

Communism must necessarily win it (and their saboteurs all over the {world will come out of their rat(holes waving red flags.

{people who want no war we still send our boys on a will-of -the-wisp of the “four freedoms" around the world, what right have we to say |we live in a democracy where majority rules?

(| fathers fought for, everything we ‘| have preached for years, namely the || sovereignty of these United States {| will be gone for a World State will | {be established. |

the use of Hitler's “get-there-first” {tactics, by what right can we call ||Japan on her stand in near French Indo-China taken with the consent of that Government? take this term national defense and | (stretch it all over the world. . , .

Duteh mistake that the Government has been making. If Japan does not

{seize the Dutch East Indies it is be{cause and only because she thinks ‘she could not do so successfully, not because of appeasement such 'selling her oil.

¥. 9 REBUKES THOSE SEEKING

[‘PEACE FOR OUR TIME’

W. Scott Taylor, 756 Middle Drive,

Woodruff Place The Hoover-Landon faction in the Republican Party, backed up by 15 big names, demands that the

much United States quit interfering with | | the conquest of the other hemis- |

phere. This is a 15-gun salute to the Axis. It is aiso 15 raspberries for Willkie—as spontaneous and unrehearsed as Mr. Willkie himself. The trouble with all peace-for-our-timers is that the peace doesn't last as long as the taxes that pay for what follows. The 15 don't explain who is going to pay for the perpetual and tremendous armament that will be required to pro-

: I have reason to believe tect this last refuge for such as {but they might have been more they were sincere for the most part, they.

Perhaps they are hopeful that with more soak-the-poor tax bills, like the one just passed by

|the House of Representatives, the | poor of this, country can pay for more armament than can the poor |

of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and elsewhere. It's a cinch that with these 15 gentlemen controlling the destinies of the nation, it would become a permanent armed camp supported by workers who get as little as possible, who have the necessities of life taxed out of their hands in order that the peace-for-our-timers may continue to enjoy luxuries as usual. The theory is a pleasant one—to the interests the 15 gentlemen represent. But the majority of businessmen are not engaged in the manufacture or distribution of luxuries, The necessities are the things that keep them busy. It would be a very dangerous state of affairs to have so few satisfied with “peace-for-our-time.”

2 o ”

Box 164-D

After hearing Dr. Manion of If Hitler loses the Russian war,

If in spite of 80 per cent of our

If we go in everything cur fore-

East Indies, he showed the|

" n on DON'T pretend to be an expert in this field. I I can't even vouch for the figures I am about to | use, except to say that they were checked by one of | the foremost tonnage experts in this country and counter-checked with another. We have oil barges in our Eastern waters capable of various cargoes from 30,000 to 50,000 tons. I am told that good ocean-going tugs could do this job, towing two barges about 100 miles a day, that larger barges could be built in two to three months’ time and that the average cost of one turn-around, with at least, 40,000 barrels capacity, would be about $20,000 or 50 | cents a barrel, which is less than tanker costs. Maybe this is all wet. It is merely a preliminary | inquiry relying on disinterested expert opinion. But it smells to me like pay-dirt. At least, why hasn't this alternative been thoroughly sifted before reaching an overnight arbitrary decision to just scramble the automotive underlying pattern upon which has been revolutionized and is now draped a large part of the domestic, economic and rural life of the nation? Our people are willing to make any needed sacrifice, buf they are entitled to facts and argument before making them unnecessarily.

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

F YOU feel strongly that our country should stay out of the war, if at the same time you are the mother of a drafted son, what can you say to him, how reconcile your views to his necessity? Questions like these pour in daily. They well from the hearts of suffering motners who haven't quite been persuaded to give up their principles and yet who cannot bear to confus: their children. Their concern fo country is sincere and deep-seated. I wish, I knew the right answers. I don't. I only know that the young are quick to detect insincerity and falsehood. So to my own sons I think I would speak like this: “Whether vour destiny be great or humble the thing to remember always is that the highest duty of a free man is to be true to himself. We are told that our country now faces a terrible crisis. There is much dispute as to how we shall proceed, and in that dispute you should take your part. I do not believe democracy can ever function in a land where even the littlest man is denied the right to speak his opinions. But you must alto remember that you live under a form of government vhich gives to the majority the privilege of directing national policies. When you belong to the minority, it follows you must still do your part to advance the aims of your elected leaders. “Boys called to training camps would do well to regard their period of service as a valuable interlude —and resolve to make it so. They can do this only by realizing that their minds and spirits are as valuable to the cause they serve as their bodies. On the physical side such training is bound to be helpful, provided they do not permit their minds to be defiled. Habit is the most powerful force in man's world, and when millions of young men fall into the habit of letting others do their thinking for them democracy is not served. “However, I sincerely believe it is possible for you to maintain integrity wherever fate may call you. Free men have often permitted their bodies to be regimented, but they remained free only so long as their mental liberties were unimpaired. “Because I am your mother and love you I charge you with a higher task than the destruction of Hitler. I charge you to conduct yourself always so that while it may eventually be said of you, ‘He died for his country,’ it could with equal truth have been written—He lived for his country. He loved freedom and human dignity so much that he practiced democracy every day of his life. He shirked no unpleasant task but never willingly committed on

ignoble or cruel deed.

If we are over in far Iceland by

| |

You can't

YEARNING By MONDALENE JOHNSON I am so lonely, oh my dear To forever have you always near Would be a joy, tenderly real That two in love can only feel.

I cherish each moment spent Together in dreams content To know, I now must lose A love that was yours to choose.

DAILY THOUGHT

Unto the pure all things are pure. —Titus 1:15.

RING IN the nobler modes of life ith sweeter manners, purer laws.—

ennyson,

‘Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive re= 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—What percentage of their revenue do American producers of motion pictures receive from abroad? A—In normal times, an estimated 40 per cent was received from foreign countries, but under pres= ent war conditions this revenue has been reduced to approximately 15 per cent because American films have been barred from the screens of approximately 20,500 theaters in invaded countries. Q—Do fish hibernate like bears? A—No; but the cold-water fishes do become more or less dormant during very cold weather, when they feed little or not at all, and are sluggish. Some seek shelter among rocks, vegetation, or other objects in the water; and a few species are said to go into the mud. Q—Which chemical elements burn upon contact with water? : A—Potassium and sodium decompose water ct ordinary temperatures, and the heat evolved jmmediately ignites the hydrogen liberated from the water, These elements burn furiously in water, sometimes with explosive effect, and are dangerous to play witlky They must be kept under mineral oil or a liquid free irom wate,