Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 August 1941 — Page 10

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The Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Business Manager

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«SP RILEY 8381

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MONDAY, AUGUST 11], 1841

CONGRESSMEN ARE WORRIED

THERE seems to be some doubt whether a majority in the House of Representatives will vote “yes” on the pending resolution which declares that “the national interest is imperiled” and authorizes the President to extend the military service of National Guardsmen and selectees. Yet a majority of the Congressmen must believe that the national interest is imperiled. If not, why have they voted 47 billion dollars for armaments? And at a time when war is threatened in two oceans, a majority of the Congressmen must really believe that the safest thing to do is to heed the Army's Chief of Staff, Gen. Marshall, who testified that the demobilization of partly trained men at this time would be too great a risk to the pation’s security. Why do so many Congressmen waver on this vote? Doubtless some of them are hesitant because in the last campaign they imprudently promised their constituents that Willie would be home in a year. But if they vote now to let Willie go home, can they give any assurance that he will be permitted to stay there? As a matter of fact, won't Willie's chances of returning permanently to civilian life be increased if his Congressman votes for measures designed to discourage any enemy from challenging us? We sympathize with the lawmakers. They have no comfortable choice. If they perform the duties which representative government imposes on them, they have to think of things other than the last election and the next. In legislating on questions of preparedness, they have to keep one ear cocked to news from the Steppes of Russia, the other tuned to events along the Burma Road, and both eves fixed on approaches to the Western Hemisphere. The people, we think, will not hold their representatives responsible for conditions beyond their control. But they are entitled to expect that Congressmen will vote according to their conscience and their judgment—and not their election-day jitters—on each question as it arises.

CONSERVATION DIRECTOR

THOSE who had been hoping the new State Conservation Director might be somewhat of an authority in the field, the selection of Hugh A. Barnhart came as a distinct shock. Mr. Barnhart is a pleasant gentleman, and has filled various political offices to the satisfaction of three governors. That, however, does not necessarily qualify him for his new post. In fact, it suggests a political tinge may enter a department that has been reasonably free from the ordinary run of political pressure ever since Col. Richard Lieber took over the department in 1919 and laid the foundation for the fine things we now have. . We may be wrong in our fears. We hope we are. But it seems to us the burden of proof is on Governor Schricker and Mr. Barnhart to demonstrate the contrary.

REQUIRED READING

(From The New York Post) [FRANCIS HACKETT confesses in the introduction to his

book. “What Mein Kampf Means to America,” that until

last year he hadn't read Hitler's 1000-page kidnap-warning to the world. Yet the author estimates, no doubt correctly, that he's one year up on about 99 out of every 100 Americans. We all know this much about “Mein Kampf”: That the Germans, the Central Europeans, the Norwegians, the French, the British and the Russians were suicidally foolish not to read the book sooner and not to take it with dead seriousness. For in it Hitler printed much more than his schedule for military assassination. He also revealed the tricks, lies, double-crosses and ruthlessness he intended to employ. Americans see ana are scornful of the other nations’ mistake. We shouldn't scoff, however, until we've read “Mein Kampf” ourselves, because, as Mr. Hackett makes perfectly clear, the United States is next on the list. It's the complete antidote to the poisonous notion that, if worse comes to worse, we shall get along with Naziism. “ ‘Mein Kampf’ is not literature,” says Mr. Hackett, “any more than a gun in your face is literature. It is action. Once you read it, you realize that a politica! choice is thrust on you, as a matter of life and death. ‘Mein Kampf’ marks the Great Divide as nothing else in the world does. ... We can only make lasting terms with Hitler on the ground that we are licked and that democracy is finished. Almost all the current domestic news is related to the Hitler menace. We are giving up automobiles, aluminum and refrigerators, building an Army and a gigantic Navy, training air-raid wardens and straining our economy to the limit of its capacity—all for the sake of opposition to the set of ideas, the program, which Hitler wrote down. “Mein Kampf” is the clearest insight into the Nazi threat; the Nazi threat is the dominant factor in our daily lives. “Mein Kampf” is therefore the one indispensable book.

AGAIN, FREE MAIL

ECENTLY we mentioned that in a single year the use (and abuse) of the franking privilege by Congress represented a cost of $745,992. Now comes Rep. John W. Boehne Jr. of Indiana. Calling the attention of the House to our remarks, he retorts that in the same year the loss to the Postoffice Department resulting from the low rate on second-class mail was $85,000,000, of which he said $26,000,000 was attributable to use of this low rate by daily newspapers. 0. K.. Mr. Boehne. But you might have gone further. You might have mentioned that this newspaper is long since on record urging Congress to abolish this subsidy to ‘newspapers and magazines. Why don’t you go ahead and ‘do something about it, Mr. Boehne? We'll back you.

Price in Marion Coun-'

By Westbrook Pegler

Suspecting That Arnold Is Being Used and There's Really No Desire To Punish Unions for lllegal Acts.

"EW YORK, Aug. 11.—First placing a clothespin on your nose to shut out the fumes of a very corrupt condition, suppose you approach from a new angle the subject of union activities, particularly in war jobs, and the toleration of this activity by the national Government. I am beginning to suspect that the activ ities of Thurman Arnold, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the anti-trust division, are devised to take the heat off the Administration, with the net result that his activities consolidate the position of those who have established by terror an absolute power and a taxing authority over seven or eight million American workers and over a large portion of Amerjcan industry. This may sound or smell sensational, but give me those dice and give me room and I will make my point. I do not suggest that Mr. Arnold is faking. But, I suspect that he is the fall-guy for the Administra tion because, obviously, with the present Supreme Court and especially under the Frankfurter opinion in the memorable case of the carpenters’ union, he just can’t win, Arnold is a fussy, nervous man who burns up a lot of energy preparing cases against predatory unioneers who blockade not merely war projects but whole cities and states with their tariffs, exclusion acts and co-operative conspiracies against certain products. 2 ” 8 3

UR very Constitution forbids interstate tariffs, but unions are not sovereign states and have no legal substance. They are a great invisible government, superior to the laws, the states and the national Constitution and they do impose prohibitive interstate tariffs. Their treasuries are subject to no taxation by either the Federal or State Governments. Mr. Arnold will tell you all about that and you surely won't doubt his word when you realize that he is an appointee and member of the New Deal and a believer in its general philosophy. But they set a job to do and he is trying to do it. But the catch in the situation is that they knew it was an impossible job. Now, we certainly know that nobody of any importance in this Administration will lift a hand against the unions, even though they be in the wrong. Mrs. Roosevelt even went before a strike meeting of a union in New York, escorted by Miss Rose Schneider man, secretary of the State Department of Labor, and exhorted all American workers to join unions, unconditionally. She didn't propose that unions reform their ways or even that they refrain from mob violence which is a premonition of every civil war— and members of this very union in this very strike had attacked the authority of governtuent by mobbing the police in the streets and were under indictment then. After Mrs. Roosevelt's address, Miss Schneiderman went out on the picket line,

OOK back over the record. Do you find any prosecutions of Communists for calling strikes on defense projects during the period before Hitler's attack on Russia when the Communists were helping Hitler and Stalin by sabotaging the American war effort? You will find no disposition by this Government to punish Communists for this. And, although you will find some Arnold prosecutions under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, against unions of the A. F. of L., you will also find that Arnold gave up in despair after Felix Frankfurter wrote a majority opinion of the Supreme Court in the carpenters’ case.

Arnold wrote an official communication recently in which he described a certain boycott of an urgent aviation defense job by the notorious Chicago crook, Mike Boyle, of the electricians, as “one of the most vicious bottlenecks in the national defense effort.” He added hopelessly that “action by the anti-trust division is precluded by the recent decision of the Supreme Court” in the carpenters’ case. So here we have Arnold cracking down on crooks, Communists and other enemies of the American common man with nothing but a buffoon’s bladder and the unions yelling, “Thurman, you hurt so funny,” and the national Government pretending that this represents an honest effort and the Supreme Court sits there waiting to turn the rascals loose.

Business By John T. Flynn

Price Control Harms Capitalism, But Business Was First Offender

EW YORK, Aug. 11.—One powerful argument made against Government control of prices is that any such attempt tends to break down the capitalist economic system, That is a good argument. The control of prices either in the interest of high prices or low prices is murder to capitalism. A flexible price system is essential not merely as an instrument of automatic control but as an instrument of adjusting constantly changing conditions to the processes of production. But when we say this we must keep in mind that this price-fix-ing and control is murderous whether it is attempted by the

Government or by business groups.

themselves. And for the last 60 years the whole tendency of our business world has been ever more and more toward the attempt to fix and control prices by business organizations in the interests of profits. That is a thing that plays a larger part in producing depressions than any other one force. And so we can admit the argument that price control is destructive of the existing economic system. But at the present time that system is already thrown almost completely out of balance by innumerable other intrusions of the Government and individuals. At the moment the most corrupting of all the intrusive forces is the pumping of vast streams of artificial purchasing power into the system by the Government. os 8 2

NOTHER destructive force is the rise of the Government as the one big customer of the capitalgoods industries and, along with that, the exertion of the Government's purchasing power in a spirit of frantic haste. This leads to such things as priorities— legal and extra-legal—the withdrawal from the ranks of labor of thousands of men for military purposes, the creation of a very severe exhaustion of labor in the skilled ranks. All this sets in motion a collection of other forces which upsets the whole applecart of the economic system. Its normal and natural controls are all paralyzed. Nething will prevent it from rune ning completely amok. And therefore it becomes necessary to resort to still further controls. All these controls are bad, destructive. But having produced a group of evil effects by the first line of controls it is impossible to avoid others to offset the bad effects of the first. And the unhappy episode will rock along from control to control to the final disaster. Price control is not defensible in the capitalist sys{em. But the Government should, in ordinary times, exert its power, not to control prices itself, but to prevent monopolies or monopolisic groups from exercising these controls. Where the monopoly cannot be destroyed then the Government must have the last word on price. But these are not ordinary times. We do not choose between the wise course and the unwise one. We are confronted with the evil effects of an unwise policy, and the choice is no longer open to us. The job is to mitigate as far as possible the bad consequences of our present policies. And under these circumstances price control becomes necessary.

So They Say—

WHATEVER MAY be in store for us, you can count on the people. They will not fail us—U. 8. District Judge George A. Welsh, Philadelphia, after a

600-mile bicycle tour,

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The Hoosier Forum

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

RAVENSWOOD RESIDENT EXPRESSES THANKS

By Louis Bowman, Ravenswood

Being a businessman and permanent resident of Ravenswood, I wish to take this opportunity of showing my appreciation to The Indianapolis Times and particularly your reporter, Richard Lewis, for the very nice “write-up” you gave our town in the Thursday night edition of The Times. The story really did justice to our community and we all appreciate this compliment paid to us by The Indianapolis Times.

s 8 2

OFFERS COMMENT ON TECHNIQUE OF FRIENDSHIP By Willis M. Rexford, 2107 N. Delaware St.

(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.)

in

that they can appreciate, even if it is only a kind word. . . . Don't neglect your old friends, for some friendships do perish from just that: Simple neglect. . There are three branches of study that are essential to skill in making new friends and keeping old ones. They are language, biography, and geography. The first requirement in the

If, as Bruce Barton says, writers

{are God's stenographers, then there (is an urgent call for me to take

nique of friendship, for I have been | having an inner voice tell me to]

study of language is a good knowledge of grammar, for grammar is a subject that is almost the same in any language. . . . You. can study biography with anyone. Just ask them to tell you something about their history, and

pensate in a manner for higher Federal taxes. Unless there is waste in community administration, it is a big mistake to cut into its ability to function as it should.

The American way of life begins in the home and in the community. It is only there that democracy is a fact. It is only there that social gains can be accomplished, where the strong can carry the weak, the individual have his equal voice in his struggle for social gains, and it is there where evil can be uprooted if the people have the will. Honest local and State Government is worth its cost and we should not, and dare not, shirk its responsibility.

Mr. Morgenthau admits that nondefense expenditures can be cut one billion dollars. It has been developed in Congressional hearings, without denial, that they can be cut 2i% billion dollars, and every community and every State in the Union should insist on that cut. The most important thing now, of course, is to defend the land that shelters American community life. We can watch, but there is

Gen. Johnson

write it for several days. The news| if they are obliging at all they will

broadcasts of military battles and|be .glad to give you some idea of industrial strikes, and picketing and | how they got to be the way they

strike-breaking are plentiful evi-| dence that the world is in desperate need of instruction in the technique of friendship. . . . Friendship is that condition of] human relationships which is characterized by ability to get acquainted, and the absence of any| acts that can be considered as hos-| tile acts. Some persons have made a great deal of headway in mastering the! technique of friendship. You can think of persons who by their appearance and actions actually radi= ate friendship. One prominent movie actress comes to mind as I write. Many other persons who are less famous have acquired the friendly glow, too, and you have seen others who have acquired the opposite kind of an appearance, to their continuous detriment, Just as war does not take a holiday on Sunday, you must realize that you can never take a holiday in your friendship activities. It's a 2¢4-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week task. Any possible thing that you can do that will add to the comfort and happiness of anyone, whether it is writing a letter and getting it in the mailbox, or giving a pair of stockings to a beautiful chorus girl, is a boost to friendship and a knock to enmity. To win the liking of persons . . .

ship: . . .

are. ... Almost everyone has studied geography to some extent in school, but usually this study comes at too early an age for the student to understand or appreciate the purpose of the investigations. . . . Whatever you do, don't treat anyone with contempt, or, in a word, insult them, for that is the quickest possible way to destroy friend-

2 ” s OPPOSES SACRIFICE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT" By Voice in the Crowd, Indianapolis Continually following the line of least resistance will disrupt our national well-being as completely and as quickly as subversive movements can do it. Continually giving in without complaint to the whims of Federal administrators will lead us into centralized government and destroy home rule, and the only democracy that we have, which is in community government. Instead of bettling= beside our Representatives and Senators in Washington to compel lower non‘defense expenditures, there are movements on foot by civic bodies to cut the cost of local government

you should give them something

so that lower local taxes can com-

Side Glances — By Galbraith

"I squander a year's savings to

of their country, and_all they do is read the funnies!"

4

show the children the wonders

no time to quibble about its cost. However, if we sacrifice local and State administration to save taxes, we will have failed to defend the homes of the “free and the brave.” We will have to sacrifice, but so did the people of 1776. They fought for home rule, I wonder if we can save it.

” ” ” DOUBTS PROMINENT SONS SERVING AS PRIVATES . By Past Commander, American Legion I think the publication of Jane Decker's letter without your even

anent the status of the list of alfamous men, is about the most un-

done. . . .

Don't you think it only fair to all persons listed that you should check the army status of the Hughes, Pershing, Ford and Rockefeller soldiers and if her statements are inaccurate not to publish them? It's hard to believe that Gen. Pershing’s son is a buck private, not only because of the “pull” he enJoys, but because, if I am not badly mistaken, he is beyond the draft age. As for all this molly-coddling of the draftees our jelly-spined Senators, Congressmen, mothers, fathers, et al, are giving them it is only making it embarrassing for the men in uniform. ® #2 nn FEARS UNITY DOOMED IF DRAFT IS EXTENDED By C. E. W., Indianapolis If the Government breaks faith with our boys who were drafted last year for a year’s training and detains them longer than one year the boys and the people will lose all confidence in the Government and there will be no hope of national unity. . . .. o 2 »

REJOICES THAT U. S. WILL HELP RUSSIA By Hiram Lackey 1807 N. Pennsylvania St. It is a joy to see hate and prejudice laid aside in our decision

to help Russia. This is real progress, something worth dying for. ...

SOUVENIR By VERNE S. MOORE

Roses rioted everywhere In a garden nook. Carelessly, you plucked a spray Of pastel, scented bloom, Then, lightly, as I turned away Bestowed it as a gift from you. I folded it so tenderly In a cherished book. Now, no costly flower, However fine or rare, Is half so lovely as the one I keep.

DAILY THOUGHT

It is not good that man should be alone—Genesis 2:18,

LJ f J 8 HE TRAVELS the fastest who

travels alone.~Kipling.

'R

so much as checking her statements|§ leged buck privates who are sons of |}

fair thing your department has ever .

te

What Are Pleasure Cars, Anyway? Asking Users to. Curtail Gasoline By a Third Seems Rather Absurd

ASHINGTON, Aug. 11.—The present haphazard '¥ helter-skelter unplanned method of cutting gasoline consumption in the Eastern part: of the United States either isn't ‘going to ‘work or itis going to‘raise unnecessary and unshirted hell with business, em- : ployment and the domestic and economic life of a large part of our population. BY A voluntary pledge to cut each citizen's * consumption of gas by one-third and the alternative uni= ' versal threat .to ration the use of gas by “pleasure automobiles” to five gallons a week are equally silly. : In. the first place, there are precious few people who: know what their. actual consumption of gas has been. It varies with sea- : sons and occasions. A pledge of that sort is to perform a mathematical operation on an_ unknown quantity. It is so absurd as to give an clement of unreality to the whole effort. If I pledge myself to do something which can't be defined, I am either a careless promiser or an irresponsible ‘citizen, In the second place, what is a “pleasure automobile?” Millions of American workers travel to their jobs at plents located far from their homes in automobiles of styles varying from coffe-mill jallopies to more recent acquisitions. This condition is intrinsic in the revolution in our economic system and terri= torial redistribution of homes and factories created by the automobile itself. These cars, after transporting the man power of our industrial effort remain parked and idle during the working day—and they go home again in the evening. Are they “pleasure cars,” or a necessary part of our industrial system?

2 2 o

HEN I entered the farm-implement industry in 1919 it was an axiom proved by experience and study that a farmer could not go more than seven miles for his repairs. Spare parts or implements and their instant availability and complete inter-change= ability are necessary to a modern mechanized agri culture. You can’t let a whole harvest spoil because a gear on a header-thresher has gone haywire. So repair depots were pretty accurately located on: a seven-mile radius. When I left the industry in 1926, and due to the automobile, that radius had extended to 30 miles, The whole farm industry is geared to the use of little cars. Are they “pleasure automobiles,” even though they are sometimes used to go to the movies? And which of these can cut their consumption one« third regardless of season and pressure of work? And can any of them perform their functions on five gallons of gas a week? You can’t apply such cast iron rules without chaos. Gas consumption depends on the age and quality of the car, the infinite variety of dis= tances involved in its daily use for purposes sometimes not pleasureable at all, the difference between busy and slack seasons and a hundred other cone trolling circumstances too numerous to discuss.

" o s

® HERE is a way to do what is sought—and more. You can accomplish almost anything in this country by universal voluntary effort. But it requires five things (1) You must “sell” your proposition by a full and frank disclosure of facts and figures proving necessity; (2) you must have a supporting voluntary, crusading uncompensated organization of leading citizens in every locality... (3) what you ask must be in common-sense flexibility for the infinite variety of needs; (4) you must have inspirational leadership, and (5) not, to mince words, you must prepare the ground by perfectly conditioned ballyhoo. I know something about this. I was part of an organization that sold a reluctant country the first conscription in our history to a point of enthusiastic, crusading, universal compliance. I was part of an=other that plastered the.Blue Eagle and its sacrificial rules over 97'2 per cent of American establishments subject to its statute to a re-employment of nearly 3,000,000 people and an increase of more than $3,000,« 000,000 in payrolls. Both efforts were completed in six weeks’ time, but both were carefully planned in every detail in ad« vance. Both answered every one of the five require« ments stated in the paragraph above. This petroleum effort meets none of these tests. It is another blun« dering, bungling shot in the dark.

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 stocking situation is shocking. One newspas per tells of a woman who went out and bought herself $54 worth—which means that lots of working girls may have to do without. Harriet Elliott, head of OPM’S Consumer Division, appeals to American women to ree sist this perfectly natural urge to “lay in a supply,” and we'd better take heed; because democracy functions only in a system where those who are rich are willing to share goods with those who are poor. And we needn't expect the manufacturers or merchants to be noble about this—they’re going to take the money when it's offered, just as you and I would if we were in their shoes. This time it's up to the cuse tomer. William Shirer, home after years in Berlin, says American women will probably have to imitate German women and go barelegged. This presents difficult decisions. And right away we're stumped. Where should the available supply of hose rightly be placed —on the legs of young or old women? One minute I find myself leaning to this side, and the next I swerve sharply to the other. From an esthetic point of view, young legs are prettier and therefore when bare do not so much offend our sensibilities. On the other hand if stockings do add anything to feminine charm —and we've been led to think so—ther. by rights the girls should get the breaks. The woman who has already caught her man must be bighearted enough to let the one who hasn't trot around in silk or nylon stockings, in case there are any left. Of course I've seen a good many girls who didn’t look any too alluring in ankle socks—but if all the fat women with varicose veins have to come to them, I certainly pray that short skirts will go out, and take this darned war with ‘em. ,

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive vee 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—Is it a Constitutional or merely a statutory ree quirement that the Chief Justice must administer the oath to an in-coming President? A—The Constitution does not state by whom the inaugural oath shall be administered, and there is no statutory provision. Courtesy has given that privilege to the Chief Justice of the United States. Washing= ton at his two inaugurals, Tyler, Fillmore, Theodore Roosevelt and Coolidge are the only exceptions. Arthur had the oath administered by a Supreme Couft Justice of New York, but it was publicly pere formed later by the Chief Justice of the U, S. in & ceremony on the floor of the U. S. Senate. Q—What was the first opera to be broadcast in its entirety by the Metropolitan Opera Company? A—Humperdinck’s “Haensel und Gretel,” on Deg, 25, 1931, over NBC. Q—What is a remuda? A—TIt is a Spanish-American name for a group of saddle-horses from which are to be selected those be used for the day. Q—Does the colony established in Matanuska Vale", ley, Alaska, still exist? .

A—Yes, and there are about "150 families in the colony. :