Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 August 1941 — Page 10

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FARM GRAB PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT is generally expected to veto the latest farm grab. He may have done so before the printer's ink on this editorial is dry. It is almost inconceivable that he should approve it. The bill, passed by both House and Senate, would do two things: 1. It would permit farmers who planted in excess of their allotment to use the grain from these extra acres for feed and seed—without the 49-cents-a-bushel penalty now applicable. In other words, the wheat farmer could eat his cake and have it; he could receive Government benefit payments for restricting his crop, and at the same time profit by not restricting his crop. 2. It would forbid the Commodity Credit Corp. to sell any of the 6,000,000 bales of cotton, or any of the 200,000,000 bushels of wheat, that it has acquired as security for loans to the farmers. If that happens, the Government might as well burn its cotton and wheat and be done with it. Secretary of Agriculture Wickard has attacked both proposals. He has pointed out that the farmers’ income is the highest in 11 years, and that cotton and wheat farmers are assured of a parity price on their 1941 production. And he has warned them not to lay too heavy a hand on the goose that lays their golden eggs. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau has. called the bill vicious. Administrator Henderson has said that it would promote inflation. Hence our assumption that the President will say no. But the fact that this grab is being attempted is evidence that the defense emergency is not going to interrupt the politicians’ quest for boodle for their constituents.

MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 1941

HCL, ALIAS LLS

EARLY every week the defense spending figure is revised upward. Already Congress has authorized or appropriated around 50 billion dollars. And on top of this, in the wake of the Roosevelt-Churchill conference, there is talk of asking Congress for another 6, 7 or 10 billions for lend-lease. Inevitably the grand total will continue to grow. We are undertaking not only to equip our own expanding Army and Navy, but also to help supply the legions of Britain, China, the Dutch Indies and lately the U. S. S. R. We are spreading our effort over both hemispheres, on both sides of the equator, into all the continents and all the seas. : : This policy was inaugurated by the President, with the consent of Congress after long debate. It is now the nation’s policy. One consideration in carrying out this national program is the painful question: How will we pay the cost? The revenue hill as passed by the House would yield $3,200,000,000, a woefully inadequate sum. It would leave a deficit of 10 or 12 billions this fiscal year, and the prospect of running more than 20 billions in the red next year. Unless the Senate measurably expands and strengthens this tax program the American people will have to pay twice for all these defense outlays. They will pay the first time in rising prices and living costs, which always accompany inflationary Government spending. They will pay a second time when the borrowed billions are added to the public debt and the sum total becomes a first mortagage on all future tax collections. That was how we “financed” World War I—and we were still paying for it when we got into this mess. $ = * 2 2 = 4 A LTHOUGH taxes on rank-and-file citizens have been increased only slightly, all of us already have started making the invisible first payment of World War II. Living costs have risen 6 per cent since the war started—and the rise is gaining momentum. The upward trend in costs of food, clothing, rent and other necessities will continue in almost direct ratio to the borrowed billions which the Government pumps into the purchase-power stream. In that last great madness we oversimplified the problem, called it the higher cost of living, referred to it familiarly as HCL. And that’s what it means to those fortunate enough to get better wages, salaries or profits with which to meet the greater costs. But to those not so fortunate— millions among us—it is more accurate to refer to this phenomenon as LLS, lower living standards. It would be a bold Congressman indeed who would suggest, as a part of a pay-as-we-go policy, a flat and visible tax of 6 per cent on the gross incomes of all the people. Yet that is what the 6 per cent rise in living costs has meant to most Americans, whose incomes are no more than enough to live on, And a curse of this hidden exaction of HCL or LLS is that, though the people are paying it, the Government isn’t getting it. It will take more courage to pay the defense bills by hard and visible taxation, but it will be better in the long run. And by the way, while more billions in revenue are called for, Congress ought not forget that a billion saved on non-essential, non-defense spending will buy just as many bombers and warships as the same amount raised by

taxation.

FRANTICER AND URGENTER

THESE are days when it is necessary to get things done, and to speed things along, many devices are tried. The Civil Service Commission in Washington, for instance, devised stickers to attach to letters or memos requiring special attention. “Urgent!” they read. Rearmament came, and the labels became “Very Urgent!” But soon that became commonplace, and was replaced by “Urgent—-Today!” But so adaptable is man that soon no attention was paid, and important papers of the Commission now bear the legend in screaming letters: “Frantic—Urgent!” Now, 2s things get franticer and urgenter, the Civil Service Commission would seem to have no place to go but “PFeverish—Explosive!” and then, having passed the limits, back to just “Important,” a

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Sending

Far East Crisis By Ludwell Denny

Sees Danger of American Break With Japan in Next Fortnight, Following Our Aid to Russia.

ASHINGTON, Aug. 18.—The danger of Ameri-can-Japanese war is expected to rise to a new high within a fortnight, because of Nazi advances in Russia and the arrival of American military aid for. Siberian forces opposite Japan. ; : Unelss Japan acts before American aid compensates for Siberian supplies sent to the European front, an effective Russia will be added to the American-British-Dutch-Chinese defense alliance against Japanese aggression. Vladivostok bombers, less than 700 miles from Tokio, are the only air force within immediate striking distance of Japan. The Japanese. are even more concerned over this issue of American aid to than over the sweeping Anglo-American-Dutch economic sanctions. The former will have a quick effect in providing a potential joint American-Russian base; while the effect of the antiJapanese embargo is cushioned by Japanese reserves of foreign oil and other materials.

Despite the near-future storm warnings, however, events of the last three days have produced a temporary lull. These developments include: ” 2 =

HE Roosevelt-Churchill conference and joint declaration, followed by additional British sanctions against Japan and the conference letter to Stalin.

Attempted assassination by a Black Dragon Society agent of Baron Hiranuma, strong man of the moderate minority group in the Army-Navy cabinet; and hostile public reaction to this terrorism.

Arrival of heavy British reinforcements on the Malayan and Burman borders of Thailand, countering the Japanese concentration of Indo-China,

A slight stiffening of Bangkok resistance to thé Japanese plan for a “peaceful and legal protective occupation” of Thailand, a la the cheap conquest of Indo-China with Vichy consent.

« Bad weather, slowing down the Japanese troops on the Thailand line, Even though recurring crises have been coming progressively faster and grimmer, and the next is expected to be the worst ever, Anglo-American strategists are in much more confident mood. Both sides recognize that Japan is rapidly losing her initial mili-tary-naval advantage, if she has not already lost it; and that every week multiplies the defensive strength of what Tokio calls “The ABCD”—America, Britain, China, Dutch Indies. Paradoxically, this factor explains both the hope and the fear in the situation. Hope that Japan will see that the balance is too strong against her to risk the gamble of a war of annihilation. Fear that the sheer desperation of her Harakiri militarists, and the face-saving desire so basic in Japanese character, may speed the disaster. =

O meet this strangely contradictory crisis the Roosevelt-Churchill conference confronted Japan with both a threat of war and an opening for peace. The former was in the new British sanctions, the increased American aid to Vladivostok, and the conference letter to Stalin. The latter was in the Roose-velt-Churchill pointed failure to name Japanese tyrrany, along with Nazi, as something which must be destroyed before peace is possible.

Evidence that this got under the hide is clear from the shrill reaction of the powerful Nichi Nichi, which says: “This is a highhanded attempt by Roosevelt and Churchill to divide public opinion throughout Japan, to overthrow the Japanese Government, and to prevent Japan from having a strong government. It was crafty diplomacy to avoid mention of the Far East. But we should not be misled because that would disunite us, weaken our morale and possibly estrange us from Germany and Italy.”

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Business By John T. Flynn

President Wise in Urging Wallace To Increase Our Farm Production.

EW YORK, Aug. 18.—The President has wisely said in a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture that we need not only abundant production for ourselves and other nations resisting aggression but we need also reserves to meet emergencies not foreseen. If the history of the last 25 years teaches us anything it is that one of the greatest mistakes any nation can make is to seek to limit the production of wealth— including food or any other kind of wealth. During the last 25 years nearly every country in the world—certainly in this hemisphere—has experimented with the problem of what it has called, wrongly, overproduction. In British Malay, in Germany, in half a dozen industrial ereas, in France, in Holland (particularly in its sugar investments in Java), in Brazil, in Chile, and here in America in all our great agricultural crops, as well as in copper and other commodities, all sorts of organizations, bureaus, devices, public and private, have been set up to limit production on the theory that the world could not buy all that was being turned out. And probably the greatest experiment irf the abolition of this same abundance the President speaks of was that carried on by this Government. Incidentally it is still carried on. In the last 20 years I have been present at scores of industrial gatherings and I do not think I ever went to one where the assembled executives did not weep salt tears over what they called “excess plant capacity.” 8 ” s OWHERE did this sad experiment take on a more tragic form than in Italy, where industrialists and their political allies—Mr. Mussolini, for one— were incessantly worried about “over-production” in one of the poorest countries in the world—a country where production could have been doubled without giving the Italian what he required. We succeeded here in limiting production in many fields. We completely lost sight of the fact that nations do not run through perpetually calm seas; that moments come when there must be plant capacity capable of stepping up production swiftly. Here I could name a dozen industrial fields where plant capacity has been rigidly curtailed and where that limitation is now playing havoc with the effort to increase production. . We were talking only a few years ago about plowing under cotton, destroying wheat, pork. Now we are talking about increasing the production of all these things. The truth is—and this is a fundamental fact— that a nation is rich in proportion to the amount of wealth it possesses and produces, and that to curtail production of wealth is to cut down on a nation’s riches and its well-being. Worst of all is to cut down on its producing machinery as a remedy for the false problem of overproductiom. We are paying heavily in many directions for that policy—both private and public policy. :

THESE are hard times for a writer to find anything to write about because the world is changing 80 fast that any contemporary subject is likely to be

outdated by the time it is published.—John- P, Marquand, novelist. ; ®

NOW THE TIME has come when the words “all men” can have genuine and useful meaning —Alexander Meiklejohn, former Wisconsin educator.

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IN THE CLUBS in Havana you can take your wife, but yo pe Shad. else’s wife—Juan Squeta, vana businessmah, explaining why King

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The Hoosier Forum

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

DENIES DRAFT ACT FOOLED MOTHERS By Mrs. J. C.. Indianapolis Mothers in general were not fooled by the Selective Service Act. They feit from the beginning that it did not mean exactly what they were told it did. Most of the mothers of these boys remember the last war and the friends and brothers who left never to return. They remember the ‘“Heatless Mondays and the Wheatless Tuesdays.” Most of our Selective Service boys were babies then and their

parents were hard pressed how to keep them well nourished and at the same time buy Liberty Bonds and stamps. The pity of it is we are asked to go through the same thing again in one short generation. It does seem those in authority might at least be a little more frank about what they are aiming to do, because they aren't fooling anyone but themselves.

We know they are in favor of war and are preparing for it. They have now decided to keep the first boys for at least 2% years, and they are sending more as fast as possible. At the end of 214 years how many do you think will be in service and how is the rest of the population to support this program? Nobody seems to consider that,

#2 & =» DOUBTS THE NATION

IS PREPARED FOR WAR By Edward F. Maddox, 959 W. 28th St.

Somebody must tell the American people the truth. There are too many lies, too much hypocrisy, too much “campaign oratory” and too much raw propaganda being spewed and broadcast around in this country. We have been maneuvered, pushed, tricked and duped to, as Mr. Churchill said: “the verge of war.” We are not prepared for war, neither spiritually, mentally nor materially. Great effort has been made to scare our people into war. Fear of some vague crisis, invasion of England, or invasion of South America or even of our own Continent has been dinned in our ears continually. : . « . For the last eight years American patriotism has been sneered at —“patrioteers,” “tin soldiers,” “merchants of death,” “Cossacks” and many other favorite Communist epithets have been hurled at Amer-

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

views in

troversies

ican patriots, American soldiers, American munitions manufacturers and any and all advocates of real Americanism and strong national defense. Even the American Legion was attacked as a Fascist organization and the Dies Committee was hounded for revealing subversive activities. No wonder the American people are “apathetic.” It has been drilled and dinned into them for eight long years. . « « Add to that the fact that we have not forgotten our recent experience in the World War and our natural aversion to be drawn into other people’s wars and you have the answer to our state of mind. I heard a radio commentator say: “Somebody ought to scare the daylights out of the American people.” Well, fight if they can avoid it. The fire of 6 has burned pretty low. ® 8 =u DENIES PEOPLE OPPOSED WAR DECLARATION IN °17

By Robin Adair, Indianapolis I was interested in Mr. Clay’s statement that the people’s election of Wilson in 1916 showed that they were “overwhelmingly against war.” Does he forget that the election in question was so close that Wilson went to bed on election night believing that he had been defeated, and that it was only the last-minute returns from California that settled the issue? It demonstrated that public opinion was in : state of flux, and it was the further flagrant violation of international decency on the part oi Germany during the next few weeks that swung public opinion to favor the war declaration. Yes, Mr. Clay, I remember that election, but do you remember Senator Norris’ return to his home state in disgrace after voting against the war declaration? Surely this reception given one of America’s greatest statesmen did not indicate opposition to our war entrance. The statement that 90 per cent

Side Glances=By Galbraith

COPR. 1941 BY NEA SERVICE. INC. T. M. REQ. U. 8. PAT. OFF. _

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I won't be bullied into buying any more—$1.30 worth of

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of our people are against war is an understatement. I would say that 100 per cent of the American people cppose war. They are also 100 per cent opposed to measles, forest fires, auto accidents and floods. But the fact remains that these are all phenomena that must be faced. Some day, we pray, the world will be free of all of them. Until that time measures must be taken to combat them and to strike at their causes. In the case of war it is Hitler who has broken the peace. Whether we go to war or not, what peace can free Americans know as long as the rest of the world is held in bondage beneath the iron heel of Hitler's war machine!

E-4 ” EJ THINKS LEGION LEADER MISSED THE POINT By Jane Decker, 108 E. 13th St. Replying to the letter printed in the Hoosier Forum by a Past Commander, American Legion, criticizing the editor of The Times for not checking my statement regarding the posts occupied by members of prominent American families now in the Armed Service, I am afraid he missed the most important point in my comparison. We are accustomed to standing by

for wealth or position in our ordinary social life, but it seems to me, in such times of extreme danger to our very existence as a Nation, our Army is one of our most important functions.

orders in battle with no training to fit him for such a task? It is possible to read and hear stories daily of the amount of politics in our Army at the present time. Surely, a Past Commander of the American Legion can understand the danger of this, and the need of advancement in the Army on merit only.

” $ 8

MOTORIST TIRED OF RIDING THE BUMPS

By Your Constant Bumper and Bouncer, Indianapolis

I don’t know where the tax money goes. But I do know that it does not go to fill in the chuck-holes of the city streets. Sometimes if I am going, say, 25 miles per hour and have to stop at a red light my light car bumps so that I stop partly sideways. And always and anywhere it is bump-bump-bump in rather fast tempo. This week I had to replace a steering-column housing caused by constant vibration. The evening-for-pleasure riders and Sunday afternoon fresh-air-and-scenery spinners don’t get enough of it to really know what if is. But just ask anyone who has to drive 50 to 75 miles per day over Indianapolis streets. I really believe I could close my eyes and tell the difference between Indianapolis streets and the streets of several other cities I have visited. Here’s to filling in the holes and cutting off the bumps! Why spend all the tax money in places where we can’t see the good we get out of it

LIFE

By VERNE MOORE No fleeting mood has ever known More than a glimpse of life’s long score, : Nor may a reckoning be shown Of myriad aspects that it bore;

For as the sun in its extent Gives every phase of day and night, Tints dawn and dusk and that moment Is blazing forth its zenith light;

So we progressing still decline Despairing still show fortitudes And shape our order of design From medley of a million moods.

DAILY THOUGHT

Godliness is profitable unto all things. —I Timothy 4:8. 8 2 2 FOR GOD rewards good deeds done here below—rewards them

How is a Roosevelt, or|§ any other officer in the Army to give|

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MONDAY, AUG. 18, 1047 Gen. Johnson Says—

Finds Discontent Growing in MidWest Over Shortage of Materials And Failure to Land Defense Plants.

HICAGO, -Aug. 18.—There is a growing feeling through much of the Middle West that it is in for an economic drubbing. It is going to have to pay its share of terrific expenditure. It is getting nowhere near its share in their distribution. ; Its principal industry, which is agriculture, is looking forward te no particular hey-day, because, for the present at least, there is not enough shipping t@ export great quantities of its surplus in bulk and its domestic market is not expected to increase greatly, because of deliberate Government policies to restrict consumer pur- ) chasing power. : 3 Its small ifidustries are already beginning to feel the pinch of the / priorities system.‘ Most “of ‘them Pe can’t get priorities because few’of them have defense orders.’ If you can’t’ get priorities you can’t get material-—and so you have first to slow down and thus to close up and lay off :your workers. Thus, this area is in large part in dahger of great distress and it is beginning to realize that. Much of it can’t be helped. Indeed ‘the Goverhe ment has tried hard to locate defense’ industries in part of this section and some mammoth munitions plants are in course of erection in places that neyer dreamed of having such giant plants, g ” 2” 2.

HE influence of OPM, Madame Elliott and probably Mrs. Roosevelt has been strong in over-rid-ing both the industrial OPMers and the technical armament services in locating plants for sociological reasons rather than convenience and efficiency. Their view may prove the wiser in the end, but it did little more for the bulk of the Middle West than to extend the Great Lakes and Ohio industrial area. It isn’t pleasant to contemplate the several areas of irritation and resentment that are possibly being created—or the extent of them. One group is among soldiers and their families who feel that somehow an injustice or a trick was put upon them in increas= ing their terms of service. Others, not yet too ap=parent, but obviously appearing are farmers, and small businessmen for reasons already stated. As and if unemployment due to priorities and material shortage grows, you can add millions of workers as ane other possible group. The various plans now advocated by some in Gove ernment to reduce consumer purchasing power, if they prove as drastic as they threaten to be, will irritate millions in all classes. Add to these the great

{ regional discontents already mentioned and it is a

formidable array.

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UCH of it is probably unavoidable if we are to become the arsenal and the larder of the world, Some of it, like the resentment of soldiers is a pres=

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ent necessity which creates irritation by reason of a #

past mistake—the lack of frankness in passing much vital legislation. Some of the regional irritation could be soothed by a far greater and wider farming out of defense cone tracts and an even wider distribution of plants. The priorities system could be far more intelli= gently applied to ration supplies in fair division be= tween civilian and military needs, favoring the former but not disregarding the latter. The whole situation would be greatly relieved for farmers and everybody else if a system of all-over price control were adopted in place of a system to confiscate purchasing power. The people should be able to buy as much rather than as little as can be contrived. With this would have to go some kind of rationing system of shortage items, but it is the only proved fair method. The Administration has a duty to reduce these growing areas of dissatisfaction as much as possible rather than to multiply them. We must not risk war with our people unnecessarily sore and disunited,

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 Man Next Door is a cynic—and you know the I real definition of a cynic—and you know the sharp tongue and a soft heart.

The description fits him to a T. But when that |

man loosens up his tongue on the subject of feminine failings I can feel myself shrinking into a mere electron, which is some feat for a tall and stoutish person. “Well, what’s your present opinion of females?” That is his opening gun, and before I have time to explain, protest or apolo« gize he’s off like Whirlaway on sn open track: > “The sex is hysterical by na« ture, but I never thought I'd see them keyed to such an emotional pitch, When I was a little bey I was always being ordered to fetch the smelling salts for one of them who had swooned or gone into a weeping fit, and I used to wonder what ailed them, Now I only wish I could hear them cry again. They've gone raucous on us. They screech. They behave like Grandpa’s hens when the chicken-hawk alarm sounded in our: barne yard. Cackle, flutter dash! They bumped into fences, feathers flew in all directions. The place was a beds lam. “Isn't the comparison apt? You admit it. Don’§ interrupt. Let me finish, I grant you that women are splendid in the face of real dafger. I've seen them behave, and bar none they were heroic. Buf the sort of thing we're going through now—the ime aginary peril, the danger from far off—brings out the very worst in them. Where is that poise, couragé¢ and calm we expect? It isn’t there. “For months they've been screaming about Vea to help with national defense—and now look at ’en They're storming stocking counters, pouring by mile lions into the stores to grab the dwindling supp knowing that every pair they take off the market hoard will deprive some other woman of her share and give the rich another chance to strut around in sili while the poor go without stockings at all. If this if their patriotism, God help America!” : I felt sheepish, I couldn't say a word.

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—Has the Senate ever exercised its constitutional power to elect the Vice President of the United States? A—Only once, in 1§37, when no person had a ma=jority of the electoral votes. Johnson had 147, Granger 77, Tyler 47 and Smith 23 votes. - The choice then devolved upon the Senate to select one of the two highest, and Johnson was chosen by a vote 33 to 16. Q—Will powdered sulphur mixed with water make sulphuric acid? A—No, the result will simply be a solution of sulphur. The manufacture of sulphuric acid is based upon the fact that the oxidation of sulphur dioxide (a gas) in the presence of water forms sulphuric-acid. Q—Please state the number of motion picture thee aters in the United States and their total weekly audiences. a A—Jan. 1, 1941, there were 17,541 theaters opere ating and the average weekly attendance during 1940 was 30,000,000. * Q—Has the Government of the United States entered into a treaty or pact with the Government of Canada in regard to the operation of the American Navy? : A—No. : Q—What is the name and address of ican organization for glider enthusiasts?

A—The Soaring Society of America, Elmira, N, ¥

the ‘Amerw