Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 September 1941 — Page 16

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«> RILEY 5551 Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1941

JAPAN'S CHOICE ; 2 . JAPAN is facing the gravest crisis in her history. That is| . what Premier Prince Konoye told his people yesterday. He did not exaggerate. | But that is only half the truth. He should have added that it is a crisis of Japan’s own making. Not of the Japanese people to be sure, but of the military dictators whose lust for Asiatic and Pacific domination is so’ much greater than their resources and capacity. : x Altogether apart from moral considerations unrecog“nized by the militarists, they have lost their gamble for easy conquest. They promised to take China within four months; but, after four years, China is stronger and Japan weaker, They promised, by joining Hitler as an Axis partner, to control the East without effective challenge from others; but they only united an Anglo-American coalition against further Japanese aggression. : Now comes the payoff. Having lost, what are the Tokyo dictators going to do about it? Since easy conquest is not possible, are they going to gamble this time for all- ~ or-nothing in a war against the United States, Britain, the . Dutch Indies, China and Russia? No responsible Government would risk the fate of its nation against any such overwhelming odds. Even Hitler, with the material and military resources Japan lacks, has attempted. a one-by-one strategy and avoided battle with such a vast alliance. : In contrast to that alliance Japan stands alone. Her Hitler partnership is a liability—it’has brought her close to a war in which he cannot help her. He asks her to fight a war which would profit him perhaps, but which would deStroy her certainly. wl If Japan starts a Pacific war there will be no turning back. Even if Hitler defeated Britain—which daily becomes less probable—the United -States would not surrender to Japan. The United States would finish it, with all the preponderance of resources and strength. ~The American people and Government want no war with Japan. For humane reasons and for ‘selfish reasons alike, we have fallen over backwards during -this time of Japanese aggression to avoid war. Whatever the faults of ‘American world policy may have been, we have not transgressed the legitimate interests of Japan, we have not pro-. voked a fight. We will not. ~ President Roosevelt, with the support of the American people, still strives for Japanese co-operation for Pacific . peace and prosperity. But, also with the support of the American public, he has prepared for war if it comes. ~ Japan can be the friend of the United States or the stooge of Hitler. That choice should not be hard.

FOR BACTERIA ONLY NAVY research officer in California has developed a vibrating machine which is said (1) to kill bacteria at a distance of six inches, and (2) to cause mental fatigue

in human beings. : If our opinion is desired, let this great invention be

confined to the first purpose. No machine is needed, these days, for the second.

RATIONING THE WRONG THING? : THE Mayor of Evansville has asked representatives of . * 600 other cities to meet in Chicago on Sept. 12 to discuss the problems of industrial communities where peacetime ‘production is being cut down by the national defense program but not replaced by defense production. Of course, defense and Lend-Lease needs must be met first. Priorities must be granted for war materials. But at the same time we should make every intelligent effort to avoid any unnecessary closing down or slowing down of civilian goods plants. 3. ns inf : Probably there is no way of avoiding many dislocations. But something might be done to minimize them. The Government's approach on rationing, so far, has been to restrict production of civilian goods. Plants making electric refrigerators, for instance, are told to make only 40 or 50 per cent as many refrigerators. Suppose that approach were changed. Suppose the refrigerator makers were told: “We're not rationing your production. We're rationing your supply of steel, aluminum and other materials essential to defense. You'll get only 50 per cent as much of these materials as you've been getting. If, by using substitute materials, you can figure out a way of producing 100 per cent as many refrigerators as you've been making, or more than that, go to it, and here’s the Government's blessing on you.” We aren’t sure what would happen. We ‘don’t know, for example, whether the refrigerator industry could find or develop satisfactory substitutes for the scarce metals— whether it could use wood or masonite or soybeans or someBut we know that American ingenuity can do remarke things. And we think it would be a fine thing to give erican ingenuity a chance—and encourage civilian ‘goods prolucers to hunt ways and means of staying in the picture as gmplovers, taxpayers and price-holder-downers.

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OUR CANDIDATE : ii ~ONGRESS is taking it.easy just now, but Rep. Samuel A. Weiss (D. Pa.) is not idle. He has just compiled and nted in the. Congressional Record—at a cost of about 6—two columns of “historical highlights for the month September,” including such startling items as that: The Herald of Gospel Liberty, America’s first religioys iew, was published on Sept..1, 1808; Los Angeles was nded on Sept. 4, 1781; Elias Howe patented his sewing hine on Sept. 10, 1846; the first baseball club was orized in New York City on Sept. 28, 1845; the office of rney General was created on Sept. 24, 1789; ete., etc.

[Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

Case, This One in Defense of the Officers, Who Are Also Americans

\JEW YORK, Stpt. 4—In all the comment that I have seen, both legislative and editorial, on the case of the martyrized mutineer of Ft, Bragg, not one word reproached the disgusting young man, himself, who spat in the mess hall and littered the floor near

his bunk and, as a final offense, defiantly refused to obey the offi- . cers who had not merely permission but positive orders, in the form of military laws, from the U. S. Congress, to maintain sanitary conditions and enforce their lawful commands. No other. case in the military history of the country has aroused such motherly sentimentalism and the War Department, choked up with political alarm at the bark of one ; _clamorous Congressman, promptly : commuted the sentence in a tone of voice which amounted to a plain repudiation of the officers involved. That was bad because the occasion invited a demonstration of faith in those men who hold commissioned rank in the Army and recognition of the fact that they, too, to the number of many thousands, are sacrificing their private careers and their home life to serve with troops in training and, if necessary, to fight. If an officer is unfit to hold his commission he should be eliminated but it is dangerous to encourage a belief that the commands of officers are subject to discount or appedl or that the American officer is a fool, a fop or a tyrant. Once that belief is conveyed to the enlisted soldiers they will lose confidence in their officers and those who hold commissions service, = ail 5 ® 8 = : ¢MERICAN officers are American soldiers and citizens like the troops they command and they certainly must be, on the average, much: better soldiers

than the men in the ranks, The very Iact that they have earned commissions bespeaks some study and some previous service as volunteer patriots. To humiliate them and to upheld and commiserate a deliberately filthy and disobedient subordinate is to injure the Army as a whole body, not just the individuals who, by a freak of publicity, are thrown into undesired prominence. Eo After ail, this Priv. John Habinyak, who got 10 years and somewhat, quickly marked down to three years, for his ditry behavior and defiance, was not called upon to risk his life or perform any cruel task to keep out of trouble, All he had to do was conduct himself with ordinary decency and the background of the case strongly suggests that it wasn’t ignorance but a conscious plan to escape military service that impelled. him to initiate his troubles by spitting on the mess-hall floor. No officer could tolerate that and retain the respect of the other soldiers and any officer who had flinched would have deserved a court, himself.

HE Washington Post editorial unintentionally put T a finger on a great American fallacy when it pointed out that “civilian guilty of armed robbery in Washington usually spend only a small ‘fraction of 10 years behind prison bars.” That is the horrible. truth of the matter and that, incidentally, is the hell of it, but the reproach is on the courts and juries of Washington which, by their culpable lenity have created in the national capital a crime rate which would be a disgrace to a frontier camp. = _. The penalty for armed robbery should be life, if not death, for any armed man out, on a stick-up must be assumed to have murder in his heart, always barring the imaginary case of the desperate father out with a gun to steal the price of a loaf of bread for his starving young. : Yet the Washington Post selects that disgraceful failure of justice as a basis on which to argue that the conduct of the Army officers are no more sensible. than that of the mutineer himself. Gi Some of us seem to think of the American officer as a blundering dope with no patriotism but only vanity in his heart, who lives on the fat of the land and never gets wet feet or chigger bites. The fact

‘is that most of them are several cuts above the

average citizen in active patriotism and very plainly superior to the enlisted men in knowledge of the job of soldiering. tia ¢

Japan's Headache By Ludwell Denny

Wy SmnoTon, Sept. 4—If Japan’ stops any American tankers bound for Vladivostok, as

threatened, she will pring war much nearer. Neither Washington nor Moscow is in a mood to be bluffed. Both are willing to go any reasonable . . distance to avoid war with Japan, which would divert Soviet strength and American supplies from the Hitler front. But if they must fight Japan, they are ready. The attitude here toward a Japanese war has changed greatly. Anti-Japanese feeling is mounting. The old nervousness over what Tokyo may or may not do, has passed. Now there is grim defermination. Washington has won the war

of nerves which the Japanese

| Government has been waging. Tokyo is on the hot

spot today, not Washington. The Tokyo Cabinet is divided on policy today, not the Roosevelt Administration. : : President Roosevelt is determined to insist on freedom of the seas for American supplies to Russia, regardless of the newest Tokyo diplomatic protest. He is determined to increase American military aid to China as long as Japan continues her conquest. He is determined to stand with the British and Dutch. against further Japanese aggression southward.

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THE ‘net result is that Japan has isolated herself. The encirclement of which she complains is real, but it is self-created. . In event of war she will have only one “friend.” But she does not trust her Axis partner, Hitler, and even if she did he is too far away and too busy to help her. . ep : : Under these conditions, a war between Japan and an alliance of America-Britain-China-Dutch IndiesRussia would -presumably end in the destruction of Japan. The odds against her are even greater because she is exhausted by four years of.inconclusive Chinese war, and because her Army and Navy are spread thin from the. Siberia frontier in the north to Saigon and the South Seas. ’

i J 8 ® ® / : , E ER month her strategic and economic position grows coalition in the Pacific grows . Japan has been watching not only the steady strengthening of her opponents, but also the miring of her Nazi ally in Russian mud.. If Hitler could have cleaned-up in Russia quickly, as he promised

today—maybe already in § re and Normally, a nation in would withdraw from the Axis and co-operate with the United States for Pacific peace. This obvious way is desired by mdny Japanese, but the militarist dictators of Japan so far have been more interested in conquest, even at the risk of war with America.

So They Say— pi

turned out to be a USO drive.

nearly five times as many

. Weiss is hereby nominated for chairman of the

or on and New W. ;

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One More Word on the Hobinyak E

fhemselves will look for a way out of the |

| TO CROSS CHANNEL

weaker, and the position of the American ||

Tokyo, Japan doubtless would be in Siberia and Siam | ‘ is desperate situation

‘were at the opening, has ||

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The Hoosier Forum

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

38TH ST. RESIDENT IN / MARKET FOR GAS PUMPS By a Maple Roader

Time was when 38th St. was a mighty nice place to live—nice enough to have it called by a special name, Maple Road.

State and Nationdl highways over our street that Washington Blvd. and Maple Road sounds like Broadway and 42d, N. Y. C. Cross-country busses and tourists stream by 24 hours a day.

Home sweet home should have a couple of gasoline pumps in front— might as well earn while I suffer!

2 2» CONTENDS NOW IS THE TIME

By A. B. C., Indianapolis

What is England waiting for? Why doesn’t she get the idea out of her head that the U. S. A. is going to send her young men over] there to win the war for her? Now is the time when Hitler is more than busy on the Russian front to go across the Channel and show the Nazis that the Tommies can dish it out as well as take it. If they wait until Russia falls, then England will, have the whole of the Hitler army to whip fhstfad of a smaller force. If English troops could march into Germany that would prove to the German people that Hitler has lied to them all

But now they've routed so many|

But strong and healthy, with'an active mind and our friendship. And these strong men can gain Niberty and look to America for an example of peace and democracy to aid them in creating one of their own.

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

2 8 = IN DEFENSE OF CITY'S OFFICIAL NOISE-MAKING By Ruth Bryant, Indianapolis R. V. Weber: I read your suggestion in The Times the other night. I am "just wondering what sort of city job you didn’t. get? Your article is highly suggestive of sour grapes. : In the first place the City Hospital ambulances do not go on any runs but emergencies and the police must send for them. How long do

idea that they were to be released at the end of a year. It seems that the Administration and some of the Congress are .determined to work a double hardship upon a few. . There should be a way to maintain an Army without forcing a few to make the total sacrifice. Practically all the men of my acquaintance are perfectly

| ties list.

willing to make the year’s sacrifice and those. sacrifices that are bound to follow as a result; but the growing rumble of resentment that has come with the passage of this legis-

you think anyone could work for Al Feeney and blow the sirens to go home for lunch? Try it sometime. As for the Fire Department, they do not blow the sirens coming

— THURSDAY, SEPT. 4, 194} Gen. Johnson Says— i Eastern Gasoline Situation Simply ah

Outgrowth of Bungling and Shows Our Need for an Integrated Control

ASHINGTON, Sept. 4—This mix-up in hane dling the Eastern gasoline situation is a perfect illustration of what is the matter with the overhead control of industrial mobilization for most: effectivé national defense production. In the first place, it ig

not a gasoline shortage at all. It is a transportation shortage. In the second place, it is becoming daily more certain that it could ave been entirely avoided by a combination of close control a -co~ordination of priorities plans ning in actual supply of a material necessity of daily living with a pirorities control of transportation, They acted without effective consultation. The right hand knew not what the left hand was doing; It is now plain by the simple expedient of using tank cars and by some mild adjustment of the very slight increase in cost there need not have been any upset in the supply of | Eastern requirements whatever. It is equally plain that there was several other ways, as for example, barges to relieve the shoftage—if they had been planned and prepared for in time. A

: 8 8 8, OU can paste it in your hat and put it in your pipe that these things go together like fingers in a glove in industrial mobilization—price control, ma« terial control and rationing, power control and transe portation control. They must sit at the same table and play the same game. 2 a Let me illustrate. In early 1918, we decided ‘to make the complicated recoil device or “recuperator’ of the French 75 mm. gun. A good many people, including the French, felt that our industry couldn't do such delicate work. The War Industries Board was sure that our experts in automobile production could do it if they so determined. Mr. Baruch called on one of the bést of them. The old ex-blacksmith

a pale-faced Wall Street operator. So he swore artistically. Aid di “Go on blank blank you,” said Baruch, “I*speak your language, but just excuse me a minute while I put in a telephone call.” The call was to Secretary McAdoo, who was director general of railroads, Baruch's end of the conversation was: “Mac, were having a little difficulty with John So-and-So abous making those recuperators. He wants to make autoe mobiles, which are below recuperators on our priorie Could you arrange that, beginning right now, John doesn’t get any transportation in and ous of any of his plants?”

HE reply was apparently satisfactory for the cone versation closed. Baruch had no control over McAdoo. They were: just-collaborating. a “You don’t really mean that,” said John. “What do you think?” replied Baruch: ; . To make a long. story short, John became the best soffrce of that production in the world and bes tween him and Mr. Baruch grew. a. two-man mutual Suniiration society that ended only with the former's eath. ; I could multiply this historical example. Its only point is to show that all these controls must work together, that on the example of the Easern gasoline nonsense, they are not doing so now, that what i* takes to produce that result is not “hifalutin” organi zation charts, but men .ofvgood will. and high calibe determined to work together for the common goo / Dd we have that? I frankly admit that I do n | know. I am willing to Wait and see and, in the mea Ye, . to support the new reorganization until / see. 3

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

from a fire. Follow one sometime and see. . : You are like a great many people who resent anyone making more noise than you’do. However, sometimes it is very necessary, and you may rest assured they are city emergencies, They would all be a

lation makes me wonder if many of- them will serve the extra time or if it will make fugitives out of formerly useful citizens, . . . The Administration and the war mongers had better wake up. In trying to save democracy 4000 miles away they are breaking its back at home. These young men are the future governors of America. This wholesale breaking of faith in their Government cannot help but have serious repercussions in the future.

were on the receiving end. : [A J ” HE SAYS ONLY ISOLATIONISTS

along and they would be ready to give up. The longer they wait the harder it will be to win and we ar not coming over this time. ;

# . ® ’ MAINTAINS DRAFTEES FEEL DESERTED BY GOVERNMENT

By James L, Cole, Leavenworth

More flowery and soothing language could not have been used in Jean Lightfeot’s. nauseating misrepresentation of the -selectee’s feeling about the 18-month extension. I don’t attribute this misstatement of facts to anything but lack of knowledge. The selectees feel that they -have been almost deserted and if it were not for the sympathizing letters from home the Army: morale situation would be much worse than it is. These men are not used to being deceived. Of course there are those who are stretching their imagination to misconstrue this extension as something that was to be expected. This is not so. Up . until a few weeks ago the boy have gone into the ‘Army wit © the definite

2 8 = ; URGES U. 8. SEND FOOD TO STARVING EUROPEANS By Jack Hayes, 3736 N. Meridian St. Europe must be fed. The United States can feed her, Military machines have ruthlessly marched over harvest fields and taken undestroyed food for men to eat so they may grow strong and kill and die. But invalids, children, mothers, fathers

are without. food. They are not just undernourished; they are

starving. The United States has abundance to send. It can be sent, a day's supply at a time, and administered under benevolent American guidance, to the starving people of these forsaken democracies. Their military oppressors would not take this food because they have already enough acquired from the provisions of Europe's famine stricken people. If it were taken the food supply would be stopped. It can be tried. fit - Europe’s children must: not grow up with warped bodies and minds.

By L. V., Indianapolis An answer to RW. T. By a young man of fighting age who has a lovely, wife, a wonderful home and has a darn good income but as you stated in your article I am a crazy interventionist. You also say that you will have nothing to do with Clapper, Roosevelt,

Churchill or the sending of planes to England. Why? It seems that your only argument is that our coast cannot be bombed, s0 how can we be

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found in the article, “You Can’t Do Business With Hitler” now carried by-this paper. = You speak of a small group of interventionists. Well, the only isolationists I have heard have been Mr. Lindbergh and Mr. eeler. Either one would welcome the opportunity of being dictators themselves. ; 2 85 = ATTACKS DEFENSE COMMITTEE FOR LINDBERGH BAN By Harry Clay, Brightwood . That little bunch of five per centers who call themselves the Committee for National Defense are try-

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tidal wave.—Thomas Dewey on the ||

Side Glances—By Galbraith :

ing every way on earth to get us in the war. They say they want to make the world safe for democracy so that we can still enjoy a free press and free speech and to show that they mean exactly what they say, they have Mr. Lindbergh’s permit to speak in the city hall of Oklahoma City canceled. And to make his free speech Lindbergh had to go to the ball park where about 10,000 people ‘heard and applauded him. Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel,

FLOWERS

By ANNA E. YOUNG God’s ever present emblem Of love from Heaven's bower: He gives to us a Faith anew With every budded flower,

ce-enhanced by every breeze As it—gently—sways each stem. | Purity unfolds—soundlessly— Into a, petaled flower gem!

U

templa : Jak The beauty—of a flower!

‘Whoso keepeth the command ment shall feel no evil thing and a wise man's peatt. discern eth both time Judgments. —

very welcome sound if you or yours

ARE LINDBERGH AND WHEELER’ §

hurt. The answer to that can bel

‘port (left) sides.

a section of road in Al ‘whic nt part of what was later known as the Richs 1 way, was made in 1898-99, and con

‘thought of loveliness den in each hour

pore who advocate more babies, regardless, should read up on a few things now happening to some of them. The Cleveland mother who fed poison to her four-months-old son is not typical, thank Heaven! but her attitude is significant. Only 21, with two othér chile dren and a job, the last infant - was a nuisance. Her statement, reported by The Cleveland Press, is as dramatié¢ and horrible as . anything in “Tobacco a. “Willis (the husband) lost his . Job right after we were married and we tried to get on relief but couldn’t. He never earned more than enough to keep us. We never went anywhere except to a movie once a week. 1 never had any Slokhes. Even my mother made un of my shabby dresses. . . “That night I looked at the baby: he was cry. ing, and I thought of all the trouble I had to put up with him when I wanted to go to a show. When I opened the cabinet and saw the disinfectant there; I figured if I gave him some it would get him good and Jick and Sie hospiiel would keep him. I didn’t wan s ust wanted to get him good and sick.” : thn .. Now you can make anything you like of this, bus it, seems to me it is something in the American scene we ought to be concerned about. Honestly, don't you think a little less sewing and knitting for othez folks, and a little more attention:to such misery and want at home, would benefit our dem ? And let’s not fool ourselves into thinking this just a rare case, or that the girl is probably a mene tal defective or a born criminal. No indeed, Mrs, America. You live in a land whete the wants of the common people have been increased a thousand per cent and their means of satisfying those wants stead ily decreased. - As clubwomen, as Christians; as citi« Zens, a responsibility is upon us. Am I my sister's keeper? Surely! But which sister? Isn't the ons at the back door worth bothering about too? < By

oR

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

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive ree’, search. Write vour 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 the Flag is painted on the side of a where does the blue field go?

A—Forward on both the starboard (right) and

Q—How old is the Richardson Highway in Alaska$ A—The initial survey by fe ar Depaitment for

began about 1906. Between Aug. 20 and the first wheeled vehicle traversed a

Q—What is a “limited” train?

DAILY THOUGHT

was damned if he was going to take any orders from .. .

ship,