Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 September 1941 — Page 12

rr ; | he Indianapolis Times

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE ~ President wor Editor Business Manager

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«E> RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Woy

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1941

‘WHEN JAPAN ACTS WITHIN a few hours Premier Prince Konoye is scheduled : to announce Japanese foreign policy. The statement itself may be clear, or face both ways as is the Konoye habit. In either case words will not determine the issue of Pacific war or peace. As Secretary of State Hull says, it is Japan’s acts that count now. One guess is that Tokyo is waiting for the opportune moment to strike at Thailand in the south or Siberia in ‘ north, and to cut the American shipping supply line to Vladivostok which she has protested. The other guess is that she is ready to withdraw from her Axis partnership and attempt a compromise agreement with us. Her vast military concentrations on the Thailand and Siberian frontiers are complete. Russia is very busy on the Hitler front, leaving Siberia relatively exposed. Japan is _ stronger now than she will be in the future, because the Anglo-American-Dutch trade sanctions prevent her from getting more oil and military reserves.” And Hitler is press. ing her. All of which seems to indicate a war of desperation and face-saving, an all-or-nothing gamble. The more hopeful guess is based on the fact that a Japanese group led by Ambassador Nomura and Foreign Minister Toyoda—backed by commercial, Parliamentary, and some naval interests—is for peace. This group is aware that the military-naval situation which favored Japan last spring, now favors the reinforced American-British-Chinese-Dutch defensive alliance, and that an Axis victory in Europe is no longer a sure shot. Hence the desire to break with Hitler and court us. : ; Until the break away from Hitler, until she withdraws her offensive forces which threaten Singapore and Manila in the south and the American-Russian supply line in the north, and until she ceases her Chinese aggression, we will know that the Japanese militarists still dictate. And the United States must prepare accordingly.

SHORTAGES AND SOLUTIONS

THE so-called gasoline shortage has affected only the East Coast, but the way it has been handled ought to interest the whole country. . It now appears that there never was any real shortage, but only a prospective shortage; that there are 20,000 idle railroad tank cars which can move more than enough oil east to avert the prospective shortage; that ways and means can be worked out for preventing the higher cost of rail transportation from meaning more than a moderate increase, if any, in the price of gas. We hope the idle tank cars will be started rolling, the ways and means worked out, the question of whether new pipelines and oil-carrying barges will be needed in the more distant future discussed and settled calmly. Then, in the immediate future, there need be no more confusion about the gasoline supply, no more threats of rationing, no more official berating of the public for using too much gas, no more bedeviling of oil-station operators, no more incitement to hoarding and speculation. The strange thing is that the solution now apparent might just as well have been found weeks and months ago. Why wasn’t it? In large part, we think, because so many people in Washington have been proceeding on the theory that the way to solve shortage problems is to deprive the consuming public of things.it wants. Well, the public is willing to sacrifice—whérever and whenever sacrifices are genuinely necessary, as many will be. But unnecessary sacrifice is bad for employment, bad for business, bad for tax revenue. And scaring great eastern industrial areas about a non-existent gasoline shortage, certainly is not good for the defense effort. . = Zz

IVAN THE GATE-CRASHER ° THE Russians have never impressed the world as being much on the humor side. A serious, dead-pan and heavy-handed people, they. But among the 180 millions of them one has developed who gives all evidences of being a pip. : : Ivan out-haw-haws Haw Haw in the sense that his stuff is just subtle to take, or at least not be recognized until after he has definitely made suckers out of his German audience. #e is the radio gate-crasher de luxe. His latest was a speech in which he imitated the voice of Hitler so precisely that short-wave listening stations in America thought for quite a while that it was Hitler speaking. saw La» a (CLIMBING aboard and appropriating Germany’s Number One wave length, and announcing himself as Der Fuehrer, he got over such lines as these: “I will make this war so long as I like, and if I say, it will last 30 years. You know my patience. “I will lead this war up to the last German.

“And now about the sacrifices. Every German family |

has to sacrifice to me two members. of its family. They can _ be proud that they do this sacrifice for me. “For German economy this war is a big success. “Don’t let us be influenced by defeatists who say to you that this war will not last forever. That is foreign propaE ganda. : “German soldiers are dying for me and not for those foreigners. And when eight million will die I will take all the responsibility.

“And now one more word. The enemies of the German

people are speaking of peace. There will be no peace. I know only one aim, That is war. As long as I am the leader of Germany I will lead you from victory to victory to the final catastrophe.” : ; ¢ = = $ 2 2 : ] HE German people themselves aren’t too quick on the _ uptake when it comes to humor. They don’t spot irony with ease. Theirs is not a subtle technique, but rather of the custard-pie or banana-peel variety. So it’s not un-

that a goodly portion of the listeners still think it was |

Fed

Fair Frough

By Westbrook Pegler

A Few Notes About Judge Porferie, j 2

The Louisiana Attorney General Who Is Now Gracing the U.S. Bench

EW YORK, Sept. 9.—By chance it happens that an article by President Roosevelt in defense of his memorable court-packing bill appears in Collier's at the very time when one of the young and “forwardlooking” judges selected to reanimate the Constitution and improve the general character of the Federal judiciary is sitting in New York where he may be scrutinized apart from the litical jungles of Louisiana. This Federal District judge is Gaston L. Porterie, who was" the Attorney General of Huey Long’s dictatorship and was nominated to the bench by Senators Allen K. Ellender and John H. Overton of Louisiana. Ellender, as few of us will need reminding, was the : speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives during the Hitlerian travesties which were enacted during the special session of the Legislature wherein the h contemptuously rescinded the political rights of the people of an American state, = = Day after day, Ellender sat there on his puppet throne as Huey stalked the aisles roaring orders to his Legislators of whom he had said, and truly, that he could buy and sell them like sacks of potatoes. Now. as his reward, Ellender is a member of the United States Senate’ with the power to suggest to the President judges for the Federal bench and Federal prosecutors. Senator Overton was elected to the Senate by fraud, a damned spot which will not out > for it is woven into the record of the special committee of the Senate which investigated that incredibly corrupt and brazen farce. 2 2 o

UDGE GASTON L. PORTERIE of the U. S. District J Court for the western district of Louisiana was officially involved in the fraudulent election, for it was he who as Attorney General simply overruled an injunction by a district judge. of the state courts by which it was sought to frustrate the operation of the notorious “dummy candidate,” device the crooked scheme which the special committee of the U. S. Senate denounced as “a vicious and abhorrent political practice.” After Porterie, as Attorney General, thwarted the injunction of the state district judge, this judge or. dered the arrest of those who had defied But Huey Long's governor, who looked to Porterie for legal guidance in all official matters, again frusYrated the law by issuing pardons to the conspirators y wire. In another case, Porterie superseded a parish, or county, prosecutor who was pushing an election fraud case and, after several other developments of the same kind, was cited for expulsion by the state bar association. Porterie attempted to resign but the bar expelled him nevertheless and Huey then procured from his legislator, including Ellender, a new bar association which, like Hitler's in Germany, was an integral part of the dictatorship, with Gaston L Porterie as president. - ”» 2 2

FTER Huey’s death and the second Louisiana purchase, Porterie was nominated for the Federal court. His appointment was rushed through without debate or question and the judiciary committee of the Senate held no hearings on the fitness of the man who had given official facility to the operation on behalf of Overton of a device already denounced as “vicious and abhorrent.” : Instead, the appointment was referred to a subcommittee for consideration and the chairman of that sub-committee was Tom Connally of Texas, who had been chairman of the investigation of the election frauds and had personally reported to the Senate that “vicious and abhorent” fraud had been found. Out of his own official knowledge of the operations of the dictatorship and the fraud, Connally would not take it on himself, as chairman of the sub-committee investigating Porterie’s fitness, to denounce or even oppose that nomination. So, within a period of one week in 1939 and without debate and without even consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Porterie’s appointment was quietly put over on the recommendation of a sub-committee whose chairman knew all about Porterie’s actions as Long’s Attorney General in the perpetration of a fraudulent election by means of which Porterie’s sponsor, John H. Overton, acquired his seat.

New Books By Stephen Ellis

OST OF YOU, of course, have read with admiration Leland Stowe’s war correspondence in this newspaper. Stowe is without question one of the “greats” of the current crop of war writers and as a result his new book, out today, ranks as news. > ‘It is not sufficient to say that Lee Stowe has done a powerful job in “No Other Road to Freedom.” He has done far more than that. He has chronicled what he has seen and learned in World War II and then woven in the grim lessons that have been forced upon him.

It may surprise you to learn that Stowe went abroad in 1939 as a convinced and sincere isolationist. Indeed, he repeats the argument he and Bob Casey had with Bill Stoneman, H. R. Knickerbocker, Walter Duranty and John Gunther just after they arrived in London. The arguments of Stowe were the arguments of today’s isolationists. Through Finland, through Norway, through Sweden, through the Balkans, through Greece you travel with Lee Stowe, watching war first-hand and watching the old story being repeated over and over again—“Hitler has no reason to attack us. We should be neutral. . We will remain aloof.”

LL THIS, Leland Stowe has set down not only i as a great reporter, but as a great writing man. There are chapters here—like the one about Ralph Barnes’ death—that are terribly moving. But most impressive are the last few chapters in which Stowe takes one by one.the arguments of Lindbergh and others and analyzes them, putting against their generalities, facts and figures. No place in this book will you find generalities. We've known it, of course, for a long time, but it

infiltrations into the various countries which were to be subjugated and of the sublime blindness of the many who were prepared to sell out their own people for a few crumbs from Hitler's table Not because Lee Stowe is one of. this newspaper’s correspondents, but because of its sheer merit, we recommend you without qualification to “No Other Road to Preedom.” Read it!

NO OTHER ROAD TO FREEDOM, by Leland Stowe. A EAD AS ThEEDO}% by Leland Stowe. Alfred

Editor’s Note: The views expressed by columnists in this newspaper are their own. They are mot necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times.

So They Say—

NOW IS THE TIME for wage-earners to get out of debt—Marriner Eccles, Federal Reserve Board Chairman, . . a x " DON'T pay higher prices for silk hose you buy for current use.—Harriet Elliott, Office of Price Administration. ne TI WOULD JUST AS SOON write free verse as play tennis with the net down.—Robert Frost, poet.

THIS is purely a matter of vigor —Under-Secretary f War Robert Patterson, announcing the setting of id age limits for Army officers. : ® *® *

- THERE was no necessity to drive 60 miles an hour. Hitler hasn't gotten over here yet.—Frank Goodwin, Massachusetts auto registrar, suspending the license of “Archduke” Otto of Hapsburg for speeding.

po- |.

is still shocking to read of the brazen German

J Histo

the court. | &

A’

“Th

e Hoosier Forum

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

A BYSTANDER PUTS IN HIS 2 CENTS’ WORTH By H. F. Scotten, 4116 E. 38th St. Well, I'm a son of a gun! Right after a letter from Maddox intelligently discussing our national defense comes one from Voice In The Crowd full of civic sense! And, mind you, not a word against Socialism in either one of 'em! Now, oh Lord, grant me one more miracle. Let mine tired eyes behold -one from Lester QGaylor knocking Hitler instead of England! ” ® ® IS A CITY MANAGER THE ANSWER FOR US? By A. J. Alexander, 1216 W. 35th St. . It’s natural for Chief Kennedy to deny the allegations pressed against him—the law of self-preservation asserted. Without a doubt much more of this same type of “I-need-this-or-that - done - here’s - the-key-t0o-my-house = you - can-do-it-if-you-want-to” business goes on among other City officials and I believe it would be well worth the effort of com-munity-minded citizens to see that it is stopped immediately, once and for all. ‘ How? Well, let's look at the Cleveland records—and Cincinnati's not doing at all bad. City Management may be the answer. Af least it seems to be the consensus of opinion among the City Fire and Police Departments that City Managers are “too strict.” And the Police Department — there’s something about the way squad cars override the rights of civilian cars and violate the City traffic laws that makes me want to dwell on the subject—but right now I'm inclined to be a little hot-head-ed. Later maybe. = i 2 8 a ASSAILS F. D. R. AND WHAT HE CALLS “WAR MONGERING” By Harrison White, 1135 Broadway One evening soon after the World

several London Englishmen were telling all about it, when I edged into the conversation with the remark, “It was a good thing that the United States went in just when they did”; then the main spokesman said, “Oh! we could of gotten along very nicely without them; it might of taken a little longer.” Well we won the war for them and more than paid for it and suffered pang of war just for naught, excepting that blistering ingratitude. It was about a year ago a British

War, in a hotel at Vancouver, B. C.,|P

Premier said, “We are not going to have any more European wars with American-made peaces,” and that makes me wonder “what are we going to get out of this war?” Would any one say other than a broken, bankrupt, sowerful nation, with generations to come because of the effects of it, combatting every form of degeneracy and remorse? There is not one specific reason why we should get into this war outside of Mr. Roosevelt himself, and is it worth it? It is only over the road of “War Mongering” interference, supposition and deceitful propaganda that forces American wealth to be used for the purpose putting the continent of Europe under the yoke of communism. It is a matter of fact, derived from the very circumstance of the dependency of England upon the United States, that Winston Churchill was forced by that very circumstance to accept Mr. Roosevelt's four freedoms. It is still time for Congress to go back to America; Please Go Back. 2 ® 2 S CHALLENGING THE PROSECUTOR FOR HIS SINCERITY

By A. S. Johnsen, 810 W. Walnut St. Our belated crusader, the Marion

County prosecutor, charges Sheriff Feeney with failing and refusing to co-perate in what the prosecutor terms “our drive’ and the uheriff very appropriately and properly depies the accusation. While the prosecutor's office is overmanned with a. $60,000 appropriation for deputy hire, the sheriff's organization is undeniably under-

manned on account of the lack of] proper and necessary appropriations. For more than six months the prosecutor’s office was dormant insofar as any movement towards cleaning up the crime and vice condition in this community was concerned. Then suddenly, the rosecutor raids a tavern or two and the incidental publicity would make it appear that all crime and vice has been eliminated. Thereafter, the prosecutor’s office scratched the surface of evil conditions a little more but vice and crime has not abated one iota, Belonging to that large group of respectable colored citizens of Marion County who believe in law and order and knowing the habits and activities of my people, I maintain that. our young folks remain

subject to the influences which lead

Side Glances—By Galbraith

them to vice and crime and that our crusading prosecutor has been derelict in his duties in that he has not shown the least-interest in the moral welfare of the young colored man and woman, he evidently having shut his eyes to the long standing evil conditions in our community. « ¢ « ; The liquor laws are openly and flagrantly violated and every form of vice, crime and corruption which the prosecutor as a candidate last fall charged existed with the connivance of the Democratic law enforcing authorities, are still with us.

Charging Sheriff Feeney with refusing to furnish a truck for the transportation of prisoners, is a far cry irom the redemption of the promises the prosecutor made in his campaign speeches to rid this community of vice and crime. “Our drive” bears all the earmarks of a publicity campaign for next year’s election campaign. o 2 2 A VETERAN POKES SOME. SARCASM AT WINSTON By Veteran 1917-18-19, Indianapolis Evidently Mr. Hopkins has sold the British people, including Mr. Churchill, the idea the ‘citizens of this great country are really dumb. After listening to Winston's ram-

amused at his reference to things

of his and Franklin's impressive kneeling before the Almighty. I wonder if Joe Stalin approved this sort of thing? Churchill had better be careful,

some one may tell Joe that he and F. D. R. sometimes recognize a Supreme being and I am sure this would lessen his respect for his comrades. - Of course like other Americans I have never seen a copy of the eight points but from the news items regarding same I have never seen where Almighty God was asked for any co-operation and I am surprised at the hymn singing. This I suppose was for the benefit of the dumb Americans. Quite a difference between these two big shots making a declaration and the one signed by John Hancock and other patriots. (Any pro-British readers will please pardon my reference to such a trivial outmoded document.) . . ,

» ” 8 CALLS ILLINOIS ST. LIKE RED LIGHT DISTRICT By G. C. D.. Southport, Ind. Some of you people will say folks like me haven't any right to talk about conditions in Indianapolis, but the fact is. we who live in surrounding towns consider ourselves really part of the city and we, too, resent the wide-open conditions in town. : We like to drive in to town to go

to a show and lately, since the soldiers have been flooding the town,

|there are parts of Illinois St. that

look like a regular red-light section. The military police look on with grins, but I think the city police ought to step in and start cracking down on this sort of thing... .

DAILY THOUGHT

There is nothing from without 8 man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things

they 7:15.

bling discourse, I was very much}

spiritual and his flowery description|

which come out of him, those are | that defile the man—Mark |

Says—

When Wilson Gave a Man a Job He Backed Him to the Limit — That Is the Missing Spark Plug Today

ASHINGTON, Sept. 9.—There has been so much dispute and argument about the authority given either to SPAB (the 1941 War Industries Board) or to its chairman or executive as ] with the authority of the 1918 board and that given to B. M. Baruch that it might be interesting to see just what authority the old board did have. I quote from Mr. Baruch’s final report, as chairman of that board as reprinted in his recent book, . “American Industry In the War,” P. 27: : : ‘ “No legislation was ever passed making specific provision for the establishment of the War Industries Board. ‘Its powers still depended in large measure upon its : ability to demonstrate its effec~ tiveness in accomplishing the coms mon purpose and the willingness of other agencies to be assisted by it, together with the voluntary support of the business interests of the country. Several times, during the summer of 1918, bills giving the board larger legal powers were prepared and discussed

| by committees of Congress, but the general, conclu-

sion was that the board was accomplishing its purpose well enough without further: legislative powers.” : 2 8 8 ; te R. BARUCH'’S personal authority was expressed in no executive order, much less in any statute. It was stated in a Presidential letter, dated March 4; 1918. Just listen to it: ! “0 “My Dear Mr. Baruch. I am writing to ask if you will not accept appointment ‘as chairman of the War

- Industries Board and I am going to take the liberty

at the same time of outlining the functions, the constitution and action of the board as I think they should now be established.” J After directing action on new facilities and sup= plies and conversion of old ones, conservation, advice to purchasing agencies on: price, determination: of Prioridles and purchasing for the Allies the letter say. : 1 » “The ultimate decision of all questions, except the determination of prices, should rest always with the chairman, the other members acting in a co-operative advisory capacity.” ; The duties of the chairman were outlined as.a kind of umpire between conflicting interests and an advisor with a caution to let alone what is being successfully done and interfere as little as possible with the present normal processes of purchase and delivery “to anticipate the prospective needs of the several supply departments of the Government and their feasible adjustment to the industry of the coun= try as far in advance as possible, in order that as definite an outlook and opportunity for planning as possible. may be afforded the businéssmen of . the country. In brief he should act as the general eye of all supply departments in the field of industry. Cordially and sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson.”

O organization chart, no imperial decree, not very much real authority and most of that of an indirect and rather hazy nature. v Just the same the job was done. It was done so well because of two elements. One was Mr. Baruch himself, the other was a general knowledge throughout Washington that when Woodrow Wilson gave a man & job. he backed him and that there were no side entrances to the White House for disloyalties, sniping or personal fenagling. : Every World War chieftain—Baker, Pers Hoover, McAdoo, Baruch and Garfield (fuel ad istrator) and the rest felt the unwavering stre of that supporting hand and all their associafes ! that when the chief was speaking it was the of the President. ido That is the missing spark-plug today. That our stalled engine needs to speed it to dynam i irresistible action. :

A Woman's Viewpoin.} By Mrs. Walter Ferguson =

HE Douglas airplane factory in California estimates that it costs about $800 -each time a woman is taken through the piant. She districts the workers. I can well believe it. I remember once when nothing would do but I must see the inside of an Ohio steel mill. The owners said it was against their rules because it upset the men. That sounded funny to me.

: The place was as big as a good sized town and you could walk for blocks without seeing a soul. But we could also sense the pause that followed our appearance in those vast areas where the workers toiled: Not that I was anything to stop a laboring man in his tracks, but there was a peachy young reporter with us and she was pretty enough to stop a clock. I daresay her stroll through the plant cost the com pany plenty. Y It was one of my strangest experiences, and it brought back vividly the memory of little-girl days when my mother cautioned me constantly about walking on the same side of the street where the barber shop was located. Men to me, then, were strange, mysterious and slightly wicked creatures— all except my father who wasn’t really a man at all, He was just Papa. : s ” 8 2 OW, as then, the female singly is a disturber. You might go so far as to say the modern miss is a saboteur, a hindrance to national defense, a co= worker with Hitler—and a general-all-round nuisance. There are places where she isn’t wanted and where her presence brings trouble. Rian That's taking her in small doses, of course.’ In droves she has an opposite effect. Men who are surrounded daily by women in shops and factories re main calm as sculptured Buddhas, indifferent to this plethora of charm. ~ 2 So, while something wonderful is gained by the modern custom of mixing the sexes in business, sométhing has also been lost—something intangible and mysterious that electrifies a group 6f men, cut off

- from feminine contacts, when a woman passes by and . that quickens to new life any

feminine sanctum invaded by a lonesome male. It is the awareness of the man as man and the woman as woman. So the news that the Douglas

officials find women visitors costly is cheerful. It re- /Af

minds us that life and love will go on, no matter how persistently we work to destroy them. re

Questions and Answers

| (The. Indianapolts Times Service Buresu will answer say question of fact or information, not involving extensive re-

8t.. Washington. ©, C.)

Q—Was Norway extensively damased by the Gere man invasion? he : Sd .. A—Material damages are reported to have been ‘comparatively small. In some of the smaller towns losses to private property were ate but industrial

to Frederick Wilhelm TT of Prussia? 30g of tyranny A—Thomas erson a letter to John , written in 1789. : | Jay, : Nort or the Queen. Eisabeth, ot Be ett to build? —According to a French Line state ; ‘the Normandie cost about $50,000 fai 0 Iw, the maiden voyage of the