Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 September 1941 — Page 14

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The Indianapolis Times ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK 'FERREE

President Editor Business Manager (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Price in Marion Coun-

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daily (except Sunday) by a week.

Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $3 a year, outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month. .

' ofp RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

+ - Member of United Press. Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1941

IT’S UP TO CONGRESS HAIRMAN TOM CONNALLY of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee predicts that the President will request Neutrality Act modification or repeal soon. Whatever the decision, it is good news that Congress will again have an opportunity to assert its Constitutional responsibility .to debate and determine the policy of war or peace. Latterly the President more and more has taken over that Congressional function, and Congress has tended to confirm this drift by its silence and inaction. As a result the neutrality law already has been emasculated. We do not mean the modification before the war, or the cash-and-carry amendment and Lend-Lease Law. Those changes were made by Congress, which is its right. But executive action has gone beyond the Amendments. Indeed Congress modified the law in favor of cash-and-carry and Lend-Lease on the definite Administration theory that this would help keep us out of convoying and shooting. : 8 = 8 2 = =» OW that there is so little left of the law—chiefly the prohibition against arming our merchant ships, and using them in the direct war trade with belligerents—some ‘Administration politicians argue that it is better for the President to go on making policy rather than risk Congressional debate. But wiser council has prevailed at last, if the Connally forecast is accurate. The Administration must know that government by indirection is dangerous at any time, and particularly when democracy is in peril everywhere. We agree with Senator Walter George that even reconsideration of the Neutrality Law would not in itself permit Congress to pass upon what he calls the “ultimate” ‘decision. Congressional repeal would be interpreted as a left-hand approval of undeclared war, regardless of Congressional intent. : : “We are not approaching the subject in a way altogether fair to the American people by indicating that a decision on the neutrality act is the supreme issue confronting us,” says Senator George. “Any proposal to modify the act is necessarily an intermediate step which does not squarely face the ultimate decision which the American people alone must make , . , it seems to me that we should frankly let the American people know what we mean when we say we are going to repeal or modify the neutrality act.’

TEST FOR PAN AMERICANISM

HE United States should rally immediately and strongly behind Mexico’s proposal for a collective Pan American effort to end the two-month border war between Peru and Ecuador. : This is a test of practical Pan Americanism. We peoples of the Western Hemisphere have made a great ado about the peaceful settlement of disputes. Do we mean what we say? : The war now shaking the world is primarily about this one thing: shall 500 years of effort to find ways of peacefully settling international disputes be junked by every militarist who sees a chance te get what he wants by force? The free peoples of the world say no. Blood is being poured out to back up that no. But in the meantime, since July 5, bloody fighting along the Peru-Ecuajor border has been breaking out every week or so because the machinery for adjustment of the dispute has not functioned. The United States wants to exert no Colossus-pressure on two small South American nations. But it should and faust join emphatically with the other Pan American countries which are pledged to exert a united pressure on both countries, first, to establish a temporary boundary and stop the fighting, and second, to set in motion arbitration or other machinery for the permanent healing of this sore spot on the body of an Gtherwise healthy Western Hemisphere.

NLRB IMPROVEMENT (GERALD D. REILLY, who has been nominated by President Roosevelt to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board, has been solicitor of the Department of Labor for the last four years. His duties have not often brought him into the limelight, and beyond the fact that he is regarded as an able lawyer, strongly in sympathy with the Administration’s “labor policies, we know little about him. So we may do Mr. Reilly less than justice When we hail "his nomination chiefly for the reason that it ends the possibility that Edwin S. Smith might be reappointed to the NLRB. Mr. Smith, whose term expired nearly a month ago, was the last survivor of the three members—the others were J. Warren Madden and Donald Wakefield Smith— whose biased administration brought the Labor Board into disrepute and perverted the fine purposes of the Wagner Act. One great improvement was made when William M., ' Leiserson succeeded Donald Wakefield Smith. Another folJowed when Dr. Harry A. Millis replaced Chairman MadBy contrast with his predecessor, Edwin S. Smith, Mr. Reilly can hardly fail to be 4 third improvement.

“SAY IT AIN'T SO” ; FOR YEARS Americans have striven to bake, toast, grill, fry, scorch, parboil and otherwise partially incinerate themselves’ in the sunshine. It has at times come close: to

, to “an illusion of health.” "but that isn’t the final word, doctor. If an “illusion n is strong enough, what's the practical difference

Ab,

ered by carrier, 12 cents

sore need; the world is in jeopardy.”

Outproduced! By Helen Kirkpatrick ~

Daily News, Inc. * LONDON, Sept. 23.—Kiev's fall

and the ensuing threat to the Don

region—caused J. L. Garvin, one of Great Britain's greatest editors, to issue a grave warning yesterday to the British and American people, The democracies are being out-

day) Observer. Once again, as before the war when neither Britain nor America were alive to the dangers and,

secondly, as at the time of France's destruction,

“there is acute danger that the democratic effort, in coping With the proportions of this far greater crisis.” Both peoples, Garvin declares, must wake up to the fact that the fall of Russia may mean Hitler’s victory. This means that Britain and the United States “glike must rouse themselves to replace largely and in time the Saviet'’s enormous wastage of warplanes and military mechanism. Our fate may hinge on this before the autumn is out.”

"Too Much Foolish Talk’

GARVIN OPENS HIS article by explaining that observers never have looked to the United States critically and that “we don’t look at the mote in their eye without seeing the beam in Britain's eye.” For that reason the article is addressed to both peoples who must realize and at once, he says, that support for Russia is essential to their own salvation. Garvin, who is most careful with figures, estimates that at present Britain and the United States together “are not yet employing as many hands or as much machinery on war production as are at work in the Third Reich alone, without speaking of auxiliary

Europe.” There is much foolish talk, he thinks, of potential capacity to outproduce Hitler: “There may be, and at present there is, almost as much difference between

and performance.” Two fundamentals must always be borne in ‘mind: “Russia’s inexhaustible numbers of fighting men; Hitler’s grim preponderance of fighting machines.” Garvin then turns to practical aspects. Britain must secure maximum production immediately and “nothing but large recruitment of women can meet the needs of factory power,” he avers,

Warns British Critics Off

ON THE AMERICAN side, Garvin finds the fact that only 20 per cént of the American industrial effort is on war work—a figure given by American experts —most seriously disturbing. “To mobilize twice or thrice that percentage of capacity is the only means on earth of out-producing Hitler and winning both the war and peace. n Another beam in Britain's eye, which Garvin notes in surveying American production, is the “mediocre purchase policy of the British government before Churchill's administration was formed. On this he

tion. Confusion and mismanagement in the United States are not Britain's business, he says, adding: “British critics tempted to meddle had better keep their fingees from the scissors.” Whatever the reasons; here or in the United States, the fact remains that “Russia is in dire danger and He concludes that the “combined western democracies cannot outproduce Hitler in the machine power of war until the “further American changeover from the usual business to the victory business becomes sweeping and intensive. . , .\At present the average American citizen feels the'\inconvenience of war without its inspiration. If tHe United States came in the effect of that moral revolution on American temperament would work dynamic miracles.”

Editor's ‘Note: Westbrook Pegler’s- column will be resumed tomorrow,

The Pressure Boys By Thomas L. Stokes

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23.—Investigators of the special Senate - Defense Committee, headed by

Senator Truman (D. Mo.), are looking into the activities of lawe

terest of defense contracts and favors, in®luding former Admintration oificials who are capitalizirg on their previous .associations. Hugh Fulton, chief counsel of the committee, said he expected the committee to hold public hearings later. He is inquiring into the operations of Thomas G, Corcoran, among others. Corcoran, formerly high in New Deal counsels, has established quite a “practice” here for corporate interests. Lately he has come into disfavor in the Justice Department’s anti-trust division for exerting pressure in connection with the Sterling Products, Inc., consent decrees, which broke contracts between three of Sterling’s subsidiaries and German drug interests. There was a flurry of activity in the early days of the New Deal to put some lobby-regulatory legislation on the statute books, largely because of the highly paid lobby working against enactment of the public utility holding company act. Corcoran was energetic in helping to disclose operations of that lobby and he also was active in exposing the stock exchange. lobby fighting the securities exchange act. The Black lobby regulatory bill, however, was defeated in the House after passing the Senate.

It's a Big Business

PRESIDENTIAL INFLUENCE can be effective in exposing and exterminating such practices, as was demonstrated earlier in the New Deal. At that time a few officials and members of thes Democratic National Committee set up law offices here and were “practicing influence,” as it is called, on behalf of interests seeking Government favors. President Roosevelt struck at this sort of ‘business ' by demanding that they either resign from the Democratic committee or stop practicing influence here. All chose to resign their party posts. That sort of law “practice” was comparable to what is going on here today, though its extent was negligible compared to ‘the expanding operations of

- former administration officials who sat for a long

‘time in the seats of power and appointed many of the key men upon whom they are calling today for assistance in getting what they want for their clients. One Government department has sought to check this “influence” practice. The Treasury has a regulation forbidding any former employee to practice before it and its agencies until he has been out of the Government for two years. : But the big business here now is before other agencies, chiefly the RFC, which has billions for loans

Navy.

Treasury, or even for a longer -period, has been advocated to put a stop to the “influence” practice; but B has gone no further than preachments.

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

L re te TOL NU neeraed. with . « They are better > off in British internment cam 2%,

Move that chair over into the sun a litle farther, will that’s good! :

Basin—Russia’s great industrial

produced by Hitler, Garvin says, |° who is editor of The Weekly (Sun-| [®

however increased it may be, will be too late again:

mining and manufacturing throughout subjugated :

latent capacity and realized power as between dream |

blames the present inddequate American war produc-

yer-lobbyists busy here in the in-

for defense activities, the OPM, which has the | handling of defence contracts, and the Army and

An all-around regulation similar to that of the |

. : The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

MOTIVES OF ISOLATIONISTS NOW BECOMING SUSPECT By Edward F. Maddox, 959 W. 28th St.

We: need more editorial courage and wisdom, now, in this country such as was revealed in The Times editorial: “A Gun at Our Head.” John L. Lewis is sabotaging our national defense effort and since it can’t be done to favor Stalin, under present cireumstances, it looks like it is designed to help the Axis... . It is all right to expose and crack down on the Communists and it is just as patriotic and necessary to expose and purge out the Fascists. . . . John L. Lewis, Senator Gerald P. Nye, Senator Burton K. Wheeler and Charles A. Lindbergh have carried their opposition, criticism and hampering activities to such excess as to arouse suspicion of: ‘their motives. . . . 2

» 2

| ASKS PROTECTION FROM

WHITE RIVER BULLIES By J. L. Martin, 431 N, Illinois St.

Am 62 years old and by missing a meat dinner quite often this spring I managed to get a fishing license for myself and wife. Total cost, $2. Having paid for this priviNege, why can’t we fish in peace? Haven't the money to spend a week or so at lakes.

We offen go to White River and E. 10th St. bridge. Have never peen there yet but we have been molested by a mob of boys, whose ages range from 8 to 18, and if you resent their action, their remarks back to you are disgraceful. Even had one throws rocks at us and wanted to fight because we resented his actions. Maybe some policeman might glance our way as he goes by.

2 8 8 : PROTESTS $2 TAGGING DESPITE TIME PROOF By Fred Keller, Edgewood

After reading the - Forum for about three years, I have decided that this is the best place to tell something to everyone. My particular squawk is about the Police Department’s habit of passing out parking stickers like so many handS. On the morning of Sept. 18th, Motorcycle Officer ———— placed a sticker on my car at 11th and Meridian for parking on the west side of the street before 9 a. m. Of the six cars parked here, I was the unlueky one. The sticker gave the time as

pany garage.

throughout the country for once

r imes 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.)

8:40, but, after proving with a time card and three witnesses that I didn’t even leave my place of employment, which is one and onehalf miles away, until 10 minutes of 9, I still had $2 to pay. I followed the officer down to the Police Station and we arrived there at 9:20. Yet he still stood before his captain and swore that he had placed the sticker at 20 till 9 o'clock, 10 minutes before I left the com-

Why can’t they use a more subtle way of hijacking us? I paid the $2 in pennies. ” ” 8 INSISTS WE MUST ALL STAND TOGETHER By A. J. Bell, 3438 N. Euclid Ave. Difference of opinion is what makes the world go around and it is wonderful to be able to express our opinions in public, but there is a difference between an opinion, and a headstrong desire to criticize everything, (destructively). These two examples are illustrated perfectly in Friday’s Forum by an article from Columbus, Ind. and a list of “what’s wrong” from a

man on N. Meridian St. who. overrates his “get up” by calling it his 2 cents worth. We, as a nation will go further and end up better if we back our Government as a single unit willingly, instead of creating sides and then wasting a lot of time choosing up. Dividing public sentiment and opinion is playing right up to the Nazi way of doing things, and a lot of their suecess is due directly to just such a procedure before they started taking over. No immediate danger of that happening here and I do believe that if Lindbergh were allowed to go on, he will eventually hang his own self. But why should we put up with having to listen to his memorized speeches when there is so many more important things

going on? I am for settling the strikes

Side Glances=By Galbraith

to business of whether or not we are going to fight in this way or not and get it over with, so we can get back to normal. If we do get in it, let's see that we have something to say about something when it comes time to settle up too. : 2 8 nN MR. PATTON IS CONVINCED THE PRESS IS CONTROLLED By L. L. Patton, Crawfordsville ~ Two years ago Mr. Roosevelt and his campaign managers were screaming “bloody murder” because the press was 100 per cent against them. The laws of average made such a thing impossible unless the press was “controlled,” they complained. Here in Indiana the Democratic organization went as far as to plan the raising of funds to start a “free ” newspaper. - Then Mr. Roosevelt put Knox and Stimson, two inveterate international war-mongers, in the cabinet (Farley resigning) and started his step-by-step war program — and suddenly the press was 100 per cent back of Roosevelt. What has Mr. Roosevelt done or advocated during this last two years that would occasion this right-about-face on the part of the press —except to take over the leadership of the small minority group who wanted to plunge us into another European war? Certainly nothing.. Two years ago the press-in about every column was calling Mr. Roosevelt a liar, or the equivalent. But today as Mr. Rogsevelt leads us from one broken promise to another, and by one subterfuge to another, into another European war, not one criticism of dishonesty on the part of the President is heard from the press. Is there any wonder Americans are inquiring — Who conizols the press? e090 0 0 » » 8 URGES TRANSACTION TAX AS FAIREST LEVY By Willis M. Rexford, 2107 N. Delaware St. The one_ best kind of tax is the sales or transaction tax, and this is why. People don't want the government to pry into their financial affairs. They put up with the income tax prying because they are forced to. If some government official would relieve them of that prying, they would re-elect him out of gratitude. The tax on property, both real and personal, is unsatisfactory be-

assessment of property value, and the assessment may be way too high, or way too low. Persons ought to be taxed according to the amount they

‘have to spend, ,and not according

to the amount of property they own. Big corporations can be taxed according to the amount of wages and salaries they pay, and on the amount they spend for:advertising. That is taxing them fairly on what they are able to spend. If anyone can show why the tax

‘lon what is spent is not the only

really fair tax, I wish that he would do it without delay. The government

of property, or people will get discouraged and quit owning it.

MY HEART LEAPS UP

|My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began,

So is it now I am a man,

So be it when I shall grow old Or let me die!

i The Child is father of the Man:

—William Wordsworth (110-1850.

DAILY THOUGHT

Thou hast granted me life ans favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my prion 10:12.

and for all, and then getting down}

cause it is levied. according to an}

must stop penalizing the ownership |.

Gen. Johnson Says—

‘this column has recently conjectured, the probability of very bad news out of Rusisa is increasing—both “before snow flies” and afterward. When I say conjectured, in military issues of “these columns, I mean “guess.” The factual information is still SO scanty and the conflicting lies from the warring capitals so big that about all an honest commentator can do is to keep stick ing pins in the map, getting all the information’ possible on weather, geography and production. in ae various theaters of war, and drawing conclusions: whatever accumulated knowledge he may, pecs the history and strategy of previous wars and, i: oy revolutionary changes of modern m ;| war, even the latter is dangerous. It is impossible to believe that the losses of both men and material on both sides have not beer staggering and that as yet the Nazis have not been fatally hurt. On the other hand, it is difficult to put much reliance on local Russian successes on the central front in checking the drive on Moscow. If cannot. have much effect in stopping the terrifie. German assault on both flanks—at the south iii the ‘Ukraine and by-passing Odessa,’ cutting off ‘Crimea and, at the north around Leningrad.

The Front Is Tremendous

IN OLD TIMES successful pressure against an attack at any particular point—in the center, or on either flank—could delay or even shatter the offense, But in this case the length of the battle front is magnificent in distance. From the Leningrad front to Smolensk is upward of 400 miles and from there to the southern flank about 600 miles. When you recall that the Gettysburg front was about seven miles long and that Lee's early success in a smash at the center after failing at the flanks didn’t have any effect, you can appreciate how little a slight denting of the Nazi lines around Smolensk

-| will have on the northern and southern drives except,

perhaps, to put the armies defending Moscow in a Saliens or pocket outflanked from both north and sou This dangerous situation seems to be being recognized and admitted more clearly as the days pass, In fact, we are told that the only escape is a tremendous immediate contribution of American and British supplies to Russia. As has been frequently pointed out in this space, the greatest Russian weakness is that she has not a sufficient industry to back her armies and that Zi0 nation can long endure mod« ern war without a great steel, chemical and manufacturing industry.

‘We Had Better Brace Ourselves’

FIGHTING QUALITIES of the highest order, Russia has shown, and Britain and America should do all they can, as the President proposes, to supply her defiiciency in arms. But what can they do? We have not yet reached sufficient production in cannon, medium and heavy tanks and ammuntion to be a factor. Some airplanes we can send but, as between our own and British needs, they can’t be enough. On top of that, the distances and lengths of these lines of supply are magnificent and the transportation facilities inadequate. Through the Vladivostok route it would take at least thirty days to deliver an ounce and the lack of rolling stock is a serious bottleneck. Through Mur-

'| mansk we must not forget that an Arctic winter is

on the way. That could become more than a bottleneck. It could become a bottle corked. Also, while winter will help the Russians it will not help them to nearly the same extent that it did against Napoleon. His army moved on horses or on foot. The iced marshes froze and starved them, But Mr. Hitler's outfit moves on wheels and not by forage but by gasoline and fuel oil. Level ground frozen hard as concrete will relieve him of his dependendence on roads. All of Russia is too big to be swallowed by this slimy little cur, but in his main.object of chewing up the vast Russian armies, he has by no means been defeated. The prospect is not good and we had. better brace ourselves for some shocks.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“BEGINNERS SHOULD LOOK al an occupation on a long-time . basis, ‘with an eye to its permanency.” Such is the excellent advice | irom a schools guidance director. We all recognize her conclusions as wise, because they are sensible. And it's heartening to realize that . at no other time in history has so _much consideration been given to plans for lifetime occupations,

x Young people are encouraged to attack job problems with regard to future as well as immediate success. They're told that the hard way is usually the best way. . This seems to go for all sorts of work, but never for marriage. For today we observe thousands upon thousands of these same young people willing to throw away a whole life’s happiness for the sake of brief interludes of pleasure. They grab for momens+ tary thrills, even though by doing so they may fore feit: future security. Yet, surely, permangn cy in marriage is as essential to the well-rounded life as professional or. trade security. Surely heart as well as pocketbook should be served if man is to make good his boasted d claim to being a thinking being.

It's a Long-Time Job, Too

NEVERTHELESS WE FIND marriage far more of a hit-and-miss affair than job hunting. In the latter, individuals take time to study their personal fitness for certain positions. They do not apply for places which tHey know they cannot fill, Nor do they take the first thing offered unless they feel certain it is one of several steps toward promotion. . They consider the consequences of getting stuck in a trade groove, and we consider them terrible fools if they fail to investigate thé character of their busi ness and let themselves in for contact with inferior or phen persons. ‘It seems more than strange, then, to find such carelessness in choosing matrimonial partners.’ For many a man or ‘woman selects a wife or husband with less care than would be given to picking out a new hat. It is a great pity we are not as intelligent about marriage as we are about jobs. For it, too, is “an oc~ cupation which should be regarded on a long-time basis, With an eye to permanency.” °

Oussiions and. Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information. mot involving extensive research. Write your questions elearly. sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp, Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Burean. 1013 Thirteenth St., ~ Washington,

Q_Please name the Russian p 4 Who. flew Bou

stop from Moscow, ACross the N Pole to California. A—On July 13, 1937, Sergie Danili, navigator Mik. hail M. Gromor, pilot and Andrei B. Youmachev, copilot, took off from Moscow and flew across the North Pole and wher count lu 4 Join An

hours and 2 minutes. : San . Q—Are dogs color blind? If théy are, how do the “Seeing-Eye” dogs guide bing persons at intersections