Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 September 1941 — Page 14

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PAGE 14 _

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« WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1941

HAM, EGGS AND PRICES

F you want to control the price of ham-and-eggs, you'll have to control the price of ham, the price of eggs, the price of fuel, the cook’s wages and numerous other elements at’s obvious. t’s no more obvious than the truth of Bernard

cing the price-control plan advocated by Mr. "Under that plan Congress would nail a ceiling over all prices-—including farm prices, wages and salaries, and rents—as lof a given date. Below the ceiling prices could

fluctuate freely, but it would be illegal for them to rise.

above it except by permission of the Government ‘pricecontrol agency. ne Well, certainly that would be difficult to administer and enforce. But saying that in no way answers the objection to the Administration’s price-control bill, for which Mr. Henderson argues. This bill asks Congress to delegate to Mr. Henderson or some other agent authority to select and attempt to control some prices—but not wages and salaries, not rents except to a very limited degree, and not farm prices unless the farmers are guaranteed 110 per cent of parity, meaning a special price advantage over everyone else. : We believe that bill would be impossible to administer and enforce justly—that it would create precisely the inequalities and dislocations that a price-control plan should prevent. | The purpose of price-control legislation is to avert fnflation—a real and terrible menace to everyone, including farmers and wage earners. Successful administration of any price-control law will depend upon general public acceptance of the principle that it is better to suffer the hardships of the law than the greater hardships of inflation. And there is no sound reason why certain sections of the public should be specially exempted from accepting the principle and sharing the law’s hardships.

HITLER USES BULGARIA

HETHER Hitler's present activity in Bulgaria is the real thing, or still part of the mounting war of nerves against Turkey and the Allies, a Nazi military move in that direction is probably not far off. Bulgars don’t like the Germans and have proved hard ‘to handle. Sabotage and internal disorders are widespread, ‘increased rather than eliminated by concentration camps and firing squads. ; If Hitler intends to send Bulgar troops into battle against Russia, as reported, he may be surprised by the results. They are deeply pro- ussia. In addition to kinship or blood and culture is the memory that Russia helped | to liberate them from the Turks. Anyway they have n to lose by attacking the Slavic motherland. Although Bulgaria’s troops would be of doubtful use to him, that country’s Black Sea bases would greatly facilitate Hitler's attack on the Red Fleet and help to open the water route to the oil prize of the Caucasus. Those bases are of more value since Soviet bombers have blasted the Rumanian ports held by the Nazis. EL 2.8 » » # ® TF VEN so, the chief importance of Bulgaria to Hitler is not “in herself but the fact that beyond are the Straits and Turkey. To get into the Black Sea any large Axis warships and supply vessels must pass through the Dardanelles. Turkey not only controls the Straits, but holds the direct land route to the Caucasus and the Middle East and also flanks the Black Sea route. By increasing Nazi concentrations there and putting the Bulgar army on a war footing, Hitler is in good position to press Straits concessions from the Turks or if necessary attack them. While the Bulgars don’t like an invasion of Russia, many of them would fight the ancient Turkish enemy with spirit. ; While Hitler may not be ready to make full use of Bulgaria yet, his moves there already have forced the British to hold troops and equipment on the Turkish line which otherwise could be moved into the Caucasus or used to open a Libyan offensive. Obviously it is good strategy for Hitler, by inexpensive moves in Bulgaria or elsewhere, to prevent the British from opening a diversion front. About the only immediate risk ~ involved in this is that he may overplay his hand and force Turkey to fight him instead of aiding him.

POLITE PRESSURE

CQILKEN bands, gradually tightened with utmost polite- » ness, are being drawn gradually closer around the throat ‘of the war effort of the aggressors. : . The United States is on the verge of an agreement with Peru which will make available to it Peru’s entire supply of copper, vanadium, and lead. Bolivia is now sending all her tungsten and tin, Chila almost all her copper, Argentina half her tungsten. Mexico and Brazil are co-operating similarly. If we get it, the Axis won't get it. Why must we have it? Because the Axis has created a situation in which we ‘must have it. © | : ; Sorry! Why, we can say that almost as smoothly as

ing to gain and everything

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, Sept. 24.—~The : recent to-do about the private fill--ing station on the country premises of Harold L. Ickes has elicited from that myridd-minded _ statesman another of his entertaining letters to the press. Not to me was this one sent, however, for he struck me off his list a long time ago, but to the-Minneapolis

an editorial about his gasoline supply and tne number of cars, which was slightly incorrect in spots. . It was with

me that all was now over between us because I had caulifiowered his feelings by some remark of mine.

correspondence was into extra innings ahd I have other things to do, if he hasn’t. In the letter to the Star-Journal, which was published in that paper, Mr. Ickes reveals plainly that he was tweaked as much by a reference to his premises as an “estate” as by the discussion of his gallonage of gasoline and I know why because I have had the same experience and the same feelings, myself.

Let's Take a Look at This! “ESTATE” HAS COME to be a malicious word in

munist wing have thrown it at me in their publications many times. My place isn’t an estate at all, but, unlike Mr. Ickes, I can’t say it is a farm, because it isn't a farm and doesn’t even pretend to be one in my income tax returns. I am glad to know that a leading New Dealer can be set afire by this word.

Mr. Ickes’ place at Olney, Md. is “a working productive farm, not a baronial manor,” he wrote in his letter to the Star-Journal, and the vehicles there are used for farm purposes. And again revealing his annoyance at the use of the offensive word, Mr. Ickes says, “In addition to operating the farm as a farm— not as an estate—Mrs. Ickes manages an enterprising chicken business. In this business a station wagon is employed.” - Well, now that o up a new subject, for it is my understanding, on the authority of the Internal Revenue, that if a country place is operated as a farm, not an estate or a mere place of abode, then the losses, if any, may be charged against one’s income in the computation of the tax, and the deprecia=tion of the house and other buildings and equipment may be reckoned in, as well.

Well, Now, Farmer Ickes—

MOREOVER, A FARMER, as distinguished from a suburbanite or commuter, may put in for many sorts of Government handouts and fertilizer and free advice from experts at Government expense, whereas a man in my unfortunate position not only is falsely accused of having an estate but has to pay the doctor to examine the bark and leaves of his trees and spray Sherk with bug-juice, a rather expensive item of upeep. Now, goodness knows, I wouldn't say that Mr. Ickes does take advantage of these interesting and tempting technicalities in the preparation of his tax returns or in the operating of his “working, productive farm,” without knowing positively that he does. But he never has been a man to tear up his own money just to watch the pieces blow down the wind, and I am positive that these advantages are available to him under the laws and equally positive that he is no more a farmer than I am. Back in the campaign of 1940, Mr. Ickes referred to Wendell Willkie as Wall Street's barefoot boy which was one of the best cracks of the whole fight, and so good that I will not try to top it or even meet it. But in taking himself off one spot and decontaminating his place of the word “estate” Farmer Ickes has put himself on another. For farmers don’t work in offices and take vacation trips across the continent in private railroad cars. ' A farmer is a guy who stays in the country and

Goodby, Glamour

By John W. Love

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24— When the bright and pretty plating comes off the new automobiles the glamour names must go, too. No more specials, supers or deluxes. Just cars, take ’em or leave ‘em. | It costs one manufacturer $20,000 to find this out. He had spent the money on engravings and literature 'which not only used one of these words but pictured it on the side of the car. He was not ordered to give up these designations, it is stated at

. the Office of Price Administration here, but since all

“nonfunctional” metal decoration is to be removed, the dressed-up nameplate goes with the rest. When the shiny chromium plate and the other knicknacks are discarded, there isn’t much left to glorify except upholstery. so “Nonfunctional” is the OPA’s austere word for everything which doesn’t make the car go or ride well. The order to do away with the ornament has been expected for some time and is now in the works here. The first models in production will make their debut with as much chromium as ever—in one instance with about 10 per cent more—but, at a date to be announced shortly, it must come off. This is the sort of thing manufacturers in many lines are learning here right along.

'Watch Ford,’ They Say

THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED that his advertising literature was no good, and might get him into trouble with the Federal Trade Commission, was a vice president of one of the Big Three. He went back to Detroit redheaded, with remarks about the young men with legal training but no production experience who were ‘setting out to tell the manufacturers not only what to make and what to sell it for but what to call it. In addition to losing their polished work, the former “deluxes” will be giving up their extra equipment, such as duplicated lights and horns. Automobile manufacturers are already making a virtue out of substitutions. Ford, for example, has given out a list of nine reductions in the use of strategic metals, beginning with a 100 per cent cut in the use of primary aluminum. The tip is brought here from Detroit to “watch Ford.” He is now a fair-hsired young man with many New Dealers because he climbed into bed with the C. I. O. He is nearly self-contained in a manufacturing way. He has his own iron mines, coal mines, lake steamers, steel mill, glass works and tire plant. Because of these, it is suspected he will be able to make all the cars he can sell, up to the limits announced for the industry by Leon Henderson, without being hampered by inability to get deliveries on materials. : Within his own plant, so far as Ford is not employing his machinery on armament work, he has far less complication over delays, priorities and all those. His long effort to become thoroughly selfcontained is bearing fruit in an unexpected manner.

newspaper are their own. They gre not n of The Indianapolis Times.

those

So They Say—

To my way of thinking there is only one saf to protect our country and that is quickly as possible . . . the only way ‘be done is to produce more of these weapons than Hitler can produce—William S. Knudsen, di-rector-general, OPM. : *

* *

I happen to have been left a great deal of money.

don’t give a damn.—Marshall Field IIT a.

8

Star-Journal, which had published |.

mixed feelings that I read Mr. Ickes’ final letter to |

They were good letters and I cherish them, but the. |.

these days of false humility and writers of the Com- |

Editor’s Note: The views expressed by columnists in this

1 don’t know what is going to happen to it, and I

- oe 0 Lt

E INDIANAPOLIS TIMES - | First Course!

AND ~~ TREN I'LL AAVE THE

TU > KEY

WEDNESDAY, iy 2 1901 Gen. Johnson Says— 1.

| 1 . | I+

The Hoosier Forum

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

PARKING ARREST DRAWS MOTORISTS ANGER By George Maxwell, 450 N. Senate Ave.

I am not one to condone law violations. Instead I deprecate the freedom with which some violators operate in this city in plain view of the public, and the law. But I draw a distinction, and a wide one, too, between an accidental violation of the law and a knowing or intentional one.

Last Thursday afternoon at 5:55 o’clock I parked my car on Michigan St. in the zone prohibited from parking between the hours of 4:30 and 6 p. m. My engine had scarely stopped when I was greeted by the authoritative voice of a traffic cop. I was firmly under the conviction that it was 6 o'clock, and when I tried to explain this to the cop he sneeringly said and with a finality that would brook no argument, “Here’s your sticker.” Now, the sole purpose of this ordinance is to facilitate traffic during the rush hours. Our heaviest traffic, as everybody knows, is between 5 and 5:30. By 5:55 traffic is down to or below normal. At the time I got my sticker there was very little traffic on Michigan St. I believe it would be generally agreed that judgment should be determined by the spirit of the law and not by the letter. - Two men who witnessed this procedure—both men of prominence— declared it a rank injustice. But I must say to the credit of the city officials, that when I went to pay my fine the lady who took my two dollars thanked me most graciously. The press of this country is constantly stressing the need for unity and the desire for a high morale, but how they can expect either under prevailing conditions is a wonder to me. » ” ”

VIEWS OUR PRODUCTIVE POWER AS VITAL FACTOR By Claude Braddick, Kokomo

The opinion of Wendell Willkie and others that this war is primarily a war of machines seems amply borne out by the course of events in Russia. You will note that so long as Russia had parity with Germany in tanks, planes and other motorized equipment they were able to stem the German assault with a. verve that astonished the world, and that as soon as this parity was lost—as sooner or later it was cer-

tain to be—Russian valor and vast

(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.)

fenpower has availed them but e. That Russia could long maintain mechanical parity with Germany was a little too much to expect. Of the world’s great peoples the Russians perhaps are least mechanically minded; the Germans most. But the end is not yet. We must credit the Russians with a vital assist to the Allied hope of victory, and for demonstrating anew that “machines will win the war.” For it follows, then, as the night follows the day, that the enormous productive power of the United States—once it is geared to war— will prove the decisive factor. 2 #® 2

INDIGNANT OVER PLIGHT OF NEEDY, AGED WOMAN: By Mrs. C. E. Servies, Indianapolis Where is the old age assistance? An elderly woman 83 years old, in poor health, and almost blind was receiving $14 assistance and that gral amount was taken away from er «an Several attempts have been made to get help for her, but to no avail. She has a son here who is a railroader, but he has a family to care for and is making a home for his wife’s widowed mother, besides helping his own mother all he can. What more can they ask of one man? Will someone please explain where the money goes to that is supposed to take care of elderly people with no means of their own?

2.8 8 SEES US MAKING LAST WAR’S MISTAKES AGAIN By W. H. Edwards, Spencer. .

Anyone reading the Hoosier Forum daily as I do realizes the confusion and disunion within our country and that much of that confusion is a part of the Hitler subversive method through which he has divided. and conquered nation after nation up to the present time. , . . The Hitler plan to divide and

Side Glances=By Galbraith

| of God—Matthew

conquer has gained such a stronghold in these United States that our help to those who are keeping the menace far away ‘from our shores is not now and from all indications will not reach full force until it is too late. : We see, too, that prices on the absolute necessities of life, food, clothing and shelter are getting out of hand and our vote-conscious Congress shows little interest in curbing that all too prevalent tend-

ting is good.” The price of food, even with warehouses packed, is causing suffering among the low income people who have no defense jobs. The recent raise in rent prices in our industrial districts is shameful. Yet nothing is being done to curb the rental gOUugers. . « « - ‘Are we to repeat the mistakes of World War I and then suffer the terrible consequences again?

f 8 ” CONTENDS FATE OF WORLD WRAPPED UP IN RUSSIA By R. A. D., Indianapolis It is no idle rhetoric to say that the fate of the world rides the Russian steppes today. > If Hitler whips the Soviet the only thing in contemporary history that could match the amazing spectacle of America’s present complacency will have begun. That— and jot this down—will be the sweep of the world debadle to our own shores. Who can deny the swift and logical sequence of these steps once Moscow has capitulated: 1. Japan, Turkey, France and French Africa will swing at once into ‘active alliance with the Nazis to complete the world conquest. 2. The Tokyo-Berlin pincers wid close on the British Asiatic empire with the snap of a steel trap. From Beirut to Sydney the light of English dominion will blink out almost over night. 2 ; 3. Latin American nations will fall over one another to scramble aboard the victorious Hitler bandwagon. 4. The U. S. facing in home waters its greatest peril of history will be forced to pull out of the Philippine trap and abandon its Iceland lifeline to Britain. : 5. ‘If Hitler is not able to blackmail the British out of their fleet by quick starvation he at least can make the fleet's United Kingdom bases quickly untenable. Even should the British scuttle their ships the score still would be

‘|against us. Even at our present

rate of building experts say by 1943 we will have only 422 warships against 962 for Japan, Germany and Italy, not counting the French fleet. 6. Starkly alone then the U. 8. and Canada at last will begin the tremendous attempt to defend 6000 miles of unfortified coastline, against a world machine dominant

lover all the rest of the earth’s land ‘ land water and controlling the com-

bined resources of an area ten times our own. I served in a.combat division in:

{France in 1918, I do not want to

see our boys die on foreign soil. But what we may get instead could be tragically worse. - What America must do is stop this disaster, by whatever means are necessary, before it engulfs us.

MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE

* | Music, when soft voices die, -

'Vibrates in the memory—

‘|Odours, when sweet violets sicken, {Live within the sense they quicken.

“|Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heap’d for the beloved’s bed;

. gone, 5 Love. itself shall slumber —Percy Bysshe Shelley

—

It is written, Man shall not by bread alone, but | ve

ency to “Get yours while the get-

And so thy thoughts, when Thou art

(1792-1822). | |

DAILY THOUGHT |

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24. — This is another column about the slaughter of the innocents that is as sure as sunrise to happen in

this country as the vast war pro- °

duction with its arbitrary priorities goes forward into full blast, I mean the wide destri of the little fellow in business and

the jobs of his employees. : The pressure is only g to be felt but the p has

only started. When it gets into

‘full swing the casualties are going to run into the

tens of thousands and the justified squawking will create universal sympathy and probably universal soreness—which is bad for both unity and confidence in governmental management, ; Farming out of war orders by the big fellows is just a mustard plaster, first because most of these establishments are not equipped to take them and second. because it slows production, reduces quality, increases cost and will be done with reluctance and half a heart by those under a stern responsibility for results in military and naval supply. : The problem rarely arose during World War I, because the demand was much less since this possi-

bility had been foreseen and provided for and bee

cause of technical military manufacture was contracted for abroad, we furnishing replacement raw

‘material. It is all different now. We are the arsenal China.

of democracy—including Russia and

It's Not Without Precedent

IT 1S HIGH. TIME before the slaughter come mences to consider means to offset the destruction

‘and the creation here of the greatest monopolistic

concentration of business this country has ever known, The bearing of this sacrifice is not like taxes, assessed on ability to pay, a principle of relative equality and leaving the bulk of small business in both manufacture and sale at least alive. Now it is literally to be wiped out on no rule of equality whatever but because Government adminis. tration ‘will’ simply permit these people no supplies with which to carry on their business. . ‘It is a difficult problem but not without its prece= dent. For centuries in the law of the sea there has been a principle called the “rule of general average.” It has varied as among different maritime nations and at different times. It offers complications and only

‘recently—in the last 50 years—has it become more

uniform throughout the world. Still it is complicated and not to be compressed into a single principle.

‘Can't We Act in Time?"

BUT, GENERALLY SPEAKING, it is something like this: When a ship is in distress and some of her cargo has to be jettisoned (thrown overboard) to save the rest, or when there is a fire and the sea has to

‘be let in on some of the cargo to keep all from being

destroyed, or when the ship itself has to be run ashore to prevent loss of the whole cargo and in several similar circumstances, the loss to the owners of the owners of the destroyed freight is not permitted to fall solely upon its owners. ; An attempt is made to average the loss over all the owners of all the cargo saved by this sacrifice of owners of the destroyed cargo. It seems to me that the principle and its application are very similar to the misfortune we are about to meet and that thought should be immediately given to this or some other application of the ancient rule of justice to the brand new circumstances in which we are bound to find ourselves. There is a dangerous, if slowly rising, resentment growing in this country already over the airy, unplanned and arbitrary application of harsh sacrificial laws by men untrained in their application and apparently heedless of their destructive effects.

Can't this Administration ever learn to act in time

to avert or cushion unnecessary and unfair war bure dens?

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“OUR LITTLE TOT started to school yesterday.” The service

station man, whom I had never .

seen béfore, looked at me with a grin ‘as ‘he spoke, and suddenly we were no longer strangers. We were ps rents, feeling a kinship of spirit waich a common experience always gives. . I understood all the implications behind his words because that very day I had said -goodby to my son who was off for college. Our hearts knew the same queer ache; we needed no words to communicate and so we only grinned, pretending there was nothing to be upset about. But for us and for thousands of others these small domestic events obscured the world horizon. What is the siege of Leningrad compared to the emptiness

- that rocks your house when the baby starts to kinder-

garten? Hasn't some finality greater than the down« fall of nations come upon you when you wave goodby to the college-bound lad who will—as you perfectly well know—never come back again, except as a subtly changed and more grown up being? Misery loves company, of course, so there is a kind of September consolation in the sight of multitudes of mothers with hurt eyes and strained smiles pounding the street to hunt bargains for their own dear collegians. And to each her private parting is major tragedy.

It's a Universal Language

EVERY WOMAN WHO watches her infant toddle off to the classroom sees it leave through a mist of tears, not because she is unaware of the universality of her sorrow, but because we are so made that our own holds poignancy. | How we hug these little griefs to our hearts, con= vinced that no other has ever been so great or ever will be. The pain of them dwarfs the mass suffering of humanity. We can’t see the forest for the trees—and a good thing, too. Because, if it were not for these common experiences we share one with another, what reason wold there be to feel interested in the siege of Leningrad or anything else along the far horizon? Perhaps one day we shall be able to achieve a deeper awareness of our kinship under the skin and so arrive at a racial understanding, exactly as the garage man and I understood one another this morning though we had never met before. When that happens, wars must cease. For men and women do not live by international treaties—they live Hy the commonplace experiences of every day, and those are the 8 same the world over. The heart knows & unie ve : :

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer amy question of fact or information, mot involving extensive research. Wtite vour questions clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advies cannot be given. Address The Times Washinglon Service Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth St.. Washington. D. C.) re

Q—When was “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” composed and who was the composer? : A—Tt is by an actor named Thomas A. Becket, and was written in 1843 for a theatrical % request of David frtbuted: to whom

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