Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 September 1941 — Page 11

| TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1941

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Washington

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30.—If the Gallup Poll does not always hit it exactly on the nose, it usually manages to land somewhere in the vicinity. Hence it would appear to be a significant piece of news that the latest Gallup survey reports that 60 per cent of . - sRepublican voters canvassed believe their party should support the Administration’s foreign policy. If the matter is put on a purely practical iitieal basis, omitting any other considerations, the attitude taken by the rank ang file in this survey appears to be better politics than the attitude taken by some of the Republican leaders. You can’t run a political party _or a political campaign without j. money. Large numbers of Repub- § lican businessmen who never had a good word to say about Roosevelt are nevertheless in favor of his foreign policy. It is going to be easier to raise campaign funds for support of the Adminsitration policy than for opposition to it, so far as important money is concerned. I believe Senator Wheeler is authority for the statement that the money bags are on Roosevelt's side, and against the isolationists.

There Is a Good Issue

IT IS NOT ESSENTIAL to have an issue but it helps. Some Republicans, from force of habit, have continued even in this period to take their stand by waiting to see what Mr. Roosevelt proposed and then lining up against it. They wanted an issue and that was the easiest way to find it. But perhaps there is a better issue. It is one that the Republicans have been trying to develop ever since Mr. Roosevelt took office. It is the one issue they have made stick, because it was built around a core of reality. It is the issue of ineffective administration, It is a better issue now than it has ever been because the results of the arms production program

By Raymond Clapper

have been so disappointing. This issue touches the weakness which is recognized within the Administra-

tion itself. The Republicans will be in a much stronger posi-

tion, far less subject to effective attack, by supporting|

the ‘Administration foreign policy and concentrating on the inadequate execution of it. Congress has freely appropriated the billions requested. It has denied the Administration no sum of money asked, however large. The meager results are on the Administration’s head.

When You Explain, You're Lost

BUT TO ATTACK the Administration policy itself means that the Republicans must line up with Lindbergh. They must take a position which cannot but give aid and comfort to Hitler. They could not get out of such a campaign without being effectively accused of being pro-Nazi, of being willing, for political purposes, to. weaken their own Government in the face of danger from abroad. They would be constantly on .the defensive, constantly having to explain that they were not pro-Nazi,

not anti-Semitic, and were as patriotic as any Demo-|

crat. You don’t get far in politics on the defensive. When you have to explain, you are lost. . By supporting the foreign policy, by taking it for granted that politics stops at the water's edge, the Republicans have no explanations to make. By attacking the Administration for its inadequate execution of that policy, for promising arms and failing to produce them, the Republicans take the ive ney. make the Administration ‘explain, and defend itsel They make their criticism constructive and make their campaign against the Administration contribute actually to the strengthening of the country, whereas by attacking the policy, by insisting upon its reversal, they weaken the country and become only destructive critics. I am not here talking about what is right, or about principles. Politicians don’t pay very much attention to either and I'm discussing the question on the coldblooded basis of how to win an election, which is the way politicians usually consider such matters.

Mrs. Pyle is still seriously ill and, as a result, Ernie Pyle is not yet able to resume i ; his column.

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Inside Indianapolis (4nd “Our Town”)

THERE ARE FEWER out-of-state defense workers in Indiana than we thought, if figures of the Motor

Vehicle Bureau of Records are any indication. For instance, the Bureau reports that approximately 900,000 auto licenses have been sold thus far this year. This would indicate there are about 44,000 more cars on the road than there were at this time a year ago. And it’s a natural presumption that most of them came in from other states -to work at Allison or one of the other defense plants. Not so at all, it appears.’ A further check of the records reveals that the number of conditional drivers’ licenses—the kind out-of-state drivers would get—is up only about 8000. That makes it look like Hoosiers are responsible for the other 36,000. Incidentally, there’s a total of 1,113,371 unconditional drivers’ licenses issued thus far and 3137 more beginners’ licenses. Judging from the crazy driving we've observed: recently, those figures ought to be reversed. Mixed Mottoes THE COMMUNITY FUND, which opens its annual funds solicitation with a meeting Sunday night, has as its slogan: “Be Glad You Can Give.” One of our kibitzing friends suggests they are missing a bet by not taking as their slogan: “Put all your begs in one askit.” . . . For several months now, the Emerson Theater on E. 10th St. has had at the. bottom of fits box office card giving the schedule of prices, the following facetious line: “Crying babies $10.” The

Victor Now Victim: By Leland Stowe

RANGOON, Burma, Sept. 30.—Japan’s expansionist forces seem obviously playing for time once more but the reasons for their hesitancy are external as well as domestic. One of the most important outside brakes upon the imperialistic ambitions of the Japanese comes from the radically altered air strength of the British, Dutch and Americans in the Far East. The balance of air power in and around the China Sea has changed very greatly and to the increasing embarrassment of Japan. In other words, the powerful new bombers and fighters rushed - eastward by the Allied democratic powers and stationed in Burma, the Malayan Peninsula, the Dutch ' Indies and the Philippines have seriously diminished the pronounced advantage which the Japanese fleet previous ly enjoyed from Shanghai down through the China Sea. It is no secret that the British squadrons in Singapore and Malaya are much larger than they ever were before and that the airfields in Malaya and Burma are well prepared for any emergency. It is also well known that the Dutch Indies now has an air force running into hundreds of planes most of them new American models and that American aviation in the Philippines has been expanding steadily for months. In each of these areas the building up of air power is bound to proceed impressively throughout the autumn and coming winter.

Now Face Heavy Losses

“All this means several things. already been compelled to reckon with an entirely

First, Japan has

. new barrier to her Asiatic expansionist program—a

WASHINGTON, Monday—We drove down to New York City after lunch yesterday and I had a visit

from Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr and Dr. James Loeb Jr.,

who came to ask -me to speak at a meeting. They allowed me a choice of dates in October or early December. Oc. r is already so filled with ob tions and De_cember is Allin. up so rapidly, that I had a vet | hard time deciding. -I finally \agreed that I would try to go, if certain conditions can be met, and if no one can be found who will do a .better job than I. ’ Then I went over to the broadcasting station and went through the usual prelimingries of photographs and rehearsals. I wish my reading time would be the same at least twice, it would save the poor

Fo - people ‘who run these programs a great deal of trouble.

. As a result of the broadcast, I had a most entertaining telegram today, which reads: “Face the fact that communism and ‘democracy are not the same and see where that leaves you.” It is signed: “An isolation-

I must be very cull, because I thought I pad made

"Army ambulance pulling away from the airport with

boys at the theater are fixing up the sign today. Tomorrow, when the Government's new taxes go into effect, the sign will read: “Crying babies $10, plus $1 tax—total $11.”

Around the Town

WILBUR ROYSE, the lawyer, is looking for an appointment as a deputy prosecutor one of these days, we hear. It's reported he may be assigned to head up the Prosecutor’s staff at the police headquarters. . . . A subscriber called the City Desk yesterday to inquire if an Army plane had cracked up near Municipal Airport. Asked why she thought there might have been an accident, she said she saw an

a patient in it. A checkup revealed it was merely a patient being transferred from some other Army post to the Billings General Hospital at Ft. Harrison. The patient merely had the measles.

Tracy’s a Big Boy, Now

THE “I WONDER what’s become of so and so” department is ready to report. We've just learned the whereabouts of one Tracy Cox. Tracy, as most of you’ll remember, weighing 135 pounds, was belting the tar out of some of the country’s best lightweight boxers prior to his retirement in 1935. We'd lost trace of Tracy but the AllisoNews—Allison plant employee publication—informs. us he’s helping belt the Nazis now as a tool supervisor at the Allison plant. And instead of his former weight, he now tips the beams at 210. The Library reports that an ambitious high school student stopped at the Library’s circulation desk the other day and asked for a book on how to become a librarian. . Asked what kind of a librarian she wished to be, she replied: “Oh, just an ordinary librarian like you are.” :

barrier of an aerial deadline which it would be most costly for her to attempt to traverse or violate. Secondly, the rising air strength of the British, Dutch and Americans has proportionately weakened the striking capacity of the Japanese fleet. . Six months ago the Nipponese Navy, enjoying a big advantage in numerical superiority, might have moved southward without exorbitant risks. Today Tokyo’s warships, if they should enter the narrow island waters of the Dutch Indies, or approach the Malayan coast, would face heavy losses from bombing planes. To a considerable measure Allied air power has

replaced sea power in defense of the Far Eastern status quo and this replacement is far from finished.

Indo-China the Last Step

THE EFFECT OF THIS great change in the Far East’s strategic conditions upon Japanese naval commanders’ minds can only be guessed at but Nippon’s naval officers. have the reputation of being very intelligent and well informed. The lesson of Crete can scarcely have escaped them and the Japanese Navy’s first task is to maintain that her Navy will not expose itself to possible catastrophic losses except for the most urgent reasons, which might conceivably be the immediate need of large quantities of gasoline. . : Nevertheless, there is every evidence to indicate that the Far Eastern conflict is entering a new phase in which Japan’s aggressive freedom of movement is becoming definitely limited. It seems increasingly certain, However, that IndoChina is just about the last conquest that Japan can find in the Far East. . More and more the conqueror is becoming the

victim Copyright, 1041, by The 2 nianapoils I Times and. The Chicago

By Eleanor Roosevelt

crystal clear that communism and democracy are not the same. I thought that I had given a fair definition of what democracy really is! However, I am delighted to have an opportunity .to say here that it seerths, to me that democracy has one great advantage over communism—it really requires the participation of very citizen in the choice of the people to fill government office. Of course, ft would be impossible t> have a real democracy in a country which has raf so far had, for at least two generations, free public school education and laws which protected people in their right to exercise fundamental freedoms of thought, of speech and of assembly. Mr. and Mrs. “Isolationist,” whoever you may be, facing the fact of this difference between communism and democracy, leaves me in just the position I was in when I made my radio speech last night.

I started in to work, this morning at the Office of |

Ciwilian Defense, and since it does not look as thou I shall get any exercise in any other ‘way, I determin to walk to and from work. This brought me only one experience. A young woman came up beside me and said: “You are Mrs. Roosevelt and I am from California and have always wanted to shake hands with you.” This gave me a sense of satisfaction, so we

Indianapolis

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

By QUENTIN REYNOLDS THE BIG HANGAR DOORS opened and there, poised

in the entrance, was the new fighter.

Even its drab

brown, dark red and yellow’ camouflage markings couldn’t destroy the slim, proud beauty of the airplane. : Sixty-three days ago she had been only a mass of white lines on a blueprint; now she is complete, alive,

ready for her first test.

On the blueprint she had the speed of a Spitfire; the maneuverability of a Hurricane and a longer range than either. She was just one of many experimental fighters

England is building today.

The airplane was wheeled out onto the field. Tommy, the test pilot, talked briefly to the designer. The designer,

who also ran the factory and was responsible for production, puffed on a cigaret and then threw it away, half-smoked. He was a little bit nervous, as any father is at the christening

of a brand new daughter. But Tommy wasn’t’ nervous. Tommy had a small matter of 15,000 hours in his log book.

Tommy had been testing planes ‘for 10 years. This was routine to

him. ) He hitched up the straps of his parachute and climbed into the cockpit. He switched on the motor and it sang sweetly and truly. Tommy looked over at us and grinned happily. He never seemed quite at home on the ground. Then he opened the throttle. The airplane minced daintily across the field. He headed it into the wind. Then he let it go.

‘The airplane sped past us ‘and

then, young as she was, took the air confidently, joyously. ! She was “air born” now.

® BS Gentleman’s Plane

TOMMY TOOK her around the airdrome in wide, sweeping circles. He gained altitude; he descended in long, shallow dives. He made stall turns, gliding turns and then he “angeled up,” as the R. A. F. lads say, to 21,000 feet. Now we'd see how sturdy this new lass was. The airplane: was only a white speck in the blue no—white because the sun was

| shimmering on its wings.

We knew what Tommy was doing now. He was kicking his rudder to the left and simultaneously pushing his stick to the right; then he was pulling back the throttle, cutting the motor.

In short he was purposely put-

ting the new fighter into a spin. If the blueprints were right she would come out of the spin. Otherwise Tommy would have to jump and the airplane would wind up a smoking mess of metal and wood on the ground. We could see the airplane coming down. It was in a spin; the nose was down and the airplane swung around dizzily, Now the nose came up and she was in a flat spin. That's the nastiest of all spins to be in. Then the nose shot down sharply, the tail came up and the airplane was in a nice, controlled dive. - Tommy pulled out of it. He circled around the airdrome once, wiggling his wings. Then he landed and taxied up to us. He climbed out grinning. “It's a gentleman’s airplane,” he said. “At four hundred miles I could handle the stick with two fingers. It’s a grand kite.”

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Building Better ‘Kites’

A NEW FIGHTER has been tried and not found wanting. It is forbidden to give any details of airplanes which have not as yet been officially accepted by the air ministry. “It is sufficient to say that this new fighter is as good as anything in the air today. English aircraft production never stands still. Today we think ‘of the Spitfire and the Hurricane as the best fighters ever built. The records of the R. A. F. prove this to be true. Yet every designer in the business is constantly trying for something even better. In time the Germans will catch up with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Then England must have something just a little better. Word went through the huge aircraft factory of the fine first flight of the new girl, Word sped

from the machine shop to the experimental laboratory to the slowly moving production line that the factory’s new aircraft had done nobly. “She’ll miake the old Spitfire look like a truck,” one grizzled old worker chuckled as he bent over his lathe. : : “When better kites are built, we'll build ’em,” another grinned. No one in the R. A. F. or in the aircraft production end of it ever calls it a plane. Either it’s an aircraft or a kite,

Fast Production

THIS WAS JUST another aircraft factory. Aircraft factories are scattered all over England.

One hears reports from Berlin (via New York) that many of

them have been destroyed by Ger-

man bombers. If a reporter who is as objective as it is possible to be

these days may say a word, I

have visited a dozen aircraft factories (picked at random not by any minister of information but by me) and to date have seen no serious damage at any of them. Take this aircraft factory where we are now. It is one of the largest aircraft factories in the world. Every two hours a bright, shiny airplane is nosed off the end of the production line and out of the. big hangar doors onto thé airdrome. The factory was established many years before the war began. Its location was known to every German, French, English and American aeronautical maga-

‘zine. It still is.

Yet the surface of its closely cropped grass expanse and the even symmetry of its gleaming concrete runways is scarred by one wounded—a 10-foot bomb crater so small that it wouldn’t attract attention in Picadilly Circus. Once you are inside the huge buildings you can tell that you aren't in a Detroit factory—you can tell it because if you ask a workman for a cigaret he’ll hand you a Player or a Woodbine. Otherwise it is much the same.

‘A War to Win’

OUTSIDE THERE ARE antiaircraft guns—plenty of them. On the roof there are spotters with their eyes glued to binoculars. The ordinary air-raid warning telling that German aircraft are in the vicinity doesn’t interrupt work. If the aircraft gets near enough to be seen by the spotters they call “locai cover” into m!'crophones they have on the roof. That means “get under your benches” or “dive into the local shelters.” On the concrete floor of the factory shelters have been built.

They are about six feet high and

three feet thick—heavily sandbagged. But they aren’t used much by the 6000 employees of the firm, These men and women are too busy making airplanes to bother about bombs. Not long ago a group of R. A. F. fighter pilots visited the factory. They were

entranced by the quick, efficient

work of the men and women. They asked hundreds of questions. . Finally a foreman patted their squadron leader on the back and

‘said, “Listen, sonny—we are very

busy. You and your lads go inside and have a nice cup of tea. We've got a war to win. All yqu lads have to do is fly ’em. We've

got to make ‘em and make ’em

quick.” The glantor boys nodded silently and walked away. They knew that their job was fairly easy compared to the job that these 6000 men and women were doing. The backbone of England’s defense toaay is aircraft manufacture. I have been at a fighter

‘mes

Six new Hurricane TT's, each possessing four 20- mm. cannon, are shown in flight. This type plane, which is an improvement over the Hurricane T, which was used last summer, is fitted with a new Merlin

engine and important improvements have been carried out in the armament. Some of these type planes are armed with 12 machine guns instead of the cannon.

command on a bad day. Eight fighters were lost that afternoon. ‘The commander in .chief picked up a phone. “Eight aircraft destroyed today,” he said tersely. “When can you replace them? + « » Within an hour? , . . Fine!”

A Song on Their Lips

THE 6000 men and women (about one-third are women) hére at the factory we’re talking of are working rapidly. Walk about as I did and chat with them and you’ll notice that even when theyre joking with you their fine, quick hands never stop moving. When a voice calls through a loud-speaker, “It is 12 o'clock,” they don’t saunter toward the lunchroom. They run. At 12:25 they run back te their machines. They don’t work sullenly. They work (I know it seems unbelievable) joyously, humming

songs, joking with workers at the

next bench, recounting the t quip of Nat Gubbins or of Begch-

comber, England's two favdrile - humorists.

The head of the plant and

walked through the interminable

lines of machines. A foreman would shout above ‘the clatter, “Hello, boss,” and then go on working. When the new fighter was ready for production the boss bet the five foremen of the five departments which were to build the aircraft $100 that the plane wouldn't be ready within three months. They finished it in 63 days and gleefully the boss handed out the $500. One foreman stopped work for a moment, “Thanks for that money; boss,” he said smiling. “I suppose you all got. together and went on a pub crawl,” the boss said. “No,” the foreman Jeughed, while the workers were within earshot waited expectantly. They knew what was coming. “You see, boss, we got together and decided to give that money to Lord Beaverbrook’s Spitfire Fund.”

Little Lost Motion

WE WALKED ON. Here was a room filled with aircraft which were practically completed. Even I recognized the Pratt and Whit-

' ney radial motors.

“Good combination,” the boss:

grinied. “English fuselage, Amer= ican engines. It works just as well the other way around. Every aircraft that goes out of here has some American parts in it. Between us we can make pretty good airplanes.” This factory is one of the very few to use the production line or “track assembly” as it is called in England. The boss installed it a few years back and he says that it speeds up production 20 per cent. This is interesting in view of opinions expressed by American industrial leaders, and printed in English newspapers to the effect that the “belt system” would be impractical in the production of aircraft. “I just studied a man named Ford,” the boss said. “It worked well for him—why shouldn't it work well for me? Well, you can see for yourself.” The whole problem of mass production and of the assembly be summed up in one word—tools. designer found out early that ry time a new airplane was re to start its long trip around the assembly line

there was a cry from his works

department for new tocls. Now, as he bends over a drawing board working out a new design, he Has one eye cocked toward the problem of the new jigs, cranes, wrenches, tools, that will be, needed. Even before his airplane is completed on the blueprints, machine shops are working feverishly to make the tools which will be needed. There is very little lost motion.

Sees Dreams Come True

I HAVE HEARD the heads of automobile companies wax lyrical about the synchronization and sheer beauty of ' well-managed mass production. It always left me cold. ‘But then I'd never seen an automobile start as a tangle of white lines on a blueprint, I'd never watched it grow from a.. jumble of ugly parts into something compact ‘and useful and beautiful. ‘Now I can feel a little of what the automobile men feel. : I've watched an ‘airplane grow from a dream: into a shining, poised, bright thing, and because 80 many of the machines used to

_ create it and because so many of

PLAN COURSES IN 16 SOCIAL WORK FIELDS

Courses in 16 fields of social work

will be given at the Indiana State]

Conference on Social Work which will be held at the Claypool Hotel

. | Oct. 29 to Nov. 1.

The courses will be conducted by the nation’s outstanding social work leaders. They are open to all social workers and persons interested in

social welfare who attend the con-|

ference. ° Judge Dan Pyle of South Bend, conference president, said arrange-

ments to enroll 1250 social workers

in the courses have been made. The courses will be held simultaneously, making it impossible for anyone ‘to cipate in more than one course, he explained.

U. S. HAWAIIAN ARMY GIVEN ‘FLEXIBILITY’

9 HONOLULU, ‘Sept. 30 (U. P.).— The Army announced today reorganization of the Hawaiian division into two triangular divisions to give the . island defense “more flexibili Both Te divisions will be based at Schofield Barracks and will

shook hands and I felt that the young woman was comprise ¢.intdnicy, Sold attilicry nd 3

zeglly iad and, iharslons, 1 was gid aise,

HOLD EVERYTHING

SEAPLANE TRAVEL BANNED BY BRITAIN

Times Special LONDON, Sept. 30.—British Airways’ trans-Atlantic planes will not carry any more private passengers, it was learned authoritatively today, owing to criticism in the United States that the airways had

' | been using planes *acquired under

the lease-lend bill in an attempt to

compete with American lines. Statements that the planes—Bristol, Berwick and Bangor—had been

making money by carrying passen-

gers from Baltimore to Biftain are denied by the: ‘British.

COLUMBIA U. vile

ALUMNI PLAN LUNCH The Columbia University Law School Alumni Association of Indiana will hold: a ‘luncheon meeting at Hotel tomorrow noon.

| School and Active Vanderbuilt, of Newark, N. t of pin Sy

the

its parts now hidden by sleek wings and sides were of American make, perhaps the finished aire plane meant more to me stand ing theré on an English airdrome than it meant even. to the designer or to the men who had built it.

In any event, it’s’ nice to see

a dream (even a blueprint dream) come true. I stayed in the factory until dark. The shift changed at five= thirty. Like a relief orchestra that replaces the main band, so

gradually that not a note is missed /

and not an interruption of the music noted. The new crew took over. The assembly line never stopped moving. It moves 24 hours a day; seven days a week.

Beaverbrook sits dwarfed by a

huge desk in the ministry of aire

craft production. He knows that every two hours a new airplane emerges from the hangar doors of his factory. He knows that the same thing is happening all over England. Even he, the. man who demands perfection, can find very little to complain about the aircraft production of the coun-

1 walked out into the night. A large aircraft landed and a dozen men hopped out. They were “ferry pilots.” Their new job was to take new planes to their particular destination. They wasted little time. They climbed inta the new aircraft and without any fuss took off and flew away. It was a night of stars and high above a sickle moon gleamed. But it kept its light for its own grandeur, however; the heavy dark world beneath got very little of it. From the blacked-out face tory where the constant hum of machinery and occasionally the high. screech of drills cutting through steel. Above there was the drone of the new airplanes winging their way toward ‘battle; their motors Singing a happy tribute to English Tye

NEXT: . Country.”

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—Which U. 8. President first ree fused to allow his birthday to be Celebrated by State balls? 2—A pair of blankets may be in one piece; true or false? 3—Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy first appeared together on the screen in “Rose Marie” “Maytime,” “Naughty Marietta” or ‘The Girl of the Golden West”? 4—“The Fighting ‘Temeraire” is a painting by Turner, Winslow, Homer, or Sorilla? 5—Which animal is popularly Supe posed to have nine lives? = 6—What is the term for the muscue lar rigidity of the body which follows death? T—PFinish the- proverb, “The pen: is mightier than the ——. 8—In the theater world what do the initials B. O. stand for? .

Answers 1—Thomas Jefferson. 2—True. 3 Naughty Marietta,” 4—-Turner.

5—Cat. 6—Rigor mortis. 8—Box-office.

# » a» ASK THE TIMES

‘Inclose a 3-cent stamp for res | Bly When aqdressing sny question

fact or information Indianapolis Times W. Service Bureau, 1013 13th St, ° i Washington, D. O.

“Week-end in the

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