Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 October 1941 — Page 10
‘he Indianapolis Times |
Ew, "HOWARD" “RALPH BURKHOLDER "MARK FERREE ident... Editor Business Manager Fh MA SORIF#S- HOWARD NEWSPAPER) | Owned ‘and published daily: (except Sunday). by. ok
. Member of United Press. Beripps - Howard Newsper Alliance, NEA rvice, and Audit Bu‘¥eau of Circulations.
Give sons and the People Will Find Their Own Way
MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, lo41 :
LEWIS VS. U.S.A : 5 JF this new John L. Lewis coal strike contintios
. 7 America soon will have no weapons to send to Britain | ‘and Russia and China, and none to complete the arming of |
its own defense forces.
bo ‘If Mr. Lewis again defies President Roosevelt after last night's second appeal, he will signal his determination i paralyze the entire national-defense program. - That program cannot go forward without steel. Steel cannot be made without coal.’ Defense is, still hurt by the _ April coal strike which ‘prevented the making of 870,000 tons of steel. And ever since April the steel companies’ stocks of coal have been short. : Mr. Lewis now stops production in the coal mines owned by seven of the largest steel companies. The coal that has been ‘coming from these mines is used in making about four-fifths of all-defense steel. The steel companies © have on hand less than a three-week supply of this coal. Some steel furnaces are already closing down.
Mr. Lewis-has warned the companies not to try to buy coal from commercial mines. He says that he can, and has threatened that he will, strike all commercial mines and "put a full stop to production of coal. on 8 uw ® » # THE steel-owned mines are unionized and have operated under contract with the Lewis union for eight years. " About 95 per cent of their miners belong to the union. These mines pay the same wages as commercial mines and scheck-off” the union dues of all miners who ask that this be done. They differ from the commercial mines only in this: Men can work in them without joining the union and having their dues “checked-off”—if they wish. A few hundred men in the steel-owned mines have not joined the union. Mr. Lewis called the strike to compel the Government to compel the steel companies to compel these few hundred men to join his union, That is a trivial excuse for an act that endangers the whole country. It doesn’t justify preventing the mining of one ton of coal or the making of one ingot of steel for defense. : Mr. Lewis must have some bigger reason. He does. He wants to force a precedent for Government action to increase his power. He wants the Government to help him make membership in C. I. O. unions compulsory all through the steel industry and the. shipbuilding industry and other industries. The American people, we are sure, believe that Mr. Lewis already has far too much power for the country’s good. They will stand back of Mr. Roosevelt in any step he may take to insure full production of coal and .to prevent sabotage of national defense by this or any other unjustifiable strike.
_ VICHY’S MARIONETTES N all the history of France there is no sadder or more sinister chapter than what is now going on in Vichy. The Government of Unoccupied France has stricken “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” from her shield and substi$uted words that smack strongly of Nazi ideology. She ‘has gathered around her every scheming reactionary politician in the defeated country. Included in this number are men who sat in the Parliament and sneered at the republic, the back-stabbers who . belonged to the hooded Cagoulards, the rich men’s sons who indulged in the hoodJum methods of the Camelots du Roi, of which they were the mainstay both in finance and membership. ; The Petain government’s every decree and every move have been parrot copies'of the enactments of the Hitler gang in Germany. This has been done not only because of © inclination, but also because of a childish belief that by so © doing, by ‘acting as willing marionettes palled by Nazi strings, they can curry favor with Hitler and win easier peace terms when the German tyrant gets around to that subject. If Petain and his cronies have any real illusions about tler, they might spend-a profitable half hour reading’ ce more his “Mein Kampf,” particularly that passage in. hich he says one of the Reich’s prime jobs is to “crush ver” Germany’s “eternal enemy”: France fy
RE’S WHERE WE CAN ALL HELP
TOT all of us are able to help out in the effort to yound up | aluminum, steel, copper and so on. for the foundries
defense. But, there is one threatening shortage which y American from child to’ graybeard, rich: or poor, can his bit to avert. We mean waste | - ~ As defense production rises, ‘the Memond for ‘paper-
i containers is shooting up at a terrific rate. Anti- |
, shells, for instance, are packed in stout paper-board
08. -So are innumerable other products of the American | onal. And waste paper is the principal material used in
nufacturing paper-board boxes.
Waste paper is a commodity which all of ‘us possess, J which most of us ordinarily discard or destroy. Yester- |
's newspaper and last week’s magazine; ‘wrapping paper paper bags; circulars and handbills; old letters and
By Westbrook Pegler
money.; °It'is true that’she sneered ‘st. nori-union Atmer-
: the. citizen has a right not to join ‘a union as a condition of employment. ‘
Slice It AsYou Will
THE IMPORTANT FACT is that Mrs, Pérkins aid |
put the unions on warning that they were no more immune from regulation because of their'nature than. the Danks, the railroads, insurance companies and the 8
exchanges. Any way you slige it, thls was & warning that be-
ATT ie eo ‘political heat on the Adminis-
‘tration the unions" would have to reform or get reformed by: law. The fact is, of epurse, that there is ‘no risk in-
volved gh because ‘the unions have been so outs |
their financial and moral record 4s’ so
vile that they have no other political friend, whether |
individual leader or party, to whom ‘they can turn for help. If President Roosevelt whales them he whales his own brats, and the neighbors, far from interfering, will dilute "their cheers only with surly mutters that he should have done it a long time ago.
What the Congressman Did.
WELL, THIS SPEECH was made on the th and on the 13th of the month, this Missouri Congressman, a freshman named Phil A. Bennett, wrote Mrs. Perkins a long letter taking her at her word and asking her, if she wanted to give evidence of her gincerity, to ask the President to give the.word which
1 would permit consideration of a bill which he offered
‘way last April to provide by legal compulsion the very reforms which Mrs. Perkins demanded. That is a very long sentence but it marches straight. Bennett came to Congress from Springfield, Mo., with a certificate of election which amounted to repudiation of one of the boss unioneers of his State, his predecessor and his opponent in the election having’ been Rube Wood, the: president of the Missouri State Federation of Labor. His bill, which has been smothered in the judiciary committee of the House, the same committee that has smothered all, the anti-union-racket bills, starts out with. an amendment to the Corrupt Practices Act whereby unions would be placed on ‘an equal footing with any national bank or corporation, !
He Got An Acknowledgement
BY HIS PROPOSAL, any labor organization contributing to a Presidential or Congressional campaign
fund would be fined not more than $5000 and any
officer thereof consenting to such illegal contribution would be subjected to a fine of $1000 or a term of one year in prison, or both. Officers . and employees of labor organizations would be forbidden to receive much less solicit or extort any contribution for any such fund from any
union member and the verboten would include officers:
as well as high unioneers. All unions would have to register with the Secre-. tary .of Labor naming their principal officers, stating their numerical stre their rates for initiation and dues, their total cash receipts and their expenditures in detail. The salaries, bonuses and allowances of officers would have to be set forth and, finally, any organization failing to comply would lose its right to act as a bargaining agency t r the Wagner Act. '* Mr. Bennett asked Mrs. Perkins to obtain Presidential approval and push the bill but to date he has
received only a formal acknowledgement of his letter.
New Books By Stephen Ellis
THIS COLUMN IS about books on art—fortunately for the most part, good ones. - The Hyperion Press has been issuing a series of monographs on great artists— “Goya” by Jose Gudiol, “Derain,” by Malcolm Vaughan, “Varmum : Poor” by Peyton Boswell Jr., “De~ gas” by Camille Mauclair, “PicasSo" by Jean Cassou, and “French Painting of the XIXth Century” by 8S. Rocheblave,
The series deserves more than }: a casual “well done.” . The monographs by the au- |
thors are superb, and the Solo and monotone illus‘trations are There is more than mere rating tavolved when illustrated art books are . The workmanship must be impeccable to do justice to the artist and these Hyperion books are Sustice by just such
For the uninitiated, these books offer a delightful’ education, for the practiced lover of art a treasuretrove within covers. Don't, take my word for it. Go take a look for yourself.
Concerning Hoosier Art!
mobile trip and. this purported tell a story about “state’s rights in art.”
2; boxes emptied of cereal or crackers; even an ? i oh
Sonal. melancholy souvenir in the form of a defaulted —all this stuff is useful, even vital, for defense. Furthermore, it is worth money. Not. much, maybe, enough to reward the frugal.
So, let's stop chucking all this stuff down the incinerator | §
to the fireplace, and instead preserve it until there is h a to wartant a phone call to the Wastepaper doalets
si
MODERN BUDGET
| Who walk, and no sticker fixing.
: : T a sr ; p— .: The- Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it ~—Volttire,
A WRATHFUL REPLY TO MR. CLYDE MILLER By Ells Burgner, Swaysee In answer to Clyde P. Miller,— you make me sick! Why don’t you war-criers go fight Hitler? What's to hinder you, if you want to so badly? No, you, like your kind, want the other fellow to do the fighting for you. Had it not been for Wheeler, Nye, Lindbergh and others, you'd|{shness. - Why can't something be have been fighting,—or running be-| gone about it just like was done
fore now. . . e ‘ls about the celebration of July 4th?
ANOTHER SUPPORTER OF 40 MPH GOVERNOR PLAN By W. H. Richards, 127 E. New York St.
(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.)
ing killed by automobiles but noth-
ged 40 MPH, ernor on all|you have only lost a pro le oa doing. because the
complished, but’ it must be that every .motorist knows that he willl’ have to pay a penalfy if he does] ing 50
mot give the right of way to thosel COR UN us ice Morrissey will
The fool who drives While drunk]|°Tder the curfew law for the Hallow-
should be fined at least $50 and have his license taken from him for one year. There should be. 50 or} “=+o more police added to the force with A HOUSING AUTHORITY"
BUNCH OF FOOLISHNESS" By Mrs. Nellie ‘Rogers, 1241 King Ave.
efficiency three rooms and bath for around $12 a. month. Then folks won't have to be arrested for being poor, in condemned shacks. Let's
"thit hard for a Housing Authority,
while the topic is hot, and find out what holds it up. This problem can be solved attaetively—just Deeds. intelligence—and
"| authority.
B » # A FEW WORDS ANENT : THE RENT QUESTION By H. M. 8., polis Mr. Maddox expresses the opinion of a great many people in his letter concerning the treatment of the people who lived and do live in those
ir. | condemned’ houses; also about the
rent question, . .% . ‘We are a family of three adults— an average, intelligent, American family, We came here a year ago last April, Found an unsatisfactory furnished apartment for’ $10 per week; but it was all we could find —four apartments--sleeping rooms and one bathroom, and the landlady gave her dog baths in the bath-
conditioned. refrigerator and gas stove—-no uther furniture—at $50 u 1onth, We had to take it for we had to have a place to live. At ‘ that: time, 'rent-raising was
| condemned by thé newspapers. We
had no heat and when the refrigerator quit working, we were told
calll ....
enough to rent a five-room; bungalow with a yard and garage; and BO a landlord who is willing to live and let live. I think too it would
-|be interesting to know what the]
Fair Rent Committee has accomplished. : . 88
THINKS DRIVING BY YOUNG
that they. couldn't afford a. service] This summer we were Jucky]|
FT
S 8
. WASHINGTON, Oct. 27.—~The situation of labor in the defense industries is fantastical beyond
belief. The general tion B oi Toeral olin ovulation, . of high taxes, scant supply and Sky. TOSKCHIN oslo Mving-and except for a few great. corporations is about to ve forced against the wall by all these forces, - plus. a reckless and Dianna prositits. system Sal pon dente 18 going to
| viive 4 of ite daily. Wrsad-matorials 10. fbrion te,
distribute and But: ie and sel labor—or, rather the small group of radical and sometimes Communistic, sometimes rackSSRIS ease 2 which_oonizol Bs a req ve up no! u being * if not encouraged, to use this crisis to entrench itself in a campaign of intimidation by holding a -daggers' point against the jugular vein of national necessity— war production. ? 2h
'Admits Abetting Hijacking’ RT
MR. SIDNEY HILLMAN has practically announced himself as czar of our labor policy. In that capacity, he has admitted that he has permitted and abetted one hijacking of the defense effort by violating the. spirit if not the actual letter of the law of governs
"ment contracting—award to the lowest bidder.
This he did, he says, because the lowest bidder had a labor contract with a C. I. O. union and he
‘| was afraid that if that bidder got this great: contract,
A. F. of L. unions in other places, would strike the defense building program. All this was notwith« . . standing the fact that the A. PF. of L. building trades 5 have a contract not to strike defense. Apparently Mr. Hillman believes such contracts are no good. He has good reason for suth belief. In the Navy after such contracts there have been more strikes or at least more ime lost in Production than ever before.
"Hijacking the Defense Program’
NAVAL PRODUCTION ON the Pacific Coast is being threatened by a strike of a few welders—throw-
ing many times their own number out of work and *
shutting down complete shipbuilding repair operations. Their grievance is not against their employers or their government, They just don’t want to be dominated by the A. F. of L. boilermakers. But they are hijacking the defense program just the same and using the nation’s necessity to gain their ends. Much of steel production is threatened by a strike of workers in the captive mines. They want a closed shop and the check-off, which means forced collec
and
tion of union dues by the company itself—a means not only of complete forced unionization by a single - union but of insuring its continuation.
The manufacture of stecl requires a particular type of coal produced in these. mines which are owned by the steel-makers. Complete control of this bottle-
neck would. give them. as much power over steel
production as the government or the “companies ; themselves. There is not involved here an intere union feud, but there is involved a feud between John Lewis and the President. :
'A Long-Suffering People’
BY A DECISION of the Defense Mediation Board the Kearny Shipbuilding Co. was required to fire any union man who doesn’t pay his union dues—a pare ticularly effective device to perpetuate a particular union in that plant regardless of the wishes of the workers. The company declined. The Government “took over” the plant. ‘The Navy is operating it. Soon we shall see the Government itself forcing this perpetuation of a single union exactly as it 3 Wil be doing if the Hillman decision is allowed to stan in the’ Currier case. Price control, including: a just stabilization of wages, is an absolute necessity to prevent ation, ) But because wage control is opposed by labor leaders. the Government is making an ass of itself by ate . tempting to justify the exclusion of wage Soitrg)s ? a policy which threatens every household “in this country. Ours is a Jotig-suffeting people but it How long will it ‘stand for this sort of favoritism and injustice at ‘the expense of the whole people and the safety of the nation. I don’t know==but certainly not: forever.
_ ‘Béifer’s Note: The views expressed by columnists fn his : mewspaper are their own. "They ‘are not necessarily ‘thes; . of The Indianapolis Times. ‘
A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
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